[acdha]

Informed skepticism is the opposite of “blindly anti-crypto”: hawkers have had years to make the case for their systems but most of them have failed to produce anything of value. If you can talk knowledgeably about a system and a real problem which it solves, you won't have a problem.

[mopsi]

But it's rarely informed. The US has very outdated, insecure and absurdly expensive retail banking and most people seem to be completely oblivious to it, which is why they fail to the potential of settlement systems like Ripple. Financial transactions are just small pieces of information, no different than funny GIFs or instant messages. It costs virtually nothing to move them around instantaneously across the globe in a secure way, and yet here we are, discussing if that has any value over snail-mail type of experience.

Europe stands out somewhat and we can argue that cryptocurrencies don't bring much improvement onto the table. Banking fees are already very low and Europe is currently rolling out instant credit transfer. I can open a bank account for free and without any recurring fees, and make up to 5000 payments a month for free to anyone in Europe, arriving in less than 20 seconds, available 24/7/365, automatable through APIs. But the rest of the world... my God what stone age you're living in, people with paper checks and overdraft fees imagine they're "informed skeptics" against modern settlement systems. Feels like early 1990s with people saying that email is pointless and they'll never use it.

[theamk]

Agree on all counts (I am in the US), but what does it have to do with crypto? And with this coin in particular?

Whatever the solution we end up with, it won't be decentralized. No one wants to lose their money because they lost some token or paper, and their computer broke.

It will be great new distributed world -- but it would also be licensed, insured, centrally approved, KYC'd, and free of chinese cryptominers and people stealing your passport numbers.

[mopsi]

I am left puzzled by the strong skepticism and even downright hostility I often see. I don't think any current cryptocurrency will take over the world and replace existing financial systems like fanboys argue, but they are trying out highly desirable features in real-world environment. I am certain many of them will eventually become widely adopted.

Even the basic requirement of all transactions being digitally signed is a huge step forward, especially when paired with hardware wallets[1]. It's crazy that we're still typing plain-text credit card numbers into inherently insecure computers, hoping that we'll be charged the correct amount (I recently wasn't), and that no keylogger or sketchy merchant steals or accidentally leaks the information.

Sure, dealing with digital keys and long hex addresses is clunky like sending email in 1984[2], but I feel there's a lot of real innovation thrown out with the bathwater when the whole sphere is called pointless Ponzi and so on, which is particularly odd to see in a forum dedicated to startup culture.

[1] https://shop.ledger.com/pages/ledger-nano-x

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szdbKz5CyhA

[theamk]

I have been dealing with the computers for a long time, and I know they fail. The hardware breaks, my computer gets malware, vendor's computer gets malware, I get nothing, I get wrong item and vendor is unresponsive, software makes errors, I type the wrong thing and click the wrong button.

I think it is a terrible idea to keep any significant amount of money in any place where it is easy to lose, like a cryptocurrency. And if you are recommending cryptocurrency as a safe storage to someone who is not an expert, you should feel bad, because you are lying to them.

And the worst part of all, is cryptcoiners _never_ _listen_. In fact, directly in the message you are replying to, I wrote: "No one wants to lose their money because they lost some token or paper, and their computer broke." And what was your response? You point me to hardware wallet.

The hardware wallets are great if you are a crypto expert. If you are a regular person, you are going to be lose your recovery words and forget your password after vacation, and then you'll (almost) lose $30K like Mark Frauenfelder did [0]

Telling people to use crypto for significant amounts of money is like encouraging them to juggle live grenades. Yes, it looks cool and pretty safe if you know the trick. But if everyone starts doing this, someone will get killed.

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/i-forgot-my-pin-an-epic-tale-of-...

https://www.wired.com/story/i-forgot-my-pin-an-epic-tale-of-...

[acdha]

So, I rarely see people saying that the U.S. financial system doesn’t have tons of room for improvement. The problem is when someone comes in pushing something which features at least one of {costs more, no consumer protections, harder to use, slower}, especially when it’s something like Bitcoin where they have an obvious financial stake in getting you to buy in even if it’s not good for you.