41–50 of 233 posts
Bitcoin price impact is the best way to gauge the significance of any particular news (this? not much): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTCUSD=X/
> Bitcoin price impact is the best way to gauge the significance of any particular news Not really. Timezones are a thing and I'm pretty sure the majority of those exchanges halted trading.
Bitcoin and for that matter all crypto currency is a libertarian ideal. Libertarian ideals do not fit in communist societies. Regulation was always coming, as even liberal societies regulate. But regulation is only there to keep the established order. The established order is very afraid of crypto right now in the same way the music industry freaked out over MP3. I can't help it, but I get annoyed when crypto is bran…
They do, literally all the time, to talk about money laundering and justifying absurdity like seizing cash from motorists.
The only money that isn't Supporting Terrorism!(tm) is Fed Fun Bucks(tm), which are stored as a number you may request be told to you from a participating national bank.
As soon as I read this, two words came to mind: Capital flight. A growing number of Chinese nationals has been using Bitcoin to siphon money out of China over the past several years.[1][2] Not surprisingly, the Chinese government is cracking down on this innovative form of capital flight. [1] http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1891021-how-chinese-use-bitc... [2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/chinese-i…
This is where the "Chinese people use Bitcoin to exfil capital" story falls apart. It's near impossible to open a foreign bank account and pass KYC from within China as a Chinese citizen.
You have to travel to Macau or Hong Kong - and if you're doing that you may as well use the cheaper and more efficient underground laundering and exchange networks.
The most well known ways of exfiltrating capital out of China - foreign real estate[0], casino junkets[1] and foreign acquisitions[2] - have been cracked down on in the past 12 months.
I think Bitcoin pales in comparison to these sources and is a minor irritant, and it was more likely Bitcoin is now being more heavily regulated because of the ICO boom and associated scams in China.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellensheng/2017/07/31/chinese-o...
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-13/crown-employees-detain...
[2] http://www.afr.com/news/world/chinas-strict-capital-controls...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sustainable business case is permissionless nature of Bitcoin. Everything else comes down to it. This talk of blockchain technology being somewhat of a new wonderful invention that's supposed to magically make companies more profitable...? Not so. The reason why Bitcoin exists is because governments want control over money. Bitcoin gives people freedom. Period. Everything else is noise.
> governments want control over money Of course. And for a good reason. People utter this line as if governments wanting control over money was somehow bad . Money, within all human societies that exist or existed, is pretty much synonymous with power. It is the tool that allows an individual to incent, compel and coordinate other people to do what said individual wants. With $1 you can make someone cook you a hot do…
You don't want a state with total centralized power over the economy because you end up with places like North Korea or the USSR with uncompetitive industry and shortages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The bullshit artists that already 'invested' in this scheme will now tell you that China did not matter and the people under them will parrot it. If you're so sure that it's bullshit you're free to put your money where your mouth is and short it.
I know you can short as an institutional investor on GDAX, but is it possible for the average person to do a BitCoin short?
I think this is a really good sign that it's a good idea to get out of crypto currencies. China is actually pretty good at making decisions to defend it's country from negative outside influence. Anywhere that hosts a bitcoin exchange is also hosting criminal activity. Consequently, Bitcoin exchanges are going to make areas more dangerous to live. It's just a bad business decision to allow it to exist in your country…
Many of us analysts who are deep in the game recognize that China is simply shutting them all down to start its own cryptocurrency that (probably) has ID/government name linked to it.
Bitcoin and for that matter all crypto currency is a libertarian ideal. Libertarian ideals do not fit in communist societies. Regulation was always coming, as even liberal societies regulate. But regulation is only there to keep the established order. The established order is very afraid of crypto right now in the same way the music industry freaked out over MP3. I can't help it, but I get annoyed when crypto is bran…
The US takes active efforts to prevent USD being used in illegal activities. That's not to say that it isn't, but there are legal red flags if you try to haul a big pile of bills through customs. Cryptocurrency's entire use case so far has focused around illegal activity. Whether said activity is immoral is up for debate (you can certainly deem breaking the laws of some countries to be moral), but illegal? Absolutely…
That kind of petty criminality and fraud seems to run through the heart of the bitcoin community, and is part of why I think people are reasonable to associate it with questionable activity -- that's what it's advocated as supporting even here on HN!
As soon as I read this, two words came to mind: Capital flight. A growing number of Chinese nationals has been using Bitcoin to siphon money out of China over the past several years.[1][2] Not surprisingly, the Chinese government is cracking down on this innovative form of capital flight. [1] http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1891021-how-chinese-use-bitc... [2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/chinese-i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sustainable business case is permissionless nature of Bitcoin. Everything else comes down to it. This talk of blockchain technology being somewhat of a new wonderful invention that's supposed to magically make companies more profitable...? Not so. The reason why Bitcoin exists is because governments want control over money. Bitcoin gives people freedom. Period. Everything else is noise.
> governments want control over money Of course. And for a good reason. People utter this line as if governments wanting control over money was somehow bad . Money, within all human societies that exist or existed, is pretty much synonymous with power. It is the tool that allows an individual to incent, compel and coordinate other people to do what said individual wants. With $1 you can make someone cook you a hot do…
First of all, people tend to forget that government is not made of angels. It is made of humans, who are susceptible to the same flaws as the rest of us: greed, hunger for power, etc. Therefore we should try to limit the power government has over us to only basic necessities.
Second of all, historically, human societies functioned quite well with multiple competing currencies on the same area, some of them private, some state-governed. It might have been pain in the ass if some customers wanted to pay in French coins and others in Belgian ones, but that pain was eased by the fact that they were made of gold or silver, so to compare their worth it was enough to compare weight.
Lastly, control of currency allows goverment to increase it's spending beyond reasonable levels with debt. Which of course happens at the expense of citizens. This is the sole reason government enforces it's monopoly on currency.
Cryptocurrencies are unique oportunity to take control over the currency from governments and put it back in people's hands, exactly how God intended it to be :) We shouldn't give up that control to easily.
In the end money is just a commodity, same as bread, so we should let the market decide which currency to use, without any monopolies, state-owned or other.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> governments want control over money Of course. And for a good reason. People utter this line as if governments wanting control over money was somehow bad . Money, within all human societies that exist or existed, is pretty much synonymous with power. It is the tool that allows an individual to incent, compel and coordinate other people to do what said individual wants. With $1 you can make someone cook you a hot do…
You think it's for good reason. Many people think it's for bad reason. Those people invented and developed Bitcoin. Now the people who think state has no business messing with money and private lives of people have an actual tool upon their hands.
Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying the present balance of power between individual and the state is perfectly placed. But thinking about ditching states altogether is, presently, a pretty dumb idea, that only signals a lack of awareness of how the society works.