Binance banned from doing business in UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#221

Post by elefanten » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #96

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The State can be replaced democratically. Crypto is full of pump and dump and exit scams. Bitcoin et al are also algorithmically supply inelastic. As demand for the coins decreases (due to the inability to actually buy them), the price will decline. This is basic supply and demand economics.

> The State can be replaced democratically. Is this still relevant in the information age? I care a lot about my communities, and I don't think that, from my position of privilege, I can justify going around and telling people, "just vote - the violence against you will stop eventually." I'm not saying crypto is a complete answer either, but I think that its status as a change agent outside the political process is s…

This perspective is completely alien to me. What misery and violence is the state uniquely causing that wouldn't be recreated by other forces in a non-state society?

That's putting aside all the generations, centuries and millenia of lessons learned that are enshrined in how a government-run state runs. It's hard to guess what alternative you're even imagining, but do you think some anarcho-crypto-decentralized-eco-intentional-autarkic commune where all internal "violence" has been eradicated can live in a bubble detached from the rest of the world?

What is your workable alternative to the state?

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#222

Post by Mengkudulangsat » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

erdo wrote: post #215

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dealing with an American law firm at the moment (Baker McKenzie) that just categorically refuse to deposit BTC into my personal hardware wallet. They require I provide an address tied an account within their "reputable" list of exchanges which ironically includes Binance. Unless we fight back, the crypto space will quickly devolve into a worse version of banking.

That's probably related to the risk of accidentally facilitating money laundering? The exchanges are all forced to implement various "know your customer" processes

FWIW, I don't mind the KYC concern. I even provided my identification documents to facilitate the process. It's the we-only-do-business-with-exchanges angle that irks me.

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#223

Post by sellyme » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

kgraves wrote: post #212

sellyme wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what you are doing: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/game Don't be surprised when no-one wants to take you up on inane requests.

Am I? or is an anecdote a valid source?

You seem to be under the impression that anyone here has an obligation to make sure that you're adequately convinced.

You clearly won't believe that most drug transactions are done in cash unless you see incontrovertible evidence. That's fine. But no-one cares, so I don't know why you expect demands for a source to be met.

If this was an even remotely controversial or decisive topic, it's worth providing sources, because they convince not only the person demanding it, but also anyone reading. But in this case, it's such a well-known and obvious fact that there's no such benefit.

You can ask for sources for "the sky is blue" all you want, but I'm happy to just stick my head out the window and go "yep, I'm pretty sure". I'm not too fussed if you still don't believe me.

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#224

Post by sbierwagen » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

jimmydorry wrote: post #129

sbierwagen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the UK makes it hard to trade bitcoin, you can also guess that the value of bitcoin denominated in GBP will go down dramatically. You probably don't want to be holding tether in that case.

In my experience, it's typically been the opposite. Countries with harsher capital controls / make it harder to use Bitcoin, attract a premium in the purchase / sale of Bitcoin. South Africa for example has very strict capital controls, hence the price to buy or sell Bitcoin is higher than elsewhere. The catch is that you can't easily move fiat out of the South African economy, which makes abritrage, to take advantag…

The UK does not have South African capital controls. Unless it's for proceeds of criminal activities, in which case you don't really want to enter every transaction in a global immutable ledger!

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#225

Post by judge2020 » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #188

IgorPartola wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If in 2012 you bought a pizza with 1 BTC and now feel silly, don’t. You also bought pizzas for $20 which you could instead have converted to BTC and held until now had you only had a working crystal ball.

This is kind of the emotional mechanism behind a lot of crypto investment. It's not intentional, and it's kind of sneaky, but with the strong fluctuations and chance of "hitting it big" there's always the "what if..." feeling. As someone who doesn't care much for crypto (in its current form anyway) and was never involved in it at all, even I have this to some degree as I was aware of it very early on (when it was sti…

This is probably a big reason for why many cryptocurrencies have a high value as well. Nobody actually uses these things to trade for goods and services (well, maybe for drugs), everyone just expects the USD price to maintain or go up and values it based off of what they think they can get in USD in 5, 10 or maybe even 100 years.

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#226

Post by FreeSpeech » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

sellyme wrote: post #206

FreeSpeech wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should feel silly. It's not the market value of the spent Bitcoin ($20), but the opportunity cost (~$34k).

