[csomar]

This is a comment that says "I have no idea about the struggle of 4Bn+ people around the world when it comes to payments and banking, so I am just going to dismiss all these people as non-existent and argue that everything is fine here in the West".

[zinekeller]

This shows that contrary to your own assertion you are the one that actually don't know what you're talking about.

Technology-wise, most countries have faster methods of sending money than how US system works: FedNow is a very late welcome addition that analogous systems already exist in other countries for years, even in places where you don't expect (Nigeria, Myanmar and India of all places do have near real-time transactions). It's genuinely embarrassing that when FedNow was initially announced, most financial analysts and bankers have simply exclaimed "finally!" because that's how behind US is.

Society-wise, most people who are having monetary problems also have much more pressing life-or-death problems: there are danger where they are living (either due to conflicts or due to the general inhospitality of the place), they don't have access to clean water and food, they don't have decent work despite their best efforts, and they don't have a place to study and improve their skills. It doesn't help that their government tends to block improvements that will go to their citizens and just plunder their countries' resources. What problems does cryptocurrency solve here?

[arcticbull]

Ah yes my favorite counter-argument: check your privilege.

The GDP per capita of Burundi is $221. A couple years ago a single Bitcoin transaction cost $60. The thermodynamics of these kinds of systems make them dramatically more expensive than classical finance because you have to replicate the data so many times. The only reason a Bitcoin payment doesn't cost significantly more than that is nobody's using it, lol.

It's slow, it's inefficient, and worse yet, there's no authority to help try and stabilize the currency. The worst off are hurt the most by wild volatility swings, and crypto is volatility incarnate. The promise that volatility would decrease as a function of market cap simply did not materialize.

Enough with the silly privilege arguments, let's stick to facts.

I specifically called out M-PESA because it's a regional solution to an actual problem they have. [1] And not a blockchain in sight.

[1] https://www.vodafone.com/about-vodafone/what-we-do/consumer-...

[latchkey]

> A couple years ago a single Bitcoin transaction cost $60.

Ah yes let's counter an argument with something that is a couple years old.

This was brief during a time of high usage, which has also been fixed. Today, the average bitcoin transaction cost is a couple dollars.

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

Let's also not forget that there are a lot more chains now, where the fees are pennies.