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

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 244 posts

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

#151

Post by 0xB31B1B »

csomar wrote: post #144

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 custome…

marketcaps in crypto mean nothing. The universe is full of wash sales, there is not 2.6T of liquidity, a ton of volume is insanely leveraged and amplified through defi pools, and looking at a transaction volume adjusted view of the world, like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. Lets see what happens after the run on tether happens, then we can talk about what the crypto world looks like.

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

#152

Post by iskander »

spiralx wrote: post #142
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 abo…

The two are often juxtaposed in the coverage of crypto bans, I don't know if they're also juxtaposed in the political intentions.

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

#154

Post by betwixthewires »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #12
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.

>The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks. That's... A big deal?

It is a big deal if you're only speculating and need to cash out. But if you can buy goods and services informally in these currencies, or use tools like stablecoins to speculate on network, it's really nothing to worry about.

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

#155

Post by BitwiseFool »

csomar wrote: post #150
spiralx wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can also dictate how the funds in a CBDC wallet are spent. There was a proposal that CBDC wallets could be issued stimulus funds that expire unless they are spent within a certain time frame. This is to prevent people from just putting the check into a savings account.

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

#156

Post by csomar »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #151
csomar wrote: post #144

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 custome…

marketcaps in crypto mean nothing. The universe is full of wash sales, there is not 2.6T of liquidity, a ton of volume is insanely leveraged and amplified through defi pools, and looking at a transaction volume adjusted view of the world, like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. Lets see what happens after the run on tether happens, then we can talk about what the crypto world looks like…

Even at 1/4 of that, it's $650bn. That's a tons of value.

> like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering.

You need to prove that. GBTC and CME options volumes/open value are in the billions. I don't think people are laundering money through these instruments.

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

#157

Post by iskander »

samsonradu wrote: post #146
iskander wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You still need to make decisions in a decentralized system, I don't really see what alternative you're imagining that's even more decentralized than "start a parallel chain if you dislike it, let people vote with their feet". You can't really start a parallel USD to see if people like your monetary policy better.

And, obviously, this is political. Miners make a lot of money off the status quo, devs want to reduce the energy/environmental impact of their chain. Proof of stake takes away a moat that miners have built around their operation (now anyone with 32eth can be a validator). There's no way out of that conflict of interests without some degree of politics.

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

#158

Post by csomar »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #155
csomar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can also dictate how the funds in a CBDC wallet are spent. There was a proposal that CBDC wallets could be issued stimulus funds that expire unless they are spent within a certain time frame. This is to prevent people from just putting the check into a savings account.

CBDC are just a huge/national bank. It's a dream come true for the Marxists.

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

#159

Post by PeterisP »

sumtechguy wrote: post #93
Levitz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please argue how it is wrong? The logic seems pretty simple to me. A currency has value as long as it is exchanged, if government restricts exchanges, the currency drops in value.

Hmm, I can take a stab at this and probably be wrong myself. Money like everything is a market. There is a supply of money and a demand for money. If the demand remains constant but the supply is curtailed in some way I could see the value of the good exchanged going up. Now if you make the argument that this action would decrease the demand then yes the value should go down?

Why would you assume that the demand remains constant?

Demand for a cryptocurrency is set by some combination of (a) it's utility as a payment tool and (b) it's value as an investment vehicle.

Legal restrictions reduce it's utility as a payment tool, driving down demand. They also disallow a significant group of investors from using it for investment, both reducing demand, and temporarily increasing supply as many legitimate investors (especially institutions) would have to sell off their holdings before the law coming into force. There's no obvious mechanism how these restrictions would somehow curtail supply more than the demand.

Post reply on HN