Even developing countries have access to useful financial networks. I did a few projects in Kenya and Cameroon and traveled around Uganda last year, the traditional banking sector isn't great but telco's have filled the gap and it's easy to use mobile money instead (and in a way that doesn't chew up data). Not sure about exporting the means of surveillance, I think it's much more useful as a geoeconomic tool to enforce things like sanctions for a country like the U.S. than it is to spy on the average person.

> P.S. Our grandchildren will wonder why we allowed the free world to export the means of surveillance to the third world. The financial system is a huge part of that.

While I agree with the sentiment, this won't happen. Did the Banana Wars and using the military might to control South America prevent all the American wars in the middle east? Nope. Just as those are forgotten about, we Americans will conveniently forget anything else that puts a bad spot on our record.

Who are these people who are well educated and live in first world countries, competent enough to do these tasks, but also are in a position to benefit from crypto? To me the only (incidental, not at all fundamental) benefit of crypto is if you live in a country with sanctions and you need to get money in/out.

> Centralized systems work great... until they don't.

There has yet to be a decentralized cryptocurrency. We can't even say things like "decentralized systems work great until they don't" because so far they don't exist, and what does has been less than "great".

> Our grandchildren will wonder why we allowed the free world to export the means of surveillance to the third world.

I don't even know what you're going for here? Crypto solves surveillance now? The global, distributed ledger that everyone can fundamentally access because that's the whole point?

I'm not sure what you even mean by that statement that there has never been a functioning decentralized cryptocurrency. I would need you to explain what your bar is for decentralization, and why it's so high.

As for privacy, the technology has come a long way in the last decade due to the development of Zero-Knowlege Proofs. I can share a few links if you are interested.

> I would need you to explain what your bar is for decentralization, and why it's so high.

A single entity being capable of significant or total disruption of the network.

> As for privacy, the technology has come a long way in the last decade due to the development of Zero-Knowlege Proofs. I can share a few links if you are interested.

I am interested. I'm aware of some progress being made here theoretically, but I have not seen implementations (I do not follow closely at this point).