[HN Gopher] Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocu...
___________________________________________________________________
Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme
Author : latexr
Score : 314 points
Date : 2022-02-26 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.justice.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.justice.gov)
| debarshri wrote:
| I always used to think the founder was the guy from the famous
| YouTube meme. Never in my wild imagination would have though it
| would be a guy from pretty much rural india. World is more
| connected than I think I guess.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Crucial detail buried in the article:
|
| > Kumbhani is at large
| [deleted]
| deutschewelle wrote:
| > Kumbhani is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire
| fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity price manipulation,
| operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, and
| conspiracy to commit international money laundering. If convicted
| of all counts, he faces a maximum total penalty of 70 years in
| prison.
|
| Liberty Reserve operator Arthur Budovsky is serving his 20 year
| prison sentence, Kumbhani will likely serve 40+ years.
|
| Liberty Reserve wasn't even incorporated in US or did a lot of
| business after getting booted but that didn't stop it from being
| used as money laundering.
|
| Tether isn't very much different, LR/E-gold both tried various
| forms of insulation (LR not providing fiat on-ramp/off-ramp but
| through "verified" 3rd party).
|
| In the end, the trail of money and _cui bono_ ultimately indicted
| Arthur for facilitating money laundering and subverting US
| banking system. It 's very likely that DOJ and other three letter
| agencies are utilizing Tether/Bitcoin/Monero as a honeypot to
| gather intelligence on the parties.
|
| Imagine the wealth of information they are sitting on after
| capturing the hard drives of darknet marketplaces like Alphabay
| which were allegedly used to trace a former YC alumni's stolen
| Bitcoins.
|
| Tether is a well known cable for moving money out of China and
| into real estate markets in the West, it's ironic that so many do
| not see the complete geopolitical ramifications: housing
| affordability has been hijacked to facilitate money exfiltration
| in authoritarian countries by the elites in the West, to make
| cheap goods.
|
| In the West, lower and middle class unwittingly traded affordable
| housing for affordable consumer goods produced by authoritarian
| labor control and the beneficiaries of this were able to move
| their wealth out of reach from the same authoritarian government.
| Now that the musical chairs is ending, the same demographic in
| the West are being encouraged to become unwitting exit liquidity
| for the upper class. I predict this would have destabilizing
| effect on societies all over the world, especially countries that
| are over-leveraged and buying crypto on margin.
| adam0c wrote:
| ironic how just a few stories down is an article about how approx
| 50% of steam payments with bitcoin (when they accepted it) were
| fraudulent... everyone wanting a quick buck without doing the
| work
| ganzuul wrote:
| So now their stuff is actually valued $2.4B and it's no longer
| monopoly money?
| anm89 wrote:
| They got people to trade good money ($2.4B) for monopoly money
| and then ran off with the real money.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Classic scheme.
| bogwog wrote:
| > BitConnect operated as a Ponzi scheme by paying earlier
| BitConnect investors with money from later investors. In total,
| Kumbhani and his co-conspirators obtained approximately $2.4
| billion from investors
|
| That $2.4B is real money they stole from people. The monopoly
| money would start at the first penny after that number.
| [deleted]
| cinntaile wrote:
| Nice job. Now if only some people would see the difference
| between an actual ponzi scheme like this one and bitcoin and
| other cryptocurrencies. That would be nice.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| The fact that cryptocurrencies are even Ponzier than any Ponzi
| scheme, more pyramidal than any pyramid scheme, much getter,
| richer, and quicker than any get-rich-quick scheme, and more
| shaggily carpeted and vigorously jerked than any rug-pull
| scheme, doesn't mean they're not scams.
|
| Edit: when shills gets called on purposefully missing the point
| by arguing over semantics, they switch to outright denial and
| making stuff up. Actually, ethereum and bitcoin ARE both scams,
| in fact the biggest ones of them all. And that IS the point.
| cinntaile wrote:
| > Edit: when shills gets called on purposefully missing the
| point by arguing over semantics, they switch to outright
| denial and making stuff up. Actually, ethereum and bitcoin
| ARE both scams, in fact the biggest ones of them all. And
| that IS the point.
|
| I think I replied in a respectful way to your original
| comment that was essentially just poisoning the well. I also
| feel it's a bit dishonest to reply to my comment by editing
| your post. You are now deliberately trying to discredit what
| I say by calling me a shill, this is not how we can have a
| curious discussion.
|
| What is it that I am outright denying and making up?
|
| Just claiming something is a scam doesn't make it so, you
| have to provide some sort of arguments to support your
| thesis.
| cinntaile wrote:
| There are definitely cryptocurrencies out there that are
| scams, but big ones like ethereum and bitcoin for example are
| not. This is besides the point though.
| mdoms wrote:
| Bitcoin and Ethereum are scams.
| everfree wrote:
| Why?
| lawn wrote:
| > The fact that cryptocurrencies are even Ponzier than any
| Ponzi scheme
|
| What does that even mean?
|
| Especially since most cryptocurrencies factually doesn't fit
| the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
| gjvc wrote:
| The common characteristic is that "early adopters" get
| disproportionately large returns compared to later adopters.
| Indeed those later adopters are financing the exit of the
| participants who "got in first". In this way it's like a Ponzi
| scheme, but the same could be said for stocks.
|
| You might call the above a simplification; that is fine -- my
| point is that this is a (inaccurate) linguistic shorthand --
| calling something by the name of something else which shares a
| characteristic, but it is inaccurate (a Ponzi scheme has a
| central organizer / hub), and bitcoin does not.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Stocks pay dividends, or have the potential to pay dividends
| in the future.
|
| You're right that if you look strictly at the now, it
| resembles a Ponzi scheme, but there's an underlying intrinsic
| value that supports a given price. If there's not intrinsic
| value, price usually collapses in the longer run. E.g dotcom,
| many of the 200x price sales companies over the last year.
|
| Many growth stocks with valuations far detached from
| fundamentals are very crypto like. Trading on
| likeability/goodwill rather than anything real.
|
| The lack of intrinsic value is why Crypto is probably doomed
| to volatility forever.
| bnralt wrote:
| It's like a stock market for companies that don't exist.
