[tablespoon]

> Cryptocurrencies have never claimed they address the hardest parts of financial inclusion. Cryptocurrencies solve the issue of trust.

Uh, what now? They actually do a worse job than traditional finance. What happens if I pay for something with a credit card and the vendor fails to deliver? Why I dispute the transaction and get my money back. It's less important that I have absolute trust in the vendor, because I have fall back mechanisms. Cryptocurrencies are deliberately designed so that can't happen.

The only "trust" problem cryptocurrencies solved was keeping track of stuff like account balances in a distributed ledger, but that's purely a problem created by the ideological choice of a distributed ledger.

[jimmydorry]

>What happens if I pay for something with a credit card and the vendor fails to deliver?

You are comparing crypto to a service that a third party provides on top of fiat. It's not a fair comparison as there is nothing stopping third parties providing the same service on top of crypto (and the third party does not necessary need human intervention to function when both parties act in good faith).

The more accurate comparison is: "What happens if I pay for a service or good upfront with cash, and get stiffed?"

Answer: If you know who they are, you take them to court and use the existing legal infrastructure. If you don't know who they are or it's too low value to be worth fighting, you leave them a bad review and share your bad experience with others to help them avoid the same.

>The only "trust" problem cryptocurrencies solved was keeping track of stuff like account balances in a distributed ledger, but that's purely a problem created by the ideological choice of a distributed ledger.

Keeping track of balances is a tough problem that did not (and still doesn't) have a good solution for after many decades of operation. Transfers between banks take days to settle (and weeks to finalize), same for payments between users and businesses.

Was it feasible to solve keeping track of balances between semi-trustworthy actors on a faster scale and without DLTs (Distributed Ledger Technologies)? Sure... but it has not eventuated and there was no sign it ever would. The telling sign for me is that many financial institutions are looking at, developing or rolling out their own implementations based on the demonstrated principles in crypto. That's good news, but I guess doesn't count for anything for some reason?

[tablespoon]

> You are comparing crypto to a service that a third party provides on top of fiat. It's not a fair comparison as there is nothing stopping third parties providing the same service on top of crypto (and the third party does not necessary need human intervention to function when both parties act in good faith).

You're missing the point: the GGP said "cryptocurrencies solve the issue of trust" but they clearly haven't in any practical sense.

It also a fair comparison, because I don't share the ideological obsessions that motivate cryptocurrency, nor have I made a speculative bet on it where I feel the compulsion to shill for it to save my own skin. As a practical matter, cryptocurrency is stupid and compares poorly to non-cryptocurrency alternatives in nearly all use caseses. It may make sense in some unusual ridiculously contrived use case, but that proves my point.

> Keeping track of balances is a tough problem that did not (and still doesn't) have a good solution for after many decades of operation.

That's not true: it has a sufficiently good solution that nearly the entire economy runs off of it. Meanwhile, the supposed "better" solutions are less scalable and use more electricity than Argentina to perform operations that a typical desktop PC is powerful enough to do.

[miohtama]

> What happens if I pay for something with a credit card and the vendor fails to deliver?

You are paying 2% - 5% premium on the price for this insurance that a credit card company providers. This is what the merchant gets charged in transaction fees and flat fees to get access to Visa/Mastercard network. There are many cases when you do not want to have insurance benefits of credit cardand you would simply take 2% cheaper price. However, with the current consumer payment rails (credit/debit) this is in practice impossible. (Granted some large enterprises like Amazon get charged less, but economics of scale, combined with the business practices, of Amazon have been found to be harmful for ecommerce ecosystem as a whole.)

I think it is ok to let the free market to pick the winner. Cryptocurrency might not be an ideal solution for all problems, but it might be still a good solution especially in developing countries where banking system is expensive, inefficient and corrupt. Let the option be available for others even if you do not use or believe in it yourself.

[diputsmonro]

With crypto you pay the additional overhead of gas fees, which are often unpredictable and may cost more than the item itself.

[miohtama]

Can you cite any source for this?

[tablespoon]

>> With crypto you pay the additional overhead of gas fees, which are often unpredictable and may cost more than the item itself.

> Can you cite any source for this?

It's common knowledge.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...

https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_...

[miohtama]

I think your information is somewhat outdated. For example, paying on USDC using Solana or Avalanche networks

- Fee is less than 10c, less then a debit card

- USDC is backed by US Treasury notes, making it more solid than deposit in a bank

- There is no volatility risk of the cryptocurrency

- USDC follows US court orders for crime and money laundering cases

https://solberginvest.com/blog/how-much-are-solana-fees/

[dmitriid]

> I think your information is somewhat outdated. For example, paying on USDC using Solana or Avalanche networks

As always with cryptocurrencies, "you're using the wrong cryptocurrency" as if the absolutely dominant ones, Bitcoin and Ethereum don't exist and aren't much more likely to be used than whatever the darling du jour is.

> USDC is backed by US Treasury notes, making it more solid than deposit in a bank

They are "backed" as much as Tether is "backed". To quote, "Circle claims that each USDC is backed by a dollar held in reserve, or by other 'approved investments', though these are not detailed. The wording on the Circle website changed from the previous 'backed by US dollars' to 'backed by fully reserved assets' by June 2021".

[Forgeties79]

https://crypto.com/defi/dashboard/gas-fees

[Forgeties79]

> I think it is ok to let the free market to pick the winner.

Seems to me the market is calling for regulation, because it’s a huge barrier to adoption. Ask any skeptic (who doesn’t have a moral issue with it such as environmental impact) and 9 times out of 10 they go “it feels like a scam” or “I don’t want someone to hack my money.”

People like to gripe about regulation, but we also find a little security in it. It often makes us feel safe at the end of the day - and when it comes money, that’s a cornerstone feature that needs be present.

[bb88]

> I think it is ok to let the free market to pick the winner.

You mean:

"I think it is ok for a _regulated_ free market to pick the winner."

An unregulated free market has scams we're seeing today.