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Comment by agilob | Hacker News Reader

> Now they ask us to provide an explanation of the reference to “Alep”.

WiseTransfer blocked my transfer because they didn't like my full name that they got from Monzo (Mozno has partnership with Wise). They blocked my transfer, hold it hostage until I contacted them, spent a few days hanging on phone, emailed them etc... they wanted to know what my surname means. I made an international transfer to buy a conference ticket. I don't remember the precise dates, but I spent full days on phone, emailing dozens of people and took me 3-4 weeks to revert the transfer. They. wanted. to know. what. my. surname. means.

Edit: I filed a complaint to Monzo and Wise, and stopped using both.

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Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here?

But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. Last time I looked Saddam Hussein was still on it, despite being dead for most of my life at this point. I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.

>Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this?

Monzo couldn't reverse the transfer as the money wasn't in their hands. Wise Transfer customer support is just garbage. I spent 5 hours on a phone until > their side < ended my call during UK working hours. I called again and again, they never answered. I sent them emails, but each email I was getting was from another person who, like I said in another comment, didn't read previous email from Wise, so each time I had to explain the context and the whole situation. When I sent my response in a morning, they responded the next day afternoon.

> What was the amount of money here?

About £170 for the conference ticket.

>But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is.

I already paid for hotel and plane tickets without issues. Best to my knowledge I'm not involved in any terrorist organisation, unless you account working for EU banking infrastructure company as such.

OK, so it was more than the price of a ticket involved. I was thinking you went through all this over 170 quid

You're telling me that if I wanted to make an easy 170 quid all I need to do is scam you. You're not going to fight back.

You don't stand up to a bully just for their initial transgression. You stand up to a bully because if you don't they'll come at you again, even harder, and the world will see that you're soft, that you're a mark.

Gimme your lunch money, kid.

Having been scammed once out of a similar amount, yeah of course I'm not going bother. I've got better things to do with my life. Now there are many times when companies did try similar scams and it was resolved with a 15 minute phone call. But there is no way I'd spend days of my life over it. Almost all scams like this are resolved by opening a dispute with my credit card processor. That's it. I get the money back and never hear anything back.

> despite being dead for most of my life at this point

Hey man there's no need to remind me that I'm old.

> I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.

What's wrong with that?

How would you be able to tell? And what sensitive information could they access? It’s defacto public.

> How would you be able to tell?

There are many ways. The most common are: If the users tell you they're from North Korea, you can tell that they're from North Korea. Also, if they connect from a North Korean IP, you can tell that they're from North Korea.

> And what sensitive information could they access? It’s defacto public.

The request likely had nothing to do with "sensitive information", but instead, sanctions.

The problem is, all you can virtually do is to block North Korean IP space [1], but you're still legally liable if North Korean users, say, use a foreign VPN service to interact with you.

International sanctions laws are pure and utter madness, with extremely high stakes if the government changes its course on selective enforcement, so everyone is "playing it safe" rather than "doing what makes sense and question outright bullshit".

[1] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/17/j/a-closer-look...

The OFAC isn't going to expect you to bend space and time, but they do expect due diligence.

My point is, what is the definition of "due diligence"? Who can say "yes, you're doing everything required"?

Usually, that's court cases and resulting case law, as well as executive fines... which means there is an insane amount of risk attached to everything related to sanctions, and additionally enforcement may vary between different governments.

Interpreting and complying with laws is something all business have to deal with, and not just with sanctions. I am not a lawyer, but due diligence is usually “do the best you can with the data you can reasonably get”. If you need to comply with sanctions law then you should ask your corporate lawyer.

Either way, your company is required to follow the law regardless of your opinion on it.

I shadowban anyone with the surname 'Kim' on account creation just to be sure.

> I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.

that's an order I would break; to do that goes against the principles of the internet.

I suppose I'm not getting hired any time soon.

yea, I'm not 'obedient' enough... I have principles like open internet, shared culture, freedom, and so on.

what's worse, I feel for Korean culture, split in half by AmeriRussian "interactions".

