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

The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 630 posts

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#411

Post by smeej »

tome wrote: post #236
smeej wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an underappreciated point. U.S. dollars are backed by violence. Bitcoin is backed by math. I don't know what you want backing your money in the world you hope to leave for future generations, but I know what I want backing mine.

What math prevents a big enough group of miners and users rolling back the blockchain?

The sheer cost of spooling up enough hardware and paying for the electricity to run it.

That's literally the entire point of proof of work.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#412

Post by mhluongo »

andreilys wrote: post #359
DickingAround wrote: post #53

This article seems to intentionally ignore the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation and control. The article then proposes to use the law to bring those people back within the control of fiat and government oversight. I no longer think the environmental argument is really plausible here. Clearly crypto mining is emitting using a lot of power and some of that is CO2. But the competition is fiat; backed…

And if you want to contest ownership there's no one to invade, no one to attack; the best you can do is make a fleet and try to mine No one except for the owners of major BTC mining operations. If a state actor, such as China, was motivated enough to identify, capture and coerce these miners it would be pretty easy to perform a 51% attack given that China accounts for around 65% of all bitcoin mining globally.

Ha! Look up "user activated soft fork" or "UASF".

Ultimately, Bitcoin is backed by node operators and widespread social consensus. Thinking China can just split and control the network is a pretty serious misunderstanding of the power dynamic in this system.. one we all had demonstrated at the conclusion of the block size wars.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#413

Post by nbardy »

TezNoble1988 wrote: post #387
nbardy wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is a problem when there is no way to beat it and it's hidden in stimulus bills that the majority of the country is too busy working to pay bills to spend time understanding. Most of my friends can't afford investment in the market. So when the stock market goes up that's them losing value on their dollar and wages. Inflation is fine for those who are part of the asset class.

There is very little consensus around whether these stimulus bills will create inflationary pressure or not. Inflation generally isn't a concern when unemployment is high; if anything, short-term inflation may be caused by a drop in supply and excess savings caused by COVID, a systemic event which would also cause BTC-denominated prices to increase if consumer goods were actually priced in BTC. I'm not sure what you…

> that simply doesn't make any sense.

It does you just don't understand yet. Let me try and explain.

Inflation measured by the government in CPI is a bad metric. It doesn't include ownership in assets which is the ability to retire.

We already had inflation if you measure the cost of retirement in USD. With the spending package we drove a bull run.

The SP500 going up in price is equivalent to the value of USD going down for anyone who doesn't own part of the market. They have to buy in at higher and higher cost.

Younger generations have been priced out of an ability to own and in turn retire. While those who owned assets experienced a nice boost this year.

When the cost of retirement goes up the value of USD goes down just like anything else.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#414

Post by mhluongo »

DickingAround wrote: post #53

This article seems to intentionally ignore the core reason for cryptocurrencies; escaping inflation and control. The article then proposes to use the law to bring those people back within the control of fiat and government oversight. I no longer think the environmental argument is really plausible here. Clearly crypto mining is emitting using a lot of power and some of that is CO2. But the competition is fiat; backed…

Thanks for this. The level of discourse around Bitcoin on HN gives me ulcers.. really appreciate the breath of fresh air.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#416

Post by smeej »

2421n wrote: post #260
smeej wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an underappreciated point. U.S. dollars are backed by violence. Bitcoin is backed by math. I don't know what you want backing your money in the world you hope to leave for future generations, but I know what I want backing mine.

And if I force you to give me your decryption keys or make a transfer at gunpoint, will the math still protect you?

It very well might. If I simply don't have enough shards of the key or keys for the multisignature address, sure, you can still kill me, but you can't get the money from me. It's impossible.

You can see my related comment below, but if you're motivated by the money, this protects me. You'll never get it if I'm dead.

If you're motivated by violence, though, nothing protects me. But the same is every bit as true if my money is in USD.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#417

Post by smeej »

caeril wrote: post #273
smeej wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody knows how much gold is in the earth, much less in not-so-distant asteroids. The supply of gold might, technically, be "fixed" in the sense that no more of it is being created, but more of it could be discovered at any time. Bitcoin's supply is mathematically demonstrably fixed. Nobody's ever going to discover a new vein of Bitcoin in the earth's crust, or on an asteroid.

We know to a pretty good approximation how much gold is in the earth, and where it is. That's not even a minor consideration for mining geologists and engineers anymore. The primary limitation as of now is ore quality, which directly dictates how much energy is required for smelting, and we have a good idea of the decline curve thereof. We know roughly when it will be economically profitable to extract the stuff from…

We certainly think we know. But we've thought an awful lot of things as a human species that turned out not to be true.

Gold is presumably scarce. Bitcoin is provably scarce.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#418

Post by seaourfreed »

Stephen Diehl's goal is control others. He doesn't value citizens having sound currency via non-money printing. It is a free country so the part of the country building a financial system around non-money printing digital currencies will do that. Stephen doesn't need to buy into it. Those who want a non-money printing digital currency driven financial system will opt-in. Opt-in and opt-out is what happens in free countries. Stephen should focus on allowing people to be free, make their individual choice. He should stop trying to control other people.

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#419

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

grawprog wrote: post #159
iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling, e.g. casino or sports betting is different because for some it's a fun pastime and participants are (more or less) aware of what it's about. "Crypto" - not the underlying tech which is potentially interesting and may have merit in some incarnation - but buying or trading "assets" grounded in the tech, is essentially a quasi-legal pump and dump scheme right now. There is a rich history of securities law that…

How is cryptocurrency different than all the other non-real digital goods that have become valuable over the years? Games like second life and Eve did the digital currency thing way before bitcoin. How is a pretend coin you can trade for money different than a pretend game currency you can trade for money? Because one is traded on the stock market and increasingly accepted in real world transactions? There was and li…

In EVE Online, the only permitted flow is as follows: you buy subscription time for real money from CCP Games. Others can then buy subscription time from you for in-game currency. In-game currency can only be spent in-game.

It doesn't really seem very similar to cryptocurrency to me; could you explain some more about how you think it's the same?

Re: The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban

#420

Post by webinvest »

abakker wrote: post #274
caeril wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is far from proven that target inflation is bad Target inflation is specifically intended to promote consumption. Consumption, particularly in the form of atoms, not bits, is approximately 90% correlated with greenhouse gas emissions, despite all our efforts to roll out renewables. Setting the "inflation is good" argument alongside an article decrying the climate impact of inflation-resistant currencies is . . .…

This is valid, but not quite the same. Inflation encourages consumption of Goods. Bitcoin encourages the consumption of goods too. To just maintain bitcoin takes a lot of energy. It is a bigger stretch to blame environmental degradation on the math of inflation than it is to look at the direct environmental costs of actually maintaining the bitcoin network. inflation encourages investment in renewables. the deflation…

Inflation has been encouraging investment in oil and gas companies. Just look at the stock market returns by sector since Jan 2021 and see which one stands out! >.>

Investors like oil & gas because has a low enough Price to EPS ratio to feel like an undervalued safe haven and it still pays dividends like nothing else.

Don’t forget: every $100 invested in bitcoin is $100 of bitcoin sold. There is always somebody on the sell-side. When they receive the money, they may also do productive (likely technology-based) work with it.

Post reply on HN