The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban • Hacker News Board

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#381

Post by jonnycomputer » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

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…

Of course crypto depends on the government. Miners can have their infrastructure investment stolen. Holders of currencies can be robbed, or extorted. The transfer of those currencies pass through infrastructure set up and maintained or regulated by governments.

And frankly, it takes energy to mine, so if crypto became integral to national political and economic interests, there is not going to be any net change in energy politics. You are not unlinking the petroleum and currency in those petrodollars, you're replacing it with something that directly links to two inescapably.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#382

Post by argvargc » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #14

Let’s go the other way and ban fiat. Money printing is a much greater threat to world security. Print way too much money, run out of resources and room to pump, crash to rock bottom, start a war, then start over again is the historic cycle we are stuck on until we fix this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debasement https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

Cryptocurrency presently is also the only usable alternative to fiat. And it is World Backup Day.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#383

Post by dnautics » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #359

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…

And if you want to contest ownership there's no one to invade, no one to attack; the best you can do is make a fleet and try to mine No one except for the owners of major BTC mining operations. If a state actor, such as China, was motivated enough to identify, capture and coerce these miners it would be pretty easy to perform a 51% attack given that China accounts for around 65% of all bitcoin mining globally.

"pretty easy"? Exactly how do you Envision this attack going down, step by step?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#384

Post by paulgb » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #359

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…

And if you want to contest ownership there's no one to invade, no one to attack; the best you can do is make a fleet and try to mine No one except for the owners of major BTC mining operations. If a state actor, such as China, was motivated enough to identify, capture and coerce these miners it would be pretty easy to perform a 51% attack given that China accounts for around 65% of all bitcoin mining globally.

> it would be pretty easy to perform a 51% attack

Yes, and the elephant in the room with Bitcoin is that it's only going to get easier. Despite the categorization of Bitcoin as non-inflationary, the computational power of the network is currently ~85% subsidized by block rewards that grant miners new coins (i.e., inflation). Once those are diminished through halvings, either transaction costs will have to go up about 7x to match the current incentive, or the network difficulty will come down as miners go offline. If the latter happens, not only will the hash rate go down, there will be a flood of mining hardware on the market as miners exit the game.

Oh, and if “layer two” solutions ever do take off, there will be downward pressure on transaction fees, too.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#385

Post by thedrbrian » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #369

samvher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the competition is fiat; backed by fighter jets and nukes; literally. How is it that someone can't steal your money? The bank makes sure. How is it the bank can be sure? The cops protect them. How is it the cops aren't overwhelmed? The military protects them. At first glance, I find this an interesting take and it makes me rethink some things. But I don't think I find it very convincing, or at least it's too ex…

> Fighter jets and nukes primarily protect physical property and institutions, not cash. This is basically it. I don't know how bitcoin advocates expect property rights (in fact, any right) to be upheld in the absence of a coercive state. They have become so removed from reality that they don't see the most obvious things.

> This is basically it. I don't know how bitcoin advocates expect property rights (in fact, any right) to be upheld in the absence of a coercive state. They have become so removed from reality that they don't see the most obvious things.

Errr something something blockchain?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#386

Post by Jetrel » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

samvher wrote: post #188

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…

> But the competition is fiat; backed by fighter jets and nukes; literally. How is it that someone can't steal your money? The bank makes sure. How is it the bank can be sure? The cops protect them. How is it the cops aren't overwhelmed? The military protects them. At first glance, I find this an interesting take and it makes me rethink some things. But I don't think I find it very convincing, or at least it's too ex…

One point of comparison that's a hell of a point in favor of fiat currencies, is the that because fiat is just based on a really nebulous 'general consensus' rather than any sort of 'hard store of value', the same thing that's a bogeyman (of authorities deciding to cancel out all of your assets by executive decision) can work in reverse.

Most of our forms of fraud protection, like identity theft, bank robbery, etc, basically boil down to the government looking at you and going "boy, that's not fair what happened to you. Even though the closest thing we have to a hard store of value's been taken from you, we're just going to literally rewrite the books and set you back to the state where you had your money." It literally treats storage of money like a database restore.

