Much of the debate around Crypto is confused because both advocates and critics have a myopic view of what it is. There are four key elements:
The Casino
The Movement
The Tech
The Product
And there is surprisingly little overlap between them.
There is a widespread belief amongst financial commentators that the problem of international payments has been "solved" by fintechs such as
@Wise
.
Let me show you how this isn't true.
Desde ayer, venezolanos 🇻🇪advierten que no han podido ingresar a
#Metamask
.
¿La razón?
MetaMask ha empezado a cumplir con las regulaciones norteamericanas y no prestará servicios directamente para usuarios venezolanos.
Aunque si se puede ingresar utilizando VPN.
🤯
The Tulip Craze Conspiracy
Have you heard of the Dutch Tulip craze? If so, you've likely fallen victim to centuries old propaganda. The Dutch tulip bubble of the 17th century never actually happened, at least not the way it is understood in popular culture.
The popular
I know a lot of Cubans used
@binance
with no KYC. If they still have funds in there they are trapped.
It’s hard to explain why self custody is important. But many people are learning the lesson today. They won’t forget.
Apparently, for the first time ever, cryptodollars are worth more than physical cash in Cuba.
1 usd in cash is worth less than 1 usd in bitcoin/tether/etc
Por primera vez en la historia de las criptomonedas en
#Cuba
, estas superan en cotización en CUP al dólar en efectivo.
Esto habla a las claras de como se han popularizado y que cada vez tienen más demanda.
¿Superarán alguna vez al MLC?
@kwelta_tech
@eltoquecom
@ErichGarciaCruz
The combination of inane AML policies and product managers in San Fransisco who have little regard for "edge cases" like the five million people who live Costa Rica mean that cross-border transactions are still quite complicated.
"The apparent stabilisation of bitcoin’s value is likely to be an artificially induced last gasp before the crypto-asset embarks on a road to irrelevance."
This is what the European Central Bank wrote in late November 2022, while bitcoin was trading at multi year lows.
Bitcoin
@matthewstoller
It's also used by thousands that aren't privileged enough to be born in places with strong property rights and access to trustworthy financial institutions.
Xiaomi, a Chinese tech company, has remotely blocked its mobile phones in Cuba to satisfy US sanctions.
Meanwhile, the US senate voted for an amendment that stipulates the US should provide Cubans with uncensored internet.
How exactly are they supposed to get online ?
Problema del Bloqueo Regional de Xiaomi en Cuba
Cómo extecnico de celulares, me especialice en la gama Xiaomi y la verdad que la cobertura que ha tenido la marca en Cuba ha sido grande y hoy miles de personas puede ver cómo se le bloquea su Xiaomi
@ErichGarciaCruz
Abro hilo 🧵,
People who live in wealthy countries with strong rule of law fail to understand why crypto is appealing for many.
In their mental model of the world, a Cuban resident can just walk into Havana's BBVA office and get access to US dollars.
@matthewstoller
Not everyone in the US can send money to their parents using a bank account. On what basis do you think a prohibition style ban would be effective and moral?
Problem with Attempt 1:
The beneficiary's bank will freeze the funds for AML reasons until I provide embassy apostilled and translated salary slips to the beneficiary's bank.
This adds substantial costs and hassle.
@johnebooth1
The vast majority of money the government takes from young people gets redistributed in a way that benefits boomers.
Pensions, NHS, Social Housing benefits etc, are all for the primary benefit of boomers.
Even high levels of migration while making it impossible to build
In our latest episode with
@sobradob
, we cover Bitcoin adoption in Cuba
- The key trends accelerating Bitcoin adoption in Cuba today
- How Boaz became a part of the early Cuban Bitcoin community
- Cuba's multiple sovereign currencies
The Dark side of the Cuban Crypto Boom.
In the 1990s the fall of the Berlin wall brought many new things to the Eastern block: democratic elections, free markets and western jeans.
But it also brought Ponzi schemes and MLM scams.
If you are born in Cuba, even if you reside elsewhere,
@binance
and other centralised financial services countries will be loath to service you.
The solution is self-custody and letting go of trusted third parties.
In Cuba,
@Airbnb
is requiring hosts to confirm they are not associated with the government or the Communist party.
Hopefully, more services will let ordinary Cubans use their platform.
Instead of banning everyone out of overcompliance.
Ayer no disparé un chícharo... me dediqué a aplicar en más de 32 neobancos...
De 32, a 1 no le importó que sea cubano... por ahora.
(Es que va a ser verdad que soy un habla mierda, 1 me aceptó 🤣)
My friend Osmel, who went missing for 36 hours, is now confirmed to be detained.
I’m being told he will be judged in a summary trial without rights to a legal defense.
His mother’s phone line has been shut off.
1) Los perfiles de
#Facebook
de
@Danielarojocuba
y Osmel González Darlington han desaparecido. Ambos fueron detenidos recientemente por la policía política de la dictadura cubana.
