Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by igorkraw » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

There's a lot of comments here and do far one thing which is missing to me the fact that we are seeing a classical libertarian playbook at play here: rail against the state while at the same time relying on regulatory capture. All state power and regulation is repugnant, except for the bits that benefit me.

It's especially ironic because of the ongoing rhetoric of the value of bitcoin &co being independence from the store of trust that is centralised government and regulations. If they are truly that unstoppable, I'd expect them to not waste their time lobbying the old system and simply build the glorious new crypto economy that's been around the corner for the last 13+ years. But no, instead we are making sure that the money inflow and cash out options stay secure, and keep trying to worm a redundant at best and useless at worst technology into as many use cases as possible in order to show potential and keep the line going up. I'm sure, once there is a decentralised Blockchain Startup talking some municipality of doing their barbers license applications or municipal bonds via NFTs both the value and the democratising effects will kick in.

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

#102

Post by dubswithus » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:49 PM UTC

suriyaG wrote: post #44

dubswithus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

WeFunder and StartEngine are accessible to the average person.

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

#103

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:49 PM UTC

jcbrand wrote: post #79

Seriomino wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Bitcoin automagically fixes that? How? Due to it being a PoW system? Suddenly fraud is no longer possible? (It still is) Money laundering is no longer possible? (It still is) Inflation/Deflation save? (It still is) So tell me, what is crypto fixing? That instead of experts in the central bank the market itself just does what? Definitely nothing pro consumer. There are reasons why banks get requirements from the s…

In the least Bitcoin provides an option to opt-out, an alternative that puts some pressure on central banks to have sane monetary policy. It allows people in Lebanon (~200% inflation), Zimbabwe (~700% inflation) and Turkey (70% inflation) to maintain the purchasing power of their wealth and to protect it from confiscation. There are many other advantages of Bitcoin, but these are already significant.

However it can't protect against real falls in the purchasing power of bitcoin vs the currency it's commonly transacted against, the dollar.

I'm starting to think there's a good argument for the US treasury trying to export financial stability by making USD holdable globally. Except that runs into the policy problems relating to who's using it.

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

#104

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:51 PM UTC

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?

There's a reason random startups aren't allowed to make IPOs directly to the public, and attempts to circumvent this with ICOs got the hammer brought down on them.

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

#105

Post by jameshart » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:53 PM UTC

usrn wrote: post #91

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…

There are plenty of far worse life destroying scams that we don't regulate. Variable interest rate loans are a huge example.

Variable interest rate loans are very tightly regulated. You could argue 'not tightly enough', but personal loans in general are probably one of the most tightly regulated industries there is.

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

#106

Post by bko » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:53 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #83

jcbrand wrote: post #6

Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The existing, centralized electronic payment systems are a disaster for financial privacy, and it'll only get worse with CBDCs. If you try to make so…

>Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Surely there is a middle ground between "every single transaction that has ever occurred in the history of the blockchain is public and visible to all" and "no transactions are ever visible to anyone including governments investigating crimes that have exercised due process in obtaining warrants and subpoenas".

That's the status quo. A handful of entrenched banks consume all the data and share with state officials when asked (and increasingly advertisers). In return, every 10 years or so, there is a big bank bailout. If they get in trouble trillions in newly created dollars are used to buy assets the banks hold on their balance sheet to avoid a panic.

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

#107

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

birracerveza wrote: post #96

ITT: We should ban emails, or we'll be overrun by nigerian princes!

Reminded of https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html ; I believe at its peak one third of USENET was spam and one third was "spam cancels", instructions to delete the spam.

Email ended up with voluntary-but-effectively-central anti-spam efforts like SpamHaus and the RBL as a result.

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

#108

Post by Kbelicius » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #19

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…

Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that. Perhaps these companies waited for this executive order: [3] to go through before getting back into using cryptocurrencies. The reality is that both the hard crypto-skeptics and the crypto-maximalists will be disappointed in achieving their utopian goals of f…

> Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that.

It must be going disastrously when your 3 examples of things going grate are a start of a pilot project, an announcement of a project and what seems to amount to a sponsorship deal. And you wonder why people don't speak more widely about it.

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

#109

Post by usrn » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #105

usrn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of far worse life destroying scams that we don't regulate. Variable interest rate loans are a huge example.

Variable interest rate loans are very tightly regulated. You could argue 'not tightly enough', but personal loans in general are probably one of the most tightly regulated industries there is.

If they're legal at all they're probably not tightly regulated enough. They're certainly not well regulated enough now, you have morons on YouTube telling each other to buy investment properties with HELOC loans. IMO that's a far larger issue than people blowing money on worthless crypto tokens.

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

#110

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #5

I wonder if people lobbied to keep the internet regulated and out of the hands of the general public. Surely someone must have.

They are and they do and it is; even in the US there are intelligence services in the routers and the FBI "seizing" websites. Truly unregulated anything lasts only until it starts causing large enough problems.