A crypto advocate would argue smart contracts can fulfil that role, but also that applies in developed countries but not in the countries where the vast majority of the world population lives.
I think if a true crypto economy does emerge anywhere it's likely to be Nigeria, Lebanon etc - places with a significant population of educated entrepreneurial people but where the state is run abysmally and you can't rely on those institutions anyway
It seems to me that the crypto absolutists have it backwards. You can’t solve the problem of failed states by changing the technology of currency, because the state is there to solve for the counterparty risk at the point of exchange.
The alternative to governments monopoly on violence for enforcement, no matter if you exchange in monero or giant stone discs, is broad use of vigilante violence.
So while crypto seems like an interesting technology for moving money around, it seems like it doesn’t solve for the point of exchange problem and thus crypto that focuses on making that difficult for government mediation are bound to be only useful for illegal activities.
There is no counterparty risk for the seller in the traditional sense with bitcoin or monero, they're bearer assets, once the transaction is confirmed in your wallet there's no risk for you. You don't need to use violence to make sure you get paid?
What you actually have is the opposite problem (in a sense) - the transaction is irreversible, the seller will receive payment and keep it even if they shouldn't (i.e fraud). So there is more risk for the buyer than in a fiat system where transactions can be reversed by legal processes
That’s all counterparty risk. If you deliver the payment before the service/good the buyer takes on the risk. The opposite is true if the payment or good is delivered first.
You can dial the risk in either direction with any payment scheme (20% down balance due on delivery etc) but you can’t eliminate it.
Right yep, I understand what you mean. Yes, ultimately you need some kind of dispute mechanism that probably requires actual human intervention.
A good example is how disputes work on P2P crypto exchanges like bisq - you have a crypto contract of some kind that holds funds in escrow, but ultimately disputes are resolved by a team of actual humans who look at the facts and make a decision, not everything can be "code is law"
I think if a true crypto economy does emerge anywhere it's likely to be Nigeria, Lebanon etc - places with a significant population of educated entrepreneurial people but where the state is run abysmally and you can't rely on those institutions anyway