Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments • Hacker News Board

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#241

Post by argvargc » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #230

argvargc wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin alone has done more than that per year since since 2018. And there are literally thousands of other projects. Credit cards are small by comparison. https://mobile.twitter.com/yassineARK/status/134613927863667...

That's absolutely an apples to hand grenades comparison. First of all, global credit card volumes are much larger than Bitcoin volumes. Asia Pacific has been a bigger credit card market than the U.S. for some time - for example. Secondly, credit cards payments are overwhelmingly payments for services or goods; effectively none of Bitcoin's total volume is in that category. In fact, virtually all of Bitcoin volume is…

Bitcoin trading volumes are in the several trillions per day. I'm not referring to those.

On-chain transactions are for a variety of things, but they are all payments, which was the criteria in question you brought up.

Regardless of how you might opine on those payments "merit" (I could equally deride the usefulness of plastic trinkets ordered from China on Amazon - for what good it would do), they are not insignificant on Bitcoin compared to legacy systems. They are all payments settled either from one party to another, or between one party's multiple accounts, and just because they are almost entirely "only" settlements does not imply they are somehow not useful or otherwise to be derided.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#242

Post by dandanua » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #197

dandanua wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, let's destroy financial systems of governments and substitute it with a system that has 7 tps cap in which the majority of coins belongs to unknown entities (supposedly of criminal origin).

The quality of this comment is not what I'd like to see on this forum. Firstly, do you really have to participate in this derogatory, sarcastic tone? Secondly, transactions per second are cryptocurrency-specific, so your point (about BTC, I presume) is irrelevant. Thirdly, majority of cryptocurrencies belonging to unkowns is fine, what's your point? Lastly, some of those unknowns are criminals: again, what's your poi…

Money is power. The more relative power criminals will have over honest people – the more awful this world will be. The world should give power to public creators instead, not to hidden speculators, drug dealers, etc.

The argument that criminals also use ordinary money doesn't work here. Crypto was adopted by them at first, e.g. look at Silk Road, or billion volume hacks of exchanges. If BTC will grow then their relative power will grow.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#243

Post by toyg » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #210

vbezhenar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s one of the most popular tourist destinations. The only issue is COVID.

>It’s one of the most popular tourist destinations. The only issue is COVID. Not true. Since Erdogan took over and increasingly showed his true face (he started as a moderate muslim democratically elected leader and and basically turned into an Ayatollah since then) many folks in Europe (France, Germany) are very reluctant to travel there for vacation.

> and basically turned into an Ayatollah since then

It's not as simple as that, he's no religious zealot. Erdogan simply leverages conservative support in order to act as an imperialist (and illiberal) king - a new sultan.

And "we" let him do it because "we" need to keep Russia out of Anatolia and the straits, and "we" consider most of the Southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea as a de-facto concentration camp for African and Middle-Eastern migrants.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#244

Post by cryptica » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

fisf wrote: post #7

maeln wrote: post #2

For context: Turkey has been facing an several year long financial crisis with the Turkish Lira plummeting in value. Erdoğan has done nothing good to solve the crisis and is just firing the central bank administrator one after the other. The central bank has brought so much lira with its foreign currency reserve to try to maintain the price that it is almost running dry of any foreign currency, making the future look…

Basically one of the exact reasons why Crypto should exist.

I was also thinking that this is the perfect excuse for them to dump their fiat monetary system and let their citizens adopt crypto... I'm pretty sure all other countries' fiat monetary systems will also fail soon, Turkey has a unique opportunity to allow their citizens to amass large amounts of crypto ahead of every other country... And yet they choose to pass up on that opportunity due to a fear of the unknown.

Imagine if the Turkish government had allowed their citizens to use DogeCoin a few days ago before the big pump, they'd already be out of their recession ;p

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#245

Post by thebean11 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

dandanua wrote: post #242

dmos62 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of this comment is not what I'd like to see on this forum. Firstly, do you really have to participate in this derogatory, sarcastic tone? Secondly, transactions per second are cryptocurrency-specific, so your point (about BTC, I presume) is irrelevant. Thirdly, majority of cryptocurrencies belonging to unkowns is fine, what's your point? Lastly, some of those unknowns are criminals: again, what's your poi…

Money is power. The more relative power criminals will have over honest people – the more awful this world will be. The world should give power to public creators instead, not to hidden speculators, drug dealers, etc. The argument that criminals also use ordinary money doesn't work here. Crypto was adopted by them at first, e.g. look at Silk Road, or billion volume hacks of exchanges. If BTC will grow then their rela…

> The more relative power criminals will have over honest people

And you could use this exact argument against the Turkish government banning crypto to protect its own exploitative currency scheme..