North Korea has a LOT of sanctions against them, if you provide them services you could go to prison.

It's not an order, embargo laws exist in every modern country. Doing business in embargoed countries just means prison time and fines. I don't know if you realize this, but almost nobody in NK has internet...

But internet principles say that government intelligence services and e-privateers should have access to every port!

The word you're looking for is naïve.

WHEN THE LAW IS CORRUPT, TO BREAK IT IS JUSTICE

Revoking or reforming a corrupt law is justice. Breaking it is individual privilege.

Really? Lots of privileged homeless people these days.

Yep. And lots of homeless people who are even worse off, because they didn't break the law.

DURA LEX SED LEX

(Of course, sometimes it takes breaking the law to change the law. Revolutions, for example, have never been lawful. Governments may even praise a revolution - especially the ones that brought them to power, - yet they would always make sure that any future revolution is illegal.)

> I feel for Korean culture, split in half by AmeriRussian "interactions".

Germany reunified. Korea might have as well had it not been for North Korea's invasion of South Korea, and China's support of North Korea as a buffer zone.

And why no blame for Japan?

And what "internet principles" are you writing about? Everyone can access everything? This hasn't ever been the case. There have always been access controls.

> Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here?

Is the implication here that the should walk away from being robbed of 170 quid? They're fighting for dignified treatment.

I know this is an example of another problem, but in the US it's easy to see someone actually being killed over attempting to rob someone of $200.

People have strong reactions to unjust treatment, especially when they believe they are dealing with a fair system. (I feel it's different when you know you just have to pay the bribe.)

At some point, taking the company to small claims court is easier.

One for "falsehoods programmers believe about names".

s/programmers/product

It is unlikely an engineer decided to introduce a block list of names and this likely came from a product manager driven by compliance and risk mitigation. Problems are rarely the cause of the implementer and usually that is the side effect of layers of poor decision making in corporations. Poor because of the aggregation, not poor because of any one specific decision maker in the chain.

they wanted to know what my surname means

In a case like that, threaten to contact a lawyer because they are engaging in discrimination against you on the basis of (I assume) national origin. Unless your name is something like 'John International-Jewel-Theft,' they have no case.

And? Did you tell them? Your surname may be the same word as something else that gives cause for concern.

Surnames often don't mean anything. If mine means anything I don't know it. It's just a name.

> Surnames often don't mean anything.

That depends on where you're from. Often in the English-speaking world, they do.

To take the another commenter's example, "Smith" comes from a word meaning, roughly, "craftsperson", as in "blacksmith". The ancestor that the surname comes from was likely either a blacksmith, or some other type of crafter whose profession can be described as "smithing".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith

Likewise, the surname "Wright" comes from a word with a similar meaning, as in "playwright", "wheelwright" or "cartwright".

It's more fair to say those names meant something at some point. Now they just mean you are descended from someone with that surname.

They haven't lost those meanings at all. They may not have any special significance for you, but the meanings of the names remain nonetheless.

When I meet a "Johnson", my mind immediately goes to "John's son" even though "John" is probably a distant ancestor of the person, not their father. The name's meaning has not changed.

"Johnson", and similar names in other languages, can also indicate connection with the early Christian church, not a literal connection with a person named John. "Johnson" in this sense means someone who is a 'son' of John the Baptist (aka, a Christian). Or so I've read.

I wasn't aware of the John the Baptist connection. Very interesting! Thank you.

> Now they just mean you are descended from someone with that surname.

Adoption exists. I'm the first in my patriline to be born with my surname. So yes, technically I am descended from a person with that surname, but my father wasn't.

Also, changing a name on marriage happens.

You're right. Those events just move you further away from any past meanings of the surname.

Where does the name Dickinson come from?

"son of Richard"

https://www.houseofnames.com/dickinson-family-crest

Sure, but I hope an etymological dictionary would be within the budgetary means of a bank's compliance department so that they don't have to lean on their customers for it.

