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

171–180 of 218 posts

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

#171

Post by mintyDijon »

I know that Monero or any other crypto won't be accepted as a "legitimate" digital asset by governing agencies, so this doesn't really impact crypto.

If bitcoin became a legal tender then Monero would have that bridge though, so I'm routing for it, but it doesn't effect crypto all that much either way.

So many of these "cryptocurrencies" everyone and they're dog loves are just scams. If they get legal support then governments will just have a new set of rich incompetents to bail out...

Not that they can't afford it.

Total US money supply ~21 Trillion

Total monopoly money supply (the boardgame) 20,580 x 250,000,000 = 5.145 Trillion

They have some to spare.

Real crypto will always be underground. That's where it's ment to be.

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

#172

Post by Sargos »

photochemsyn wrote: post #167
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. You may dislike the way central banks control and manipulate the money supply, but the reality is that an unmanaged currency is generally a disaster for everyone. To fulfill its role as a stable store of value, a currency has to be managed. The notion that an inherently deflationary unit of accounting (such as Bitcoin), or a completely unmanaged one, or o…

I recall looking into plans from the 1970s to peg all central bank currencies into a 'basket of currencies' to avoid things like currency collapse. It would require international goodwill and cooperation, and would eliminate a lot of currency speculation games, so it was kiboshed. Basically it was a mechanism to eliminate volatility and to stabilize the global monetary system. Maybe someone else knows more about it.

This was called Bancor and was proposed by John Maynard Keynes at Breton Woods. It was the major idea competing against the US pushing the dollar as the core of the monetary system and the US had all of the power at the time so that's why we're stuck with the USD now. It's actually a pretty interesting story and Planet Money covered it.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526051566

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

#173

Post by dropnerd »

ryan_lane wrote: post #170
martialg wrote: post #116

So - I love thoughtful criticism. My ego doesn’t, but I generally find it very valuable. This letter is honestly not thoughtful criticism. It reads like a group of academics and specialists annoyed they were too early to profit from a technology they spent a lot of time thinking about esoterically and avoids specificity in…well… any meaningful way. It also makes no effort to segment the space. If a critical letter cr…

> If a critical letter created by supposedly credible experts in a field can’t spare a paragraph to delineate between DeFi, NFTs, L1’s, smart contracts, stablecoins, and whatever else is bothering them then I think it’s fair to assume they don’t know the difference. DeFi is a scam to let crypto gamblers avoid taxes on their gains by taking profits as a "loan". The space is filled with unrealistic interest rates, and…

> defi is a scam [for] avoiding taxes

using defi to minimize tax burden is neither a scam nor unethical. plenty of people borrow against their houses or stocks.

> nfts are dominated by stolen pieces

most nft volume is made of bored ape yacht club, moonbirds, doodles, and similar properly licensed pieces.

> smart contracts don't replace legal contracts

right, they allow you to transact trustlessly for defi and nfts.

> stablecoins [should require] bank charter

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/circle-ba...

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

#174

Post by dropnerd »

pjc50 wrote: post #104
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?

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.

the result of this is people can only buy virgin galactic when they actually want to buy spacex. seems misguided

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

#175

Post by forum_ghost »

RandomLensman wrote: post #46
jimmydorry wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

can you find people in Cyprus that were enthusiastic about losing money so that the government can pay bankers' gambling debts?

a 2-3 verified examples will suffice, tia.

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

#176

Post by forum_ghost »

RandomLensman wrote: post #43
jtbayly wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Do Germans or Italians want different anti-money laundering standards, for example?

Yes. Germany is the highest user of cash in G-7 and has radically different views on privacy from other G-7/G-20 country, doesn't even have a centralized citizen register.

They have very little in common with Italy on many aspects, and certainly standards would vary as well.

But what does it matter? You think supra-national organizations actually care what some little people think?

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

#177

Post by dropnerd »

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.

PoW protocols are just as susceptible to MEV (it's called "miner extractable value").

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

#179

Post by forum_ghost »

glerk wrote: post #158
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…

> Today the global community of technologists sent a letter to Congress Bullshit. As a member of the "global community of technologists", I sent no such letter to Congress nor did I appoint anyone to send a letter on my behalf. I don't even see a point in addressing the same old anti-crypto arguments contained in the letter. The real story here is the presumption of these self-appointed "respected scholars and techno…

Here is what a fairly prominent member of the global community of technologists, DHH, who is a known Bitcoin-sceptic thinks now:

https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-was-wrong-we-need-crypto-587ccb0...

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

#180

Post by forum_ghost »

wanda wrote: post #58
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.

"One of the hallmarks of mania is the rapid rise in complexity and rates of fraud"

wasn't early internet a massive rise in complexity? and it came with a ton of fraud too?
Post reply on HN