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Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

financialinclusion.tech

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Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#21

Post by jkarni »

_zllx wrote: post #4
jkarni wrote: post #2

I played a lot of chess as a kid. The story of Kasparov beating the pawn-of-the-regime Karpov was quite thrilling then. Strange twist that he became a pawn of ultra-capitalism - Peter Thiel, cryptocurrencies, NFTs [0], all under the guise of morality. Sad. [0] https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/12/14/garry-kasparov-l...

Read the article looking for any mention of Peter Thiel, couldn't find one. Tried Ctrl+F for thiel, no results. Cryptocurrency isn't all about Peter Thiel. Plenty of people want to use NFTs to earn money for their art or other achievements, and plenty of people are doing it outside of energy-hungry platforms like Ethereum. What's immoral is to deny anyone that opportunity under the guise of morality. Yes, the typical…

Thiel is one of the big donors to HRF, the foundation Kasparov and another co-signatory, Gladstein, work for.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#22

Post by once_inc »

danuker wrote: post #17
once_inc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Early reference is in relation the the El Salvador bitcoin legal tender law, which is less than a year old. What is destructive exactly?

I would say the wasteful proof-of-work securing upwards of $1M per hour is destructive - https://www.crypto51.app/ . It can be solved through Pigovian taxes on externalities (carbon emission mainly). But it should apply to all industry fairly, and our energy-industry lobbyists will hear none of it.

Please note that Bitcoin is considerably more carbon emission friendly than most other industries. Also note that PoW is deliberately wasteful as feature.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#23

Post by once_inc »

solar-ice wrote: post #18
once_inc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check Alex Gladstein(one of the writers)'s weblog and check some of his articles. Bitcoin is inherently a-political and inclusive; it doesn't know who is doing what with bitcoin at the protocol level. Yes, this allows scammers et al to do bad things, but it also makes financial inclusion possible for most of the people currently gatekept away from financial inclusion. El Salvador is frontrunning, and acceptance isn't…

Bitcoin is not "inherently apolitical"; it encodes several political ideas, including that unregulated capitalism is a good thinng and the environment is not worth worrying about. There's also some more specific ones, even if you generally agree with those; that a deflationary currency is a good thing, for example. "Apolitical" in this context seems to mean "I agree with its politics".

No, bitcoin doesn't care what you do with it. It is regulated by the economic majority. If everyone agrees that we want regulations on transactions, it can be added to the protocol; I suggest you create a BIP for it, and see what the response is.

Also; the environment not being worth worrying about is not a political idea that Bitcoin encodes; it simply uses Proof of Work because there is no alternative to it that has the same characteristics.

Bitcoin isn't a deflationary currency. It's emission is deflating to 0, after which it is neither inflationary nor deflationary.

Apolitical means it doesn't enforce you to do things because politics demands it of you; only because the protocol enforces it. Want to change the protocol? Feel free to build an alternative and spend your time convincing people to use it.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#24

Post by danuker »

once_inc wrote: post #11
astoor wrote: post #5

The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was st…

You are making blanket statements without backing it up with evidence. Even if you do back it up with evidence, it will be anecdotal, since Russia has been actively working on crypto infrastructure and reserves, while Ukraine hasn't. Also, you are comparing individual Ukranians with the Russian state. Also; Bitcoin isn't net negative for society and environment. Another blanket statement given without any form of evi…

> Please note that the environment FUD has been refuted many, many times over.

And here you are making a blanket statement without backing it up with evidence.

Bitcoin spends more than $1M/hr through proof-of-work, https://www.crypto51.app/ , essentially out-spending any doublespenders. This is wasteful.

If the inflationary reward were reduced or eliminated, the transaction fees were more in line with the externalities. But mining budget would also drop, which means less security (which means more waiting for large transfers to gain additional confirmations).

