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The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#131

Post by quickthrower2 »

washedup wrote: post #84

What a terrible article. Crypto is a new technology that will likely have many uses, to advocate banning it nationally is dangerous and would quickly put us behind the rest of the world. There are easier ways around the "energy use dilemma": carbon tax. If your energy used for mining comes from renewable resources, then there is no issue.

Taxing the miners is only possible with a single world government. One country can’t do it. I suggested earlier that taxing the money coming into Bitcoin via the exchanges, similar to a “stamp duty” (not “gst” as that can be claimed back) collection of tax but for carbon would be the way to go. For example 30% tax on purchasing real crypto from an exchange.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#132

Post by viklove »

flaque wrote: post #45
spaced-out wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government is able to ban crypto currency because it's unnecessary and uses too much energy, couldn't they apply that logic to nearly any other modern luxury?

They do! Gas taxes, bans of gas vehicles, required emission standards, etc.

I think the real solution here is banning coal, natural gas, etc., not the downstream users of it. If I want to mine BTC with 100% nuclear/wind/solar energy, then the problem is solved right?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#133

Post by pingpongchef »

tome wrote: post #74
DickingAround wrote: post #53

This article seems to intentionally ignore the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation and control. The article then proposes to use the law to bring those people back within the control of fiat and government oversight. I no longer think the environmental argument is really plausible here. Clearly crypto mining is emitting using a lot of power and some of that is CO2. But the competition is fiat; backed…

> This article seems to intentionally ignore the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation I'm extremely confused by this argument that I see again and again. If you want to avoid your assets losing value to inflation that you can buy assets that are resistant to inflation, such as stocks, real estate, land, gold, inflation-adjusted bonds ... I just don't see that cryptocurrencies are particularly useful f…

Stocks and bonds are still coupled to fiat currencies and will be directly impacted by their perceived deficiencies when compared to crypto.

Hard assets like real estate, land, gold don't fit that bill, but each of their own tradeoffs. Right now cryptocurrencies are making gains against those hard assets so they are more attractive. An investor may wish to diversify among some or all of these options.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#134

Post by lowbloodsugar »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #66
slibhb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main premise of the article is that cryptocurrencies are "speculation for speculation’s sake," i.e. gambling, and that's bad. Also, the article claims that they contribute to inequality. The green stuff is basically a side note. I don't think it's a terribly strong case but I suppose it depends on whether you agree that crypto is gambling and if you think gambling should banned. Anyway, I think lots of people stu…

Gambling, e.g. casino or sports betting is different because for some it's a fun pastime and participants are (more or less) aware of what it's about. "Crypto" - not the underlying tech which is potentially interesting and may have merit in some incarnation - but buying or trading "assets" grounded in the tech, is essentially a quasi-legal pump and dump scheme right now. There is a rich history of securities law that…

Its odd that I can drop a hundred grand at the Venetian, but not in a mates start-up.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#135

Post by SavantIdiot »

_nckn wrote: post #5

I think the main premise of this article is the fact that crypto's carbon emission is insane, especially Bitcoin, which I agree (I don't hold Bitcoin for this exact reason). But there are many other crypto that uses Proof of Stake, way way greener than Proof of Work, such as Cardano. Even Ethereum is transitioning to Proof of Stake. This article should be re-titled "The Political Case for a Blanket Proof of Work Ban"…

Monero, Ravencoin, and Tether use a proof-of-work function that requires CPUs and defeats GPUs and ASICs, so there is an argument to be made that perhaps there is a slightly greener proof-of-work function. I don't quite understand how their function RandomX works, it requires a VM, lots of memory, and randomly generated work functions that need to be translated by the VM. Been hunting for a good page to explain this, but the point is: it aims to make mining more decentralized because the average user can still participate.

I don't like proof of stake because again, the rich get richer in this scenario, which works against the decentralized core value of cryptocurrency.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#136

Post by tome »

aarongray wrote: post #123
tome wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article seems to intentionally ignore the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation I'm extremely confused by this argument that I see again and again. If you want to avoid your assets losing value to inflation that you can buy assets that are resistant to inflation, such as stocks, real estate, land, gold, inflation-adjusted bonds ... I just don't see that cryptocurrencies are particularly useful f…

Real estate has clearly been shown to not be resistant to inflation over the past year.

Could you elaborate?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#138

Post by louwrentius »

duckfang wrote: post #109

Notice: When Wall street decides to horrible things with money in its various ways, nobody bats an eye. When fraud happens, nobody goes to jail. It's business as usual. When the People decides to do horrible things with money in its various ways, we see hardware manufacturers attempt to lock down hardware to prevent it (nVidia), we see the SEC collectively lose their shit, we see completely inconsistent rules from th…

You can't justify your own 'bad behaviour' by pointing at someone else's bad behaviour.

That is whataboutism, to distract from - I believe - valid and substantiated criticism.

I agree that so much is wrong with Wall Street, but that is another discussion. That is a separate issue to me.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#139

Post by kmeisthax »

cryptochamorro wrote: post #41

No one blames fiat for the destruction of entire countries and assassinations of leaders who tried to get away from being beholden to X financial system. Money drives people to do insane things. Governments only care about the environment insofar as to stay in power and to keep their citizens from interrupting their gravy train. Look at the numerous examples politicians using “green” initiatives to line their own poc…

Government can almost certainly control cryptocurrency, or at least make the lives of those involved with it very difficult.

They could, for example, pass laws that mandate backdoors, which would mean any cryptocurrency developers in the country would be thrown in jail if they didn't comply. They could also ban operating P2P nodes in the cryptocurrency's network. Due to the nature of P2P it isn't possible to hide the fact that you're running a node, unless you also close the entire network off to new users. (Case study: BitTorrent filesharing lawsuits) The government would just have to run their own nodes and connect to other users to collect information on who needs to be arrested.

I don't think people on HackerNews entirely appreciate how much their ability to do cool fun hacker stuff is a function of living in an advanced democracy where there are significant limitations on the power of government upon which the government has agreed to remain, people's innocence is presumed in criminal proceedings, and private actors trying to curtail said freedoms are looked upon with skepticism, if not outright legal condemnation.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#140

Post by simion314 »

hervature wrote: post #96
slibhb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main premise of the article is that cryptocurrencies are "speculation for speculation’s sake," i.e. gambling, and that's bad. Also, the article claims that they contribute to inequality. The green stuff is basically a side note. I don't think it's a terribly strong case but I suppose it depends on whether you agree that crypto is gambling and if you think gambling should banned. Anyway, I think lots of people stu…

The problem with governments creating welfare states is that other citizens (and the government) become responsible for the financial implosion of individuals which incentivizes stupid behavior. I don't believe gambling should be banned but should taxpayers be liable for the healthcare of someone who used their health insurance money to speculate on cryptocurrency? This is actually the main division between conservat…

But you put a tax on gambling then you might have even more money if the guy would have spent his money on vacations around the world. So put a tax on crypto generating/transactions.
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