Comment by akarma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akarma | Hacker News Reader

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> coming from a third world country, the promise of a decentralized, permissionless market seems extremely promising

> A very basic usage: using Curve.fi to swap between tokenized USD (USDC) and tokenized EURO (EURS) with minimal slippage and fees, all permissionless, all freely accessible.

As a sibling comment noted, this is hypothetical usage, and a future 'promise,' not actual usable by or providing value to the average person.

I went to curve.fi, and from a first glance, anyone not first-world, techie, and extremely familiar with crypto would be completely bewildered by this.

"Select a wallet to connect to this dapp" — what is a wallet and what is a dapp?

"Swap using all Curve pools" — what's a Curve pool?

"Trade routed through alusd" — what does this even mean?

"Base APY" — what? I thought I was exchanging currency, not opening a bank account?

"veCRV holder/LP ratio (based on fees): 28.74" — This is where even first-world, college-educated people close the website in confusion.

Bad UX in early technology is kind of expected, isn't it?

I'm sure lots of first-world, college-educated people were equally bewildered by email in 1995.

Agreed and it's expected, but the question posed was whether there's actual current instances of crypto helping people in the third-world, or whether it's just a bunch of hypothetical future promises of value.

Speaking as someone from the third world, absolutely.

I just implore anyone here to approach this with an open mind. There's lots of fraud, but that's also leading people to come up with newer, more exciting solutions. Like on-chain insurance (https://nexusmutual.io/) or tranches to compartmentalize risk (https://saffron.finance/) or creating entirely synthetic assets on-chain (https://synthetix.io/)

It's a weird space where finance and tech and design and culture are coming together, and frankly, it's the most fun I've had in tech in years.

Even though I feel that current valuations are grossly overheated, the stuff coming out on a daily basis is just a ton of fun.

What’s the advantage here over mpesa?

> Like on-chain insurance

Doesn't need blockchain

> tranches to compartmentalize risk

Doesn't need blockchain

> creating entirely synthetic assets on-chain

What does it even mean? Also: doesn't require blockchain.

Blockchain is what makes it freely accessible to anyone from anywhere without requiring a sign up or kyc or local presence.

For instance, I can’t sign up for a US trading account without a certain amount of capital, going through a specialized broker, and clearing certain KYC rules.

I can do all of that without ever needing to go through a single centralized authority. I can buy a tokenized version of TSLA stock without going through a broker and having complete and 100% control over my capital at all times.

Unless you consider financial inclusivity and free and open financial markets a bad thing, of course.

All the criticism is so first world centric and elitist

> Blockchain is what makes it freely accessible to anyone from anywhere without requiring a sign up

Except... You need to signup because there's literally no way to obtain anything on blockchain if you're not a miner.

Well, you could probably sell something for bitcoin, but then oops, you need to sign up somewhere to convert it into actual real money.

> I can’t sign up for a US trading account without a certain amount of capital, going through a specialized broker, and clearing certain KYC rules.

And there are reasons for that. And yes, similar crypto set ups quickly rediscover what those reasons are.

> I can do all of that without ever needing to go through a single centralized authority.

Until you pay for something and that something never arrives. Then you would be very glad to have a central authority.

> All the criticism is so first world centric and elitist

Ah yes. The tired old "but the poor people in poor countries" cries the person whose first example was "I can’t sign up for a US trading account without a certain amount of capital".

Because, as we all know, people not from the first world are flocking to open up US trading accounts and buy TSLA stocks.

> Well, you could probably sell something for bitcoin, but then oops, you need to sign up somewhere to convert it into actual real money.

Not quite, you can cash out BTC without going through any KYC. You can use non-kyc exchanges like hodlhodl, ATMs which just give you cash, or in person p2p trading.

> Until you pay for something and that something never arrives. Then you would be very glad to have a central authority.

Lol, you clearly do not live in a country with double digit inflation, government mandated bank limits, oppression. Cryptocurrency is literally saving lives in some parts of the world

> Ah yes. The tired old "but the poor people in poor countries" cries the person whose first example was "I can’t sign up for a US trading account without a certain amount of capital".

And you clearly need to workout that empathy muscle

> ou can cash out BTC without going through any KYC. You can use non-kyc exchanges like hodlhodl, ATMs which just give you cash, or in person p2p trading.

So, all options significantly more involved or less accessible to people than regular cash.

> Lol, you clearly do not live in a country with double digit inflation, government mandated bank limits, oppression

I have. Moldova after the fall of the Soviet Union. Then in Turkey which historically had ~100% inflation for most of its history and then a crash in early 2000s.

I lived through it all.

"You need to set up a wallet for a digital token, somehow buy it for real money, then somehow convert it into real currency" is not an option for the absolute vast majority of people even in the countries with high levels of inflation, bank limits etc.

If anything, cryptocurrencies are a very, very first-world thing.

And, of course, there's also this, much more eloquently put: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259374

> Cryptocurrency is literally saving lives in some parts of the world

For a very small number of people.

> And you clearly need to workout that empathy muscle

I prefer reality to empathy when it comes to cryptocurrency.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com