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Comment by iskander | Hacker News Reader

>Someone, please show me an application where blockchain is essential. That is, a problem that could not have been solved without blockchain that can now be solved with it.

I would like to fundraise with an international group that doesn't trust US based corporations with their personal data. Is there an existing way to do that?

Also, more generally and away from things that start in the financial sphere, a decentralized web-scale database seems to have broad conceptual appeal but the only functioning large-scale instances all come bundled with cryptocurrencies. I think this is largely because we don't a way to pay for servers without the financial layer (and figuring out a way to dial down the financialization while keeping decentralization would be good).

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You send the money to their bank account with SWIFT? Not every bank is owned by a US company. Or mail cash - you can even get it insured.

If a US bank won't send money to a foreign bank, it's because the bank is in a sanctioned country (and now you have bigger issues than how to send the money, i.e. legal issues).

To whose bank account? Multi-signature wallets are a really nice feature which are cumbersome to imitate in a real bank account (involving physical signatures).

To the bank account of the organization you’re donating to? Or to whatever bank account the org would put real money in after they sell the crypto they get

I have work done in Venezuela all the time. How can I instantly and for free send them payments if not for Bitcoin Cash or Monero?

BTC and Monero aren’t really instant or free because the recipient has to convert them to real money (and pay fees) before they can use them for most things

> an international group that doesn't trust US based corporations with their personal data

I don't think it is actually possible to exist in the western (and sometimes nonwestern) world without US based corporations having your personal data.

For starters, this fictive "international group" would have to essentially have no internet footprint. Its members would also have to never engage with international groups who themselves have US based corporations as third parties. It's just not realistically doable. Bitcoin has nothing to do with it.

Could you be a little more descriptive with this hypothetical?

How do you communicate from outside the US with someone inside the US without involving any US companies?

No Internet (nevermind facebook/twitter/email/etc) because US companies will certainly control at least some of the nodes in your path and probably the DNS.

why does the entire thing need to be without a company?

User A posts on Twitter that they are crowdfunding an idea or project. Users X which may be one, two, or thousands are willing to support and pay for that. Same could have occurred on FB, WhatsApp, Discord or anything, none of those apps are facilitating the exchange.

> why does the entire thing need to be without a company?

Because OP said:

> an international group that doesn't trust US based corporations with their personal data

That is not realistically possible in today's world, and is an issue way broader than crypto.

The international group of donors does not need to give up any personal data to read a tweet and decide to deposit some of their tokens into a crowdfund contract.

> The international group of donors does not need to give up any personal data to read a tweet

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-for-websites/p...

> What information does Twitter collect through Twitter for Websites and how is that information used? When you view Twitter content or Twitter products integrated into other websites using Twitter for Websites, Twitter may receive information including the web page you visited, your IP address, browser type, operating system, and cookie information. This information helps us to improve our products and services, including personalized suggestions and personalized ads.

So? Most of this is negligible, and can be shielded if the donor cares about this level of privacy - using a VPN, disabling cookies, spoofing your browser client.

The OP is probably talking about personal data such as mass collection of users photo ID, passport, email address, home address, full legal name and gender, telephone number, date of birth. In a standard non-blockchain crowdfund, these are the sort of things each donor would need to first share with PayPal Holdings Inc. - or a similar company - in order to have their donation fulfilled.

So? Most of this is negligible, and can be shielded if the donor cares about this level of privacy.

Passport fraud is slightly more illegal than turning off your browser cookies.

Don't shift the goalposts. The conversation is not about legality or illegality of certain actions, but about how this fictional "international organization" does not want any US company to have their personal data.

The point is that in such an unrealistic hypothetical, crypto is a very small concern.

lol @ goalposts. the conversation has gone from “blockchains have no application” to “ok, blockchains have an application, but it probably only concerns a few.”

there are many users who would be happy to have systems of value transfer that don’t require routing all value and personal data through a central US company.

> I would like to fundraise with an international group that doesn't trust US based corporations with their personal data. Is there an existing way to do that?

Sure, there is a large semi-informal Hundi network to “move” money internationally.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundi

That's an awfully contrived example, and that is clearly not what has driven Bitcoin or cryptocurrency adoption to date.

Worth learning more about DAOs. They're sometimes frivolous ("buy the constitution") but often actually interesting (see LabDAO and other funding organizations in the Decentralized Science movement).

Cash?

Me and a few hundred pseudonymous individuals on Twitter will...what? Mail different currencies to a trusted central party?

What could go wrong? /s

Or mail the currencies to the international group directly?

> on Twitter

Don't go changing the goalposts now. You previously said:

> an international group that doesn't trust US based corporations with their personal data

So no Twitter for you.

As in sending cash by mail potentially across borders? Is that really a solution?

Absolutely, you can even get it insured (although there's often a limit in the $1,000s or $10,000s).

Have you ever encountered a project actually fundraising in this way?

> Have you ever encountered a project actually fundraising in this way?

https://www.eff.org/files/2020/05/27/eff_membership_form_202...

I periodically send an envelope of cash to Mullvad. So far I haven’t had any issues.

Mullvad supports Monero now, you can save yourself the trouble.

Most projects don’t have any issue using bank accounts because they work well. As others have stated some projects do.

How does getting it insured guarantee that the money will make it to its destination? That's only to get it back in the instance of theft. Anyone who's ever had family or friends in third-world countries can tell you firsthand that mailing even consumer goods is a bad idea. Mailing cash is plain foolish.

Would you also argue that email is useless because you can just send a letter? I don’t think “crypto is useless because you can just send cash by mail” is a serious argument, sorry.

This is subject to third party government veto (with or without due process) as it crosses borders. Crypto is not.

It's also slow and risky.

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