[pinephoneguy]

Last time I sent money to someone internationally Etherium really was pretty convenient. The Coinbase fees were a little high but otherwise it was near instantaneous, I already had some anyway, and I didn't have to deal with any real hassle.

[paxys]

The transfer part is straightforward, but the hassle with crypto is usually trying to convert it to/from the local currency at either end.

[netsharc]

Crypto is a planet-destroying ponzi-scheme, but in a collapsed economy like Russia, I wonder if everyone can just have virtual wallets where you can buy goods by sending the seller some "coins". Which is basically the WeChat payment system, or how the Brazilian Real got established: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-...

We already just exchange "coins" electronically, but with the Visa or MasterCard network getting involved...

[everfree]

The phrase "ponzi scheme" has been thrown around liberally in regards to cryptocurrency, especially on this forum, but I've never heard a convincing argument that it actually fits the definition.

[izzydata]

It's weird because it seems like you can point to various aspects of crypto and maybe identify them as being a pyramid scheme, but I don't feel like that definition holds up as it gets sufficiently large and self sustaining. Otherwise you could point to a number of other very large money machines like the stock market or even money itself and say it is also a pyramid scheme. Maybe it is though. Perhaps the entire economy is a pyramid scheme that is dependent on an infinitely growing population.

As soon as we hit a population limit on the planet there will be no bigger fool to sell to in the future and the economy becomes stagnant.

As for the literal definition of ponzi scheme I don't think it holds up because everyone is fully aware, or should be of what it is they are buying and where the money is coming from if they want to sell.

[EGreg]

The same can be said of any startups. They are pyramid schemes until they finally offer utility to customers.

What is sometimes up for debate is whether something is serious utility, such as “owning” a picture anyone can look at, or a digital experience in the metaverse with artificial scarcity.

But then again, under the capitalist system, we need to introduce scarcity even where it’s not easy to do so, in order to recoup initial venture capital. So for example, I remember stories about SWAT teams raising grandmas for downloading movies illegally, or about manufacturing companies all forced to cripple their software with DRM, or the blowup at the W3C, or crackz of popular software that kiddies handed out until all these companies like Adobe went full SAAS. It’s an antipattern that is the direct result of any capitalist system.

By contrast, open source, creative commons etc. doesn’t have that issue.

[exit]

Lyn Alden addresses this characterisation:

https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/

"Bitcoin doesn’t really meet this broader definition of a Ponzi scheme any more than the gold market, the global fiat banking system, or less liquid markets like fine art, fine wine, collectable cars, or beachfront property. In other words, if your definition of something is so broad that it includes every non-cashflow store of value, you need a better definition."

[XorNot]

You know they'd have a point if they were talking about Bitcoin and gold, but they're not - because if you don't get understand what underpins the value of fiat, or pretend it's the same - then you have an agenda to push.

Fiat has value because it's legally recognized by governments that issue it: it extinguishes tax and debt obligations in those jurisdictions. This makes it markedly different to any other of the commodity items listed: my government will only ever tax me fiat currency, which is sufficient to extinguish those taxes and fulfill debts. I can't be ordered to pay them in gold, or bitcoin.

[stat]

Imagine if every merchant came up with their own currency and forced you to pay them in it only. Wouldn't a global currency be a lot more efficient & frictionless?

[olegious]

As soon as I hear something like “planet destroying” within the crypto context, I stop reading because that tells me the person knows nothing about the current state of crypto.

[ihumanable]

I'm curious about this, I try to stay up on what's going on in the crypto world and it's my understanding that the vast majority of crypto blockchains are still using proof-of-work, which is what I imagine "planet destroying" is in reference to.

Per wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake

The biggest proof-of-stake blockchains by market capitalization in 2021 were Cardano, Avalanche, Polkadot and Solana. Other prominent PoS platforms include Tron, EOS, Algorand, and Tezos.

There have been repeated proposals for Ethereum to switch from a PoW to PoS mechanism. In April 2021, the Ethereum Foundation announced that it planned to switch to a PoS system by the end of 2021. This has since been pushed back to the second quarter of 2022.

---

So if most of crypto transactions are conducted on proof-of-work chains, which do require burning large amounts of electricity, why would this make you think someone doesn't know about the current state of crypto. What exactly about the current state of crypto is incompatible with this critique?

[CryptoPunk]

>>What exactly about the current state of crypto is incompatible with this critique?

Ethereum is by far the most widely used cryptocurrency network, and while it consumes a lot of energy relative to the number of transactions in processes, and a lot of energy in absolute terms, it consumes on the order of a thousandths (0.1%) of the world's energy output.

It will have switched to Proof of Stake long before it grows large enough for it to account for a materially significant portion of global energy consumption. So the rhetoric used above, which makes the generalization that "Crypto is a planet-destroying ponzi-scheme", is entirely hyperbolic with respect to the environmental criticism (and a blatant mischaracterization with respect to the ponzi-scheme allegation).

[Nursie]

Ethereum is now estimated to consume energy equivalent to or greater than mid-sized countries like Greece[1]. You can paint it as tiny, but 0.1% of world energy output is still enormous, for providing what is for the most part a highly speculative set of financial instruments to a limited audience.

It's been "about to go PoS" for several years now. The fact is it hasn't. When it does, you can tell people their concerns are out of date. About Ethereum. Bitcoin isn't even going there and its consumption is as bad or worse.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1265897/worldwide-ethere...

[Nursie]

How so?

