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Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

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Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#111

Post by nativeit »

guywithahat wrote: post #86
nativeit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where’s the productive output?

Currencies are used to facilitate trade, which I suppose would be their productive output

Your right on the first point, but I would consider the “productive output” to be the product and services that ultimately drive the trade. While there are plenty of contemporary hedge funds that would disagree with me here—with few exceptions, simply moving numbers around, constructing high-level abstract financial instruments, and/or arbitrage trading is not what I would consider productive activity. After all, if there are no firms designing widgets, mines digging up widget ore, factories making widgets, logistics moving widgets, stores selling widgets, technicians supporting widgets, or consumers using widgets, then there quite literally is no market.

Cryptocurrency has precious little to demonstrate itself as an analogous store of value to legitimate, organic market activities. It’s primarily been a tool for speculation, as well as evading regulatory and legal scrutiny. I believe Bitcoin has been an incredibly valuable and unique experiment, a fascinating exploration of human nature and our culture of trade. Much of the technology behind it, like the blockchain have found useful applications, but mostly outside of cryptocurrency proper. But it’s been long past the point where, if cryptocurrency had a unique purpose with which it was particularly suited towards, it should have found that purpose by now.

If one takes a strictly amoral perspective, then I suppose the cultivation, manufacture, transportation, sale, and consumption of illegal drugs would technically fit within my prior definition of “productive output”. Whether or not that’s worth its own overhead, complexity, inherent risks, and the collateral consequences to most/all of the humans involved with that productivity is a larger question…and to be fair, a lot of those concerns are nothing new or unique to cryptocurrencies.

But if the intention is to weigh a given currency’s efficacy and inherent value against a broader slate of considerations then, in my opinion, the most definitive distinctions by far between cryptocurrencies and traditional sovereign fiat currencies is the tangible, productive, economic output of its respective national domestic industries that naturally selects and underpins its perceived value and stability.

—- TLDR; it isn’t some collective delusional belief that makes a dollar worth a dollar, but rather the aggregate sum of the American people’s labor and dynamism, which isn’t nearly so easy to handwave away, as some of the more myopic cryptocurrency advocates have been known to do in an attempt to undermine traditional financial systems, and draw a misleading distinction between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies.

EDIT: Format, grammar

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#112

Post by nativeit »

jameslk wrote: post #71
startupsfail wrote: post #5

Bitcoins are clearly negative sum game (resources used, GPUs burned, CO2 emitted, money changed hands). Wish we could do less of it.

Seems like a privileged point of view if you live somewhere with a mostly stable currency (ie not rapidly inflating currency) and easy access to banking

Can you point to an example where cryptocurrency has directly alleviated either of those systemic problems? I wouldn’t think that it’s the currency itself that would cause, exacerbate, temper, or resolve the underlying root problems that contribute to the instability of a sovereign currency or its citizens access to it. To use a practical example, if I was struggling to maintain my finances as a citizen of Argentina, I understand that I can purchase Bitcoin and that may (or maybe not) be more stable than the the domestic fiat currency, but then…how do I spend that Bitcoin without encountering many/all of the same problems I’d hoped to avoid? How do I purchase routine goods and services? How do I pay for my home or utilities? In what way, specifically, does Bitcoin empower an average Argentinian to extend their self-determination and protect themselves from their country’s financial instability? Can Insafely and reliably exchange cash for Bitcoin, and vise versa? If not, then we’re back to inaccessible banking services as the first stumbling block. Assuming I managed to exchange my cash for Bitcoin, how am I storing it safely? If an offline wallet is vulnerable to being lost due to defective storage devices, and an online wallet is vulnerable to malicious actors within and without of the most popular exchanges, and maybe I don’t have great access to the internet?

I have always been skeptical of this idea that cryptocurrency is the solution to uncontrolled inflation/deflation, and an accessible alternative to the unbanked/underbanked people of the world. It seems naive, at best.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#113

Post by nativeit »

harimau777 wrote: post #70
matrix2003 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m just curious - if you were to try making a decentralized currency as a fun project, what mechanism would you use instead? I’m someone who doesn’t really use it, but was fascinated with it before “blockchain” became a buzzword. edit: proof-of-work. I have been out of the loop for years :) My next question is are there downsides to proof-of-stake, and why has bitcoin not moved towards it?

I think that the best solution would be gold.