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| It's grossly untrue to say it's a Ponzi scheme "like stocks"
| which are part ownership in companies that actually sell
| things in the real world and are valued by the present value
| of their future expected cash flows, rather than
| cryptocurrencies which have no such relationship to the real
| world, and some would argue are valued entirely on the
| premise of returns that can only be sustained by finding the
| next sucker.
| gjvc wrote:
| I think we are in violent agreement. Two things can share a
| characteristic and yet be completely different, but people
| focus on the similarity (which is easily understood and
| explainable) and ignore the differences (which can be more
| difficult to understand and explain).
| datadata wrote:
| There are stocks which are fraudulent, e.g Theranos, Enron,
| or ZZZZ Best. The fact that a company might have expected
| cash flows does not make them impervious to defrauding
| investors. Similarly, something issued without any claims
| of future cash flows does not imply that it must be a
| fraud.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Blockchains (like eth and its alternatives) sell blocks
| (compute with a ledger). Those blocks "have value" to the
| people who build things on them like NFT's, defi, ponzi
| schemes, etc... One can argue that those applications don't
| have value, are scams, are unethical but people are paying
| a lot of money for those blocks on a daily basis; and
| holders of those L1 tokens benefit from that value. If you
| think of eth as a niche cloud provider providing compute
| with a ledger, then it looks like a stock who's long-term
| value will depend on useful and legal it's niche becomes
| after people (do or don't) come up with products and
| regulation is implemented.
|
| > cryptocurrencies which have no such relationship to the
| real world
|
| This is a key point unless the concept of the metaverse
| takes off; you're starting to see this change though. Look
| at the Coachella NFT as an example. People will pay to have
| guaranteed weekend 1 tickets for multiple years; there are
| years where this is basically sold out before public ticket
| sales but there's a status element to be able to go W1.
| These people (like young adults) will probably go for a few
| years, get bored (or have a change in
| lifestyle/priorities), then probably resell those NFT's to
| someone who's a few years earlier in their lives and wants
| guaranteed W1. This sounds like a ponzi scheme by the
| description many commenters here are using; the only value
| is getting some sucker down the road to waste their money
| for a guaranteed W1 ticket. There's a non-zero chance that
| coachella doesn't even exist 5 years from now. There's a
| bigger chance that it's not as popular and the value of any
| NFT is worth less then it is today. Yet it doesn't feel as
| scammy because of the real world event that's involved.
| CPLX wrote:
| But the product being sold in this example is a season
| ticket, not an NFT.
|
| The NFT part of the product has no relevance to why it's
| valuable. The valuable part is the promise by the event
| organizer to save a spot for you.
|
| Every major sports team has had this product for decades.
| It's literally the same thing as having season tickets to
| the White Sox or something. The blockchain has added no
| value to the transaction.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > The blockchain has added no value to the transaction.
|
| it does make it impossible to make and sell fakes?
| everfree wrote:
| Some stocks have no expected cash flows, some
| cryptocurrencies have expected cash flows. You can't
| generalize entire asset classes like that.
| ls15 wrote:
| If we compare crypto to stocks, then Bitcoin is Apple and
| Bitconnect is Theranos.
| NeutralForest wrote:
| If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Even without
| the Ponzi scheme and market manipulation; Proof-of-Work based
| cryptocurrencies are an ecological catastrophe. Other Proof-of-
| Something(tm) currencies do not bring much to the table either.
|
| At some point it's only normal there's a push back against
| cryptocurrencies.
| samarama wrote:
| That's why the vast majority of L1s are not proof of work.
| NeutralForest wrote:
| Yet Bitcoin is still considered the OG token and a "true"
| cryptocurrency as mentioned above and not old dangerous
| tech.
|
| Also in the last 10 years, only a handful of tokens have
| had a somewhat usable blockchain which grinds to a halt
| anytime people share pictures of cats or monkeys and we're
| told to wait for another year or two for an update to
| whatever protocol is trendy at the moment. Rinse and repeat
| every year. Also also, every other year a cryptocurrency
| comes along and professes to be the second coming of God
| with solutions to problems with don't have.
|
| So no, not interested.
| everfree wrote:
| > Yet Bitcoin is still considered the OG token and a
| "true" cryptocurrency as mentioned above and not old
| dangerous tech.
|
| The solution to that is to educate people on how Bitcoin
| is old dangerous tech, not to throw out all other
| blockchains along with Bitcoin.
|
| > a somewhat usable blockchain which grinds to a halt
| anytime people share pictures of cats or monkeys
|
| These chains don't "grind to a halt" in any sense of that
| phrase, they dynamically price a scarce resource (block
| space). The chain runs at 100% capacity during these
| spikes in demand.
|
| > we're told to wait for another year or two for an
| update to whatever protocol is trendy at the moment.
| Rinse and repeat every year.
|
| Every few years, cryptocurrencies upgrade their capacity
| using new technology, and every few years, enough new
| people start using them to saturate the new, higher
| capacity. There's nothing contradictory about that.
|
| > Also also, every other year a cryptocurrency comes
| along and professes to be the second coming of God with
| solutions to problems with don't have.
|
| Every other year a traditional tech company also comes
| along and professes to be the second coming of God with
| solutions to problems we don't have. But we don't judge
| Apple based on the failure of Juicero.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law
|
| > So no, not interested.
