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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'

#331

Post by paulddraper »

anon-3988 wrote: post #328
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…

> 3. Bitcoin, which the SEC considers a commodity (it's explicitly excluded from the lawsuits), is bound to become even more dominant in terms of market capitalization. The longer Bitcoin survives, the more it will get adopted and integrated into the world's financial fabric, e.g., as a store of value. If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and…

Maybe. I don't see people using gold for finances within 50km of me, but it's going to be around forever.

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

#332

Post by lmm »

snapcaster wrote: post #318
lmm wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I don't think I have been wrong? Like I said, the ability to actually buy stuff with Bitcoin is in decline. I'd change my mind if I saw evidence of increasing Bitcoin adoption in the real economy.

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

#333

Post by __loam »

Animats wrote: post #206
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.

The Twitter replies are worse. The original poster makes the key point - the institutions running crypto are unregulated and are doing unverifiable things with customer assets and trades. That rarely ends well. Most of the scams are classic ones. Most of them are in this book from 1841.[1] They've been done before, for other kinds of investments. If you know about John Law's bank, and the Mississippi Bubble, and the…

Crypto people are not rational actors.

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

#334

Post by __loam »

paxys wrote: post #6

If you don't hold your own keys privately and offline then you don't really own any crypto. At best you own a share in a dicey exchange that may go under at any time (due to regulation, fraud or whatever else).

Crypto has no value without the exchanges. You either have a worthless asset that's too esoteric to use or you have exchanges to make them worth something and all the scams and financial instability that comes from that.

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

#335

Post by anon-3988 »

paulddraper wrote: post #331
anon-3988 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Bitcoin, which the SEC considers a commodity (it's explicitly excluded from the lawsuits), is bound to become even more dominant in terms of market capitalization. The longer Bitcoin survives, the more it will get adopted and integrated into the world's financial fabric, e.g., as a store of value. If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and…

Maybe. I don't see people using gold for finances within 50km of me, but it's going to be around forever.

And? I am not advocating for gold either. Gold hinges on the fact that its yellow and nice to look at or whatever. It is entirely feasible for the world to be possessed by zeitgeist such that gold or anything yellow doesn't mean particularly much. This could happen, for example, if gold and diamonds can be manufactured artificially. What then?

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

#336

Post by steveBK123 »

blackle wrote: post #315
lbotos wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly

To paraphrase a quote attributed to Stalin - how many divisions does Satoshi have?

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

#337

Post by steveBK123 »

cs702 wrote: post #150
youreincorrect wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about Bitcoin's potential demise, they are referring to its price and perceived value, not whether it will cease to exist necessarily. Madoff also was not ultimately caught and his scheme ended because of the accounting fraud being revealed (i.e. the fraud was not that important). That happened later. He was caught because a market downturn resulted in him being unable to acquire new victims for the…

The longer Bitcoin's network continues to function, more and more people will become aware of its resiliency . Governments may topple; banks may fail; exchanges may go bust; Bitcoin keeps on ticking. As long as the network continues to function, Bitcoin will have a price.

I could understand the allure of the (ahem) "stability" of BTC if you lived in say, Argentina.

If you live in America with this viewpoint, its pure doomerism.

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

#338

Post by LexiMax »

everfree wrote: post #225
LexiMax wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Feds and the bankers hate it because it's a direct threat to their business model. There's no room for a middle man to fugazi in btc. Crypto has spawned their own classes of middle-men. At best, you have a changing of the guard - new boss, same as the old boss. At worst, you have traditional finance buying a stake in crypto and ending up in the exact dominant same spot they were before. And of course, all of th…

> At best, you have a changing of the guard - new boss, same as the old boss. At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman, which is impossible to do over the internet with any other kind of system. At worst you have a changing of the guard.

> At best you send some of it directly to someone else with no trusted middleman

This is impossible.

If you trade crypto, at some point that money has to become fiat for you to pay bills, pay taxes or cash out. If the currency _is_ crypto, you either have to transact on-chain where it is inefficient and slow by design, or off-chain, where you are trusting a middle-man by definition.

Either way, you are beholden to the currency controls of your country, and unlike you, they have the resources of a nation-state and can de-anonymize and use violence to force you to bend the knee.

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

#339

Post by glerk »

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?

Correct. And if you personally don't see anything of value being created by cryptocurrencies, nobody is forcing you to invest or work in this field. It's the beauty of free markets when they're allowed to operate properly.

Btw ever wondered why in the year of our lord 2023 you can't trade stocks on the NASDAQ after 4pm EST, and why an ACH transfer takes 3 days to settle? I guess it's easier to piss away billions in lawyers and lobbyists to gatekeep the competition instead of R&D to improve your products.

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

#340

Post by hattmall »

cs702 wrote: post #150
youreincorrect wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about Bitcoin's potential demise, they are referring to its price and perceived value, not whether it will cease to exist necessarily. Madoff also was not ultimately caught and his scheme ended because of the accounting fraud being revealed (i.e. the fraud was not that important). That happened later. He was caught because a market downturn resulted in him being unable to acquire new victims for the…

The longer Bitcoin's network continues to function, more and more people will become aware of its resiliency . Governments may topple; banks may fail; exchanges may go bust; Bitcoin keeps on ticking. As long as the network continues to function, Bitcoin will have a price.

Doesn't the Bitcoin network continually require increasing power, storage, and bandwidth?

Isn't there a value of Bitcoin that if it falls below all mining is unprofitable?

Are these incorrect assumptions?

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