This is likely cultural, but for almost everyone I know, their surnames mean something. Usually, like mine, it's the name of an occupation. Often, it's another surname with "son" added onto the end, meaning "son of x".

Most first names mean something as well.

I've got the full extended meanings of my first, middle, and last names memorized. I'd post them but I don't want to dox myself. You can call me "Glorificus" for short though :) .

Name dictionaries are common, I suggest you look into one and you'll be surprised.

Too bad if you don't know what your surname means.

Or your surname is something like Al Qaeda (which is just "the base") or is "Ira" or any other combination of letters that could trigger very dumb 'watchlist' code.

I've lost jobs over getting flagged in automatic resume systems due to my last name seeming "fake".

Reminds me of https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/

Correct answer: "My surname, Smith, is a string of characters that identifies people in my family. It designates a person or set of people."

A set of people you say? Sorry, our policy does not allow x-smiths to use this service.

My surname designates a bag of people.

When you replace “Smith” with “ISIS” or “Bin Laden” that’s likely not enough of an explanation for them to lift the freeze.

Why is this included in the logic in the first place? Are terrorists sending payments via PayPal and including "ISIS membership fee, annual renewal" in the comments? It would seem to me that a keyword search like this is not an effective way to stop the flow of funds to sanctioned organizations. It's like scanning cancelled checks for the word "bribe" on the memo line.

"Yes, hello, I'd like to renew my subscription to Terrorist Weekly. Oh, you take Venmo? Great!"

On the other hand, if they did it would be very embarrassing for PayPal.

No it wouldn't. A cursory search indicates that about 80 million people have the surname 'bin Laden.' Paypal is an international company. If a name gives you a 1 in 80 million possibility of a connection to terrorism without any other details, it's not actionable. The end.

My surname doesn't have any modern meaning, it's a middle age Slavic surname. It's pretty unique and only a few 100s people in the world have it. It's so wild to me that it got flagged by some kind of a list.

OP and the article OP's situations are relatively easy in that the company actually told them what triggered the ban, and that presumably an explanation is all that's needed. I don't understand making a big deal about it. Tell them you don't know what your surname means and that "ALEP" is just an acronym that means "A Less Evil Product" and be on your way. Why does everything have to be a fight?

Sure, when the company says "We're banning you and not telling you why. Hahahaha!" it's infuriating, and probably worth even more than an angry Twitter rant. But "Can you explain what this specific thing means?" is not worth the rant IMO. Just explain and go on living your life.

I think this is giving the companies involved a lot of credit. I'm assuming if it took multiple days to resolve it then they didn't find "it's a name, it has no meaning" as an acceptable answer. The companies have no real incentive to be reasonable.

> I made an international transfer to pay for

I’ve been using crypto and stablecoins for this for nearly 7 years now. Basically it skips international transfer scrutiny and for both the sender and the recipient we are using local banking on each side.

The exposure time is like 5 minutes, which mitigates every theoretical issue with the confidence of a stablecoin, or even the volatility of any particular crypto.

So what would have been an international transfer is converted to a scrutiny-free domestic transfer, which goes way faster too.

And as usual a crypto plug into any thread.

mention a valid use case = "plugging crypto"

never mention any = "there are no valid use cases for crypto"

And this is a fairly common one. For example it's how GrapheneOS pays their developers, because TradFi (especially cross-border) is too capricious.

That's the one use case that I think almost everyone agrees is valid, so it may be that people react that way because it isn't really educating anyone. It just feels more like evangelism.

Just speculating. I'll never downvote or argue against anyone pointing out that use case, personally.

To be fair here, they are handy if the bank wakes up one day and decides you are a wrong 'un for no good reason.

Or if you are transacting with someone with a funny sounding name, or who lives in a developing country (especially in MENA).

You can conduct your business without worrying about intermediary risk.

Hell, I've had bizarre issues in the past trying to make transfers between some large American banks and a number of European banks, the transactions just get "stuck" for a couple weeks, then get refunded, because somewhere in the middle something goes tits up.

