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We’re all criminals now

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Re: We’re all criminals now

#71

Post by apercu »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47
axx0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does this inhibit tax collection?

> How exactly does this inhibit tax collection? If you have something that lets you "transfer large sums of cash untraceably across the globe, with no way for the government to do anything about it," it's going to make it easier to hide income and assets. That inhibits tax collection. (Same way cash does.)

I bet if we took all the legal and illegal offshore shenanigans and the laws written by the wealthiest that create more loopholes, the amount of "inhibiting" of tax collection by cryptocurrency in comparison is a rounding error.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#72

Post by tablespoon »

zionic wrote: post #41
dash2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just money-laundering laws. It's also more general "financial repression", i.e. being forced to hold local currencies while the government inflates them and/or holds the interest rate down. The two tend to blur into each other, I guess.

Exactly. 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply, but relatively few people use crypto to buy coke and that’s suddenly what it’s all about.

> 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply

Not necessairly if those people have a lot of debt, or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#73

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

imtringued wrote: post #24
jeroenhd wrote: post #5

The point of crypto currency is to do the exact thing money laundering laws try to prevent: to transfer large sums of cash untraceably across the globe, with no way for the government to do anything about it. Recently it's become a game of baseless investment, but anyone actually wanting to use crypto currencies as payment should've seen this coming from miles away.

Yes, let's be real. The vast majority of people who use cryptocurrencies for payments use them because they have no legal alternative. It's the same problem that all privacy focused technologies "suffer" from. When the law is wrong then you have no choice but to break the law but there is no way to distinguish people escaping from an oppressive government and people laundering money from criminal sources. The oppress…

>but there is no way to distinguish people escaping from an oppressive government and people laundering money from criminal sources

Is there a difference? Which governments aren't oppressive so their definitions of criminal sources don't count? I think they are exactly the same thing. A meaningful split might instead be funds derived from violent crime vs victimless crime.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#74

Post by mhuffman »

tablespoon wrote: post #72
zionic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply, but relatively few people use crypto to buy coke and that’s suddenly what it’s all about.

> 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply Not necessairly if those people have a lot of debt, or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage.

> or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage

We have many examples throughout history where dumping large amounts (multiples) of money into an economy causes inflation. And to my knowledge, we have no examples to the contrary (ie, it being a mirage).

What would make you think that this time it could be a mirage?

Re: We’re all criminals now

#75

Post by tablespoon »

rawtxapp wrote: post #55
ineedasername wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we've hit that critical mass yet though. And increased regulation can simply kill it by inches so there's no sudden cliff to drop off of that gets people too upset.

To me, the Coinbase IPO was a major milestone in achieving critical mass, if you look through their numbers, it has already achieved pretty massive scale compared to it's age. Jury is still out, but I'm confident the cat is more or less out of the bag.

However,

1) Most people on Coinbase are speculators, and...

2) Coinbase follows government regulation

...so it's not really much of a step towards "[having] a real impact on the ability to collect taxes and control money transfers."

I think Coinbase (and Robinhood) offer pretty good avenues towards...

> And increased regulation can simply kill it by inches so there's no sudden cliff to drop off of that gets people too upset.

...by doing something like blocking bank transfers/credit card transactions to offshore exchanges and blocking cryptocurrency transfers to random addresses by most users from Coinbase/Robinhood. That would kneecap the ability to use cryptocurrency to bypass government regulations but still allow the average Joe to speculate.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#76

Post by JumpCrisscross »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #69
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can compel the bank directly, no one can "force" the blockchain do to anything that's not programmed to do This doesn't work with banks outside a court's jurisdiction. That doesn't stop enforcement. We already have tools that informally designate tainted versus untainted wallets. Incorporating that into the law wouldn't be that difficult nor, I suspect, controversial.

but did stop enforcement... swiss banks were for many years never disclosing and it had stopped enforcement in many case... this only has been changed in recent years... birkenfeld disclosures led to no more american clients out of american regulation, swiss signing FACTA, similar thing.

> did stop enforcement... swiss banks were for many years never disclosing

As you say, there was a delay, not a stoppage.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#77

Post by danscan »

RustyConsul wrote: post #46

I miss the old crypto. When it was this fringe, nerdy digital coin i could transfer to my friends to pay my bar tab. Yeah - Venmo/paypal/ a billion other systems that did the same thing, but to my friends btc and eventually eth was cooler. I could stake coins, provide liquidity, mine random coins from my laptop - It was fun. The concept of a global computer was awesome, interesting and nerdy. I've never used an excha…

SEC regulation would make the space nerdy and cool again?

I agree that there are many ill-informed people are buying into scams in "crypto" because they think they're "getting in early on the next bitcoin".

e.g. I have a close friend who is quite non-technical who is taking a naive approach by putting a significant portion of his funds into a "cryptocurrency" (not even a utility token) with a very cultish following and pyramid/ponzi scheme mechanics. I've looked into it, and the only buzz seems to be coming from the project core team patting themselves on the back with paid PR releases that overstate their "significant partnerships", bots, and people who want to retire off its "holder incentives". There is notably no buzz from actual developers or similarly credible people.

While I think it makes sense to try to protect people like that from making big mistakes and likely losing significant portions of their net worth, I worry that heavy-handed regulation of the space could block the natural emergence of new use cases and projects that could have very worthwhile public benefits. Or worse, could make people who still believe in the potential of things like web3 and defi– and choose to continue working on projects that violate new and likely unfit regulations –"criminals".

We should be wary of discouraging talented people with good intentions from contributing to the exploration and development of projects around web3 and defi (which depends on exploring different types of application and governance tokens, since these are what allow a decentralized project to economically incentivize its participants to act in a way that serves the project, and in a coordinated manner).

I think at the pace that talented developers are flocking to web3, we should start to see applications with mainstream appeal that provide viable, decentralized but well-coordinated, disintermediated alternatives to applications that have overpowered gatekeeper problems, e.g. those in social media, ecommerce, and many other spaces.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#78

Post by da_big_ghey »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
da_big_ghey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but did stop enforcement... swiss banks were for many years never disclosing and it had stopped enforcement in many case... this only has been changed in recent years... birkenfeld disclosures led to no more american clients out of american regulation, swiss signing FACTA, similar thing.

> did stop enforcement... swiss banks were for many years never disclosing As you say, there was a delay, not a stoppage.

no, stoppage for many century until policy change. policy remain a stoppage, just it has removed.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#79

Post by rmah »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #53
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is that a bad thing? It inhibits tax collection, which funds common goods. It also thwarts law enforcement, which is counter to public benefit. We can debate whether taxes or laws or governments should exist. But they do, and most people seem to favor that. Debating a thing and actively subverting it are different. Just as subverting a thing and expecting such subversion to have no consequences or response are…

"It also thwarts law enforcement, which is counter to public benefit." not in all case. but also is enabling purchase of goods and services outside of government allowence? people who want psychadelic to treat ptsd, sex work, repressive regime that bar purchase of certain material all circumvented. only a tool, can be good or bad.

That would be thwarting law enforcement.

Re: We’re all criminals now

#80

Post by lottin »

rawtxapp wrote: post #55
ineedasername wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we've hit that critical mass yet though. And increased regulation can simply kill it by inches so there's no sudden cliff to drop off of that gets people too upset.

To me, the Coinbase IPO was a major milestone in achieving critical mass, if you look through their numbers, it has already achieved pretty massive scale compared to it's age. Jury is still out, but I'm confident the cat is more or less out of the bag.

Coinbase is a centralised exchange, they can ban it right away, no?
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