As such, a "Bitcoin Green" fork with reduced mining rewards would be very welcome by me at least.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#25

Post by solar-ice »

once_inc wrote: post #23
solar-ice wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is not "inherently apolitical"; it encodes several political ideas, including that unregulated capitalism is a good thinng and the environment is not worth worrying about. There's also some more specific ones, even if you generally agree with those; that a deflationary currency is a good thing, for example. "Apolitical" in this context seems to mean "I agree with its politics".

No, bitcoin doesn't care what you do with it. It is regulated by the economic majority. If everyone agrees that we want regulations on transactions, it can be added to the protocol; I suggest you create a BIP for it, and see what the response is. Also; the environment not being worth worrying about is not a political idea that Bitcoin encodes; it simply uses Proof of Work because there is no alternative to it that ha…

> Also; the environment not being worth worrying about is not a political idea that Bitcoin encodes; it simply uses Proof of Work because there is no alternative to it that has the same characteristics.

That the system of Bitcoin users could not exist without that impact is literally what I mean by encoding that political idea.

> It is regulated by the economic majority.

That definitely sounds political. Why not a democratic majority?

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#26

Post by danuker »

astoor wrote: post #5

The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was st…

The way I use Bitcoin is as a personal defense against hyperinflation. I find this very valuable.

Also, apparently people pay a lot of transaction fees, therefore the network must be offering at least that much in benefits.

What examples of terrorism or other illegitimate uses have been financed through Bitcoin? How much damage have they caused to society?

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#27

Post by giaour »

_zllx wrote: post #10
astoor wrote: post #5

The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was st…

Are there any resources to read about Russia's use of cryptocurrency during wartime? It seems purely hypothetical at this stage. I thought, like China, they would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked)

> I thought, like China, [Russia] would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked)

You're kind of proving GP's point here. Evading capital controls is a criminal activity, and, though this is an example of a crime that we would all agree is morally righteous, you're still arguing that cryptocurrency is good because it makes crime easier.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#28

Post by junofan »

vesinisa wrote: post #16
once_inc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Early reference is in relation the the El Salvador bitcoin legal tender law, which is less than a year old. What is destructive exactly?

Bitcoin's resource use, comparable to a mid-size country: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ Lacking viable uses outside of the criminal underworld and speculation, this is wasted energy. And it will only keep growing unless regulators step in.

That resource use model uses miner revenue to estimate energy footprint. It’s off by at least an order of magnitude if you extrapolate from publicly available miner energy use statistics.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#29

Post by ejb999 »

once_inc wrote: post #11
astoor wrote: post #5

The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was st…

You are making blanket statements without backing it up with evidence. Even if you do back it up with evidence, it will be anecdotal, since Russia has been actively working on crypto infrastructure and reserves, while Ukraine hasn't. Also, you are comparing individual Ukranians with the Russian state. Also; Bitcoin isn't net negative for society and environment. Another blanket statement given without any form of evi…

I am going to criticize your blanket statements without backing it up with evidence by making other blanket statements also not backed up with any evidence.

Re: Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

#30

Post by once_inc »

danuker wrote: post #24
once_inc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making blanket statements without backing it up with evidence. Even if you do back it up with evidence, it will be anecdotal, since Russia has been actively working on crypto infrastructure and reserves, while Ukraine hasn't. Also, you are comparing individual Ukranians with the Russian state. Also; Bitcoin isn't net negative for society and environment. Another blanket statement given without any form of evi…

> Please note that the environment FUD has been refuted many, many times over. And here you are making a blanket statement without backing it up with evidence. Bitcoin spends more than $1M/hr through proof-of-work, https://www.crypto51.app/ , essentially out-spending any doublespenders. This is wasteful. If the inflationary reward were reduced or eliminated, the transaction fees were more in line with the externaliti…

Environment FUD refutation (just the one I personally link to most):

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/03/05/the-frustrating...

PoW security is a vector, and doesn't flip from secure to insecure at some specific point. A gradual reduction in mining hash rate doesn't render the chain noticeably less secure.

Feel free to fork Bitcoin and use it as an alternative. Please note that this has been done in the past, and will probably be done in the future. There is a reason why the economic majority remain with Bitcoin, even though PoW isn't energy neutral.

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