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Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

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Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#101

Post by Joeboy »

EA-3167 wrote: post #76
burnished wrote: post #75

Woof, lots of emotional and nigh incoherent responses to a pretty thoughtful little statement. Doesn't inspire confidence when the average response seems to boil down to a form of religious fervor. Which is too bad, seems like it would have been the perfect place for a thorough rebuttal.

I think there's a lot of sunk cost in those comments, along with a lot of frustrated ideology. For people who thought they had finally gotten a way to bring their ideology into the real world, or imagined all sorts of riches, the state of crypto and the burgeoning regulatory environment may be too much to emotionally process and accept. As for why there isn't much in the way of thorough rebuttals, I suspect anyone tr…

"Get out of crypto trading platforms" is entirely aligned with the "idealogical" crypto people, isn't it? "Not your keys, not your coins" and that.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#102

Post by cs702 »

otoburb wrote: post #97
cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

The comparison to Madoff is not apt. Madoff hid losses by committing accounting fraud, whereas every single transaction in the Bitcoin network is visible to everyone and, moreover, cryptographically verifiable by everyone. As long as the distributed consensus algorithm continues to function, Bitcoin will continue to exist. Period. (Government regulations cannot kill it; they can only drive it underground, as with gold.)

Anyone who predicts Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its network would stop functioning.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#103

Post by krrishd »

Would be curious to see HN crypto critics mount their arguments against:

1. Physical cash / gold (ie. bearer instrument moneys that are non-trivial to seize or control at scale)

2. The digitization of the above, retaining the same "non-trivial to seize or control at scale" property in a digital medium

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#104

Post by jasonlotito »

waynecochran wrote: post #73
Hermitian909 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - and the question is - do we as a society want to allow that, do we think it's worth the tradeoffs? Five years ago I think the answer was still "wait and see", I think it's reasonable by now to say "actually, no, it's not worth it".

Not to argue, but it really strange how the things that my generation valued (e.g. individual freedom) are being overturned. The old axiom "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." was a mantra in my younger days.

Interestingly, the old axiom has a different meaning than what people think. It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security [1].

"He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it."[1]

> it really strange how the things that my generation valued (e.g. individual freedom) are being overturned

It's interesting for me as well. In the US, when I was younger, I always perceived "individual freedom" as a fundamental element of the right. It's only now as I get older that I see that's not really the case (at least, not anymore). That it seems as if the left has taken on that role of championing individual rights over that of the state.

I think in the context of crypto, I think it's a fine balance of freedom versus regulation, which is why it's taken so long to get anywhere with it.

Honestly, I think a large part of the reason it hasn't really been touched much is the feds ability to crack down on criminals despite using crypto. The belief that it's anonymous and untraceable makes it seem like at some level, it's easier to track people down. And in a circle of criminals, you only need to break the weakest link.

1. https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#105

Post by rcme »

otoburb wrote: post #97
cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

The issue I have with the argument is that you can apply it to anything. The fact that Bernie Madoff pulled off a ponzi scheme for years and the fact that "The Lindy effect works until it doesn't" isn't a specific critique of Bitcoin.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#106

Post by thworp »

cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

Oh please, again with the "store of value" BS. I made an effort to look at the actual volume of bitcoin being traded in and out of the system (aka actual entries and exits, not just fraud-prone exchange swaps) in 2020 and I concluded that it's probably worse than most scam penny stocks in terms of liquidity. It's really hard to find any kind of reliable data though, but in the absence of that I had to conclude it was just a gigantic scam.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#107

Post by otoburb »

rcme wrote: post #105
otoburb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

The issue I have with the argument is that you can apply it to anything. The fact that Bernie Madoff pulled off a ponzi scheme for years and the fact that "The Lindy effect works until it doesn't" isn't a specific critique of Bitcoin.

Exactly my point. The Lindy effect probably shouldn't be used as an argument for either side of this debate (or any, for that matter). But that's a specific (partial) statement that I saw in the parent comment.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#108

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

BasedAnon wrote: post #74
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than crime the only other use-case I've seen for crypto is for getting money into Russia because the sanctions mean my English teacher friend in Vladivostok can't use normal banks to accept payments for the online distance teaching thing he does. But I could oversimplify this to "bypassing international sanctions" which might be a crime? Crypto mainly seems to be useful to people who can't or won't use normal b…

>Other than crime the only other use-case I've seen for crypto is for getting money into Russia Violating sanctions is a crime. Given the trend we've seen people should start getting used to being considered criminals. >What am I missing here? What are the cool things bitcoin does that something like visa cannot? It's easier to send Bitcoin to people without doxing myself than a visa transfer.

I've heard that crypto transactions can be more secure but I've also heard that securing information on the blockchain is basically impossible because it is a publicly available ledger. How does bitcoin opsec work exactly?

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#109

Post by derbOac »

cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

Bitcoin is puzzling to me, in that a commodity usually has some value outside of a trading market per se. That is, it is usually consumable in some abstract sense. I'm not sure what you would "do" with Bitcoin other than as some form of currency.

In this regard, ETH always seemed a bit more on track, in the sense that there have been attempts to use the ETH blockchain from the beginning for the purposes of computation, other than "just" as a currency.

I'm not disputing what you're saying about the SEC position regarding Bitcoin, it just seems to highlight for me something a bit off about the SEC position, even if it is favorable in certain ways toward Bitcoin. I come away from all of this feeling a little like neither the SEC nor the crypto community at large are quite being honest or accurate about what's going on with crypto or how it should be regulated.

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