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Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

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Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa are using it for cross-border settlements between issuer and merchant banks: https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.rele...

This is surprising. But it might not be as pro-crypto as crypto-boosters think. Crypto was supposed to replace orgs like Visa. Now Visa is co-opting crypto.

Crypto bros harp on about that they don't need the legacy financial system or it needs to be decentralised away from the big banks and duopolies.

It turns out that these entities are only getting into crypto for hiking up fees and centralisation, defeating the point of crypto in the first place.

Projects such as UPI in India doesn't use Visa or Mastercard and is rolling out worldwide, the exact solution crypto was supposed to solve, yet 15 years later no progress whatsoever has been made on the crypto front.

So crypto proponents have just been screeching for nothing but price speculation which isn't a use case at all.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#392
post #103
post #20

Happy to see this whole thing finally coming to an end, its a nice wrap to the dead market we've had for the past 2 years. I'm excited for 2024 in crypto!

FTT to the moon! Oh wait.

Actually ... since the trial ended, FTT went from ~$1.2 to ~$3.5 and has stayed up. I have no idea how these people expect it to pay out. Even if FTX restarts, they will almost certainly cast off such liabilities with the approval of the bankruptcy court.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#393
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name any positive valid use case that crypto does better than the current financial system.

Ethereum has negative inflation, unlike many fiat currencies. I have used Bitcoin to donate money to organizations the state would prefer me not to, such as Ukrainian defense, or Wikileaks (famously blockaded by banks without/before criminal charges). There are lots of truly amazing cross-border use cases; permissionless internet money has huge utility. NFTs allow fans to financially support visual artists via collec…

> I have used Bitcoin to donate money to organizations the state would prefer me not to, such as Ukrainian defense, or Wikileaks (famously blockaded by banks without/before criminal charges).

So?

You can do all of this without crypto, there is nothing new or novel that crypto has done here.

> There are lots of truly amazing cross-border use cases; permissionless internet money has huge utility.

Same again, and in fact we have PayPal, Xoom, Wise, etc.,

Instead, you are asking normal people to rely on crypto exchanges to convert their crypto into fiat (with extra costly fees) through a complicated process in order to receive money.

This is neither innovative or novel, it just adds more needless complexity and is a regression from what already exists in the current financial system.

> NFTs allow fans to financially support visual artists via collectibles (potentially with resale value) in exchange for donations. (I say donations because buying an NFT does not purchase the art the NFT represents.)

This highly wash traded 'market' is down big, so by using NFTs you're not really supporting artists at all, you are driving down the 'value' of the collectible down to 0.

> Usually when I offer these use cases, people move the goalposts, saying how these things are somehow already possible (they aren’t, at least in the same way, or same speed, or same cost, or same level of privacy-preservation).

The reason why we have the current system is to reduce the amount of bad actors trying to defraud people, crypto just blows this right open to create a wild west of fraud.

How would the privacy preservation work with businesses, It wouldn't as no business would want to touch crypto and it is not worth the accounting hell for them.

> It’s nice to be able to transact without identity attached to every transaction.

This is called cash.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#394
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state also brings civil actions that are not about damages or being made whole. See the ongoing business fraud case in NY against Trump.

That one is because Trump didn't make whole anyone across his career. Not the IRS, not his creditors, not the countless people he and his various enterprises stiffed (e.g. the tradespeople who worked on the casinos [1][2]). There's so many people who Trump and his various enterprises left stuck with sometimes very huge bills that it's a miracle he didn't get dinged years ago. And that is why Trump is being on the rec…

The big question is whether he will plead guilty and/or the judge will convict him.

In US, you can be rich and get away with a lot of crime and crookedness.

If Trump does go to prison, that will make quite the news.

Putin and Xinping will be laughing because they have such a strong hold on their countries, them going to jail is unthinkable.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the threat of something similar to Global Magnitsky Sanctions (cutting them off from all dollar-denominated accounts everywhere) is a pretty big stick to use in negotiations. For a financial firm like Binance, access to bank accounts that can send dollars to and from US firms is pretty important, even without any US customers at all (losing access to banking in France, Cyprus, etc. would be equally dif…

Btw - I never found a good explanation why all USD transfers need to be routed trough usd banks. Google is quite silent on the subject - is it common knowledge or too obvious?

How would you envision it work otherwise?

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#396
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SBF lost customer funds by spending them as if they were his own. CZ isn't accused of spending customer funds, he's accused of letting people trade too freely.

Binance is also accused of commingling funds.

Commingling is not losing or spending. I don't know why you used a "also" with a word that wasn't in the comment you responded to.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it would continue or not? Your comments seem to hold conflicting points.

We both know that crypto is only used for and that the main use case is criminal activities, so it's only right that the whole thing should be shut down by law. It's already impossible for crypto to become part of the current financial system so the only way to stop this scourge is to make crypto illegal starting with the exchanges down to the blockchains. Blockchains have absolutely no use case at all.

You seem to be confusing would with should?

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it would continue or not? Your comments seem to hold conflicting points.

We both know that crypto is only used for and that the main use case is criminal activities, so it's only right that the whole thing should be shut down by law. It's already impossible for crypto to become part of the current financial system so the only way to stop this scourge is to make crypto illegal starting with the exchanges down to the blockchains. Blockchains have absolutely no use case at all.

You're free to hold whatever opinions you want, but I don't see how they're relevant to this conversation.

It's not productive to spread falsehoods about how blockchains are hosted.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#400
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect use case for criminals and ransomware gangs which is certainly why crypto is popular for these groups. Especially for funding the North Korean regime. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-18/how-north-korea-makes...

The fact that it is useful to criminals does not mean it is not useful to non-criminals. You asked for examples of utility; it was provided. Firearms and cryptography are two additional examples of things that provide a lot of utility to their users, both innocent and criminal.

> "Name any positive valid use case that crypto does better than the current financial system."

This isn't a positive use case. It is a negative one.

So unless you are a criminal or you're sending ransomware to Joan from Nebraska for 0.5 BTC...

Nope.

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