71–80 of 228 posts
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That regulation didn't work so well 10 years ago. Regulation is for us, not the big dogs.
It worked fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
It's one of the reasons Bitcoin was created, per the first transaction in the blockchain.
Some context from a non-expert. From what I understand, things like spoofing in financial markets (where you submit orders which you don't plan to have filled for the purpose that the market sees "interest" in a certain direction and in hope that moves the market), are regulated but still a grey area. The reason for this is that it's an activity that involves intent. Placing certain orders is perfectly ok if you're h…
Yes, it seems like intent is important, but in some cases (e.g. the BATS rule), no intent is needed. There are statistical properties that indicate intent, but it seems like most of the criminal cases involve finding an email or text message like "I found a bot" or someone telling an engineer to build a system with a manipulative intent.
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This austrian-style economic thinking about market cycles lines up with bitcoin ideology but is far from being accepted in mainstream economcs. It is flimsy pseudoscience.
Appeals to authority are generally not great, but this is made even more bizarre given that our current economic systems seem to be teetering on a precipice. Think about how truly desperate we are when we need to resort to quantitative easing, zero interest rates, and even flirting with negative interest rates - just to desperately try to maintain the status quo. This doesn't mean any alternative is better, but rathe…
This going to be interesting. They will ask all the US based exchanges - Coinbase, Circle etc for their trade and order data for analysis. Coinbase has already fought and lost a case when it came to sharing the data for tax purposes. And one of the touted features of cryptocurrency has always been anonymity.
Bitcoin is traceable by nature. Anyone who makes claims of anonymity either doesn't understand how it works or has a system in place that provides uncertainty (ie tumbling).
>"The Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into whether traders are manipulating the price of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, dramatically ratcheting up U.S. scrutiny of red-hot markets that critics say are rife with misconduct, according to four people familiar with the matter. [...] Federal prosecutors are working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a financial regulator that oversees der…
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You can create Tether out of thin air and use it to move the market in a favourable direction.
But assuming Tether was legitimate, wouldn't they also need to create new Tether units during extreme market crashes because that's when the highest demand for Tether would be, so they'd run out of the existing Tether? They wouldn't need to create new Tether during bull runs, because nobody cares about putting their money into Tether then.
The reason being, assuming tether is legitimate, for every printing they are sourcing additional USD to back the newly minted USDT. The idea they could so consistently find large investors willing to make NEW 100M+ investments while the crypto markets were in free fall is unlikely to say the least.
And it's not as if that's the only complaints about Tether. The fact Bitfinex and Tether has the same management; USDT pretty much acts as a proxy for Bitfinex to maneuver around banking laws; and that USDT supply pretty much grows monotonically are just a few of the other issues that suggest Tether is not legit.
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They mint Tether during market crashes because that's when there is the highest volume on USDT pairs, and when Tether needs to create tokens to maintain the exchange rate around $1. Have you read their whitepaper? Further, there is more proof that Tether has the funding to back up the USDT than proof that Tether does not have the funds: https://blog.bitmex.com/tether/ https://blog.bitmex.com/tether-addendum-new-finan…
Well, right on tether.to they say, and I quote: > Our reserve holdings are published daily and subject to frequent professional audits. All tethers in circulation always match our reserves. They've been around for years and the grand total of independents audits is 0 (zero). Sure, assumptions don't make rumors true but them flat-out lying about audits and transparency speaks louder than anything else and we're not ev…
>"The Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into whether traders are manipulating the price of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, dramatically ratcheting up U.S. scrutiny of red-hot markets that critics say are rife with misconduct, according to four people familiar with the matter. [...] Federal prosecutors are working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a financial regulator that oversees der…
Because they're leaking. "Four people" is how a media organization says "it's not just one whackjob making shit up".
> I didn't see anything on the DOJ site.
Why would you? They don't appear to have publicly announced anything yet.
> Is it normal for the DOJ to anonymously report its activities to journalists like this?
It's normal for people at the DOJ to do so, yes. Some leaks are done on a semi-official basis (https://boingboing.net/2017/02/22/the-leaky-leviathan.html), others are just individuals doing it on their own.
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Good luck using bitcoin in a way where you can't connect the BTC address to a real person after a small number of transactions. Anonymizing data is very hard, pseudonyms are almost never anonymous.
I know people who have exchanged bitcoins and cash anonymously on the street. Sounds pretty risky to me and I certainly don’t think it’s feasible for large volumes of either currency, but it’s possible and has happened, at least.
If I were a narcotics undercover agent, I'd be working to become The Guy locally to trade Bitcoins with in this manner.
Have a partner snap a photo or follow them home to compile a list of people transacting like this.
Chances are good this is already happening in some cities.
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Bitcoin is traceable by nature. Anyone who makes claims of anonymity either doesn't understand how it works or has a system in place that provides uncertainty (ie tumbling).
Traceable yes, but also anonymous since a BTC address is just a number without any personally identifiable information attached to it. It's at the edges - e.g. exchanges - where it becomes traceable.
And if your id is leaked in one transaction, it links your id to all other transactions done with that wallet.