[tor-talk] Is there any societal use in Bitcoin?

[Jon Tullett]

On 4 September 2017 at 13:40, Aymeric Vitte <vitteaymeric at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think that you are mostly right except that it's not uninteresting at
> all for normal people to evade the banks dictatorship, delays and fees
> (what are you buying with this? what for? wiretransfer will take one
> week + absurd taxes not even knowing where it's coming from, etc, etc)

As it happens, I just recently transferred funds internationally. It
took 36 hours to clear, at a guaranteed rate. My local bank charged
about $8 in fees (mostly for the overhead of liaising with the local
receiver of revenue - there's a bunch of paperwork, so I can't really
object to the fee). My point is that if you're paying absurd taxes and
taking a week, you might be able to find a better option.

By contrast BTC, in the same timeframe, dropped more than 10%. If I'd
been using it to transfer the same funds, I'd have been massively out
of pocket.

There are strong arguments for disintermediating financial systems,
but we don't need to overhype the problem space, and let's not kid
ourselves that Bitcoin is a silver bullet either.

-J