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

reuters.com

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

#161

Post by betwixthewires »

PeterisP wrote: post #140
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checking possibilities here. Let's say you want to buy my house and I want to sell it to you. We are in India. You transfer crypto to my wallet then I, in return, donate my house to you. Would this donation work on the legal papers today? I suspect that in Brazil, where I live today, it would.

Sure, a black market is possible - I explicitly mentioned legitimate sellers. But why would you want to sell a house this way instead for a permitted means of payment? Even if your scheme is unlikely to be detected, if does add a nontrivial risk of getting detected (or getting intentionally exposed, or blackmailed to get exposed) and get very unpleasant consequences for that, and given the extra difficulties of enfor…

> But why would you want to sell a house this way instead for a permitted means of payment?

I can think of a few reasons. The buyer offers you a large premium, you know people who can help you offload the currency, you have no interest in keeping your capital in a controlled environment, maybe you're selling your house because you're leaving a country and taking bitcoin or whatever is the easiest way to take your capital with you.

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

#162

Post by 0xB31B1B »

csomar wrote: post #156
0xB31B1B wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need to launder money through GBTC to get exposure to the assets that money launderers use (BTC) to launder money and reap the upside of a growth market in cryptocurrency based moneylaundering. its a smart play tbh, but the 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers.

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

#163

Post by floatingatoll »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #116
floatingatoll wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries can just ask you to prove how you earned income, and jail you if your proof is unsatisfactory to them. India banning cryptocoins doesn't mean that people will automatically be jailed for mining on day one. It just means that anyone using cryptocoin to avoid paying Indian taxes can end up jailed when their expenditure exceeds their provable income, or when their documented income is traceable to cryptocoin,…

At least concerning the tax issue, the US government doesn't even need to do that. If they squeeze the credit card and banks as they've done for the adult industry and marijuana industry, we will see the entire market deflate. The only reason crypto is okay in the West is because an offramp into fiat is provided. Once that offramp gets closed, it's game over and we are back to 2010 in terms of crypto value.

The US has instead taken the view through various upcoming 2022 IRS procedural rules that — as long as there's a complete paper trail documenting who the origin of, and who is responsible for paying taxes for, the cryptocoin when it is converted into currency — then there is no harm in offramps that collect tax ID information and report it appropriately.

Their focus on requiring "origin of and taxation of" attestation may impact the perceived value of cryptocoins when traded for currency, but they don't seem to much care if people want to generate hashes and sell them to each other, just as long as it's not used to launder money or avoid taxes.

It is of significant debate whether the perceived value of cryptocoins is in part due to its value for both laundering money and avoiding taxes, but that's distinct from whether the perceived value is in part due to the ability to sell cryptocoins for currency.

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

#164

Post by scottcodie »

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…

Inflation isn't bad. Most of the world doesn't suffer from hyper-inflation. Decentralized finance doesn't provide a tremendous benefit over a trusted third party. High volatility and high transaction cost makes it a poor choice for a currency. Most of the worlds economy already runs on digital transactions without the need for crypto. There are plenty of reasons why crypto doesn't make sense and it is perfectly rational to distance your financial market from crypto.

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

#165

Post by abduhl »

Zamicol wrote: post #124
abduhl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The efficiency gains of these systems are irrelevant. Governments of the world want monetary control, and they cast that desire in the form of laws like "know your customer" or "anti-money laundering." These laws are antithetical to what you're talking about. If the government requires legitimate institutions to implement these forms of laws then to engage in actual society (i.e. - school, groceries, business, rent,…

Many chains, L1's, defi products, etc., have already expressed their eagerness to comply and implement KYC and other regulatory controls. My warning is that the open-source Pandora's box of zk proofs is necessary, technically feasible, and inevitable. ZK proofs are coming, and there will be systems built on top of them. Our governments and societies need to be ready for this reality.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the technology can do. There is a system that currently exists, and that system will protect itself through regulation. Cryptocurrencies will come within the fold or they will be outlawed. It is irrelevant what is technologically feasible. Governments and state actors don't exist in stasis, any advance in technology will be met with an appropriate response even if that response is "banks are not allowed to accept any funds that have any connection to X cryptocurrency." If that doesn't work, the response will be "banks are not allowed to accept any funds without perfect knowledge of the two parties transacting and where the cash is coming from." What bank would possibly risk going against the government? Even the well-known money laundering banks balk in the face of government scrutiny. What company would possibly risk losing their relationship with their bank?

Cryptocurrency fanatics think that they can digitally outcompete physical reality. They cannot. The governments of the world are the Borg - you will be assimilated.

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

#166

Post by tastyfreeze »

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.

Not hyperbolic at all. CBDCs are a permissioned private ledger controlled by the central bank. The central bank controls what addresses are allowed to transact and have access to every transaction. If they dont like what you are spending your money on you are no longer allowed to transact. If they think you have too much money they can just take it.

https://youtu.be/UW9LbfuCTP0

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

#167

Post by PeterisP »

ashwagary wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would turning cash into crypto outside of the banking system not be considered money laundering?

Only money acquired through illegal means can be considered laundered.

If transacting in certain cryptocurrencies is prohibited, then any money traded for these cryptocurrencies is quite literally acquired through illegal means.

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

#168

Post by spiralx »

samsonradu wrote: post #111
iskander wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you follow the Ethereum core developers on Twitter you can track the progress. Current status is (1) people have locked ~$30-40B worth of Ethereum into the proof of stake chain, money which can't be retrieved until the merge (2) the Ethereum team has a merged testnet running on which all the different client developer teams are participating. They're just hunting for edge case bugs now, too much money at stake to…

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.

The miners have the actual power, but want to avoid a situation where they are directly fighting against Buterin and the developers, because that would cause a crisis and tank the value of ETH and hence their income going forward. A hard fork in this situation (developers update protocol with POS, miners keep using existing version) would start with the miners having the biggest chain by far, but the new POS chain would be followed by a large part of non-miners immediately, and grow from there over time, eventually becoming the largest chain.

So miners have to make a cost-benefit analysis as to how much control they can exercise while not causing a hard fork as well as what the consequences of causing a hard fork would be. Likely right now they're using accrued coins to prime their stake in PoS rather than directly working against it - delay helps them here.

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

#169

Post by spiralx »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #166
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.

Not hyperbolic at all. CBDCs are a permissioned private ledger controlled by the central bank. The central bank controls what addresses are allowed to transact and have access to every transaction. If they dont like what you are spending your money on you are no longer allowed to transact. If they think you have too much money they can just take it. https://youtu.be/UW9LbfuCTP0

As far as I'm aware CBDCs are a largely theoretical concept right now, do you have any links to an implementation such as you're describing? No videos please, I don't watch them.

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

#170

Post by spiralx »

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.

As far as I'm aware CBDCs are a largely theoretical concept right now, do you have any links to an implementation such as you're describing?
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