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

Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 218 posts

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#41

Post by RandomLensman »

jcbrand wrote: post #37
RandomLensman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the Fed, which other large central banks are privately owned? The Bank of England has only been independent for a pretty short time, for example, so central bank independence is a fairly new concept that could change again - because it is a political decision, not a law of nature.

US, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Turkey and South Africa. The Danish one is "self-owned" whatever that means. The US fed is by far the most important Central Bank due to dollar being the global reserve currency. Source: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-European-Central-Bank-privately... EDIT: The ECB is owned by member-states's banks, some of which are privately owned. In any case, private ownership is onl…

So, outside of the Fed, there are maybe two more that have some relevance that are privately owned (Japan, Switzerland). The second most important one (ECB) is not.

And, of course, the ownership of the Fed (or the ECB) could be changed by changing laws (the Bank of England is an example here of how central banks might enjoy changing degrees of freedom).

Addendum: to say that it is not easy to change the law is ok, maybe it should not be. But to use some technology to get around laws where there is not enough social capital for change is a very tricky position. If that holds for law X, why not law Y? What if there is never enough social capital for change? Would it then imply a break-up of that society into multiple ones?

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#42

Post by jimmydorry »

RandomLensman wrote: post #23
searchableguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> move to a society that operates closer to what you want This doesn't work. All countries are pressured to adopt the same compliance and framework. OECD, IMF, WEF, and other world organizations will successfully force same reforms everywhere.

What is your evidence that in aggregate citizens want what you want/dislike the current state? If that is not the case, you cannot claim that "countries are pressured".

It's undeniable that countries are pressured. Look at El Salvador and the unrelenting salvo of bad press they get over starting to accept Bitcoin as legal tender.

The IMF immediately told them that they would no longer be elligible for any IMF loans or financial transactions until they sold all Bitcoin they owned and rolled back the Bitcoin legislation. And the kicker, El Salvador bought and held XX million dollars worth of Bitcoin (last I checked), while their GDP was XX,XXX million dollars, and the loans that they roll were for X,XXX dollars.

There aren't many other players at nation state level like the IMF... so they can exert a lot of pressure on monetary policy. If you want another example, look at how the IMF dealt with Greece.

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#43

Post by RandomLensman »

jtbayly wrote: post #40
RandomLensman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your evidence that in aggregate citizens want what you want/dislike the current state? If that is not the case, you cannot claim that "countries are pressured".

That has nothing to do with whether countries are pressured or not. The fact is, the standards from those groups are huge pressure on countries to conform. They offer money, but with strings attached. Either the country conforms or it doesn’t get the money.

But do the citizens of those countries using those rules mostly object to those rules? Do Germans or Italians want different anti-money laundering standards, for example?

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#44

Post by suriyaG »

dubswithus wrote: post #38
ghuntley wrote: post #4

From: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1531920908696358912 Today the global community of technologists sent a letter to Congress urging them to resist the crypto industry’s lobbying influence. The letter was signed by some of the most respected scholars and technologists in our field. And now we need your help. Crypto fraud is spiraling out of control. So-called "web3" is not going great. Regulators are paralyzed a…

If all blockchain is bad because 99.9% of tokens fail, why wouldn’t all startups be bad since a similar number fail as well?

I think, Because startup investment is regulated and not accessible to any average joe. Else, we'd be overrun with conmen trying to make a quick buck. Not that we have less of them now.

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#45

Post by jcbrand »

kd913 wrote: post #39
bettysdiagnose wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you try to make something private, then you're helping money launderers, criminals and pedophiles. But you can't just hand wave concerns regarding money laundering and other criminality away. If you want to, you should just say "these things don't matter that much", but don't just avoid them entirely. >Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. It's enough for you to know that we are experts and…

>money launderers, criminals and pedophiles. I think it's important to expand on the above because the above terms are tame. They give an impression of individual small time criminals. It's North Korea, Russia, dictators and despots across the world, the cartels, organized criminals. Large scale Tax avoiders, human traffickers, drug traffickers, weapon smugglers. It's the organized big money criminals, both high and…

Funnily enough, the people who live under dictators, despots, cartels and organized criminals often more easily realise the benefits of money that cannot be censored, cannot have its issuance be manipulated, is permissionless and very difficult to confiscate.

