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

121–130 of 511 posts

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

#121

Post by AlexandrB »

zionic wrote: post #115
AlexandrB wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever your stance on cryptocurrencies are, what is of little dispute is the business opportunities they have created. Binance and Coinbase are large, successful companies. Poloniex was sold for ~400M. This is the broken window fallacy writ large. The small value cryptocurrencies provide over other digital transaction methods is overshadowed by the huge inefficiencies of how transactions are processed via PoW. Th…

PoS is replacing PoW at scale. It's time for new arguments.

When is it replacing PoW? I've heard this promise for years now. Time for new rebuttals.

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

#122

Post by puranjay »

AlexandrB wrote: post #110
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.

Traditional tech innovation was predicated on doing things more efficiently (sometimes orders of magnitude more efficiently) using new technology, thus disrupting incumbents. Blockchain reverses this completely by doing simple things, like changing numbers in a database, for orders of magnitude more computational (energy) cost. Until someone squares this circle I will continue to be skeptical.

Have you looked into newer consensus mechanisms that consume vastly less energy - like Proof of History - that blockchains like Solana use?

The whitepaper should make for an interesting read: https://solana.com/solana-whitepaper.pdf

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

#123

Post by yunesj »

AlexandrB wrote: post #104
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…

> Whatever your stance on cryptocurrencies are, what is of little dispute is the business opportunities they have created. Binance and Coinbase are large, successful companies. Poloniex was sold for ~400M. This is the broken window fallacy writ large. The small value cryptocurrencies provide over other digital transaction methods is overshadowed by the huge inefficiencies of how transactions are processed via PoW. Th…

> The small value cryptocurrencies provide over other digital transaction methods

I’m not aware of any other digital transaction methods that can send un-printable money besides cryptos.

I think devaluing currency to inflate stocks and fund wars is harmful, and cryptos are a valuable solution. Although, I think there’s better than PoW.

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

#124

Post by Salgat »

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…

That doesn't stop cryptocoins from being the currency of choice for criminals that need completely anonymous digital transactions, which is why they are the standard for the online black market and for ransomware. It's hard to argue of the advantages of cryptocoins while in the same breathe arguing that cash is better for crime.

The bigger issue is that very few people want to hold onto cryptocoins if their goal is to spend the money. You can't really buy much directly with cryptocoins in comparison to cash which is universal. I can't use it at Walmart, I can't use it at McDonalds, I can't use it to buy a house, I can't use it damn near anywhere. The only way I can use it is through a scheme that converts it to cash first. No criminal wants to add that papertrail step to their operations.

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

#125

Post by jcranmer »

Animats wrote: post #69
plank_time wrote: post #26

I think this is pretty obvious and even mentioned this is a previous comment a few weeks ago. The US government has been saying that crypto is funding terrorism and money laundering. If you can’t read the writing on the wall then that’s your fault.

What terrorism? Since 9/11, there have been only two major Islamic terrorism incidents on US soil. The Boston Marathon bombing was by two brothers, and the San Bernardino shooting was a husband and wife team. Both were low-budget operations. Even 9/11 is estimated to have cost the attackers only about $400K. What costs is setting up an full-sized army, like ISIS.

Wikipedia lists a couple more Islamic terrorism incidents:

* Fort Hood shootings

* 2009 SUV attack at UNC

* 2015 Chattanooga shooting

The DC sniper attacks might also qualify as Islamic terrorism. The perpetrators were Islamic, and their goal was terrorism, but it's not clear that the terrorism was actually perpetrated to further Islamism.

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

#126

Post by noxer »

Forbo wrote: post #98
noxer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stable coins exist.

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

I never said all-in Tether. Also you cant "cash out" a billion dollar of anything. Its completely absurd, no one has a bank account with a billion dollar on it. It also make zero sense to ever do that. Its completely irrelevant if that is or isn't possible with coin XY if there is nothing you could move it into. The only reason someone would cash out a billion is if he wants to invest it into something. What could this possibly be that requires a instant investment of the whole billion? You guys need a reality check. No one ever buys something with 1 billion at once. There are multi-billion contracts but they aren't settled at once.

You could probably sell one billion in Tether over the course of a few month just fine. Simply stop selling if the price goes below 1 USD and use all large exchanges parallel. It has several billion fake volume so even if real volume is 100 times lower it should suck up an additional billion. Assuming real volume is 100 times lower and you sell over the course of 100 days you would only cause less then 1% of the volume.

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

#127

Post by notahacker »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #106
xxpor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Currencies derive their value from government control. There are countless examples that prove this false. World of Warcraft gold, EVE Online ISK, BTC, Ethereum, Dogecoin, baby food, etc. There are literally jobs in developing countries where farming in game money is a job that pays their bills. Yet we both know that no government is in control of those currencies. >Until and unless the IRS accepts tax payments in a…

> There are literally jobs in developing countries where farming in game money is a job that pays their bills

Do they pay their bills in World of Warcraft Gold or local currency?

(That actually illustrates the distinction between tokens that might have value to speculators and currency quite nicely)

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

#128

Post by coolspot »

john_moscow wrote: post #51
captn3m0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't transfer a billion dollars worth of cash by sending an email with your private key.

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.

Surprisingly, no one yet abducted and tortured Vitalik Buterin or other people known to have insane amount of crypto.

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

#129

Post by powerapple »

Salgat wrote: post #120
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…

I don't ever see most nations willingly giving up monetary policy by ceding to cryptocurrencies. This is especially true for China and the US. They can however adopt their own version, where they remain the authority and would operate the nodes responsible for handling transactions. This would allow many of the advantages of cryptocurrencies while still allowing a country to control not only the money supply but also…

I believe that is exact where the value of bitcoin is: because any nations will not giving up their own currency. Bitcoin is anti-establishment. Of course, the real test will only happen when some country start banning bitcoin. No one knows what's going to happen.

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

#130

Post by AlexandrB »

yunesj wrote: post #123
AlexandrB wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever your stance on cryptocurrencies are, what is of little dispute is the business opportunities they have created. Binance and Coinbase are large, successful companies. Poloniex was sold for ~400M. This is the broken window fallacy writ large. The small value cryptocurrencies provide over other digital transaction methods is overshadowed by the huge inefficiencies of how transactions are processed via PoW. Th…

> The small value cryptocurrencies provide over other digital transaction methods I’m not aware of any other digital transaction methods that can send un-printable money besides cryptos. I think devaluing currency to inflate stocks and fund wars is harmful, and cryptos are a valuable solution. Although, I think there’s better than PoW.

These are political problems. If you think that an additional form of currency will solve them, I have a bridge to sell you. Even if you convince the US government to switch to BTC (this is probably a harder political project than defunding the defence department), I'm sure they'll think of something if they need to fund a war or two. BTC would be a mere speed bump.
Post reply on HN