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Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

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Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#461

Post by agentgumshoe »

lvl102 wrote: post #36

Bitcoin solves this. Sorry I just had to. I think crypto as an investable asset class is finished. SEC is sending a very clear signal here. It’s entirely the community’s fault for failing to properly manage this space. They actually earned public’s trust (sometime during the pandemic). And then they threw it all away for a few bucks.

Imagine if you couldn't buy with or redeem USD (et al) with Bitcoin. That's the only way Bitcoin could 'solve' whatever the issue is.

Now let's talk use cases.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#462

Post by citizenkeen »

safety1st wrote: post #398
cycomanic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is evading tax not as bad as scamming people? Isn't it really just scamming the public (i.e. everyone)?

It's certainly more morally complex than just scamming somebody. Money is property. People generally agree that once you earn your money, it belongs to you. Is the government automatically entitled to part of it? The Boston Tea Party, the Women's Tax Resistance League, and Gandhi's Salt March are a few examples where people said no. Usually in this context the "evaders" will refer to it as tax resistance or tax prote…

Your examples of tax protest were by people who didn't really want to be a part of the government they weren't paying taxes to, or felt they weren't being treated properly as a class.

This doesn't seem to want crypto or finance exchanges. Thistle people just want the benefits of the government without paying for it.

That's just fraud.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#463

Post by PretzelPirate »

emodendroket wrote: post #381
computerfriend wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't, but the model is different. If Bitcoin transactions involved giving your private key to every entity you wanted to transact with (like how credit card numbers work), then this would be a problem.

I don't think that really solves the problem... for instance, you can get your money back if the vendor does not render the product or service promised (with some restrictions of course). With Bitcoin, you're on your own.

With something like Ethereum, you can build refunds into your payment model as long as you and the merchant agree on a set of trusted 3rd parties who can handle any disputes. You can choose different trusted mediators for each transaction and can decide the rules (ex: how many of them are needed to decide that a refund has to happen).

You can also choose not to trust any 3rd party. If I'm buying an on-chain digital item, I probably don't need to support disputes, but if I'm buying something off-chain and don't trust the merchant, I might want that protection.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#464

Post by hiatus »

nroets wrote: post #299
water554 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is dealing drugs bad? Bringing hard to obtain product to customers who want and will pay for it.

A friend of mine got hooked on something really bad. We could all see his health deteriorate month by month. He's probably dead right now. Even his parents don't know where he is. He's son will grow up without a father. I never met his dealer, but I'm sure the dealer saw the decay and did nothing.

The fact that the dealer saw the decay and did nothing is related to the drug's illegality. If the drug were available in a dispensary where you had to go out in public and get your drug, there would be more opportunities for intervention. We already make it illegal to serve alcohol to someone visibly drunk. You can't apply rules like that when the transactions are occurring in the dark.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#465

Post by PretzelPirate »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #185
cmcaleer wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is not reasonable for internet-based transactions. Payment processors like Stripe and Braintree are better, but they have moralising terms of service and will drop you the moment they find out what you're doing, and good luck getting your money out of that. Banks will frequently give you a hard time or not work with you if you're a sex worker so bank transfers are much more difficult and probably more info than…

…and yet these systems all still outcompete crypto for the use cases you cite. We must therefore discern that the risk of getting fucked by payment processors is less than getting fucked by the crypto ecosystem.

It sounds like you don't work in the adult industry and don't have empathy for how difficult it is do deal with payment processors deciding you can't get paid anymore.

This is a common problem in these discussions. The HN crowd tends to have better access to payment infrastructure and reliable income from their industry. Not everyone has those benefits and many people are punished by our existing system for doing completely legal work that some see as immoral.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#466

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

Animats wrote: post #318

This SEC action has nothing to do with Binance being a crypto exchange. It has to do with it being an exchange, a broker, an asset custodian, a market maker, and a trader for its own account, all at once, with no regulation. Sam Bankman-Fried was lobbying Congress to make that legal. That plan went nowhere. Binance just assumed they could get away doing all that. Worse, the SEC has already found large transfers out o…

> Stockbrokers routinely go to jail for misuse of customer funds.

While some people might take reassurance in a comment like this, regarding the SEC and it's duty to the public, it's hard to look at the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and conclude that banking & investment in this country, and its overseers including Congress, is anything but corrupt to the core, and they are only going after "big crypto" because they're not going to let a bunch of amateurs get in on the action.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#467

Post by jdironman »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #466
Animats wrote: post #318

This SEC action has nothing to do with Binance being a crypto exchange. It has to do with it being an exchange, a broker, an asset custodian, a market maker, and a trader for its own account, all at once, with no regulation. Sam Bankman-Fried was lobbying Congress to make that legal. That plan went nowhere. Binance just assumed they could get away doing all that. Worse, the SEC has already found large transfers out o…

> Stockbrokers routinely go to jail for misuse of customer funds. While some people might take reassurance in a comment like this, regarding the SEC and it's duty to the public, it's hard to look at the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and conclude that banking & investment in this country, and its overseers including Congress, is anything but corrupt to the core, and they are only going after "big crypto" because they're n…

> "They are only going after 'big crypto' because they're not going to let a bunch of amateurs get in on the action"

I'm sorry, I'm not able to understand what you mean here? Not letting amateurs in on the action would be attacking small fish instead wouldn't it?

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#468

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

jdironman wrote: post #467
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stockbrokers routinely go to jail for misuse of customer funds. While some people might take reassurance in a comment like this, regarding the SEC and it's duty to the public, it's hard to look at the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and conclude that banking & investment in this country, and its overseers including Congress, is anything but corrupt to the core, and they are only going after "big crypto" because they're n…

> "They are only going after 'big crypto' because they're not going to let a bunch of amateurs get in on the action" I'm sorry, I'm not able to understand what you mean here? Not letting amateurs in on the action would be attacking small fish instead wouldn't it?

"Amateurs" here meaning people that didn't go to an Ivy League school and isn't part of the same clubs. They definitely are not small fish. That's the point. They made out like bandits (literally), and they're not part of the "club," therefore, they have to go.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#469

Post by lordfrito »

After everything that's happened in this space, the number of "true believers" I'm seeing here is astounding to me.

After a decade of use the tech hasn't found many real world uses beyond gambling, drugs, confidence schemes, money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial criminality. This is 100% the community's fault, as they're the ones burning a lot of real world capital to build this stuff but have very little real value to show for it at the end of the day. I believe in creative destruction, this is just destructive destruction of capital.

Meanwhile the rest of the world is rapidly catching up. I have no trouble sending fiat money where I need to at the click of a button, with fraud and clawback protections in place. No chance of accidentally losing my savings, etc.

I don't understand how intelligent people can continue to believe this stuff is the future of finance. All signs point to this being a big nothingburger, crypto utopianism works great in theory but not in practice. The sooner this dream dies the better.

I guess it's something something human nature. I guess it's why we can't have nice things as a species. sigh

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#470

Post by forgetfreeman »

codetrotter wrote: post #402
forgetfreeman wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto's been a think for almost 15 years now. I think we can dispense with the narrative that there's anything innovative going on.

Money of account (debits and credits on ledgers) have existed for 30,000 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money But a system that takes the concept of ledgers, and makes it tied to pseudonymous addresses instead of persons, is distributed across the world, resilient to tampering, and which gives its users control over their money, and which has been in use for 15 years is 1. “Not innovative”, and 2. Tha…

Beer has been a thing for ~5,000 years but we've only had beer hats for the last 28. Our society could benefit from extensive investment into ongoing research and development of beer hat related industries, as we clearly haven't had enough time to determine if they're bullshit novelty garments.
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