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Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

reuters.com

191–200 of 209 posts

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#191
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that more as the SEC saying "We didn't reall know what we were dealing with at the time." And their thinking and policy decisions have evolved.to fit both their understanding and evolving crypto scene.

Same should apply to XRP then because it exist way longer than ETH. But unlike ETH, XRP was never sold in return for and arbitrary amount of BTC/USD it was first given away for free and later sold at market value.

Date of origin may not matter as much as when it came to the SEC's attention. The SEC allowed BTC & ETH under a set of policies & understanding of crypto. That understanding evolved, changing policy, and then XRP got on their radar under the new policy regime. It probably helps that ETH was at least nominally tied to the USD.

Keep in mind I'm not defending the SEC's decision, just speculating on how the policy decisions might have been made & justified.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#192
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “A security of what” There’s a legal test called the Howey test you can use to find out if what you’re looking at is a security. [1] Roughly speaking a security is anything you put your money into with the expectation of it becoming worth more through no effort of your own. > “Selling a random token is like printing my own money. The SEC would not prevent me form selling worthless piece of paper if I dont mislead b…

You dodged the question. A security of what? And yes they do that that right IF there is a security of some sort being sold OR IF there is a contract that implies some sort of security like benefits OF IF there is fraudulent promises being made like promised RoI or voting rights or something. If you just sell something physically created or digitally created that you legally own and the other party agreed on the pric…

You dodged the question. A security of what?

It doesn't have to be a security of anything. The Supreme Court established the Howey Test as the legal benchmark of determining security status. You might disagree and believe that is not a good test, that there has to be some underlying asset for it to be a security, but that opinion and all other opinions & definitions of "security" are irrelevant for the purpose of legal enforcement of securities law.

Ultimately if folks believe the SEC has incorrectly interpreted Supreme Court precedent or its own authority, the remedy under the law is to take the issue back to the courts.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#193
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "of what" is a meaningless question. It is. It's irrelevant to whether it is a security or not and does not factor into the definition of a security, anywhere. At most answering that question is a distraction. It's like asking me what flavor XRP is or what shape it is. Neither of these things factor into the definition of a security.

Are you incapable of grasping the concept of me just assuring someone is right to ask a followup question? It's not relevant to determine if it is a security but if it is one it still must be of something and since you think it should be a security I asked you. Again that's me asking you for your personal opinion of what XRP/ETH shall be a security. If I wanted legal advice I wouldn't ask an internet stranger.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#194
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you did not. You said it should be a security first and I asked you "of what" not "why". The Howey test and all your other argument are not news to me and dont answer the question. What is XRP the security of? And what is ETH the security of? If you wanna know why the Howey test is misused in this case you can read https://ripple.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Ripple-Wells-S... And like I said on my preview post i…

I said "of what" is a meaningless question. It is. It's irrelevant to whether it is a security or not and does not factor into the definition of a security, anywhere. At most answering that question is a distraction. It's like asking me what flavor XRP is or what shape it is. Neither of these things factor into the definition of a security.

It's like asking me what flavor XRP is or what shape it is

I think we can all agree that it tastes like butterscotch and is shaped like a donut. Lots of disagreement on what type of donut: Some say a coffee roll, while others dispute coffee rolls as properly belonging to the "donut" category. Most have settled on the traditional shape of round w/ a hole, though a small number have claimed that's a misinterpretation, and in fact it's the inverse of that, it's the middle part of the donut. This is the munchkin faction.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethics are subjective. Asking "Is it ethical?" to a large group of people is little better than asking "Is chocolate the best flavor of ice cream?" Legality is a more concrete and easier to give a firm answer to. If you want to have a reasonable conversation on the internet with random strangers of different belief systems, questions like "is it ethical" go right out the window.

Are you objectively sure it’s subjective? Ethics must be objective/universal, although cheating it is common and alluring. Because ethics are universal the rules make sense even for children. It is wrong to lie, steal, rape, and kill, while it is right to honestly tell stories, receive gifts, have sex, and give life. In these words definition lies whether the receiving party partakes voluntary or is forced to. Legali…

Ethics must be objective/universal

That's a bold statement without accepted axioms & subsequent proofs to build off of & establish the universality of ethics. There has never been universal agreement on any set of ethics. Genocide is itself an excellent example of that: It's not hard to find examples where those participating in the genocide believed their actions to be perfectly acceptable.

If you watch children for any length of time, you'll see that "universal ethics" are not readily apparent to them either. Children have to be taught not to hit people, that they can't take another child's toy (stealing) just because they want it, that lying isn't acceptable, etc. Plenty of people never learn those lessons, and have no problem violating them when the consequences can be avoided (and even many times when they can't)

Your other examples of what is right & wrong are also not universally agreed upon. It's not hard to find examples of any of those actions where people justify their actions as acceptable.