Because it looks to me like the current state of crypto is worse than ever - https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-less-green-than-ever-before...

Emissions on a par with Greece. And just for one coin. Ethereum is still going to PoS any day now, totally, just a few months off. Like it has been for several years.

So what is it about "the current state of crypto" that you think you know better than these?

[olegious]

The ETH PoS chain is already in beta with the expectation of transition (the merge) later this year.

BTC mining is creating new business models for renewable energy [0][1], BTC uses less energy than many other activities that don't get the same flack- AC usage, Data Centers, etc [1]

[0] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/10/11/bitcoin-mining-is...

[1] https://blockworks.co/mining-mutualism-renewable-energy-and-....

Finally, if energy is one of your biggest expenses, you're economically incentivized to reduce those costs as much as possible.

[cesarb]

> Finally, if energy is one of your biggest expenses, you're economically incentivized to reduce those costs as much as possible.

Unfortunately, with Bitcoin (and other Proof-of-Work blockchains), the economic incentive is the opposite: to use as much energy as possible, until the return from the block rewards and transaction fees is smaller than the price you pay for that energy. Reducing the energy costs only allows you to use even more energy before reaching that limit, increasing the total costs again.

[Nursie]

Yes, it's in beta. The expectation of moving later this year has held for several years.

> BTC mining is creating new business models for renewable energy

It's also helping bring fossil-fuel power plants back online in the US, purely to service cryptocurrency - https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-58020010

AFAICT there are others in the works too.

> BTC uses less energy than many other activities

Pointing desperately at other things doesn't change the argument at all.

> Finally, if energy is one of your biggest expenses, you're economically incentivized to reduce those costs as much as possible.

So? This doesn't make bitcoin clean?

There is already huge demand for clean power in this world, adding to it with PoW systems doesn't actually help, and as we can see by the power plant and by the article linked above about a fall in renewable use in BTC, we're not in the "Bitcoin has incentivised green energy and helped the world get cleaner" stage, we're in the "Bitcoin is adding pressure to an already over-pressurised system and is making the problem worse at a critical time" phase.

Even your own linked article is sub-headed "Cryptocurrency mining has the potential to address the obstacles to more widely adopting renewable energy" - not that it has or is, but that it could.

These pseudo-intellectual economic arguments about "helping the world move to renewables" are tripe.

[izzydata]

If your only goal is to send digital value across the planet why would anyone use Ethereum or Bitcoin? There are a ton of alternatives that cost fractions of a penny in transaction fees.

[CryptoPunk]

Large cryptocurrencies have more liquidity, meaning it's less likely you'll get large price differences between exchanges in difference countries, and more likely that any given exchange will support trading in that digital currency. For large trades, more liquidity also means less price slippage upon buying or selling the cryptocurrency.

[bjornsteffanson]

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

[blitzar]

> best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one.

A (traditional) bank does all 3 for me on a regular basis.

[valcron1000]

Which kind of bank transfer are you talking about? A few days ago I got paid through ACH transfer and the transaction took 2 business days to execute, albeit with no transaction fees. Now I'm at the mercy of the bank regarding what I can do with that money.

Compare that with using something like UST (Terra), which took only ~1 minute with a fixed fee of ~1 UST for a similar transaction. I also have total control over my money.

[samjmck]

SEPA (instant) transfers between European banks are, as the name suggests, instant. There are also no transaction fees for the users of these transfers. e.g. all major Belgian banks support SEPA instant, so transfers between KBC <-> BNP Paribas <-> ING etc. are instant.

> Now I'm at the mercy of the bank regarding what I can do with that money.

This is going off-topic, but you are with crypto as well. Unless every merchant you use supports your cryptocurrency, you're going to have to convert it back to fiat.

[bjornsteffanson]

Internationally, between currencies? The best offer I've found for transferring $200,000 USD to AUD is 0.4% ($800). At scale, that's not exactly cheap. I'm referencing the original parent comment which suggests it's possible for fractions of a penny, as I would love to find this service:

> There are a ton of alternatives that cost fractions of a penny in transaction fees.

[izzydata]

Algorand, Avalanche, Solana, Cardano and Terra are all cheap and safe, but like that other guy said. I have no idea what kinds of crypto are listed on foreign exchanges. I'd imagine anything sufficiently popular though.

[hanniabu]

I love how you list the lesser decentralized and therefore less secure options.

[__d]

I use TransferWise (aka Wise now)

[pinephoneguy]

I said no hassle, that was a lot of hassle last time I tried it.

[listenallyall]

BCH is essentially the same protocol as Bitcoin (BTC), but possibly safer (in that your transaction is never relegated to a 2nd-layer protocol like Lightning, with private nodes) and much cheaper, so if you are familiar with Bitcoin, you don't have to learn a new system or any funny quirks. And it's pretty universally accepted at every exchange and wallet.

Not saying it is better than the other options presented (and definitely not recommending it as an investment) but BCH does work quite well for transacting.

[k__]

I donated hundreds of dollars worth of Ether to Ukraine and paid like $2 worth in gas fees. That's less than 1%.

Transferwise takes much more %.

[lottin]

You're conveniently forgetting the fees and other transaction costs associated with purchasing the Ether and then selling it for fiat.

[Tenoke]

The fees for buying and selling it are on the order of 0.075-0.5% with most exchanges.

[lottin]

And the wire transfers between the bank accounts and the exchange?

[Tenoke]

Those are free for most people - in Europe via SWIFT and in the US via an ACH transfer.