|
| You have a right to not be interested, but you're
| choosing to share your take, and your take is incorrect.
| louwrentius wrote:
| There isn't any difference.
| TheFreim wrote:
| I'm very sympathetic with many of the "anti"-crypto arguments
| but to say there is no difference between BitConnect and
| Bitcoin/Ethereum is just wrong. You might believe their value
| is based on a similar concept, pyramid scheme type construct,
| but they still have massive differences. Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc
| actually do /something/ (even if you ultimately come to the
| conclusion that that something is bad).
| astoor wrote:
| Plausible deniability is one of ways the cryptocurrency
| schemes have continued for so long without collapsing -
| members can convince themselves that Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc.
| aren't ponzi/pyramid schemes because they "do something".
| Furthermore, that "something" can keep changing over time
| (e.g. for Ethereum it was first ICOs and DApps, currently
| it is NFTs and DeFi, and in future likely to be something
| else), which keeps the schemes self-sustaining. It is the
| plausible deniability and evolving self-sustainability
| which are the main advantages Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc. have
| over simpler schemes like BitConnect.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > Furthermore, that "something" can keep changing over
| time
|
| I don't follow. DApps didn't change to nfts, did they?
| I'm pretty sure they still are used and developed.
| astoor wrote:
| No, DApps didn't change into NFTs, and yes, DApps and
| ICOs still exist. But DApps and ICOs are not the current
| "revolutionary" "game changing" drivers for "line goes
| up" in the Ethereum world. Similarly I'd expect NFTs and
| DeFi to continue to exist after whatever supersedes them
| as the main attraction to draw in new members. Just like
| there are still people who talk about Bitcoin as
| "electronic cash" even though most have moved on to other
| narratives like "digital gold". That is the evolving
| self-sustainability aspect of plausible deniability. The
| schemes are flexible enough for existing scheme members
| to claim they are whatever they need to be to continue
| drawing in those all-important new scheme members,
| although most likely only for a finite period of time.
| JackFr wrote:
| > Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc actually do /something/
|
| Big if true.
| nest0r wrote:
| TheFreim wrote:
| You might think that the "something" "legit" crypto does
| isn't a good solution even though it IS doing
| "something". Bitcoin works as a distributed ledger,
| depending on your view that might be a solution in search
| if a problem but it's still something.
| danaris wrote:
| "Working as a distribute ledger" is a means to an end,
| not an end in itself. It's a tool.
|
| What is that tool _useful_ for that isn 't better served
| by other tools?
|
| That is the question that has never been answered, at
| least not to my satisfaction.
| [deleted]
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| I don't think crypto is a ponzi scheme, but I DO think
| storing your crypto on third party servers is dangerous.
|
| Although whenever I hear claims of "guaranteed returns" or
| "proprietary investment technologies" I do think it may be a
| ponzi scheme lol
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Show me one cryptocurrency that has driven real world industry
| more than financial speculation and scamming.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I see no scamming in say Link (bringing offchain data on-
| chain for other projects to use) or SNX (on-chain synthetic
| assets). There's a ton of examples of projects that have
| nothing to do with scams and are more akin to normal
| companies providing blockchain-related services.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| That may be true, but I was looking for positive outcomes
| from the industry as a whole. Of course there are companies
| like metamask as well that just provide services within the
| crypto industry.
| cinntaile wrote:
| You're moving the goal posts. It's fine to be against
| cryptocurrencies, but I think it damages your credibility
| when you claim bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Since it shows a
| lack of understanding of what a ponzi scheme actually is. By
| you I don't mean you in particular, I mean it in a more
| general sense.
| shock-value wrote:
| We can argue about what constitutes a proper Ponzi scheme,
| but the idea that the promotion of crypto thus far has
| existed to allow early adopters to cash out at the apparent
| expense of later adopters, while bringing essentially no
| other utility to any of its backers or the public at large,
| is pretty obvious.
| anm89 wrote:
| This is just plainly not the definition of a ponzi scheme
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| That's just semantics at this point. I would encourage
| you to address the statement being made and ignore the
| technical definition of the phrase. To restate without
| the offending phrase:
|
| [T]he idea that the promotion of crypto thus far has
| existed to allow early adopters to cash out at the
| apparent expense of later adopters, while bringing
| essentially no other utility to any of its backers or the
| public at large, is pretty obvious.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It is very much not just semantics. Ponzi schemes are
| illegal so the difference matters.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| I double checked and no one in our comment chain has said
| anything about legality at all, or even implied same, so
| you pointing that out as the defining distinction is not
| really relevant, don't you think? Besides, pump and dump
| schemes of securities are illegal, though notably most
| crypto is in the grey area because the SEC doesn't
| classify it as a security.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It's a bit of a shortcut. It implies that
| cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum don't fulfill
| the necessary criteria to be deemed a ponzi scheme. If we
| look at all the red flags mentioned in the wikipedia
| article.... I shortened some criteria, for a more
| detailed explanation of each criterium I suggest you
| check the Wikipedia article.
|
| High investment returns with little or no risk. --- Not
| true.
|
| Overly consistent returns --- Not true.
|
| Unregistered investments --- True in some cases, not true
| in others.
|
| Unlicensed sellers --- same as above.
|
| Secretive or complex strategies --- Not true.
|
| Issues with paperwork --- Not true
|
| Difficulty receiving payments --- Not true. Actually
| irrelevant.
|
| The sales personnel or adviser are overly pushy or
| aggressive. --- Not true. Actually irrelevant. Not
| bitcoin or ethereum sales personnel or advisers exist.
|
| The initial contact took place by a cold call or through
| a social network, a language-based radio or a religious
| radio advertisement. --- This one is a tough one since
| there are definitely devotees that likely were vital in
| the initial spread. In most cases people probably came
| into contact with crypto through the mainstream media
| though.
