max

PhD thesis! 😅

Gluing my ass to the chair won't be sufficient. I think I have some form of computer distraction addiction or undiagnosed ADHD, because when I am sitting at the computer I find it really hard to do what I need to do. I am able to find a universe of distractions by slightly moving my fingers, and I have an inordinate ability to psychologically (not rationally!!!) justify it as being somewhat useful. The only thing that saves me is that I can be very efficient when I do focus, but this has become more difficult as the complexity of the work increases, and so many different figures, tables, and concepts have to coalesce together to tell a story that I genuinely believe...

I would probably have a better chance trying to write with pencil and paper in an isolated island than with LaTeX in my computer....

Thanks! I'm at 90% now :) Things that affect the nerves are scary, but the doctor helped calm my fears as symptoms were consistent with a not-too-serious sinus infection.

Aah, ok! That at least explains what they could have been thinking.

But, of course, this is a terrible idea!!

Both sides? "Oh yeah, the front looks a lot like the ID I lost, but can you please send me the back side too so that I can confirm?"

TIL. That's an interesting craft!

Some virus managed to wreck inflammatory havoc around some of my nerves and the right side of my head has been numb since Thursday, my ear in pain, and a zoo of sporadic symptoms come and go 😅 So I have been in the computer a lot. I've been working on setting up a lemmy instance and I also played in the canvas.

As for the rest of the week... I have been procrastinating on thesis writing, and I need to be done before September, so I am trying to find a source of will-power to force myself to write. But this infection is not helping me 😬

I think it is difficult for others to tell you whether it is "worth it", because that is very personal.

For me, personally, transferring my family and friends to Signal is not worth it because Signal requires a phone number. If I will invest such an effort, I would rather help them migrate to a service that does not require a phone number - such as Matrix or an XMPP server. But needing a phone number to register might not be a problem for you - in which case Signal could be a perfectly reasonable choice.

But... Even then - is it worth it? Again, it is up to you. I tried, but my success has been limited. The reality is that I still have a phone with WhatsApp that I leave at home and I check it every day or two. I tell people that if they want to reach me, the best is to use e-mail. And to my closest friends and some of my family I did convince them to use my XMPP chat so that we can be connected more often. No one really left WhatsApp, but at least we can have some fun conversations on our own server, which is nice.

But I am not going to lie, I am sacrificing a ton of functionality and convenience. For me, this is worth it because I think that it is GOOD not to be available through the phone all the time, and I am idealist when it comes to not giving big companies our data. But for some people these sacrifices might be unsustainable, and it might not be worth it.

So: I don't know. Maybe it's worth it?

> Probably paypal just covering niche without any clear understanding just because stablecoins under the hood is very similar to paypal , just using different rails

Yes, that is what it looks like to me.

The thing is... it would take such a small modification to this system to change the world. If PayPal were to implement this such that the PayPal payment can be made by transferring the crypto into the seller's account directly and anonymously without the buyer having a PayPal Balance account, and then PayPal is willing to exchange the seller's PYUSD for fiat directly on the site, this would be such a significant step in the crypto revolution.

> as for freezing accounts, it became common among centralized stablecoins

Yeah, from what they have written It appears like this is necessary feature to comply with regulations.

I am thinking about how I might be able to get a practical use out of PYUSD. Maybe if I kept all of my assets in crypto, then it might be useful to be able to get PYUSD and pay using a paypal account. But I have a lot more fiat than crypto available, and by using PYUSD I lose most if not all of the benefits associated with a crypto payment - plus gas fees. So I don't see why I would chose this option over a normal fiat transfer.

I guess I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the real use case. Is this more than a marketing gimmick?

Ah, it's always in the small-text (Note [2] at the bottom of https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/manage-money/crypto/pyusd):

> PayPal Balance account required to access cryptocurrency. When you buy or sell cryptocurrency, including when you check out with crypto, we will disclose an exchange rate and any fees you will be charged for that transaction. For currencies other than PYUSD, the exchange rate includes a spread that PayPal earns on each purchase and sale. Learn more about cryptocurrency fees.

So, it is not clear to me whether you would be able to exchange monero for PYUSD in some non-KYC exchange, but from this I gather that the only way to actually pay a vendor using PYUSD would be to have a PayPal account that is tied to your identity.

Furthermore, their smart contract has a built-in "asstProtectionRole" that allows them to uni-laterally freeze the balance in any account.

You can find the read-me in their github project here: https://github.com/paxosglobal/pyusd-contract

Here is an excerpt:

> ### Asset Protection Role > > Paxos Trust Company is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). As required by the regulator, Paxos must have a role for asset protection to freeze or seize the assets of a criminal party when required to do so by law, including by court order or other legal process. > > The assetProtectionRole can freeze and unfreeze the PYUSD balance of any address on chain. It can also wipe the balance of an address after it is frozen to allow the appropriate authorities to seize the backing assets. > > Freezing is something that Paxos will not do on its own accord, and as such we expect to happen extremely rarely. The list of frozen addresses is available in isFrozen(address who).

You can see the actual function here.

I don't see this as much of an improvement over using PayPal and a bank. Maybe it can be useful if you want to move crypto into an asset that you can pay with in regular online purchases without going through an exchange. But PayPal will still play the role of the intermediary that knows you. Storing value in an asset that can be frozen by PayPal is absolutely not desirable. So I think that this coin is kind of a gimmick.

But it could have a positive influence in that online vendors might become more accustomed to accepting crypto payments, and it could help adoption in the long run. Let's hope.

You have a good reason to be proud. It's awesome!

Great work!! Are you working on some other next project now?