A comment I saw yesterday that seems oddly relevant.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35320208

"HN is weirdly inconsistent about digital currencies. Generally pro encryption, net neutrality, open-source software, VPNs, etc. But mention "Bitcoin," and suddenly half the commenters lose their shit about the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse. Then they go back to commiserating with another Ask HN startup founder whose PayPal account was frozen."

It might have more to do with the cryptocurrency space appearing more than a little shady than any sort of inconsistency.

All industries around finance attract shady actors. In Vietnam, you get the best exchange rate for VND, by going to the gold dealers. Paypal doing shady things is par for the course. Banks going under because 97% of their deposits are over the FDIC limits is normal behavior.

Simultaneously ignoring the benefits of cryptocurrencies and the problems they are trying to solve, while only looking at the negative edges that are covered by mainstream media, seems short-sighted at best. That's the inconsistency.

Yes, all industries attract bad actors. But the cryptocurrency space seems to be largely run by bad actors. Not everyone, of course, but a disturbingly large percentage.

> Simultaneously ignoring the benefits of cryptocurrencies

I don't actually see a lot of that happening here, though.

> Yes, all industries attract bad actors. But the cryptocurrency space seems to be largely run by bad actors. Not everyone, of course, but a disturbingly large percentage.

Source? Seriously. I mean, we have CEX going down with SBF and Molly White posting anti-web3 stuff. I'm sorry, but that isn't the core fundamental technology that we're talking about here.

> I don't actually see a lot of that happening here, though.

Again... media focuses on the failures and not on the successes.

ETH moving to proof-of-stake was a massive technological advancement that only happened after many years of development, and has gone off without a hitch.

While, at the same time literally decimating all of the GPU based proof-of-work mining in a single day. Not only that, but they were able to MVP release the code without even implementing withdraw! People have trusted the developers with 0.40T dollars worth of value [0]. It is not insignificant.

Next up is some really interesting work being done with zero-knowledge proofs, which will enable the scaling phase of blockchain to happen.

Please try to get past the HN trope of 'crypto has zero purpose other than number goes up or down and bitcoin mining is destroying the planet' and look at what is actually happening in the industry.

[0] https://ultrasound.money/

> People have trusted the developers with 0.40T dollars worth of value

And that's the thing that causes the most cognitive dissonance. If you're going to trust someone, why not trust entities that have had hundreds of years to work out the kinks?

> that's the thing that causes the most cognitive dissonance.

The road is literally being paved and is being done so iteratively. I'm ok with that as that is a standard way to develop things over time.

> why not trust entities that have had hundreds of years to work out the kinks?

Simple. Because they are not acting in your best interest. We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves. We should put it into 401k's and forget about it until we retire. We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

> We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves. We should put it into 401k's and forget about it until we retire. We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us.

For 95% of the population (including me) crypto is the same trust system. I can't audit a smart contract and the underlying virtual machine it runs on. I would have no clue whether my transactions can be front-ended by bots that take all of the gains I expected, and then some.

I do have a general idea what happens when I use a credit card to make a purchase, and what to expect. I also have a general idea that if I put money into an investment account what fees will be deducted, and what stocks and bonds are being bought and sold.

And if I make the horrible mistake of sending money or NFTs to the wrong account, I know it can at least theoretically be reversed in non-crypto systems (and that often the reversal costs will be eaten by the bank, not paid by me). Whereas with crypto I have no expectation that the validators care about me to do a MakerDAO reversal on my behalf.

Your comment sounds like this:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-had-to-be-c...

You obviously have some understanding of the system if you can speak about bots and front running. Fact is that front running exists in all markets, not just crypto.

As for reversible transactions, that's something done with smart contracts and escrow services. We are not there yet in terms of development, but it will happen eventually. Today, people actually appreciate the immutability of transactions. It enables the effective store of infinite wealth as a basis.

Credit card companies are providing the reversal business, which is paid for by the people who are borrowing money at insane interest rates... no reason why it can't be replicated once there is enough demand for it, but honestly, I'd rather move to reverse the model.... over collateralized loans. This is what is done in countries without the whole bogus credit rating systems.

