Please take a look at my other reply. Yes- it’s loaded with scams and thieves, but there are good parts of it too. I see it as less karmically damaging than going to Vegas.
Please take a look at my other reply. Yes- it’s loaded with scams and thieves, but there are good parts of it too. I see it as less karmically damaging than going to Vegas.
Yeah, no. This somehow implies anything that "hurts" traditional banking has "good parts". That's not nearly sufficient for crypto to be "good", and ignores the fact that many of the worst,...
Yeah, no. This somehow implies anything that "hurts" traditional banking has "good parts". That's not nearly sufficient for crypto to be "good", and ignores the fact that many of the worst, predatory elements of more traditional finance, from banks to hedge funds to fascist billionaires, are neck deep in crypto.
Cryptocurrency has been a solution in search of a problem for more than a decade. It's not, and is incapable of becoming, a consumer-level payment system. It's not going to be Visa; it's not going to be ACH. It does produce highly volatile speculative assets that can be transferred, with extreme inefficiency. And the main non-speculative use case for that is by people who don't want to or can't use actual banks: criminals, terrorists, hackers, child pornographers. None of that is hyperbole, just literal facts on the ground.
Disagree. <1s <1cent transactions are coming. And if ACH is your definition of a “good” consumer-level payment system, then you really should take a look at blockchain. Even transferring money...
It's not, and is incapable of becoming, a consumer-level payment system. It's not going to be Visa; it's not going to be ACH.
Disagree. <1s <1cent transactions are coming. And if ACH is your definition of a “good” consumer-level payment system, then you really should take a look at blockchain.
Even transferring money from myself to a friend in the USA (for instance, to pay for an airbnb on vacation) is a difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and data-heavy process. Instead I just sent them some ETH and I was done in literal seconds.
This is what I point people to when they say "the true value of crypto is zero" – the true value of crypto is non zero because criminals love it (and are possibly the only people who aren't using...
This is what I point people to when they say "the true value of crypto is zero" – the true value of crypto is non zero because criminals love it (and are possibly the only people who aren't using it as a speculative investment). This means it's not enough to just wait and hope it dies out, regulators actively need to engage to ban it.
I am not so sure that would be ideal without a workable alternative. I increasingly dislike state preventing me from getting my meds by making me go through supposedly educated middlemen who are...
I am not so sure that would be ideal without a workable alternative. I increasingly dislike state preventing me from getting my meds by making me go through supposedly educated middlemen who are able to say stuff like "ADHD is basically not enough oxygen in one's brain". I would very much prefer to be able to turn to the black market if the state fails to cater to my medical needs.
And although I am not currently using any mind altering substances, I do not enjoy being criminalized when I decide to obtain and use them. By using e.g. psychedelics, there is no victim. Only a happier person.
There are victims though – if you overdose on LSD [edit: bad example, probably more likely fentanyl] that creates a major burden on your relatives and (if you live in a grown-up country with...
There are victims though – if you overdose on LSD [edit: bad example, probably more likely fentanyl] that creates a major burden on your relatives and (if you live in a grown-up country with single-payer healthcare) the healthcare system, depriving others of finite resources that you would otherwise not be consuming.
I don't really think "let's allow everyone to carry out financial crime as they please" is a good solution to "the medical profession has a long way to go in treating psychological/psychiatric conditions".
you can't overdose on LSD in any meaningful way, and, if you take too much and panic, you can be given antipsychotic and/or benzodiazepine and you're fine. compare this to alcohol where you can...
you can't overdose on LSD in any meaningful way, and, if you take too much and panic, you can be given antipsychotic and/or benzodiazepine and you're fine. compare this to alcohol where you can
die if you overdose
become both easily addicted and physically dependent to the point of seizing if you don't have a drink
irreparably damage your body each time you sip it.
the criminalization of drugs, especially "safe" drugs like cannabis and psychedelics does nothing but create harms. look at the current fentanyl crisis. because heroin is not able to be purchased legally, people instead turn to street "heroin" mixed with cuts, xylazine and novel fentalogues which are both more physically harmful and an order of magnitude easier to overdose on. and cheaper. capitalism breeds innovation--- fentanyl is made in truly industrial quantities with hard-to-control precursors by cartels for pennies on the dollar. oh, also, there are even more potent analogues, ranging from 10-100x. potent enough a single flatbed truck could transport enough opioids to supply the entire US for a year. banning the sale does nothing to curtail the availability, creates perverse incentives that prioritize profit over the safety of the user, and creates legal burdens for the users themselves that can make living a normal life after they age out of their addiction impossible.
Let's talk about that after we ban alcohol, sugar and gambling. So far I believe that the majority is consistently voting for "having a little fun in one's life is fine, we are not the Borg". And...