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#246

Post by Gustomaximus » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

kavalg wrote: post #146

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #78

Another article about cryptocurrencies, another comments thread where I shake my head at the Cryptozealots spouting "It's the solution to everything! Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!". I read something interesting about this behavior a while ago, if you've put money into crypto, of course you're going to be cheerleading it, nobody puts money in something expecting to lose it (oh wait... I can see the /r…

While I can't substantiate it, I also have the feeling that current crypto hype is unnatural and kind of a bubble. It looks like a lot of fiat money is flowing into crypto and one must wonder where this money is coming from. One obvious source is the overblown money supply of FED/ECB (with claimed reasons the COVID crisis). While initially some of this money must have been poured into things like SP500 (judging by th…

> if lots of people lose fiat money on a crypto bubble, there will be less money lost due to inflation for the ordinary folks

Isn't it a zero sum game? Someone's loss is anothers gain?

But generally the point about the loss of control of the monetary system, plus the billions made annually from the printing press will be in my opinion the limiting factor of crypto as a currency, but will stick around as a store of value purely on inertia for the medium term.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#247

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #237

matheusmoreira wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eventually we wake up in a pretty darn restrictive world where you can‘t even transfer 10k euros from A to B without having to explain things This is the exact problem cryptocurrencies were invented to solve. We're supposed to be free to spend our money without the indignity of having to explain things to some bank or government. The better the technology, the more tyrannical the government must become to maintain…

So make all of your transactions in Bitcoin and don’t convert to fiat. Problem solved?

Bitcoin is bad for this. Monero is much better. I'd use it for payments if I could but very few people accept it.

Unfortunately fiat currencies will always be necessary due to force of law. All governments want to have their own currency for some reason. They make laws forcing businesses to accept their currency and refuse to accept taxes in any other currency.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#248

Post by baq » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

dangerlibrary wrote: post #32

dandanua wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, let's destroy financial systems of governments and substitute it with a system that has 7 tps cap in which the majority of coins belongs to unknown entities (supposedly of criminal origin).

In fairness, "the majority of coins belong to unknown entities (supposedly of criminal origin)" is only a small rephrasing away from a description of Erdogan's government / political party [0]. And they are scarier for Turkish citizens than BTC, since he also aggressively punishes dissent and is a de-facto dictator [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Tur... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

it doesn't follow that crypto is better, though...

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#249

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #187

submeta wrote: post #53

It hasnt‘t to be banned officially to be banned effectively. - Here in Germany buying and owning crypto currencies is not illegal. But try to transfer only 20k Euros from your bank account to Kraken.com to buy some crypto assets. Then you might get a letter from your bank telling you they just cancelled your bank account, without telling you why. And they will refuse to explain anything. - Trying to get background in…

> eventually we wake up in a pretty darn restrictive world where you can‘t even transfer 10k euros from A to B without having to explain things This is the exact problem cryptocurrencies were invented to solve. We're supposed to be free to spend our money without the indignity of having to explain things to some bank or government. The better the technology, the more tyrannical the government must become to maintain…

No one is going to lose the stability afforded by centralized Western government for crypto. That's a false dichotomy.

Re: Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

#250

Post by neilwilson » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

throwawaylololo wrote: post #121

neilwilson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The central bank has brought so much lira with its foreign currency reserve to try to maintain the price that it is almost running dry of any foreign currency, making the future look even bleaker." All it needs to do is stop doing that and make it clear to the market that it will no longer do that. That removes the patsy from the market and the currency will find its level. What you have to do is make lira scarce. A…

> All it needs to do is stop doing that and make it clear to the market that it will no longer do that. I think that after the sack of the previous governor by Erdogan, it is clear to investors who is really running the Central Bank and what he think. For many investors the only way to make it clear that it will no longer do that is a change not in the CB, but in the Presidency. > What you have to do is make lira sca…

> To make lira scarce you have to make it so people are willing to buy lira. If you stop paying interest on lira savings people will sell their liras and buy dollars (this is exactly what happened in the past years).

Which is what you want them to do since that puts lira back into circulation where it passes (higher) tax points which then drains the currency. Reducing government spending would do the same thing.

When there is less lira in circulation, then obtaining it to purchase Turkish output becomes more difficult and the price rises.

People saving in any currency is the problem since the lack of spending it represents denies somebody else an income.

You don't want 'foreign investors'. Turkey has its own currency and can purchase anything available for sale in lira on its own. In fact 'foreign investors' have to obtain lira before they can buy anything so why not cut out the middleman?

> More importantly, people will buy lira only if they trust the Turkish state

Again a myth. People will obtain lira if Erodogan will otherwise jail them for tax evasion. The lira always has value to those with a tax liablity in lira and who are sufficiently scared of Erdogan's tax collectors.