alt Hacker NewsAfter long soul-searching, crypto has settled on two strong use cases:
1) unregulated gambling (a.k.a. "prediction markets"),
2) funding North Korea.
Heartening to see the beautiful web3 vision come alive.
Replies
all this time people said it was useless ... just shows what they know
For you maybe, and those who have only lived, worked, and made businesses in one country. I have had several occasions where crypto would have made life a lot easier. I closed a bank account in Canada and they said the funds could not be sent by wire when it's being closed, only a paper bank draft, and assured me that my bank in Europe would accept it. My bank not only did not accept paper checks or bank drafts but told me no bank in the entire country accepts paper checks and drafts anymore.
Another time, I tried to book IMAX 70mm movie tickets for my trip to visit, the website IP region blocked me so I got on to VPN, then I could make the booking but the Visa SMS 2FA redirect IP region blocked my VPN IP so I could not complete the checkout. I had to get a friend to make the booking for me on their card. International banking is terrible.
Hey, you forgot #3:
Selling sanctioned oil to India and buying unguided cruise missiles from Iran, through the Gulf state laundromats.
That's a good sign of it's resilience if true. Why don't you want a form of money that doesn't require doxxing yourself to a state or bank?
I have read somewhere that ISIS mostly runs on cryptocurrency now because it's harder to block.
Oh here
> They delve in weapons and human trafficking, sometimes take part in drug smuggling, more and more engage in crypto mining and frauds related to the crypto industry - the whole Islamic State is now operating by crypto, whether it’s various European countries, West or East Africa, Asia, or such weird places like Costa Rica, Brazil or Argentina.
https://saladinaldronni.substack.com/p/recent-islamic-state-...
edit:
but it seems they have mostly moved to Monero
https://gnet-research.org/2025/02/18/combating-islamic-state...
lmao
Supporting poorer countries, can there be a more moral course? /s
North korea has enough cars for a traffic jam so that's definitely a win for the people's democratic republic of Korea, the only korea to exist.