This is without even getting into the gray areas: Is it wrong to kill in self defense? Is it right to honestly tell your neighbor the story that his wife is cheating on him if he'd previously said "I'd kill my wife if she ever cheated on me"? Is it right for puppy mills to give life to animals it will kill in a few months if someone doesn't buy them? Is it right to accept a gift from someone who stole the money to purchase it? Is it wrong to lie if the lie would save an innocent life?

If ethics are universal, then the underlying principals have yet to be discovered.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are you proposing? Anarcho-capitalism or some variant?

If you follow to it’s end the principle that makes gifts moral but theft immoral, or sex moral but rape immoral, or work moral but slavery immoral, yes you reach “anarcho-capitalism”

Okay, I see where you're coming from then. I disagree, but I understand your premises & therefore your comments much better.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s lots of things worth lots of money that don’t have much use value. So yes, in a market, the definition of price/value is generally where supply and demand meet. As for why people currently /want/ bitcoin, I assume some people find it a good speculation instrument, some people hope that it will be a more stable store of value than fiat currencies, some people have political reasons for wanting to own some, som…

This is roughly what I've been telling the HODLers among my friends and acquaintances for years: there is no intrinsic, fundamental reason why BTC has value. It has value because people say it has value. And, if that sounds awfully like the "fiat currency" they tend to heap so much derision on, well, it should. The USD is nothing more than an "economy token" to show how much one is winning capitalism. Likewise, BTC i…

You are right that fiat currency and bitcoins are alike in that they both have no intrinsic value. I don't think any "bitcoin evangelist" would say otherwise.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#198
post #185
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only safe in the sense that most people aren't trying to rip you off. A moderately technically sophisticated attacker will concurrently broadcast one txn version near miners, and another to as many other nodes as they can reach. Their success rate on double spends can easily be >90% and the marginal cost of the attack is approximately zero. Other than the technical know-how to setup the transaction broadcasting…

Can't this attack be made impractical with some heuristic? For example, only accept 0-conf transactions if a given number of nodes have this transaction in their mempool. (I'm thinking of both BTC and BCH)

No, because only a single node really matters: the next node to mine a block-- which may not even be reachable to you. Even if the attack worked just 10% of the time, that's like a free 10% rebate credit card for the attacker.

(and more generally, only a couple nodes matter at all for this purpose-- the set of nodes that could mine the next block)

Plus bch hashrate is so low the attacker can mine the next block themselves with rented hashrate, because the mining pays next to break even, renting the hashrate isn't a significant loss in the expectation.

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#199
post #182
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone doesn't have to own it for it to be fraud to mislead someone using it. No one owns the word "gold" but if I sell you a bunch of gold plated tungsten as "gold" I'm still defrauding you.

Gold has had a widely agreed upon definition for thousands of years. Bitcoin is a ~decade old open source project with a clearly established philosophical divide between small-blockers and big-blockers. In other open source project variants, small name changes like adding/changing a suffix or prefix are common, why would Bitcoin be the exception? Given that you accepted that BCH is the continuation of big-blocker's v…

How is it even possibly pejorative? BCH has the problem that it's read by many people as "bitch", and is even used that way by by developers (the nodes software gets called BCHN 'bitching'), and more than a few people find that offensive.

> market has spoken on this issue

I just checked a half dozen exchanges-- none call it "Bitcoin Cash" in their interfaces, BCH yes. Calling it "Bitcoin Cash" has a well understood problem of tricking people so serious businesses avoid it.

Of course, the fraud goes further than having a confusingly similar name. https://twitter.com/rogerkver/status/981908565307764736

Re: Coinbase to Suspend Trading in XRP

#200
post #182
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone doesn't have to own it for it to be fraud to mislead someone using it. No one owns the word "gold" but if I sell you a bunch of gold plated tungsten as "gold" I'm still defrauding you.

Gold has had a widely agreed upon definition for thousands of years. Bitcoin is a ~decade old open source project with a clearly established philosophical divide between small-blockers and big-blockers. In other open source project variants, small name changes like adding/changing a suffix or prefix are common, why would Bitcoin be the exception? Given that you accepted that BCH is the continuation of big-blocker's v…

I disagree with your statement that bcash is manipulative language. I now understand where you are coming from after reading your posts but there is a community out there referring to bitcoin cash as bcash since its short and succinct and easy to speak.

Also might I suggest to reflect on your posts? The tone sounds quite angry and seems to stem from frustration which can lead to reading bad intent where is none.

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