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India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

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Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#51
Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true.

The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that's irrelevant.

Cyrptos have wildly failed as a "currency". Even so-called "stablecoins" just peg themselves directly or indirectly to fiat currencies so they're really just adding another point-of-failure. We should be calling them "cryptoassets" not "cryptocurrencies".

As for escaping government seizures and the like, try telling that to Ross Ulbricht [1]. This year, China started to crack down on crypto mining [2].

The "security" of crypto is a myth. They can and have forked and have well-known weaknesses (eg 51% attack). I can't help but think of this [3] wrt security.

Proof-of-work wastes a ton of energy for basically nothing and, just like China, countries will increasingly clamp down on this, especially as voters increasingly face rising energy costs.

Proof-of-stake is basically a fantasy of how we'll solve PoW problems with a lot of hand-waving. It having not happened yet is pretty good evidence of this being a fantasy.

All it really takes is for action by the US and/or EU to say something like "financial institutions who trade in cryptos lose access to the banking system" and the market implodes. Sure the government can't stop you adding more transactions to the blockchain but for what? If no one can take your "currency" what value does it have?

Weirdly, crypto has seen the resurgence of gold bugs who have long held an irrational hatred for fiat currencies, completely with false claims in some cases (eg the US dollar was never 100% backed by gold, ever).

Things like reversible transactions and the ability to print money are actually a feature not a negative as they're often portrayed.

And even if you get past all this, you want users to securely manage a wallet when failure to do so means they could be irreversibly be robbed of their balance?

Governments are slow to react and they tend to only react to things that become viewed as a threat. Crypto is so niche it's not a threat. But that doesn't mean the US government couldn't fatally wound the crypto market tomorrow if it chose to.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurr....

[3]: https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#52
post #51

Crypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that…

Unpopular? What you've written is a summary of the orthodoxy on HN.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#53

Well, they can try, but even with centralized exchanges, a VPN will do. And then there are decentralized protocols. Once you have some of your money in cryptocurrency there's no real way for anyone to stop you from moving your money around however you like. The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks.

Grow up. Just ban all financial companies from dealing with crypto crap. As soon as it can’t be exchanged for real currencies it will be worthless

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t that just lead to a black market? Especially in a country that loves its informal economy like India?

If bitcoin is illegal, the only reason to engage in a black market transaction to obtain would be if it gave you access to material thing you could not otherwise get - unless there active hyper-inflation going on, no one would want to illegally obtain bitcoin just so they could turn around and buy some good they'd be able to obtain with normal, legal transaction.

All it takes is a decent return for savers since the INR is a terrible store of value. The massive gold black market in India is a clue that Bitcoin isnt going anywhere.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#56

This is about the 12th time that India has "banned" cryptocurrencies. Don't believe it...

Crypto industry must not be contributing enough to politicians, like they seem to do in the US.

They need to sponsor more sports teams

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's illegal to exchange goods or official currency for cryptocurrency in the nation you are in, the usefulness of cryptocurrency is going to be considerably constrained. This depends on how thorough or draconian the state is but a lot of people just shy away from illegal activity without enforcement being that strong. After all, if buy a tangible good, I want legal title to it and having engaged in an illegal tra…

Wrong.

Could you please argue how it is wrong? The logic seems pretty simple to me. A currency has value as long as it is exchanged, if government restricts exchanges, the currency drops in value.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#58
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not just banks, but everywhere you can spend it in country. fine you can move money between virtual accounts and buy NFTs all day, but government can control whether local business are allowed to accept your crypto as payment, so you’ll need to liquidate crypto into local currency - which kind of sucks to do if the banks aren’t there to help.

This hasnt been a problem forvseveral years. There are different options: - buy international prepaid cards for legal dervices (bitrefill) - use p2p local crypto exchanges: localcrypto, localmonero (in some countries this can be 100% anonymous by using the "withdraw from atm with 1 time code" bank services) - Exchange to alternate "tokens" that are legal (anyone remembers Linden dollars to BTC market around 2010?) -…

>buy international prepaid cards for legal dervices (bitrefill)

within the country, you'd be committing a crime acquiring stuff using crypto. The cards are international but you're committing the act locally.

>use p2p local crypto exchanges: localcrypto, localmonero (in some countries this can be 100% anonymous by using the "withdraw from atm with 1 time code" bank services)

Will all be banned and illegal services. If it touches a bank you'll likely get extra charges on top for money laundering or similar.

>Exchange to alternate "tokens" that are legal

That will be tracked by the government if legal, or illegal if not tracked.

>Exchange locally via sneakernet

"exchange on black market"

None of these things are solutions.

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#59

Well, they can try, but even with centralized exchanges, a VPN will do. And then there are decentralized protocols. Once you have some of your money in cryptocurrency there's no real way for anyone to stop you from moving your money around however you like. The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks.

They'll successfully cut the liquidity. People aren't going to be able to ach/swift any substantial amount, and Irl exchanges will be dangerous and subject to theft. The government can't cut it out in full, but, it can reduce the value enough to make Pokemon cards a more valuable alternative

Re: India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says

#60
post #38
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All ownership (digital or not) is nothing but a social contract. The cryptocurrency (or normal currency) exists because enough people agree to recognise it. You can buy and own a domain name. If trust in DNS is violated, we'll have much bigger problems.

Owning a token means you can perform certain actions on a distributed system. No social contract needed. You own the token by owning a secret key which gives you the power to move it. It's like owning a key to a door. It gives you the power to lock and unlock the door. No social contract needed. You can not own a domain. You can only pay a registrar to have them talk to a registry. You then are at the mercy of both.…

its not a door. It's a number on a blockchain. It has no inherent value and no inherent function. It's just a number on a blockchain.

Everything else is tulipmania.

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