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Comment by Finnucane | Hacker News Reader

>There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the best way to help poor people is to give them cash

Then why not just do that, then?

I agree that fiat currency would be more useful if the recipient lives in a place with a functional financial system and/or a competent government. However, in places where money is broken (i.e. venezuela) or government is broken (i.e. refugee camps), it is possible that a crypto-currency might be more useful than fiat.

In Venezuela, only the local currency is a problem. You could still send dollars. And refugee camps, might be better off getting food and medicine directly.

Sending money long distances especially crossing borders is a non-trivial problem.

Is that problem any harder than sending Bitcoin, converting it to real money, and then trying to spend it? Because converting Bitcoin to Venezuelan Bolivars (or USD in Venezuela) is also a non-trivial problem.

Agreed. Imo one of the benefits of Bitcoin is that it should provide a ceiling of cost of remittance that is Bitcoin tx fees 2x + inconvenience of using it to acquire goods. Unfortunately the progress on the second front has been extremely slow

There is no situation in which you have a broken government (i.e., refugee camps) where it is possible that crypto-currency will be useful. In refugee camps, even the doctors and aid workers have minimal access to the internet, and certainly not the type of stable connection you would need to transact crypto. Moreover, you would have extreme difficulty finding counterparties for the crypto-fiat exchange that don't charge usurious rates.

In situations where you just have broken governments, like Syria or Somalia, you generally also have broken utilities and private services, and internet is definitely low down on the list of priorities when you're worried about basic survival.

While I agree that there are a number of challenges around actually utilizing crypto in places like this, you must also agree that some of crypto's unique characteristics are actually very compelling in these situations. For example, it is very expensive to get supplies or money into these 'camps'. The (relatively) immediate and peer-to-peer nature of cryptocurrency is perfect for this kind of help.

In the situation where it is prohibitively expensive to get money or supplies into a place what are you expecting these people to spend their cryptocurrency on?

I do not have to agree that cryptotokens have any compelling characteristics.

I can lose citizenship, suffer from identity theft and lose all of my physical possessions and still recover what funds I have in cryptotokens as long as I can acquire an internet connected computer.

Having you tokens stolen is probably more likely than those other things.

I don't have to agree with any of your response. Crypto's unique characteristics make it even more problematic in the situations you've described, not less. Crypto is by far the worst possible unit of exchange since it actually places additional requirements on people in already unstable conditions, namely, the requirement of stable access to the internet and electricity.

It's common knowledge that refugees streaming across border regularly bring computers, cell phones, solar panels, and large batteries to keep all those things going. Plus unlike most people in first world countries, most refugees are well versed in cryptocurrency wallets, trading, and the relative value of those coins to the daily needs of life like bread, and vegetables.

.... end sarcasm.

I have been surprised by the technical fluency and sophistication of refugees.

And, I appreciate sarcasm as much as anybody. :)

I can't seem to find too many sources that speak to the raw percentage, but it appears that many to most refugees from syria (to take one example) have a cellphone and take great lengths to keep it safe & charged.

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