E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account."
Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you don't need to use any major exchange for that, that defeats the whole point.
And yes, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians are known to use crypto, for example. And the majority of them don't have US bank accounts.
One of the core features of crypto that it's not an American (or anyone else) thing, like paypal, stripe, or any other system and American laws can be easily ignored if both parties are outside of the US. That's already a very liberating feature for at least a billion of people of nations hostile to the US and potentially to 8+ billions of people more.
I don't think any first world country makes it possible to do banking, if you decide to simply not comply with AML/KYC regulations. You very much become unbanked, if you simply don't want to or can't comply with those things. (European here)
First of all, who says that it has to be a global standard?
It's not an 'all-or-nothing' thing.
Those are instruments which already help many people (those you define as questionable for some reason). I'm actually pretty happy to see that the world has a tool to help millions of people with "questionable" religious, cultural, political, ideological views or sexual orientations. That reduces the pressure and advantage of people who want to make their lives harder.
If you don't need it, don't use it. That's totally cool. It doesn't have to be global. To be honest, I don't think anything needs to be global. That gives too much leverage to a single group at the expense of everyone else. The world is better off having many options for everyone.
Questionable individual here. My bank accounts are all blocked now just for the reason of my nationality, nothing else. Crypto is currently my lifeline.
How do you find work, or business perhaps, that pays you in crypto to begin with? I've been paid in crypto on multiple occasions but it can be tricky to find a party that's willing, so I'm curious.
I learned to write some useful code for crypto trading firms (portfolio management, automated market making, risk screening), so that part is covered. Looking for customers is still tricky though. Even crypto firms are now increasingly about compliance and sometimes refuse to work except by hiring me, and then reject my application because of my passport (why we even invented crypto then...)
In any world where the standard is convergent, not explicitly agreed upon, and there's no natural boundary between shady users and non-shady users. An x% shadiness user joining the network grants justification to the next x-0.001% shadiness user.
In the world where the non-questionable financial organizations decide who can access them or not, based on the place they were born at. I.e., the current world.
> And yes, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians are known to use crypto, for example
Yes and mostly (as in 99% by amount of crypto moved) it's their governments
For example Russia it is not legal to pay with crypto, and to cash it out allowed crypto exchanges must submit your transactions to the government etc otherwise they get blocked.
But the bandit state is free of course to use it to trade with its friends like NK (which basically runs its nuclear program on ransomwared crypto) or Hamas;)
> For example Russia it is not legal to pay with crypto, and to cash it out allowed crypto exchanges must submit your transactions to the government etc otherwise they get blocked.
Sorry, but it's very naive to think that Russian people use only "allowed" crypto exchanges and comply with the laws. That would be an impossible country to live in.
Direct connections with people and being street-smart are important kinds of skills in such societies. And even without connections, you can easily go to some popular Russian exchange aggregators and find no-KYC options with cash delivery, as far as I know.
EDIT: I've actually just checked for you: starting from 10,000 USDT, you can cash out anonymously with cash delivery for 1% in Moscow right at this moment from a publicly accessible resource with reviews.
He "just checked for me" online and he thinks I'm the one naive
I'm from Russia. People who get paid tether travel out to cash in anonymously. I know because I know them. Believe me you don't want to gamble on this
> That would be an impossible country to live in.
Really? I have no words. Not being able to use crypto and it's now an impossible country to live in? How about this, people just use cash. 99.9999% of people cashing in loads of tether are criminals or connected to the government or both. Who do you think is so rich they just casually throw around tens thousands tether? On average a good salary is like 1k at best
Yes, I say government (or let's just say criminals) is at least 99.9% of all crypto moved. The war machine needs feeding. Sanctions. Think about it will other countries use worthless ruble that is pretty much not convertible? Will russia use winnie pooh money (also not convertible)? People who move tether because maybe they found some real work abroad or because they are helping a family or something is rounding error
Well, hello from a rounding error. I am Russian, I live in another country, and my bank accounts are closed because of "sanctions" even though I support Ukraine and will be immediately sent to prison were I to return to Russia. So I am sorry, don't touch my crypto.
People like you champion crypto to work around pain and by this they prop up the same government that caused them this pain, good job
> will be immediately sent to prison were I to return to Russia
If this is true you can apply to asylum but for most people who fear this it is not true. Uunless you are literally famous, a rich guy or journalist or inconvenient criminal you are fine. Putler is not a total idiot and keeps an image of normal. My friends support Ukraine and one just recently came abroad again third time since the war started just fine. (To cash in crypto anonymous)
I cannot apply for asylum as I left Russia many years before the war, so I technically wasn't "prosecuted". And there are many cases where people who are not famous journalists were jailed for a single comment like "Russia bombed Mariupol", do you need proofs of these cases, or you can find those yourself?
No I can't, please post proof. I know journalists who rot in jail and I have a pro Ukraine friend who shares stories about different беспредел but not about random regular people jailed for things online. And that friend travels from Russia with no issues
> cannot apply for asylum as I left Russia many years before the war, so I technically wasn't "prosecuted"
you CAN apply for asylum if there is evidence that you will be prosecuted if you return. Really bro. I think even gay/trans people for example used this. But for being pro Ukraine anti war I don't think there's evidence you would be prosecuted unless you are famous or something
International businesses which is also small minority and if they do stuff legally anyway I don't see why they would use crypto and if they do stuff illegally I don't see why they would trust randos in Moscow to give them cash and possibly get burned...
recently i made a cash withdrawal from my personal account ahead of a trip abroad (they asked me why) and within days received a FinCEN notice in the mail warning me about “ structured transactions”… having made no other cash transactions days or even check cashing or writing days before or days after.
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At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs.
I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.
EDIT: went looking for data and it's estimated that ~63% [1] of power used in bitcoin proof-of-work operations. I honestly thought this figure would be higher, but with the insane campaign the American government is doing to invest and expand on drill operations this could go up in the short term. Long term though it's unlikely that this will keep up and we should see renewable sources gaining space more and more, just because it's the smart thing to do.
Outdated view since 99.9% of transactions happen on proof of stake systems which have a very low carbon footprint - not much more than Visa or Mastercard.
Okay; so what? Go mine one of the POW coins and buy what you actually want on an unregulated exchange. You're still burning fossil fuels to get it.
My general point is that you can exchange money for energy and energy for crypto, and nobody can really stop you if you're doing it at a small enough scale. Siphon the fuel from your car and run a generator, pretend you're charging your EV, whatever.
E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account."
Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you don't need to use any major exchange for that, that defeats the whole point.
And yes, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians are known to use crypto, for example. And the majority of them don't have US bank accounts.
One of the core features of crypto that it's not an American (or anyone else) thing, like paypal, stripe, or any other system and American laws can be easily ignored if both parties are outside of the US. That's already a very liberating feature for at least a billion of people of nations hostile to the US and potentially to 8+ billions of people more.