Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

cointelegraph.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 221 posts

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#91

Post by ben_w »

nathias wrote: post #75
throwaaskjdfh wrote: post #46

Supporters of Bitcoin should be in favor of making it illegal in as many jurisdictions as possible. It's the only way to be sure it's as resistant to government power as it claims to be.

Yea its really great to be prosecuted for no reason except the whims of the powerful, we should really all be in favor of making everything illegal by default.

While I agree with the sarcastically made point that the whims of the powerful are not by themselves good enough reason to outlaw things, one of the more frustrating arguments made in favour of Bitcoin is that it can free us from government control.

I say that claim is not true, and recon bitcoin is all hat and no cattle in this regard.

I also reckon that when the government is sufficiently democratic (i.e. not just the whims of the powerful), undermining it is a bad thing, which is the only reason I don’t want to say “time for Bitcoin to prove us wrong”.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#92

Post by aww_dang »

bart_spoon wrote: post #86
aww_dang wrote: post #21

Interesting how this narrative is forming. Politicians and bureaucrats around the globe are saying the same things in unison. BTC is framed as destructive or dangerous and CBDC is their solution. The same conclusion was arrived at in a recent Senate hearing chaired by Elizabeth Warren. Three out of four of her panelists had connections to the World Economic Forum. The fourth had connections to the US central bank. ht…

It never ceases to amuse how one group of people can see the worlds politicians, policy experts, and activists start to converge on an idea, and rather than assuming that the idea they are converging around is sound, they instead assume its due to a secretive cabal looking to further oppress the common man. Assume for a moment that BTC actually was destructive and dangerous. What would you expect the response to be f…

Continue to promote a cashless society, ID2020 and social credit scores.

https://decrypt.co/25190/the-world-is-accelerating-towards-d...

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#93

Post by [deleted] »

throwaaskjdfh wrote: post #83
nathias wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea its really great to be prosecuted for no reason except the whims of the powerful, we should really all be in favor of making everything illegal by default.

No, being prosecuted at the whim of the powerful is horrible, but Bitcoin claims to be a kind of technological "escape hatch" from this kind of abuse. The sooner we find out that it isn't an escape hatch, the better. We can then return to social and political hard work of curbing the powerful, instead of pretending we can just take our cryptocurrencies and escape.

[deleted]

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#94

Post by ganzuul »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #59
neals wrote: post #10

This is the 'Centraal Plan Bureau'. If you open up the front door, you're met with a cloud of dust. The parkinglot is filled with oldtimers and the interior is very 'that 70's show'.

I don't think young people are using bitcoin for any reason other than to get rich quick. The young these days are highly conformant and compliant - got jabs? It's gen x and older who are thoughtfully rebellious.

You think boomers are thoughtfully rebellious? The generation that presided over the entire planet getting polluted with plastic?

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#95

Post by tachyonbeam »

zadler wrote: post #74
wyldfire wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can bar merchants from accepting the currency. This means that it's only useful in the black market.

Not a lot of stuff is bought directly with gold either. Itd’d be more like banning gold, except harder to enforce.

The original promise of bitcoin was that it would actually be useful as a currency, for buying stuff. Now that this hasn't panned out, and the problems preventing BTC from being used as a currency fail to be addressed, advocates have shifted the narrative to "bitcoin is digital gold".

IMO, if the Netherlands bans bitcoin, they will also ban other similar cryptos that could actually be used as currencies. That negatively impacts the crypto markets for sure. It's not just about bitcoin.

Would such a ban be hard to enforce? Sure, but not everyone feels comfortable doing things that could land them huge fines or even jail time. I certainly don't.

Gold is used as a store of value because it's been universally recognized as valuable for thousands of years, in almost every culture. Would you really trust your life savings to bitcoin if we're in a climate where more and more countries are banning it? That would make redeeming your digital gold increasingly more illegal and difficult. Crypto bans definitely erode the "digital gold" proposition as well IMO.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#96

Post by IkmoIkmo »

wardb wrote: post #25
neals wrote: post #10

This is the 'Centraal Plan Bureau'. If you open up the front door, you're met with a cloud of dust. The parkinglot is filled with oldtimers and the interior is very 'that 70's show'.

This description is too funny :) It does have a high amount of old man screaming at the cloud. You can have a lot of valid critical views of cryptocurrency (environmental impact / gambling aspect ), but this his view is very unhelpful Does CPB actually has anything to say here? I was expecting "De Nederlandse Bank" to be the organisation to set the rules here.

> but this his view is very unhelpful

Did you read it? If so, why do you take this opinion?

> Does CPB actually has anything to say here?

The CPB does analysis to inform public policy making, they're not a legislative body. Neither is the DNB for that matter, the Ministry of Finance would make these laws.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#97

Post by Growling_owl »

Nobody, not even Biden has the political goodwill to make Bitcoin illegal and enrage so many constituents (aka lost votes)

The only ones who maybe can do it are Xi and Putin, and the latter seems more pro than against because everything which goes against the dollar is Putin's friend.

Xi is also on and off again with Bitcoin but every day which goes by in which he is not decisive is a day in favor of Bitcoin.

You are left with the Warren, Sanders, Corbyn types as well as this Dutch guy who have only one style of messaging: modern day Robinhoods (or Pocahontas) trying to take money away from people who work and make sacrifices to get ahead in life and redistribute it to themselves

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#98

Post by Scarblac »

dexen wrote: post #71
axlee wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me the carbon footprint and transaction costs of Bitcoin again, and compare that to the costs from institutional payment gateways?

>the carbon footprint of Bitcoin Still less than the carbon footprint of the people running our current fiat-based financial infrastructure. It's the bankers who have jets, mansions and yachts, not the bitcoiners. Edit to clarify: Not that riches is somehow "wrong" - it's just that with major value comes major costs, which in practice mean major energy usage .

Bitcoin uses far more energy than the jets, mansion and yachts of bankers.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#99

Post by vanviegen »

kokx wrote: post #27

Part of his (reported) reasoning is really strange: because Bitcoin is doomed to crash, we have to take action, so the Netherlands should ban it. Causing it to crash earlier rather than later. He also says that he isn't afraid that banning Bitcoin will fail, because a ban would lead to a crash.

No, what it actually recommends is banning Bitcoin in the Netherlands before it crashes, forcing Dutch 'investors' to exit before the Ponzi scheme collapses.

Re: Dutch official calls for complete ban on Bitcoin

#100

Post by mumblemumble »

nathias wrote: post #75
throwaaskjdfh wrote: post #46

Supporters of Bitcoin should be in favor of making it illegal in as many jurisdictions as possible. It's the only way to be sure it's as resistant to government power as it claims to be.

Yea its really great to be prosecuted for no reason except the whims of the powerful, we should really all be in favor of making everything illegal by default.

It at least lets one retain the moral high ground. By contrast, in El Salvador it's going to become illegal to not use Bitcoin.

I see some outright hypocrisy in that move being cheered by more libertarian-minded folks. If Bitcoin's supposed to be about not being forced to do things by government, then wouldn't governments forcing people to use Bitcoin be just about the worst possible thing that can happen to it? This would be like if Frodo decided to start wearing the ring and using it to try and take over the world, kind of thing.

Post reply on HN