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Comment by hombre_fatal | Hacker News Reader

That you brought up banking is precisely my point. Imagine if you needed a bank account to give someone $100 cash. Or to spend a few bucks at a street hotdog vendor.

Most people take it for granted that they need a bank to do anything, and they don't really consider how powerless they are over their own money. Like how it's illegal to carry too much cash (and it can simply be taken away). And how your bank can impose arbitrary restrictions against you like rejecting transactions and freezing your account. I've lost various bank accounts over the years as a permanent traveler. I'm banned from Paypal.

I want to be able to send $100 cash digitally with the operational minimalism of giving someone $100 cash in person. I want some control over my money even when I want to exchange it digitally.

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Understood that is a concern for you and some. I hope it gets there. But I'm not sure most people care.

Bitcoin isn't a currency yet. Most people can call up their credit card and get stuff blocked and returned instantly. Debit cards are definitely less of a service in that regard though and shouldn't be used like credit cards.

But the services are valued by most people.

As a currency, and as someone mentioned earlier - it's currently terrible due to it having an unstable valuation.

Credit cards are debt instruments. Very easy to use of course, but having credit card UX isn't required to qualify as a currency. There were no credit cards 100 years ago. Many countries still rely exclusively on cash and debit cards.

Agreed. My comment wasn't organized well and I can see that it linked the two statements, but I don't mean it like that.

I was referring to credit cards being a service that consumers value because they have fraud protection and other things. The parent was talking about arbitrary restrictions and freezing accounts. That typically happens when you have fraud on cash accounts (bank account, debit card, etc). And a credit card layer works extremely well.

I just had someone accidentally send me money on Venmo and I returned it to them right away. Cash or cash equivalent digital services are nice, but it limits "purchasing power" (great for consumers IMO, bad for merchants), has no rewards, and little to zero fraud protections.

Countries that use chip and pin on debit cards are definitely more secure. This should be in place in all countries. Fraud on a debit card is a nightmare. Fraud on a credit card is not usually a big deal for consumers.

Regardless of the various financial instruments, bitcoin cannot be a real currency when it's value is unstable.

> Most people take it for granted that they need a bank to do anything, and they don't really consider how powerless they are over their own money

People use banks because they provide financial services. You don't have to use banks, if for some reason you want to avoid them, but then you're left without access to those services. As far as I know, Bitcoin doesn't provide financial services, so it's not a replacement for banking.

Most banks provide most services at loss and make most of their money on mortgages. So they will provide payment services in the hope that 20 years later you get a mortgage from the bank you are familiar with.

Notice also that the whole business model relies on the bank having privileged access to central bank money and sharing that access with the plebs for some percentage interest. However current technology makes it feasible for central banks to simply interact with consumers directly. The only remaining problem is how to decide who is likely to pay back the loan. Retail banks could be relegated to credit check providers.

> Like how it's illegal to carry too much cash

Which country is that? It's not illegal anywhere I know of.

He's probably talking about the horror stories of people getting their cash/assets seized via civil forfeiture. eg. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/09/01/police-seiz...

Yeah, that's different from carrying cash being illegal.

It makes it illegal in practice, just not in name.

Are you really free if you have any arbitrarily defined “large” amount of money, only to have it sorted and it become YOUR burden of proof to show the origins of the cash?

In my country (Italy) is kind of illegal. I mean, not carrying too much cash (but of course if they find you with a suitcase full of cash, they will ask you where you got all that cash from), but you can't pay in a shop more than 2.000 euros (and they will lower this limit to 1.000 and possibly less in the future). Also you can't pay your employee cash, you have to pay in traceable manners something that you want to deduct from taxes like medical expenses, and so on.

Transaction with cash between private citizens are permitted tough (like buying a used car in cash), but it's not a good idea to do so if you don't trust the other party (because then how can I prove that I gave you the money?)

Cash transactions over 10,000 lakh are illegal in India [1]. Spain, France and Greece have all recently introduced limits [2]. Germany [3] has tried to introduce similar limits but have failed (so far). Australia's introducing a limit soon [4].

[1] https://babatax.com/cash-transaction-limit-in-india-cash-pay...

[2] https://wolfstreet.com/2017/01/28/europe-limits-on-cash-tran...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/08/german-plan-pr...

[4] https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/business/14087-governmen...

Sure, there are limits of non-tax-traceable payments in a few places. The part that surprised me was literally "carry too much cash" which is not quite the same thing.

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