China's Central Bank Bans ICOs • Hacker News Board

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#381

Post by SZJX » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 6:49 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #379

hasenj wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oppressive regimes are usually effective at making decisions that hurt many individuals (even unfairly) for the (supposed?) benefit of the collective.

that's very optimistic if not naive. the ones who usually benefit are the oppressors, the rest are left to their own devices if they aren't causing problems - real or perceived - or even are deemed to cause problems in the future even if they do nothing wrong right now. the collective benefits only in utopia circumstances, ie. never.

Well this is really the same for all kinds of libertarian/capitalist regimes. Branding China as an "oppressive regime" is really just political propaganda speech. If you say China is an oppressive regime so is US, and the US might be even more of a slave state really.

China nowadays has even more reckless capitalism than that in the US, and the gap between the rich and the poor is expanding incredibly fast.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#382

Post by SZJX » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 6:53 AM UTC

hasenj wrote: post #45

richardknop wrote: post #32

Finally somebody in position of power stepped in to stop this mad online casino. I was not expecting this sensible move from China, was hoping EU or US would lead the way on regulating this crypto fraud. I hope Fed/ECB follow the Chinese Central Bank and ban ICOs too and start regulating crypto and enforcing some basic rules.

Actually I think such bold decisions can only be made by a government that is not encumbered with lobbies and business interests.

That's just naive and wishful thinking. The brand of capitalism in China is more reckless than that in the US and the business interests are really interwined with the government policies. It's just that the government still has a bit more of a final say but that doesn't mean the rich politicians and businessmen aren't in the same boat.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#383

Post by aleh » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 8:42 AM UTC

rficcaglia wrote: post #267

proofofstake wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the short term, longer term it is no trouble. ICOs are far from the main use case for Ethereum. Speculation is driven by the price not close to matching the price if/when the technology matures. If anything, most ICOs pull money from Ethereum, they don't make the price go up. Being interested in tokens for their "features" not the price is very archaic. This also does not happen with stocks anymore: People h…

it would benefit China's economy if a bubble were to pop and wipe out huge amounts of savings my guess: China will not allow ICOs but maybe after 10 years or so, blockchains and smart contracts will quietly infiltrate boring business use cases and financial services. especially if they can turn it into a centralized tool for control. what better authoritarian tool could there be than a centralized ledger of all econo…

If the ledger is centralized, what is the advantage of using blockchain?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#384

Post by rficcaglia » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 2:49 PM UTC

aleh wrote: post #383

rficcaglia wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would benefit China's economy if a bubble were to pop and wipe out huge amounts of savings my guess: China will not allow ICOs but maybe after 10 years or so, blockchains and smart contracts will quietly infiltrate boring business use cases and financial services. especially if they can turn it into a centralized tool for control. what better authoritarian tool could there be than a centralized ledger of all econo…

If the ledger is centralized, what is the advantage of using blockchain?

probably none. that is a different discussion. there were many better solutions than http for the web, hotly debated, but http became the defacto standard. betamax vs vhs. lots of reasons why inferior technology sometimes wins mind/market share

i dont drink the blockchain kool aid myself as a silver bullet for every problem, read IBM's hyperledger marketing materials and they try to make a case for centralized permissioned blockchain. ymmv.

but if millions of your citizens are using blockchains, as an authoritative regime, you probably will want to control its use. you arent particularly interested in the best tech solution to a problem. just control.

and lest anyone think i am abusive of china, i fully expect the US to highly regulate the hell out of this eventually ... if not now under the Tweeter in Chief, when the Dems get control again.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#385

Post by irishsultan » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

cloakandswagger wrote: post #283

irishsultan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't wear a seatbelt and are in an accident you are much more likely to hurt others than if you do wear a seatbelt.

Citation needed

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673...

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#386

Post by erulabs » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 10:05 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #357

erulabs wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the comment you're replying to: > Let the people who invested poorly get wiped out-- it's better for the economy. (There are examples of this too - crashes that happened before the federal reserve which were much worse than the 1929 crash, but which are forgotten to history because they didn't create Great Depressions Of course there were panics and corrections before the federal system - as rothbardrand mention…

The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until 1843---6 years. The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879 (1897 (!) in Britain)---6 years. The 1882-1885 depression included a year when "an estimated 5% of all American factories and mines completely shuttered during…

Right, to reiterate, we're saying there _were of course_ business cycles before the federal reserve, just like there was _of course_ monetary intervention then as well.

The OP and I are saying that the federal reserve _exaggerated_ the depression. Your pointing to much smaller prior events is a non-starter.

And yes, biology is not free of observation, my point was that it is more closely associated with deduction rather than statistical inference - but yes, mathematics would be even closer an analog - if I had said that a mathematician would have argued that some economists use statistical inference - goes on ad nauseum.

Still not sure what you're trying to say, but yes, there was a business cycle before a necessarily large increase in mal-investment and there were necessarily larger cycles after said investment.