Topic: Payment systems should NOT be centralised. Evidence: Russia (Read 128 times)

That's called 'whataboutism' and is a logical fallacy. In that regard, we can also say that Russia committed genocides in Ukraine during the Holodomor, in Afghanistan, in Chechnia, in Georgia, and in Siria and in Africa (through their private military). Someone else wrong does not make this right.

As for centralisation...I am afraid that if we want mass adoption that we will need to accept some level of centralization. I mean, we can go for full decentralization, but I doubt that crypto would grow or even maintain its value.

Sanctions are needed to warn Russia that any of their actions have consequences that they must accept. Moreover sanctions will not kill humans, it will affect the Russian economy, but it will not kill thousands of people like Russia did.

you can fight tyrany with war only as long as god allows you to do that, Donald Trump was a Time Change, the US empire was focused to turn inwards.

every sanction that has been carried out by several countries is aimed at suppressing and weakening it so that the war does not continue and provides a deterrent effect but in fact they also have allies who will support it so that the sanctions do not have much effect except only for innocent civilians
and this is the scourge of war caused by selfish rulers

Western Governments fight supposed tyranny with tyranny itself. It's so backwards. Sec Warren in the US recently said that crypto should either do business in Russia, or the US, but not both. Shows how uneducated she and the rest of that Government are.

In this instance though, sanctions are also being applied directly against oligarchs and others who are known associates of Putin. If you want Russians to remove Putin, a good way to encourage it is surely to target his allies. And yes, broader sanctions do hurt innocent ordinary Russians, but they also hurt his ability to maintain his army... and may possibly foment insurrection.

Sanctions don't work for the reason you've alluded to - economic restrictions just affect the ordinary people of a country, the governmental elites remain unaffected.

Visa and Mastercard, and all the other companies, cutting off ties aren't doing it because they are being virtuous. Russia just has a small economy and it wouldn't hurt for the larger financial players to pull out. Meanwhile, they continue to operate in countries like China which has concentration camps running for millions of muslims.

We can make a great cheat sheet out of the shit happening in Russia and learn how to protect our money. It appears the state can literally do anything to you.
They blocked currency exchange.
They blocked withdrawals - you can withdraw equivalent of 10k EUR and the rest is frozen until September. If they choose to they'll prolong the ban to the end of the year and then indefinitely, stealing people's money.
If you earn money abroad you have to exchange it to rubles.
ATMs are empty, banks will not give you cash anymore. Makes me think how people are supposed to withdraw that 10k if they don't have bank notes anymore.

Stores are becoming empty, people are buying everything because their fiat can lose another 20% in value next month.
When first news came about the inflation and bans people who had cash at hand were buying jewelry and watches just to get rid of it, but then luxury brands closed their stores.

Another thing worth noting is the ban on alcohol in Ukraine and the request from the Turkish government to donate their gold so that country's reserves can be replenished.

What becomes important in a crisis is physical things. A tank full of gas, gold, alcohol, some cash, cryptocurrencies. A million in the bank is going to be nothing more than a good party talk.

In this case I don't agree. First of all, it wasn't decided by just US and Ukraine. It was by EU, UK and some other countries.
Second, it's nonsense to say that 99.99% aren't responsible for it. According to poll, 70% of Russians support Putin actions in Ukraine. You support it - ok, meet the consequences.
And banning Russia from SWIFT don't affect daily life of people that much. They are able to spend, send and withdraw their money inside Russia. Though, ruble now record low, but it's not because ban of SWIFT, it's result of other sanctions.

I would say that the events of the past few weeks, from the harassment of Freedom Convoy and the Ukraine war has been an eye-opener on a lot of things about money. Being highly-centralized meant they can just freeze your assets if you don't like you for whatever reason and this is a risk for both individuals (like the protesters) or entire countries (like Russia).

If you don't have your money with you, it's not really yours. And even if you have it on your hand, if it's fiat the government can still steal it from you by making it worthless.

US ran a genocide in eastern ukraine through their proxy zelinski,

How is this the US fault? are they the one responsible for the ongoing war? if Putin decided to end it today things will be normalized, it is the responsibility of the Russians to stage a protest if what their government is doing is not to their favour.


The ban places is not targeted on the innocent citizens but rather for the government to have a change of mind to what is at stake, what will it take Putin to stop the war he started and the people enjoys their freedom back, if anyone is to be blame then i think its their government.


Don't just assume a negative thought about US, it has nothing to do with this ongoing war, will you say EU too is involved? and talking about Iraq war, if you look into the video clips very well, you will discover thousands of their citizens running to US millitary rescue team for safety at the boarder and their airport. US, EU, UK, NATO only mobilize for peace keeping to countries having leadership challenges.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/05/visa-and-mastercard-will-both-suspend-operations-in-russia

How can 2 parties (US and Ukraine) meet and decide the financial fate of Russia- 146,000,000 people of which 99.99% have nothing to do with the war have to struggle and potentially lose their life savings over something that wasn't their fault.

War IS a crime. But so are blanket bans on INNOCENT people.

One argument might be that "oh Russia needs to be economically pressured".

HOWEVER let's not forget the US- who by the way have provoked this war and have been responsible for countless innocent lives and disruption in the world.
Let's not forget that when the US killed over 2 million innocent people in Iraq none of the top politicians or billionaires were punished. Is that fair?

Anyways the solution to remove all evil is clear: decentralised distributed systems that are not consoled by a single entity.

Bitcoin is what they are scared of it being. BTC