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China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

bbc.co.uk

171–180 of 233 posts

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#171
post #73

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…

China is only communist in name. It's a non-liberal capitalist country, with something of a non-universal social safety net.

Whatever.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the Chinese government also demanded DVDs of all transaction records at the exchanges. This means that the Chinese citizens who moved their Bitcoin off of the exchange will have to answer to the bean counters. How could a clever Chinese citizen avoid government scrutiny of their cryptocurrency finances under these conditions? They could trade Yuan (cash) for BTC through an underground mechanism of some sort…

Let's do a little searching for "anonymous" in the memory hole : http://www.newsweek.com/virtual-currency-bitcoin-anonymous-w... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/10/the-crypto-cur... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/bitcoin-inside-t... https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/20/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of... https://gizmodo.com/5803124/what-is-bitcoin Hah. So the usual suspects were pimping it, in 2011, as…

If you use an exchange, you are one step removed from the cryptocurrency.

Complaining about the lack of privacy of BitCoin when using an exchange is like complaining that you did an illicit transaction in front of a police station to ensure you didn't get mugged, but are surprised when the police use security camera footage as evidence against you.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#173
post #81
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand the capital flight argument. The Chinese economy has seen overwhelming growth in the past 10 years. If you are searching for yield, it's in China.

Much of the money getting made in China is ending up in the hands of government employees who should not have very lucrative jobs, and the combination of lavish personal consumption by them and obvious advantages afforded to their children ("princelings") is causing audible social discontent about corruption. The Chinese Communist Party considers audible social discontent to be an existential threat and responds to i…

>Much of the money getting made in China is ending up in the hands of government employees

BS

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#174
post #108
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…

Then at the bare minimum make some falsifiable prediction, like "a bitcoin will be worth less than 1,000 USD 24 months from today." If someone insists that shorting is infeasible, and refuses to make a clear prediction, then their claim is unfalsifiable and thus fairly meaningless.

There's not a great reason to make such a claim, unless you are interested in proving a point afterwards. Instead, it's valid to believe "Bitcoin's price today is higher than its intrinsic value" and take action on that claim by not buying Bitcoin. You may not be forwarding the rational discourse on Bitcoin's price and value, but you are still "putting your money where your mouth is."

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#175
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law, which means if somethings not explicitly illegal then it must be legal. So I don't think circumventing the law is seen the same way as it would over in the anglosphere, where we'd condemn someone for intentionally not following the 'spirit of the law' and a judge/jury might convict them anyways. Disclaimer: IANAL and perhaps a bad…

> Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law Aren't these the same thing? [1] Do you mean something else (civil law)? But that's a great point; maybe the problem is my lack of living in a purely civil law country. The thing is though, it seems more like common sense to me than a legal issue. Like for example, if (say) murder with a knife and a gun had been illegal, but ther…

Yea sorry, meant civil law.

Murder is kind of hard to use as an example because there's typically really strong moral and cultural understandings that you shouldn't be doing that. But lets think of a more nuanced example. Lets say there's a lake that's being overfished. The government doesn't want to outlaw all fishing, but they want to rein in the more massive fishing operations. So they outlaw using trawler nets in the lake, but people using conventional poles or spears can keep fishing as much as they want.

Now say someone comes along and figures out another method to massively overfish the lake without using nets. In civil law countries if the law is written to specifically outlaw the use of nets I think the people would look at the law as faulty instead of the person who exploits the loophole. After all, whatever method they figured out isn't actually illegal. And the way to solve the issue is to update the law, not to punish the clever loophole seeker.

But in common law countries the law would more likely be written in a way that can't be as strictly interpreted. There might be wiggle room that would allow a judge/jury to basically say "Look we didn't explicitly forbid what you are doing, but it's clearly something this law was meant to prevent. Therefore you're guilty, and case law will be updated to include this verdict."

At least that's how I interpret it.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#176
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I will say those people are wrong, and they're only able to think that because they live in stable societies under rule of law, and have time to criticize somewhat abstract issues like this. 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…

I would point out that I don't think anyone is saying that bitcoin and other altcoins should become the only, or even the main currencies in use.

> You think it's for good reason. Many people think it's for bad reason.

In reality, you are both right. There are both 'good' reasons and 'bad' reasons why the state wants control over monetary supply and flow. I feel that as electronic currency transactions has gained ground over cash, the 'bad' reasons have become stronger and more important.

The question really is to if degree that bitcoin undermines the good reasons for state monetary control balances with the degree that it undermines the bad reasons. I suspect that as electronic transfers become increasingly ubiquitous, we will see the importance of bitcoin in maintaining personal freedom increase.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#177
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used it to transfer money between countries with an exchange rate better than any other available. Surely this is not illegal?

Forex commissions are lower than 1%. Which exchanges offer better rates on a fiat/bitcoin/fiat transfer?

Where are you getting below 1%, and how much are you exchanging? I'm working with 5-figure USD amounts, drafted on paper checks, and I'm averaging right around 1-1.2% after all costs are accounted for, but not below that.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#178
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law Aren't these the same thing? [1] Do you mean something else (civil law)? But that's a great point; maybe the problem is my lack of living in a purely civil law country. The thing is though, it seems more like common sense to me than a legal issue. Like for example, if (say) murder with a knife and a gun had been illegal, but ther…

Yea sorry, meant civil law. Murder is kind of hard to use as an example because there's typically really strong moral and cultural understandings that you shouldn't be doing that. But lets think of a more nuanced example. Lets say there's a lake that's being overfished. The government doesn't want to outlaw all fishing, but they want to rein in the more massive fishing operations. So they outlaw using trawler nets in…

Interesting, thanks for the example. It doesn't fully seem to be consistent with my experience (I feel the US allows much more freedom than many civil law countries, which seems unintuitive give this line of reasoning) but you're probably right, I'll have to read more about this haha. Thanks!

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#179
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forex commissions are lower than 1%. Which exchanges offer better rates on a fiat/bitcoin/fiat transfer?

Kraken is ~.26% for a taker and ~.16% for a maker. And in some places, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to send money.

Unfortunately, many companies still insist upon remitting in paper checks, especially for cross-border transactions. If I could route a paper check remittance to a BTC/ETH exchange like Kraken, buy into BTC/ETH in that paper check's denomination, then immediately sell and withdraw as USD, then I and many other vendors could solve that use case. If anyone knows of a BTC/ETH exchange with turnarounds even faster than forex brokers, and can process paper checks, then please post who you use. For a world economy that is supposed to be a global integrated entity, the amount of rentier hurdles sitting on the borders never ceases to amaze me.

For the few customers that agree to a wire transfer, I'm trying out a cryptocurrency exchange in 2018 to convert them to USD.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#180
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The saver can then exchange bitcoin for dollars at any of the global bitcoin exchanges without anyone ever knowing his identity. 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 a…

When I worked in Shanghai this year, I noticed that a business openly advertising "large sum transfers" was located literally one door away from city's procurator office.

what is their definition of large?
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