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Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

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

#131

Post by md2020 »

dools wrote: post #71
jcbrand wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? The Federal Reserve (by far the most important one) is privately owned, as are Belgium, Greece, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and the Bank of Italy. The ECB is owned by central banks of member states, some of which are privately owned. Private ownership is any case one issue, the other is the fact the CBs are structured in such a way to be resistant to poli…

> Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? This is a good start: https://youtu.be/sT1KoXayDNU

MMT is widely regarded as not in agreement with the few things we’re pretty sure we know about economics, and furthermore its proponents generally refuse to publish actual models of the system they propose. Here’s a good examination of an MMT model that finds it somewhat lacking:

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/examining-an-mmt-model-in-...

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

#132

Post by AlexandrB »

bko wrote: post #128
AlexandrB wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get this line of thought. There's nothing "special" about precious metals in this regard and they only have value as long as people agree they have value. If we found an asteroid rich in gold and managed to capture it, would gold still hold its value? How is gold different than other rare earth metals with a (currently) limited exploitable supply like neodymium? The only limits on the gold supply are t…

> The only limits on the gold supply are technological ones Right, there's nothing special about it besides the technical limitations. But what's the alternative? With fiat you still have those technical limitations (someone could create indistinguishable counterfeit money and dump it on the market). But there's also the political risk. Someone can get power at the Fed and decide to double the money supply over night…

> With fiat you still have those technical limitations (someone could create indistinguishable counterfeit money and dump it on the market).

I think there is more than technological limitations to making this happen. Not only is counterfeiting considered a major crime by the state (who has a monopoly on violence), but the amount of "money" in circulation that has a physical representation is dwarfed by "money" that does not. Even if you doubled the physical currency in circulation you'd only increase the "monetary supply" by 10% or so. Plus there are huge logistics issues with moving that much weight/volume without getting caught.

> Someone can get power at the Fed and decide to double the money supply over night.

I think that if the function of government breaks down to this extent, I will have bigger problems than currency devaluation.

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

#133

Post by Seriomino »

koonsolo wrote: post #87
Seriomino wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you also believe that a crypto system is inherently better than what we have? Just because you believe money is printed as much as the dark secret super elite group wants it be printed? Ah yes the sseg. But yes we are still living in a democracy (a lot on hn at least) and the solution to all of these problems definitely are not getting solved by crypto. You as an avg joe you are much better off with our current fi…

Who says we all want to switch to crypto? Maybe we want the freedom to divide our personal savings any way we see fit. Democracy is a nice value, but so are freedom and human rights. I expect to have the right to buy crypto or not.

I don't say that.

I only argue about wrong crypto bro arguments.

Feel free to invest in whatever you want but in these discussions cryptobros argue from crypto is the future and is better than fiat.

Be aware though about the energy consumption of BTC. The GPU shortage and Asics garbage it creates.

I would have loved to buy an rtx GPU over people gambling on the side.

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

#134

Post by jcbrand »

Seriomino wrote: post #129
jcbrand wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They also can just buy euro or dollar. Nothing new here. And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. And I still bet that the people in Zimbabwe in avg have more from less co2 than from bitcoin

> And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey.

Impoverishing entire nations by making sure they can't buy necessary goods and thereby putting them at risk of starvation is more important than other nations who are impoverished and at risk of starvation due to their currencies collapsing.

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

#135

Post by spacebanana7 »

olalonde wrote: post #60
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…

> 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. Actually you can. The war on "money laundering" is a total failure. Those laws costs billions of dollars in compliance, stifle competition, harm innocent people by excluding them from the financial system (estimate…

In the UK, spending by financial services firms on AML compliance [1] exceeds all police spending [2] (£28.7 Bn vs £21.47Bn).

This represents a massive misallocation of resources. Public safety would almost certainly be improved if we doubled police spending by slashing AML burdens by 2/3rds.

Unfortunately it's hard for politicians address crime by raising taxes to fund real police but easy for them to attempt to address crime by increasing AML regulation, even if the latter is barely effective.

[1] https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/cutting-the-costs-o... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/298637/united-kingdom-uk...