Let's talk about that after we ban alcohol, sugar and gambling. So far I believe that the majority is consistently voting for "having a little fun in one's life is fine, we are not the Borg".
And I would rather have crypto facilitating the black market than having no access to black market at all. At least as long as I feel that I might need one at some point.
I think you're only focussing on "I can buy stuff I like on the black market" and ignoring the "other people can buy guns on the black market and use them for terrorist attacks, as has happened in...
I think you're only focussing on "I can buy stuff I like on the black market" and ignoring the "other people can buy guns on the black market and use them for terrorist attacks, as has happened in several cases" as well as "crypto lets criminal gangs launder money" parts.
I largely agree, but with the caveat that there are unfortunate situations, often associated with failed states, where everyone needs to do illegal things just to get by. Sometimes black markets...
I largely agree, but with the caveat that there are unfortunate situations, often associated with failed states, where everyone needs to do illegal things just to get by. Sometimes black markets are the best thing going.
If the cell phone network is still working, sometimes electronic money is still viable. This doesn't have to be (and usually isn't) cryptocurrency, but it could be.
“The internet is used for child porn so regulators actively need to engage to ban it.” Instead of demonizing technology how about we go after the bad actors committing crimes?
“The internet is used for child porn so regulators actively need to engage to ban it.”
Instead of demonizing technology how about we go after the bad actors committing crimes?
This is like "guns don't kill people, people kill people, so we shouldn't ban guns". Like guns, and unlikely the internet, cryptocurrency really doesn't have any uses beyond speculation and money...
This is like "guns don't kill people, people kill people, so we shouldn't ban guns". Like guns, and unlikely the internet, cryptocurrency really doesn't have any uses beyond speculation and money laundering.
The internet was once seen this way as well - a silly technology for nerds with no social skills. So what if you can buy things online? Ever heard of a department store? So what if you can see the...
The internet was once seen this way as well - a silly technology for nerds with no social skills. So what if you can buy things online? Ever heard of a department store? So what if you can see the weather online? Ever heard of a newspaper?
There are lots of use cases that exist, RIGHT NOW, but are dismissed offhand by people who don’t understand. That’s totally ok - blockchain IS filled with scams and criminals at the moment. But it’s also filled with tech idealists looking to create a better future. Banning it isn’t going to make the world better.
The internet has always had adopters who aren't criminals, who use it for legitimate things. The same is not true for crypto – 15 years after Bitcoin was first released the primary users remain...
The internet has always had adopters who aren't criminals, who use it for legitimate things. The same is not true for crypto – 15 years after Bitcoin was first released the primary users remain speculators and criminals.
I’m skeptical on this. IMO there are huge incentives to demonize crypto. Two big ones being: First is transparency: the nature of blockchain makes not only crimes, but all of the massive and...
I’m skeptical on this. IMO there are huge incentives to demonize crypto. Two big ones being:
First is transparency: the nature of blockchain makes not only crimes, but all of the massive and frequent financial transactions visible to anybody looking at the blockchain.
Money laundering has been happening anyway, (watch The HSBC episode of Netflix’s Dirty Money) but now because it’s done on blockchain people are talking about it, so now it has to get addressed because it’s visible. It’s easier to blame crypto for it, even though crypto in fact offers many tools to actually address money laundering.
I follow a Twitter account called Unusual Whales (yes, I dabble a bit). To regularly see hundreds of millions of dollars moved on and off exchanges and wallets is eye opening in a way that I think is threatening to traditional finance (“trad-fi” as the kids call it).
And this gets us to #2 - crypto is an enormous threat to banking. There are all sorts of different shenanigans the US Fed and big players have been pulling in attempts to vilify crypto, but if you listen to some of the less obnoxious and more reasoned crypto people, they make a very good case for why the trad-fi institutions are the corrupt bad actors.
…and just as a closer I’d offer that one of the favorite things I’ve learned how to do since beginning to look into the trading & crypto world is to “copy trade” on our elected officials. These guys have created a cottage industry of broadcasting the trading habits of sitting congresspeople (and sometimes their spouses) to great profit for many and humiliation for congress… and I love that. Thank you Nancy Pelosi.
Edit: I’m no crypto ideologue despite all that I just said. At the bottom line I still fail to see how this is much more than a (new) way to conduct financial transactions while providing a publicly viewable ledger that does essentially the same thing that escrow does.
But I’ve grifted into about $100 trading it, so I think it’s kinda neat.
I think this is kind of wrong: There are lots of blockchains (e.g. ZCash, Monero) which allow for anonymous transactions, basically a money launderer's dreams. Even on non-anonymous blockchains...
I think this is kind of wrong:
First is transparency: the nature of blockchain makes not only crimes, but all of the massive and frequent financial transactions visible to anybody looking at the blockchain.
