Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#121

Post by dadoge » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

defaultname wrote: post #82

dadoge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adorable ignorance and lack of empathy

It has nothing to do with lack of empathy, nor did I make any statement about banking in El Salvador. Your pearl clutching is the rather pathetic, desperate machinations of someone deep in BTC who is resorting to whatever foolish argument they can make to sell it. The vapid moralizing is embarrassing. You used El Salvador to try to legitimize BTC. As a tiny economic "power" (literally 7-11 sized), with a functionally…

Read more about this experiment before jumping to conclusions

https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-bitcoin-lif...

The smallness of the country doesn’t mean this isn’t significant. They have problems, and through an experiment found solutions to those problems and are scaling them up

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#122

Post by MereInterest » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #87

axlee wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me the carbon footprint and transaction costs of Bitcoin again, and compare that to the costs from institutional payment gateways?

Zero carbon footprint and zero carbon in transaction costs. You simply don’t understand what is that energy used for. It’s definitely not for processing transactions.

The energy use is for processing transactions. The block reward exists to give an incentive to process transactions.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#123

Post by vanviegen » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #65

Putting aside for a moment whether this will actually happen, I would like to ask: how? How do you effectively ban circulation of certain types of information? The entertainment industry didn't manage to achieve this over the last 20 years.

One could impose a 100% tax/penalty on converting to fiat currency. I suppose that would get most 'investors' nervous enough to get out while they are stilled allowed to.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#124

Post by nathias » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

axlee wrote: post #66

tomcooks wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins show the same aspects in those who've been charging you 1-4% for the pleasure of doing what bitcoin achieves

Remind me the carbon footprint and transaction costs of Bitcoin again, and compare that to the costs from institutional payment gateways?

BTC carbon footprint is smaller than USA government's

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#125

Post by Growling_owl » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

toshk wrote: post #53

cassianoleal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does the Euro, which is used in his country, and so was the Dutch Guild, the one that came before. So does any other currency in use in the world. > Fiat money does not have intrinsic value and does not have use value. It has value only because a government maintains its value, or because parties engaging in exchange agree on its value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

Being backed by a government, or multiple governments, with an army and lots of financial tools is a very real thing.

What if those who produce, use and mantain those tanks, ships, planes and rifles suddenly lose trust in the mean of compensation which the government offers them in exchange of their services?

Nobody ever thinks about this, but government and all the infrastructure it owns are embedded in society

The general view is that Bitcoin takes hold among the population and then there is a fight between the population and the government....quite the contrary, Bitcoin simply takes over the government at an equal or slighly inferior rate compared to the general population.

See how many people in the Capitol are being bitten by the bitcoin bug. For every critic you'll find somebody who is willing to speak in favor of it.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#126

Post by dcolkitt » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

If Bitcoin was banned, then Dutch citizens could just as easily trade wrapped Bitcoin on the Ethereum, BSC or Solana networks. I don't really see how this works unless you literally ban all distributed consensus protocols.

And even so, how are you suppose to ban people from "holding" crypto. Transacting I can understand. But holding simply involves storing or remembering a private key. Are you going to ban people if you find a decade old USB stick with a cold wallet? Will you interrogate people, Clockwork Orange style, to make sure they forget their brain wallet phrase? If somebody was using the same public/private key for their other data will you force them to delete their entire crypto identity?

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#127

Post by ben_w » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

kokx wrote: post #27

Part of his (reported) reasoning is really strange: because Bitcoin is doomed to crash, we have to take action, so the Netherlands should ban it. Causing it to crash earlier rather than later. He also says that he isn't afraid that banning Bitcoin will fail, because a ban would lead to a crash.

Two hypotheticals:

1) BTC replaces all world currencies, then crashes to $0.005/BTC (PPP)

2) BTC crashes today to $0.005/BTC

In which hypothetical does the crash cause least damage?

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#128

Post by keymone » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

heywherelogingo wrote: post #59

neals wrote: post #10

This is the 'Centraal Plan Bureau'. If you open up the front door, you're met with a cloud of dust. The parkinglot is filled with oldtimers and the interior is very 'that 70's show'.

I don't think young people are using bitcoin for any reason other than to get rich quick. The young these days are highly conformant and compliant - got jabs? It's gen x and older who are thoughtfully rebellious.

How about a reason not to get poor slowly through inflation and constant dilution of money?

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#129

Post by dadoge » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #103

dadoge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

22% of their GDP is remittance based. The US treats them like shit since they have the USD as currency. God forbid a country wants more independence 70% of the country has no bank, for Bitcoin all you need is the internet and a simple wallet app.

So to be clear, a country where 70% of individuals are unable to get access to a bank account do have consistent access to the internet, a smart phone or specialized hardware for carrying a wallet app, and are fine with storing their wealth in a vehicle that consistently swings in value in the double digits within 24 hours? The delusion regarding crypto has reached parody levels. This reads like something out of an O…

Read about the Bitcoin beach experiments there before jumping to conclusions like that https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-el-salvador-bitcoin-lif...

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#130

Post by imtringued » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

Encybe wrote: post #3

> has no intrinsic value and is only valuable because others may accept it. So does USD

Yeah, boring argument. Fiat currency depends on acceptance.

Cryptocurrency does too but the problem is that the size of the economy that accepts Bitcoin as payment is absolutely tiny. You have to exchange your Bitcoin to fiat first before you can buy anything, which means Bitcoin will just end up driving more USD acceptance.