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

#137

Post by rvz »

Kbelicius wrote: post #123
rvz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So those 3 projects I linked to have all been scrapped, abandoned or cancelled?, which would qualify your claim as what you described as 'going disastrously' assuming you have read the whole article and its links then? Can you at least backup your claims on them 'going disastrously' and being cancelled, scrapped or abandoned rather than making very unsubstantiated and baseless claims? Since I have already backed up m…

> Since I have already backed up my claims with links that these projects are still alive? No you did not. You provided a link to a closed pilot project that started a month ago, technically not alive and no way for you to know if it is going great. A link to an announcement of starting a project in the future, so not alive and no way for you to know that it is going great. Finally you provided a link to a "project"…

Yes I have. There is a problem with your goal-post moving, dodging questions and continuous denial as an attempt to escape my questions.

> You provided a link to a closed pilot project that started a month ago, technically not alive and no way for you to know if it is going great.

So "technically" it is not cancelled, scrapped or abandoned then and the project is still alive. Yes or No? Where is this 'disaster' you are speaking of since they are still launching it?

It seems you have admitted that it is still alive and going great by attempting to deny and shift the goal posts!

> A link to an announcement of starting a project in the future, so not alive and no way for you to know that it is going great.

In that link as of today, who is the partner that is using this crypto payouts product right now? Has that one been cancelled too?

> Finally you provided a link to a "project" that amounts to nothing more than a sponsorship deal.

And since then somehow they didn't use it and it was cancelled or abandoned, therefore a 'disaster' and they are not using it? My suspicions suggest that you read as far as the headline.

So not only you have just admitted that you're yet to read them, none of your responses are a refutation to my claims as you continue to dodge the fact that these projects are still alive and once again unable to give a single link to backup your own so-called claims of all of them going 'disastrously'.

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

#138

Post by LatteLazy »

jameshart wrote: post #118
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.

Bad analogy. In this case you have a finance industry trying to get congress to give them free rein to experiment with crypto. They're asking for latitude around things like securities law, financial disclosure requirements, anti-money-laundering, consumer finance protection, etc. - with the excuse being 'we have to be allowed to explore innovative technologies!' And what this letter represents is technologists tryin…

It's the other way around actually: Crypto is currently NOT covered by most of the things you list (securities laws, regulation etc). Coinbase etc just want to keep it (mostly) that way.

This is an important difference because really you should be able to explore tech without having to show up-front (to the satisfaction of a government agency or a self appointed group) that it is sufficiently interesting technically to be permitted.

Also, I don't entirely buy that Coinbase (specifically) want to prevent regulation. They've worked hard to position themselves as the regulated, above board, professional option in the space. More or Tighter regulation (but not an outright bad) would likely help them as they would likely already be compliant and other providers would either fold or close to US users or scramble to catchup...

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

#139

Post by Seriomino »

jcbrand wrote: post #134
Seriomino wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also can just buy euro or dollar. Nothing new here. And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. And I still bet that the people in Zimbabwe in avg have more from less co2 than from bitcoin

> And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. Impoverishing entire nations by making sure they can't buy necessary goods and thereby putting them at risk of starvation is more important than other nations who are impoverished and at risk of starvation due to their currencies collapsing.

They are not collapsing just for fun without a reason.

The normal people of that country are btw not able to just buy crypto. After all someone still needs to take their money to exchange it and they need hardware and knowledge.

You sound like crypto would just solve those issues just because it's there.

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

#140

Post by jameshart »

LatteLazy wrote: post #138
jameshart wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad analogy. In this case you have a finance industry trying to get congress to give them free rein to experiment with crypto. They're asking for latitude around things like securities law, financial disclosure requirements, anti-money-laundering, consumer finance protection, etc. - with the excuse being 'we have to be allowed to explore innovative technologies!' And what this letter represents is technologists tryin…

It's the other way around actually: Crypto is currently NOT covered by most of the things you list (securities laws, regulation etc). Coinbase etc just want to keep it (mostly) that way. This is an important difference because really you should be able to explore tech without having to show up-front (to the satisfaction of a government agency or a self appointed group) that it is sufficiently interesting technically…

The fintech industry is trying to frame the Overton window around crypto with various claims - including the claim that they are outside existing regulation, as well as that they don’t need additional regulation, and anyway they can’t be regulated.

This is how lobbying works.

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