> “You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” says Knox (an independent sex-worker). “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.” (Knox suspects she has ended up on a blacklist at Plaid, a provider of technology plumbing to large crypto exchanges like Gemini, Kraken, and Robinhood, leading to the repeated bans. Freya Petersen, spokesperson for Plaid, says no such list exists, but that all firms that wish to use its services are subject to a standard risk assessment process, factoring in the industry in which they operate.)
The only way around this would seem for sex workers to have their own wallet with keys that they control, but that still leaves them with no way to cash out, and landlords, car loans, and grocery stores do not accept crypto.
Well, if you have some zimbabwean dollars, in most parts of the world you pretty much have to "cash out" and convert to a different currency, if you want to spend these. If you have a "respectable" currency like EUR and, say, you need to pay taxes in the US, you still have to convert to USD, because the IRS only accepts USD. Are ZWL and EUR "real" currencies?
It all comes down to the list of currencies that the other party accepts. Your bank can probably auto-convert EUR in your account to USD and make the payment seemless. But there are cards issued by crypto exchanges that can auto-convert your crypto for fiat payments as well
The only real use-case for crypto was doing crime. Criminals flocked to use it, but obviously the government was going to be shortly behind. I'm surprised it took this long to close down the exit nodes.
She could still use it to pay people that accept crypto, but most cryptocurrencies aren't great currencies since they fluctuate in value a lot.
Our current financial system has issues, but the best system for 99%+ of people.
> Our current financial system has issues, but the best system for 99%+ of people.
I have to violently disagree with that statement.
For a good chunk of people (> 10%), the current system is a vampire on the efforts of people, draining them via transfer fees, account fees, overdraft fees & whatever new fee they can come up with today. Their failures are bailed out because "tHeY'rE tOo BiG tO fAiL", influencing politicians into using the funds of the State to give themselves a pillow to land on. They deem themselves to be above the effects of "the hand of the market" that everyone else has to go through. Screw that: They must be able to fail like the rest of us, with no soft landing given to them when they do so.
>The only real use-case for crypto was doing crime.
It was never any good at that, either. Cryptocurrency is somewhat hard to censor but easy to track. And in practice, people go through centralized exchanges because blockchains work so badly.
I mean sure, if you make derivatives trading illegal, freeze bank accounts of people you disagree with and mandate transaction surveillance then anyone that wants to do what they want with their own money and not get spied on is a criminal.
You sound like you don't know the pains to transfer money when you live in a country that does not have $ or € as their main currency, crypto has use for a lot of people in the world and it will regain traction once the scammers and the speculators will get tired of it
Running an all-cash business because you need to cash out your coins so the volatility doesn't kill you is really tough, especially when banks then won't deal with you depositing that cash into a bank account because they discriminate against your LEGAL business.
It just seems like cryptocurrencies are re-inventing the banking system without all of the pesky safeguards against fraud and abuse that hurts the first movers (not the actual plebs) while encoding their cultural biases into the tech that is supposed to be unencumbered by laws or cultural moires.
This doesn’t matter. Every fiat exit that is banned creates more friction. Like a shopping cart that has left the parking lot and has the wheels locked, the transaction system becomes so difficult to use that it approaches impossible to use.
If someone is banned from taking a loan from all regulated banks then they are forced to deal with loan sharks / organized crime. That loss of competition and choice comes with additional friction and strings attached to every transaction. Worse transaction fees, less security, less scrupulous counterparties, less convenience of location, less liquidity (one OnlyFans creator in the story was making $500k/mo), etc.
It’s not only the fiat exits that ban specific users. Cryptocurrency exchanges are known to ban transactions to certain addresses / wallets for reasons including (but not limited to) fraud, scams, sanctions. I imagine some of the exchanges that try to follow US law also do some basic due diligence and ban some addresses based on sex work. If the sex worker’s customers can’t easily transfer the crypto to their addresses, the same problem remains.
Just because you find something inconvenient for marketing purpose doesn’t mean it’s propaganda. These are real people hitting exactly the problems cryptocurrency sales guys said they could avoid by using it, and they deserve the respect of not having their lived experience dismissed outright.
If you want to help cryptocurrency, put your time into fixing the problems rstger than still more empty marketing.
> "crypto will bring freedom from oppressive financial systems"
< "crypto has the same problems"
> "propaganda"
LOL.
I have yet to see a real world use case for crypto that isn't about getting around legal restrictions in the financial space which usually are used to fund north Korea or a drug cartel.
Correct, you can't ban all fiat exits. However, this also undermines the argument for crypto about government control of fiat, since many of the exits of last resort rely on dealing with cash.
I've had several sex worker friends who all chose to do it, save one. She was a real sweetheart but (and she knew this, and was candid about it), wasn't very bright.