As the comment you're replying to points out, that same opportunity cost applies to literally any non-essential ~$20 purchase they made with any currency in that time period.

Similar to the Monty Hall problem [1], the mistake you're making is calculating the opportunity cost at the time of sale, rather than within the context of perspective. Opportunity cost is dynamic, not static.

If I approached you in 2012 with two envelopes, one with $20 worth of US bank notes, one with $20 worth of Bitcoin, you'd most likely take the cash. If I approach you again in 2021 with the same envelopes (unopened) from 2012, only a fool would take the cash.

Speculative assets would not exist if your theory held water.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#227

Post by ivalm » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #166

hurril wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiat holder is a ridiculous term in a false dichotomy. A holding of BTC is a security holding just as holding stocks (despite the fact that they are not legally referred to as such.) Nobody chooses between holding dollars or holding BTC. Nobody. The fact that this parent has a number of children that don't seem to pick up on this is problematic to say the least.

What do you mean? Of course people choose to hold crypto or put their money in the bank or buy a stock market index fund or spend it on something.

You hold fiat money to exchange for goods and services. You buy securities (or sometimes physical assets) to eventually get more fiat money to then exchange for goods and services. Currently you buy BTC with fiat to later exchange BTC back into fiat and still use fiat to exchange for goods and services. This is why BTC is more like a security than a currency.

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#228

Post by 3np » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:30 AM UTC

readyoubestbook wrote: post #18

I have my crypto in Binance, any tips on how to move it away from there?

Create your own non-custodial wallet. Ideally keys would be generated either on an airgapped computer, or on a hardware wallet (e.g. Ledger).

For non-significant amounts that you want to be able to use in the go, you can choose to additionally have a hot wallet (others have already mentioned MetaMask for ETH-based, for example).

If you do not want to go the extra mile and want convenience, and have an iPhone, personally I think an iOS-based wallet is a more secure choice than having it on your desktop or Android device.

Save your BIP39 seed phrase offline (paper for example). Protect it with a pass phrase. If you want extra protection on the passphrase, there are solutions to “split” it using Shamir’s scheme to for example 2-out-of-3 and store the parts on different locations. (Definitely run this on an offline device, for example on a laptop booted from a live USB key)

Either way I advise against fully custodial wallets such as blockchain.com or crypto.com (commonsly recommended but not your keys not your coins).

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#229

Post by codeisawesome » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

AgentME wrote: post #220

codeisawesome wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a competent and trustworthy guide for choosing a cold wallet strategy? There are many products on the market and none seem trustworthy. Is a raspberry pi kept offline with an external storage drive a good strategy? When the pi needs kernel patches etc, I’d unplug the drive in this scenario?

A dedicated hardware wallet like Trezor or Ledger is likely a much better setup than a homebrew setup on a general purpose computer.

What if those brands are compromised or back-doored by internal or external actors? Just look at the Western Digital fiasco recently. Do these wallets call home at all? Also: aren’t backups easier to make on a normal SSD?

(PS: these are my personal genuine concerns and I’m at least somewhat willing to have my mind changed: not trolling or being argumentative for entertainment)

Re: Binance banned from doing business in UK

#230

Post by nextlevelwizard » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

FreeSpeech wrote: post #202

IgorPartola wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If in 2012 you bought a pizza with 1 BTC and now feel silly, don’t. You also bought pizzas for $20 which you could instead have converted to BTC and held until now had you only had a working crystal ball.

They should feel silly. It's not the market value of the spent Bitcoin ($20), but the opportunity cost (~$34k).

That is some dumb shit and not only should you feel silly you should feel stupid for saying it.

If you buy anything at $X with intention of "hodling" it to increase it's value, unless you have a plan (i.e. I will sell at $Y) then you are just holding on to nothing. You will either sell too early or too late (now talking about the absolute maximum gains) and then you will always "feel silly".

Unless OP actually put in, say $300k (a price of a small house) and that was stolen he didn't lose "a house worth of money" since he had no exit plan. I don't play crypto, but I could still say that I lost $600 when the market crashed couple weeks back conveniently forgetting that my initial investment was only $10 back in the day. I could even be more dramatic and say that I lost half of my bitcoins just in the crash and not mention that I only had $1.2k.