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Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

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Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#81

Post by yawnr »

gruez wrote: post #67
robcohen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under US law it is illegal to use localbitcoins. It’s a violation of money transmitter laws. https://kelman.law/blog/money-transmitter-licensing-for-u-s-...

Only if you're a business, right? Does offering to buy 500 euros off your friend because he have some left over from his european vacation make you a MSB?

Your friend would be the money transmitter in this case and at that scale no one would care, but if he did it with 1000 “friends” then, well yeah. People have gotten arrested and charged for operating on localbitcoins without proper licensing.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#84

Post by matvore »

asdev wrote: post #65

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

Cryptocurrency promotion implies to some extent that central control of money is a bad thing. So it is somewhat political.

I think most HN folks are against it for political reasons to a certain extent. Even if they say they aren't, they are getting their information from and socializing in a bubble with a political bias.

There are some news topics on HN that i will never read the comments of because of how motivated and biased the reasoning is behind them. Bitcoin comments I will still read though, since it's fun to see everyone's tone and reasoning evolve as Bitcoin slowly gets more traction and rises in price over time.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#85

Post by BurningFrog »

WJW wrote: post #42
shawnz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it easier to speculate should in theory decrease volatility and make market manipulation harder, since having more speculators should mean that the price is driven to its fair value more quickly.

This gets back to the "gambling vs investing" debate we had on the front page yesterday. What is the fair value of bitcoin? It will never provide dividends or other types of future cashflows, so that aspect of its fair value is zero. The remaining part is purely speculative in that it is based on what other people will pay for it. It is not at all clear to me that having more (relatively uninformed) speculators will…

> The remaining part is purely speculative in that it is based on what other people will pay for it.

This is of course true, but it's also true for oil, buildings, pork bellies, and any other kind of property.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#86

Post by leppr »

Sargos wrote: post #69
gnrlst wrote: post #13

Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. It was created to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" (quoting from the whitepaper title)... oh how far it has strayed.

>Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. All of this moved over to Ethereum long ago but those outside of the crypto space might not know that. Thousands of hackers have created little neat experiments and projects for others to use and build on and more are released everyday. Some of my favorites are https://dontbuymeme.com/ , https://aa…

Right, and it's not just neat little experiments. There already is big money on Ethereum's DeFi: billions lended, transacted between assets, leverage longs/shorts taken.

Add to that experimental unpegged stablecoin projects[1], and you realize the dream of a "P2P electronic cash system" is alive and well. It's just being worked on by different groups than originally (because if you own a big bitcoin stash now, it's hard to resist the temptation of pushing the SoV/ponzi narrative).

[1]: https://debaseonomics.io/, https://reflexer.finance/

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#87

Post by rchaud »

177tcca wrote: post #79
rchaud wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be because cryptocurrencies in their present state represent little other than a electricity-hungry 'store of value' rather than its considerably loftier original goals.

"Represent" in the public and media mind share. What the technology actually is capable of, and is doing today, these are different things.

Sure, but we are not commenting on a story about crypto-related applications. The story is about a centralized exchange going public. Coinbase doesn't care what dApps will be created on Ethereum or whatever, in the same that my broker doesn't care about how my GME purchase will strike a blow for the little guy. They're both just there to pick up their cut.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#88

Post by kolinko »

gnrlst wrote: post #13

Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. It was created to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" (quoting from the whitepaper title)... oh how far it has strayed.

Regulation killed it - since SEC is watching more closely you either need a legal team, or you need to be very adventurous to build stuff like bitcoin tip bot on reddit :/

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#89

Post by [deleted] »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #73
asdev wrote: post #65

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

Is it? Would it be crazy how anti-homeopathy a medical forum could be? Perhaps a tech savvy community is more aware of the flaws of BTC, and therefore more bearish on it's prospects.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#90

Post by PaulAJ »

yawnr wrote: post #81
gruez wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're a business, right? Does offering to buy 500 euros off your friend because he have some left over from his european vacation make you a MSB?

Your friend would be the money transmitter in this case and at that scale no one would care, but if he did it with 1000 “friends” then, well yeah. People have gotten arrested and charged for operating on localbitcoins without proper licensing.

That isn't quite true. Money business laws only apply to people doing it as business, so your friend is in the clear de-jure as well as de-facto. One of the things a prosecutor would have to prove as part of the case is that this was in fact a business. Typically this would be done by showing that he had been listing both buy and sell on localbitcoins.com and/or by setting up a test purchase that showed he was dealing with anyone who showed up.
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