Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

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You put in a lot of effort for only just one issue that 300M+ have no issue with.

The trade off for privacy is for growth and usage, just like WhatsApp. Eventually both will have privacy features built in down the line so this will be a solved problem, just like now that WA has E2E encryption, I see the same for UPI.

Crypto had 16 years to reach the amount of people that UPI has reached and what does it have to show for it? You talk about privacy whereas the majority of cryptocurrencies are not privacy friendly and even if a tiny minority are, the exchanges have (rightly) banned them and require KYC to trade them, making this 'privacy coin theater' pointless.

Either way, the third world have technologically superior payment systems than the US, at least in a few months when FedNow comes around, which is yet another reason not to use crypto.

> Kiran Jonnalagadda, a technologist...

Of course it's always the 'technologists', I am afraid 1 person is not a good sample size, but to entertain this anecdote:

You have heard of a disposable / prepaid SIM card right?, you can get one down the road and you're ready to go with UPI again.

So what is your proposed solution? All I can see with crypto is a complete Rube-Goldberg contraption of a system that is good at losing people's money. If your solution is another privacy pump and dump shitcoin, that isn't going to fly with the lawmakers and regulators, they will simply not allow this to happen and brand it as an unregistered security.

Call me authoritarian all you want, but we have things called laws, regulations, taxes that crypto is great at evading.

> You put in a lot of effort for only just one issue that 300M+ have no issue with.

This is the same argument people use to defend attempting to ban secure end-to-end encrypted communication technologies--that clearly people don't really care so let's just take that away from them "because terrorism or whatever"--so color me unimpressed. The reality is that people everywhere deserve privacy, and all of your authoritarian reasons for taking that away from them are going to have a very high wall to climb to justify taking away that right.

> You have heard of a disposable / prepaid SIM card right?, you can get one down the road and you're ready to go with UPI again.

I am going to say this in no uncertain terms: zero-knowledge proof crypto payment protocols have a MUCH better user experience (and a MUCH higher success rate!) than requiring every single person--as, remember: I maintain that every person everywhere deserves privacy... this is a right that we should be ensuring for the people of our democratic state, and should be table stakes for innovations in payment technology--to maintain piles of burner phones (which isn't even all that easy to do, btw) while carefully managing the opsec inherent to having multiple pseudonymous identities.

> Call me authoritarian all you want, but we have things called laws, regulations, taxes that crypto is great at evading.

Great: as long as you continue to hold authoritarian viewpoints, I certainly intend to continue calling a spade a spade.

So no solutions then?

> This is the same argument people use to defend attempting to ban secure end-to-end encrypted communication technologies.

Going with the same muh privacy and security spiel isn't going to cut it with regulators. As I said before most 'cryptocurrencies' aren't even private. I would even go as far as to say privacy coins are closer to being a honeypot and actively being traced e.g. Monero Viewkeys.

I too want privacy in certain contexts such as travelling by plane, but we both know privacy is a trade off for convenience. The best you can do is limit your exposure.

Are plane operators authoritarian?

> I am going to say this in no uncertain terms: zero-knowledge proof crypto payment protocols have a MUCH better user experience (and a MUCH higher success rate!)

Citation Needed. 300M+ people using UPI disagree with you.

And you really think crypto is the answer to this? I am afraid you are in a dire need of a reality check as regulators will go through crypto with a fine tooth comb and not allow this.

To think that crypto would be allowed to continue to run rampant on and off the exchange ramps DEX or CEX is delusional.

You can call a spade a space all day, and have your poker analogies (so much for crypto speculation) but in the law, the house (the regulators) always wins.

> regulators will go through crypto with a fine tooth comb

I'm not sure if you're aware, but "crypto" isn't some company that will be regulated. It's math being done on computer networks.

What you're proposing is making math illegal.

This has been tried before with encryption. It's not a winning argument.

If you are this threatened by a distributed ledger, maybe you need to rethink some of your beliefs.

Assuming you have already read the thread, to remind you, when I say 'crypto' I'm talking about cryptocurrencies. Who is arguing to ban cryptography?

Regulation in the crypto industry means that crypto tokens are securities, banning and wiping out crypto exchanges harbouring rampant fraud. Putting in place and protecting consumers from trying to pile their life savings into crypto pyramid schemes. Not treating crypto tokens as a currency which is the biggest issue.

Not banning cryptography.

Please don't intentionally misinterpret my argument to attack a strawman for your own liking.

> Who is arguing to ban cryptography?

> Regulation in the crypto industry means that crypto tokens are securities

So cryptography is fine, unless it's part of a network that you don't like, used to secure a ledger that you don't like.

If you don't like it, then those ledger entries magically become "securities" and all that entails.

Why can't you let people have their worthless internet tokens without the government getting involved?

For anyone who watched "cryptocurrencies" come online, this is beyond stupid.

> So cryptography is fine, unless it's part of a network that you don't like, used to secure a ledger that you don't like.

What is the legitimate use case for this, that is better than current system?

Why does it need to solve billions of useless puzzles, incinerate the planet and waste gargantuan amounts of energy at the same time to secure it?

> Why can't you let people have their worthless internet tokens without the government getting involved?

Because when your uncle, aunt, sister or in-laws comes to you for money when they are in a financial loss after placing their life savings into an ICO, or a crypto token.

It indirectly becomes your problem. If the crypto industry cannot regulate itself to find a legitimate use case beyond rampant speculation, it needs to be regulated as it is out of control.

The FTX crash is just one of many reasons why you cannot lose $8BN of crypto funds without getting the government involved.

There are $12BN lost and counting which is documented below for your recommended reading.

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Ah, so I'm only allowed to do cryptography if I have a "legitimate use case". I've heard that before.

Also, nice list of people who did cryptography wrong. I guess there's more innovation to do.

To be clear, I think there's a legitimate need for crypto regulation to ensure that businesses that claim to be custodians do in fact have all of the crypto. The fiat rails are a sensible place to do this. Incidentally, this clearly illustrates why crypto is property and not a security.

So you're not able to provide a legitimate use case for cryptocurrencies then? Nor you are able to answer any of my questions?

I'm assuming you're deliberately misreading 'cryptography' with 'cryptocurrencies' so I'm going along with the term cryptocurrencies as this is my original line of argument.

Please continue beating up your 'cryptography' strawman.

My argument still holds, crypto tokens are not a store of value nor can be used as real world currencies.

> Also, nice list of people who did cryptography wrong....

And where is your list?

You'll be glad to know that my list is growing, weakening your argument, making a case for banning crypto all the while turning these tokens into unregistered securities when hard regulation comes inevitably knocking.

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