Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

281–290 of 511 posts

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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a (seemingly growing) number of people that openly say that the budget doesn't matter. You just print and spend. Fortunately this incentivizes finding ways to circumvent that regime and point out how absurd it is.

Yes, and that the only point of taxes is to reduce inflation, since the govt doesn't need taxes anyway since it can print money. Taxes don't even cover the cost of govt expenditures so it makes sense.

The point of taxes is to create demand for the currency in the population. The government can then promise to pay people in its own currency so that it can provision itself with staff, goods and services.

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They dont want competition Which is another way of saying they want absolute control, which in this case is the absurd charade where "inflation" measures that they claim represent life on the ground exclude the essentials like education, healthcare, and housing.

I liked the take from the Mayor of Miami (from a podcast about cryptocurrency): "they [governments] will have to borrow money like everybody else borrows money, they can't just print their own money. They have to borrow money at an interest rate. And if governments don't behave fiscally then they are going to have to borrow at worse and worse rates. They can't just invent their own interest rates and currency, which…

Why would a government with a sovereign currency ever have to borrow any sort of money? They can issue as much of their own currency as they want.

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

#283
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its meaningless, if someone puts over 100k on a bank account where inflation eats it away they probably dont care about interest rates and its just a fraction of someone holdings that is deposited at super low risk/high availability. This only makes sense if you have way more and the rest is actually invested and grows. Storing you whole savings like that is rather stupid regardless of if you reach the limit and pay…

Yes there are saner things to do with 100k, but GP was just comparing the 2 options, and you asked "Hows that better than a bank account?" and I answered...

Its clearly not better, its worse. You exchange possible interest rates with a rather incalculable risk of total loss or some absurd insurance fees which are likely to be higher. If putting paper in a safe would be better then someone (probably the bank itself) would offer that as a service. If they cant make it lucrative at scale you certainly cant either.

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

#284
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see value in democratic nations agreeing to use a single global blockchain they've created, without an MLM-Ponzi structure redistributing wealth simply because of adoption/use (consensus by agreement, not through greed/financial gain).

Totally would never happen; it would require too many people to give up too much power. See also Brexit (the UK never fully integrated into the EU over this exact currency control issue).

I almost think the several countries that remain in the EU which choose to avoid or delay joining the Eurozone are better examples. While the UK evidently had other concerns with EU membership besides the Euro, even pro-EU governments seem to encounter opposition when it comes to the currency union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that the only point of taxes is to reduce inflation, since the govt doesn't need taxes anyway since it can print money. Taxes don't even cover the cost of govt expenditures so it makes sense.

Broadly speaking the tools of monetary policy available to reduce inflation are: (1) Increasing reserve rates for lending. This causes the circulating supply of currency to go down. (2) Increasing interest rates for lending. This reduces the demand for borrowing, which is largely fractional reserve. This also causes the circulating supply of currency to go down. (3) The Fed unwinding its balance sheet by selling bond…

> "Taxation doesn't change inflation, to the best of my knowledge, as before and after taxation the same amount of money exists in the circulating supply. Taxation is fiscal policy."

Fiscal policy affects inflation. You're thinking of inflation as "the money supply / total of all $", but that's only one definition or part of inflation. Generally, you would also describe inflation as the price of things you buy going up or down (CPI). Say you ratchet up the effective tax rate to 90%. Everyone's going to have a whole lot less money to buy extra things. Some things with fixed raw input cost still wouldn't budge much. However now that people's monthly incomes have gone from $5000 -> $1000, you're going to see houses, education, Pelotons, and other extra income sinks, have their prices fall precipitously.

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

#286
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything crypto has KYC now days. I highly doubt you can get that mobilecoin in any relevant quantities without disclosing who you are.

Buy monero on some KYC, move it non-kyc and buy whatever.

Whats the point? As soon as you buy anything in the real world its connected to you, unless you want your lambo be gifted to someone else with no traceable connection to you. Fine you an buy anonymous gifts with crypto - awesome.

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

#287

How? How do you 'crack down' on a currency that doesn't require any existing state or bank controlled apparatus to operate? Other than the exchange point, which private exchanges for cash can circumvent, how do you crack down on what is essentially math conducted via computers that everyone has access to? Neither the article, nor the linked one from December say.

You (government currency regulators) make it illegal to convert fiat to crypto, and then monitor crypto ledgers for that last bit of folks who still attempt to use crypto. When exchanges break the law, you ship the folks who own the exchange to jail [1]. Crypto folks think they're the former cartoon panel, when it's really the latter how nation state enforcement works [2]. Governments crack down on money laundering w…

I find the whole line of reasoning in the xkcd comic quite amusing when it comes from crypto 'shorters'. Admittedly, I am on the 'long' side when it comes to crypto and decentralization.

Suppose your government actually had to act this way in order to crack down on cryptocurrencies. Every prison would have its own Guantanamo bay for torturing private keys out of cryptocurrency users. And this is is portrayed as some kind of win or gotcha in the comic. The non-violent offenders glutting the prison system would sky rocket as judges have to hold people in contempt indefinitely for not giving up private keys(this has already begun happening in the US).

"Well you forgot to account for all the knees our liberal democracy would be willing to break!"

If that's what it takes then you've already lost. This is the private fantasy of a lot of individuals long on crypto and the broader decentralized trust-less ecosystem. Because the implied threat of force is often a much stronger form of social control than the actual use of force itself; which is expensive, unpopular, and broadly illegal in developed countries.

The ideology of this decentralized ecosystem mocks the myth of the benevolent nation-state prosecuting 'criminals' on behalf of its 'citizens'. A nation-state with the power and will to exist in such an ecosystem would be the most cruel and invasive authoritarian regime in human history. Any reasonable person can conclude that it ought not to exist.

So I say let the money laundering commence. Or people will leave. Or they wont be allowed to.

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

#288
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first use of gold as an exchange was 550 BC. Our fiat money has been around since the 1970s with staggering blowups Come back to me on 2500 years and we'll see who has the better track record.

Generally speaking we don't need to wait as long as the previous iteration existed to prove the new generation is successful. For instance, I think it's fair to say e-mail is a success, even though the first postal system was established under Cryus the Great in 550 BCE in Persia. The first e-mail was sent in 1971. Are you saying we won't be able to declare victory on e-mail until the year 4492?

You are right! So I should invest in emails right? I'm sure emails will get more valuable as time goes on.

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

#289
> use of bitcoin for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illegal activities.

Bullshit. It's being used to get around the fucking enormous 33% taxes levied on the middle class to support Democrat and Republican donor's lifestyles.

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

#290
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking we don't need to wait as long as the previous iteration existed to prove the new generation is successful. For instance, I think it's fair to say e-mail is a success, even though the first postal system was established under Cryus the Great in 550 BCE in Persia. The first e-mail was sent in 1971. Are you saying we won't be able to declare victory on e-mail until the year 4492?

You are right! So I should invest in emails right? I'm sure emails will get more valuable as time goes on.

Well I hear "bitcoin is TCP/IP" and for some reason people are trying to buy that lol, so can't lose.
Post reply on HN