There are lots of blockchains (e.g. ZCash, Monero) which allow for anonymous transactions, basically a money launderer's dreams. Even on non-anonymous blockchains such as Bitcoin there are Bitcoin mixers and other similar tools set up to faciliate money laundering.
And this gets us to #2 - crypto is an enormous threat to banking. There are all sorts of different shenanigans the US Fed and big players have been pulling in attempts to vilify crypto, but if you listen to some of the less obnoxious and more reasoned crypto people, they make a very good case for why the trad-fi institutions are the corrupt bad actors.
I mean it's very easy to stand up and point at the flaws of others. For example Bitcoin advocates criticise "fiat" currency for having too much inflation, being generally unstable/unreliable, and yet Bitcoin has an inflation rate with triple-digit swings in mere days and something like 20-30% of all Bitcoin are lost (because people have forgotten their wallet keys) which creates massive inflationary pressure.
Sure the current financial system isn't great, but Bitcoin doesn't really solve any of the problems. I fail to see how Bitcoin can stop Nancy Pelosi allegedly using insider information to trade stock prices. I think it also opens us up to a whole new series of scams, e.g. rug-pulls, inability to reverse transactions (by going to court and forcing a bank to do this), etc.
At the bottom line I still fail to see how this is much more than a (new) way to conduct financial transactions while providing a publicly viewable ledger that does essentially the same thing that escrow does.
How does a publicly viewable ledger do the same thing that escrow does? Do you mean smart contracts, because I think those have incredibly severe and unworkable restrictions that will be obvious to anyone who has ever tried to execute a real contract – when things go wrong it's nice to have a judge who expects everyone to act in good faith and not blatantly rip off the other party, rather than being at the mercy of a small programming error in the contract.
Re: Transparency - I don’t pretend to be an expert, and yes there are mixers and anonymizing currencies and it’s all still a very much developing thing- but bottom line is you can’t really dispute...
Re: Transparency - I don’t pretend to be an expert, and yes there are mixers and anonymizing currencies and it’s all still a very much developing thing- but bottom line is you can’t really dispute that the 1-2 combination of having viewable blockchains and wallet addresses AND having these new mechanisms being developed by communities of developers with all the competition and public airing of laundry and furthering open source standards across the globe and even scams and thieves is better than “trad-fi” where there was little to no innovation, ever increasing nickel-and-diming service fees, and .01% interest on your savings.
Yes, it’s noisy, messy, people get scammed, etc etc… but indisputably there has been progressive movement in the oldest, slowest, most financially repressing industry as a direct result of crypto. The banking cartels have to compete with something for the first time ever. I think that’s a win long-term for everyone.
Re: escrow - yes, I was referring to smart contracts. They’re not there yet, and I don’t ever see something like ICP actually becoming a thing, but there are use cases. Big ones. I do think once all the noise dies down quietly and bit by bit parts of industry supply chains will begin adopting them. It makes too much sense not to.
Again, I’m on phone, so I can’t see the other holes you were poking in my little crypto soapbox, and can’t remember what they were, so I’ll post this for now and maybe add an edit later.
Yes, crypto has lots of issues, but it’s advancing a front that was utterly stalled out.
Edit:
Re: inflation- yeah, I think that’s a thing the bitcoin maxis think is gonna happen, but I remain skeptical. The idea is that if the global economy changes over to using Bitcoin as the world’s ‘base currency’ instead of the dollar, it would be more stable because there is a built-in limit (computing power) to generating currency. Unlike the Fed which could potentially devalue the dollar by over printing. None of that’s even remotely on the near horizon, and lots of steps between here and there, and I’m no macroeconomic wizard… so I have no idea. But I also think it’s premature to call it either way too.
As for the “crypto doesn’t solve any problems” I have two points to make- 1. There is now a way to send money electronically that doesn’t involve any third party. That’s not a small thing. And #2 “Yet.” It doesn’t solve many problems yet, but it is an industry that’s trying to at the very least address problems that otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t be addressed - like identity verification.
monero is the only cryptocurrency that actually has any utility. monero is private. truly private. without the need for any mixers. the IRS has as recently as two years ago put out a half-million...
monero is the only cryptocurrency that actually has any utility. monero is
private. truly private. without the need for any mixers. the IRS has as recently as two years ago put out a half-million dollar bounty for anyone who could break it after previous contracts in 2020 proved fruitless. ring signatures and disposable wallet addresses means that adding a single wallet hop between a KYC exchange and the wallet you ultimately deposit your coins in makes you (in theory) untraceable. in practice, for the paranoid, adding a couple more wallet hops is better to make absolutely certain no correlation could be done even with the most sophisticated of analyses. but this is no problem as monero is also
useable as a coin. few other coins have been as stable as monero over the years. part of this is monero is inherently inflationary, making using it as an investment tool a foolish endeavor. additionally, the way the reward system is set up means that the network is fast and with low fees (in the cents). the main criticism i would levy here is the space requirement for storing a copy of the ledger and the accompanying initial time-cost associated with downloading it.
if the world is to spend the equivalent of small countries to secure a blockchain, it better be a coin with utility---not a glorified gambling vehicle like bitcoin.
