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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'

#171

Post by eli »

cs702 wrote: post #139
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except ~99.99% of BTC transactions happen in exchanges off chain and aren't visible to anyone, and have a history of being fraudulent at many exchanges that have failed through the years...

That's true for gold too: Most gold transactions happen in exchanges. But the fact that there are successful intermediaries in the gold market is not an argument against gold's viability as a store of value. Ditto for Bitcoin.

I don't think gold is a good investment vehicle nor means of exchanging value either.

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

#172

Post by carlosjobim »

wolverine876 wrote: post #50
carlosjobim wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a crime if you or I do it. It's a blessing of quantitative easing when the rulers - our lords and saviors - do it.

The essential point is that they are not ruler or lords or saviors. We hired them to work for us, and democracies turn out to work better than any other form of government in history (and it's not close). We are the rulers, lords, and the only hope for our own salvation. You'd better get to work.

I didn't hire or vote for any central banker, and neither did you. We were born into the fiat system, the rules already written and specifically made to exploit us.

And I completely agree with your second paragraph.

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

#173

Post by jayd16 »

fwungy wrote: post #167

There are $5T of foreign exchange transactions per day. Btc is already getting traction in the developing world as a reliable currency and that is likely to grow under de-dollarization. The entire crypto market is about $1T right now of which btc is about half. There is so much space for Btc to grow as an option for international settlement, it's already working and trusted as much or more than many sovereign currenc…

Do you think crypto will remain dominant over a more traditional digital banking solution once established players recognize there's a market? If so, why?

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

#174

Post by winstonprivacy »

username332211 wrote: post #144
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…

It's not seemingly impossible, it's scientifically proven that the general public can't know when the price of Bitcoin will collapse. And it has nothing to do with the general public being stupid and any of that bullshit. It's called the efficient market hypothesis. If it was known that the price of Bitcoin will collapse on the 7th of June 2025, every owner would have sold their Bitcoins on the 6th of June. But then…

Markets are not efficient much of the time. And Bitcoin even less so.

Source; I make a living exploiting market inefficiencies.

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

#175

Post by saurik »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #92
rohith2506 wrote: post #87

I am absolutely baffled by how much negative criticism the whole blockchain industry gets here and I would like to understand the reasoning behind it. Most of the arguments fall into these following buckets concluding to "IT MUST DIE" 1. The whole crypto is a get rich quick scheme with predatory practices everywhere. It's a wild wild west with no sort of regulations. Well, guess what, regulated industry is no differe…

Blockchains are unnecessary in a world with trusted entities and functional legal frameworks. In places that require a blockchain, you're still going to be at the whim of whomever has a monopoly on force. Sure, your key passphrase may be in your head. You'll end up getting beat with a rubber hose. It was never your crypto so long as someone has the guns (wrt "Not your keys, not your crypto"). https://xkcd.com/538/ >…

> Blockchains are unnecessary in a world with trusted entities and functional legal frameworks.

This is also an argument against end-to-end encryption and against federated protocols. The reality is that we, in fact, do not have and have never managed to maintain trusted entities and functional legal frameworks for much else... why do you think this is so different?

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

#176

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

zhvihti wrote: post #68
adventured wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You invented and answered your own false premise. You set it up by proclaiming fiat the closest counterpart, and then proclaimed that fiat isn't treated like a security. You're the one saying it's closest to fiat, not the regulators. The regulators consider it to be more like an asset class and not fiat money like USD. They have been very clear about that. > Did somebody have to register the Brazilian Real with the S…

My premise is that I don't agree with the regulator :) Of course a regulator is there to regulate so their incentive is to find things to regulate. > The regulators consider it to be more like an asset class Being an asset is also applicable in my opinion. But assets and securities are not the same, and this is what's changing - regulators switching the categorization from assets (which was implicitly and somewhat ex…

So your premise is the thing you're arguing for? That's a circular argument.

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

#177

Post by johngladtj »

jayd16 wrote: post #173
fwungy wrote: post #167

There are $5T of foreign exchange transactions per day. Btc is already getting traction in the developing world as a reliable currency and that is likely to grow under de-dollarization. The entire crypto market is about $1T right now of which btc is about half. There is so much space for Btc to grow as an option for international settlement, it's already working and trusted as much or more than many sovereign currenc…

Do you think crypto will remain dominant over a more traditional digital banking solution once established players recognize there's a market? If so, why?

The established players already know there's a market.

The reasons they don't service it are regulatory, not technological, and so an unregulatable Option will eat their lunch.

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

#178

Post by ithinkso »

delecti wrote: post #112
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because not even the government can confiscate your Bitcoin. They can really easily do that though. A court can say "give us your keys or you are going to sit in jail until you do and we will record your conversations so if you tell the keys to someone else, we'll sell them"

That's the "$5 wrench" argument rephrased. It's not much in its favor, but a sufficiently motivated person can resist handing over cryptocurrency better than they can any other asset.

Or they can bury the gold and refuse to tell where...

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

#179

Post by fwungy »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #96
cs702 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...can you actually do more with it [I assume you mean Bitcoin] now than you could five years ago? Not really. To date, Bitcoin has been used successfully only as an alternate store of value -- one which, like gold, doesn't depend on the financial credibility of a particular government or country. Bitcoin's continued existence depends only on the integrity of its distributed consensus algorithm, which so far has wi…

Bitcoin is a horrible store of value. It's incredibly volatile.

In many places Btc is one of the safest ways to store value. The scenarios it could collapse under are dark. It's biggest enemy is soveriegn currency issuers and banks. They would need to attack it such that holders lose faith in it en masse and collapse it. The successful attack they need to make is dystopian in nature. It would require a global digital identity that was attached to all internet access and an alternative (CBDC) crypto that they forced everyone to use.

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

#180

Post by uLogMicheal »

wolverine876 wrote: post #138
uLogMicheal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you can see the absolutist nature of his comment and come to the realization that crime is a universal aspect of money, so of course any form of money would be a facilitator of it.

> crime is a universal aspect of money, so of course any form of money would be a facilitator of it. That's irrelevant. The question is whether crypto in particular facilitates crime, and it does. All airplanes facilitate passenger death, but some are far more dangerous than others. If I'm considering boarding a plane, don't tell me 'well, any plane might crash' - I don't care, I care about this plane, this pilot, et…

Here's a data driven view: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2023-crypto-crime-repor...

also many linked sources here: https://www.cato.org/blog/overstating-crypto-crime-wont-lead...

crypto = crime narrative is provably false but how many search or care for the truth?

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