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U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

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Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#91

Post by bombcar »

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

Even assuming that crypto currency does provide value and wins out in the end - why would it be any of the existing ones as opposed to a new one started by the right players?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#92

Post by pjc50 »

xibalba wrote: post #54
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #16

> safeguarding the integrity of the nation’s economy Without question crypto, now +2 trillion in market cap, is a systemic risk to the US economy, notwithstanding serious policy mistakes the Congress, Treasury & the Fed have made since QE1. I'm hoping USSS and other entities cleans house. USDT fully diluted market cap is about equal to that of PNC Bank, America's 7th largest bank. If PNC Bank's reserves and market ac…

How is crypto a systemic risk? From my recollection of the 2008/09 financial crisis, systemic risks were those in which entities were deeply intertwined with one another on a massive scale, such that there failure would potentially bring down the entire system of finance. We're talking: retail banking (payments, savings, lending), commercial banking (idk?), public debt markets (bigco and gov funding), but most especi…

If the Tether people are to be believed, there is $80bn of "cash" that's held "somewhere" (neither investors nor investigators are clear where). That may turn out to evaporate. Allegedly it has come from "institutional investors" (which ones?)

On the other hand, it's still not up to the size of Lehman ($600bn!). It's heading there.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#93

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

l-lousy wrote: post #81
johndevor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear about fiat currencies.

I think that’s the argument, why move to a whole new currency if it’s more of the same problems with fewer safeguards for the non technical and no way to get lost items back?

Why would the poor have wanted to switch to the Internet?

After all, it required expensive custom hardware, and know-how.

What changed?

Have you considered it's just really early days?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#94

Post by sharperguy »

gzer0 wrote: post #9
DethNinja wrote: post #8

They should mention this in their website: Cryptocurrencies are harmful to the banking system and may weaken the state apparatus. Hence, citizens shouldn’t buy them.

And equally so, they should mention that scammers around the world took home a record $14 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021, thanks in large part to the rise of DeFi [1]. This is a public information campaign; the sole purpose is to provide public awareness information on digital asset security and how to ensure it remains secure. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/crypto-scammers-took-a-recor...

Most ICOs, NFTs and smart contracts are just more complicated versions of regular securities, that evade regulation simply by taking advantage of the time lag that authorities have in terms of understanding them and enforcing existing regulation.

If you look under the hood, each supposedly decentralized, non-custodial service tends to have a centralized component coordinating or in some way controlling the entire thing. For example, a platform that pegs the value of an asset on the Ethereum blockchain to the US dollar, could depend on a single server to inject information about the price of the US dollar in terms of Ethereum or smart contract tokens.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#95

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #59
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

>What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? You mean the kind that pay dividends?

You mean payments/yield from staking?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#96

Post by aqme28 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #78
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? Most other assets represent ownership of... something. A company, a commodity, property. Cryptocurrency is closest to either a fiat currency without the government backing that typically tries to stabilize those. Or to more exotic and abstract financia…

> Basically what's missing is the ability to even guess at the "true" value of cryptocurrency. There's no P/E ratios to consider because the only thing Crypto "produces" is Crypto transactions. It's also impossible to even guess at a floor or ceiling for the price of a cryptocurrency. The only thing that determines their price is human sentiment - a very fickle input.

Interestingly, this isn't really true anymore. Most of the newer defi currencies represent a portion of ownership in some protocol that is actually returning profits.

E.g. Maker is a lending platform for DAI. You can borrow DAI by depositing other currencies as collateral. The interest you pay to borrow is then converted by Maker into a sort of "stock buyback" against its Maker token.

The Maker token has a P/E ratio, as do many other coins. https://www.tokenterminal.com/

To your point though, the P/E ratio for most of these is denominated in other cryptocurrencies, not in USD.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#97

Post by throwthere »

mlac wrote: post #79
mantenpanther wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is anchored in physics and math. And used by millions without western privileges.

Highway infrastructure is also anchored in physics and math. It doesn’t mean we should treat highways like a currency that should be purchased and traded. Starting a business is open for millions “without western privileges” - and stock is owning a business. Starting a profitable business that adds value (people are willing to pay you for a service) is a lot more useful to society than spinning up another coin that d…

> Highway infrastructure is also anchored in physics and math. It doesn’t mean we should treat highways like a currency that should be purchased and traded.

Clearly, the world needs highway-based NFTs. Knowing that their ephemeral infrastructure is represented on the blockchain, something that is permanent, will lead to engineers building safer bridges. It will encourage the development of new fields of engineering, perhaps subfields related to structures and others related to materials.

Contrast that to the stock market, where companies sell ownership shares in their businesses tracked in ledgers maintained by western corporations. And some of the underlying businesses have no plans to ever to distribute cash to their stock owners-- look at Berkshire Hathaway! Look at Google! People buy and sell those shares only because the next person will buy them for more. It's a classic speculative investment, not like crypto which is backed by the full faith and power of NVIDIA.

/s. Or is it?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#98

Post by bluGill »

concinds wrote: post #77
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

Most of the anti-crypto critiques in Silicon Valley bring up these exact arguments: it's speculative, and it enables scams. At its root, it's a hatred of the "get rich quick" aspects of crypto. It evokes the same contempt that old-wealth (people with butlers) have for new-wealth (people with Lamborghinis): that they're childish, didn't earn their privileges, and need to be reined in. It's class signalling. Thankfully…

The government can criminalize crypto. Investigation wouldn't be easy, but the FBI and other equivalents (depending on your country) are very good at investigating hard to solve crimes, and if given the budget can track you down in various ways. (tax fraud is often a big one - even if they can't prove you are in crypto they can prove you didn't pay tax on something)

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#99

Post by unstatusthequo »

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

Agree with you on all of that. The general HN sentiment towards cryptocurrency is so acutely negative. I generally don’t even bother clicking links related to it because of this issue. Its just asking for whiny diatribes about how crypto sucks and will ruin everything. It’s ironic to me how freedom loving HN can be, until it is finance related and threatening governments and banks but empowering the masses. Seems bizarre to me.

I’ll exit before the “uses too much energy” dissertations enter. I bet your stacks of bare metal severs and electric cars and hairdryers and ovens and water furnaces and electric heaters and gaming machines and four monitor dev setups are super green. Could crypto be better at using less energy? Probably. Could those other things? Yep. Is progress on efficiency being made? Well, yes, at least crypto is trying to do so with PoS etc. can’t say the same for your heavy old appliances.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#100

Post by pjc50 »

concinds wrote: post #77
nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

Most of the anti-crypto critiques in Silicon Valley bring up these exact arguments: it's speculative, and it enables scams. At its root, it's a hatred of the "get rich quick" aspects of crypto. It evokes the same contempt that old-wealth (people with butlers) have for new-wealth (people with Lamborghinis): that they're childish, didn't earn their privileges, and need to be reined in. It's class signalling. Thankfully…

> But no amount of public outcry can ban, shut down or criminalize crypto, same as you can't ban IMAP or AES.

This is a terrible example as the US government really did ban DES for a while - at least for "export", which includes publishing on the internet.

People who say "the government can't ban X" are really badly underestimating how far governments are willing to go if you really do start disrupting the state.

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