There are many kinds of banking, but I don't see cryptocurrency as being a threat to traditional banking, because it's about making loans based on real-world collateral. (For example, buildings.)...
There are many kinds of banking, but I don't see cryptocurrency as being a threat to traditional banking, because it's about making loans based on real-world collateral. (For example, buildings.) Cryptocurrency loans are not that; they are more like margin loans backed by securities, mostly useful to speculators.
they make a very good case for why the trad-fi institutions are the corrupt bad actors.
Arguments of this form are likely either a cope or a smokescreen. Why can't both be corrupt, at times? There's no criticism of traditional finance that makes cryptocurrency rug-pulls any better.
Again, I’m just a dabbler. Here are some resources: There’s a podcast literally called “Bankless”. A YouTube channel called Coin Bureau that has long explanations of how Governments have been...
Again, I’m just a dabbler. Here are some resources:
There’s a podcast literally called “Bankless”.
A YouTube channel called Coin Bureau that has long explanations of how Governments have been obstructionist to the crypto crowd (and very educational and critical of the bigger scammers and rug pulls)
And there’s another YouTuber called Crypto Wendy O that is big into explaining how the US/Fed/Banking industries have been acting in bad faith and/or outright attempting to undermine crypto’s legitimacy and legal standing without cause.
I’ve not listened to bankless, and the Coin Bureau guy sometimes goes a bit too “crypto maximalist” for my tastes, but Wendy seems like a pretty straight shooter near as I can tell, but she also has a more trading-focused channel
All of these resources know a lot more than me, so go argue your opinions with them. All I’m saying is that there are a lot of people doing interesting things in crypto. It’s overly simplistic and kind of unfair to say “buying into crypto is helping money launderers” when for 20+ years banking with HSBC was literally laundering money for the Sinaloa Cartel and China.
Thanks, but the only thing I use YouTube for is listening to music, and I'm sticking to that. Although I don't follow it much, I do actually think there are some people doing interesting things...
Thanks, but the only thing I use YouTube for is listening to music, and I'm sticking to that.
Although I don't follow it much, I do actually think there are some people doing interesting things with cryptocurrency. I like reading Vitalik Buterin's blog sometimes. I was impressed that Ethereum managed a pretty smooth transition to proof-of-stake. They seem to have other improvements in progress. Maybe other people are doing interesting things?
But it would be kind of an odd argument to say "HSBC happened, so regulators shouldn't oppose cryptocurrency." I haven't really followed the story, but HSBC got fined $1.9 billion dollars and there was a ten-year "enforcement action" that seems to have resulted in HSBC withdrawing from US retail banking.
I think that shows that yes, there was a lot of corruption, and US regulators were very unhappy about it? I expect they're against money-laundering whoever does it, and don't want to allow new and improved ways of doing money laundering to become more interconnected with the US economy.
Fair enough- and sorry about that phrasing “go argue…” that was overly harsh. I’m just very cynical about financial institutions - or the people in them - and think that all the attention crypto...
Fair enough- and sorry about that phrasing “go argue…” that was overly harsh.
I’m just very cynical about financial institutions - or the people in them - and think that all the attention crypto is bringing to the machinations of financial systems is a good thing. I have little faith that there was not already massive fortunes being made and moved around secretly- so forcing some sunlight on it via crypto hype will in the long run do more good than harm. Who knows how much dark money has been moving around for generations? At least now there is talk of it and some tech tools to work with to address it. Before we had zero information unless like a Panama Papers type thing happened.
It’s a discussion that’s annoying to have because on the one side you’ve mostly got crypto enthusiasts who refuse to see anything other than upsides and on the other side you have people so refuse...
It’s a discussion that’s annoying to have because on the one side you’ve mostly got crypto enthusiasts who refuse to see anything other than upsides and on the other side you have people so refuse to see nothing but downsides.
What’s annoying is neither really knows anything about the actual ecosystems they’re discussing or criticizing and tend to have an amateur at best understanding of economics and markets.
It’s a perfect storm of pointless discussion. There are some more grounded people who’ve weighed in (mostly negatively which isn’t surprising because there’s a ton of issues) but it’s annoying watching the same arguments go in the same circles that aren’t even related to the real issues or upsides
Sure. And I expect that. A good sign that crypto has little long term merit is that I’ve yet to find many serious long term and well educated investors. What I don’t get is why so many crypto...