That would simply empower the countries with the most gold resources, eliminate access to capital for countries with little or no natural gold resources. On top of the obvious practical considerations for storing, securing, moving, and transferring it, gold is also extremely vulnerable to manipulation, corruption, contamination, and frequent, unpredictable swings in value. That’s kind of why we abandoned the gold standard to begin with.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#114

Post by jcauley89 »

wongarsu wrote: post #23
matrix2003 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m just curious - if you were to try making a decentralized currency as a fun project, what mechanism would you use instead? I’m someone who doesn’t really use it, but was fascinated with it before “blockchain” became a buzzword. edit: proof-of-work. I have been out of the loop for years :) My next question is are there downsides to proof-of-stake, and why has bitcoin not moved towards it?

Bitcoin's advantage is mainly its name recognition and unchanging nature (== trust and protocol stability). You could never get the necessary support for any meaningful changes. For people who want proof-of-stake there are plenty of coins doing that. Etherium is probably the best known most established option. But no coin really solves the other big challenge of crypto-currency: barely anyone uses them as currency. M…

[dead]

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#115

Post by trompetenaccoun »

matrix2003 wrote: post #13
startupsfail wrote: post #5

Bitcoins are clearly negative sum game (resources used, GPUs burned, CO2 emitted, money changed hands). Wish we could do less of it.

I’m just curious - if you were to try making a decentralized currency as a fun project, what mechanism would you use instead? I’m someone who doesn’t really use it, but was fascinated with it before “blockchain” became a buzzword. edit: proof-of-work. I have been out of the loop for years :) My next question is are there downsides to proof-of-stake, and why has bitcoin not moved towards it?

You shouldn't take advice from people who don't even know how to spell the names of the networks they're lecturing about. Blockchain has become a buzzword like you mentioned, everyone has an opinion, even people who don't understand anything. But the technology has come a long way since the early Bitcoin days. There is no need to build your own chain, for a fun project you can simply launch a token on existing smart contract platforms such as Ethereum. Building your own chain is complicated if it's not a clone of an existing one, that's not a side project.

>My next question is are there downsides to proof-of-stake, and why has bitcoin not moved towards it?

There aren't any obvious ones but imo only time will tell. Bitcoiners feel there is a higher centralization risk in PoS. Which is true for some PoS systems but really depends on how exactly set up. Ethereum for example has a significant number of "home stakers" (small-time solo validators), which in Bitcoin simply isn't a thing anymore since it's practically all mining farms. And people in Ethereum are working towards further decentralization whereas Bitcoin Core is more or less ossified. There hasn't been a BTC hard fork in years and even the forks that happened were about relatively minor things, mainly block size.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#116

Post by Yizahi »

poincaredisk wrote: post #89
colechristensen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, global banks also fall under US control if they want to transact with anything in the US financial system. Less so if they don’t have American customers, but they still do have to follow American laws. For example several very old Swiss banks have been shut down by US regulators because they were doing business in the US with US citizens and their secrecy was being used to break US law by Americans.

Do you have a source for that? It sounds interesting and I want to learn more, as I was not aware of anything like this happening.

If I understand correctly, the issue is not even the citizenship of a clients. The issue is currency. If any two humans in any country wish to transact in the Swiss Franc then that transaction must go through Swiss clearing bank. If they wish to transact in the USD, then it must go through US clearing bank. In both cases client bank must comply with the clearing bank rules. Swiss banks can totally sever interaction with USA, but only if they will also never ever transact in USD.

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#117

Post by ddtaylor »

mchannon wrote: post #67
ddtaylor wrote: post #29

CZ was at Lompoch I take it at a Low?

Far more likely he was at the (a?) satellite camp at Lompoc. Minimum security satellite camps share a small percentage of their facilities with a nearby low or medium: R&D (that's Receiving & Discharge to you), warehouse, mail center. FYI, Lompoc is pronounced Lom-poke to the townies. Not sure how the inmates pronounce it.

> Far more likely he was at the (a?) satellite camp at Lompoc. Minimum security satellite camps share a small percentage of their facilities with a nearby low or medium:

I was curious myself because I had heard rumblings during my incarceration that foreign nationals don't qualify for some of the classifications like this via the BOP. Sure enough:

> In April 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering. Because Zhao is not a U.S. citizen, he is ineligible to serve his sentence in a minimum security prison.

