China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’ • Hacker News Board

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#651

Post by jhgb » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

poontang1 wrote: post #381

FabHK wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Measuring energy use per transactions makes no sense, as mining energy consumption is not related to the number of transactions processed. Also a huge portion of the energy used by bitcoin would otherwise be wasted. Also your figures are egregiously off and taken from flawed estimates https://nydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NYDIG-Bitcoin-N...

> Measuring energy use per transactions makes no sense, as mining energy consumption is not related to the number of transactions processed.

Sure, measure energy use per amount of money transferred. That's not going to be very nice either.

> Also a huge portion of the energy used by bitcoin would otherwise be wasted.

Oh, come on. Now you're just trolling. It would have been used for something else that most likely wouldn't be waste, like in factories or in hospitals and such.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#652

Post by bananamerica » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

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.

If you're talking about China, you are correct. If you are talking about the United States, you are correct as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#653

Post by gruez » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #646

gruez wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there aren't any exchanges in mainland china, so everyone there has their crypto in offshore accounts that aren't subject to such regulations.

Pretty sure it's still illegal for Chinese citizens to use them.

So with this recent announcement, it's super duper illegal for them to use it? That's not really much of a change from a few weeks ago.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#654

Post by chii » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #609

gfodor wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The value of cryptocurrency depends on how much people are willing to provide goods and services in exchange for cryptocurrency. If people are just trading crypto:dollar then a dollar collapse could destroy crypto too.

It the dollar collapsed, but the internet & support infrastructure remained, then people might be more willing to accept bitcoin over dollars.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#655

Post by gfodor » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #641

gfodor wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why resort to personal attacks? You can dismiss my predictions all you want, they're still predictions. Maybe instead of just dismissing them, state your own.

Because arguments such as "You will regret on your deathbed not going BTC when it could go to $1M" is not an argument, it's something worse than ad hominem - it's snake oil / infomercial marketing masquerading as reason. At least ad hominem is honest. Consider the inanity of BTC trading at $1M, something so utterly volatile couldn't feasibly be used as a currency, for much the same reason we cannot use it now, it's d…

Hilarious - I never said anything about regret.

I said simply that either you’ll be proven right in a crash, have some point where you’d be willing to reverse your position, or just never change your mind. These three scenarios are obviously the only outcomes. So I was wondering if you could write down a point in terms of time + price where you’d change your mind. If not, and there is no other scenario where you would, then you’re holding an unfalsifiable position.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#656

Post by czl » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #578

arcticbull wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let's see: "Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that" "investment fraud" - "induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information" Major cryptocurrencies do not present "false information", therefore they are not "investment fraud", therefore they are not Ponzi schemes.

Cryptocurrency schemes are public but their technology is complex enough (vs their typical participant) that it is not at all necessary to present false information. If anything it is this fact alone makes cryptocurrencies innovative over traditional fraud schemes. No overt deceit required - only average ignorance and gullibility. Being open, decentralized and harder to stop will likely allow them to scale at least a couple orders of magnitude larger before they collapse.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#657

Post by 0FreedomInUSA » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #203

0FreedomInUSA wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got it, will make better comments next time

Just be yourself.

yep, i meant my next comments on yc will try to provide better arguments and/or concrete proofs bringing value to the discussions

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#658

Post by czl » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

pskiba wrote: post #164

mn678 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Why would any sane person move a large part of their assets into something as volatile as crypto? If you want to protect yourself against inflation, buy real estate or equities if your time horizon is long enough. Even fixed income once rates are a bit better. But for the average person please stay clear of crypto!

If your time horizon is long enough, volatility shouldn't matter. Historically speaking Bitcoin is getting less volatile with every market cycle. I would not be surprised if in the future its volatility is comparable to the S&P500. Why would any sane person invest in real estate? You have maintenance costs, property taxes, it's not liquid and you can go years with little growth. Not to mention if your area see's hard…

Less volatile with every market cycle?

Nassim Taleb disagrees: https://youtu.be/dLOeBSaq-Ps

I bet the CoinGeek conference audience were stunned by his keynote talk because Taleb used to be a supporter.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#659

Post by Jensson » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #653

spywaregorilla wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it's still illegal for Chinese citizens to use them.

So with this recent announcement, it's super duper illegal for them to use it? That's not really much of a change from a few weeks ago.

No, it was never illegal for private citizens to use them before, they just banned the exchanges. Now any transaction is illegal.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#660

Post by czl » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

tuesdayrain wrote: post #75

holoduke wrote: post #14

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.

> The amount of people making a profit from it is less than 5% I find it amusing how casually you just made up a statistic and used it as justification to ban something. Here's an actual statistic: 100% of people who held Bitcoin for longer than 4 years are up on their investment. edit: Lots of downvotes for an easily verifiable fact. Anyone can look at the BTC chart and see that there is no 4 year span where the pri…

Madoff ran his scheme for decades. Till the day it fell apart 100% of his clients were up on their investments. They also learned that when you multiply decades of fantastic returns by a single zero your outcome is zero.

Millions can be wrong for decades. If history teaches anything is has to be this.