|
| The client cannot determine the actual trades or
| investments that have been carried out. --- Not true
|
| The clients are asked to write checks with a different
| name than the name of the corporation (such as an
| individual) or to send checks to a different address than
| the corporate address. --- Not true. Actually irrelevant.
|
| Once the maturity date of their investment arrives,
| clients are pressured to roll over the principal and the
| profits. --- Not true. Also irrelevant.
| mdoms wrote:
| Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.
| rsstack wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| A Ponzi scheme (/'panzi/, Italian: ['pontsi]) is a form of
| fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier
| investors with funds from more recent investors.[1] The
| scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming
| from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or
| successful investments), and they remain unaware that other
| investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can
| maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as
| new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of
| the investors do not demand full repayment and still
| believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to
| own.
| everfree wrote:
| > The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are
| coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product
| sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware
| that other investors are the source of funds.
|
| I think that's the key part that contradicts Bitcoin.
| Nobody believes that Bitcoin is a business that generates
| profits, and everyone is aware that when they cash out,
| other investors are the source of funds.
|
| There's no illusion of a business, and no assets that are
| promised to exist but don't.
| [deleted]
| deadalus wrote:
| Monero because its untraceable(real world industry -
| underground drug markets)
|
| IRS wants to crack it and awarded $1.25 million contract:
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/chainalysis-and-texas-firm-
| wi...
| beaconstudios wrote:
| This doesn't really shift my priors that the only practical
| use of crypto is illegal transactions.
| politician wrote:
| El Salvador legalized Bitcoin for use in fee-free cross-
| border remittances.
| mdoms wrote:
| Fee free bitcoin transactions? How does that work?
| politician wrote:
| Bank fee free.
| mdoms wrote:
| So, not fee free?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Do you need to crack it if the government can be a majority
| hashrate of the miner pool? One need not crack it to
| control it. You'd be able to double spend, mine empty
| blocks, orphan blocks from other miners, etc. Just need to
| get to and sustain 51% of the hash pool, which sounds
| trivial considering nation state compute resources.
| everfree wrote:
| > sounds trivial considering nation state compute
| resources
|
| Bitcoin is mined almost exclusively on ASICs, which hash
| many orders of magnitude more quickly than general
| computing devices. So a nation-state's general compute
| resources wouldn't be useful in attacking Bitcoin. They
| would need to manufacture or acquire more specialized
| compute resources.
|
| edit - My bad disregard this, missed that the context of
| this thread is Monero.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The discussion and context was about Monero. Bitcoin is
| traceable without having to break it like Monero.
| z3c0 wrote:
| It will take time. Upsetting technologies attract conartists
| like flies to honey. Critics will deliberately conflate the
| cons with the rest until then, as it's a very convenient
| argument (though obviously fallacious.)
| TheFreim wrote:
| Alternatively, con-artists pose as upsetting technologies to
| convince people to get in on the "ground floor" of the
| exciting hyped tech (doesn't necessarily apply to crypto).
| spicyusername wrote:
| > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when
| his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
|
| > - Upton Sinclair
| sbarre wrote:
| Is this a pro or con comment? Could be both I suppose.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| It's a relatively objective assessment of the topic, and
| human nature in general.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Pro-cryptocurrency comments are usually cons.
|
| And unfortunately nobody's salary depends on preventing
| other people from shilling get-rich-quick pyramid
| schemes. (Except maybe for dang's.)
| logicalmonster wrote:
| The really fascinating bit isn't that they're currently
| programmed to think that crypto is doubleplusungood, it's the
| 180 narrative flip they'll do the second that their chosen
| media entities tells them to view crypto as doubleplusgood.
| You're going to see hordes of former crypto detractors rewrite
| history in their minds and come out with a new viewpoint
| without an inkling of self-awareness.
| civilized wrote:
| I'll ask you the same question I ask everyone who spouts
| nonsense - when it turns out you're wrong, will you care? Or
| is possessing this worldview somehow intrinsically satisfying
| to you, regardless of reality?
| logicalmonster wrote:
| 1) What exactly would I be wrong about? A good test for
| cognitive dissonance is comparing your predictions to
| reality, and I do not believe that I ever stated that
| BitCoin is inevitably going to become the most important
| currency in the world. I think crypto is great conceptually
| (which will never be not true) and that it may or may not
| succeed in the marketplace. Bitcoin itself may not succeed
| long-term even if crypto does. I acknowledge all of those
| things.
|
| 2) If crypto "fails", I'd say that the reason for the
| failure is important in making an assessment. If it fails
| because the technology is too slow long-term or not enough
| people choose not to use it for a very long-time, that's
| one thing that would be harder to argue against. If crypto
| fails because it's effectively legislated out of existence,
| that would be hard to see that as anything but a
| vindication of the concept.
|
| 3) For what it's worth, while I consider myself to be a
| fairly rational person, nobody is absolutely immune to
| cognitive dissonance. You should constantly check your
| premises and examine your past predictions. That's part of
| why I support the absolute right to free speech and debate
| ideas and play devil's advocate a lot.
|
| 4) I stand firm on one prediction. If some government out
| there decides to use some crypto for their central bank,
| they're going to have their media pump out support for it,
| and many former crypto opponents will be reprogrammed on
| the fly and take on a pro-crypto viewpoint without skipping
| a beat if they're told to.
| civilized wrote:
| That's all well and good. The only thing I'll say is, I
| think you vastly overestimate how many people are
| programmed one way or the other. I think a few people
| have formed their own opinions, a few people have been
| politically programmed, and the vast majority have no
| real opinion on the goodness or badness. For them,
| Bitcoin is just a curiosity or a fun casino to play in.
|
| I also wouldn't neglect that a lot of people have been
| programmed by crypto ideology.
| lolinder wrote:
| > If crypto fails because it's effectively legislated out
| of existence, that would be hard to see that as anything
| but a vindication of the concept.
|
| If the concept is "decentralized payments are resistant
| to government intervention", then wouldn't the government
| killing crypto be proof that the concept failed?
