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China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

dailybusinessgroup.co.uk

411–420 of 699 posts

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#411
post #390
post #364

Some China FUD on the last Friday of the month that is an almost verbatim reprint of headlines printed a couple months ago... You surely realize the purpose of this right? Just look at all those 40k strike puts...

I don’t really understand these types of claims. You think the CCP and central bank of China are just putting out statements to help a few foreign traders win on leveraged trades? The central planners of the economy that if fast becoming the largest in the world care a ton about some random traders in other countries? LMAO.

Oh China is definitely cracking down on crypto, what I'm pointing out is that Western financial rags print the story late on expiry day to manipulate the market.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#414
One good thing to always keep in mind is that China structurally maintains the status quo of a Leninist state --- IMO, the entire reason they banned crypto is that crypto's goal --- relative anonymity, privacy, and freedom of where to move one's money --- goes directly _against_ China's closed, tightly regulated financial system. The bureaucrats at their Ministry of Finance must be absolutely appalled by the idea that one could transfer money via bitcoin easily outside China without any sort of authorization.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#415

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.

Imagine living in a country that allows you to destroy the environment for a fake currency. Your worldview is ridiculous.

How do you think the dollar keeps its value? Do you understand that the reason it has value is because it’s backed by the US military, which provides peace and stability for industry to consume a vast amount of energy to produce goods that get shipped around using fossil fuel? Have you calculated the total energy expenditure of the entire US financial system, direct and indirect, and then compare it to proof-of-work calculations? No. No you haven’t. Don’t just parrot what the current-day zeitgeist told you to think.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#416

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.

Imagine living in a civilized country that can't bring itself to ban a massive distributed Ponzi scheme with huge environmental consequences. Bitcoin alone uses about 1/10th as much energy as the entire world's concrete production. Even if it were to transition entirely to renewable energy it also generates as much e-waste as an entire first-world country.

These things actually have huge meaningful state security risks. Not too long ago the entire country of Albania got swept up in Ponzi schemes. It go so bad, they imprisoned their finance minister for trying to stop it. Then they had a civil war about it. The IMF had to airdrop in bags of money to bail them out. [1]

1997 Albania is what the maxis are working towards.

In this case the PRC not only has the moral high ground, but also is acting out of a real, rational fear of economic collapse.

If America had any sense, it would put the ban hammer down on this before it gets any worse.

[1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy is a zero sum game. Every watt you use for crypto mining is a watt not used for something more productive. Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner, is a watt not being used to reduce the use of non-renewables in the wider energy grid. I don’t care if your crypto gear is hooked up to a dedicated hydro plant, I care that the hydroplant is not connected to the wider grid and shutting down…

You are completely ignoring the fact that even if connected to the grid all power grids are structured to meet peak demand, and that there will always exist periods of excess power which, until bitcoin, had to go to ground. Bitcoin makes use of energy that would otherwise be unused.

We don’t operate renewable grids in most of the world, and for most of the world renewable energy supply isn’t great enough to supply the dips without fossil supplements.

All that means is that in almost all scenarios bitcoin mining will be directly causing an increase usage of non-renewable energy. There are of course certain times and places where this doesn’t hold true and there’s a genuine surplus of renewable power that can’t be stored. But that’s an exception not the rule. Try and tell me with a straight face that the majority of power consumed by crypto is surplus renewable energy.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#418
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Biden campaigned for unlimited QE and unlimited bailouts In any event even if this was true an ambitious organization such as the government can't be satisfied with 52% confidence in its financial planning

We won't be getting unlimited QE or bailouts, so it's all good. As a democracy, there's no alternative to the government working with whatever majority it gets.

> As a democracy, there's no alternative to the government working with whatever majority it gets.

The government managed to sell the need for the military industrial complex.

The military is the most popular branch of the Federal Governemnt whereas the Fed and Treasury linger at 50-60% depending on who is in the WH.

50-60% is very low, that's the reason why Bitcoin thrives. If that number was 92-95% then Bitcoin would not exist.

Is it possible to have that number at 92-95% ? Maybe, maybe not...in any event the answer is not attacking bitcoin because even if Bitcoin is destroyed that remaining 50% void will be filled pretty quickly by something else.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#419

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.

But they said bitcoin was out of reach of governments, how is it possible a government is now banning it?

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#420
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post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't use it duh

It’s an externalities problem. I can not use it, but I can’t opt out of the climate impact. (Save the “it’s not really that bad” arguments, I’ve heard all the industry’s gaslighting, but their claims don’t match reality)

You can't also opt out of the Swift/Visa/MasterCard climate impact, or the ATM network, or the internet! how many millions of servers are running, day and night, to host millions of terabytes of content where only a fraction ends up being accessed ...and it's a cat video

What you can do is use and support the climate friendlier alternatives. There are crypto currencies created with that in mimd

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