It could provide as a store and transpiration means of value in times of crisis. For instance some of the Ukrainian banks are now shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your wealth. Same thing applies for Russian citizens who have nothing to do with the war but will soon have their assets frozen. Did you consider all use cases before posting, or just glee at yet another anti crypto post on HN and thought “yay! I get to post something negative about crypto again today”?
The operative word here is “could”. There are a number of pie in the sky benefits of crypto that may be supported by small handfuls of anecdotes that don’t and never will generalize to the public at large. When comparing the potential pros to the existing cons, crypto is a gigantic net negative that is being pushed in order to make small pockets of investors very wealthy, nothing more. And yes, I understand the data structures, protocols, and most of the ideological rationalizations used to promote the fantasy.
> For instance some of the Ukrainian banks are now shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your wealth.
For instance, the Russians were cut off SWIFT. If the oligarchs had crypto, they could access their wealth and render sanctions ineffective.
Believe it or not the Ukrainians are in a war, and currency is not their biggest problem - that would be the tanks, and the bombs and the planes. Once the war resolves, so will their access to money. On the other hand, systems designed to evade sanctions are making that process longer and more painful - and more likely to resolve in the aggressors favor, as the Russians are better capitalized. The Russian people need to feel the pain to pressure their government to end the conflict.
Some pain is good, and so is our ability to inflict it.