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > If the concept is "decentralized payments are resistant
| to government intervention", then wouldn't the government
| killing crypto be proof that the concept failed?
|
| Anything can be physically destroyed and anybody can be
| physically jailed or killed, so I suppose there will
| never be a currency that is 100% immune to punitive
| government action.
|
| But it seems like a vindication of the concept if some
| government felt threatened enough by crypto to have to
| forcibly go after it. Harmless bad ideas are generally
| not targeted (see furries for example) the only things
| that are forcibly banned are things that pose some kind
| of threat to the power structure.
| civilized wrote:
| A lot of people want crypto banned simply because its
| uses seem to be almost entirely restricted to criminal
| activity and speculation (i.e. gambling).
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > A lot of people
|
| 1) Despite crypto being around for just over a decade and
| real commerce being transacted with it, we're still in
| the frighteningly early days of its use. I'd say that
| even super-smart technical people are just barely
| scratching the surface and it's probably going to be
| about 3-5 years before an average technical person has a
| proper understanding of what a blockchain is and how it
| works, let alone understanding the ramifications of
| oracles when combined with smart contracts. Everybody is
| entitled to their opinion, but there's no chance that the
| general public really understands crypto right now,
| especially when their impression of it comes from a media
| that doesn't understand it either.
|
| 2) Regardless of most peoples' understanding of it, it
| should go without saying that human rights should not be
| up to a poll.
|
| > want crypto banned simply because its uses seem to be
| almost entirely restricted to criminal activity
|
| 1) I don't know what percentage of crypto uses are normal
| commerce and which are criminal actions, but I know
| firsthand that crypto is used for all kinds of business
| payments for years.
|
| 2) You might as well advocate banning paper cash, most
| banks, etc if you want to ban something tied to crime.
|
| > and speculation (i.e. gambling).
|
| It should go without saying that even the worst excesses
| of gambling are legal in a free society.
|
| If you want to ban all financial speculation, you might
| as well ban all betting and the stock market too.
| civilized wrote:
| I stand by my statements. Bitcoin is a bad currency for
| anyone but criminals and speculators. People toy with
| using it for legitimate purposes, but it's fundamentally
| not competitive.
|
| Most of your response is based on a failure to understand
| how useful things that _can_ be misused are different
| from things that have virtually no good use and lots of
| bad ones. If Bitcoin was banned tomorrow, the world would
| be no worse off.
| capableweb wrote:
| Let's assume for the faith of your argument that Bitcoin is a
| ponzi scheme. Who is at the top that gains from all of this?
| And how are you gonna indict "them" when seemingly no one knows
| who they are?
| TheFreim wrote:
| > Who is at the top that gains from all of this?
|
| In a ponzi scheme the people higher in the pyramid are anyone
| who joined in the past and is trying to grow it. You could
| say Satoshi with his early mining and various other
| "insiders", whether their identity is known or not, are at
| the top. I don't necessarily agree that it's a ponzi scheme,
| although I'm sympathetic with many anti-crypto arguments, but
| that's the reasoning if expect they'd use.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Ponzi scheme? Perhaps not. So maybe we need a new word?
| It's a new invention, and thus might require a new lexicon
| to capture its essence.
| cygx wrote:
| Here are some terms that already exists: 'economic
| bubble', 'pump and dump', 'greater fool theory', ...
| jtbayly wrote:
| Sounds like a fiat currency in many respects. Which is
| funny since that's what it was supposed to not be.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Pinto Currency?
|
| http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,2880
| 4,1...
|
| Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo Currency?
|
| http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,2880
| 4,1...
|
| Bagger Currency?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288
| keithalewis wrote:
| Let's just agree to call it a distributed digital Ponzi
| scheme used for ledgerdemain.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Ledger. I see what you did there.
| espadrine wrote:
| Names are hard, because it is common to name something with
| what looks most like it, even when there are differences.
|
| There are two separate phenomena that give it the appearance
| of a Ponzi.
|
| First, a Ponzi works by taking the money of new investors,
| and distributing it to past investors that cash out with
| "profit". Similarly, BTC _investing_ (as in, intending to
| make a profit from the difference between the buy and the
| sell price) works by taking the money of new investors (in an
| exchange) and distributing it to past investors that cash
| out, yielding a profit that, from a systemic perspective,
| will eventually cause someone's loss. From that viewpoint,
| successful investors are unwittingly taking the money of
| people that may not afford the loss.
|
| Second, a Ponzi works by making up assets (typically
| financial instruments) out of thin air, and selling them to
| victims (some of which will profit, many will lose), making a
| profit out of thin air. Similarly, the creator of a
| cryptocurrency typically puts itself in a position where they
| either premine the coins, or create an algorithmic schedule
| where most of the coins are created in the first few years,
| making them out of thin air, and giving themselves a
| significant advantage, as they will give themselves a
| generous chunk. They then sell those coins to victims, making
| a profit out of thin air. Even Nakamoto famously was flagged
| as an intensive miner in early years, and clearly did not
| expect to be deanonymized by the coinbase counter, since they
| changed it once it was found out.
|
| It is true that there are dissimilarities as well. The
| largest one is the failure mode. A traditional Ponzi fails
| because people that did not get their "guaranteed profit,
| _whisper_ past performances is not a guide for future
| performance", are unlikely to reinvest, leading to a breaking
| point where everyone takes their money out until none is
| left. In the types of cryptocurrencies described above,
| people are often willing to reinvest even when they lost
| substantial amounts.
