Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 630 posts

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#421

Post by hudon »

dnautics wrote: post #397
blake1 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government agents show up at the data center and confiscate the servers in the mining pool. The coerce the owners into turning over the login credentials. Or they just deploy their own mining pool. Or the just tax all of their citizens’ cryptos. They have lots of options, since they have the power of the state behind them.

Why wouldn't the network soft fork?

If stakeholders can manipulate the network to ignore a chain with more work, you’ve kind of undermined the whole proof-of-work thing and conceded that Bitcoin is ultimately subject to politics just like any other financial system.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#422

Post by cryptonector »

slibhb wrote: post #32
_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"…

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…

All economic activity that depends on others is speculation, at the end of the day. Every currency is a ponzi scheme of sorts.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#423

Post by pydry »

nradov wrote: post #400
pydry wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 that's not how it works in the typical case. Lenders set their interest rates based on expected future inflation rates over the term of the loan. Debts only really get eroded when interest rates are fixed and actual inflation greatly outpaces expected inflation. Like in the hyper inflation that occurred in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Serbia, etc.

Interest rates for most debts are fixed. They are determined by supply and demand, much like any other price.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#424

Post by api »

thro7654 wrote: post #286
api wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not whataboutism. It's hypocrisy. It's deeply hypocritical to attack cryptocurrency when we have a massive parasitic financial industry that does far more damage than anything cryptocurrency has ever done. For just one example, look at how hedge fund and foreign capital speculation in housing is making a home unaffordable for millions upon millions of people and contributing to middle class decline and homelessn…

Whataboutism is about hypocrisy. Argument: X is bad because Y. Counter: But Z is also bad because Y and I don't hear you saying anything about that! Conclusion: So X isn't bad. E.g. the typical Soviet whataboutism: Argument: The USSR doesn't respect human rights and that's bad. Counter: A u vas negrov linchuyut (but at your place, you lynch negroes). I.e. the US doesn't respect human rights either. Conclusion: So the…

In this case it's about consistency. If marijuana is illegal then alcohol should be illegal too. If cryptocurrency is illegal than socially harmful property speculation, shorting stocks and then trashing companies in the press, casinos, state lotteries, and so on should also be illegal.

Inconsistency in these kinds of areas just makes a mockery of the legal system and encourages corruption.

There are tons and tons of other problems with this proposal I didn't get into, such as how cryptocurrency is defined. Are we going to start making data structures like linked lists of cryptographic hashes illegal? In-game virtual currencies? Amusement park tokens tracked in a database? Any law would be either overly broad or trivially circumventable.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#425

Post by abrahamepton »

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 is pretty damn incoherent.

> the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation and control

Maybe in a whitepaper. In the real world, it's mostly about speculation and enabling crime.

> Law and order stands on the backs of a lot of stuff and CO2. Bitcoin is an example of one little piece of this not needing all that stuff.

Ok...? This is nonsensical.

> Instead it's protected by this mining fleet. 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.

Or someone can beat you up and make you give them your password. Rubber-hose decryption has a long track record and is trivial for the right actor to implement, this isn't some weird edge-case.

> It's a small step in the direction of getting away from all these endless wars and control.

Citation badly needed; how does cryptocurrency "get away from all these endless wars"?

> Carbon tax CO2

Ok, this is correct and not incoherent.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#426

Post by hudon »

mhluongo wrote: post #412
andreilys wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ha! Look up "user activated soft fork" or "UASF". Ultimately, Bitcoin is backed by node operators and widespread social consensus. Thinking China can just split and control the network is a pretty serious misunderstanding of the power dynamic in this system.. one we all had demonstrated at the conclusion of the block size wars.

> Bitcoin is backed by node operators and widespread social consensus

Satoshi wanted it to be backed by Proof of Work, but now you’re saying Bitcoin is backed by social consensus... just like the US Dollar I guess?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#427

Post by webinvest »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #216
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…

They're very similar to gold in this regard. They have a value because people think they have a value. They're a lot easier to store, transport and transact with than gold bars though. And I have my doubts whether Bitcoin mining is more destructive than gold mining. It's possible (it's a LOT of energy), but gold mining is also pretty nasty.

