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U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

reuters.com

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#51
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's why when I first read about crypto back in 2013 or so I thought about getting into Peercoin whenever I had the money to do so. And it's why years later, when I finally had the money to do so, I never bought any crypto, even when FOMO was hitting hard. It's why I stopped taking late night drives in my car to wind down, instead taking walks. And why I try to drive to maximize fuel efficiency. It's why I felt guilt…

I did that too for the first 30 years of my life. Then I realized that I was compromising my own life, making sacrifices, and effectively giving away my power to the people who don't care. So I changed tactics, and bought a jeep.

I'm in my 40s. Lawful Good isn't going to change. I like being able to live with myself, thank you very much.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#52

Meanwhile Hong Kong is rolling out the the red carpet https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-banks-are-netting-cry... The crypto industry is extremely adept at moving across borders, and as power politics between nations dictate different priorities, crypto will make its home base where ever the doors open. Right now China and Russia are in a West vs. East struggle, and anything they can do to reduce the power of the…

After the collapse of Silvergate and Signature, I say “let them have it”. The crypto industry may be adept at moving across borders, but so are seasoned criminals. That shouldn’t automatically qualify them to operate with impunity. Millions of people lost savings in the wake of FTX, and we’re all just supposed to pretend that it was some singular, isolated incident? Their name was on an NBA arena, they spent millions…

> Millions of people lost savings in the wake of FTX, and we’re all just supposed to pretend that it was some singular, isolated incident?

Bail them out then. Why is it OK to bail out the Silicon Valley bank but not this one? These exchanges are literal banks, they even do fractional reserve banking which allows them to offer loans and savings accounts. Might as well bail out Tether too.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else held equal it will always take more energy to have multiple computers ready to verify transactions, as well as the computational overhead of determining on the fly which computer actually will verify which transaction, than to have one computer verifying transactions. From your own link, PoS Ethereum is 1/30,000 the energy cost of PoW Ethereum. From this link ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.03717.pdf ),…

I think you're ignoring the energy spent on physical buildings, cars, and vehicles that power the banking/credit-card complex.

What does this even mean? Visa cards can be used for online purchases just like crypto. However crypto has a minuscule presence when it comes to physical stores. Why are you comparing apples to oranges.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#54
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else held equal it will always take more energy to have multiple computers ready to verify transactions, as well as the computational overhead of determining on the fly which computer actually will verify which transaction, than to have one computer verifying transactions. From your own link, PoS Ethereum is 1/30,000 the energy cost of PoW Ethereum. From this link ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.03717.pdf ),…

I think you're ignoring the energy spent on physical buildings, cars, and vehicles that power the banking/credit-card complex.

These costs exist for the blockchain networks, too.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#55
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be very surprised if Visa can clear transactions with less energy than Ethereum Proof of Stake requires. https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/ The energy argument is correct for proof of work, not proof of stake.

I don't think energy consumption was ever actually a virtue of the people who complained about it. It was just a means to an end for curbing crypto and it's grifts.

You're right about that. It's hilarious to watch first world citizens posting opinions about BTC energy consumption on their made in china computers. You'd think they'd downgrade their comfortable lifestyles or at least stop trading with china if that was so important to them. No, better focus on cryptocurrency instead which is not even 1% of global energy consumption.

I'd have more respect if they just said "I hate crypto and want it banned".

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else held equal it will always take more energy to have multiple computers ready to verify transactions, as well as the computational overhead of determining on the fly which computer actually will verify which transaction, than to have one computer verifying transactions. From your own link, PoS Ethereum is 1/30,000 the energy cost of PoW Ethereum. From this link ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.03717.pdf ),…

What's the average transaction fee for Ethereum versus visa?

Currently it's at about 77 US cents per average transaction, with the fee paid by the sender. A month ago it was briefly above $2.70.

VISA transactions, with the fee paid by the receiver, obviously pull more off the top in excess of electricity costs (for larger transactions), but they also have purchase protection, customer service, and things such as points built it for particular cards. So not a complete apples-to-apples comparison.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tracking credit card transactions is an every day chore for the government. In what sense? Credit card companies manage their own fraud mitigation per federal law, which makes it easy for consumers to dispute transactions. If someone gets my crypto wallet PK and withdraws everything, who do I dispute that with? No way to reverse transactions in BTC.

Non-reversible transactions are a feature not a bug. If you want protection against that, get insurance.

Are you two agreeing implicitly, in that insurance IS the point of a credit card company?

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the security of visa transactions to crypto is laughable. The IRS literally had a bounty out for anyone that could trace monero. Meanwhile, seizing money from traditional bank accounts and tracking credit card transactions is an every day chore for the government.

> tracking credit card transactions is an every day chore for the government. In what sense? Credit card companies manage their own fraud mitigation per federal law, which makes it easy for consumers to dispute transactions. If someone gets my crypto wallet PK and withdraws everything, who do I dispute that with? No way to reverse transactions in BTC.

“per federal law” is the sense that I refer to. Federal law includes stopping not only fraud, but political adversaries (ie. Canada), the aforementioned privacy preserving tools, trading activity between consenting parties in the name of investor protections, and various other violations of the force is only justified in response to force rule. It’s interesting how people that normally claim to support privacy will go all patriot act over financial privacy.

Regardless, I’m not sure why it’s relevant to bring up what you like about credit cards. You’re free to use whatever currency you want, we were discussing whether it should be illegal for me to do the same.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#59

Meanwhile Hong Kong is rolling out the the red carpet https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-banks-are-netting-cry... The crypto industry is extremely adept at moving across borders, and as power politics between nations dictate different priorities, crypto will make its home base where ever the doors open. Right now China and Russia are in a West vs. East struggle, and anything they can do to reduce the power of the…

After the collapse of Silvergate and Signature, I say “let them have it”. The crypto industry may be adept at moving across borders, but so are seasoned criminals. That shouldn’t automatically qualify them to operate with impunity. Millions of people lost savings in the wake of FTX, and we’re all just supposed to pretend that it was some singular, isolated incident? Their name was on an NBA arena, they spent millions…

It's funny you mention FTX, because FTX was exactly the opposite of a decentralized exchange. It was a centralized exchange that was unambiguously under the jurisdiction of the SEC.

One of the major advantages of using a decentralized exchange is to avoid the risk that centralized exchanges like FTX expose you to, namely that it's a single point of failure that when collapses ends up taking a lot of people down with it.

With a decentralized exchange, your transactions happen within a matter of minutes and your only exposure to any potential failure is during those minutes.

Re: U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be very surprised if Visa can clear transactions with less energy than Ethereum Proof of Stake requires. https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/ The energy argument is correct for proof of work, not proof of stake.

Everything I've read suggests the Visa network only processes ~5-10k transactions per second, which you could do on a single modest server. It is apparently built to handle up to 75k TPS[0]. Certainly it should be doable with less than 300 kW average. [0] https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/about-visa/documents/vi...

Visa the company has over 20,000 employees. Presumably that network wouldn't function without them. Shouldn't the entire company's energy footprint be included in that 300kW?
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