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China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

dailybusinessgroup.co.uk

641–650 of 699 posts

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#641
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk exactly like an MLM salesperson. Do you have a seminar I can register for? ... But seriously, people will speculate on things and bubbles will happen in all assets, some are more resilient than others. While the future is never easy to know, your predictions can be dismissed out of hand because we definitely have some 'hard parameters' we have to deal with. BTC is definitely an outlet for illegal activity an…

Why resort to personal attacks? You can dismiss my predictions all you want, they're still predictions. Maybe instead of just dismissing them, state your own.

Because arguments such as "You will regret on your deathbed not going BTC when it could go to $1M" is not an argument, it's something worse than ad hominem - it's snake oil / infomercial marketing masquerading as reason. At least ad hominem is honest.

Consider the inanity of BTC trading at $1M, something so utterly volatile couldn't feasibly be used as a currency, for much the same reason we cannot use it now, it's deflationary: nobody wants to spend it, they want to hold it and believe in magic. That's the last thing you want in a currency, it means circulation dries up.

BTC has already killed itself as a currency for reasons obvious before it's inception.

Chiming in on boards with 'to the moon' / 'don't lose out' / 'you too could be a millionaire' rhetoric is not helping.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The building is positive sum like any other investment. Nothing prevents you from building more. Land is zero sum for obvious reasons.

I'm not talking about zero sum to society. I mean to investors. Land isn't zero sum because you can rent it out.

By that definition you can lend your crypto as well making it positive sum.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#643
post #451
post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP comment falsely implies that PoW is the only kind of cryptocurrency (and, well, the obnoxious and anti-intellectual tone). There are many reasons to dislike crypto in general, but "it destroys the environment" only applies to PoW-based systems and not crypto in general. Also, you should read the guidelines: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.…

What percentage of cryptocurrencies usage is not PoW? What are the negative environmental impacts of the other approaches? Being better than PoW doesn’t necessarily mean they stopped being wasteful. I rephrased that first sentence to remove the reference to HN voting. I was simply remarking how the tone will cause people to object to it quicker regardless of the merit of the underlying thought.

Bitcoin is obviously the top. But Ethereum and Cardano are 2nd/3rd and ETH is moving to PoS while ATA already is. Tether is 3rd and is a stablecoin, so it is PoS or PoW depending on the backing contract.

So quite a bit actually. We are talking hundreds of billions in market cap at least.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#644

Wow, imagine living in a country where the legal financial assets you own can be turned criminal where accessing them is punished with hard labor. Sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

>"Sounds like a dystopian nightmare"

You mean something like old Reserve Act of 1934 in the US?

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#645
post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not going to be dragged into a debate about if/when the collapse will happen. But if it does, your claim bitcoin is a pyramid will look silly, since it will be one of several assets that will be rushed into as a safe haven from inflationary forces. If you want to take the position such a collapse would cause a flight from crypto assets, be my guest.

In the mad max future you describe the only currency will be guns and ammo. Crypto requires a functional power grid and internet.

False - there are plenty of scenarios where you have a power grid and ability to reach the Internet and still need to transact illegally to survive.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#646
post #365

How much BTC is likely to be held in accounts that can no longer legally trade?

AFAIK there aren't any exchanges in mainland china, so everyone there has their crypto in offshore accounts that aren't subject to such regulations.

Pretty sure it's still illegal for Chinese citizens to use them.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re either intentionally avoiding the point or you’ve missed it yet again so I’m going to side step and say this: the amount of army won’t change regardless of which currency is used. There’s no path to reducing the size by changing the currency. It’s a separate, unrelated social policy decision. Either way I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith so I’m gonna cut this off here. Have a great evening!

Of course! If the US Army switched to massively inflating Venezuelan Bolivars for use and its share of tax collection, it would have no impact whatsoever on the army or its size! Clearly the one arguing in good faith is the person leading off calling all crypto a ponzi scheme because of several myths you misunderstand. Or given your financial literacy, probably intentional disingenuous portrayal.

You’ve not provided a single citation haha.

I understand perfectly well which is why I’ve made the points. Your retorts are argumentative for the sake of argument, and you’re not actually making any sort of case that would address my overarching narrative.

Even if I conceded all of your points, which I don’t, my position would remain totally in tact.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#648
post #597
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy Yes, that is true... > which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy ...no, he would have used the generated electricity for something more useful, NOT make it so that it isn't generated in the first place.

So he is turning down real investment in renewables in the hopes that other more agreeable investment materializes out of thin air.. meanwhile his plan crashes the price of renewable energy endangering those industries and shrinking the market.. allowing established fossil fuel industries a bigger share. genius.

> So he is turning down real investment in renewables

No, he's not.

> meanwhile his plan crashes the price of renewable energy endangering those industries and shrinking the market.. allowing established fossil fuel industries a bigger share

It seems that you have completely missed the past four decades of renewable energy decreasing in price by a factor of 100x. The result of this decrease was not "endangering those industries", but rather making them viable in the first place and broadening the market massively. As per Jevons, the energy market doesn't shrink when prices get lower.

I'm puzzled as to how someone could make such a glaringly obvious mistake.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#649
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current inflation is due to the government “creating money” for the COVID-19 stimulus, the fact that governments can even do that is what’s so good about fiat currency. Bailouts are another benefit. Governments can at will dull or even prevent financial contagion thus preventing another Great Depression. All this has a cost in the form of inflation until the money is reabsorbed of course but it’s better than economic…

Those bailouts incentivize extremely bad behaviour that leads to future crashes

What’s the alternative? Great Depression 2.0?

It’s not like the banks didn’t suffer during 2008. That bailout money was mostly returned with interest. All the government did was extend a lifeline.

Re: China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

#650
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current inflation is due to the government “creating money” for the COVID-19 stimulus, the fact that governments can even do that is what’s so good about fiat currency. Bailouts are another benefit. Governments can at will dull or even prevent financial contagion thus preventing another Great Depression. All this has a cost in the form of inflation until the money is reabsorbed of course but it’s better than economic…

All fair. But there is no free lunch. The burden of the proof always lies with the person or the entity trying to sell something. The government failed to sell QE and bailouts to the population, the government further failed to sell inflation target at 2% to the population. Had government not failed in selling these concepts we'd not have bitcoin. Government as always can't sell. Otherwise it won't be government.

It unfortunately that there is so much misinformation about things like the bailout. A lot of people think that the US government gave the banks free money when in fact it was just a loan of sorts that the banks had to pay back with interest.

In fact the the US government actually made money from the bailout.

> In total, U.S. government economic bailouts related to the global financial crisis had federal outflows (expenditures, loans, and investments) of $633.6 billion and inflows (funds returned to the Treasury as interest, dividends, fees, or stock warrant repurchases) of $754.8 billion, for a net profit of $121 billion.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program#...

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