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

#501

Post by r00fus » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

waterfowl wrote: post #203

r00fus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

They check cargo holds and do random bag checks - as of the mid 2000s due to the "war on terrah" but maybe that went out of fashion in the past decade. Large denomination bills are designed to be easily scanned externally since they contain metal strips in the bill design.

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

#502

Post by Salgat » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

choward wrote: post #252

Salgat wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This isn't different from what we have now with central banking except you threw blockchain in for some reason. What value does that add?

The biggest advantage, from the government's perspective, is tighter control over the money supply and over transactions. A blockchain with a centralized authority is able to do unique things like forcibly remove money from someone's address and freeze an address from sending/receiving, all near-instantly. Hard to track and freeze money when it's a bag of cash in a criminal organization's possession.

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

#503

Post by knorker » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 8:54 AM UTC

arisAlexis wrote: post #223

knorker wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cont…

Could you pay federal taxes in beanie babies? I think not

I don't know if that was meant to be sarcasm, or some sort of slam dunk argument, or what?

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

#504

Post by noxer » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

randomopining wrote: post #464

noxer wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) Lose all your money - deserved for being this stupid. The only reason someone sends you money back after you irreversible send money to them is if they are even more stupid than you.

That's what I don't understand. How could you possibly exchange crypto for fiat in a completely safe/foolproof way? The person gives you fiat, you can say no. You send the person crypto first, they say no. Because it's not physical, there's no way to wrestle it from the person or whatever...

You could stream money in both direction starting with very small amount then if the other side delivers you can speed up but keep it so low that if the other would stop he could only steal a tiny amount.

Here is an old tool that this this https://github.com/Kava-Labs/switch Not sure if this is still functional

BTC on its own obviously cant do this as Tx are slow and expensive.

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

#505

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

randomopining wrote: post #496

RealityVoid wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Escrow. First BTC I bought, circa 2013, I met with a guy and gave him physical money. He then released the escrow.

But how do you confirm that you are in ownership of the only private key? Since transactions take too long you can't just send it.

[deleted]

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

#506

Post by noxer » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #500

randomopining wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but don't you need always need a centralized arbiter to guarantee the exchange? Not verifying the transaction, which of course is done decentralized.

You would need an arbiter, or some system to do the arbitrage, for sure, but it need not be a _centralized_ arbiter. If you kick the can down the road and enough across sufficiently many actors you could get a fair, or, well, at least, predictable, system. Some sort of voting/staking consensus system might work quite well for this. Might not sound like a lot, but, IMO, it is.

A DEX is perfectly possible in fact many of them exits. They however don't work with fiat directly because you need a digital fiat with some properties of crypto. So you cant use you bank notes or the number on you bank account unless your bank decided to issue a digital token.

There are other entities that do this for example gatehub issues IOUs for different currencies and tokens https://gatehub.net/legal/xrpl-addresses So you can own gatehub USD on the XRPLedger and exchange it on the DEX for gatehub BTC. The DEX isnt controlled by gatehub or anyone so its guaranteed fair and whoever sells you the gatehub BTC can not cheat you. However both the gatehub USD and the gatehub BTC are IOUs (debts) you can withdrawn form gatehub so you have to trust gatehub to actually own the "backing" and allow you to withdrawn. If you dont trust gatehub you may find another issuer. In theory your bank could be such an issuer and then you wound not need to trust any additional party.

Needless to say that no matter what, at the point where your fiat (from your bank) goes "in" or where fiat comes "out" (to your bank) you will need to identify yourself.

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

#507

Post by noxer » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #491

randomopining wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I don't understand. How could you possibly exchange crypto for fiat in a completely safe/foolproof way? The person gives you fiat, you can say no. You send the person crypto first, they say no. Because it's not physical, there's no way to wrestle it from the person or whatever...

Escrow. First BTC I bought, circa 2013, I met with a guy and gave him physical money. He then released the escrow.

Thats completely useless. he would never escrow his BTC before getting the money. He could loose 100% while you loose nothing.

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

#508

Post by RealityVoid » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

noxer wrote: post #507

RealityVoid wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Escrow. First BTC I bought, circa 2013, I met with a guy and gave him physical money. He then released the escrow.

Thats completely useless. he would never escrow his BTC before getting the money. He could loose 100% while you loose nothing.

It was not useless and worked very well because you had an arbiter. If I did not give the money to him, Local Bitcoins would release the escrow back. Indeed, resolving a argument could get messy. But it worked well enough.

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

#509

Post by noxer » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #508

noxer wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats completely useless. he would never escrow his BTC before getting the money. He could loose 100% while you loose nothing.

It was not useless and worked very well because you had an arbiter. If I did not give the money to him, Local Bitcoins would release the escrow back. Indeed, resolving a argument could get messy. But it worked well enough.

Then you have third party so its no longer trust less and/or decentralized. Both parties need to fully trust the third party. Also the third party need to arbitrary choose in case of a dispute as it has absolutely no way to know which party is lying. There is no way to verify a cash transaction happened.

This all just a acts as a negative incentive for scammers because cheating may or may not work and you likely are banned after the first dispute.

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

#510

Post by randomopining » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

noxer wrote: post #509

RealityVoid wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not useless and worked very well because you had an arbiter. If I did not give the money to him, Local Bitcoins would release the escrow back. Indeed, resolving a argument could get messy. But it worked well enough.

Then you have third party so its no longer trust less and/or decentralized. Both parties need to fully trust the third party. Also the third party need to arbitrary choose in case of a dispute as it has absolutely no way to know which party is lying. There is no way to verify a cash transaction happened. This all just a acts as a negative incentive for scammers because cheating may or may not work and you likely are…

Yeah exactly what I've been saying, as devils advocate. How do you transact btc for something physical safely? There's no legal recourse after the fact. At least with a car-cash exchange there is.