|
| The failure mode typically comes many decades later, when
| lost keys (deaths etc) cause a slow deflation until no coin
| remains in use.
| mdoms wrote:
| They're all Ponzi schemes. Every last one of them.
| shaolinspirit wrote:
| undying classic from carlos
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFwlWLtsw6c
| bredren wrote:
| Here is the original "speech":
|
| https://youtu.be/lCcwn6bGUtU
|
| Most of the early yelling is done at 1:04. Then you get the
| guts of his talking points.
|
| Make massive financial gains, the gains are due to faith and
| belief that by purchasing this currency you will be responsible
| for changing the world.
|
| This guy's intro / enthusiasm is a long running joke between a
| pal and me. Crypto price is up? Bitconnect...! Price is down?
| Bitconnect...! In a pinch, the screaming and stomping around
| encapsulates anything crypto.
|
| Really, it is a notable performance of "hype man."
| xapata wrote:
| Good stage presence, but the backup singers should have been
| more dynamic.
| 3np wrote:
| Better quality: https://youtu.be/watch?v=kNdp0I8AG40
| [deleted]
| ufo wrote:
| Was Carlos indicted as well?
| anm89 wrote:
| Carlos was not really a part of Bitconnect. IIRC he just
| showed up to some event and did such a good job riling up the
| crowd that they started making him part of the show.
| Hamuko wrote:
| He says he got scammed out of money in Bitconnect as well.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Yep, we was a victim too; lost $25k. His main job is (IIRC)
| an Integration Aide at a special school, so I can imagine
| this was pretty significant.
|
| It seems he has been a victim to multiple investment scams
| (losing $100k+ in total) but genuinely believes that one
| day he'll strike it rich.
|
| He speaks about it openly in his vlog:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3odIbJl-dGM
|
| (Hilarious channel if you have time to waste.)
| ufo wrote:
| I see... I was confused by the parent post talking about
| him.
| elevaet wrote:
| Lapsa wrote:
| wasso wasso wasso wasso
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| epic remix: https://youtu.be/e5nyQmaq4k4
| Hamuko wrote:
| I prefer this Bitconnect song:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chuYu7E7RrA
| resonanttoe wrote:
| When the inner Ballmer takes over
| kinduff wrote:
| this has to be one of my favorite bitcoin scam meme of all time
| KHRZ wrote:
| jmyeet wrote:
| Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem
| I've ever seen.
|
| Apart from the obvious issues (eg energy expenditure) the one
| myth that needs to die about crypto is that it is
| extragovernmental and indictments such as this and the Bitfinex
| laundering case recently should underline that.
|
| The simple fact is that the developed world could shut down what
| little utility cryptocurrencies (and NFTs) have _tomorrow_ if
| they chose to. China banned mining and mining was gone
| immediately (largely moving to Kyrgystan it seems). Defenders
| will say you can 't shut down the network and that might be true
| but it's irrelevant.
|
| The threat of legal action will be enough to keep th evast
| majority of people away. And the weakness of any crypto is that
| at some point it has to interface with the real world or it's
| completely useless. Obvious example: the traditional financial
| system. Access to the US financial system is what allows the US
| government to exercise influence over European financial
| institutions to stop them, for example, dealing with sanctioned
| countries like Iran.
| pricees wrote:
| I want to donate to a cause that Justin Trudeau finds
| "unacceptable." I want to send money to Ukraine. I think this
| week we saw problems with tradfi in the developed and
| developing world. And of course in the good ole US of A, I hear
| stories of civil forfeiture every other month.
| colechristensen wrote:
| And how do you feel about economic sanctions for Russia,
| Putin, etc? (And crypto being a way to evade them)
|
| Do you think a cryptocurrency is any less susceptible to
| civil forfeiture than cash?
| pricees wrote:
| You are correct, evading economic sanctions is another
| problem crypto solves. :)
|
| (I am not here to make any value judgments)
| LightG wrote:
| You've just made one.
| woodruffw wrote:
| "Civil forfeiture" does not and has never meant "fiat
| forfeiture." If the government tells you to forfeit your
| assets (justly or unjustly!), you can be certain that they
| will not be amused or deterred by attempts to hide those
| assets via cryptocurrency.
| vageli wrote:
| > "Civil forfeiture" does not and has never meant "fiat
| forfeiture." If the government tells you to forfeit your
| assets (justly or unjustly!), you can be certain that they
| will not be amused or deterred by attempts to hide those
| assets via cryptocurrency.
|
| If they don't know it exists, they can't take it. Just like
| I can cross the border with a hundred thousand in crypto in
| a wallet. And even if they find the hardware wallet, that
| is not enough to seize the funds, especially if it's a
| brain wallet or something similar. The same simply doesn't
| exist for fiat.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > If they don't know it exists, they can't take it.
|
| I've said this before: any financial system that turns a
| _presumed_ crime (the efficient cause of the asset
| seizure) into _direct evidence of another crime_ (trying
| to hide assets) is not a good financial system.
|
| What you're describing doesn't exist _in practice_ for
| any medium of exchange.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Just like I can cross the border with a hundred thousand
| in crypto in a wallet._
|
| No, you can't. You can cross the border with the private
| key for a wallet containing the addresses of a hundred
| thousand units of crypto, but the crypto isn't in your
| wallet (either kind), it's in the blockchain ledger of
| whatever cryptocurrency you're using.
|
| And this is an important distinction from money, because
| the money is actually in your wallet and you can use it
| without an internet connection, but the crypto is
| actually in the cloud and requires an internet connection
| to access and use.