The backpage/kijiji thing hurt her bad. She had to start going off referrals more. Which is a bad thing because, as I learned- forming close relationships with clients is bad in that line of business.
Soon she was getting passed around by friends, treated worse and worse. She got pregnant, engaged several times. Beat up several times, pregnant again.
I tried to convince her that anything would be better- fast food, whatever. But how to support now two kids by herself on minimum wage?
Even though I no longer personally know anyone (to my knowledge) effected by this- we need to protect sex workers. Legalize it, or at least decriminalize it to remove the stigma. Like the war on drugs it hurts the wrong people, and if there wasn't a market for it, it wouldn't be one of if not the oldest profession.
There are also exchanges where you trade against other people between crypocurrencies and fiat. Chinese people all use this. These workers could use those.
Readit News
> “You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” says Knox (an independent sex-worker). “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.” (Knox suspects she has ended up on a blacklist at Plaid, a provider of technology plumbing to large crypto exchanges like Gemini, Kraken, and Robinhood, leading to the repeated bans. Freya Petersen, spokesperson for Plaid, says no such list exists, but that all firms that wish to use its services are subject to a standard risk assessment process, factoring in the industry in which they operate.)
The only way around this would seem for sex workers to have their own wallet with keys that they control, but that still leaves them with no way to cash out, and landlords, car loans, and grocery stores do not accept crypto.
Which has always been the primary criticism of cryptocurrency as, well, currency. It's not currency by definition if you have to "cash out" to spend.
She could still use it to pay people that accept crypto, but most cryptocurrencies aren't great currencies since they fluctuate in value a lot.
Our current financial system has issues, but the best system for 99%+ of people.
I have to violently disagree with that statement.
For a good chunk of people (> 10%), the current system is a vampire on the efforts of people, draining them via transfer fees, account fees, overdraft fees & whatever new fee they can come up with today. Their failures are bailed out because "tHeY'rE tOo BiG tO fAiL", influencing politicians into using the funds of the State to give themselves a pillow to land on. They deem themselves to be above the effects of "the hand of the market" that everyone else has to go through. Screw that: They must be able to fail like the rest of us, with no soft landing given to them when they do so.
It was never any good at that, either. Cryptocurrency is somewhat hard to censor but easy to track. And in practice, people go through centralized exchanges because blockchains work so badly.
The current financial system is very far from being best for 99%+ of people.
Some crypto ATMs allow cash withdrawals (again, at a rate favorable to the ATM)
It just seems like cryptocurrencies are re-inventing the banking system without all of the pesky safeguards against fraud and abuse that hurts the first movers (not the actual plebs) while encoding their cultural biases into the tech that is supposed to be unencumbered by laws or cultural moires.
- crypto is for criminals
- it does not give you full control (false, custodial services don't)
- it is possible to ban all fiat exits
If you struggle with the last point, take a look at kycnot.me list.
This doesn’t matter. Every fiat exit that is banned creates more friction. Like a shopping cart that has left the parking lot and has the wheels locked, the transaction system becomes so difficult to use that it approaches impossible to use.
If someone is banned from taking a loan from all regulated banks then they are forced to deal with loan sharks / organized crime. That loss of competition and choice comes with additional friction and strings attached to every transaction. Worse transaction fees, less security, less scrupulous counterparties, less convenience of location, less liquidity (one OnlyFans creator in the story was making $500k/mo), etc.
It’s not only the fiat exits that ban specific users. Cryptocurrency exchanges are known to ban transactions to certain addresses / wallets for reasons including (but not limited to) fraud, scams, sanctions. I imagine some of the exchanges that try to follow US law also do some basic due diligence and ban some addresses based on sex work. If the sex worker’s customers can’t easily transfer the crypto to their addresses, the same problem remains.
If you want to help cryptocurrency, put your time into fixing the problems rstger than still more empty marketing.
< "crypto has the same problems"
> "propaganda"
LOL.
I have yet to see a real world use case for crypto that isn't about getting around legal restrictions in the financial space which usually are used to fund north Korea or a drug cartel.
The backpage/kijiji thing hurt her bad. She had to start going off referrals more. Which is a bad thing because, as I learned- forming close relationships with clients is bad in that line of business.
Soon she was getting passed around by friends, treated worse and worse. She got pregnant, engaged several times. Beat up several times, pregnant again.
I tried to convince her that anything would be better- fast food, whatever. But how to support now two kids by herself on minimum wage?
Even though I no longer personally know anyone (to my knowledge) effected by this- we need to protect sex workers. Legalize it, or at least decriminalize it to remove the stigma. Like the war on drugs it hurts the wrong people, and if there wasn't a market for it, it wouldn't be one of if not the oldest profession.
Even mobile wallets support lightening network (like Muun).
Bitrefill is handy for getting the off gift card.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.