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Are you answering for calle or for you? I meant to redirect to calle, haha.
payjoin, silent payments, BOLT12.
Those are good things to build, having options like that can help people in need. Not all criminals are heroin dealers. I know tens of "criminals" that are criminalized for disagreeing with their local flavor of overlord. In some cases, former overlord while they're still unbanked, still stalked by the cronies. Still being told "no". It's not just Mrs. Navalny that this has been happening to. I figure that if I know more people like that than I have fingers, there must be hundreds of thousands of people like this. These people need any protection they can get.
It's not something that will make all the openš¤”bot yolo people use bitcoin of course. If you want that you have to orange pill Dario A and bam! I doubt he'd be receptive though.
At the moment, I don't think bitcoin offers strong enough solutions to attract users who can get most of what they want from the traditional financial system.
Is that a problem though?
Not all criminals are heroin dealers
I totally agree with this. I hesitated to use the word "criminals" but I went with it because it does get at the heart of what I think Bitcoin has to offer: it allows users to transact when the state (or any powerful actor...even a controlling family member) doesn't want them to.
I think bitcoin would be more widely used among people with such problems if it had better privacy preserving properties. Maybe I'm saying people who are interested in building bitcoin solutions should look for things that only Bitcoin can solve.
Things like Spark wallets or CashApp integrations will surely lead to more users, but probably in the same way that people are users of PayPal or Venmo. It just happens to be what they picked up. If something comes along with cheaper rates or more convenience, they'll switch to that. And I think Bitcoin is a very long way from winning the convenience race.
Is that a problem though?
I'm not sure. Probably not, but it means that all the people working on cool and exciting bitcoin products may struggle to find the sexy chandelier-swinging out of control growth they want.
or any powerful actor...even a controlling family member
I know this yet I always seem to not think of it. This is a huge use-case. Thank you for reminding me. I am sending myself reminders for the next couple of weeks to think more about this.
And I think Bitcoin is a very long way from winning the convenience race.
I'm not convinced that it must. If you have no need or desire to "be your own bank", then you don't have to be. But the downside of not being your own bank in Bitcoin will always be bigger than the same in some government issued money.
For example, even if we were to get truly insured balances from multiple insurance companies / banks that actually compete, the Bitcoin insurance will always be more expensive than that for something that can safely be fractionalized (and thus dilutes.)
it means that all the people working on cool and exciting bitcoin products may struggle to find the sexy chandelier-swinging out of control growth they want.
Sure, but I feel like every bear market there are too many people that need to be reminded of taking the long view (and the low time preference)
privacy advances for bitcoin that lead to more criminals using bitcoin: payjoin, silent payments, BOLT12.
At the moment, I don't think bitcoin offers strong enough solutions to attract users who can get most of what they want from the traditional financial system.
self-sovereign control over one's money seems to be something that people only want when a state or other entity dramatically (violently?) interferes in their use of their own money.
The things Bitcoin has to offer are not attractive to normal users. They don't want censorship resistance, they don't want self-sovereignty, they don't want to participate in a permissionless network, they don't want to be free from trusting others to tell them what their money is. I doubt that we can make those things more appealing to people who feel well-served by traditional finance.