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

321–330 of 511 posts

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

#321

Post by Swizec »

paulpan wrote: post #315
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…

The possibility of cryptocurrencies being banned in the U.S. is probably greater than what many people realize, especially those current holders. At least an attempted ban not unlike what happened in India. While the whole "illicit transaction" argument is bullshit, Yellen and other Treasury officials probably realize that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin could pose an existential threat to the U.S. dollar and needs to…

> it effectively means cryptocurrencies withstood and prevailed an attack by the world's foremost national power

That's a big if.

For now the USA remains the world's richest and biggest unified market. Surviving a ban from said market is not a given for any product. In fact I imagine it's a death sentence for most global products.

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

#322

Post by BEEdwards »

ipaddr wrote: post #231
graeme wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name some use cases that aren’t trading crypto derivatives or crypto debt? Ethereum is certainly more interesting than Bitcoin but the use cases so far seem to be more speculation.

One use case: Buying something without a credit card online.

And you bought the crypto itself with magic?

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

#323

Post by viraptor »

cslarson wrote: post #253
graeme wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name some use cases that aren’t trading crypto derivatives or crypto debt? Ethereum is certainly more interesting than Bitcoin but the use cases so far seem to be more speculation.

Sovereign identity, DAOs, NFTs (not just the art stuff which atm is a little cringe but game items, land registries, deeds), stablecoins (usdc, dai, yes there is also wilder experimentation here). I think people can quickly get dissuaded by some negatives like lack of scaling or environmental issues. These are real but are being solved. We really need communities like HN to engage because if proponents are right then…

> land registries, deeds

I hope that will never happen. We really don't need anyone to end up in a situation where a key is lost and they can neither prove they own something nor sell it legally. Also, "transfer your home by mistake" scams. And have fun trying to figure out how to deal with dead owners.

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

#324

Post by Daishiman »

puranjay wrote: post #270
this_user wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can create all sorts of regulations but that will only harden the stance of crypto maxis because it will only prove them right. They can harden their stance all they want, but breaking the crypto ecosystem is incredibly easy if governments really wanted to. All you have to do is ban companies from interacting with crypto currencies in any form, be it accepting, exchanging, holding, or producing them. That would…

History has shown that when the potential rewards are large enough, the players will literally move jurisdictions to tap into the rewards. All that happens is forgone tax revenues for nations. Because unless you have a one world government (hopefully, no one is a proponent of this), there will be at least some countries that will welcome you. And since the rewards will be large enough, market participants will even d…

International sanctions are a thing, _especially_ in the world of banking.

The rewards are minuscule. It's a niche industry with no potential of it ever not being niche unless is has mass adoption.

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

#325

Post by mbesto »

rudderz wrote: post #137
kelnos wrote: post #109

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. 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…

Take crypto out of the equation, what are the implications of the fed issuing a programmable currency? Many financial services would become obsolete. What do I need a stock broker for? What do I need a bank for? You have Wall St and other sophisticated investors profiteering and competing against the general public, devaluing our purchasing power, making leveraged trades because they know the public will hold the bag…

> It's a system that exists to favor the few and it's time to disrupt the orgy.

I've got news for you:

BTC: 2% of the anonymous ownership accounts that can be tracked on the cryptocurrency's blockchain control 95%[0]

ETH: Just 376 People Found to Own a Third of All Ether Cryptocurrency[1]

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-18/bitcoin-w...

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-15/just-376-...

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

#326

Post by maerF0x0 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #89
maerF0x0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If the sum total of the wealth you are trying to hide is a in the thousands, you aren't who the government is concerned about. At least, not enough for policy changes. So, while cash is likely far more prevalently use in crime, you're talking about the huge long tail of low level drug dealers and smugglers, not the oligarchs and money launderers. Deposited/electronic money tends to be necessary when you hit a million…

fun fact, each bill is 1g. So $1M in 100s is 10KG (or 22LBs) . Plus the briefcase and hand cuffs if we're going movie style.

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

#327

Post by mbesto »

bko wrote: post #204
arcticbull wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anythi…

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

Not the parent's argument, but TECHNICALLY speaking Gold as a shiny pebble can be used for jewelry, wiring, etc. It TECHNICALLY has utility.

Bitcoin has no inherent utility. ETH (and derivatives) on the other hand can power a smart contract which actual real business value, but the fact that it has a currency associated to it is generally meaningless.

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

#328

Post by gruez »

SubjectToChange wrote: post #251
gruez wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the NSA must have rows upon rows of servers that could be repurposed for a week or two to destroy the market Their general purpose servers are nearly useless for mining bitcoin because their hashrates are orders of magnitude lower than the ASICs that professional miners use. If you want to 51% attack bitcoin you either need an absurd number of general purpose computers (possibly more than all CPUs/GPUs that exist on…

$1B would be more than enough to design and manufacture all the necessary ASICs to cripple the network. They wouldn't even need to do a 51% attack to do so, e.g. selling coins at a complete loss would bleed the other miners white.

>$1B would be more than enough to design and manufacture all the necessary ASICs to cripple the network

Source? Some napkin math using the current bitcoin network hash rate[1] and the price/performance ratio of a yet-to-be-released bitcoin mining ASIC[2] suggests that you'd need $9.5B to take over the network.

[1] https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate

[1] https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=0002021022419553...

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

#329

Post by seriousquestion »

rspeele wrote: post #241

Just as a fun hypothetical to think about... an effective way to crack down on cryptocurrencies would be to do it under the table. Don't make any official policy about crypto other than recommending that US citizens don't invest in it. Attack the crypto ecosystem the way they attacked Iranian centrifuges. The damage is done by the CIA and NSA, not the SEC and FBI. The goal is not to make it impossible to use crypto b…

Like the NSA and Snowden, there would be backlash, but with little to no actual effect. Business continues as usual.

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

#330

Post by cblconfederate »

this_user wrote: post #250
puranjay wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto maximalists - and I know a LOT of them - are drawn to crypto because of ideology, not just the money. The idea that a person should own his/her own assets, be able to share and use them whenever they want, and be free from government censorship and foolhardy economic stewardship is incredibly powerful. When governments talk about banning crypto, what scares them isn't crypto; it's this ideology. And this ideol…

> You can create all sorts of regulations but that will only harden the stance of crypto maxis because it will only prove them right. They can harden their stance all they want, but breaking the crypto ecosystem is incredibly easy if governments really wanted to. All you have to do is ban companies from interacting with crypto currencies in any form, be it accepting, exchanging, holding, or producing them. That would…

I mean, companies are barely interacting with crypto right now, very few businesses use it for trade, but it keeps going up so i dont see how that works. US based onramps are useful only to americans, and i m sure people will seek ways to convert their dollars elsewhere, like they did for years before coinbase or other us based exchanges existed
Post reply on HN