After long soul-searching, crypto has settled on two strong use cases:
1) unregulated gambling (a.k.a. "prediction markets"),
2) funding North Korea.
Heartening to see the beautiful web3 vision come alive.
1) unregulated gambling (a.k.a. "prediction markets"),
2) funding North Korea.
Heartening to see the beautiful web3 vision come alive.
Oh here
> They delve in weapons and human trafficking, sometimes take part in drug smuggling, more and more engage in crypto mining and frauds related to the crypto industry - the whole Islamic State is now operating by crypto, whether it’s various European countries, West or East Africa, Asia, or such weird places like Costa Rica, Brazil or Argentina.
https://saladinaldronni.substack.com/p/recent-islamic-state-...
edit:
but it seems they have mostly moved to Monero
https://gnet-research.org/2025/02/18/combating-islamic-state...
Another time, I tried to book IMAX 70mm movie tickets for my trip to visit, the website IP region blocked me so I got on to VPN, then I could make the booking but the Visa SMS 2FA redirect IP region blocked my VPN IP so I could not complete the checkout. I had to get a friend to make the booking for me on their card. International banking is terrible.
Selling sanctioned oil to India and buying unguided cruise missiles from Iran, through the Gulf state laundromats.
Is crypto "Breaking Bad" for nerds? Sounds about right...
Do you think making the internet and developing cryptography is evil as it means the government cannot control it as easily unlike the postal system or mass media?
Oppressive regimes like North Korea kill people. Crypto is proven to be a major source of funding for them (and sanctions circumvention for Iran and others).
The question is whether these are worth the benefits you perceive in crypto.
That's the nice thing, not everyone agrees about what is right or wrong morals. Free speech is seen as a good idea generally, why should not that extend to the most fundamental element of living in society ie money.