(Talking about Bitcoin here. Not all crypto applies)

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#46

Post by RandomLensman »

jimmydorry wrote: post #42
RandomLensman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your evidence that in aggregate citizens want what you want/dislike the current state? If that is not the case, you cannot claim that "countries are pressured".

It's undeniable that countries are pressured. Look at El Salvador and the unrelenting salvo of bad press they get over starting to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. The IMF immediately told them that they would no longer be elligible for any IMF loans or financial transactions until they sold all Bitcoin they owned and rolled back the Bitcoin legislation. And the kicker, El Salvador bought and held XX million dollars w…

Yes, organizations do (and should exert) pressure when they give something, but is it done against the will of the citizens (i.e., government agreeing to things the citizens don't want. A vocal opposition is not enough to claim that)? A country is free to isolate itself etc. if the people there are happy with it.

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#47

Post by jimmydorry »

favflam wrote: post #31

Regulators should take a look at crypto firms pushing 20x leverages derivative products on retail investors. Regulators should pay attention to MEV and order flows on decentralized exchanges. Some blockchains are not permissionless to write to (proof of stake). As such, they are ripe for front running and forced liquidations of retail users.

Increased regulation around leveraged products would be nice!

The regulators are already asleep at the wheel in terms of oversight on traditional exchanges (or more specifically what is happening outside of them). Sure, additional oversight would be nice in crypto-land, but increasing the regulator's scope seems like wishful thinking to me.

With decentralized exchanges at least, all of the data necessary to audit what is happening is all public and instantly available... so maybe things will flip and the additional oversight for decentralized crypto exchanges will be trivial?

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#48

Post by rvz »

ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Quoted post unavailable.

Once again, why are companies like Stripe [0], Moneygram [1], still using cryptocurrencies then? Perhaps they recognise that not all of them are like what you just described, and they waited for further regulations to be clearer and chose mature cryptocurrencies to use for what they needed?

Also why haven't the law makers in congress, the SEC and the White House totally banned all of them yet but are instead writing down regulations to determine complaint and non-compliant cryptocurrencies like in ISO 20022?

I know people skeptical of crypto are going to hate this and people who are in favour of all cryptos taking over the financial system will also hate this but I have to say it:

Not all of them are going to go away and only a few of cryptos will survive past regulations. That is the hard truth I'm afraid.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram...

[1] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#49

Post by endmathabusenow »

I signed. I have worked in computational finance for 25 years--building mathematical models and managing their implementation. I have spent the past year anti-fraud modeling. I don't know if this qualifies me as a technologist. The leadership can decide.

Re: Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

#50

Post by kd913 »

jcbrand wrote: post #45
kd913 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>money launderers, criminals and pedophiles. I think it's important to expand on the above because the above terms are tame. They give an impression of individual small time criminals. It's North Korea, Russia, dictators and despots across the world, the cartels, organized criminals. Large scale Tax avoiders, human traffickers, drug traffickers, weapon smugglers. It's the organized big money criminals, both high and…

Funnily enough, the people who live under dictators, despots, cartels and organized criminals often more easily realise the benefits of money that cannot be censored, cannot have its issuance be manipulated, is permissionless and very difficult to confiscate. (Talking about Bitcoin here. Not all crypto applies)

Which examples? The ones who take hush money and are subject to increased violence from an increasingly powerful cartel?

The ones who are paying for these open ponzi schemes by having their electricity stolen by the state?

How about El Salvador, or Argentina, or Nigeria where the poorest lost significant chunks of their capital from btc crash to terra/luna collapse.

Post reply on HN