I don’t know what you mean by for the masses, but pretty much everyone I know around my age or lower has at least considered investing in crypto. You can buy dogecoin on Robinhood.
LOLOL at moving the goalposts from the guy who takes my dismantling of a very specific crypto claim, and turns it into “but what about the internet hurr durr?”
You are making your points clearly, yes. They’re just not new. You’ve had this “exchanges aren’t decentralized” conversation before, right? But this new story popped up and you’re like, “I’mma show all the crypto bros on UP how it really is!” Except it’s not like that.
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Ledger hardware wallet + Ledger live isn’t anymore difficult to use than paypal.
As with a bank wire, if you get careless and send to wrong address/account monies is gone.
My real estate agent claims people losing their money doing wire transfers if far from uncommon.
Yeah and my buddy who bought crypto on Coinbase got hacked when someone walked into a T-mobile store and swapped his phone number to their phone. They then used that to reset his Coinbase password, drain his bank account to buy more coins than were in there, and then empty his wallet. He was on the phone with coinbase while it was happening and they were useless.
Yeah duh of course he should have used one of those MFA apps. But the default sign up for coinbase doesn’t force you to do that - WHICH IS MY WHOLE POINT. This shit sucks right now for the masses.
Bofa wouldn’t refund his money either because it was legitimately transferred to coinbase. If his bank had been hacked directly and the money transferred he might have a chance - because that’s what banks and credit card companies do.
So where’s the advantage of crypto here - other than the pyramid scheme part?
That’s unfortunate, your buddy is a rare exception, and they are actively working to fix these types of loopholes.
Well maybe that’s the answer then.
Binance handing over transaction data to Russia is new.
It’s a new event, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with the “crypto is decentralized” idea.
Sure it does wrt to the specific claim that crypto would help people get around tyrannical govts.
If exchanges are the path of least resistance to crypto, people are going to use them. Before this I’d have had at least some hope that Binance, a company not based in Russia, wouldn’t turn over my personal data to Putin for donating to Navalny.
So now we have to qualify the whole thing about getting around tyrannical govt with an asterisk - “must maintain own wallet”, which is a different bar imo.
Then you were under a misconception
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Yes, in order to securely and anonymously use crypto you will need your own wallet. Which … is most definitely not a new idea in this thread. Not at all.
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“Getting around tyrannical govt” captures like 5% of the point of crypto.
Wait til you hear about people needing a way to carry around physical money! I’ve heard people can steal it! Very unsafe! If you are a dumbass hanging out at T-Mobile with money falling out of your pockets people can take it!
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buying bitcoin on Robinhood thinking he’s like the unibomber going off the grid
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Bullshit. I’ve made my points pretty clear. I’m not just being contrarian. I’ve listened and learned plenty throughout this thread.
Yeah that totally disproves my claim that crypto is a pyramid scheme.
Truly secure electronic communication is difficult to do in practice. Would be weird to say that those tools haven’t been valuable and important just because Facebook might turn over user DMs to authoritarian governments.
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I’m not receptive right now because you guys are wrong. Crypto absolutely has been touted as a way for the masses to get around tyrannical governments. It’s one of the few use cases that legitimately seems like it would help make the world a better place.
Also if I’m in Russia and don’t use an exchange, how exactly do I buy crypto to put in my wallet in the first place? I guess hand over cash to a human being and hope they complete the transfer?
Electronic communication has obvious utility. I’m still not convinced crypto has any positive utility other than ransomware, illicit trades, and making first adopters money.
You’re basically using the “hurr durr ban cars” argument that gun nuts make every time someone drives a car into a crowd.