Bitcoin mining is not destructive. The production of electricity via Coal, natural gas, oil, and biomass is. It makes more sense to ban the direct source of these carbon dioxide emissions than the downstream users of the electricity. Cryptocurrency mining is very compatible with renewable energy sources because it can be mined from anywhere, the energy usage is very predictable, and the mining can tolerate rare occurrences of loosing power. The publicly traded company RIOT sources 100% of it’s bitcoin mining energy from renewable sources.

Also, as a comparison, nearly all the gold mining machinery runs on gasoline.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#428

Post by bourgoin »

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…

Why does it make a difference whether your wealth is denoted by USD, Bitcoin, milk caps, or Rai Stones? If tanks roll over your capital city and your countrymen are made to kneel in a row, what good is it that you can refuse to give up the private keys? And how does the medium of exchange have any bearing on nations going to war over control of oil, rare earth minerals, strategic islands?

It seems to me you're implying that the colossal environmental damage inherent to a Bitcoin-driven world economy would be offset by the abolition of militaries, police, and banks, but I don't see how you make that jump. $trillions of military spending are used to secure resources and strategic assets and ensure national security, not to defend against bank robberies. A world without militaries or police is unimaginably different from our world in so many more ways than just the medium of exchange.

And if you can't point guns at people to make them give up part of their pile, how will you implement the CO2 tax?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#429

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

Sanzig wrote: post #279
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #155

>> "Bitcoin is the textbook speculative mania for our time" This misses the point of bitcoin entirely. People need to understand Bitcoin solves a problem: a very big problem. This problem was caused by the gov and fed defaulting on it's obligation to maintain a stable currency. As a result, cash can no longer be used as a store of value. And by artificially suppressing interest rates, the fed/gov has eliminated yet a…

> Real estate, there's no easy way to invest in it in a scalable way. Of course there is. It's called a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). If you want even more diversification, you can buy ETFs and mutual funds which hold multiple REITs in multiple market segments. You don't need to physically own a property to get real estate exposure... > So, what are you going to do put ALL your money in Equities? with no diver…

TIPs I believe use the CPI, and so do other instruments like this. The CPI undercounts inflation by almost 1 to 1.5%. we've discussed this one many times: just look at bic mac index, housing prices, car prices. there are many buckets in the CPI and at least several of them don't fully count inflation, sometimes quite brazenly too: comparing beef prices to chicken prices instead of beef to beef, simply because beef has gone up faster than chicken.

the appeal of bitcoin is there's a fixed supply as opposed to fiat which can increase exponentially.

I never said reject equities. I want to invest in as many asset classes as possible, including equities, real estate and gold.

The macro picture for equities is looking a little less rosy than it did 30 or 50 years ago. Equities are supposed to follow earnings growths, which is basically just population growth + productivity per capita increases plus dividends. if you break the 3 of those down and compare them to the last 50 years, you'll quickly see, future fundamentals are less rosy: - labor population growth has slowed to 0.5%, from 1.5% - per capita productivity growth is at all time lows - and dividends for s&p500 are now at 1.5%, down from 4.5%.

Whereas the fundamentals for past growth were (4.5+1.5+2=8% real), the future fundamentals now show: (1.5+0.5+1.5=3.5%).

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#430

Post by jude- »

hudon wrote: post #426
mhluongo wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! Look up "user activated soft fork" or "UASF". Ultimately, Bitcoin is backed by node operators and widespread social consensus. Thinking China can just split and control the network is a pretty serious misunderstanding of the power dynamic in this system.. one we all had demonstrated at the conclusion of the block size wars.

> Bitcoin is backed by node operators and widespread social consensus Satoshi wanted it to be backed by Proof of Work, but now you’re saying Bitcoin is backed by social consensus... just like the US Dollar I guess?

Who cares what Satoshi wanted? He/she/they do not control the system.
Post reply on HN