cdiddy2

On multiple occasions too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI

When Vitalik goes to Argentina this is the response. https://twitter.com/OctaBidegain/status/1473508689101348868

Just because you come from a place of great financial privilege and a liberal society does not mean others have no use for a censorship resistant form of money.

Afghanistan: https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanct...

Argentina: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789

Russia: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-dono...

Lebanon: https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-yout...

Nigeria: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut...

Ukraine: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-wi...

https://www.financialinclusion.tech/

The people were not sanctioned only the onchain addresses of Tornado were. Github was not providing any service to the onchain addresses.

Interesting article timing since github just removed the Tornado Cash project as well as all of the developers accounts from the site. I guess github doesn't think open-source code that can be used for evil should be allowed to stay up.

Gold is worse than Bitcoin in every way.

1. Its harder to store gold

2. Its harder to verify the integrity of gold

3. Its harder to transfer gold

Just because you come from a place of great financial privilege and a liberal society does not mean others have no use for a censorship resistant form of money.

Afghanistan: https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanct...

Argentina: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789

Russia: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-dono...

Lebanon: https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-yout...

Nigeria: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut...

Ukraine: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-wi...

https://www.financialinclusion.tech/

Stocks have wiped out 7 trillion in value this year. At its peak the entire crypto market was 2.5 trillion and is now 1 trillion. So stocks lost 3 entire crypto markets worth of value this year, seems hard to say that it has the power to contaminate the system just yet.

Well in the case of Celsius they are putting use funds into things that the user might not know about. Such as stETH which provides yield but can't be withdrawn back to eth until months down the road so if stETH starts trading at a discount like it did recently then you can't actually get all the money out for redemptions. I believe they also put funds into Terra which they lost as well. So basically Celsius advertises a certain yield but is a black box after a user deposits funds and they might put the funds in things a normal user would never agree to if they were aware of it.

Its completely centralized. They take user funds and put them in defi products, but the funds are completely under Celsius control not the users control. Thats how they were able to turn off withdrawals. Its like if JPMorgan were putting client funds in AAVE, that doesn't suddenly make JPMorgan defi.

Most things collapsing aren't defi, with the exception of Terra which, as an algo stable was expected to fail like all algo stables before it.

Celsius/3AC/Babel are all not defi and we would know about their health and risk factors much sooner if they were defi.

Depends on the type of wallet. If its a web wallet the keys are in the browsers data store that the wallet extension handles. The keys could also be on a separate hardware wallet that is completely separate from the computer you interact with and requires physical button presses on the hardware device. Could also be that you are in a view only mode and just connecting with an address and you don't even have the keys on you.

Its really hard to get a good gauge on that. There is a lot of data but its all very piecemeal and hard to aggregate. Could spend a week trying to get an idea of it and still not be sure. Here is my couple minute version though.

For 2020 in Mexico alone from Bitso: "Frida Vargas, head of business sevelopment at Bitso, told CoinDesk the company processed about $1.2 billion in remittances between the U.S. to Mexico in 2020. “Our main users are remittance companies, who use crypto technology to improve and make the remittance sending and collecting process easier,” she said."[1]

In Argentina: "Cryptocurrency penetration was at 12% in Argentina, vs. 29% credit card penetration, indicating impressive crypto uptake in that country"[2]

"There is high interest in receiving crypto remittances in various LatAm markets, such as Peru (33%), Argentina (19%), Mexico (15%), and Brazil (8%)"[2]

There is also chainalysis[3] data for small transfers in LatAm showing 1.5M monthly transfers at a total value of 300M monthly volume. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPCfq-LWUAEctzT?format=jpg&name=...

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/video/mexican-remittances-continent-la... [2] https://americasmi.com/pdfs_landings/220211_The_cryptocurren... [3] Page 42: https://go.chainalysis.com/rs/503-FAP-074/images/Geography-o...

There are tons of people using it for its apolitical and censorship resistant nature. Afghanistan/Ukraine/Lebanon/Argentina/Venezuela/Nigeria/Turkey/Belarus/Mexico to name a few countries where it is very relevant and useful

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60715707

https://www.financialinclusion.tech/

I(an american) was quitting a job at a UK company and tried to put in my 2 weeks notice, they said the standard was a 2 months notice for them and so I just kinda bumbled along for 2 months not doing much. Really odd practice

Alternative source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2020.1...

