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

The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

barrons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 362 posts

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#101

Post by mumblemumble »

Octokiddie wrote: post #61

> The problem, in a nutshell, is that for Bitcoin and other digital assets to have any chance of becoming mainstream, banks—with their access to deep sources of liquidity and experience in facilitating payments—will have to be on board. For the time being, they’re running in the opposite direction. What does Bitcoin "becoming mainstream" look like specifically? The article doesn't offer anything - not even a link. Le…

I'm having a hard time not seeing this take on BTC as being a version of the Galileo gambit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy#Galileo_ga...

The problem with reasoning that way is survivor bias: we remember the things that did change the world, and tend to forget the things that didn't. Or, even when we do remember things, we tend to do so in a selective manner. Beanie Babies, for example, did change the world, after a fashion, but not exactly in the way anybody thought they would at the time. Beanie Babies themselves mostly died out and lost all their on-paper value, but not before kickstarting the rise the rise of eBay and PayPal. But that isn't quite what any of the "this time it's special" people had in mind. It turns out that, all too often, the dichotomy turns out to have been false all along, which leaves plenty of room for literally everyone to be wrong about how things are going to play out.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#102

Post by acdha »

Octokiddie wrote: post #61

> The problem, in a nutshell, is that for Bitcoin and other digital assets to have any chance of becoming mainstream, banks—with their access to deep sources of liquidity and experience in facilitating payments—will have to be on board. For the time being, they’re running in the opposite direction. What does Bitcoin "becoming mainstream" look like specifically? The article doesn't offer anything - not even a link. Le…

Here’s what desktop computing in 1974 looked like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200

Despite all of the hardware limitations, real businesses found things like that useful for work which wasn’t selling desktop computers.

The future was visible, too:

https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1974/

The Xerox Parc Alto was “a groundbreaking computer with wide influence on the computer industry. It was based on a graphical user interface using windows, icons, and a mouse, and worked together with other Altos over a local area network. It could also share files and print out documents on an advanced Xerox laser printer. Applications were also highly innovative: a WYSISYG word processor known as “Bravo,” a paint program, a graphics editor, and email for example. Apple’s inspiration for the Lisa and Macintosh computers came from the Xerox Alto.”

The key thing to remember is that while desktop computing had huge places to go, it was useful almost instantly. In contrast cryptocurrencies have been globally available for almost a decade and a half, with only self-imposed drawbacks – nothing even remotely like the limits on early computer hardware or usurious network pricing — but despite that nobody has found them useful enough even at the level of a small company replacing a typewriter with a word processor. Almost nobody uses them instead of PayPal / Venmo, the few licit businesses which still accept them almost always immediately convert to a stable currency, and when these major players fail it has almost no real-world impact. That’s actually astonishing for a globally-available technology with billions of real dollars in funding.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#103

Post by acdha »

britneybitch wrote: post #65
dijit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if I were a bank, bitcoin presents a compelling argument. The supply is finite. Do you think that the most important thing about the value of something is the finite supply of it? Fiat currency is theoretically infinite since we abolished the gold standard, but seems to be compelling. Why would bitcoin be more compelling than gold (a finite store of wealth) or fiat currency (a fluctuating/volatile/infinite store of…

I think he means the compelling aspect is its fixed monetary policy. Gold deposits can be discovered (Uganda) or asteroids mined. Governments actively change their monetary policy. But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone and gives all participants perfect information (in the game theoretic sense). I'm not saying that's overall good or bad, but it certainly makes predicting the future…

> But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone and gives all participants perfect information

This is as true as saying that the United States Department of Treasury sets the supply of dollars in stone. Bitcoin is as fixed as the relatively small number of parties who run the network want it to be. If enough of them wanted to fork it, remove the deflationary model, change their rewards, etc. most users would be dragged along for the ride because there’s no anchor.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#104

Post by legutierr »

britneybitch wrote: post #65
dijit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if I were a bank, bitcoin presents a compelling argument. The supply is finite. Do you think that the most important thing about the value of something is the finite supply of it? Fiat currency is theoretically infinite since we abolished the gold standard, but seems to be compelling. Why would bitcoin be more compelling than gold (a finite store of wealth) or fiat currency (a fluctuating/volatile/infinite store of…

