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China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

dailybusinessgroup.co.uk

231–240 of 699 posts

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#231
post #47

For those of you keeping track, this is about the 20th time China has declared to have banned Bitcoin or crypto. The only thing they've done is demonstrated that crypto is a threat to their all-reaching power grab and that they are mostly powerless to control it.

This is a country rounding up a whole population of a religious minority and sending them to reeducation camps. A country that mobilized over a billion people to almost completely control covid. You are vastly underestimating the CCP, as most Westerns continue to do.

That's a ridiculous and obvious lie. This kind of absurd nonsense can only be founded on bigotry.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#232
post #59

I hope the rest of world follows. There is nothing more volatile than a decentralised crypto currency. The amount of people making a profit from it is less than 5% and energy consumption is beyond acceptable. Crypto as a tech to serve something different is totally fine of course.

I won't downplay the environmental consequences of PoW, but the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt. It would be the perfect storm for mainstream crypto adoption.

Current inflation is due to the government “creating money” for the COVID-19 stimulus, the fact that governments can even do that is what’s so good about fiat currency.

Bailouts are another benefit. Governments can at will dull or even prevent financial contagion thus preventing another Great Depression.

All this has a cost in the form of inflation until the money is reabsorbed of course but it’s better than economic collapse.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#233
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not complicated. It is not necessary for crypto PoW to be powered by CO2 emitting fuels. It can be powered with renewables. Therefore the power usage of Bitcoin can't be used to infer its environmental impact. You need to know how much of that usage was on the back of fossil fuels.

> It is not necessary for crypto PoW to be powered by CO2 emitting fuels. It can be powered with renewables. That's completely irrelevant for the correlation. Renewables are theta-bound by fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are theta-bound by renewables. Only at zero emissions for a source this would stop being true. This is first semester math.

> Only at zero emissions for a source this would stop being true

There are plenty of crypto operations that have their own, renewable power sources that operate in a closed zero emission fashion.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#234
post #127
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7dMVcVWgc .

It is a bit annoying that you assume that people critical of cryptocurrencies and specifically Bitcoin's environmental footprint are uneducated about the issues. It is not a myth. BTC's environmental footprint is preposterous. It's estimated that the network currently runs at 165 TWh/a, or around 19 GW, which means that one transaction uses around 5 GJ or 1500 kWh, and produces 800 kg of CO2, and 250 g of electronic…

> For keeping track of a ledger that one dude in a basement with an Excel spreadsheet could keep track of, more or less.

No, for protecting against the untrustworthiness of that one guy in his basement. You may disagree with the value of that function, but that's what cryptocurrency provides.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with the fundamentals of your argument, but growth can’t be unlimited. Eventually it’s starts slowing down, then those complacent middle class will start being less complacent and start demanding more freedom. I think it’s reasonable to say the CCP will keep their grip on power for as long as they can continue delivering wealth to the middle class, and lifting those in poverty into the middle class. Wha…

> then those complacent middle class will start being less complacent and start demanding more freedom. They will not start demanding more freedom (only a small minority will do that). They will become increasingly agitated and demand the kind of economic progress they had before, which the CCP won't be able to deliver (the easy, fast, low-debt growth has largely been saturated). Specifically the CCP | people-of-Chin…

In this vein, this is the United States' opportunity to out-compete China. We need to refactor immigration and foreign policy to embrace adding regions, refugees, and other migrants to our fold. Otherwise they will be added adhoc in overwhelming numbers and much to the surprise of government and the people. The world is getting hot. This causes unforseen changes like political upheaval and subsequent migrations (Hatian example recently).

The only answer might be adding other countries into our representative government system (not colonialism, but peacefully and equitably adding other willing states that want to benefit from stable government). Seems people are already voting to join with their feet. Embrace it.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#236
post #7

Exchanges were already banned a while back.

Its literally just a restatement of their 2017 pronouncement with no changes. Its being hyped as "new" but its not.

Here's the 2017 announcement: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2017-09/04/content_5222657.htm

Here's the one from 2021: http://www.safe.gov.cn/safe/2021/0924/19911.html

There are changes. E.g. the 2017 announcement doesn't mention 衍生品 (derivatives) at all, while the 2021 announcement explicitly lists trading them among the prohibited activities.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you incentivize anyone ever to abandon PoW coins rather than just adding non-PoW on the side? How exactly do you think you could dethrone Bitcoin, overcoming its gigantic first-mover advantage? I believe BTC could only come down with the rest of that "economy".

If you believe in free market capitalism, people should migrate from PoW to PoS coins, because PoS coins provide the same features with less expenses. In practice this won't happen, because PoS coins don't deliver the same features (security, decentralization, permissionless) or the market doesn't believe they do. Also the savings with PoS are not passed to the users of the cryptocurrency, but to the stakers, or big…

PoS is not the successor of PoW. FBA consensus is. PoS is and always was just a adjusted new version of same idea that only removed the energy problem. The comparison between PoW and PoS is a useless distraction. Its like comparing diesel ICEs with gas ICEs ignoring EVs completely.

>and people are willing to pay the cost.

No they are not. BTC runs on the block reward not on the fees. Without block reward the average Tx fee would be like 150 USD. (Not accounting for the fact that this would significantly drop the number of Tx which would then raise the cost for the rest of the transaction even higher.)

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#238
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable A stable currency would have an inflation rate of 0%. Inflation does not cause currency stability, it decreases the value of the currency. By definition, its value is changing.

Not true, if money supply does not grow with population or economic growth it will be deflationary aka not stable. If deflation continues then people will hold onto money rather than buy things with it since things become relatively cheaper every day, which leads to economic downturn.

Is that a bad thing? Items would become more durable, planned obsolescence for products would all but disappear. Things would need to last a long time otherwise people won't spend on it. It would be good for landfills, fewer electronics and plastic garbage. I think it's sad that people in 2020s aftaid to hold savings because they know if they don't spend it, their buying power is reduced tomorrow.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#239
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't downplay the environmental consequences of PoW, but the actual reason so many governments are speeding the push against crypto might be related to a future of high inflation and high gov debt. It would be the perfect storm for mainstream crypto adoption.

Current inflation is due to the government “creating money” for the COVID-19 stimulus, the fact that governments can even do that is what’s so good about fiat currency. Bailouts are another benefit. Governments can at will dull or even prevent financial contagion thus preventing another Great Depression. All this has a cost in the form of inflation until the money is reabsorbed of course but it’s better than economic…

All fair. But there is no free lunch.

The burden of the proof always lies with the person or the entity trying to sell something.

The government failed to sell QE and bailouts to the population, the government further failed to sell inflation target at 2% to the population.

Had government not failed in selling these concepts we'd not have bitcoin.

Government as always can't sell. Otherwise it won't be government.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#240
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if he meant less than 5% of miners make money. I could potentially believe this, given the competitive nature of mining. However, as an investment, as of right now, there is only a span of a few months where if you bought Bitcoin you would not be in the green right now.

You’re only in the green if you sell.

Do you treat your 401k the same way?
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