It seems like their argument would also rope in Paxos, Raft, and Two Phase Commit because your distributed databases could be used to maintain a ledger that could be used for $BAD_THING$.
How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
51–60 of 91 posts
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#52I love Lawfare and listen to their podcast quite often, but the argument presented is so odd: 1) specifically calling for not introducing new legislation to deal with this and 2) trying to fit mining into a bucket of legislation designed to kill it. This is not in good faith at all. Money laundering is despicable, specially when it happens at high level. And we have to admit that Bitcoin, ZCash, Ethereum (Tornado Cas…
> This is not in good faith at all. What do you mean? The article is arguing that crypto-currencies (as they are run today) are illegal under existing laws, therefore we don't need new laws. Regardless of whether this is true or not, how is this a "bad faith" argument? It sounds like you just didn't like the conclusion but couldn't find anything actually wrong with the logic...
I explained why I think this is argued in bad faith: trying to frame mining in a law framework for the single purpose of killing it vs something like: "ok, this is bad, let's try to fix it. here's how we can fix it"
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#53This is an interesting exercise in legal argumentation, but it assumes that the US Government wants to push miners out of the US. It's not that they can't, it's that they don't want to. Outlawing mining in the US would not disable cryptocurrency networks, because miners could still operate in other jurisdictions (and covertly in the US). It might cause a panic and disrupt some American-based crypto companies, but cry…
Technically taxes must be paid on illegal activities too, so if someone gets caught with Bitcoin they also get slapped with a tax evasion suit.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#54I love Lawfare and listen to their podcast quite often, but the argument presented is so odd: 1) specifically calling for not introducing new legislation to deal with this and 2) trying to fit mining into a bucket of legislation designed to kill it. This is not in good faith at all. Money laundering is despicable, specially when it happens at high level. And we have to admit that Bitcoin, ZCash, Ethereum (Tornado Cas…
Money laundering is "despicable"? That's quite a strong sentiment for a white collar crime which basically states that money not tracked by the government is illegal.
Here are a few reasons why I called it despicable:
- Laundering money in poor countries directly hurt the citizens of those countries because the government doesn't collect the taxes it is entitled to
- Most of the money to be laundered comes from illicit activities: drugs, prostitution, human trafficking. I don't have any citations here for proportions, sorry.
Update: fix formatting
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#55> All cryptocurrency assets, not just Bitcoin, are zero sum. So every dollar “made” in cryptocurrency was simply provided by someone else. Can't you say that about any other asset? If I sell my house for more than I paid for it, it's zero sum since someone simply provided me that money. But that's not how we determine value. It's positive sum because the buyer attributes a value higher than he had paid for it, otherw…
> If I sell my house for more than I paid for it, it's zero sum since someone simply provided me that money. No transaction between rational individuals is ever zero-sum. If Bob values a house at $300,000 and Alice values the house at $300,000, the house will __never__ be sold. Because by the time transaction fees come about, Bob would have lost money in the transaction. In reality, Bob values the house at $250,000,…
In your example, the bid is 350K and the ask is 250K; this is not like a bid-ask spread in a regulated market, in which the bid is by definition lower than the ask, and any bids that exceed the ask take the ask off the books at exactly the ask price.
What you are describing is more like arbitrage, and it creates no value, but instead exploits inefficient markets, disparate regulatory environments, or unequal access to markets.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#56I love Lawfare and listen to their podcast quite often, but the argument presented is so odd: 1) specifically calling for not introducing new legislation to deal with this and 2) trying to fit mining into a bucket of legislation designed to kill it. This is not in good faith at all. Money laundering is despicable, specially when it happens at high level. And we have to admit that Bitcoin, ZCash, Ethereum (Tornado Cas…
Money laundering is "despicable"? That's quite a strong sentiment for a white collar crime which basically states that money not tracked by the government is illegal.
> states that money not tracked by the government is illegal.
And forgery laws state that you can't draw whatever you want on pieces of paper.
What a law states has nothing to do with its importance.
Many other laws (involving crimes that are very far from "white collar") are extremely difficult to enforce without the ability to trace money.
Money laundering is a crime because it enables other more serious crimes, not because of the act itself.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you distinguish between true value creation and simple asset inflation? Low interest rates cause soaring asset prices, which can create an illusion of "value creation", but I don't see it actually increasing the value much.
Low interest rates actually do increase preferences (and hence value) for cash-generating assets. The competition (keeping the money in risk-free assets, usually expressed as T-bills) becomes less valuable, which means that other assets become relatively more valuable. There are a bunch of results from both behavioral economics and psychology that suggest humans can't actually determine absolute value, and can only d…
> If a person buys high and sells low, taking a loss, they've lost value. Or have they? At the time they made the first transaction, they valued the new asset higher; at the time they made the second one, they valued it lower.
Right, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But they're experiencing regret because an alternate past action (just holding cash, or buying a better performing asset) would have given them more value now.
Of course you can regret any suboptimal action (anything less optimal than buying the best performing asset), but that's not most people's baseline. I think the baseline for most people is holding cash, hence they mostly feel regret when their assets' cash value decreases.
Unless interest rates stay low forever, at some point the asset inflation they cause has to deflate.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money laundering is "despicable"? That's quite a strong sentiment for a white collar crime which basically states that money not tracked by the government is illegal.
> states that money not tracked by the government is illegal. And forgery laws state that you can't draw whatever you want on pieces of paper. What a law states has nothing to do with its importance. Many other laws (involving crimes that are very far from "white collar") are extremely difficult to enforce without the ability to trace money. Money laundering is a crime because it enables other more serious crimes, no…
Cash enables crimes. Guns. What about cars? I don't agree with this argument, but then again, I'm talking more in a philosophical way than a practical one.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#59I love Lawfare and listen to their podcast quite often, but the argument presented is so odd: 1) specifically calling for not introducing new legislation to deal with this and 2) trying to fit mining into a bucket of legislation designed to kill it. This is not in good faith at all. Money laundering is despicable, specially when it happens at high level. And we have to admit that Bitcoin, ZCash, Ethereum (Tornado Cas…
> After all, transactions are all public and once you can label one wallet address, you can perform all sorts of graph analysis and learn a lot.
This is true for most cryptocurrencies, but not Monero.
Re: How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People are not satisfied with the existing solutions, thus the need for innovation. IMHO, that describes maybe a tenth (maybe) of crypto buyers. Everyone else is just speculating on volatile new assets that are gaining value rapidly.
Exactly. The irony to me is no one really wants price discovery in order for volatility to be reduced so that crypto can actually function as money. Function as money in the sense of signing a year long apartment lease for x amount of BTC a month. Not just paying in USD after a conversion. That is almost the last thing people want.
As someone who develops sites which use cryptocurrency, USD price volatility isn't a concern. Users are riding the same wave. What is important is that it is technically possible. I realize this isn't the majority view, but that doesn't make it any less valid. There are many things which are popular with the masses that are arguably irrational.
https://mises.org/wire/why-wild-swings-crypto-prices-are-not...
>Weston Nakamura in an interview with Real Vision’s Jack Farley made the trenchant point, “This is what markets look like when you don't have global central banks artificially suppressing volatility, intervention of central banks buying every dip, putting a safety net under every single slight tremor or taper tantrum or whatever it may be, this is what happens.”
>He explains, “Bitcoin is not a US asset, just like oil is not a US asset, just like gold is not a US asset. Now, those are denominated in USD.” Sure, Americans think in US dollars, but “it's BTC/fiat, and it's not an American asset. People need to get that in their head. If you actually look at BTC/JPY (Japanese yen), the levels make a hell of a lot more sense.”