Hacker News Reader

Comment by cptskippy | Hacker News Reader

By putting the onus on the user to maintain access and security rather than the bank?

By making the loss irreversible.

I trust my ability to keep a small file (or more realistically: 24 random words that can be committed to memory with some effort) secure more than I trust any corporate entity that treats the penalties for screwing their customers as a mere cost of doing business.

Crypto has many failure cases but a generalized loss of all transfers for all wallets is simply not one of them.

This isn't a defense of the corporate banking structure.

The cognitive load necessary to grok crypto currencies doesn't displace that which is required to utilize existing financial solutions, it's just adds to it. It's also less forgiving and has fewer safe guards or regulations.

For most people, crypto is just an added layer of obfuscation and complexity with some speculative gambling sprinkled on top. It benefits few and only when utilized by many.

It's like cash, if cash were a bar of wet soap you had to hold onto while riding a roller coaster in the rain.

To grok something and to utilize something are two entirely different levels of understanding and it is not honest to conflate the two; most people don't grok the existing financial infrastructures either.

Grok was the wrong word then. I wasn't conflating the two but rather emphasizing that the amount of cognitive load needed to utilizing crypto in our society is far higher than what's needed to use a cash, bank card, or even credit.

I disagree. At least from the standpoint of the average end-user; sending or receiving a payment with a mainstream cryptocurrency is not meaningfully more difficult than doing that with something like PayPal or Cashapp. Different, but not more difficult.

And this is with a wallet where you control your own keys. If you use a centralized site like Coinbase then is basically indistinguishable from something like those other apps.

Crypto isn't terribly hard, depending on the exact context you have in mind when you say 'crypto'. It boils down to keeping your key safe and accessible, or in the custody of someone who can keep your keys safe and accessible.

You can literally stamp your keys into some steel plate, bolt them somewhere safe in your house, and forget about them for 30 years. You use a hardware wallet for your day-to-day and a separate hardware wallet for your savings account and transfer between as needed.

It's not for everyone, but it isn't hard - it's just new context.

> Crypto isn't terribly hard

... for you. That's the key.

After the Thanksgiving holiday over the course of 2 weeks, I fabricated and installed individually addressable permanent LED holiday lights on my three story house and built out a control box for less than $1000. It wasn't hard... for me.

You likely already posses a great deal of knowledge necessary to leverage crypto that a lot of people don't. It's not hard... for you.

That's not an argument that makes much sense to me, because we do things every day that require a great deal of context and training. At some point someone taught us how to operate a steel missile that burns hydrocarbons to propel us onto a road network where we need to be able to interpret symbols, colors, and complex pre-arranged maneuvers in order to allow us to negotiate this system and not die. That took maybe a few weeks to figure out.

Crypto is not hard, it's in fact quite simple. It's just a matter of training people on a couple of simple rules. You don't need any pre-existing skills, you don't need any expensive equipment, you just need to be motivated to spend a few hours learning a new thing.

Does this work for your average hospitality worker, or is it really only a solution for the techno elite?

In every institution I’ve worked at if you do something that accumulates fines you and your management get fired. Since it’s a small street, you also effectively get blacklisted. They’re also highly influenced by their credit rating and credit spreads for day to day operational financing, which negative reputational events directly impact. Boards are also really unhappy with these situations and C level folks are often fired. I think you understate the consequences, even if the bank itself can afford to pay the fines.

And yet gargantuan financial institutions keep getting fined for various kinds of misbehavior, on a what seems to be a regular basis. The one that sticks out in my mind aside from this kind of failure was the systematic fraud perpetuated by Wells Fargo. Are any execs in prison or was it just financial fines (i.e. cost of doing business) and job losses for the lower level peons who executed the (plausibly deniable) orders?

You will have to forgive me for being entirely unsatisfied with that level of accountability.

Re: ease of use, I think crypto skeptics tend to intentionally overstate the knowledge and skill required. We're not exactly at the "grandparent safe" level yet, but framing it as something only for the "techno-elite" isn't fair either.

By aligning the interests of the custodian and beneficiary.

Money loss of this kind does not happen because the interest of the custodian is misaligned. The bank does not make a profit if your money goes missing.

Technical errors can happen regardless of what the custodian wants

Yes, rather than a bank that loses zelle transfers.

I have five people in my household. Only one of them, not myself, doesn’t regularly loose important stuff. We are super adept at key replacement, Drivers License replacement, passport replacement, debit card replacement, etc. I travel with two phones, two laptops, and two kindles.

At this point if I haven’t lost my debit card in six months, I will just report it lost to change the numbers.

I have worked at financial institutions; while they are not infallible, they are all better at this stuff than my family, and usually work in teams for important stuff.

Zelle transfers into an institutionally insured checking/savings account at a major financial institution are pretty safe and people will get their money back. Zelle transfers from non-BoA accounts will have the records at the other banks to prove the transfers existed and they can be recovered that way. If BoA really lost the records and don't have backups and people lost transfers from BoA to BoA accounts and neither BoA account has a record of the transaction, it will just be a hassle for customers probably having to fill out some forms and wait a while.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com