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by taylorfinley 1678 days ago
This is such a ridiculous take. Blockchain is completely fixing the remittence industry. It is one of the most empowering technologies for the developing world.

And your statement isn't even true. On layer 2s like Polygon you can send $0.50 anywhere in the world for less than a penny in fees. Think of Ethereum like the New York Times. You want to place an ad--so do many other people, and page space is limited. It's a pretty ridiculous critique of the entire advertising industry to say it's only for the rich because placing an ad in the New York Times is expensive. You can post your ad on craigslist for free.
1 comments
pavel_lishin 1678 days ago
> Blockchain is completely fixing the remittence industry. It is one of the most empowering technologies for the developing world.

I'd love to see some numbers to that effect.

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taylorfinley 1677 days ago
Happy to oblige:

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/crypto-fast-becoming-a-prefe...

https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/09/crypto-remittances-are-a-l...

https://restofworld.org/2021/crypto-remittances/

And a fun (mind-blowing, to me) demo https://twitter.com/jackmallers/status/1441089090628177933

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captn3m0 1677 days ago
to be very honest, this experience isn't much different from early days of bitcoin. It's only recently that fees have gotten exorbitant and we've had to invent layers to fix that.

Bitcoin in 2008 was as good for remittances as it is today - it's just easier to acquire and costlier to move (lightning being the exception). However, it manages by ignoring all regulations (Indian examples: [0], [1]). Whether these laws are just or proportional in a world where information moves at the speed of light is a question for democratic processes, not multinational corporations to answer.

Payments via SWIFT are slow not because the bits transferring money over SWIFT are much slower, but because international remittance regulations are genuinely complicated.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Exchange_Management_Ac...

[1]: https://fcraonline.nic.in/home/PDF_Doc/FC-RegulationAct-2010...

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