
Cryptocurrency is driving innovation in the financial sector - newman8r
https://www.theindy.us/crypto-success-is-driving-innovation-in-the-financial-sector/
======
henrikschroder
There's absolutely zero evidence for the headline in the actual bulk of the
article.

SWIFT launched a new service last year, that is now handling 25% of all cross-
border transactions, to the tune of 100 billion USD per day.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin peaked last year at a total trading volume of 5 billion USD
per day, and is now doing less than 1 billion per day. How much of that is
cross-border is unknown, but even assuming 100%, it's still a tiny fraction of
what SWIFT is handling.

Extrapolating from that that cryptocurrencies somehow drove SWIFT to launch
their new service is a bit of a stretch to put it mildly.

~~~
agorabinary
It peaked not from a lack of demand but from hitting an inevitable scaling
roadblock. Now the community is busy deploying a layer 2 (Lightning) to the
Bitcoin mainnet that can offer transactions per second that exceed any
financial system today, not to mention a whole host of breathtakingly
innovative developments powered by this new layer.

I understand the justifiable HN frustration at the prevalence of scams and
overpromises that have plagued the blockchain (mainly ICO) world as of late.
But the blockchain is getting better, and with developments that make SWIFT
innovations seem trivial by comparison.

~~~
nawgszy
>that can offer transactions per second that exceed any financial system today

>that make SWIFT innovations seem trivial by comparison

Listen, those two phrases alone are gigantic signs of your bias. Even if they
were true, the way you phrase it just screams "I own a significant amount of
Bitcoin"

Add to that a sentence about

>a whole host of breathtakingly innovative developments

and, oh boy, do I ever think you are biased.

There is actually a pretty clear value prop for Bitcoin: you can exchange
something approximating money for services which are undesirable or risky to
do so with your traditional money. But needing to build an entirely new layer
which, if I'm understanding right, has some significant impact on the
semantics of how your transactions end up on the blockchain, just in order to
be able to do a completely unimpressive level of throughput, is hilariously
far from "breathtaking innovation" that makes traditional financial
"innovations seem trivial".

~~~
chrisco255
Thise are opinions. It's not necessary for someone to state that an opinion is
biased, that's implied by taking any non-impartial stance on anything.

For what it's worth, programmable, open source money has far bigger
implications than you lead on here.

------
bbimbop
"Ethan M. Penn" deserves some e-gold for this piece.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold)

~~~
lsc
Lol. I personally didn't get on the bitcoin wagon 'cause I had (well, I guess
still have) frozen e-gold. Not that I speculated in it, but I accepted some as
payment for services back in the day and never got around to cashing it out
for money. I am really surprised that people seem to think that the less-
centralized nature of bitcoin makes it that much more resistant to government
interference; But what do I know? I think bitcoin has lasted a lot longer than
e-gold, and has gained a lot more legitimacy.

I do find it really curious that so many in the bitcoin community either
haven't heard of e-gold or don't see the parallels.

I mean, I am also a huge Stephenson fan, and had read "Cryptonomicon" and the
idea sounded really cool, but I never really had anything I wanted to buy with
e-gold, so other than allowing me to have customers who couldn't get credit,
it was not particularly useful.

(By the way, is there a "Cryptonomicon" of bitcoin? I mean, I guess the idea
of nazi gold is way more compelling than some math? but still...
"Cryptonomicon" seems to be like exactly the template)

But... my loss in the e-gold shutdown (and my relating of e-gold to bitcoin)
meant that I was pretty late to start accepting bitcoin, and that when I did,
I used bitpay; Which has worked fine, I suppose, but I had people trying to
buy with bitcoin fairly early on, and if I had accepted that and sat on it,
I'd probably, well, I wouldn't be hugely rich or anything, but it would have
been a nice payday. But I suppose that's the standard regret one has for not
timing the market when something goes up in value sharply.

I'm personally still a long-term bear on bitcoin... but I kinda have a
reputation for being a bear on a lot of things that have, uh, apparently
inflated values, so who knows.

~~~
darawk
> I am really surprised that people seem to think that the less-centralized
> nature of bitcoin makes it that much more resistant to government
> interference

Why? Decentralized systems are sort of the standard way of defeating
centralized governments. See: Tor, Guerilla warfare, Lone wolf terrorism,
etc..

~~~
Nursie
BTCis centralised in various ways. It's likely that one actor (Bitmain) could
muster 51% hash power relatively easily. There are relatively few on-off ramps
for the ecosystem.

These two facts alone point to possibilities for interference at a large
scale.

------
kylebenzle
We are switching, from paper, declared by fiat to be "money" to a digital
decentralized ledger, it is just that simple.

Get caught holding the last of the paper stuff just one day longer than the
next greatest fool and you will be sorry. SWIFT knows this, governments know
this and now the legacy financial industry (5 years too late) is starting to
get it too.

~~~
foepys
This "digital decentralized ledger" you are talking about is ever-growing. To
be able to handle its size and keep its integrity, special entities have to
keep it running for the layman to use. Nobody can carry terabytes of
"blockchain" around all the time.

These special entities need to record all transactions and verify them against
this ledger. As a result you are now even more dependent on these entities
than ever before. You basically just re-invented banking, only in a bad,
uncontrollable way that is prone to takeovers (51% attack) by anonymous
actors.

~~~
haolez
You must come from a country where the central bank doesn't print money :)

~~~
Nursie
I come from a country where the central bank can issue money (not print it,
that's someone else's job).

It's great. They can use their powers to keep inflation at a small positive
level, help smooth out economic bumps, and help the money supply keep pace
with the economy.

A fixed amount, ever, would constrain economic growth, reward hoarders rather
than investors, disincentivise spending and generally be a poor substitute.

As evidence I present ... the entirety of the Western world and it's multiple
decades of unparalleled prosperity.

~~~
gthaman
Central banking is awful and you know no better than to say what you say
(having not known anything else).

Evil triumphs only when good men do nothing!

~~~
Nursie
You've provided no evidence or argument as to why central banking might be
'awful', after I just explained why there is much to be liked about it.

Please do provide your reasons, but if they're just the usual libertarian
tripe about inflation and taxes, I'm afraid I might not give them much
credence.

