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SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

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Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If banning things russians might use is not the redistribution of consequences For the third time, it isn't. Whose consequences are being redistributed? > you should have no problem banning encryption Why should I support ineffective policy? > Without double standards you would have no standards at all. My standard is effective policy. Nothing of value is lost by regulating cryptocurrencies, and starving DPRK and R…

Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto, it’s the redistribution of consequences. “Why should I support ineffective policy” is precisely the moving of goalposts. Your original comment only said Russians using something is enough justification to ban it, you are now adding more conditions after the fact. You also conveniently ignored the point I made about constructing a sc…

> Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto, it’s the redistribution of consequences

Wrong. Your willingness to accept stolen goods from Russia and DPRK is what makes them valuable. Making it illegal for you to buy them is not redistribution of consequences. Allowing people who have had their property stolen the ability to get their property back from other parties in the same jurisdiction is also not redistribution of consequences.

> Your original comment only said Russians using something is enough justification to ban it,

Your problem is not that you don't understand what moving goalposts means but that you don't understand plain English sentences. Status quo allows Russians to steal from the rest of the world. I never once said we should ban cryptocurrencies (which is as impossible as banning them from using secure messaging), only to regulate them to prevent Russians from deriving value from stolen goods.

> Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto

Once again, where did I say I want to ban you from using crypto? I merely want them regulated as much as any other money transfer services. PayPal could allow transfer to Russia and DPRK without recourse for lower cost than cryptocurrencies, but they do not because they are regulated.

> You also conveniently ignored the point I made about constructing a scenario where your new goalposts are satisfied and just reposing the question.

You are unable to construct a scenario where my original goalposts are satisfied, so you imagine a world where you could. You're simply imagining a world where you win the argument without actually presenting the arguments to win it.

> Yes, the military and courts have to be paid with theft, but you believe in those things too

So you understand that your policies are unworkable. Once you admit that it is reasonable for people in societies to band together and collect taxes to spend on the public good, it's just a question of how much and for how much public benefit. Feel free to move to Somalia if you find this concept disgusting.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto, it’s the redistribution of consequences. “Why should I support ineffective policy” is precisely the moving of goalposts. Your original comment only said Russians using something is enough justification to ban it, you are now adding more conditions after the fact. You also conveniently ignored the point I made about constructing a sc…

> Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto, it’s the redistribution of consequences Wrong. Your willingness to accept stolen goods from Russia and DPRK is what makes them valuable. Making it illegal for you to buy them is not redistribution of consequences. Allowing people who have had their property stolen the ability to get their property back from other parties in the sa…

I’m glad we’ve established that you would be willing to allow russians to securely plan attacks even if you could effectively stop it.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally, the main point of money is to exchange it for goods. But you can't securely and trustlessly exchange bitcoin for goods, since goods are not on-chain. So all the fancy cryptography is not solving the main problem that it would have been useful to solve.

You can buy lots of things with bitcoin. Why would the goods need to be on-chain?

I believe the parent was elaborating on their point here:

> it's impossible to do anything with it except moving it from one account to another without requiring trust of the other party.

Goods may need to be shipped, they could be counterfeit, etc. Bitcoin provides no facility for escrow or refunds - just moving tokens from one wallet to another. So you need to trust your counter party even more than you would with e.g. a credit card in order to transact.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto, it’s the redistribution of consequences Wrong. Your willingness to accept stolen goods from Russia and DPRK is what makes them valuable. Making it illegal for you to buy them is not redistribution of consequences. Allowing people who have had their property stolen the ability to get their property back from other parties in the sa…

I’m glad we’ve established that you would be willing to allow russians to securely plan attacks even if you could effectively stop it.

You seem to continue having difficulty understanding plain English. I said the exact opposite of what you think I'm willing to allow, which is quite the feat of misunderstanding.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad we’ve established that you would be willing to allow russians to securely plan attacks even if you could effectively stop it.

You seem to continue having difficulty understanding plain English. I said the exact opposite of what you think I'm willing to allow, which is quite the feat of misunderstanding.

So if banning encryption was an effective way to prevent Russian communication, you would be in favour? I’m looking for a yes or no answer.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to continue having difficulty understanding plain English. I said the exact opposite of what you think I'm willing to allow, which is quite the feat of misunderstanding.

So if banning encryption was an effective way to prevent Russian communication, you would be in favour? I’m looking for a yes or no answer.

I support any policy where the benefits outweigh the harms. How hard is that to understand? You support policies based on how closely they fit your unachievable libertarian dogma, whether or not they are destructive.

In an imaginary world where it is possible to ban Russia from using encryption without causing other harms that outweigh that benefit, I would support that. Such an imaginary world is too nonsensical to exist though, so it is useless to even consider.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be providing a reason (CYA) for being sneaky and underhanded, not arguing against it being sneaky and underhanded.

This is basically the “if you have nothing to hide, what’s the problem if the police can read all your correspondence?” argument applied to an organization.

Sure, if you view government agencies as equivalent to individual citizens and the public as equivalent to the police.

But some people view that the government is properly subordinate to the citizenry and not vice versa, such that inverting the government and public roles materially changes the scenario.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically the “if you have nothing to hide, what’s the problem if the police can read all your correspondence?” argument applied to an organization.

Sure, if you view government agencies as equivalent to individual citizens and the public as equivalent to the police. But some people view that the government is properly subordinate to the citizenry and not vice versa, such that inverting the government and public roles materially changes the scenario.

I think that no matter how scrupulous any government organization is, there are many motivated actors who would, given an unfiltered record of everyone single person's correspondence and conversations, be able to spin a misleading negative story out of it. This is essentially some people's full-time job and they're good at it.

Re: SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a government that accepts tax payments in BTC would be abandoning its financial authority to the bitcoin network, over which it has no influence whatsoever this is suicidal for any nation with even a nominal amount of financial autonomy maybe it's something that failed states like venezuela or somolia would consider, but it's a complete non-starter for anyone else the idea that "the people" can force countries to acc…

> the idea that "the people" can force countries to accept tax receipts in BTC is absolute unhinged nonsense, read a fucking book Government money will worth shit if people stop putting their savings in it. Unless you think the US government will make it ilegal to possess BTC, then it is just a matter of time for people to migrate to a better store of value.

the US government probably won't make it illegal to possess BTC, but it will never accept e.g. tax payments in BTC

also, the instant there is a non-trivial amount of commerce conducted in US jurisdictions via BTC, you will immediately see aggressive counter-measures (lawsuits, criminal charges, etc.) from the federal government

germany's minister of finance said it succinctly when there was this facebook libra thing going around

> One of the core activities of a sovereign State is to issue a currency. We will not cede this task to private companies.

https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2019/10/germany-opposes-facebo...

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