The decentralised mode never interested general public, even though it was mildly interesting as an idea to skip hierarchical trust. The established use of crypto is exclusively money laundering and investment scams, made usable for general public though use of centralised exchanges. The crypto isn’t important, it is just an excuse.

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codegeek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yea I just don't see any real benefit and it has been almost 20 years. This is why I immediately lose respect for anyone who still peddles crypto even though there were some well meaningful people in early days.

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TrainedMonkey 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are not wrong that secret ingredient is crime, but I think the single largest use of crypto out there is tax evasion. When traveling Asia in 2025 I've met several people who worked for western companies and got paid in tether. Western companies pay flat consulting that avoids payroll taxes / etc and employees skip taxation from whatever country they are in. On the trading side we have ETH wrapping everything and enabling trading of most financial assets.

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rebolek 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As the decentralised crypto experiment shown us, hierarchical trust has its benefits.

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dillondoyle 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

dont forget buying drugs ;)

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skydhash 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My wealth may be decentralized, but my body is in one location and pretty vulnerable to the 5 dollar wrench. Putting some emergency money in a foreign bank account and a bag is a much better option if I wanted to flee a country.

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kingleopold 6 hours ago | parent [-]

these randoms assuming foreign banks accept every human is really funny, enjoy your bubble and ignorance. There are normal people that cant even have a bank account in their homeland.

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codegeek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"There are normal people that cant even have a bank account in their homeland"

And I feel for them but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Crypto is not the answer for that problem.

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wasmitnetzen 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> There are normal people that cant even have a bank account in their homeland.

And approximately none of these people's problems have been actually solved with cryptocurrency.

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azraellzanella 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And, how, do these disenfranchised / persecuted people turn their not-in-the-bank money into WhateverCoin ?

	▲	notpushkin 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		By giving cash to a shady backstreet exchange guy? Or maybe using a payment kiosk to top up a mobile phone / whatever other service the P2P seller can get the money out of. But more likely scenario is they have friends who let them use their bank accounts (but don’t have friends who let them use their good overseas bank accounts, so not that useful).

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skydhash 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> these randoms assuming foreign banks accept every human is really funny,

Did I imply that? Creating a bank account in my country is an adventure on its own. If I got 50 USD in my wallet, I can exchange it somewhere and pay for food and whatever. My crypto account requires a computer, an internet connection, and someone willing to take it (no one around here).