CEO of a top Bitcoin exchange warns: crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by thebean11 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #109

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. I find this argument a little weird, because I think we can all agree that bubbles and fad tech isn't really great for society as a whole. If you believe cryptocurrencies aren't a fad and actually provide useful be…

Calling it a bubble is essentially an unfalsifiable statement, there's no way to really disprove it. Many would very much disagree that it is non useful, especially on a forward looking basis (the same way a money losing unicorn is still worth a billion dollars). At what point is it no longer a bubble?

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

#202

Post by scandox » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

To me it's always seemed like money grows from the barrel of a gun. Detaching money from military power sounds wonderful but it makes no sense to me. It seems to defy the very basis of what money is. Tokens handed out by warlords. Only stretched out over such a long time that it isn't obvious any more.

Obviously I am neither an economist nor a political theorist.

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

#203

Post by waterfowl » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:32 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #136

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…

USG knows how to deal with cash - you can't take any decent amount over the border or even on trains without being questioned. Bitcoin main use (regardless of what it was designed for) is for laundering money. Also it's not a currency, but an asset - as it is designed to appreciate due to how mining works.

even on trains? amtrak specifically questions people about cash?

This seems weird -- compared to traveling by air amtrak has approx 0 security, no TSA equivalent, bag scan, etc(unless you check maybe).

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

#204

Post by bko » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:33 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #172

bko wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is a better version of gold and a store of wealth that whose supply isn't at the whims of central banks. Gold has a purpose. Central banks may pretend that gold serves no purpose in a modern economy, but they still hold on to trillions in gold. I hope eventually they'll get around to holding a crypto currency like Bitcoin. They're just upset they don't have a head start in accumulating a reserve.

Gold is shiny pebbles people are willing to pay money for. Crypto is spreadsheet cells people are willing to pay money for. Well, some amount of money -- mostly Tether though, which is likely in turn backed by the same crypto lol. It's really an open question just how much new real money is flowing into crypto. It's all pretty clear in the settlement Tether signed [1]. Particular note are #17, #20, #36, #43-46 [1] ht…

I don't know what the point of your comment is.

There is a need to have a medium of exchange for trade. Barter has its limitations. For all of history, people have created new forms of money for exchange. The primary characteristics you would need is scarcity, clear ownership, transferability and fungibility. Gold serves this purpose, and Bitcoin even more so.

The fact that gold is a shiny pebble is not adding anything meaningful to the conversation.

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

#205

Post by cslarson » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #109

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. I find this argument a little weird, because I think we can all agree that bubbles and fad tech isn't really great for society as a whole. If you believe cryptocurrencies aren't a fad and actually provide useful be…

How can you not see what the importance of this new infrastructure? I come here and read these comments and am just at a loss for words at this point. Forget Bitcoin and look at Ethereum. This tech is so powerful I am in some ways scared of it and you call it a fad. The gulf between our interpretations drops my jaw to the floor :)

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

#206

Post by medvezhenok » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #57

PaywallBuster wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto exchange owner was 2nd biggest donor to Biden campaign https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-bi...

Great, yeah a lot of crypto builders thrive in power vacuums. So the Trump administration was convenient for the 2017 bubble, as a debilitated SEC was necessary for the token launches that made issuers millions (and billions). And a paralyzed Congress was necessary to get non-establishment people confirmed who will last many administrations. All of that lost its utility by 2020 as the outcomes were mostly solidified…

There is also an interesting argument about crypto being a convenient drain for excess liquidity in the system (injected by the stimulus), which is why it's not being regulated too heavily.

If stocks & crypto were less appealing, perhaps we would all experience higher velocity of money & inflation since demand would turn to "real assets".

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

#207

Post by knorker » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

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…

Beany babies spawned a lot of successful business, but you absolutely cannot from derive that they were fit for purpose, or in any way useful.

You're cargo culting.

They're still a solution in search of a problem, backed by tech people who think they understand what they are trying to replace.

Once you understand the fence you can tear it down, but cryptonerds really really don't understand law (they think smart contracts solve a problem) or economics.

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

#208

Post by RealityVoid » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:35 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #84

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…

Or make it illegal and have the NSA directly attack the compute used to secure it

Hah! :)) So naive. No way this is possible. Attacking compute used to secure it means attacking a whole lot of machines. And the people near those machines will patch them. An you need to attack 51% of them at the same time. Even if you manage to do a 2x spend, they will live with it and patch the stuff and people will still use it. Because what is a couple of 2x somewhere along the way compared to the rest of the blocks it secured?

Not to mention of the geopolitical consequence.

No, this "have the NSA directly attack the compute " is not feasible and would only strengthen its position in the long term.

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

#209

Post by RealityVoid » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #189

fastball wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, Satoshi Nakamoto probably is the NSA.

Bingo. I’ve always thought it was the NSA, CIA, or maybe UK or Israel but I doubt the latter two. Especially since Satoshi’s wallet is so large and hasn’t moved. Bitcoin has to make it much easier for 3 letter type agencies to follow money.

Most darknet stuff uses monero and that is... tricky to follow.

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

#210

Post by loceng » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #31

pjc50 wrote: post #5

People have been saying this for a decade, and several failed exchanges later plus a few attempts at banning US persons from using crypto, the crackdown has yet to really arrive.

Well, what has changed is we now have CEO's of publically traded companies openly and brazenly participating in crypto-currency pump-n-dump schemes[1] because they are currently unregulated markets. Now, with major publically traded companies buying up other crypto-currencies, seemingly speculating on their rise in value, we may have a problem that compels some government agency to step in and ensure these organizati…

Elon doesn't have to do anything for a pump and dump to occur - unless Tesla buying somehow becomes considered a pump action; if more gullible people or "amateur investors" buy into Bitcoin driving up the price because of whatever reasons, it's not Elon's responsibility to protect them - that is government and the SEC's role.

Elon's said "Bitcoin is almost as much bs as fiat money" - so he likely doesn't see that as end up. Because of this I could see Tesla selling $1 billion worth of EVs via Bitcoin, waiting for that to reach $10-$20 billion+ in value - and then slowly selling off say $4 billion worth to prevent a price crash - and then dumping $10B+ all at once as an experiment.