Szabo: Traditional Finance Destroyed its Tradition, Merit of Crypto Over Fiat

According to blockchain, crypto, and smart contracts pioneer Nick Szabo, the traditional finance sector has destroyed its tradition and has implemented inappropriately complex policies to limit the public's access to money.

"Traditional' finance has destroyed its traditions in favor of naive experiments in digital centralization. Payment vendors now ask questions ludicrously irrelevant to the function of sending payments. Every year their 'money' degrades more into tools of political control."

The statement of Szabo came after PayPal has started to ban transactions sent to specific regions and groups of people.

On Nov. 9, Matt Odell, the co-host of RHR on Tales For The Crypt, a cryptocurrency-focused podcast, stated that every PayPal ban is an advertisement for Bitcoin and crypto, as it demonstrates the necessity and importance of decentralized financial systems.

This week, one PayPal user tried to finance an artist in Spain through PayPal.

Ultimately, PayPal denied the payment and prevented the user from funding an artist in Spain.

"Tried to commission artist in Spain thru PayPal. I had to make a phone call explaining who, what, why, how much, and how many payments there would be in the future. Canceled. Bitcoin is the future."

As Szabo emphasized, businesses in the traditional finance sector have shifted from enabling the general population with financial access to denying users from freely utilizing money under the strict and opaque guideline set forth by industry giants.

As seen in the case of PayPal, decentralize systems enable anyone to process the settlement of money and data without the approval of a central party, which can be valuable to a relatively large group of people-especially in regions with subpar banking systems.

The censorship practiced by payment platforms and businesses in the traditional finance sector could serve as an incentive for users on centralized platforms to move to decentralized alternatives.