Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 737 posts

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#381

Post by Karrot_Kream »

skissane wrote: post #372
MASNeo wrote: post #155

Why is everyone obsessed with US military when the news seems to be Bitcoin? Just like that the US Dollar suffered because clearly a crypto currency may well become what the US Dollar was, a commodity to exchange value in a way that nobody can reasonably refuse. Whether that is for better or worse, I think that is bigger news then whose got the bigger gun.

The problem with bitcoin for this-it is very traceable. The US government can declare paying Iran Hormuz “insurance” to be a sanctions violation (they probably already have). Any Western company - even non-US - paying this “insurance” will be faced with the full ire of the US government. I guess it might work if shipping company is non-Western (such as Chinese or Russian) - but I’m not sure what the advantage of bitc…

How does it matter that it's traceable? Everyone knows the ships going in and out thanks to AIS. Many of these ships are already either falsely flagged, sanctioned, or just Iranian flagged. And as far as paying in rubles or yuan, this tells me that Iran doesn't think the shipping companies are willing to pay in either or think there's a safe/effective way to accept payment through those currencies.

I'm curious what makes your think these ships are unknown. There are 2 blockades in place and suspicion of mines in the conventional shipping route through Omani controlled waters.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#382

Post by Arubis »

everdrive wrote: post #20

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

The cascade of self-injury and self-sabotage required for the US to end up in this position cannot be understated. It's much easier to defend against an attacker whose first move is to blind and disarm themselves.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#383

Post by Arubis »

kleton wrote: post #240
everdrive wrote: post #20

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

It would not be that stunning, given that a much poorer Iranic country decisively defeated the U.S. in a ~20 year war ending only a few years ago.

I presume you mean Islamic.

More to the point, Iran has been preparing for war with the US for decades. The US prepared for _this_ war with Iran for a couple of weeks.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#384

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

skissane wrote: post #373
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #303

Now.. and I am speaking just from the perspective of trying to achieve specific goals ( and accepting a level of pain for what those goals can demand ), if there was ever a possibility that US may ban/fully sanction bitcoin use, this actually might be it.

They don’t need to ban bitcoin use - they just declare paying “insurance” or “tolls” to the Iranian government to be a sanctions violation, irrespective of the means of payment. Then this becomes a complete non-starter for any US company, and any non-US company in nations where the US has significant influence (i.e. most of the West)

I get where you are coming from, but that assumes .. the old world order. Not to search very far, China told its refineries only last week to ignore those particular sets of US sanctions ( and more importantly, we did not hear anything about it since Trump's visit to China ).

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#385

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

Jensson wrote: post #342
adrr wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries that haven't signed do violate it. Israel prevents ships free transit to the Gaza strip. US does naval blockades and blows up boats.

Naval blockades of enemy ports during war are legal, that is what USA and Israel argue they are doing. That is not what Iran is doing, they are blocking fully neutral ships from going in other countries waterways.

Are we at war with Cuba? US navy had been blockading the island from receiving fuel.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#386

Post by defrost »

Arubis wrote: post #383
kleton wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be that stunning, given that a much poorer Iranic country decisively defeated the U.S. in a ~20 year war ending only a few years ago.

I presume you mean Islamic. More to the point, Iran has been preparing for war with the US for decades. The US prepared for _this_ war with Iran for a couple of weeks.

> The US prepared for _this_ war with Iran for a couple of weeks.

That's a little unfair, it would be more accurate to say that the US has war gamed the region for decades and had a good grasp of the pitfalls and requirements, and then to add that the current US administration ignored all that prior work and insight and simply blundered in on a whim.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#387

Post by dragontamer »

mrandish wrote: post #349
dragontamer wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even the strait that's the important geopolitical entity here. It's all the oil pumps and refineries in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or UAE. The US began to patrol the strait with Destroyers and immediately stopped when the scared Saudis immediately realized that Iran was about to attack Saudi oil rigs. -------- Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome…

> Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome across the entirety of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, maybe more. Another key issue is Iran's regional neighbors haven't invested significantly enough becoming credible military threats against Iran. Instead they tried to play an in-between game of being tacit frenemies because Iran and its proxi…

Without going too far into the political weeds here, I'll say that the problem is less "Germany and UAE needs more guns" and more "maybe we shouldn't have pissed off Iran".

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#388

Post by thelastgallon »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #205
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> ... we can just ban this thing forever. I don't give a f--k about Bitcoin but I wouldn't want governments to start banning it. Because then why not ban VPN forever too? And require a digital ID for anyone going on to the Internet? And why not also mandate cameras operated by the state in every room of your apartment/house to make sure you behave? And backdoor in every cryptographic protocol. I mean why stop at bann…

> EU-wide registry of every single asset owned by every single EU citizen

The best place to start this would be with the offshore tax havens.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#389

Post by lesuorac »

Jensson wrote: post #362
lesuorac wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no 4d chess plan here. Trump thought it would go exactly as Venezuela and has no idea how to fix it. They tried to kill enough of Iran's leadership to get to somebody that would be subservient but it turns out nobody is left alive in Iran that is.

Well regardless this situation strengthens USA's economic position and weakens China, so its not a bad spot to be in. That it also strengthens Russia doesn't matter much since they are no longer seen as the great enemy, after their performance in the Ukraine war was lacking.

How?

This only strengthens USA's oil sector and ideally we all know the perils of dutch disease. The weakening of every other american export for a dieing industry is not strengthing it.

Post reply on HN