[jcburnham]

> Given that cryptocurrencies don’t produce anything of material value

I've read this "crypto has no use-case" meme a lot recently, and it's always perplexed me. Crypto is clearly the easiest way to do international payments right now, particularly for countries with restrictive capital controls, like, for example, Argentina (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-13/argentina...).

Sometimes this is qualified as "crypto has no use-case except crime", but what obligation do I, a US person, have to follow or respect corrupt Argentinian regulations?

[zepto]

This is a completely absurd claim.

I make international payments regularly using things like Wise (formerly transferwise), and it’s far simpler than any crypto solution, and accepted by everyone.

And yes, I own some crypto and could use it if anyone was willing to take it.

The only case where it is simpler is there there are capital control, and in that case it is being used illegally.

[jcburnham]

I'm glad you brought up Wise! I love Wise and use it frequently. However, there are some jurisdictions it simply doesn't work for. For example, there is currently no way for a US company to use Wise Business to pay a Brazilian contractor.

This is not because such payments are illegal, but rather because the Brazilian financial system has poor norms and poor rule-of-law: https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/wise-accuses-former-brazil....

[csdvrx]

> And yes, I own some crypto and could use it if anyone was willing to take it.

And if you're sending money to Argentinians, they would beg you for it, as otherwise your recipient would just receive a fraction of the USD you send because of the difference between the official rate the government enforce, and the real rate.

Read about Blue Dollar in Argentina and you'll realize you're very mistaken in your idea that Wise is the solution there.

[stillbourne]

Some of us have an understanding of physics and have asked the question, if cryptocurrencies are a store of "value" what is the value that they are storing? If you break it down to its most basic unit of measurement the very concept of Proof of Work is that the "value" is entropy in for form of spent compute. That is all it is. The concept of "wastes energy" doesn't begin to cover it, the value is literally the sunk cost of the net energy used to "mint" a coin. Let me ask you a question, what is the value of used energy? There is none, entropy flows in one direction energy once spent, has no value. I can't get energy back from the spent compute, that power used is not producing anything useful other than a hash value on a ledger. Many of us are then anti-crypto because we're simply stating, The Emperor is wearing no clothes or The value of entropy is nothing. The entire thing is a purely speculative market on the cost of entropy, but entropy has no value.

[hp4k1h5]

The question of physics is entirely relevant and infrequently discussed. I think your line of questioning leads to some very interesting problem sets that bitcoin in particular was built to address.

bitcoin is by design inefficient, and it could have been efficient by design. the inefficiency model implies the need for large compute resources, which is a form of industrial, technological, and infrastructural prowess and capacity. See smaller and more power-insecure nations banning crypto-mining. Bitcoin only makes sense from an electricity standpoint when you have excess electricity that you would otherwise have no way of using. Hydropower, solar, and virtually all power plants have some excess capacity that they could theoretically convert directly to mining operations, for as long as they had no consumer power demands. The theory behind bitcoins numbers/algos is that the power plant shouldn't have to make a choice between serving customers and running crypto operations, they make the most possible serving customers, and burning excess supply.

Market conditions have temporarily distorted bitcoin mining distribution, but with fewer coins left to mine and a growing understanding of bitcoins algorithmically enforced economics, you will see it banned from everywhere that it does "waste energy", and lots of miners will realize that "stateless" currency depends entirely on industrial surcapacity which is entirely dictated and governed by the state. So a nation's governance structures and ability to adapt to a developing world turn out to be just as critical as the country's ability to supply massive energy demand. The places that are able to do this are typically worth spending money in so it makes sense as a unit of "value".

bitcoin was an attempt to replace gold mining and gold transfers, but it was also an effort to represent something about the miner who mined it. A bitcoin miner had to have lots of cheap energy and the technological capability to run distributed compute efficiently. bitcoin has been narrowing in on global energy surcapacity, and it turns out there isn't any. This will have all kinds of effects on the price of bitcoin, as lots of inefficient players and players in insufficiently developed economies are forced out of the mining pool.

however in places where bitcoin is mined efficiently, one could theoretically use those same bitcoins to purchase either cheap (or even green) electricity, efficient (cool) compute, or whatever else goes along with running massive mining facilities.

[baggy_trough]

Is a hundred dollar bill just a piece of paper?

[oliwarner]

Urgh, I keep seeing this. It's nonsense. Use a bank and SWIFT and £20 later (bank dependant) you've sent as much money as you like.

The receiving account holder may need to declare the payment to their local tax authorities, but that's true of crypto too, it's just not automatic.

[jcburnham]

Of course you can use SWIFT, at the cost of bank fees, opaque exchange rates and waiting a week. You could also take a briefcase full of cash on a plane.

Whereas with crypto, you get transparent fees/rates, transaction confirmation in minutes, at any time of day, with a permanent cryptographic record of payment, and you don't unnecessarily leak information to the recipient's local tax authorities.

[bb88]

It's "money-laundering-for-good" but it's still money laundering.

There is a reasonable question where allowing money laundering for good would offset the use cases for those with more evil intentions.

My opinion is probably not since most people in Argentina are going to launder a fraction of a BTC at a time, but all that would be offset by the harm from criminal syndicates (drugs, human trafficking, even oppressive governments).

This feels like solving an edge case with a massive potential downside. It would be a shame to have provided a technology that freed the people of Argentina, but at the same time, allowed the narcos to enslave them.

[gregjor]

Remittances to Argentinian citizens have nothing to do with capital controls put in place to prevent capital flight and exchange rate arbitrage, which involves money leaving Argentina, the opposite of remittances.

If an American wants to send money to someone in Argentina they have plenty of options that are cheaper and safer than Crypto: Wise, PayPal, Xoom, even Western Union.

If an Argentinian wants to evade capital control laws in their own country crypto may be their best option. Just calling it corrupt, as a foreigner, does not make it legal or ethical.

[csdvrx]

I'm afraid you have absolutely no idea about what you are talking about, especially for the people in Argentina. Read about the Blue Dollar.