Sure. And I expect that. A good sign that crypto has little long term merit is that I’ve yet to find many serious long term and well educated investors.
What I don’t get is why so many crypto haters spout off nonsense. I’m sure some of it is having either lost funds themselves or having seen others do so, but it’s like people are rushing to be on the right side even if it means saying shit that’s just flat out wrong.
It’s already annoying to watch everyone give their opinion on markets and economics as has become fashionable when it’s clear the most they’ve done is read half of Marx or whatever , but crypto is even stranger because all sorts of nonsense comes out when there’s plenty of well reasoned and backed arguments already
Yes, not being very informed about banking and finance is true of just about everyone. People who are opposed to cryptocurrency often spout economic nonsense too. So there's a question of how to...
Yes, not being very informed about banking and finance is true of just about everyone. People who are opposed to cryptocurrency often spout economic nonsense too.
So there's a question of how to avoid that kind of nonsense. Admitting that we're all amateurs here helps a bit. Looking for the best arguments rather than reacting to the worst ones of the other side can help too.
Scammers of several victims in China and Florida shared the same two crypto wallet addresses, implying they are likely parts of the same group, according to a joint investigation published in January by ChainArgos, a Singapore-based blockchain data platform, and Bitrace, a China-based blockchain research group. One of those wallets processed at least $20.7 million worth of tokens since early 2021, the report said. The study found that the stolen funds from those two addresses were later deposited onto two major crypto exchanges, OKX and Huobi, now called HTX.
It is tough for victims in the U.S. to recover their money because many of them lose $10,000 or less—big enough to be someone’s life savings but too small for organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to consider it a priority, said Jonelle Still, adjunct professor in blockchain analytics at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
The transnational nature of these syndicates adds further difficulty in catching criminals or helping victims recover their assets, since it requires cooperation between officials in different countries, say antifraud advocates.
Beijing has for years taken a hard line against cryptocurrencies, forcing exchanges to shut down, banning trading and jailing executives who previously worked in the industry. In January, the powerful State Council said it would submit a revised anti-money-laundering law to the country’s top lawmaking body for review. Addressing the role of crypto in money laundering is the most urgent issue, legal experts have said.
Yeah, funding for illegal activities is basically the cryptocurrency use case. Buying in is basically helping some criminal cash out.
Please take a look at my other reply. Yes- it’s loaded with scams and thieves, but there are good parts of it too. I see it as less karmically damaging than going to Vegas.
Yeah, no. This somehow implies anything that "hurts" traditional banking has "good parts". That's not nearly sufficient for crypto to be "good", and ignores the fact that many of the worst, predatory elements of more traditional finance, from banks to hedge funds to fascist billionaires, are neck deep in crypto.
Cryptocurrency has been a solution in search of a problem for more than a decade. It's not, and is incapable of becoming, a consumer-level payment system. It's not going to be Visa; it's not going to be ACH. It does produce highly volatile speculative assets that can be transferred, with extreme inefficiency. And the main non-speculative use case for that is by people who don't want to or can't use actual banks: criminals, terrorists, hackers, child pornographers. None of that is hyperbole, just literal facts on the ground.
Disagree. <1s <1cent transactions are coming. And if ACH is your definition of a “good” consumer-level payment system, then you really should take a look at blockchain.
Even transferring money from myself to a friend in the USA (for instance, to pay for an airbnb on vacation) is a difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and data-heavy process. Instead I just sent them some ETH and I was done in literal seconds.
This is what I point people to when they say "the true value of crypto is zero" – the true value of crypto is non zero because criminals love it (and are possibly the only people who aren't using it as a speculative investment). This means it's not enough to just wait and hope it dies out, regulators actively need to engage to ban it.
I am not so sure that would be ideal without a workable alternative. I increasingly dislike state preventing me from getting my meds by making me go through supposedly educated middlemen who are able to say stuff like "ADHD is basically not enough oxygen in one's brain". I would very much prefer to be able to turn to the black market if the state fails to cater to my medical needs.
And although I am not currently using any mind altering substances, I do not enjoy being criminalized when I decide to obtain and use them. By using e.g. psychedelics, there is no victim. Only a happier person.
There are victims though – if you overdose on LSD [edit: bad example, probably more likely fentanyl] that creates a major burden on your relatives and (if you live in a grown-up country with single-payer healthcare) the healthcare system, depriving others of finite resources that you would otherwise not be consuming.
