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Comment by drcross | Hacker News Reader

The majority of people in the world can't get a credit card.

This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.

There are plenty of mobile-only banking solutions that are widely used in non-western worlds, and that's likely a model for emerging economies. When electronic banking comes, OP is saying that standard banking ("perfected over millenia TM") is honestly quite preferable over algorithmic contracts.

> This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either

I'm not a big DeFi booster, but I don't think that's true. All it takes is a mobile phone. There's some pretty compelling videos coming out of El Salvador showing just how easy it is to instantly transact Bitcoin between two people simply by scanning a QR code on the other person's phone and then sending a Lightning Network transaction. This is already reality on the ground, and seemingly more accessible than getting access to credit.

You'd have to ignore the rest of the comment to honestly think this is a reply to the point OP was making and I was clarifying.

How is that different from M-Pesa or Venmo? The difference is that no one has shown up yet in that particular location to set those up, but someone did come set up Bitcoin infra in El Salvador.

Still, the ease of spending crypto in El Salvador, great as it is, does not prove it's safe and that everyone won't get hacked and robbed.

> Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.

Many of them can. Smartphones have much higher adoption than credit cards in these areas.

> There are plenty of mobile-only banking solutions that are widely used in non-western worlds, and that's likely a model for emerging economies. When electronic banking comes, OP is saying that standard banking ("perfected over millenia TM") is honestly quite preferable over algorithmic contracts.

> This argument does not help. Those same folks cannot carry around a crypto-buck either.

I'm commenting on this as well as sibling and descendant comments: There are First World countries (several in Europe) in which credit cards are both uncommon and pretty much inaccessible to the majority of the population while at the same time crypto services apps and wallets are ubiquitous. The reason why credit cards are not is because governments want to discourage excessive personal debt.

Let's hear about the several European countries where crypto of much more popular than credit cards.

FWIW, traditional banking and credit processes existed over a millennia ago. The Book of Ezekiel which writes a lot about the "sin" of interest was written around 593 BC. Exodus which classically is attributed to Moses was probably actually written down around that time as well also talks about charging interest. Clearly people over 2500 years ago had concepts of loans, interest, and debt.

Note: I am not a religious extremist, I have a traditional mortgage and an auto loan.

https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/18-13.htm

https://biblehub.com/exodus/22-25.htm

Exactly. This system has been polished to some definition of fairness over a long period of time. "millenia".

Ah oops for some reason in my mind I read that as singular millennium. My bad!

I thought it was very informative anyway, so thanks!

This is true, but with that said 54 countries have instant payments [1] [2]. This number will only grow, as you’re just pushing messages around queues. Once Congress lit a fire under the Fed, it’s only taking ~4-5 years to roll out instant payments in the US. This is very fast for such endeavors.

Your average financial consumer in most countries is going to trust their bank and government to protect their fiat vs cryptopunks, blockchains, “smart contracts”, and “stablecoins”. To compete with fiat, you need to sell trust and recourse, not speed, and that’s something crypto inherently doesn’t support.

(No need to point out Venezuela and the like about where crypto might have a chance, ground truth shows those folks overwhelming used Zelle and clandestine US deposit accounts to circumvent government monetary controls [3] [4])

[1] https://www.moderntreasury.com/journal/real-time-payments-ar...

[2]https://empower1.fisglobal.com/rs/650-KGE-239/images/Report_... (pdf, start at page 30)

[3] https://www.coindesk.com/venezuela-is-a-testing-ground-for-d...

[4] https://mobile.twitter.com/jp_koning/status/1254009112263868...

The crypto movement in South America is growing explicitly because people are increasingly not trusting their banks and government to protect their fiat. I've never heard of Zelle and not everyone has access to a clandestine US account, while anyone can buy open a crypto wallet and get some DAI.

Could you provide evidence or a citation of crypto uptake in South America?

Here's a survey[0] that says the following: > In addition to users in Africa and Southeast Asia, one more world region where many cryptocurrency users are located is Latin America. Peru leads adoption with 16 percent of respondents, while Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile all reached double digits.

If you follow local news, you see reports every day saying how growth is constant and spiking, this[1] Chilean headline reads "people who deal Bitcoin grow over 100% in a year" just to give a quick example. I suggest googling news for "<country> criptomonedas" and you'll see most of them will have news of the sort from the past year at the most reflecting on just how many people are getting into it. Google trends for "crypto" for every country in South America have also spiked recently.

I also have anecdata, which is worthless of course but it's there. Nearly everyone I've spoken with who saves here either already has some crypto or is learning about it in order to get started.

[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio... [1] https://www.df.cl/noticias/mercados/bolsa-monedas/se-dispara...

Those same people are way less equipped to use crypto. I have been to shops in rural areas in third world countries which have credit card machines running over telephone lines. Broadband internet and fancy tech is still a decade+ away for a lot of parts of the world.

but they can get and use {meme}coin?

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