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by raven105x 1679 days ago
Most people don't enjoy having to jump through a dozen hoops to send 5-8 digits of fiat between countries with a massive delay, possibility of "your" funds being held for almost any duration due to any number of reasons, or just frozen because some automated system quite possibly false positive flagged you. It is far more important to me that a value store is actually under my control, and usable instantly 24/7 instead of only during business hours or having to wait for the next business day.

A good part of financial "regulation" is not for consumer protection - it's not for consumers at all, it is for governments. The US government is free to regulate the dollar, because it is a currency they issue. Given their track record of mismanaging fundamental economics, I have no interest in a value store issued by a notoriously incompetent entity that is also inconvenient, volatile, unreliable, being actively hyper-inflated, and not even under my control to begin with.

This whole "you dont need crypto unless you are ponzi, ransom or drugs" shill is getting really old. We all know how "if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide" plays out logically and ethically. I haven't held onto USD for more than a day after getting paid in over three years now, other than what is absolutely necessary for transactions that still rely on USD. I'm a software engineer with no criminal record/affiliations, and strong morals as well as ethics - which is why I still pay all the taxes I should in USD, and circumvent the otherwise technologically inferior and fundamentally unethical method of value exchange for everything else. So please, give me a single reason to use a dinosaur bank over crypto that is actually in my own best interest.

1 comments

All of that stuff is there to prevent money laundering, drug trading, etc. etc., "running to mexico with the money".

I agree, it's too slow, but how does crypto get us all of these things, which we need to prevent total chaos.

Preventing money laundering, drug trading, etc etc is part of what our taxes pay for - a safe and secure society for us and our kids. To your point, do you think that's being done competently in tradfi, given every massive money laundering scandal in the last 50 years which involved established traditional banks? It's already not being done. RE: "running to mexico with the money". I believe any individual should be able to take the "payout" for the value they provided to society and freely move with it / utilize it in whatever country or society they choose. Most governments disagree, and that's cool - but how is that in any of their citizen's best interests? Venezuela was a great example of how that plays out. The people there lost everything due to their government's incompetency.

At the end of the day, things like drug and human trafficking don't happen because the people behind them are able to launder money - they happen because of a complete and utter failure on the behalf of our government. All of these issues were here long before crypto, and while yes, CC definitely does not help these issues go away - quite the opposite, actually, and that part is unfortunate ...but it's not the root cause of the problem. And the half-assed solution currently in place is so inadequate that even otherwise sane individuals resort to scapegoating things like crypto. Is the current precedent of "lots of drugs are coming out of [XYZ] country, let's destroy everyone's lives in it unilaterally with sanctions in an attempt to hinder those responsible" really something you are okay with?

For example: the US goes to war with a country I have family in, and now I can't support my loved ones. I could not care less about the economic policy, because enabling my grandparents as well as great grandparents to buy food and basic life necessities is far more important to me. In some parts of the world, even Western Union and those services restrict this - or charge exorbitant fees which make CC transaction fees look tame in comparison. Choosing a geographic location and unilaterally destroying the standard of living there through economic sanctions might as well be mass genocide.