| bentlegen wrote:
| Note that folks who claimed their bank accounts were frozen
| because they were "donors to the convoy" never actually
| verified that that actually happened [1]. At the same time
| the government, the RCMP, and the banks have come out and
| said "that didn't happen" [2]. Last, the government ceded its
| emergency powers after about a week total, despite claims on
| HN and various thinkpieces that they would be extended in
| perpetuity [3].
|
| [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mp-mark-
| stra...
|
| [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-rcmp-
| banks-an...
|
| [3] https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/02/23/justi
| n-t...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _and the banks have come out and said "that didn't
| happen"_
|
| The article didn't say it didn't happen. In fact, it says
| it _did_ happen:
|
| _"individuals and companies suspected of involvement in
| illegal acts," such as "influencers in the illegal protest
| in Ottawa""_
|
| What exactly does it mean to be an "influencer"? Why are
| people being punished for "suspected involvement"? You're
| using circular reasoning claiming the only people affected
| deserved it.
|
| > _Last, the government ceded its emergency powers after
| about a week total_
|
| What does this matter if they can turn around and re-enact
| it tomorrow?
| pricees wrote:
| And then there was GoFundMe and GiveSendGo. I am not
| arguing the politics here. I am responding to the critique
| that crypto is a solution in search of a problem.
| Yetioko wrote:
| Those are companies with policies.
|
| They have to listen to laws.
|
| Guess what happens if crypto would become bigger and
| actually a problem for all states globally?
|
| Do you really think they will just accept this? In which
| way do you think they literlay can't control crypto
| anymore?
|
| Just because its digital and on the internet, doesn't
| mean its digital only. It is not and as long as that is,
| its easy for a state to make sure crypto will never ever
| reach this level.
|
| You don't believe a state can do this? Just a small
| reminder about the great firewall from china. There are
| countries who shut down their internet, literaly.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| The reason they didn't extend them was that they didn't
| want to go through the senate vote, and also because of the
| extreme controversy it caused. Trudeau had said earlier he
| wanted to extend them past the 30 days. So it's weird to
| say that the controversy and reactions were baseless
| because their intended goal was achieved. And that was to
| make Trudeau's decision as politically costly and
| controversial as possible.
|
| Also accounts were still seized over a protest, so it
| doesn't matter if it was from people donating or those who
| were protesting
|
| https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/convoy-
| leader-d...
|
| (Url is weird and doesn't match the actual article)
| gamblor956 wrote:
| So in other words...the system worked exactly as it was
| designed to work...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I guess but only because there was a very very vocal
| backlash. It wouldn't have necessarily worked if everyone
| was just complacent and apologetic for Trudeau. Trudeau
| had no intention of showing any restraint until the
| backlash intensified.
| everfree wrote:
| I'm not aware of any threats by developed countries to ban
| citizens from interacting with cryptocurrency networks. It
| seems like the trend is quite the opposite, actually: Most
| countries are clarifying and tightening up their regulations to
| ensure legal cut-outs for exchanges and other crypto related
| money service businesses.
|
| If anything, countries might want to ban mining due to its
| environmental impacts, but as you illustrated, there are plenty
| of countries for mining operations to move over to, resulting
| in a game of cat-and-mouse that at its very most impactful
| might help catalyze the move from Proof of Work cryptos to
| Proof of Stake cryptos. I just don't see any future where all
| crypto is largely banned.
|
| Where is this threat of legal action I'm not seeing?
| mouzogu wrote:
| there is that expression, morality is how people think the
| world _should_ be, economics is the reality of how it _really_
| is
|
| the problem = lack of investment options, stagnant wages,
| inflating cost of living, being priced out
|
| solution = gambling on crypto and making some money
|
| speaking as a millenial. honestly crypto is the only way could
| ever dream of buying a house.
|
| ive been working 15 years and saved 150k. average family home
| in my town is over 1 million.
|
| and stocks are inflated, the s&p is almost at a 90 degree
| angle. i bought btc in 2014 and my only regret was not buying
| more.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Everything is inflated and has been bid up. Cryptos are
| certainly no exception, it's only gotten worse in the last
| two years with all the FOMO they fostered and salesman that
| gathered to profit off my disillusioned generation. To each
| their own, but I think the idea that TINA to crypto is plain
| silly, yet I know more people (am millennial) owning crypto
| than stocks, always with this notion that TINA. At least with
| stocks you're still entitled to legal ownership of cashflows,
| with cryptocurrencies today you merely get a late entrance
| ticket to a digital commodity that _might_ have monetary
| value, but trades like just another risk-on asset.
|
| The S&P500 will always look like a 90 degree angle on a long
| enough timeline, that's just how exponentials work. And it is
| by definition exponential as earnings compound, a quality
| cryptos do not possess. But it is ironic to hold that against
| it when 5-year charts in the crypto world look as they do.
|
| Time will tell which way it resolves I guess.
| mouzogu wrote:
| yes, crypto is inflated, and a pump and dump, but there is
| opportunity there, and hope. and that is what most retail
| are buying.
|
| i mean something changed in the stock market after 2008.
| i'm not really educated enough in finance, but it seems the
| value of stocks just went vertical. and since the covid
| pandemic everything has doubled in value. i know its
| related to decrease in value of usd but since my salary
| doesnt even increase to match inflation so its the same
| both ways.
|
| if i invest in stocks, at best i will get 2x after 5 years,
| at worst i will be buying at the peak of the everything
| bubble.
| d13 wrote:
| Ethereum has revenue 1b per month - and that's 100% profit.
| It's highly undervalued at the moment.
| atlantas wrote:
| With crypto you can transfer your wealth across borders away
| from oppressive regimes or an incoming army by memorizing 12
| words.
|
| It's hard to overstate how valuable that is for anyone who
| finds themselves in that position, and it's becoming more
| relevant by the day.
| Yetioko wrote:
| You can only do this as long as you are able to convert fiat
| to crypto and back.
