Binance continues to behave like a reputable business you should trust with your money:
He “died” in India. And ALL of it was his fault. Nobody could have known what he was doing. And the report took about 2 years to make. Ahhhh the efficiencies of bureaucracy.
Arise, long ago reply!
It was actually a pretty intricate investigation that took months of tracing blockchains within Quadriga accounts to uncover exactly the degree of fraud that Gerry Cotten was perpetrating.
A great postmortem podcast that just came out this summer:
(And FWIW, the guy who did the bulk of the investigating on his own as a private investor says he is indeed about 95% sure that Cotten really is dead.)
This guy knows what’s up.
Tim_N
2036
I agree with some of his points, but I wonder if he’s ever tried to move money internationally every month for remittances or other things. That’s a huge real world use for some of the crypto that specialise in transactions.
I move money internationally all the time. I’ve never needed anything but conventional online banking to do it.
Yeah, I’m wondering what the use case scenario is in which crypto is:
- 100% as secure as conventional banking
- 100% as legal, as far as revenue reporting
- 100% as risk free from a “funds deposited are insured” standpoint as conventional banking
- 100% as trisk free from a currency value fluctuation standpoint as conventional banking
…when it comes to movement of funds internationally through different currencies.
(I’m not saying there isn’t a use-case scenario for this! I’m genuinely curious.)
But the tulips are so pretty!
Tim_N
2040
A use case does not mean crypto has to dominate conventional banking, as in be at least as good as banking in all aspects (as you list with the 100%s) and dominate in other areas.
I don’t know about you guys, but whenever sending money internationally I have to pay a significant fee and it takes a couple of days to be cleared. Crypto offers a way to send that same amount for a fee of like 10c or less virtually instantly. That is clearly a use case, and in at least some situations is vastly preferable to conventional banking. I know someone who remits every months using Stellar.
It has its own set of challenges (most people being remitted to would have zero clue how to efficiently convert Stellar into a local currency), but some cryptocurrencies aren’t just tulips.
Certainly there is a fee involved, but it never takes a couple of days to clear. Even if it did take a couple of days to clear, it probably wouldn’t make the slightest bit of practical difference to me. And sure, I don’t like the fee and wish it were lower, but that fee is paying, at least in part, for things like compliance with anti-money-laundering laws or security and reliability of the transaction or banking reporting requirements.
A US citizen moving US dollars, right? Everything’s pretty easy when you’re using the worlds reserve currency and have access to first world banking. But if you’re earning money in Nigeria and want to send it to family in Sierra Leone, that’s not the same thing.
Maybe he’s right, maybe that’s a tiny fraction of Bitcoin transactions (though I’m not sure that hypothesis is testable). But this conversation has happened before on QT3 before, and it’s frustrating to see how regularly this real use case for crypto gets dismissed on the basis of “that’s never been a problem for me”
It all depends on what you’re comparing to, right? Which currency, which banking system, which deposit insurance system (if any) do you have access to when deciding whether bitcoin might work better?
Timex
2044
I think the problem with the legitimate use of Bitcoin is that the speculative aspect of it is so huge that it makes it very unstable for use as a traditional currency.
In that case, it’s so much competing with the banking system, but with shady money transfer companies, with a better promise that it’s not all pocketed.
Or maybe it’s really a 3 way race, I don’t know. I can see the point, but it’s not enough or fixed enough capital for it to keep existing without the speculation.
Yes, I agree. And I agree with random tweeter guy’s main point that all the cryptocurrencies that exist so far are clever tech demos, not good financial products. But I also think that it’s possible to say that the overall costs of Bitcoin outweigh any benefits, without having to insist as a point of principle that there are no benefits at all.
What percentage of all Crypto transactions involve legal monetary transfers out of or into (or both) countries with poor access to digital banking platforms?
And once said legal monetary transfer is made, what’s the level of friction for the recipient to convert that cryptocurrency into useful local currency?
Yes, of course this is right, but I don’t think I was responding to someone who was earning money in Nigerian Niaras and trying to send them to Sierra Leone. If the use case is being described as first world guys need crypto to legally move money internationally, I think not really is a reasonable answer.
It has to be tiny, and if you measure it by the financial value of all crypto transactions, rather than the number of transactions, it has to be infinitesimal. I’m sure someone can point to one valid ‘good’ transaction facilitated by crypto, but it’s a snowflake in a blizzard of speculation and murky financial transfers and outright illegal commerce.
Timex
2049
I’m not sure I understand how crypto makes anything easier than using normal banking.
It seems like at some point it’s got to intersect with the normal banking sector, so you can turn it into real money and buy stuff… And at that point, why not just use the normal banking sector to transfer the money?
That’s because you live in the first world. An example was given above regarding international remittances. I benefited from this use case myself at the beginning of the pandemic, otherwise I would have a significant portion of my savings stuck in an inaccessible account overseas.
