I think a distinction should be made between abusing position & relationships to spin a narrative vs abusing position and relationships to silence individuals.
Both are slimy and abusive but the latter is a violation of constitutional rights.
And yeah, blah blah sanctions, Russia, Iran, like most of the world's business is happening there and like the crypto Ponzi schemers really care about the "under-banked".
Ok, then use anything else or get banks to come up with another one.
How, pray tell, would a cryptocurrency help here? You have all the crypto disadvantages (either untested or slow or scams or boiling the planet...) plus the same issue with adoption. We already have banks and they already have bank accounts. We have SWIFT, SEPA, etc. They know how to talk to each other. Get them to modify an existing protocol or make a new one for microtransactions.
It's a super hard task but with crypto you still have that super hard task (adoption) plus crypto itself (a million drawbacks).
It's not scientific and it's not engineering.
You solve a problem with the simplest equivalent solution, no more.
Crypto is like God. It gets sprinkled over every discussion. There's a reason science doesn't go: "A equals B plus God" to prove anything.
Any. Every. Whatever the user has. Banks already figure this out amongst each other - the browser just needs to convey an IBAN (or other format), currency and amount to the user's bank and let it be their problem.
However, the API should also be able to support crypto payments, by getting a crypto address and then forwarding the request to e.g. a local instance of Metamask, instead of my bank.
Perhaps if the user has multiple bank accounts linked, they would have to choose one, to avoid leaking to my bank that I'm making a crypto payment.
Of course, a crypto transaction has a significantly lower chance of being compatible since there's no foreign currency team working at the bank - if the website wants a payment in BitWhatsits and my primary wallet is in DOGEMONEY 20000!!!!! then it's up to the user or at least the extension to figure out the routing. Probably, the website would offer a different button to pay with each supported cryptocurrency, so the user would choose. They'll be accustomed to that, being a cryptocurrency and all.
A working standard could simply define "seller endpoints", "buyers bank endpoint", "supported payment protocol" and a message passing system and let the parties figure it out.
Not global, but few things are in the world of finance.
No deterrent is effective against a regime sufficiently detached from reality.
Putin called it a "special military operation" for a reason. It was supposed to be like Czechoslovakia in 1968. The troops go in, reach Kyiv in a few days, and take over without any real fighting. Ukraine was not supposed to be able and willing to resist. Russian military didn't even know there was going to be a war, which is why it failed so catastrophically in the first days.
The outcome of this war is going to determine whether international trade is still an effective deterrent. If Russian economy depends so much on Western technology that they will lose in the long term regardless of the oucome of the war, this was just the exception that tests the rule. If the West gives up and resumes trading with Russia, the deterrent will be gone.
Russia (Putin) sees Ukraine as basically a subordinate state; likewise with Georgia and Belarus. That would make this action a civil war, which is basically how it's been treated by the international community.
Yeah it did exactly nothing to stop the ongoing war in europe and little to prevent china from brutally overtaking hong long. Meanwhile china is openly flexing muscles around taiwan. If anything its us that are deterred from action - see germany and russia.
Isn't that like the same thing they said before both World War I and II? That the world and trade was too interconnected so that war couldn't break out.
People are very happy to torpedo economic benefits for national pride and sovereignty.
China has been India’s largest trading partner for many years. Yet when there was a recent border dispute, everyone was willing to forego all economic ties in favor of a conflict.
As per HN Guidlines, please don't be snarky. You may have a very valid point, and it is great to back it up with links to more info, but please state what the point you are making is, rather than just a snarky comment with a link
3. Am kind, just busy so i don't have time to summarize for you the paper that you can just as well read yourself. In fact, it has an abstract, which is a summary, right up front.
We're talking about someone with inhuman self-control, and GP is talking about someone that just can't keep his mouth shut and loves being in the spotlight.
If the genesis block did contain the image of a trollface (or any other 2008-era meme) instead of "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks", I could entertain this theory.
Every MMO in existence has external markets for RMT. There are stories of players in elite WoW guilds making 5-6 figures for helping noobs clear content.
Some people don’t mind spending $2000 to build an endgame character that’s only worth $1000 by the time they’re done with it.
We don’t call automotive hobbyists “marks” if they pay a mechanic to tune their car and devalue its resale price. Professionals/careerists exist in every hobby industry.
Never tried a return because I'd have to pay through the nose on shipping.