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U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

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Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#71

Post by PretzelPirate »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #59
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

>What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? You mean the kind that pay dividends?

What percentage of stocks pay dividends?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#72

Post by Tenoke »

ianai wrote: post #62

What would happen to crypto values if the number of miners decreased significantly? Increased significantly?

A lot of crypto isn't mined in the first place. For those that are mined, increasing mining changes nothing, decreasing also unless you decrease it so much as to be trivial to outmine 50% of the total.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#73

Post by nyolfen »

gzer0 wrote: post #9
DethNinja wrote: post #8

They should mention this in their website: Cryptocurrencies are harmful to the banking system and may weaken the state apparatus. Hence, citizens shouldn’t buy them.

And equally so, they should mention that scammers around the world took home a record $14 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021, thanks in large part to the rise of DeFi [1]. This is a public information campaign; the sole purpose is to provide public awareness information on digital asset security and how to ensure it remains secure. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/crypto-scammers-took-a-recor...

fraud and scams are double-digit percentages of the 'real' economy

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#74

Post by mantenpanther »

dangoor wrote: post #67
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? I recommend not using the "what about the stock market?" tactic to defend cryptocurrencies. Crypto is more speculative than the stock market because companies have physical assets, ongoing revenue and profits, dividends that they pay out to their share…

Bitcoin is anchored in physics and math. And used by millions without western privileges.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#75

Post by Hokusai »

> Our obligation to enforce crimes against the nation’s financial systems includes both informing the public on how digital assets work and partnering with them to identify, arrest, and prosecute those engaging in crimes involving digital assets. The Secret Service will continue to expand its capabilities, collaboration, and effectiveness related to all financial crimes investigations.

TLDR; it's the end of crypto currency as a refuge for criminals.

So, people will have to pay taxes, register exchange of value between parties, wallets will be trazable to individuals, etc.

Crypto currencies are the new home bubble derivatives. A complex economic vehicle to hide the absurdity of its valuation. A pyramid scheme, a hot potato game. It is bad that we have learned so little from previous crisis.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#76

Post by lawn »

lupire wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #21

The state could use public resources better by providing uniform education on cryptocurrencies. Most of the terms aren't standardized and even their use isn't. For example, if you put up a Google Form and asked for people's Ethereum addresses, many will provide the 0xAbc123 version and many others will provide the Abc123 version without the 0x. Both audiences may not realize that the 0x is purely cosmetic and address…

From the USG perspective, no good smart contracts exist, because good contracts are impossible to create on the existing Blockchain architecture. From USG perspective, a good blockchain requires all nodes to be registered banks with KYC. But that's not important because no one is really interested in those, because the purpose of Blockchain is to avoid regulation.

> because the purpose of Blockchain is to avoid regulation

The purpose of a cryptocurrency is:

- Provide a digital transfer of value without a trusted third party

- Provide an alternative form of digital money, without a third party that controls its supply

Which imare both legal. That it allows people to more easily avoid some regulation is coincidental, but not it's purpose.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#77

Post by concinds »

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

Most of the anti-crypto critiques in Silicon Valley bring up these exact arguments: it's speculative, and it enables scams. At its root, it's a hatred of the "get rich quick" aspects of crypto. It evokes the same contempt that old-wealth (people with butlers) have for new-wealth (people with Lamborghinis): that they're childish, didn't earn their privileges, and need to be reined in. It's class signalling.

Thankfully crypto isn't a democracy. Money market funds, banks, stock exchanges, and every other financial institution can be frozen instantaneously by the U.S. President to "prevent another financial collapse". Those who are OK with that much power being concentrated in one person, can continue avoiding crypto. But no amount of public outcry can ban, shut down or criminalize crypto, same as you can't ban IMAP or AES.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#78

Post by AlexandrB »

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment?

Most other assets represent ownership of... something. A company, a commodity, property. Cryptocurrency is closest to either a fiat currency without the government backing that typically tries to stabilize those. Or to more exotic and abstract financial instruments like credit default swaps or shorts.

Basically what's missing is the ability to even guess at the "true" value of cryptocurrency. There's no P/E ratios to consider because the only thing Crypto "produces" is Crypto transactions. It's also impossible to even guess at a floor or ceiling for the price of a cryptocurrency. The only thing that determines their price is human sentiment - a very fickle input.

Because of this, it's likely that cryptocurrency is vulnerable to market manipulation. Both through large transactions and through marketing. See also: the ample evidence of wash trading in the NFT space. In these kinds of situations my feeling is that if I'm not the one doing the manipulating then I'm the sucker on the other end.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#79

Post by mlac »

mantenpanther wrote: post #74
dangoor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? I recommend not using the "what about the stock market?" tactic to defend cryptocurrencies. Crypto is more speculative than the stock market because companies have physical assets, ongoing revenue and profits, dividends that they pay out to their share…

Bitcoin is anchored in physics and math. And used by millions without western privileges.

Highway infrastructure is also anchored in physics and math. It doesn’t mean we should treat highways like a currency that should be purchased and traded.

Starting a business is open for millions “without western privileges” - and stock is owning a business. Starting a profitable business that adds value (people are willing to pay you for a service) is a lot more useful to society than spinning up another coin that does nothing.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#80

Post by bluGill »

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

There are different types of speculative investments.

Stocks are backed by the company they are behind, when the company goes out of business the stocks stop trading. When you own stocks you vote on company leadership (or at least should). When the company makes money they pay you cash as a dividend (for tax reasons this most often comes in the form of a stock buy back making your stock more valuable. As such stock speculation on the company not stocks in general.

Historically money was backed by gold, and supply and demand of gold is what governed the price. Today cash is not, and it is only backed by the government saying you have to use it. As such cash is more speculative than stocks, but the government forcing you to use it means it has some power behind it. Bitcoin is backed by some governments, so bitcoin is speculation on those governments (this is new in the past few years and makes bitcoin somewhat less speculative than other crypto)

I don't see the point of crypto in the end. Almost everything it can do is better done by a secure central database, and the rest is a niche that can be handled by physical cash, or a contract (ie check) that is reconciled with the database later. Sure you could use cyrpto, but the energy costs are so much larger that I don't think we as a society can afford to use it.

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