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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'

#311

Post by Waterluvian »

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…

I have no idea about bitcoin’s demise, but I don’t understand how anyone can call it a store of value with a straight face.

Or do they mean conceptually it is, even if it’s a terribly volatile one?

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

#312

Post by __loam »

chromatin wrote: post #253
thworp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is an absolutely ass-backwards argument. To be a currency or a store of value or money (read: to be of any use) it has to be exchangeable for goods and services . Now we can see transactions on the blockchain but we have no idea what that transaction was for. *Nobody* can tell you what a bitcoins worth of wheat is without resorting to exchange rates of bitcoin to actual currencies. But because the entire exc…

Nobody can tell you what a gold oz. worth of wheat is without resorting to exchange rates of gold to actual currencies.

Gold has intrinsic value as a commodity though. It's scarce, has industrial uses, and has aesthetic value to a lot of people. Bitcoin doesn't have that. Bitcoin has value entirely because people think it has value. As an inflation hedge it fuckin sucks because it follows the market. When the fed increased rates, bitcoin crashed. As a store of value, it's too volatile to really work well for that and small mistakes can leave you with nothing. As a currency, the transactions per second is way way too low to be useful.

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

#313

Post by bhawks »

ntr-- wrote: post #299
chromatin wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody can tell you what a gold oz. worth of wheat is without resorting to exchange rates of gold to actual currencies.

I'll give you 1kg of wheat for an ounce of gold right now.

I'll see your 1kg and raise to 100kg.

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

#314

Post by crtified »

Curious: what exactly are the mechanics of this seeming dire prediction?

Is it being implied, or threatened, that forthcoming actions will lead to the insolvency (and resultant loss of customer funds) of the worlds major crypto 'exchanges' ? Again, by what particular mechanism(s) is this to occur ?

I don't outright disbelieve it, but nor is this the first rodeo we've seen.

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

#315

Post by blackle »

lbotos wrote: post #293
darth_avocado wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live in a real estate investment or grow food on it or run a business in it. Bitcoin is a bunch of 1s and 0s that is same as a blank canvas hung in museum and is priced at $20M. It is essentially useless, but people believe it’s worth something, so it keeps holding value. Until one day, it doesn’t.

I'm not a bitcoin maximalist, but you have to acknowledge that in this day and age that your definition pretty much applies to USD as well. People believe it's worth something. And so it is.

USD holds value because the government says it does. The government holds authority because they have a monopoly on violence. Or, if your less pessimistic, it's because people believe in the government.

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

#316

Post by kgilpin »

What was interesting about cryptocurrency was the idea of holding your own private keys and conducting transactions directly on the blockchain. In that scenario, everyone is their own “exchange” (kinda) and the SEC might let it roll. Cryptocurrency exchanges really have almost nothing to do with actual cryptocurrency. They just use the terminology (and the hype) as levers to try and build an unregulated exchange. Centralized exchanges are regulated - so here comes that process.

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

#317

Post by __loam »

mrguyorama wrote: post #205
username332211 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The efficient market "Hypothesis" (is it even testable?) presupposes a rational market, doesn't it? Real life markets are not rational, by definition. Humans are not rational actors.

Careful mentioning any actual economic theory here lol.

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

#318

Post by snapcaster »

lmm wrote: post #288
cs702 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gol…

> Anyone who predicts Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its network would stop functioning. I've been saying for years that Bitcoin will go down like Second Life. Remember when there were news stories about Sony or whoever buys an island for X million dollars? And now... I mean it's still there (presumably), I don't think they've turned off the servers or anything, but no-one cares and it's obviousl…

Presumably you have been saying this for a while and been wrong so far. At what point would you change your mind?

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

#319

Post by [deleted] »

mehlmao wrote: post #308
glerk wrote: post #291

This is hilarious. So crypto exchanges selling “securities” will be driven out of the US. Ok. US users will have to first buy “approved” cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, transfer them to a non-US exchange or p2p exchange like Bisq and use a VPN to buy whatever they want. The real winners here are these lawyers and apparatchiks who have never created anything of value in their entire life.

As opposed to all the valuable things being crated with cryptocurrencies?

[deleted]

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

#320

Post by hutzlibu »

lbotos wrote: post #293
darth_avocado wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live in a real estate investment or grow food on it or run a business in it. Bitcoin is a bunch of 1s and 0s that is same as a blank canvas hung in museum and is priced at $20M. It is essentially useless, but people believe it’s worth something, so it keeps holding value. Until one day, it doesn’t.

I'm not a bitcoin maximalist, but you have to acknowledge that in this day and age that your definition pretty much applies to USD as well. People believe it's worth something. And so it is.

In general yes, but with the difference that the dollar (or other "real" currencies) are encoded in law to have a value with the whole state backing it.
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