I don't really think "let's allow everyone to carry out financial crime as they please" is a good solution to "the medical profession has a long way to go in treating psychological/psychiatric conditions".
you can't overdose on LSD in any meaningful way, and, if you take too much and panic, you can be given antipsychotic and/or benzodiazepine and you're fine. compare this to alcohol where you can
die if you overdose
become both easily addicted and physically dependent to the point of seizing if you don't have a drink
irreparably damage your body each time you sip it.
the criminalization of drugs, especially "safe" drugs like cannabis and psychedelics does nothing but create harms. look at the current fentanyl crisis. because heroin is not able to be purchased legally, people instead turn to street "heroin" mixed with cuts, xylazine and novel fentalogues which are both more physically harmful and an order of magnitude easier to overdose on. and cheaper. capitalism breeds innovation--- fentanyl is made in truly industrial quantities with hard-to-control precursors by cartels for pennies on the dollar. oh, also, there are even more potent analogues, ranging from 10-100x. potent enough a single flatbed truck could transport enough opioids to supply the entire US for a year. banning the sale does nothing to curtail the availability, creates perverse incentives that prioritize profit over the safety of the user, and creates legal burdens for the users themselves that can make living a normal life after they age out of their addiction impossible.
is legalizing all drugs much worse than the current status quo? "The estimates in this cross-sectional study of 694 660 mean deaths per year between 2015 and 2019 suggest that excessive alcohol consumption accounted for 12.9% of total deaths among adults aged 20 to 64 years and 20.3% of deaths among adults aged 20 to 49 years.". we already have a deadly, addictive, neurotoxic as well as just generally toxic drug that is both legal and aggressively advertised. surely, ketamine, mdma, and without question psychedelics should be legal if alcohol is, no? it would be better for everyone but the cartels for a pure, regulated exchange of drugs to be legalized, along with strict standards (or in my opinion banning) the advertising of vices in any form---be it alcohol, sports betting, cannabis or drugs.
Let's talk about that after we ban alcohol, sugar and gambling. So far I believe that the majority is consistently voting for "having a little fun in one's life is fine, we are not the Borg".
And I would rather have crypto facilitating the black market than having no access to black market at all. At least as long as I feel that I might need one at some point.
I think you're only focussing on "I can buy stuff I like on the black market" and ignoring the "other people can buy guns on the black market and use them for terrorist attacks, as has happened in several cases" as well as "crypto lets criminal gangs launder money" parts.
I largely agree, but with the caveat that there are unfortunate situations, often associated with failed states, where everyone needs to do illegal things just to get by. Sometimes black markets are the best thing going.
If the cell phone network is still working, sometimes electronic money is still viable. This doesn't have to be (and usually isn't) cryptocurrency, but it could be.
“The internet is used for child porn so regulators actively need to engage to ban it.”
Instead of demonizing technology how about we go after the bad actors committing crimes?
This is like "guns don't kill people, people kill people, so we shouldn't ban guns". Like guns, and unlikely the internet, cryptocurrency really doesn't have any uses beyond speculation and money laundering.
The internet was once seen this way as well - a silly technology for nerds with no social skills. So what if you can buy things online? Ever heard of a department store? So what if you can see the weather online? Ever heard of a newspaper?
There are lots of use cases that exist, RIGHT NOW, but are dismissed offhand by people who don’t understand. That’s totally ok - blockchain IS filled with scams and criminals at the moment. But it’s also filled with tech idealists looking to create a better future. Banning it isn’t going to make the world better.
The internet has always had adopters who aren't criminals, who use it for legitimate things. The same is not true for crypto – 15 years after Bitcoin was first released the primary users remain speculators and criminals.
I’m skeptical on this. IMO there are huge incentives to demonize crypto. Two big ones being:
First is transparency: the nature of blockchain makes not only crimes, but all of the massive and frequent financial transactions visible to anybody looking at the blockchain.
Money laundering has been happening anyway, (watch The HSBC episode of Netflix’s Dirty Money) but now because it’s done on blockchain people are talking about it, so now it has to get addressed because it’s visible. It’s easier to blame crypto for it, even though crypto in fact offers many tools to actually address money laundering.
I follow a Twitter account called Unusual Whales (yes, I dabble a bit). To regularly see hundreds of millions of dollars moved on and off exchanges and wallets is eye opening in a way that I think is threatening to traditional finance (“trad-fi” as the kids call it).
And this gets us to #2 - crypto is an enormous threat to banking. There are all sorts of different shenanigans the US Fed and big players have been pulling in attempts to vilify crypto, but if you listen to some of the less obnoxious and more reasoned crypto people, they make a very good case for why the trad-fi institutions are the corrupt bad actors.