That matches up slightly with the other conditions I have seen at minimum security prisons. We would have people who were serving time that would get moved from the camp to a higher security once the paperwork resolved and they were for certain no longer a US citizen.

> FYI, Lompoc is pronounced Lom-poke to the townies. Not sure how the inmates pronounce it.

All inmates I served with pronounced it "LAWM" "POHK" like it rhymed with "Lawn" and "Stock". I know everyone likes to go there because they basically open the doors at 8AM and you go drive around farmland. Contraband moves very easily because it's just sitting in a field waiting for you and you drive a prison truck lol

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#118

Post by ddtaylor »

ddtaylor wrote: post #117
mchannon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far more likely he was at the (a?) satellite camp at Lompoc. Minimum security satellite camps share a small percentage of their facilities with a nearby low or medium: R&D (that's Receiving & Discharge to you), warehouse, mail center. FYI, Lompoc is pronounced Lom-poke to the townies. Not sure how the inmates pronounce it.

> Far more likely he was at the (a?) satellite camp at Lompoc. Minimum security satellite camps share a small percentage of their facilities with a nearby low or medium: I was curious myself because I had heard rumblings during my incarceration that foreign nationals don't qualify for some of the classifications like this via the BOP. Sure enough: > In April 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after ple…

I will leave this comment here as well.

He did his time at a low and that's pretty interesting. It's not a "hard" environment, but it has a bit more "prison politics" than a minimum security prison does. It's entirely normal to go and do a short sentence at a minimum and never talk to anyone or participate much.

That is extra true for the "other" crowd in prisons (not white, black or hispanic - usually asian and islander) as there is not much "threat" from their group taking over they are left to do most of whatever they want.

Being at a low security that changes slightly. The politics, rules, etc. are all a bit different. A good example is that in minimum security prisons you don't often "check paperwork" much because nobody can have sex charges the only reason people would be interested is to see if you have known snitch paperwork. At a minimum security prison it doesn't happen much and if someone doesn't like your paperwork or case the most they are usually going to do is blacklist doing business with you or tell others not to give you perks like good meals.

At a low security prison they will check your paperwork. It can have bad things on it. If it does have bad things on it they would get "rolled out" one way or another. Usually a signal is given to the guards (sometimes as clear as "get him out or he gets rolled out") and the inmate is told they may have an opportunity to leave without getting forced. Also it doesn't really matter, wherever they are going the word is out and they aren't going to get better treatment there.

There are some other nuanced details, but in general, he's probably very lucky to be asian in this context. They really are more-or-less invisible within the prison system. I'm sure some people tried to press him slightly to get dumb shit like ramen noodles and stuff, which he probably fucking maxed out every TRUNLICS account available LOL

Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#119

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Re: Binance founder 'CZ' leaves prison on Friday

#120

Post by woah »

null0pointer wrote: post #110
woah wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of stake is no different than most traditional governance structures such as corporations in that it relies on a committee with an honest majority to keep the system secure. Validators are supposed to act like some kind of completely neutral, decentralized system, but they are not. For example, the fundamental principle of PoS is slashing for equivocation: when validators present two alternate versions of histo…

This is a wonderfully insightful comment, I’d not heard of many of the points you raised. As someone coming from the PoW worlds of Bitcoin and Monero there has always been something about PoS that gave me an ick, but I could never quite place my finger on it. Especially when Ethereum clearly seems to have PoS working well in practice. I’ve always had a suspicion that Ethereum could have never gotten off the ground, a…

There's nothing wrong with PoS as long as it is understood as a mechanism for diffusion of power and trust, like a multisig or a corporation. Probably PoS protocols do not need to have in-protocol slashing. Solana has already thought of this and does not have slashing IIRC.

It just shouldn't try to pretend to be a trustless protocol like PoW. Some of the smarter PoS researchers are already catching on to this: https://dba.mirror.xyz/UTPfxWe65dYrUu_RJX-5VkAJypFRyw3AZh6m0...

PoW has its own problems. It is likely to be unstable for various reasons in the absence of inflation. I don't have time to find all the citations but there have been many papers about this subject. It's also not great for the environment, and there is something unfortunate about the fact that the best trustless protocol we can come up with as a species requires massive waste. Maybe it is currently the best we have but trying to come up with reasons that the waste is actually OK is a waste of time IMO.

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