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

CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 511 posts

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#91

Post by puranjay »

rawtxapp wrote: post #73
puranjay wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DeFi has a legitimate use case and NFTs have an astonishing number of use cases. Smart Contracts are an incredible, incredible innovation. We are at the tip of the iceberg and nothing has been more disappointing than seeing the traditional tech world's dismissal of crypto as "get rich schemes". The tech world is surprisingly as complacent now as the legacy dinosaurs it first helped destroy in the 1990s and 2000s.

I think it's somewhat similar to innovator's dilemma, a lot of current tech leaders were once the underdog and now are at the top, so they end up becoming complacent and non-innovators or slow innovators like the companies they replaced. An example of really cool smart contract usage is borrowing against your crypto, for example, this person/group was able to borrow roughly 340M$ [1], the best part, they didn't even…

I find it incredible that someone can code up a strategy for deploying an investment vault, the community, which operates as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), can decide to vote on it, and two days later, people can start investing money into it and earning interest - no middleman or manager involved. The investment vault will deploy the capital in different protocols based on the strategy outlined (and voted on by the DAO) automatically.

The automation smart contracts can bring about is scary.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#92

Post by kec »

puranjay wrote: post #80
kec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you need to convert your crypto gains back to fiat to actually use it, especially in the hypothetical case where crypto trade is banned locally. The IRS/FBI/etc are not going to arbitrarily constrain themselves when trying to go after folks who do this.

Nigeria banned banks from trading in crypto, killing off the fiat. Nigerians just started making telegram and whatsapp groups, made codenames for different coins and traded them for cash or bank transfers. Unless you decide to bank commerce and phones and the internet and talking to your neighbor and running a computer, you can't ban crypto.

What you're describing is laundering, so now you're committing two crimes. I wouldn't bet against the government taking an interest once values being exchanged are large enough.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#93

Post by xxpor »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #59
kec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you need to convert your crypto gains back to fiat to actually use it, especially in the hypothetical case where crypto trade is banned locally. The IRS/FBI/etc are not going to arbitrarily constrain themselves when trying to go after folks who do this.

>At some point you need to convert your crypto gains back to fiat to actually use it Except you don't. It's a currency. Just because it's hot right now and people are treating it like an investment doesn't change the fact that it's a currency itself. You don't need to convert it to anything. It was literally built to be a currency free from bank/government control. That was the whole point. The sole criterion for the…

Currencies derive their value from government control. That's why BTC is an investment, not a currency.

Until and unless the IRS accepts tax payments in a cryptocurrency, they won't be used in the mainstream economy.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#94

Post by CynicusRex »

>I am more confident that nations which turn their back on it, or shut it out completely, will see a loss of otherwise valuable businesses and mindshare.

Mindshare like cancerous greed? Nations turning their backs on crypto“currencies” turn their backs on multi-level marketing pyramid schemes. Good riddance.

“Strong currencies are not the solution to poor governance. Good governance and democracy makes a country and its currency strong. Not vice versa.” —halukakin, HackerNews, 2021 —https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26105680, https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#95

Post by john_moscow »

noxer wrote: post #81
john_moscow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a billion dollars to hold, you don't want the volatility that could turn it into a hundred million, or ten billion in a few weeks, just because. Also, holding a billion dollars in a form protected by a single private key is effectively putting a billion-dollar bounty on your own head.

Stable coins exist.

Backed by the issuing companies' heartful statements of best intent.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#96

Post by liquidify »

winslett wrote: post #46

Instead of killing it by banning it, I suspect they could kill it by buying it. If the Fed wanted to "invest" in Bitcoin, it would kill it by soaking up liquidity and creating a liquidity-squeeze. Because the amount in circulation is fixed, it wouldn't have to buy all of the Bitcoin -- just enough to kill any utility. This is a downside of an asset with a fixed quantity. Once the community discovered the liquidity-sq…

This is nonsense. Bitcoin has not had much utility since 2015 when the repo was taken over by people who refused to increase the block capacity.

A purchase of bitcoin by the govt would massively increase the prices. Transaction of value by the big players would become even easier. The high degree of divisibility would ensure that small players could still play. There would be no more liquidity issue than there is currently.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#97

Post by nerfhammer »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #20
liquidise wrote: post #4

> U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other officials have warned about the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit transactions. Wait until you hear about cash. More seriously (and hopefully less reductionist) i feel nations who embrace cryptocurrencies early will see mixed results as the landscape matures. I am more confident that nations which turn their back on it, or shut it out completely, will see a loss of o…

> Wait until you hear about cash. anecdote time: I once travelled to Vietnam for a vacation, people in vietnam prefer $100 bills because they're easier to use for hiding wealth, transporting cross border, and other slightly less than legal reasons. Additionally it's the preferred currency of criminals in the country too (so I heard). They will even pay higher exchange rates for ones in better condition or with more a…

they prefer USD in parts in SE Asia because the local currency has experienced hyperinflation in the past. the problem is there is no easy way for them to exchange overly worn bills back to the Federal Reserve, so they have like rotting old falling-apart $1 bills that look like they're on the verge of disintegrating.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#98

Post by Forbo »

noxer wrote: post #81
john_moscow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a billion dollars to hold, you don't want the volatility that could turn it into a hundred million, or ten billion in a few weeks, just because. Also, holding a billion dollars in a form protected by a single private key is effectively putting a billion-dollar bounty on your own head.

Stable coins exist.

I wish someone would try to cash out $1B Tether.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#99

Post by christiansakai »

Tangentially related. Cryptocurrency is just a side effect of blockchain. Once blockchain technology matures and if one day we see blockchain to store files and blockchain to run cloud services, then will the US government censor it as well? If they will, how? It is practically impossible. You can upload anything there, including child porn, instructions on making bombs, videos that contain brainwashing propaganda for terrorist groups. You can run your server there, including servers for recruiting terrorists, etc.

Re: CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming

#100

Post by asdff »

rawtxapp wrote: post #10
ballenf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrents or file sharing in general is maybe a good parallel. My impression of torrenting is that crackdowns have made file sharing a niche instead of mainstream activity. Of course it can't be 100% wiped out, but the general public is now wary of file sharing because the message is out there that it's risky.

I think it has more to do with the fact that for 10-20$/month you can subscribe to Netflix/Spotify and not bother with torrent. That said, torrenting is still alive and well.

That's true for spotify but not for video streaming. The libraries are too siloed so you could end up shelling out quite a lot buying up accounts for these parallel services.
Post reply on HN