…and just as a closer I’d offer that one of the favorite things I’ve learned how to do since beginning to look into the trading & crypto world is to “copy trade” on our elected officials. These guys have created a cottage industry of broadcasting the trading habits of sitting congresspeople (and sometimes their spouses) to great profit for many and humiliation for congress… and I love that. Thank you Nancy Pelosi.
Edit: I’m no crypto ideologue despite all that I just said. At the bottom line I still fail to see how this is much more than a (new) way to conduct financial transactions while providing a publicly viewable ledger that does essentially the same thing that escrow does.
But I’ve grifted into about $100 trading it, so I think it’s kinda neat.
I think this is kind of wrong:
There are lots of blockchains (e.g. ZCash, Monero) which allow for anonymous transactions, basically a money launderer's dreams. Even on non-anonymous blockchains such as Bitcoin there are Bitcoin mixers and other similar tools set up to faciliate money laundering.
I mean it's very easy to stand up and point at the flaws of others. For example Bitcoin advocates criticise "fiat" currency for having too much inflation, being generally unstable/unreliable, and yet Bitcoin has an inflation rate with triple-digit swings in mere days and something like 20-30% of all Bitcoin are lost (because people have forgotten their wallet keys) which creates massive inflationary pressure.
Sure the current financial system isn't great, but Bitcoin doesn't really solve any of the problems. I fail to see how Bitcoin can stop Nancy Pelosi allegedly using insider information to trade stock prices. I think it also opens us up to a whole new series of scams, e.g. rug-pulls, inability to reverse transactions (by going to court and forcing a bank to do this), etc.
How does a publicly viewable ledger do the same thing that escrow does? Do you mean smart contracts, because I think those have incredibly severe and unworkable restrictions that will be obvious to anyone who has ever tried to execute a real contract – when things go wrong it's nice to have a judge who expects everyone to act in good faith and not blatantly rip off the other party, rather than being at the mercy of a small programming error in the contract.
Re: Transparency - I don’t pretend to be an expert, and yes there are mixers and anonymizing currencies and it’s all still a very much developing thing- but bottom line is you can’t really dispute that the 1-2 combination of having viewable blockchains and wallet addresses AND having these new mechanisms being developed by communities of developers with all the competition and public airing of laundry and furthering open source standards across the globe and even scams and thieves is better than “trad-fi” where there was little to no innovation, ever increasing nickel-and-diming service fees, and .01% interest on your savings.
Yes, it’s noisy, messy, people get scammed, etc etc… but indisputably there has been progressive movement in the oldest, slowest, most financially repressing industry as a direct result of crypto. The banking cartels have to compete with something for the first time ever. I think that’s a win long-term for everyone.
Re: escrow - yes, I was referring to smart contracts. They’re not there yet, and I don’t ever see something like ICP actually becoming a thing, but there are use cases. Big ones. I do think once all the noise dies down quietly and bit by bit parts of industry supply chains will begin adopting them. It makes too much sense not to.
Again, I’m on phone, so I can’t see the other holes you were poking in my little crypto soapbox, and can’t remember what they were, so I’ll post this for now and maybe add an edit later.
Yes, crypto has lots of issues, but it’s advancing a front that was utterly stalled out.
Edit:
Re: inflation- yeah, I think that’s a thing the bitcoin maxis think is gonna happen, but I remain skeptical. The idea is that if the global economy changes over to using Bitcoin as the world’s ‘base currency’ instead of the dollar, it would be more stable because there is a built-in limit (computing power) to generating currency. Unlike the Fed which could potentially devalue the dollar by over printing. None of that’s even remotely on the near horizon, and lots of steps between here and there, and I’m no macroeconomic wizard… so I have no idea. But I also think it’s premature to call it either way too.
As for the “crypto doesn’t solve any problems” I have two points to make- 1. There is now a way to send money electronically that doesn’t involve any third party. That’s not a small thing. And #2 “Yet.” It doesn’t solve many problems yet, but it is an industry that’s trying to at the very least address problems that otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t be addressed - like identity verification.
monero is the only cryptocurrency that actually has any utility. monero is
private. truly private. without the need for any mixers. the IRS has as recently as two years ago put out a half-million dollar bounty for anyone who could break it after previous contracts in 2020 proved fruitless. ring signatures and disposable wallet addresses means that adding a single wallet hop between a KYC exchange and the wallet you ultimately deposit your coins in makes you (in theory) untraceable. in practice, for the paranoid, adding a couple more wallet hops is better to make absolutely certain no correlation could be done even with the most sophisticated of analyses. but this is no problem as monero is also
useable as a coin. few other coins have been as stable as monero over the years. part of this is monero is inherently inflationary, making using it as an investment tool a foolish endeavor. additionally, the way the reward system is set up means that the network is fast and with low fees (in the cents). the main criticism i would levy here is the space requirement for storing a copy of the ledger and the accompanying initial time-cost associated with downloading it.
if the world is to spend the equivalent of small countries to secure a blockchain, it better be a coin with utility---not a glorified gambling vehicle like bitcoin.
