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I wasted years of my life in crypto

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681 points Anon84 | 9 comments | 07 Dec 25 12:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.393s | source | bottom
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hvb2 ◴[08 Dec 25 06:42 UTC] No.46189153[source]▶
> your bank account would just hold USDC or Bitcoin, and you could send a billion dollars to anyone in the world in a few seconds. That belief is powerful and I still ascribe to it.

These statements still surprise me to this day. If you're a good person engineer, why does sending money in seconds need blockchain? There's parts of the world where this is commonplace and free as well.

I don't believe cross border was there in 2010 or so but why not implement that feature in an existing system instead of building out a parallel universe

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1. yes_man ◴[08 Dec 25 06:50 UTC] No.46189204[source]▶
The cross border not about technical capacity but legal control. For example if you are a refugee you might not be able to pull your bank savings and liquid stock with you from your home country to another without it being seized or taxed, but your crypto is always yours as long as you are the only holder of the keys. This scenario is one of the rare real world utilities I see with crypto.
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2. hvb2 ◴[08 Dec 25 09:06 UTC] No.46190054[source]▶
Yes, there are rare use cases where this is useful. The high inflation case is one as well.

So stop talking about a parallel system and start talking about what it is, a niche product.

3. dist-epoch ◴[08 Dec 25 09:55 UTC] No.46190439[source]▶
Your crypto still needs to be declared, even if you hold the keys. Not doing that breaks all kinds of laws and makes you jail-able.

Sure, you can hope the state won't find out about your crypto, but then how do you enjoy it?

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4. yes_man ◴[08 Dec 25 11:12 UTC] No.46190969[source]▶
Specifically for a refugee, at least with crypto you have the possibility to declare your assets in your destination, since you actually still hold on to them. Which is unlikely if it is tied to banks or investment platforms of an authoritarian country trying to genocide you. I understand this sounds like a fringe example but there are over 100 million forcibly displaced people globally.
5. torginus ◴[08 Dec 25 13:21 UTC] No.46191906[source]▶
A lot of countries cracked down on merchants accepting bitcoin, and in a lot of places it's illegal to offer BTC->cash conversions without KYC.

I suspect authoritarian regimes would be the first to close this loophole. This is not theoretical - Russia did this in 2022 to stop people from offloading their rubles and/or fleeing the country with their money.

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6. kikimora ◴[08 Dec 25 22:47 UTC] No.46198709[source]▶
As a Russian I can attest - you can do crypto in Russia and it is one of a very few ways many friends of mine support their families from abroad.
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7. mizzao ◴[09 Dec 25 02:22 UTC] No.46200548[source]▶
Yep, it's highly illegal to use crypto in China
8. torginus ◴[09 Dec 25 09:19 UTC] No.46202952{3}[source]▶
And what's the legal status of crypto nowadays for individuals?
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9. kikimora ◴[09 Dec 25 09:35 UTC] No.46203064{4}[source]▶
Crypto is qualified as property and regulated in a very similar way. There is a market for borrowing using tokens regulated by digital assets act (цифровые финансовые активы).