We did not have an alternative to electricity for all of the things electricity could power. For some of the things alternatives to electricity continue to be used (e.g. oil, gas, or wood heated homes; windows for light; combustion engines and fuel cells for automotive power).

> You obviously have some understanding of the system if you can speak about bots and front running.

What I've read on crypto skeptic blogs. So basically my understanding is equivalent to the understanding that anyone gets from reading news articles written by content-expert journalists. From what I understand the front-running in crypto can have pretty egregious effects, and can occur with simple monetary transactions, not just the crypto equivalent of stock market transactions. (Yeah, sure, front running can occur in currency exchanges in non-crypto, too, but as an individual, when you go to a currency exchange, or make a purchase overseas, you know the exchange rate before you trigger the exchange.)

> Today, people actually appreciate the immutability of transactions.

I don't. And I don't see how this follows: "It enables the effective store of infinite wealth as a basis." Infinite wealth cannot exist. And how does immutability facilitate this? And how is a blockchain that can technically be rewritten at non-infinite cost immutable (i.e. the MakerDAO rewrite, or any Sybil/51% attack)?

> Credit card companies are providing the reversal business, which is paid for by the people who are borrowing money at insane interest rates... no reason why it can't be replicated once there is enough demand for it, but honestly, I'd rather move to reverse the model.... over collateralized loans.

From what I understand, the interest rates go to the issuing banks, and the credit card companies take their profit from fees. Credit cards (and payday loans) exist for people who lack the collateral for a non-signature loan (without having to collateralize their freedom, aka debtor's prisons or endenturing). The only way to do this in crypto is to trust a third party lender such as Voyager or Celsius.

Front running a transaction is essentially a sandwich attack. It primarily happens in illiquid markets where someone sees a transaction in the mempool, does a large flash loan borrow to affect prices, then your transaction executes at a poor price point, and the loan is paid off. All in a single block. 1) Typical transactions are not front run. 2) There are ways of preventing front-running. This is not really an issue for the majority of users or a design flaw.

> you know the exchange rate before you trigger the exchange

You know this in crypto too. The issue is that the market depth might not be large enough to support your transaction. That will change over time, or you just stick with the basics... BTC/ETH/Stables and ignore the rest of the stuff.

> how does immutability facilitate this?

If you know that it is impossible to double spend, you can trust the math.

> And how is a blockchain that can technically be rewritten at non-infinite cost immutable

This is well covered in Andreas Antonopoulos videos on YT.

> Credit cards (and payday loans) exist for people who lack the collateral for a non-signature loan.

In Vietnam, there is no credit reporting agency. You don't get a credit card from a bank, but you can get a MasterCard/Visa "credit card". The thing is, they are effectively debit cards because you have to time deposit collateral in order to use them. People still get to shop online, but they are limited. This is honestly a far better system because it encourages people to spend what they have, not what they don't have. I also prefer to cut out the middleman who's generating all those fees for both the merchants and the end users.

> The only way to do this in crypto is to trust a third party lender such as Voyager or Celsius.

Bad examples given that Celsius was a ponzi. There are decentralized lending protocols. AAVE is a good example.

> We've been sold on the idea that money is scary and we shouldn't touch it ourselves.

We have? I guess I was passed over when that sales job happened.

> > We should 'trust' people who know these complicated finance things better than us.

That's not how I look at it. How I see it is that when I'm operating in the established monetary system, I have some amount of protection and recourse available to me if/when things go wrong. With cryptocurrency, I have none.

To me, that's a really significant difference, and is in the top 3 reasons why I avoid cryptocurrency.

It has nothing to do with "trusting" financial institutions, or feeling like money is too complicated to understand.

> I have some amount of protection and recourse available to me if/when things go wrong.

We just literally witnessed several banks fail in the last few weeks, along with a litany of startups freaking out about how they were going to pay their staff. The government had to step in to prevent things from going totally ape shit and we are still on the edge of things getting worse by the day. All because people had some sort of belief like you do.

