When it comes to crypto, on the other hand, I think the challenge would be listing any real benefits to begin with.
In our current society, one "benefit" is that you can use it to buy drugs anonymously. I would argue for some soft drugs like cannabis, that is a good thing. But even better to just legalize it - then you can get the benefits of regulation (harder for people to slide into heavier drugs, you have a bit more control over consumption, you can tax it...).
Another benefit is that you could take your money that you earn in your day job and funnel it into activism. In many countries, there are a lot of scary political developments, combined with a growing surveillance state. Crypto can help that you are not cut off critical resources if you are a dissident.
Finally, I wouldn't dismiss the aspect that it promises you to "get rich quickly". We have a very stratified society, where most people are individual laborers, and only a few are successful entrepreneurs and employers. Yes, in silicon valley you can earn a lot even as an IC, and there are many stories of successful founders. But to be honest, the way to the financial elite, the "ruling class", is barred for 99% of people, even for the most talented. A lot of people in tech probably find this unjust, and I can really relate to this feeling. But most would never question the system as a whole. Instead of trying to completely change society, we look for a literal hack or cheat, and crypto is this hack. It is the nerds' revenge, and we phantasize it will allow us to get what is our due.
* In countries with unstable currencies they are useful stores of value (Venezuela, Turkey and Zimbabwe right now). I was in Zim back in 2010 and visited someone's house. It was filled with petrol because he had been paid and had to spend the money before it lost its value so he bought what was available. Bitcoin would have been a lot safer and less likely to cause shortages of goods (and more inflation).
* They offer a much cheaper and simpler way to move money between countries both for ordinary people and small businesses.
* By making online retail anonymous they've allowed the circumvention of all sorts of prohibitions. Sometimes that might be a bad thing, but I think it's a part of the reason we've seen weed legalised in so many US states.
And remember: we don't ban things because you or I don't see the point. If someone else thinks they see a point, and they're not hurting anyone, they have every right to pursue what interests them
There's less and less jobs, the few there are offer miserable wages(less than 3000k/year), and crypto is pretty much the only way to get paid working remotely for other countries as freelancer or contractor.
If you go the official route(only around 5% of workers do it even locally anyways) then more than half of your money is confiscated by the state and forced to convert to a local currency that's worth nothing two months down the road due to high inflation rates.
It doesn't seem like people in stable countries understand what it's like to live in places like this so I guess it's no wonder all they see is a bunch of "crypto bros" making money.
Also, Cuba and Argentina. While Bitcoin may be more accessible to people in these countries, they could also store value in USD, or other stable assets.
> By making online retail anonymous
I really don't understand the persistent myth that blockchains are anonymous.
They are, at least in principle.
Sure, if you pay for something and have it delivered to your home, someone now knows the address linked to the wallet you used; do this a lot, and the chances increase that this link will end up in the wrong databases.
But that doesn't mean bitcoin & co. aren't, at least on their own, fairly anonymous.
Full disclosure: I've never actually done it either and I'm no expert...
Private coins like Monero are different, and transactions can only be ascertained if you're one of the parties involved.
* Transaction fees and exchange rates into and out of the crypto economy make transferring money in bitcoin incredibly expensive. Also, slow.
* What part of bitcoin is anonymous exactly?
* Yes, but same goes for many other services. Transferring value is always a costly process unless you're using cash.
* Pretty much all of it.
Are we even talking about the same thing when we say "Bitcoin"? Because it sure seems like you're thinking of something completely different.
* Claim was made that Bitcoin made this "cheaper and simpler". That isn't true.
* Which part of the public ledger exactly is anonymous? You say "pretty much all of it", I see "public" and say pretty much none of it.
The difference between us is that I haven't hinged my hopes of personal financial success on a Ponzi scheme, so we're probably not going to see eye to eye.
Also, the only details on the public ledgers (for bitcoin) are the balance, wallet IDs and transactions. If I buy or sell bitcoin you can't tell it was "me" you can only tell that wallet #12345 transferred to wallet #67890. You still have to be careful your Id isn't linked to your wallet in some other way. But until that happens you're as anonymous as it's possible to be really.
We do see the point, though: to scam people out of money.
* I wish it were cheaper or simpler, it was true in its early days but not anymore once there is speculation & "store of value"
* I agree that some countries like Venezuela can benefit. In a pure capitalist society one still has to risk their money to buy shares at the minimum. In the case of Bitcoin one only has to sit on it and wait for Venezuelan assets to come and back it up. Poor Venezuelans are are going to part with their assets to make some speculator rich, let us not forget the other unsavoury type who most need anonymity.
* There is a very high chance that major countries are going to bar private crypto being backed by regulated institutions like banks.
It'd only be true if Bitcoin was actually stable and a store of value. At the moment is a highly speculative and volatile asset, fueled by a mania, not a stable supply of value and liquidity. It's liquid until the next big crash, for people who actually depend on having a stable store of value for their survival, a crash of 20% in a day can be devastating, less than a crash of their own currency but still not stable enough to warrant it as a safe way to park money.
Just buy USD or another powerful currency, if one of these currencies crash to the point where it's mostly worthless then humanity has a much, much larger problem and having some bucks saved somewhere won't really help you.
And yes, even in Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, etc., there is a black/grey market for other currencies, it will be more expensive than the official exchange rate (if those are manipulated by the government) but is still doable, even more given the technical knowledge required to properly use cryptocurrencies, it's easier for the general population to hoard cash in a better currency.
> * They offer a much cheaper and simpler way to move money between countries both for ordinary people and small businesses.
Much cheaper? TX costs are really high, the solution to this has only been talked about and implemented as Proof of Concepts. The solution is either a L2 network (I've been hearing about Lightning as "the next big thing" for almost half a decade now) or moving away from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, this move has been much harder and slower than any proponent of it has publically pitched.
Small businesses are not sophisticated enough to be able to hedge against huge price fluctuations such as the ones cryptocurrencies experience, small businesses relying on crypto at this time would be just a major risk to themselves, with the only benefit being "it's fast to move money abroad". Very few small businesses really care about moving money as fast as possible across international borders with no legal checks, usually they are illegal businesses.
> * By making online retail anonymous they've allowed the circumvention of all sorts of prohibitions. Sometimes that might be a bad thing, but I think it's a part of the reason we've seen weed legalised in so many US states.
Quite a libertarian take that anything should be free of controls. I agree that governments seem to be getting more draconian lately in the West, at the same time protections against prohibitions will mostly fuel and incentivise exactly the behaviour that was prohibited (financial scams, anyone? or drug trade?), enabling that without discussing the merits of such prohibitions is just inviting and incentivising the worst kind of behaviours, the ones most prohibited and more taboo.
I would like to know where are you drawing the parallel of weed being legalised to cryptocurrencies, I don't remember seeing anywhere an explanation of this link and I believe it's wishful thinking from your part.
> And remember: we don't ban things because you or I don't see the point. If someone else thinks they see a point, and they're not hurting anyone, they have every right to pursue what interests them.
Just the sheer amount of electricity being consumed to run this system is hurting societies, energy is probably the single most valuable resource for modern societies, spending it so some people can play around to inflate some numbers is a huge waste, even more if energy is coming from fossil sources.