I think he means the compelling aspect is its fixed monetary policy. Gold deposits can be discovered (Uganda) or asteroids mined. Governments actively change their monetary policy. But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone and gives all participants perfect information (in the game theoretic sense). I'm not saying that's overall good or bad, but it certainly makes predicting the future…

> But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone

There’s nothing preventing Bitcoin miners from modifying the Bitcoin supply algorithm and inflation rate, except for their collective unwillingness to do so.

Bitcoin block rewards go down over time in Bitcoin terms—but so far the long term trend has been that the rewards have gone up in USD terms. We have never seen a sustained, long-term decline in the block reward in USD terms.

When we have seen short-term declines in the USD-denominated block reward, the hash rate has also declined—meaning a good number of miners have stopped mining.

What happens if the price of Bitcoin stagnates in the long term? Will miners still mine when the block reward is slashed again? Or will they decide to modify the algorithm to ensure that they remain profitable?

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#105

Post by acdha »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #81
willhslade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water is finite

Not in any practical sense. There's enough water in the universe to have a whole private solar system made entirely out of water for every single human.

What you’re describing is hypothetical. Following the dictionary definition of practical, our supply of water is limited to what we can actually use — and since people usually want fresh water, that means it’s limited to the point where there have been many conflicts over it.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#106

Post by Daishiman »

tnel77 wrote: post #25
guenthert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an environmental burden and we have plenty of those already, no need to invent more. Good riddance!

Is Bitcoin worse for the environment than the banking sector? I know the banking sector handles more than just sending/receiving money (mortgages for example), but people act like the existing system is the poster child for the green movement.

Yes, much worse. Next question?

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#107

Post by okokwhatever »

eli wrote: post #94
tnel77 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA? Not much. Bitcoin is a decent choice for sending your money across borders though! It could also be a gift if you think holding it long-term would be valuable. I remember my grandma buying me bank bonds as a kid for the same reason.

I usually send money across borders using Wise.com or wire transfers. What am I missing out on with bitcoin?

Fees

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#108

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

wruza wrote: post #13

A worrisome title. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230109005186/en/ The Company expects minimal financial impact from the exit of this vertical. MCB currently has four active institutional crypto-asset related clients that in the aggregate currently account for approximately 1.5% of total revenues and 6% of total deposits. MCB’s relationships with these clients are limited to providing debit card, payment an…

The title that's inside is not so bad.

"Metropolitan Bank Is Fleeing Crypto. Bitcoin Investors Should Be Worried"

As for other banks, what about Silverlake.

Not many banks are offer crypto services. Regulators are stepping up.

https://fortune.com/2023/01/04/crypto-winter-us-regulators-w...

It is likely that countries will launch their own digital currencies.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#109

Post by britneybitch »

legutierr wrote: post #104
britneybitch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he means the compelling aspect is its fixed monetary policy. Gold deposits can be discovered (Uganda) or asteroids mined. Governments actively change their monetary policy. But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone and gives all participants perfect information (in the game theoretic sense). I'm not saying that's overall good or bad, but it certainly makes predicting the future…

> But bitcoin, for the first time in history, sets monetary policy in stone There’s nothing preventing Bitcoin miners from modifying the Bitcoin supply algorithm and inflation rate, except for their collective unwillingness to do so. Bitcoin block rewards go down over time in Bitcoin terms—but so far the long term trend has been that the rewards have gone up in USD terms. We have never seen a sustained, long-term dec…

To change the algorithm, all three of miners, users, and nodes would have to agree to the change. If there is any disagreement, the network continues running under current consensus rules.

In fact, a majority of miners did try to strongarm a fork 5 years ago, and they failed, because the users did not agree. There was even been a book written about it. https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-controls-Bitcoins-proto...

If they tried again, they would fail again -- literally nobody would agree to a fork whose purpose is to enrich miners at the users' expense.

Post reply on HN