[EugeneG]

That’s obviously true. And once you accept that then the whole premise behind crypto is gone - if centralization is the only way to make it work, then traditional banking is preferred. All that’s left are use cases that are in the gambling and money laundering category.

[rdschouw]

Huh? Crypto is great as a transfer of value network and store of value among other things. You can still use a bankequivalent like Coinbase.

[300bps]

I mine ETH. I have flexpool.io configured to pay me out after I accumulate 0.05 ETH which is about $140 right now.

They pay me out to my MEW wallet and the transfer costs me about $7.

I then have to transfer from my MEW wallet to my Coinbase wallet which costs me about $5 since I choose the MEW turtle speed which takes longer.

I then sell the ETH immediately because I realize how useless this crypto crap is for transactions or store of value. That costs me about $2.50.

So about $15 in fees to get my $140. You call that a great transfer of value network? I’ve mine cryptocurrency since you could use a GPU for BTC. There is no legitimate use for cryptocurrency today and I doubt there ever will be. It is structurally flawed in numerous ways.

[tokai]

Eh so is runescape items.

[josefrichter]

I disagree. I believe there's a lot of areas where crypto can bring much more efficiency and transparency into financial markets, and that's a good thing. I agree the point is not to replace banks, but perhaps evolve them, bring about new types of financial institutions, products and instruments.

[ben_w]

While I expect there are important new types of financial institutions, products and instruments that may be evolved by cryptocurrency experimentation, I would be extremely surprised if normal people could do a coherent analysis of the pros and cons of them, and expect they would not be able to distinguish the good ideas from the scams. I mean, look at how many people think literal lotteries are a good investment, or who are furious about the existence of inflation, or whose mind is blown when they first learn about fractional reserve banking.

I don’t know what you mean about efficiency, as there are multiple different ways to count this. Energy efficiency clearly isn’t a selling point, so can you expand on what you do mean?

[civilized]

What kind of efficiency are you talking about? It's far, far from clear -- at best -- that crypto can be more energy-efficient than traditional banking.

Transparency? Really? For whom? Do you want your taxes on the blockchain for everyone to see?

[zikduruqe]

I am not an expert in crypto at all, but what I would love to see maybe, is some type of stablecoin supported by the USPS. USPS used to be in the banking business and are now looking into it again. Is there an opportunity for the USPS to support USDC, to replace money orders to help serve the underbanked?

I dunno.

https://executivegov.com/2021/10/usps-launches-pilot-banking...

[hcks]

The whole premise behind crypto isn't gone. You can build centralized custody wallets on the blockchain and you still get programmable money, no middle-men for transactions and lower barrier to entry for innovation in financial services (and of course self-managed wallets for powerusers)

[hocuspocus]

> programmable money

Where there's code, there are bugs. I don't want that in my money, thanks.

> no middle-men for transactions

At what cost? Most people don't care about censorship resistance, they want free/cheap/fast payments and transfers.

> lower barrier to entry for innovation in financial services

There's plenty of innovation in finance given the proper legal framework. See the number of fintech startups popping up every year. The only innovation we see in the cryptocurrency space is the recycling of old scams that are impossible in modern finance.

[lottin]

But none of that is true... transactions still require middle-men, and decentralised finance is fundamentally incompatible with financing. So we are left with "programmable money"... whatever that means.