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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

#491

Post by time_to_smile »

lordfrito wrote: post #469

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 littl…

> I don't understand how intelligent people can continue to believe this stuff is the future of finance.

My experience is that all of the really intelligent people interested in crypto did leave after the ~2012 wave of excitement. At that time when you saw people give talks on crypto they were almost entirely technical with very little focus (or interest) on becoming rich. That was when the people involved tended to be technical idealists. I didn't buy that crypto was the future then, but I wanted to be wrong.

Fast forward to ~2017 during the next crypto boom and the conversation was around the non-technical people at technical companies getting excited. People did believe crypto was going to become the currency of the world, so there was still some idealism, but it was mainly about getting in to get rich. By this wave a good chunk of the idealists I knew were entirely disillusioned.

Then the 3rd wave which just happened to correlated with a massive injection of money in the market by the Fed. At this point it was just literally get-rich-quick dreamers with more dollars in their hands than sense. Nobody I know who has gotten in during this period even has a coherent vision of what the future looks like, they just have too much money and think crypto is the way to get insanely rich one day. It's also when people completely unrelated to tech started getting involves. People who don't even know how to use a wallet, and rely 100% on 3rd parties to manage all of it.

People are holding on to crypto for the same silly reasons that coworkers of mine keep all their vested stock in companies that have dropped 50%+ in value over the last year. It's because they earnest believe that the era of low interest, free money is the norm. They believe this current macro is just a blip, and if they just hodl a bit longer it everything will go back to "normal".

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

#492

Post by pavlov »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #326
pavlov wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know Binance hasn't stolen anyone's money? Is there a reputable auditor's statement to that effect? Seems very unlikely when Binance pretends they're not even headquartered in any jurisdiction. Nobody has any idea about Binance's actual money flows and where customer funds have actually ended up.

Honestly, they probably are making more money being the market leader than trying to steal money.

That's what everyone thought about FTX too. "Why wouldn't they be legit, they're hanging out with members of Congress and obviously making a lot of money."

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

#493

Post by jacksnipe »

EscapeFromNY wrote: post #482
lordfrito wrote: post #469

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 littl…

There are plenty of real world uses. - https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ - https://coincodecap.com/danish-reporters-in-ukraine-buy-used... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33644090 People from wealthy countries tend to reject the legitimacy of these uses because "my country is stable and could never have these problems", or "if buying food is illegal, you shouldn't buy food, you financia…

People tend to reject it because it makes negative economic sense for a country with a powerful currency to allow the replacement of that currency, so they won’t.

Becoming the next Greece cannot save you.

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

#494

Post by lordfrito »

EscapeFromNY wrote: post #482
lordfrito wrote: post #469

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 littl…

There are plenty of real world uses. - https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ - https://coincodecap.com/danish-reporters-in-ukraine-buy-used... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33644090 People from wealthy countries tend to reject the legitimacy of these uses because "my country is stable and could never have these problems", or "if buying food is illegal, you shouldn't buy food, you financia…

> As long as it's still helping people, we should keep building it.

What if it's hurting more people than it's helping? Just seems like a handwavy way to ignore the scams, fraud and collateral damage. We're talking billions.

If we want to spend capital to help people in other countries, there are better ways of doing so.

I do not believe for one second that the people from rich countries spending money in this space are doing it to help poor people in other countries. It's great spin though.

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

#495

Post by lordfrito »

jacksnipe wrote: post #493
EscapeFromNY wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of real world uses. - https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ - https://coincodecap.com/danish-reporters-in-ukraine-buy-used... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33644090 People from wealthy countries tend to reject the legitimacy of these uses because "my country is stable and could never have these problems", or "if buying food is illegal, you shouldn't buy food, you financia…

People tend to reject it because it makes negative economic sense for a country with a powerful currency to allow the replacement of that currency, so they won’t. Becoming the next Greece cannot save you.

Yes, this exactly.

The Greek economy may be better than the Somalian economy, but that doesn't make it The Future of Finance.

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

#497

Post by Gh0stRAT »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #419
codetrotter wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 (...) is 1. “Not innovative” Well, it is innovative, in the same sense a jet engine is. What you don't do with jet engines is using them to keep static structures in the air indefinitely. You use steel beams or concrete for that. Crypto tech as cash…

That's a fantastic analogy for how incredibly wasteful Bitcoin & similar cryptocurrencies are just to maintain a steady state!

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

#499

Post by lordfrito »

dagaci wrote: post #488
lordfrito wrote: post #469

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 littl…

(1) The sole reason Bitcoin exists is because all governments decide inflate the money supply by printing, and in doing so, they knowingly devalued the efforts and work of everyone who saved their money or relied on fixed income like a pension. (2) Just this May the USA decided to add 1.5 trillions of inflation on top of the already high levels of inflation people are already experiencing. And I can guarantee that th…

(1) agreed this is why it was created

(2) not sure what you mean by 1.5 trillions of inflation, but your point seems to be that inflation is bad. I disagree. High inflation is for sure bad, but zero inflation is also bad. Capital needs to be put to work, inflation forces people with capital to use it (productively) or lose it.

(3) I don't agree that bitcoin has "way over succeeded", seems like an opinion and not a fact.

(4) It's not the fault of the US Government that Bitcoin is lawless. It was designed that way from the get go. The government can't stop people from sending and receiving bitcoin on the blockchain.

Why would anyone want to trade their ideologically pure bitcoin for those filthy fiat dollars they've been so desperate to escape from? Bitcoin maximalists say it's all about the bitcoin, but at the end of the day they want a pathway into the USD system.

I don't see any real arguments here on how this is the future of finance.

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

#500

Post by ethbr0 »

pyrale wrote: post #436
ethbr0 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People will start asking where your funds are coming from. This is a weird statement. If it's a cash offer, it's a seller's job to determine if you have the money, not if you paid taxes on it. If it's a mortgage down payment, then the bank is more interested in if your assets are going to disappear (e.g. are they actually a loan from a third party?). I've never had a mortgage bank inquire about my tax situation. If…

> If it's a cash offer, it's a seller's job to determine if you have the money, not if you paid taxes on it. Yes, but your bank and the bank of the seller both have strict KYC/AML rules to respect. And the seller probably doesn't want to accept a pile of bills that requires laundering.

I think we can agree that KYC/AML rules are... somewhat effective, in the face of determination to circumvent.

Honestly, to op's point, the IRS audit would be the likeliest to nail you, post-purchase.

"Person without demonstrated income suddenly buys expensive asset" is hard to hide and a huge, trackable signal.

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