> With cryptocurrency, I have none.

This is simply not true.

> We just literally witnessed several banks fail in the last few weeks, along with a litany of startups freaking out about how they were going to pay their staff

We did, and those startups got into the state they were in because they chose to avoid getting insurance on their deposits that exceeded the FDIC limits. That's not the fault of of the financial system. And the financial system protected them well over and above what it had committed to do.

> All because people had some sort of belief like you do.

Not at all. If I had a large deposit like them, I would have actually used the services that would have protected my deposits.

> This is simply not true.

It isn't? What protection is there?

> That's not the fault of of the financial system.

Hilarious. On one hand, you're saying that cyrpto is this big mess full of bad actors and on the other hand, placing no blame on a financial system that can just blow up in a week because of poor design and oversight.

Just like it isn't the fault of cryptocurrencies that there are bad actors. It is just intrinsic that there will be issues in any functioning system.

> What protection is there?

You said none, but I can provide you with at least 3 different decentralized insurance protocols with proven track records. Here is one: https://nexusmutual.io/

More will come over time and demand. DeFi is still quite new.

> On one hand, you're saying that cyrpto is this big mess full of bad actors and on the other hand, placing no blame on a financial system that can just blow up in a week because of poor design and oversight.

You've taken my stance on both counts to an extreme that mischaracterizes them. I never said cryptocurrency was a "big mess", and I never said that the established financial system is some paragon of virtue and perfection.

What I said is that the financial system did what it promised to do for those people who were affected by the bank failures.

> You said none, but I can provide you with at least 3 different decentralized insurance protocols with proven track records.

And yet, until now, you didn't actually mention any of them. I can't read your mind.

The one you link to doesn't seem to cover the most important protection (to me), though. I could be wrong -- the website isn't exactly clear. Does it offer the same coverage as I can get through chargebacks on a credit card? Does it cover me if I accidentally send money to the wrong destination?

> What I said is that the financial system did what it promised to do for those people who were affected by the bank failures.

Wait, there is a law that says that when a bank fails, the government has to step in and bail them out? Wrong. Otherwise, all banks would get bailed out.

> Does it offer the same coverage as I can get through chargebacks on a credit card? Does it cover me if I accidentally send money to the wrong destination?

No. You're asking for a credit card product. I don't believe that crypto has to be a credit card to be effective and useful. A good analogy is Zelle, which allows you to transfer money, but they don't bail you out. I'll tell you... even with bank wires, you send money... it is gone. Our finance department got phished last year. They didn't get the money back.

I'm curious when the last time you accidentally sent money to the wrong destination though. Is that really a common use case?

> I'm curious when the last time you accidentally sent money to the wrong destination though. Is that really a common use case?

With crypto it doesn't matter whether it's you sending the money to the wrong address, someone who has hacked your account sending the money to the wrong address (and if you have insurance to protect against this, you'll have to prove it wasn't you), or a smart contract that someone slipped you without your knowledge sending money to the wrong address. You're out the money regardless. The last case isn't possible in non-crypto, and in the middle case you're protected by depositor's insurance in the US.

And yeah, I'm not using Zelle or a wire transfer unless I know who it is and what it's for beforehand.

It is almost like people think that crypto's whole purpose was to solve their inability to protect themselves from theft and that it has somehow failed in this regard and should be cast off as a worthless toy as a result.

For this reason, the choice is to only use credit cards where merchants have to pay exorbitant fees and end users have to pay massive APYs for borrowing.

If only someone could at least try to come up with a better system.

> If only someone could at least try to come up with a better system.

Payday loans and cash purchases? We have a variety of "systems", each with pros and cons. And hopefully that kind of diversity will continue into the future. For daily consumer purchases most crypto systems seem to have more cons than pros. For investment purposes I really don't know. And as a store of large chunks of value, maybe crypto will have an important role at some point.

> Source?

No specific source, just how it looks to me based on what I hear pro-cryptocurrency people say (mostly here).