It's not clear that AML regulation actually is all that effective. It also makes it a lot harder for competitors to start in the banking and finance industry.

"Based on 2009 data, the UN, with US State Department assistance, calculated the global success rate of money laundering controls at just 0.2 percent (UNODC 2011, 14, 119, 131), but, as noted above, the confiscation rate might be 0.07 percent. In other words, despite ubiquitous money laundering controls, criminals retain up to 99.93 percent of criminal proceeds."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2020.1...

Its a much nicer experience for moving around large sums of money. I have heard of a fair few people who use it primarily for funding angellist investments since its more hassle free than a wire.

Well linux on desktop mostly just works. Linux on laptops has been a headache for a while with awful battery life, trackpad issues, wifi issues and things like that. So personally I don't feel the need for any dedicated linux desktop release compared to the laptop space where I appreciate more of a guarantee that the drivers actually work and I won't spend all my time messing with linux internals trying to get it to work.

You can add your own or any node that is public to metamask in the settings. Infura has had outages a few times before so people know how to do this now.

The issue I have with this is that if we aren't allowed to mine in the desert where there is one sensitive shrub, like Thacker Pass, then how are we ever supposed to mine anything ever again. It seems like the perfect place to mine with minimal destruction.

The other option is we never mine anything ever again and let countries with less environmental protections do the dirty work which is net worse for the environment.

Do you really believe a Bitcoin miner would accept being shut down for most of the day? - yes, as the hardware cycles have slowed down this has become more and more viable to use old hardware some of the time.

Instead of putting a Powerline there or building a smelter or something else, Bitcoin is easier and makes more money quicker. - I assume there is already a powerline to any wind/solar farm. The issue is the negative priced electricity. If you can't compete with a bitcoin miner that is always seeking the cheapest electricity regardless of location then maybe your project isn't economically viable. Its not like miners have a monopoly, just agree to pay more than they are willing to pay

Things like a storage battery - we already have a battery shortage with not enough to power electric car manufacturing.

Or melting aluminum or other ors - this doesn't work because the load is extremely fickle. You have to be able to turn on/off easily and frequently.

other things can certainly come along and compete for the power. Its not like bitcoin mining isn't price bound. It always seeks the cheapest energy regardless of location

So you think people should starve rather than use bitcoin?

What about using it to support democracy in Russia? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-dono...

The US sanctioned them, they can't use dollars or euros

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60715707

What about when clean energy is negatively priced would you be ok using bitcoin miners to make it more economical then?

I agree with your point on economic value.

But on other uses of the energy you can't really do these things,

desalinization - in the middle of the country with no salt water plus inconsistent energy

metal smelting - doesn't work with rapid turning on/off

direct air carbon capture - doesn't work with rapid turning on/off

Bitcoin miners can be turned on/off quickly and don't require much infrastructure except an internet connection. How would you ever run a big plant with unpredictable times/days that it could actually run?

Why is it ethical for you to fly in a plane and run your clothes drier but not for someone in Afghanistan to buy food and protect their money by using bitcoin?

This is not true. If you take a bitcoin miner and put it on a gas well that is leaking methane which is 10x worse than CO2 and burn that methane to create CO2 you are increasing energy usage and cleaning the environment. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-03/methan...

If you have already mined coal burning in a field and instead take that coal and put it through a generator and mine bitcoin with it you are using more energy and cleaning up emissions. https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energy/2022-01-31/how-waste-...

In a lot of places in the midwest up to 25% of wind or solar energy is priced at a negative level, this means they are paying to produce energy. Setting up a bitcoin miner is perfect because it can be quickly turned on/off and doesn't require consistent power like most manufacturing or other energy intense activities. This makes renewables more economical.

This goes into all of this as well. https://niccarter.info/wp-content/uploads/txsummit_nc_oct08....

its harder to send/receive, harder to verify authenticity, and harder to store gold coins compared to any crypto asset

If both DAI and MKR go to zero users still have the collateral. If UST and LUNA go to zero then there is nothing left(apart from very recently they started adding some BTC reserves).