The beauty of that is they can do that without losing anything (besides slightly inflating the system) - with hard currency (whether gold or BTC), they have to actually deplete their reserve of stored value.

---

The most extreme example of this historically, was the national debt crisis britain had during the south sea bubble, where most of the country got wrapped up in a giant stock-buying scheme for a company that ended up having no value. This ponzi-scheme crashed, and it briefly looked like something like half the country was going to go bankrupt.

What was amazing about it was that the government realized they had absolute executive power, and just forcibly reset the economy. They just decreed that all of the debts related to it were cancelled, and dictated that individual assets which had been collateral for the debt (like people's houses) had to be returned to them. Many instances of "stores of currency value" got wiped out, but the important thing the government provided was a floor - you might have all the money you earned on south sea speculation deleted, but they guaranteed the average person didn't end up in poverty.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#387

Post by TezNoble1988 » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

nbardy wrote: post #379

TezNoble1988 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that inflation is some sort of creeping evil that needs to be "solved for" is a made up fantasy of cryptocurrency zealots and libertarians. There's nothing inherently "wrong" or "bad" about inflation when it is controlled and stable, and in fact some low level of positive inflation is a good thing. Inflation is a bogeyman that was invented by the crypto-industrial complex to justify the environmental disaste…

Inflation is a problem when there is no way to beat it and it's hidden in stimulus bills that the majority of the country is too busy working to pay bills to spend time understanding. Most of my friends can't afford investment in the market. So when the stock market goes up that's them losing value on their dollar and wages. Inflation is fine for those who are part of the asset class.

There is very little consensus around whether these stimulus bills will create inflationary pressure or not. Inflation generally isn't a concern when unemployment is high; if anything, short-term inflation may be caused by a drop in supply and excess savings caused by COVID, a systemic event which would also cause BTC-denominated prices to increase if consumer goods were actually priced in BTC.

I'm not sure what you mean by, "when the stock market goes up that's them losing value on their dollar and wages" -> that simply doesn't make sense

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#388

Post by nbardy » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #245

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…

If you want to reduce the number of wars and conflicts there are better, more effective ways. Work towards ending racism; support young girls, women, and LGBTQ+ folks around the world; support environmental protections and projects that reduce food waste and increase water security; support fiscal policies that reduce wealth inequality; and topple authoritarian dictators and fascists. In this techno-libertarian utopi…

> and topple authoritarian dictators and fascists.

This makes the violence worse every time the Americans stumble in and think they know how to fix a country by instilling new leadership.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#389

Post by kurthr » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

lottin wrote: post #369

samvher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the competition is fiat; backed by fighter jets and nukes; literally. How is it that someone can't steal your money? The bank makes sure. How is it the bank can be sure? The cops protect them. How is it the cops aren't overwhelmed? The military protects them. At first glance, I find this an interesting take and it makes me rethink some things. But I don't think I find it very convincing, or at least it's too ex…

> Fighter jets and nukes primarily protect physical property and institutions, not cash. This is basically it. I don't know how bitcoin advocates expect property rights (in fact, any right) to be upheld in the absence of a coercive state. They have become so removed from reality that they don't see the most obvious things.

The same way that their super-secret-extra-long password protects them from someone with a wrench. It doesn't.

However, it does make money laundering, speculative kiting, and paying for illegal services easier. Those are arguably the opposite or orthogonal to property rights, but they are useful to the those with money and power.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#390

Post by dnautics » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #343

caeril wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is far from proven that target inflation is bad Target inflation is specifically intended to promote consumption. Consumption, particularly in the form of atoms, not bits, is approximately 90% correlated with greenhouse gas emissions, despite all our efforts to roll out renewables. Setting the "inflation is good" argument alongside an article decrying the climate impact of inflation-resistant currencies is . . .…

>Target inflation is specifically intended to promote consumption. No, it's intended to erode debt. Inflation is effectively a transfer of wealth from creditor to debtor.

No, it's a transfer of wealth from saver to debtor, reminding you that the biggest debtors are also creditors.