To my knowlege, unless we completely abandon traditional currency, we still have the same problem. You still need 3rd party payment processors and/or currency exchanges, which have the ability to act as gatekeepers - esspecially since the libertarian markets promoted by crypto tend to end up monopolised eventually.
If Steam still accepted Bitcoin they could use that, unfortunately Bitcoin has been crippled and has been unusable as a currency for years (which is why Steam removed it from the store). No one but Steam and the end user could censor what gets bought, so it’s a problem that it’s literally impossible to happen with cryptocurrency as money, that is exactly the problem they solve, except people usually don’t care about this problem so they think it doesn’t solve anything.
How do you imagine any crypto-exchange acting as a gatekeeper? You can send your crypto from exchange to whatever address and pay for anything from there. To my knowledge, there are no exchanges that ask you to provide any details about addresses you’re sending your crypto to.
Well, for converting from Crypto to government run currencies, you need some information, be it a mailing address, or a bank account. Ignoring that, I know some systems exist for blocking or limitting transactions between specific wallets (currently mostly used to block known scammers), although I’m not sure of the specifics of that.
But how do you use KYC to gatekeep anything regarding crypto? For example, how the thing which happened to Steam and Itch could happen in crypto world?
An exchange, intermediary, or market manager gets large, then blacklists the wallets or bank accounts of the company? Basically the same thing that happened with traditional currency. To my knowledge, theres nothing preventing that.
What stops the company to maintain a team of people whose work is to register new wallets and accounts on exchanges all day every day? How exchange going to figure out that a certain person’s account is linked to the company? Even if they will hire detectives, what will they do if there is a whole team with rotating people? Also, exchanges don’t ask you to pay taxes or declare where you got money from, that happens after you take money from them to your fiat bank accounts. Also, you can go to another exchange. There are countless exchanges, more than 2, and new ones can open every day (a big difference compared to payment processors, where just 2 basically monopolized the market).
Also, exchanges don’t ask you to pay taxes or
What stops the company to maintain a team of people whose work is to register new wallets and accounts on exchanges all day every day? How exchange going to figure out that a certain person’s account is linked to the company? Even if they will hire detectives, what will they do if there is a whole team with rotating people? Also, exchanges don’t ask you to pay taxes or declare where you got money from, that happens after you take money from them to your fiat bank accounts.
So basically, set up a whole new, extra inaccessible payment system (that definately won’t be intercepted by middle men) to be able to make transactions. And then how do you convert back to the dollar? You’re in the same position.
There are countless exchanges, more than 2, and new ones can open every day (a big difference compared to payment processors, where just 2 basically monopolized the market).
There are countless payment processors and digital wallets, and new ones open regularly. You just don’t hear about them (esspecially in North America) because unregulated capitalism has allowed Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to monopolize the market. What stops that from happening again?
To call it useless is just untrue. There are many possibilities, Crypto is just a black hole eating the hype and funding that would otherwise go into valuable tech
Expensive and useless. Decentralization was an illusion and they don’t solve any real problems
Tell that to itch.io and Steam - the latest victims of centralized payments systems.
To my knowlege, unless we completely abandon traditional currency, we still have the same problem. You still need 3rd party payment processors and/or currency exchanges, which have the ability to act as gatekeepers - esspecially since the libertarian markets promoted by crypto tend to end up monopolised eventually.
If Steam still accepted Bitcoin they could use that, unfortunately Bitcoin has been crippled and has been unusable as a currency for years (which is why Steam removed it from the store). No one but Steam and the end user could censor what gets bought, so it’s a problem that it’s literally impossible to happen with cryptocurrency as money, that is exactly the problem they solve, except people usually don’t care about this problem so they think it doesn’t solve anything.
How do you imagine any crypto-exchange acting as a gatekeeper? You can send your crypto from exchange to whatever address and pay for anything from there. To my knowledge, there are no exchanges that ask you to provide any details about addresses you’re sending your crypto to.
Well, for converting from Crypto to government run currencies, you need some information, be it a mailing address, or a bank account. Ignoring that, I know some systems exist for blocking or limitting transactions between specific wallets (currently mostly used to block known scammers), although I’m not sure of the specifics of that.
But how do you use KYC to gatekeep anything regarding crypto? For example, how the thing which happened to Steam and Itch could happen in crypto world?
An exchange, intermediary, or market manager gets large, then blacklists the wallets or bank accounts of the company? Basically the same thing that happened with traditional currency. To my knowledge, theres nothing preventing that.
What stops the company to maintain a team of people whose work is to register new wallets and accounts on exchanges all day every day? How exchange going to figure out that a certain person’s account is linked to the company? Even if they will hire detectives, what will they do if there is a whole team with rotating people? Also, exchanges don’t ask you to pay taxes or declare where you got money from, that happens after you take money from them to your fiat bank accounts. Also, you can go to another exchange. There are countless exchanges, more than 2, and new ones can open every day (a big difference compared to payment processors, where just 2 basically monopolized the market).
So basically, set up a whole new, extra inaccessible payment system (that definately won’t be intercepted by middle men) to be able to make transactions. And then how do you convert back to the dollar? You’re in the same position.
There are countless payment processors and digital wallets, and new ones open regularly. You just don’t hear about them (esspecially in North America) because unregulated capitalism has allowed Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to monopolize the market. What stops that from happening again?
To call it useless is just untrue. There are many possibilities, Crypto is just a black hole eating the hype and funding that would otherwise go into valuable tech