The KYC/AML regime is a wildly expensive policy experiment that inconveniences regular citizens but does little to stop warlords from accessing professional services.
Problem:
I am a Costa Rican national living in London. I made a larger purchase in Costa Rica. I want to send multiples of 10k GBP to a USD account in Costa Rica.
What happens to mortgages in the US when you die?
US Mortgages originated for 70+ year olds 2000- 2008: 589m
US Mortgages originated for 70+ year olds in 2020- 2022: 653.6m.
@mattysino
To me worrying about BTC energy consumption is a form of Malthusian thinking. Energy is plentiful and literally falls from the sky. We should improve in how we harness it and distribute it, not ration it.
@jp_koning
To be precise they are using bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) to bypass the overzealous implementation of pre-internet laws regarding Cuba by financial institutions.
In theory there's no law that stops a privately employed Cuban from transacting online.
Attempt 7:
Transfer USD via Monzo & Wise to my HSBC UK USD account, transfer via SWIFT to my personal account in Costa Rica and transfer onwards locally.
Costs: ~1%
Problem with Attempt 3:
@Wise
does not allow transfers to my USD account in Costa Rica.
@BACCredomaticCR
is a market leading bank in Central America, but
@Wise
considers that it doesn't "fulfill our Acceptable Use Policy".
Attempt 6:
Transfer GBP to my
@HSBC_UK
account from
@monzo
, convert within HSBC to USD, wire USD out to my personal account in Costa Rica, transfer onwards locally.
Costs: ~3.5%
1/ Bitcoin maxis are a dying breed. While there was a time where ~everything except Bitcoin was basically a scam, that hasn't been true for a long time, and the smart money has moved on to figuring out which projects are going somewhere, and which are straight pump-and-dumps.
¿No era que
#Bitcoin
es libertad y deso?
El panfleto de empresas asimilando Bitcoin es puro humo de marketing.
Tu Wallet, tu soberanía.
No es culpa de
@CashApp
, es culpa de leyes del siglo XX.
(Esto no me afecta en lo más mínimo, afecta al cliente) 😔
.
@SBF_Alameda
@RevolutApp
Beware users, Revolut will freeze your funds for no reason and only release them after a year later after you take them to court.
Source:me
GDPR is forcing advertisers to collect less data.
But financial services companies are not only exempt: they have record keeping requirements. By law they must store this data.
And now it's become far more attractive for advertisers to buy.
h/t
@eric_seufert
@AlexanderGerko
I can tell you’re not a Cuban freelancer trying to get paid by an Argentinian company.
Nothing illegal about the transaction, but nonetheless impossible.
How I almost lost all my money when Stripe kicked me off their payment processing platform with 24 hours notice.
Big reason why I believe in censorship resistant digital cash.
I'm hearing some noise that Nigerian accounts are being locked down by
@binance
, likely under pressure from law enforcement.
The days of lax offshore exchanges are over.
Self-custody is essential.
My
@bitrefill
balance is truly amazing.
I chucked like a hundred bucks worth of bitcoin there a few years ago.
I've been spending from it every year, but there's still hundreds of dollars left.
Episode 90:
@CasPiancey
and
@BennettTomlin
are joined by
@sobradob
to discuss an argument for why Tether and cryptocurrencies have ended up a useful tool for people who have been financially deplatformed due to draconian regulations
@marinamaral2
Funny story, there is one in Havana too. Havana has a very impressive Napoleon museum. A Cuban sugar magnate, Julio Lobo was an avid collector, and he left the collection behind after 1958.
This talk from
@ziggamon
is an absolute must watch for both bitcoin/crypto advocates and skeptics.
It is probably one of the most impactful videos on the topic I've seen recently.
And it has less than 500 views on YouTube!
@arduinostrand
@Wise
I’m not blaming Wise here, they have done wonders to improve things and are a company I greatly respect.
It’s just not a solved problem, for multiple different reasons, including nuts compliance policies.
Crypto newbies seem to forget that the original way to buy bitcoin was through peer-to-peer trading on sites like
@LocalBitcoins
.
At a time when the fall of FTX and the rise of blockchain surveillance companies like
@chainalysis
highlighted the risks of centralised exchanges,
TIL the original funding for Ethereum’s “environmentally friendly” transition to Proof of Stake came from a fossil fuel executive who happened to be an ETH whale.
h/t
@laurashin
One of the scariest experiences I had recently.
I ate a salad with crickets in Oaxaca and went for a run. When I got back I was red and itchy.
Reasoned it was an allergic reaction. Went to the restaurant to ask the exact ingredients.
Then I fainted.
Coming up next:
"Dear Editor. My neighbour buys bread on the black market. He has a family to feed, but I know I should report him to the Price Control Authorities. What do I do?"
Do you really know where your salary comes from?
The word “salary” comes from the Latin word “salarium,” which originally referred to a soldier’s allowance for the purchase of salt. Salt was a valuable commodity up until modern times, often used as a preservative and for