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Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

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Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#551

Post by mrguyorama »

misnome wrote: post #475
lordfrito wrote: post #469

After everything that's happened in this space, the number of "true believers" I'm seeing here is astounding to me. After a decade of use the tech hasn't found many real world uses beyond gambling, drugs, confidence schemes, money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial criminality. This is 100% the community's fault, as they're the ones burning a lot of real world capital to build this stuff but have very littl…

Crypto, Aliens, Science, and Equality are the topics that you really should’t look at discussions for here unless you know what you are getting yourself into, or just want to watch the burning dumpster fire. At least with Crypto it is relatively easy to spot the weird grudges or patently self-interested reasons for continuing to argue for a failed system. I’m sure when this use case fails there will be another new us…

>I’m sure when this use case fails there will be another new use case that can be used as the Single Thing that crypto was made and defined for,

Nah, they just pretend it didn't fail, and blatantly ignore reality.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#552

Post by yieldcrv »

lordfrito wrote: post #503
treestander wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SVB just collapsed. Do you blame the fiat dollar for that?

No, I blame the executives at a poorly run bank. SVB execs knew the risks of having too many long term low interest securities. The Fed repeatedly warned SVB about it's problems. SVB ignored internal recommendations until it was too late. If this was a systemic "fiat dollar" problem then many more banks would be failing.

so apply that same standard to "crypto". where you blame the executives at a poorly run companies instead of the sector or asset class they happen to cater to. and the customers for putting up with it.

mismanaged companies that make the headlines coexist with organizations that function well and make zero headlines "even" in the crypto space. the quotes because it shouldn't be surprising but its odd that this persistently low signal level of discourse is what's prevalent on this otherwise analytical community.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#553

Post by greatwave1 »

EscapeFromNY wrote: post #530
greatwave1 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume > To me, 3% is an acceptable level. It's a lower percentage than the black market in many countries even. Yeah, but that's because the vast majority of volume comes from speculation and wash trading lmao. What do you think the ratio of speculation and illegal activity to legitimate use cases is? I'd be willing to be it's greater than 1…

You don't have to bet, the data is in the paper I linked. 75% of bitcoin volume is speculation. Meanwhile in the traditional economy, 95% of global financial activity is speculation (see below). What level of speculation would you say is high enough to justify throwing away the remaining productive uses of an asset class? --- In 2019, forex volume was $6.6T per day[1], or $1716T per year. In 2019, global GDP was $87.…

The paper that you linked doesn't say that 75% of crypto activity is speculation, at least as far as I can tell. Are you referring to the line that says

>Starting from 2015, 75% of the real bitcoin volume has been linked to exchanges or exchange-like entities such as on-line wallets, OTC desks, and large institutional traders.

Because there is certainly plenty of speculation outside of those entities.

And for the traditional financial system, when you said "see below", are you referring to the ratio of forex volume to global GDP? Because those metrics are terrible proxies for "global financial activity" or "speculation"

I would recommend doing some reading on what GDP is, and how it's calculated. It's not the same thing as the total volume of transactions, or even in the same ballpark. The United States alone had more than $128T in just non-cash payments in 2021 (https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fr-payments-st...)

You should also understand that all forex activity is not speculation. I would think that global trade would fall under the bucket of "economically meaningful activity", no?

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#554

Post by mrguyorama »

nroets wrote: post #324
ryan_lane wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax evasion is people stealing from you, just in an indirect way. Just because some people already steal from us doesn't mean it's OK for other (richer) people to steal even more from us. You may believe there's a better way for the government to tax us, but that's not how the system works currently. Crypto being used for tax evasion is a good reason for it to be regulated out of existence.

You can make the same argument that governments should ban physical cash.

You cannot, because the two systems have entirely different sets of pros and cons, for entirely different sets of people.

You can also compare apples and oranges, but the comparison might not be useful.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#555

Post by mrguyorama »

hiatus wrote: post #464
nroets wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine got hooked on something really bad. We could all see his health deteriorate month by month. He's probably dead right now. Even his parents don't know where he is. He's son will grow up without a father. I never met his dealer, but I'm sure the dealer saw the decay and did nothing.

The fact that the dealer saw the decay and did nothing is related to the drug's illegality. If the drug were available in a dispensary where you had to go out in public and get your drug, there would be more opportunities for intervention. We already make it illegal to serve alcohol to someone visibly drunk. You can't apply rules like that when the transactions are occurring in the dark.

Which is why Australia has no problem with gambling addiction, right?

Maybe there is more to it than whether something is legal or illegal.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#556

Post by Paradigma11 »

jrmg wrote: post #182
lelandfe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine that works with crypto gaming companies frequently expresses frustration that every game they see is gambling, slightly disguised gambling, or terrible.

What other kinds of ‘crypto gaming company’ _could_ there be?

You can have conventional good multiplayer games with resources that are tokens on the blockchain. That way you can leverage the existing smart contract ecosystem for free. Ppl can create futures, auctions, binary options, arbitrarily complex contracts depending on ingame data that you make available on the blockchain.... without you being responsible for it.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#557

Post by mrguyorama »

dporter wrote: post #209
cft wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto has a viable micropayments for content story, see e.g. https://stacker.news . An upvote costs a minimum of 1 Satoshi (currently about 0.025¢)

Imagine paying to upvote content as a consumer. I can see this being popular with brands that are already paying for engagement, but that’s just going to result in the same media landscape we’re already in.

Crypto boosters need to transactionalize absolutely everything and anything because every transaction, by design, incurs a tax to the miner/validator/magic oracle machine owner. Since you become that person by buying lots of physical hardware with real money, or buying lots of with real money, it by design is someone who already has a lot.

Crypto is people who see the tax that credit card networks are on all transactions, but their problem with it isn't that it's wealth redistribution from those with bad credit to those with good credit, but rather that they aren't the ones collecting the tax.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#558

Post by mrguyorama »

MrPatan wrote: post #434
senttoschool wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The banking industry makes 25 times more profit than all other industries around the world combined. And that's why Apple is worth 6x more than JP Morgan Chase?

Banks don't like to give money back to shareholders, they keep it for the bankers. Why would you buy bank shares?

None of Apple's $1 trillion in cash benefits shareholders.

What are you even trying to say?

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#559

Post by mrguyorama »

lelandfe wrote: post #132
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the failure of the crypto community over the past 14 years to develop a use for crypto beyond speculation and crime.

A friend of mine that works with crypto gaming companies frequently expresses frustration that every game they see is gambling, slightly disguised gambling, or terrible.

Seeing as the only value cryptocurrency can bring to your game is law evasion, that's expected.

Re: Proposed SEC order to freeze, repatriate Binance.US assets

#560

Post by Our_Benefactors »

hbbio wrote: post #513
csomar wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people overestimate the influence of the US. Maybe because the US has quite an influence over Japan and Europe. You need to realize the US is not the world and the world doesn’t care what the US institutions think or do.

That should be the top comment! The US is not (anymore?) the center of the world attention. In a way, it's just that more countries "open their eyes" on the impact the US has on many countries. For instance, the US is an "ally" of France, but does a lot of damage to the French economy, on purpose.

> For instance, the US is an "ally" of France, but does a lot of damage to the French economy, on purpose.

Please provide examples for more self-directed research?

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