People have longed said that crypto has no use cases. They're clearly wrong. There is only one true use case for crypto: Making it easier to skirt the law.
This includes: selling/trading unregistered securities, scams, rug pulls, money laundering.
This includes: selling/trading unregistered securities, scams, rug pulls, money laundering.
And gambling. That's a $580bn market on its own [1]. Add to that the $2 to 5tn of money laundering that occurs globally [2][3], assume a 15% take rate, and on the upper bound you have another $580bn market. Curiously, adding those together one gets 91% of the current "market cap" of Bitcoin [4].
Really, all Bitcoin has to do is displace every casino and every cartel and it would be worth over 90% of its current price.
[1] https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/gambling-g...
[2] https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp0210...
[3] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...
Also, nothing is "curious" about you adding rough estimates together and getting a random percentage of something else.
No that's exactly the point. The point is what is a legitimate use case for crypto, this use case is getting around pointless bureaucracy. You don't get around regulations, the responsibility of adhering to them just shifts from a third party to you, hence the person you're replying to paid taxes.
Are you implying avoiding operating fees is not a valid use case? Operating fees help facilitate adherence to regulation at scale but they themselves are not the regulation.
- making donation to ukraine if you're russian
- not have your asset frozen if you protest and the canada government disagree
- protecting yourself against false accusation
- protecting again a country that would turn communist in an election (closer than you think in some european ones)
- getting an additional veil of anonymity if you have to do something illegal in your state such as abortion or defending gay rights.
so yeah this is 'against the law' but sometime the law is not on the good side.
Crypto, much less crypto from Russians, hasn't been a meaningful contribution vector for Ukraine. Even when we look at the crypto donated, most (EDIT: half) of it was dollar denominated [1].
[1] https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/07/27/ukrai...
Have you at least read your source? 120 of 225M were BTC + ETH.
> Crypto, much less crypto from Russians, hasn't been a meaningful contribution vector for Ukraine.
Crypto is there barely since the Second Maydan, of course Ukrainians managed to survive without cryptocurrencies.
If you look closely on your arguments, you will find just a rejection without any arguments. Didn't you observe the recent news about Xenia Havana who donated $50 from her American bank account being in Russia and therefore went into jail?
Sorry, meant to say half. Corrected. Thank you.
> Xenia Havana who donated $50 from her American bank account being in Russia and therefore went into jail?
$50 is not meaningful.
for her it is, in many ways
Sure. I never said crypto is useless. But something being randomly meaningful to one person doesn't make it "a meaningful contribution vector for Ukraine."
A human went to jail because of using obsoleted money transaction technologies and you are really judging the fact by the amount of her donation - just to protect your misjudgement about cryptocurrencies? Are you even Ukrainian?
> Sorry, meant to say half. Corrected. Thank you.
Even if it would be 99%, so what? Why are using this as an argument?
I said the dollar amount isn't meaningful. Because the original claim was that "crypto, much less crypto from Russians, hasn't been a meaningful contribution vector for Ukraine."
> Even if it would be 99%, so what?
It means crypto is being used to send U.S. dollars. It's a derivative financial system, and one completely subject to U.S. law, surveillance and sanctions.
The Ukraine example is not a case study for crypto delivering value add at scale.
Your saying isn't reasonable because you are talking about tangential things to cryptocurrency. Ability to donate from/to some dissidents despite of crazy thugs is meaningful. Amount of donated funds by Ukrainian anti-Russian adventure is not.
> It means crypto is being used to send U.S. dollars. The Ukraine example is not a case study for crypto delivering value add at scale.
It is as reasonable as to say that USD is being used to send Bitcoins. Why not, aren't you able to buy Bitcoins with USD?
Sure. Still isn't "a meaningful contribution vector for Ukraine."
> as reasonable as to say that USD is being used to send Bitcoins. Why not, aren't you able to buy Bitcoins with USD?
No, it absolutely isn't. The U.S. Treasury isn't holding a pot of Bitcoins to back its value. A stablecoin holds dollars or dollar-denominated assets. This is particularly germane given the context of money laundering.
I don't say an opposite. An entire counter-claim about "donations to Ukraine was only 217M" is not an argument against Bitcoin, despite your efforts to present it so.
> The U.S. Treasury isn't holding a pot of Bitcoins to back its value.
LOL the crypto is one of established commodities perfectly fitting for inter-government trade.
> A stablecoin holds dollars or dollar-denominated assets. This is particularly germane given the context of money laundering.
I don't understand why it is important. A couple of thugs believes they can call "money laudering" anything they don't like, and what? Their presence is clearly diminishes because they have no ways to control cryptocurrencies.
Sure. But within the context of a money-laundering article, it's important to note that dollar-denominated crypto exists at the whim of the U.S. government. It is globally subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and uniquely vulnerable to U.S. surveillance and sanctions.
Also there are many other countries than europe and russia
Unlike your other examples, that one is an example of using crypto for nefarious reasons.
https://www.tiktok.com/@alphaaaroxy_teammoto/video/716155578...
The Diagolon that the House of Commons said was a "violent extremist organisation." but has never committed a crime ?
The same Diagolon that the RCMP determined: "DIAGOLON does not pose a criminal or national security threat." - Royal Canadian Mounted Police https://finance.yahoo.com/news/documents-reveal-shocking-rcm...
Diagolon is a meme and you don't get it, which is ok but stop spreading misinformation.
This doesn’t change the point that from the perspective of the Canadian government, they were facing 2 racist separatist groups at a time, and one of the groups was raising a LOT of cash while leading an occupation of the capital.
This is a valid scenario for seizing funds, though maybe the fact that groups like Diagalon and Wexit are a “meme” should be considered more closely.
Sure Wexit is a separatist group but I fail to see where you are getting racist from.
One of the originators of Diagolon is black.
If someone who is involved with multiple "Canada for Canadians" movements joins forces with a known racist, I would take the odds and bet good money that person is a racist.
The law pretends decidiing everything about right or wrong, but there are plenty of legitimate cases where the law is on the wrong side.
Same with the second amendmend: the only one true use case for firearms is
> Making it easier to skirt the law
...if (not if, when) the Government goes nuts.
Actually most of the governments are exactly on that ground abusing the fact that only few countries allows the citizens to own firearms.
The large number of guns in Germany wasn't doing anything against the Nazis. The idea of violently overcoming an organised tyrannical and violent government that has millions of people supporting it is largely a US myth. Maybe the Russian revolution qualifies - but that kind of swapped things only.
It's designed to increase the cost of an unpopular takeover, not let Joe who thinks he can shoot 100 yards with a glock take on the U.S. army. The Nazis were popular when they came to power. Contrast that with e.g. Hong Kong.