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China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

dailybusinessgroup.co.uk

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Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#361

Post by rsynnott »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #334
adrianN wrote: post #263

Excellent news for the climate.

Most mining has already shifted out of China, and Bitcoin mining is a very small percentage of electricity usage on the scale of "all electricity usage" - there are plenty of bigger fish (the argument then turns, validly, to the usefulness of said bigger fish in comparison to bitcoin).

> there are plenty of bigger fish

Sure, but in most cases people would, at best, be seriously inconvenienced if they were immediately banned. At worst, people would die.

If bitcoin was banned worldwide tomorrow, it would be an interesting story in the news and the internet would be furious for a while; there would be no significant real-life impact. It would probably be the most slam-dunk "obviously we should do this" environmental regulation in history; even things like "we should not put mercury in lakes" had significant downsides compared to banning bitcoin.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#362

Post by cma »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #334
adrianN wrote: post #263

Excellent news for the climate.

Most mining has already shifted out of China, and Bitcoin mining is a very small percentage of electricity usage on the scale of "all electricity usage" - there are plenty of bigger fish (the argument then turns, validly, to the usefulness of said bigger fish in comparison to bitcoin).

> to the usefulness of said bigger fish in comparison to bitcoin

So far bitcoin has negative utility even aside from environmental disaster (ransomware).

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#363

Post by Causality1 »

endisneigh wrote: post #354
eggy wrote: post #352

Blockchain, not specifically crypto currencies, are also a means to operate anonymously outside of an authoritarian government. Sure there are gotchas with remaining anonymous, but I am sure China wouldn't want a blockchain-based, mesh, peer-to-peer, or distrubuted network, that could operate outside of the Great Firewall's ability to regulate or censor it. High-power, long-range WiFi and mesh networks would be hard…

It would be trivial to find the source of high-powered wifi/antennas. Consider how easy it is already for one to find the source of an unlicensed ham radio stream. It's definitely not impossible to obfuscate and use crypto even in a country where it's banned, but it isn't that easy.

Indeed. There's a huge difference between one or several actions and habitual behavior. You can find a method to get away with anything once. Operating on a daily basis where the government only has to catch you once is far less practical.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#366

Post by htrp »

delecti wrote: post #324
avianlyric wrote: post #85

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…

> ongoing crisis with Everglade What is this? "Everglade" is a common enough word that I can't find anything besides mentions of the wetlands in Florida.

> What is this? "Everglade"

GP needs to learn to spell

Evergrande is an indebted chinese property developer which is the current ticking financial time bomb this week in China.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#367

Post by htrp »

avianlyric wrote: post #85
Loughla wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this quite a bit, and I don't understand it. People keep writing articles and saying things amounting to 'it just won't last forever'. But the reason is, because it just won't, totalitarian governments don't last. Why wouldn't it? Strong central government. Clear economic and social goals with the ends justifying whatever unethical means. A complacent middle and upper class satiated by enough new wealth…

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…

>The ongoing crisis with Everglade

You mean Evergrande (3333.HK)

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#368

Post by DethNinja »

nightski wrote: post #336

Wow, imagine living in a country where the legal financial assets you own can be turned criminal where accessing them is punished with hard labor. Sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

Coming soon to a country nearby you…

Plebs cannot be allowed to have access to sound money, otherwise financial parasites can’t exists.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#369

Post by rspeele »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #342
lousken wrote: post #325

hopefully more ocuntries will follow so that we finally get rid of POW

If every country in the world AND the UN "banned" cryptocurrencies, there would still be POW.

It's all about how much work the reward pays for. At current Bitcoin prices of around $43k, the block reward pays miners $14,125,500,000/year to spin ASICs all day. That kind of money buys a lot of wasted power.

If PoW is still around, but the price dumps low enough that miners are only burning, say, $1,000,000 a year worth of power, that'd be a great improvement.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#370

Post by ethbr0 »

la6471 wrote: post #304

China seems to be hell bent on exiting the global speculative markets. Can the stock markets absorb this shock?

Afaik, there is effectively "the Chinese domestic stock market" and "the rest of the world's stock market."

Chinese citizens can invest in the former, but (via government currency exchange controls) can't participate meaningfully in the latter.

So if China exits global stock markets... there isn't that much Chinese money being pulled out of them, because there wasn't that much in them.

What money China is investing internationally appears to mostly go to bonds, construction financing, and asset leases / purchases.

PS: What this appears to really be about is severing links for extraordinarily wealthy Chinese citizens to move money outside the reach of the PRC.

Which, if you were running an expansionist monetary policy intended to facilitate domestic economic growth, while simultaneously cracking down on the wealthy in pursuit of equality, is presumably something you'd take very seriously (as a command economy). Lest all that new & old money just fly offshores.

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