We've had two crypto threads in the past two days. They both had a real world use case in the top comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142
Or do those not count?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142
Or do those not count?
More charitably you could call them 1. micropayments and 2. disrupting rent-seeking incumbent banks. You use a currency to pay for things, so yeah, the use cases will tend to circle around payments and transferring money. What did you expect, a cure for cancer?
You are confusing, "groundbreaking" with, "useful and convenient". It is much cheaper, faster and easier to send small international payments via crypto than it is via any legacy financial service - this is beyond dispute.
Let me dispute it then. Try Wise (formerly Transferwise). It is cheap, fast, and easy.
FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know.
Just checked it out, sending $5 costs at least 13% (they receive $4.33) and doesn't transfer until tomorrow. Some currencies cost far more. Sending $5 to my friend in Brazil would cost a whopping 28% (they receive $3.54). Some currencies don't allow you to send $5, but have minimums that are higher.
Sending $5 of litecoin costs me about .75% (they receive $4.96) and takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.
And although I haven't tried the service, I'm sure they block payments to people and organizations frowned upon by the banking system and the US government. Would my payment to Wikileaks go through? Or the Julian Assange defense fund? I find it highly unlikely.
Finally, individuals like myself who in the past played online poker are blocked from using transfer services like Moneygram and Western Union for engaging in blacklisted behavior. Why would I struggle to enter the walled garden when it is cheaper, faster and easier to use crypto?
>FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know.
I know dozens of people who work here in New York who use crypto for remittances. In fact, although I don't use it, there is a nearby laundromat with a bitcoin machine that is almost entirely frequented by migrants from South and Central America. Search for "bitcoin machine" in the NY metro area and you will find a huge number of them are located in landromats and bodegas frequented by immigrants who use these machines to send and receive funds.