> media focuses on the failures and not on the successes.

By "here", I meant HN, not the larger mediasphere.

> Please try to get past the HN trope of 'crypto has zero purpose other than number goes up or down and bitcoin mining is destroying the planet' and look at what is actually happening in the industry.

This comment is mis-aimed. I'm not on that trope (I see one legitimate use), and I do loosely follow the industry. I don't follow it deeply because it's not a field that is technically interesting to me, but I am interested in the ramifications to society at large.

All I'm saying is that a rather large percentage of people I see advocating cryptocurrency are not making cryptocurrency look good.

This is the second time you've stated 'a large percentage', with no data to back it up. It is hand waving.

It's anecdata, not hand-waving. I was pretty clear that I'm talking about what I personally see, not any sort of research results or news reporting.

> It's anecdata, not hand-waving.

It was anecdata the first time. The second time, it became hand-waving.

> I do loosely follow the industry

You follow it closely and care enough to comment here. 'disturbingly large percentages' and 'rather large percentages'... all say it is the big bad cookie monster... but it is just that... all anecdata.

You're trying to spread a myth, without anything more than anecdata, which is the whole point of this thread. I'd love to see less myth and more research.

> You follow it closely and care enough to comment here

Yes, because I'm concerned about the societal effects of it. What I don't follow closely are the implementation details.

> You're trying to spread a myth

No, I'm simply reporting what I personally observe. I even stated where I've observed it (mostly here on HN). My observations can, of course, be incorrect -- but describing it as "trying to spread a myth" is misleading. I'm not trying to spread a myth at all. I'm explaining why it is that I view the cryptocurrency space as having a lot of sketchy things in it.

> I'm explaining why it is that I view the cryptocurrency space as having a lot of sketchy things in it.

I asked you for a source of the 'why' and you couldn't give me anything concrete. Therefore, my only other recourse is to assume you're spreading a myth. Burden of proof.

I have been very clear that I'm expressing an opinion, not stating a researched fact. You are trying to treat my statements as assertions of fact and are holding me to a burden of proof? Is it no longer possible to express opinions in the absence of conducting a research project? You are also expressing your opinion, but have offered no evidence either.

In any case, since you brought up burden of proof, it's the cryptocurrency world that is presenting the new thing, so it's on them to prove that what they're offering is an adequate substitution for what we currently have. I am the potential customer that has to be assured about it. So, in the larger sense the burden of proof is on the cryptocurrency people.

> Is it no longer possible to express opinions in the absence of conducting a research project?

What I'm reacting to is your inability to quantify your opinions. Specifically, 'disturbingly large percentages' and 'rather large percentages'.

> it's the cryptocurrency world that is presenting the new thing, so it's on them to prove that what they're offering is an adequate substitution for what we currently have.

"for what we currently have". See, that's the thing, we had newspapers and tv before we had the internet. The internet came along and gave us an entirely new medium. It took a while for people to get used to that. You're in that phase now.

While millions of other people are off experimenting with these new things (and effectively using as part of their daily lives). Nobody forced anyone to use the internet. People gravitated to it because they found value in it.

Just because you have come to the opinion that it has 'large percentages' of grift, doesn't make that opinion true.

It's not because of aversion to cryptocurrency per se, it's because the crypto space is absolutely full of blatant shills and they are extremely annoying people. A comment like 'I think cryptocurrencies help to mitigate this, but the flip side is that it can lead to money laundering' is insightful. Personal testimonials are basically just ads.

I agree. The industry needs to do a better job of weeding out the shills.

That said, every advertisement I get for a bank or financial institution, doesn't seem much different. Instead of individuals, it is big organizations trying to shill us into letting them manage our money for us.

True, but I would flag or dismiss Wells Fargo if they started shilling in the comments here too.

I'm right there with you, even for crypto.

I forgot to mention that also of the above applies at unlimited amounts

Instead of arbitrarily low amounts

It solves the friction for the person I replied to, and anyone that wants to avoid that particular kind of friction

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