<story><title>Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled</title><url>https://status.coinbase.com/incidents/5fj9rx0py3bq</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zMiller</author><text>This thread&amp;#x27;s audience is obviously a &amp;#x27;developed nations&amp;#x27; one.&lt;p&gt;From our perspective yes, Crytpo&amp;#x27;s use case as currency make absolutely no sense 
(yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat.&lt;p&gt;As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that infamous 1% moving just half of that 10% into Bitcoin ..&lt;p&gt;I digress..&lt;p&gt;If you venture your mind a little outside the borders of our empire and think about the &amp;#x27;unbanked&amp;#x27; parts of our planet, entire populations whom live under poverty for the sole reason that they do not have access to the equity and efficient markets directly.
If you look there, people are DYING for something like Bitcoin and other crypto&amp;#x27;s. 
There is absolutely no reason an African farmer to have to  sell his Oranges to Europe in Euro then buy it back from there (Sell Euro to local currency) for local use.&lt;p&gt;Currency is an abstraction, an expression of a market, just like language is.&lt;p&gt;Here we tap to pay and need everyone to protect us from fraudsters, pornographers, money laundry , &amp;lt;insert your favorite horse man of the apolocyple here&amp;gt;,  in other parts of the world , that far out number the western world in population, they don&amp;#x27;t care to be protected by the above because quite frankly the price they pay for that &amp;#x27;protection&amp;#x27; is insanely oppressive governments that use the above to legitimize the oppression.&lt;p&gt;It is exactly in those markets where you start to see a VERY stong use case as both store of value and currency for crypto and it is exactly that market that will drive the world&amp;#x27;s demand for good UI for crypto that will eventually usher in mass adoption.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joe_the_user</author><text>The average &amp;quot;unbanked&amp;quot; person in a third world nation couldn&amp;#x27;t afford a $20 transaction fee for their ordinary transactions. But bitcoin certainly looks like a way for some portion of this group to protect their capital since it&amp;#x27;s not controlled by states want capital controls.&lt;p&gt;Of course, there&amp;#x27;s a reason third world countries want capital controls - a lot of the people seeking to export capital are corrupt non-owning &lt;i&gt;possessors&lt;/i&gt; of resources. Just as an example, whatever rank administrators within state oil companies and such who want to take things that actually belong to the nations - because such nations have rather weak administrative classes (not that the US isn&amp;#x27;t moving closer to &amp;quot;kleptocracy&amp;quot; itself).&lt;p&gt;So everywhere, bitcoin certainly looks like a device for protecting value - except once all the money that wants to move in has moved, then bitcoin&amp;#x27;s lack of actual practical use (see $20 fees) will make it not terribly valuable and all that money in it will be at a bit of risk.&lt;p&gt;Plus, phone-based money systems already are coming&amp;#x2F;in Africa. They solve the ordinary transaction problem. The problem of &amp;quot;how do you get money out of X currency or resource&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t a logistics problem, it&amp;#x27;s a power-struggle. The reason Y person is fighting to get money out of X currency is Z person wants to stop that happening. But overall, remember neither Y nor Z are likely to be less than fully corrupt.</text></comment>
<story><title>Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled</title><url>https://status.coinbase.com/incidents/5fj9rx0py3bq</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zMiller</author><text>This thread&amp;#x27;s audience is obviously a &amp;#x27;developed nations&amp;#x27; one.&lt;p&gt;From our perspective yes, Crytpo&amp;#x27;s use case as currency make absolutely no sense 
(yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat.&lt;p&gt;As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that infamous 1% moving just half of that 10% into Bitcoin ..&lt;p&gt;I digress..&lt;p&gt;If you venture your mind a little outside the borders of our empire and think about the &amp;#x27;unbanked&amp;#x27; parts of our planet, entire populations whom live under poverty for the sole reason that they do not have access to the equity and efficient markets directly.
If you look there, people are DYING for something like Bitcoin and other crypto&amp;#x27;s. 
There is absolutely no reason an African farmer to have to  sell his Oranges to Europe in Euro then buy it back from there (Sell Euro to local currency) for local use.&lt;p&gt;Currency is an abstraction, an expression of a market, just like language is.&lt;p&gt;Here we tap to pay and need everyone to protect us from fraudsters, pornographers, money laundry , &amp;lt;insert your favorite horse man of the apolocyple here&amp;gt;,  in other parts of the world , that far out number the western world in population, they don&amp;#x27;t care to be protected by the above because quite frankly the price they pay for that &amp;#x27;protection&amp;#x27; is insanely oppressive governments that use the above to legitimize the oppression.&lt;p&gt;It is exactly in those markets where you start to see a VERY stong use case as both store of value and currency for crypto and it is exactly that market that will drive the world&amp;#x27;s demand for good UI for crypto that will eventually usher in mass adoption.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bllguo</author><text>Africa is actually more sophisticated than the US in many ways regarding fintech&lt;p&gt;Anyway, this is a straw man. Who is saying cryptos are useless? People are saying that they are a bubble, that the valuations are irrational.</text></comment>