India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says • Hacker News Board

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#141

Post by louloulou » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #122

joe_the_user wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's illegal to exchange goods or official currency for cryptocurrency in the nation you are in, the usefulness of cryptocurrency is going to be considerably constrained. This depends on how thorough or draconian the state is but a lot of people just shy away from illegal activity without enforcement being that strong. After all, if buy a tangible good, I want legal title to it and having engaged in an illegal tra…

This gets repeated a lot around here but is far from the truth. Drugs are still traded, and so are other "illegal" items. And trading drugs is quite risky comparing to trading crypto (especially fully decentralized). > usefulness of cryptocurrency is going to be considerably constrained Sure, but you are missing why 3rd worlds like China, India and Morocco are trying to restrict crypto. They are worried about capital…

Yeah, people making these arguments haven't lived in developing countries with terrible, inconsistent, reactionary, arbitrarily applied laws. Where you have to "break the law" constantly in order to survive.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#142

Post by spiralx » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

iskander wrote: post #106

An interesting angle that seems overlooked in articles about India and China "banning" cryptocurrencies is that these efforts are often linked to a desire to create centralized digital currencies. e.g. from this article: "India is also looking to make a framework for the official digital currency that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India."

Do you have evidence that "a desire to create centralized digital currencies" has anything to do with "banning cryptocurrencies"? Because lots of countries have expressed interest in CBDCs and most of them aren't talking about banning anything. Indeed, it's often central banks talking about CDBCs, which aren't even in the position of banning anything.

Seems to me that CDBCs are just the new topic for conspiracies about how cryptocurrencies are being held back by the Powers That Be.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#143

Post by spiralx » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #137

iskander wrote: post #106

An interesting angle that seems overlooked in articles about India and China "banning" cryptocurrencies is that these efforts are often linked to a desire to create centralized digital currencies. e.g. from this article: "India is also looking to make a framework for the official digital currency that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India."

It's 100% about CBDC's. CBDC's are the endgame for tyranny, really. We should be doing absolutely everything we can to fight this.

How are CBDCs the "endgame for tyranny" in a way that (presumably) fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies aren't? Seems a bit hyperbolic, but maybe you have good reasons to be so alarmed.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#144

Post by csomar » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

The discussions around crypto here kind of proves that you cannot use popular opinion in HN to predict the future. People were very negative (and still are) about crypto. Market cap kept proving them wrong year after year and we are here with around $2.6 Trillion and yet people here still think crypto is going to die.

It's interesting because in startups, you learn from the first day that you should listen to customers and follow the demand. The demand is very high and some people were puzzled how other people where depositing money in "shady" exchanges. Yet, that's a perfect example of "demand" that needs instruments to be satisfied.

Reality check: Most of the world suffers from hyper-inflation at worst and inflation at best. Not everyone lives in the USA/Europe and has access to good banking and investment options. Not everyone cares about their governments like in a developed first-world country.

Crypto is here to stay and it is going to play a significant role in global finance. Somebody here should read what the bureaucrats at the IMF thinks, or look at the roads in New Delhi. Gov. blocking crypto, yeah, right.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#145

Post by iskander » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #135

iskander wrote: post #106

An interesting angle that seems overlooked in articles about India and China "banning" cryptocurrencies is that these efforts are often linked to a desire to create centralized digital currencies. e.g. from this article: "India is also looking to make a framework for the official digital currency that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India."

Ie creating something that could be useful as an actual currency?

It would definitely have a lot more buy-in from banks if it were centrally sanctioned but I'm not sure if the functionality would be much different from a stablecoin on an efficient L2. I would personally rather have banks integrate with e.g. USDC on zkSync but I suspect that the lack of control is what makes that scenario undesirable for governments.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#146

Post by samsonradu » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

iskander wrote: post #138

samsonradu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a part of crypto I do not fully grasp. How much power do the developers vs the miners have over the direction of the project? What happens if the devs go crazy and decide to eg. Ban transactions smaller than $1M worth of coins in code. Someone made the point the other day that miners might not fancy this PoS change because they’re heavily invested in equipment.

Miners already put up a fuss over some of preparatory changes for PoS and definitely don't like having to give up mining. They're free to run a parallel Ethereum chain of their own (which has already happened, most prominently with Ethereum Classic - $ETC). Everyone will have parallel balances on both chains from the point of departure. The cultural weight is with the developers however and all of the popular apps wi…

But doesn’t this power dynamic - the fact that there is a miners committee somehow talking to a devs committee -beat the purpose of decentralization (no single decision-maker)?

Won’t this become politicized eventually and we’ll end up with a Central Bank-like structure? Imagine some elected dev going on CNBC to tell us they need to mint more coins.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#147

Post by BitwiseFool » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #5

Well, they can try, but even with centralized exchanges, a VPN will do. And then there are decentralized protocols. Once you have some of your money in cryptocurrency there's no real way for anyone to stop you from moving your money around however you like. The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks.

If you are willing to break the law and risk being caught, sure, there is no way to actually stop from transacting using decentralized protocols. But there are plenty of other ways for the government to find out whether or not you are using crypto. Your bank will definitely keep tabs on your fiat transactions and continue to report KYC/AML information. Current KYC/AML is actually pretty good at detecting anomalies in cashflow and spending. Sure, you can lie about all this stuff but you might just be digging yourself into a hole.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#148

Post by spiralx » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #139

trasz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ie creating something that could be useful as an actual currency?

I find it amusing the baked in assumption of your post that currencies can only be real if they are backed by a state. I think that is... No necessarily true. Just because something held up for a long time does not mean there is some essential reason why things can't be another way. That holds true of a lot of human innovations. People could not imagine automobiles or flying or computers, but that did not make them i…

> People could not imagine automobiles or flying or computers, but that did not make them impossible.

People imagined versions of those things for a long time before they were practical. People have imagined other types of currency as well, and non-state backed currencies aren't even novel given plenty of examples have and do exist.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#149

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #139

trasz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ie creating something that could be useful as an actual currency?

I find it amusing the baked in assumption of your post that currencies can only be real if they are backed by a state. I think that is... No necessarily true. Just because something held up for a long time does not mean there is some essential reason why things can't be another way. That holds true of a lot of human innovations. People could not imagine automobiles or flying or computers, but that did not make them i…

They don't have to be backed by a state, however, it's quite obvious that "permissionless", "uncensorable" and "truly anonymous" are features that won't be accepted by states for a legitimate currency (just as they aren't really tolerated for cash, driving all kinds of restrictions and controls of non-tiny amounts of cash), so it's quite plausible that in the long run the legal businesses and law-abiding citizens will be allowed to interact only with payment mechanisms that have disabled those features in some way; so if any given cryptocurrency unavoidably has those features, then people will be prohibited to touch it, limiting their usage only to criminal purposes.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#150

Post by csomar » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

spiralx wrote: post #143

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% about CBDC's. CBDC's are the endgame for tyranny, really. We should be doing absolutely everything we can to fight this.

How are CBDCs the "endgame for tyranny" in a way that (presumably) fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies aren't? Seems a bit hyperbolic, but maybe you have good reasons to be so alarmed.

You can't ban someone from owning or using cash. But you can do so with a CBDC.