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China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#121

Post by fwdslash »

eloff wrote: post #39
harwoodleon wrote: post #21

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…

Cash is the original anonymous "crypto"-currency. Still the preferred tool of money launderers, drug dealers, pimps, black marketeers, and other neerdowells everywhere. Also, offers real anonymity with no blockchain records.

I completely agree with this. For years, I was a crypto-currency advocate, telling any and all that it's better than their credit and debit cards. When I took a look at why, though, I realized that tool (in physical form) already exists: cash. As long as you trade a few with a few friends, or buy something from a Mom & Pop, no one can really know what bills you have, and there's no record, ever.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#122

Post by solotronics »

lordnacho wrote: post #28

You gotta wonder if they will go after the miners. I suppose other cryptos have dealt with this issue, and one with the right properties will emerge, but BTC requires huge warehouses full of computers to mine, so the decentralisation part of the argument is a bit flawed. And the big miners happen to be in China, which is pretty convenient for the government. Not sure exactly how much of capacity is in the country, bu…

the core dev team for BTC already said they are prepared to either emergency adjust difficulty or change the hashing algo if a disaster happens with the miners .. yes this is technically a hard fork of the block chain but it has happened before in an emergency

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#123

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

stefano wrote: post #83
ComodoHacker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China will nationalize the domestic miners and treat Bitcoin as a commodity asset that the state controls Sounds like a good reason for a fork.

But if China has the majority of mining power, they can start mining your fork and do as they please with it.

Then you fork to proof of stake or another proof that mining-power alone cannot control.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#124

Post by fwdslash »

lordnacho wrote: post #28

You gotta wonder if they will go after the miners. I suppose other cryptos have dealt with this issue, and one with the right properties will emerge, but BTC requires huge warehouses full of computers to mine, so the decentralisation part of the argument is a bit flawed. And the big miners happen to be in China, which is pretty convenient for the government. Not sure exactly how much of capacity is in the country, bu…

> but BTC requires huge warehouses full of computers to mine

Currently. It wasn't always that way, and there are many other currencies (Monero) where that isn't the case.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#125

Post by imron »

tboyd47 wrote: post #109
strgcmc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing "stopping" it, except the tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars worth of hardware investment it would take before your new hashrate becomes at all competitive. It's a bit like saying there's nothing stopping you from launching your own soft drink and beating out Coca Cola (you could try, but you probably won't win). China has a huge and possibly insurmountable lead in not just existing built hardware, but a…

Miners have very little power over Bitcoin as a whole. They are constrained both by Bitcoin's rules and economics. If they mine invalid blocks or optimize for something other than fees, the operation will turn unprofitable. If they just stop mining, the mining difficulty will adjust and suddenly ASICs will not be needed to turn a profit. There is a delicate balance in Bitcoin, currently tipped slightly in their favor…

> Miners have very little power over Bitcoin as a whole.

Chinese miners currently control significantly more than 50% of Bitcoin mining.

If the government takes control of the the miners, they take control of the bitcoin network. There's plenty of mischief they could make with that if they were so inclined.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#126

Post by DINKDINK »

schintan wrote: post #107
tannerbrockwell wrote: post #22

China will nationalize the domestic miners and treat Bitcoin as a commodity asset that the state controls. I believe this will immediately cause a constriction in supply as those coins will not be sold at least initially on the open market. Look for this messaging to coincide with the pronouncements around the new five-year plan(FYP)[1]. As the first major section of the 13th FYP, innovation is emphasized as a corner…

If China is able to do it, wouldn't Bitcoin lose all its value ?

No.

Miners can only double spend transactions if they have > 50 % of the hash rate.

The only purpose of miners is to add proof of work to in exchange for new coins that users value. If the proof of work is on a chain that contains valid transactions and conforms to consensus rules, it'll be valuable.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#127

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

baddox wrote: post #105
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to know why people associate bitcoin with crime, look no further than the people celebrating that it will be easier to commit tax fraud now in this very thread. 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…

Come on though, it's not that unreasonable to point it out, and it doesn't mean anyone who points it out is a menace to society like you seem to imply. It's not that different than when people (used to) talk about not paying sales tax on online purchases, but hopefully you wouldn't conclude that "petty criminality and fraud seems to run through the heart of ecommerce."

Isn't it precisely that?

I'm actually confused by your example, because it looks like an example of precisely that happening (and then they were forced not to allow that). Lots of people flocked to e-commerce because of changing the ability to tax transactions.

Lots of "technology disruptions" seem organized around allowing people to break the law on the broad scale by making enforcement complicated and infractions easy. Not to say all of them, but enough that it's certainly a trend.

We can view that as a good thing or a bad thing (and there are reasons it might be a good thing), but it seems strange to ignore it happening.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#128

Post by tboyd47 »

tannerbrockwell wrote: post #118
tboyd47 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins are not like some manufactured physical item where a group of people can collectively seize the means of production with force to control supply of said item. It would be kind of funny if the CCP views it that way but I doubt they do. They probably have more knowledge about how Bitcoin works than everybody on HN combined.

The miner's mining Rig's are plugged into the state controlled power grid. If China wants to control the means of production, they simply follow the power hogs, remember we're talking about operations that are industrial scale. The small players have 500+ mining rigs alone. The means of production will be seized. Existing coins are a toss-up. Although since the penalty could be a death sentence, I'm sure the business…

You are still thinking about this in terms of a physical object. Miners don't "produce" anything except in the same sense that I "produce" the answer to a crossword puzzle. You can take away my pencil but it doesn't make the puzzle unsolvable.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#129

Post by nikcub »

antonislav wrote: post #99
pja wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Shorting into a bubble is usually a terrible idea. 2) The only realistic way to short BTC is to do so via a very small list of exchanges. Even if you trust them (which, given the history of cryptocurrency exchanges is hardly a given) the borrow cost is huge: there's no way you could reasonably make this kind of macro BTC bet. The combination of these two realities makes the "If you don't believe the price, you oug…

Could you expand on point 1? Or maybe point to some references?

If you're reading a story a week about x being in a bubble, then by definition it isn't a bubble

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#130

Post by tboyd47 »

imron wrote: post #125
tboyd47 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners have very little power over Bitcoin as a whole. They are constrained both by Bitcoin's rules and economics. If they mine invalid blocks or optimize for something other than fees, the operation will turn unprofitable. If they just stop mining, the mining difficulty will adjust and suddenly ASICs will not be needed to turn a profit. There is a delicate balance in Bitcoin, currently tipped slightly in their favor…

> Miners have very little power over Bitcoin as a whole. Chinese miners currently control significantly more than 50% of Bitcoin mining. If the government takes control of the the miners, they take control of the bitcoin network. There's plenty of mischief they could make with that if they were so inclined.

Your reply does not refute the point you quoted in any way, nor does it address the other points I made. You are merely restating what the other person said in an equally hand-wavy manner.
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