[dmantis]

This is a very American-centric post.

E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account."

Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you don't need to use any major exchange for that, that defeats the whole point.

And yes, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians are known to use crypto, for example. And the majority of them don't have US bank accounts.

One of the core features of crypto that it's not an American (or anyone else) thing, like paypal, stripe, or any other system and American laws can be easily ignored if both parties are outside of the US. That's already a very liberating feature for at least a billion of people of nations hostile to the US and potentially to 8+ billions of people more.

[TrackerFF]

I don't think any first world country makes it possible to do banking, if you decide to simply not comply with AML/KYC regulations. You very much become unbanked, if you simply don't want to or can't comply with those things. (European here)

[ta12653421]

Oh well, there are some shady brokers in Cyprus which are using EU passporting regulation but which are "not really good" with KYC ;-)

[potato3732842]

Do they offer high yield savings accounts with reasonable min-balance requirements?

[ta12653421]

Not only that, they also offer you instruments which are not useful for you - on top of the "risk-free high yield" account :) LOL

[malthaus]

and in what fantasy world would a system primarily used by questionable countries/organisations/individuals ever become a global standard?

[dmantis]

First of all, who says that it has to be a global standard?

It's not an 'all-or-nothing' thing.

Those are instruments which already help many people (those you define as questionable for some reason). I'm actually pretty happy to see that the world has a tool to help millions of people with "questionable" religious, cultural, political, ideological views or sexual orientations. That reduces the pressure and advantage of people who want to make their lives harder.

If you don't need it, don't use it. That's totally cool. It doesn't have to be global. To be honest, I don't think anything needs to be global. That gives too much leverage to a single group at the expense of everyone else. The world is better off having many options for everyone.

[atemerev]

Questionable individual here. My bank accounts are all blocked now just for the reason of my nationality, nothing else. Crypto is currently my lifeline.

[southernplaces7]

How do you find work, or business perhaps, that pays you in crypto to begin with? I've been paid in crypto on multiple occasions but it can be tricky to find a party that's willing, so I'm curious.

[atemerev]

I learned to write some useful code for crypto trading firms (portfolio management, automated market making, risk screening), so that part is covered. Looking for customers is still tricky though. Even crypto firms are now increasingly about compliance and sometimes refuse to work except by hiring me, and then reject my application because of my passport (why we even invented crypto then...)

[Kinrany]

In any world where the standard is convergent, not explicitly agreed upon, and there's no natural boundary between shady users and non-shady users. An x% shadiness user joining the network grants justification to the next x-0.001% shadiness user.

[splix]

In the world where the non-questionable financial organizations decide who can access them or not, based on the place they were born at. I.e., the current world.

[sjducb]

Gold became a global standard.

[throwaway290]

> And yes, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians are known to use crypto, for example

Yes and mostly (as in 99% by amount of crypto moved) it's their governments

For example Russia it is not legal to pay with crypto, and to cash it out allowed crypto exchanges must submit your transactions to the government etc otherwise they get blocked.

But the bandit state is free of course to use it to trade with its friends like NK (which basically runs its nuclear program on ransomwared crypto) or Hamas;)

[dmantis]

> For example Russia it is not legal to pay with crypto, and to cash it out allowed crypto exchanges must submit your transactions to the government etc otherwise they get blocked.

Sorry, but it's very naive to think that Russian people use only "allowed" crypto exchanges and comply with the laws. That would be an impossible country to live in.

Direct connections with people and being street-smart are important kinds of skills in such societies. And even without connections, you can easily go to some popular Russian exchange aggregators and find no-KYC options with cash delivery, as far as I know.

EDIT: I've actually just checked for you: starting from 10,000 USDT, you can cash out anonymously with cash delivery for 1% in Moscow right at this moment from a publicly accessible resource with reviews.

[throwaway290]

He "just checked for me" online and he thinks I'm the one naive

I'm from Russia. People who get paid tether travel out to cash in anonymously. I know because I know them. Believe me you don't want to gamble on this

> That would be an impossible country to live in.

Really? I have no words. Not being able to use crypto and it's now an impossible country to live in? How about this, people just use cash. 99.9999% of people cashing in loads of tether are criminals or connected to the government or both. Who do you think is so rich they just casually throw around tens thousands tether? On average a good salary is like 1k at best

[dmantis]

Impossible to live in complying with all the Russian laws, not particularly a crypto one. Well, possible, but quite miserable experience.

So are you saying that people get paid in tether after the sentence that it's used 99.9% by the government only?

[throwaway290]

Yes, I say government (or let's just say criminals) is at least 99.9% of all crypto moved. The war machine needs feeding. Sanctions. Think about it will other countries use worthless ruble that is pretty much not convertible? Will russia use winnie pooh money (also not convertible)? People who move tether because maybe they found some real work abroad or because they are helping a family or something is rounding error

[atemerev]

Well, hello from a rounding error. I am Russian, I live in another country, and my bank accounts are closed because of "sanctions" even though I support Ukraine and will be immediately sent to prison were I to return to Russia. So I am sorry, don't touch my crypto.

[dmantis]

> Sanctions

They also affect businesses, not only the government.

[coderatlarge]

i’m curious what counts as

“dystopia level of financial surveillance,”

these days…

recently i made a cash withdrawal from my personal account ahead of a trip abroad (they asked me why) and within days received a FinCEN notice in the mail warning me about “ structured transactions”… having made no other cash transactions days or even check cashing or writing days before or days after.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

But how does crypto police the sexual morals of others?

[actionfromafar]

They'll find a way to police the sexual morals of the Other, no matter the technology.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

Introducing - the bhurka-bitcoin. Should you try to buy sexual services, like OF-subscriptions or similar filth, the coin will automatically buy a bhurka for all content, hiding those models behind decency textile filters. Halal and wholesome! Bhurka-bitcoin! Now with the first bodymounted organic cellphonestand for loyal customers!

[jajko]

question of time, where there is power the political pressure and corruption will try to find its ways

[strken]

At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs.

I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.

[gchamonlive]

Would it be ok if it all ran on wind or solar?

EDIT: went looking for data and it's estimated that ~63% [1] of power used in bitcoin proof-of-work operations. I honestly thought this figure would be higher, but with the insane campaign the American government is doing to invest and expand on drill operations this could go up in the short term. Long term though it's unlikely that this will keep up and we should see renewable sources gaining space more and more, just because it's the smart thing to do.

[1] https://batcoinz.com/bitcoin-by-energy-source/

[jcfrei]

Outdated view since 99.9% of transactions happen on proof of stake systems which have a very low carbon footprint - not much more than Visa or Mastercard.

[strken]

Okay; so what? Go mine one of the POW coins and buy what you actually want on an unregulated exchange. You're still burning fossil fuels to get it.

My general point is that you can exchange money for energy and energy for crypto, and nobody can really stop you if you're doing it at a small enough scale. Siphon the fuel from your car and run a generator, pretend you're charging your EV, whatever.

[yapyap]

well no since btc is pow

[mhluongo]

Most stablecoin volume isn't cleared in the Bitcoin network.