201–210 of 233 posts
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The majority of the hash power is in China. If China can seize the miners all at once, they'll have control over the blockchain. At that point, other countries would be foolish to compete, and may focus on alternate alt currencies.
But they still can't change the blockchain. And there would still be miners outside of China.
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> 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.
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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.
The only downside to cash is a central authority controls it and can devalue if they so choose. Other than that, I agree, cash is great.
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…
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>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.
Even if they switched to Scrypt (from SHA256) for which dedicated hardware exist, it would cost them millions of dollars and require months of manufacturing re-organization to get to their share of hashrate.
Of course, the miners would still be able to mine the old fork and at that point it is more likely that an altcoin (like Ethereum, Litecoin or Vertcoin) would eat up Bitcoin's marketshare.
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…
So regulations against pollution are only there to keep the established order?
Monetary regulation protects, supposedly. It may protect individuals against losing money in stupid schemes. But it didn't save us from the recent massive and costly market crashes which hurt far more people than a few loan sharks ever could.
The rich use regulation to control markets, that's why the gaps are growing between rich and poor people.
Regulation protects from both sides. It can protect you from getting rich too, by loading barriers to your opportunities.
Look at climate change - if you want to use another regulatory framework as an example of governmental regulatory failure.
Did environmental regulation stop climate change? No it became a tool for lobbyists to use to delay changes to the market that would harm profits. A protectionist racket, full of do good fools who think they know best.
Regulation is a tool used by governments to control stuff. Look at what is broken in the world - regulation is a huge factor in that.
The answer to regulation is self education.
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…
>Libertarian ideals do not fit in communist societies. Regulation was always coming, as even liberal societies regulate. I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here; that regulation is a Communist idea? Either way, China is not a Communist society, it's a very capitalist society, with private property, wage labour etc. Also, libertarian (used in the original way libertarian was used) is Communist societ…
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This is so wrong that I don't know where to start. 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 c…
> 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. Is there some reason to believe that markets can exist without government intervention of some kind? At a minimum someone needs to ensure that the participants in the market are not killing each other. Even in prison economies there are de facto "governments" (…
The system creates trust.
Whether we can achieve this goal through cryptography and game theory remains to be seen.
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https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own...
I don't get it. What's the point of a country issuing a cryptocurrency? isn't decentralization the whole point of bitcoin, ethereum, etc. ?
It's a dystopian government's dream.
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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.
Stock broker with FX, market spread and low fee, total result can easily be less than 0.1% (and even a lot less most likely closer to 0.01%).
I've spoken with my US equities/funds brokerage firm, and they have an FX desk, but they're still more expensive than the dedicated FX broker I found and currently work with. Before that, I was regularly raked by my US bank for 4-6% off the mid-market. I haven't seen mid-market spread + 0.01% anywhere, and only seen + 0.1% thrown around for 6-figure and up USD transaction sizes, wire transfer (ACH or SWIFT), at least several of those per month volume. TransferWise works at mid-market + 1%; but they don't work with paper checks. What you're getting is even better than cryptocurrency exchange-facilitated conversions, so I'm very interested in finding out more if you can post a pointer in the right direction. Thanks.