There are many kinds of banking, but I don't see cryptocurrency as being a threat to traditional banking, because it's about making loans based on real-world collateral. (For example, buildings.) Cryptocurrency loans are not that; they are more like margin loans backed by securities, mostly useful to speculators.
Arguments of this form are likely either a cope or a smokescreen. Why can't both be corrupt, at times? There's no criticism of traditional finance that makes cryptocurrency rug-pulls any better.
Again, I’m just a dabbler. Here are some resources:
There’s a podcast literally called “Bankless”.
A YouTube channel called Coin Bureau that has long explanations of how Governments have been obstructionist to the crypto crowd (and very educational and critical of the bigger scammers and rug pulls)
And there’s another YouTuber called Crypto Wendy O that is big into explaining how the US/Fed/Banking industries have been acting in bad faith and/or outright attempting to undermine crypto’s legitimacy and legal standing without cause.
I’ve not listened to bankless, and the Coin Bureau guy sometimes goes a bit too “crypto maximalist” for my tastes, but Wendy seems like a pretty straight shooter near as I can tell, but she also has a more trading-focused channel
All of these resources know a lot more than me, so go argue your opinions with them. All I’m saying is that there are a lot of people doing interesting things in crypto. It’s overly simplistic and kind of unfair to say “buying into crypto is helping money launderers” when for 20+ years banking with HSBC was literally laundering money for the Sinaloa Cartel and China.
Thanks, but the only thing I use YouTube for is listening to music, and I'm sticking to that.
Although I don't follow it much, I do actually think there are some people doing interesting things with cryptocurrency. I like reading Vitalik Buterin's blog sometimes. I was impressed that Ethereum managed a pretty smooth transition to proof-of-stake. They seem to have other improvements in progress. Maybe other people are doing interesting things?
But it would be kind of an odd argument to say "HSBC happened, so regulators shouldn't oppose cryptocurrency." I haven't really followed the story, but HSBC got fined $1.9 billion dollars and there was a ten-year "enforcement action" that seems to have resulted in HSBC withdrawing from US retail banking.
I think that shows that yes, there was a lot of corruption, and US regulators were very unhappy about it? I expect they're against money-laundering whoever does it, and don't want to allow new and improved ways of doing money laundering to become more interconnected with the US economy.
Fair enough- and sorry about that phrasing “go argue…” that was overly harsh.
I’m just very cynical about financial institutions - or the people in them - and think that all the attention crypto is bringing to the machinations of financial systems is a good thing. I have little faith that there was not already massive fortunes being made and moved around secretly- so forcing some sunlight on it via crypto hype will in the long run do more good than harm. Who knows how much dark money has been moving around for generations? At least now there is talk of it and some tech tools to work with to address it. Before we had zero information unless like a Panama Papers type thing happened.
It’s a discussion that’s annoying to have because on the one side you’ve mostly got crypto enthusiasts who refuse to see anything other than upsides and on the other side you have people so refuse to see nothing but downsides.
What’s annoying is neither really knows anything about the actual ecosystems they’re discussing or criticizing and tend to have an amateur at best understanding of economics and markets.
It’s a perfect storm of pointless discussion. There are some more grounded people who’ve weighed in (mostly negatively which isn’t surprising because there’s a ton of issues) but it’s annoying watching the same arguments go in the same circles that aren’t even related to the real issues or upsides
Sure. And I expect that. A good sign that crypto has little long term merit is that I’ve yet to find many serious long term and well educated investors.
What I don’t get is why so many crypto haters spout off nonsense. I’m sure some of it is having either lost funds themselves or having seen others do so, but it’s like people are rushing to be on the right side even if it means saying shit that’s just flat out wrong.
It’s already annoying to watch everyone give their opinion on markets and economics as has become fashionable when it’s clear the most they’ve done is read half of Marx or whatever , but crypto is even stranger because all sorts of nonsense comes out when there’s plenty of well reasoned and backed arguments already
Yes, not being very informed about banking and finance is true of just about everyone. People who are opposed to cryptocurrency often spout economic nonsense too.
So there's a question of how to avoid that kind of nonsense. Admitting that we're all amateurs here helps a bit. Looking for the best arguments rather than reacting to the worst ones of the other side can help too.
Oh no. I’m “That Guy” now. Crap. Okay. I’ve already exceeded my character limit on this thread. No more from me.
Crypto bros are obnoxious.
From the article (archive):
So crypto's transactional logs just helped establish evidence of Chinese actors in Florida?
Scamming people over the phone, most likely. Or sometimes ransomware.