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

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

#481
post #386

There seems to be 2 types of discussion about Bitcoin I've read so far: A) 95% of the discussions and focus on the strict monetary value of the Bitcoin as an investment and financial gains. B) 5% are related to ideological concepts of a decentralized monetary system and how that's a very good thing. I fail to see the real value for humanity in general for this, not to mention the environmental impacts of the energy c…

You forgot: C) failing to see value for humanity due privilege of having access to modern and stable finance (pick your own percentage)

Aside from my original comment, can't say I've seen or read anything else about C)

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

#482
post #410
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the problems solved are not at their first iteration of solution. There will be a next one for most of them as well. None can deny that the crypto field opens opportunities for the next iteration of solutions

This happens every time I ask for use cases in these threads. It is always something just over the horizon. The early internet immediately allowed people to do cool stuff that was explainable if someone had a moderately open mind. If wasn’t vaporware.

Thank you. This mirrors my experience to a T. It's always those same empty sets of phrases

"Just imagine all those possibilities."

"It may not be there yet, but the smartest minds are working together on it."

"How can you not see what the importance of this new infrastructure?"

"DAOs, NFTs, [insert new useless crypto tech of the day]"

If, just once, they could just provide a single real use case that would actually improve my life... I get it, crypto is great for buying drugs on the internet, money laundering, riding the hype train, speculative investment, and so on. But I just have never seen any real legitimate use case that would benefit from crypto.

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

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to embed the whole file in the blockchain for that. At that point Filecoin is not relevant. That's not censorship-free either - the use of Eth network can be banned too. And LE or govs see who to target too.

> You'd have to embed the whole file in the blockchain for that No, you don't. The eth contact can control ownership of and permissions to the Filecoin files. > Eth network can be banned too Banning the entire network is different than granular censorship of individual files > And LE or govs see who to target too. Anonymity is also different from censorship. You are talking about a lot of adjacencies and "what-abouts…

Eth can't really control filecoin file. Eth nodes are not serving the file. If you go after the nodes which do serve it and remove copies, eth won't have you.

Anonymity is different from censorship, but censorship is trivial in networks where you ask "who has this file" and everyone points at the actual nodes which store it, with public IP addresses.

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

#484
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason we don't have fractional ownership of pop songs is because that's a bad idea, not because we can't figure out how to organize it.

Why would that be a bad idea? I don't know a single musician who says that record labels stealing 90% of their work is a good thing.

I'm not sure what NFTs have to do with record labels. Unless you're saying that the only reason we have record labels is because musicians can't otherwise keep track of who owns their work?

Seems like a stretch

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

#485
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you described as the ideals of crypto maximalists largely applies to fiat currency. Individuals "own" their own USD, are able to share and use as they please within the bounds of legality. Not sure what it means to "censor" currency, but if they consider governments' economic stewardship to be foolhardy, why would they consider the wisdom of miners, programmers or the crypto's regulating body to be superior? Wha…

> anonymity lets users skirt the government's laws, which has value to basically criminals And dissidents and marginalized communities and activists and anyone living in an oppressive state. Are you really trying to argue that anonymity is only valuable to criminals?

What value does crypto provide to those groups you mentioned, that cash cannot provide? If the answer is, it allows them to break laws then yes by definition they are criminals. You can argue that some of these laws are unjust, sure but that's tangential to the question. The value of crypto by volume is largely for speculative bets and criminal activities.

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

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see her disagreeing with what I said.

She noted that in general you target the criminal activity itself, not the currency used to fund it. But then she further noted that cash was just as big of a problem for them and harder for them to deal with. She said that crypto had the advantage that it at least left a trail, unlike cash. No one said criminal activity is easy . But it's not fair for you to conclude that therefore it's ridiculous because using cash…

So she says cash is different, and agrees with me?

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

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd have to embed the whole file in the blockchain for that No, you don't. The eth contact can control ownership of and permissions to the Filecoin files. > Eth network can be banned too Banning the entire network is different than granular censorship of individual files > And LE or govs see who to target too. Anonymity is also different from censorship. You are talking about a lot of adjacencies and "what-abouts…

Eth can't really control filecoin file. Eth nodes are not serving the file. If you go after the nodes which do serve it and remove copies, eth won't have you. Anonymity is different from censorship, but censorship is trivial in networks where you ask "who has this file" and everyone points at the actual nodes which store it, with public IP addresses.

[deleted]

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

#488
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community-governed vs. advertiser-dictated networks. Free markets. It's a wide topic, I'm surprised you can't find a single usecase you would use or think makes sense. If it can help you imagine some, take the decentralized primitives: a money/value transfer network, a reputation network, a content delivery network. Starting from those, many currently gimped online services could be replicated in a way that incentivi…

The statement that P2P networks are superior to centrally managed ones stands far from reality. There is a certain class of problems where this is true. But like in most computer science problems, distributed systems have a ton of flaws and inneficiencies. Moreover, trust isn't something mediated by computers. Trust is a question of human societies. Algorithmic trust is not arbiter of trust any more than the thousand…

> The statement that P2P networks are superior to centrally managed ones stands far from reality. There is a certain class of problems where this is true.

Yes, indeed. That's enough to be useful, they don't need to be better at everything.

> Moreover, trust isn't something mediated by computers. Trust is a question of human societies. Algorithmic trust is not arbiter of trust any more than the thousands of electronic trust schemes, which get gamed at some point or another and where human intervention is necessary for course correction given a measure of authority.

Yes, and P2P/F2F systems allow more human input in networks. Individuals are free to decide with whom to interact or not. This is more humane than letting a blackbox ML model be the arbiter of truth, decide who is a fraudster and should have their account frozen (Paypal), decide who should be silenced (Twitter), ...

> BTC and all those other networks are just as if not more vulnerable to being gamed as any other system.

Great, there's a $1 trillion bounty for when you decide to start gaming BTC.

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

#489
post #410
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the problems solved are not at their first iteration of solution. There will be a next one for most of them as well. None can deny that the crypto field opens opportunities for the next iteration of solutions

This happens every time I ask for use cases in these threads. It is always something just over the horizon. The early internet immediately allowed people to do cool stuff that was explainable if someone had a moderately open mind. If wasn’t vaporware.

Buying drugs sex and hitmen online wasn't cool enough for you? You sound like a dork

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

#490

> 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…

Don’t worry; they’re getting rid of cash too. I don’t understand the crackdown though. Crypto is a dream for tracing criminals. Even the privacy coins.
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