Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

dailybusinessgroup.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 699 posts

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#471

Post by photon-torpedo »

EveYoung wrote: post #300
dtwest wrote: post #159

This is interesting timing given what has been happening related to Evergrande. It is possible that the government is worried about money being moved out of the country, and cryptocurrency is one way of doing that.

How would crypto help with moving money out of a country if mining is banned?

1. Find a place that takes RMB and gives you crypto. 2. Send crypto to your wallet or foreign exchange. 3. Abroad, sell crypto for non-RMB fiat currency.

No mining needed.

China can't ban 2 (or perhaps they could by putting the great firewall into overdrive) so they are banning 1.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#472

Post by jptech »

gwbas1c wrote: post #155
pid-1 wrote: 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.

> 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 The reason why we have inflation and debt is to keep the value of our currencies stable. IE, if people want to use dollars, the US government can print more dollars to satisfy the demand. (And thus keep the value stable.) Cryptocurrency's volatile value is a result of its inabi…

> Remember: Currency is not an investment. A good currency has a stable value over time; otherwise it's very difficult to conduct commerce.

Perhaps that is why countries like Japan are changing the definition of crypto and calling it "virtual assets" instead of "virtual currency".

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#473

Post by monological »

arcticbull wrote: post #438
monological wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> How do you think the dollar keeps its value? Base demand for dollars is created due to taxation. As the money supply is managed via fractional reserve lending, each new dollar that enters circulation is backed by the demand for repayment of that loan. When someone borrows money from a bank, the bank enters a negative balance in its ledger and the borrower gets a positive balance in their account. This is how money…

You’re talking about borrowing and lending money, which becomes a moot point, when a foreign country invades your country and burns everything down. That doesn’t happen because we have the military and nukes that act as deterrents. That in turn props up the dollar and allows it to have the value it does.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#474

Post by gfodor »

arcticbull wrote: post #463
gfodor wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to look a lot less like a Ponzi scheme if/when the dollar collapses.

No, it won't. It's a negative-sum system that redistributes wealth from new entrants to old entrants and miners. It's a pyramid. And what exact path do you see a 'dollar collapse'?

Sorry, I'm not going to be dragged into a debate about if/when the collapse will happen. But if it does, your claim bitcoin is a pyramid will look silly, since it will be one of several assets that will be rushed into as a safe haven from inflationary forces. If you want to take the position such a collapse would cause a flight from crypto assets, be my guest.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#476

Post by stiltzkin »

MillenialMan wrote: post #248
dmytrish wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto"currencies" are not the only way to store value when an official currency is failing: people who want their savings preserved can get USD, EUR, gold. Crypto *is* volatile and wasteful compared to any of those.

All of those things can be tracked and confiscated - crypto is a lot harder. It's volatile, but it's significantly more secure against state actors.

It is actually less harder than FIAT (except Monero), if you want to track spending of corrupt politicians, not fungible cryptocurrencies as BTC are great tools.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#477

Post by dnautics »

arcticbull wrote: post #458
monological wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If crypto was actually adopted as a means of buying and selling real world goods, instead of just being held as a speculative asset, then it would consume much less energy and be more efficient than the entire system, namely the military, that props up the value of the dollar. And that’s just the US military. Of course, the reason why you’re able to mine in the first place is because we have peace, due to the militar…

How can you possibly imagine adoption of Bitcoin would end the US army? The US army existed for hundreds of years on the gold standard. World wars were fought on the gold standard. Exactly, step my step, please explain how adoption of bitcoin would reduce military energy consumption.

You are missing the point. When the us was on a gold standard, the army was not required to create the dollar's value. Now that the us is on a sovereign credit-based system, the might of the military is an integral part of the dollars value, both in the obvious sense that the military protects sea lanes and in the more subtle sense that government debt and the sustained credit cycle goes in no small chunk to the military.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#478

Post by monological »

arcticbull wrote: post #458
monological wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If crypto was actually adopted as a means of buying and selling real world goods, instead of just being held as a speculative asset, then it would consume much less energy and be more efficient than the entire system, namely the military, that props up the value of the dollar. And that’s just the US military. Of course, the reason why you’re able to mine in the first place is because we have peace, due to the militar…

How can you possibly imagine adoption of Bitcoin would end the US army? The US army existed for hundreds of years on the gold standard. World wars were fought on the gold standard. Exactly, step my step, please explain how adoption of bitcoin would reduce military energy consumption.

That’s not what I said. It’s simple. Bitcoin has value because of proof-of-work which uses a ton of energy. US dollar has value because it’s propped up by the military which uses MORE energy (more so because there is no more gold standard)

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#479

Post by ksml »

arcticbull wrote: post #466
nightski wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even meet the basic definition of a ponzi scheme. This is pure FUD. You might not like it, but that doesn't make it something it is not. There are plenty of other things that I would consider a waste of electricity but I am not going to make doing them punishable by hard labor.

It's a negative sum wealth redistribution scheme the takes money from new entrants and gives it to miners and to old entrants. The miner portion is what makes it negative-sum. It doesn't meet the traditional definition, no, which is why I referred to it as a "distributed Ponzi scheme" - it's closer to an MLM in classical parlance. [edit] Here's the SEC definition: > A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays exi…

Based on your phrasing of the SEC definition, the real estate market also feels like it fits the bill :-/

Edit: parent comment was edited, originally said:

> It actually matches the SEC definition of a Ponzi scheme haha, which happens to be a little bit less restrictive than a traditional definition.

> It's a negative sum wealth redistribution scheme the takes money from new entrants and gives it to miners and to old entrants. The miner portion is what makes it negative-sum.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#480

Post by stiltzkin »

FabHK wrote: post #143
tgtweak wrote: 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.

> they are mostly powerless to control it. What makes you think that? You do realise that they could easily outlaw 1) miners, 2) exchanges that convert to fiat, and 3) people privately exchanging to fiat, and (domestically) enforce that reasonably well, too. And sure, there could still be an underground market - you can get still get weed and cocaine in China or Singapore, but I wouldn't recommend participating in it…

You can exchange FIAT using P2P.
Post reply on HN