|
| You can also only do this as long as crypto is so small that
| its not getting banned.
|
| And for everyone who doesn't has this issue, crypto is
| actually bad: the overall benefit of anonymous money transfer
| benefits who want to do illegal things which are illegal for
| purposes.
|
| Would you like to know that others are doing tax fraud and
| you are the fair citizen? Knowing that they do not contribute
| to schools and infrastructure while using your schools and
| infrastructure?
|
| We do not benefit from tax fraud. The mafia does.
| evandale wrote:
| >You can only do this as long as you are able to convert
| fiat to crypto and back.
|
| >You can also only do this as long as crypto is so small
| that its not getting banned.
|
| Killing cryptocurrency is impossible if people value it and
| can exchange it for fiat in-person.
|
| >And for everyone who doesn't has this issue, crypto is
| actually bad: the overall benefit of anonymous money
| transfer benefits who want to do illegal things which are
| illegal for purposes.
|
| Governments can make anything illegal for any reason they
| want. I've lost a ton of trust in the Canadian government
| after they deemed it illegal to donate to a cause they
| disagree with.
|
| >Would you like to know that others are doing tax fraud and
| you are the fair citizen? Knowing that they do not
| contribute to schools and infrastructure while using your
| schools and infrastructure?
|
| >We do not benefit from tax fraud. The mafia does.
|
| The mafia has far better ways of committing tax fraud than
| using cryptocurrency.
|
| Only the rich will benefit from banning cryptocurrency.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| > Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem
| I've ever seen.
|
| Truth. And I have not idea why people think Crypto is a hedge
| against anything. It pretty much follows the stock market and
| gold, albeit in much higher gamma.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| >China banned mining and mining was gone immediately (largely
| moving to Kyrgystan it seems).
|
| Kearney, NE seems like a popular destination too, for crypto
| mining.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1081252187/bitcoin-cryptocurr...
| mynegation wrote:
| You surely meant Kearney, NE. NB in the North-American
| context stands for New Brunswick, Canada.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| Yes, Thank you.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem
| I've ever seen.
|
| I think this hinges on what problem you identify. If someone
| identifies centralized financial systems as bad, even if
| they're efficient, the problem is real and the solution fits
| the problem. If you contest this, as many do for good reason,
| it becomes a solution in search of a problem.
| ScarletEmerald wrote:
| The solution doesn't fit the problem though. Sure, _in
| theory_ bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies can replace
| centralized financial systems. But, as keeps being
| demonstrated, including by this very example, _in practice_
| what you end up with is different, less-efficient,
| centralized financial systems dominated by fraud.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| how is it less efficient? Obviously btc can't replace the
| financial system but crypto can.
|
| Investors in the next 10 years are going to realise that an
| omnipool was all that was needed in the first place and the
| NYSE is a dinosaur in comparison.
| Yetioko wrote:
| Etherium is looking for a PoS system.
|
| Guess what our current fiat system actually is? A highly
| finetuned evolutionary PoS system.
|
| It has features like:
|
| - transparency
|
| - fraud detection
|
| - political sanctions (russia vs. ukraine, north korea,
| iran...)
|
| - fairness due to transparency (you pay your taxes, i do:
| we both pay our fair share of infrastrucutre cost etc.)
|
| - easy to use (my grandparenst were able to use it)
|
| - save
|
| - easy authentication and authorization system (i can get
| money with my passport)
|
| - globally accepted
|
| - low transaction fees
|
| - self optimizing system due to capital market (one bank
| can do transactions faster and cheaper than you can)
| meowkit wrote:
| I'm just going to point out that you said nothing about
| proof of stake here, and I am getting the sense from your
| other comments that you do not understand the
| technicalities of the traditional finance system, or
| cryptocurrencies.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| - transparency Crypto, besides privacy coins is the most
| transparent you can possibily get. It's a public,
| immutable ledger. The US can literally go in an change
| the total supply anytime with zero transparency. And
| since USD is the global denomination of debt, when i
| increase my supply it actually makes my currency more
| valuable since everyone is shorting their own currency
| (Since their debt is in USD) and inflation leads to asset
| inflation which is a good thing for the wealthy, but a
| negative thing for those holding and dealing in USD. = us
| plebs.
|
| - fraud detection
|
| See point above, fraud is built into the system.
|
| - political sanctions (russia vs. ukraine, north korea,
| iran...)
|
| Political sanctions have been this economic philosophy
| that hasn't entirely played out in the countries doing
| the sanctions favor. These economies, due to force have
| been required to be much more verticly integrated and
| invest into the economies most hit by sanctions.
| Sanctions don't do much and the problem is, the more you
| sanction the less leverage you have.
|
| - fairness due to transparency (you pay your taxes, i do:
| we both pay our fair share of infrastrucutre cost etc.)
|
| What is fair about the current tax system? See my
| transparency point above, all those people trying to
| evade crypto taxs are in for a rude awakening when the
| governmeent develops machine learning to track and trade
| public ledgers... Everyone knows it's a public ledger...
| exactly the oposite of being descrete.
|
| - easy to use (my grandparenst were able to use it)
|
| Becausee it started being built when your grandparents
| grandparents were alive. Most shops didn't accept CC's
| when they first came out and it took a generation for the
| technology to preliforate. I'd say crypto has done what
| the old system did in 1/4 of the time.
|
| - save
|
| I get 4% APR on my stablecoins. 20+% on my DeFi Pools
| paid in stable coins.
|
| - easy authentication and authorization system (i can get
| money with my passport)
|
| I can provide authorization with a 10 word pneumonic.
|
| - globally accepted
|
| What is globally accepted exactly? USD? no it's not...
| it's only acceepted in the US. If i want to do business
| globally i have to swap to that asset. I not only have to
| worry about remittance, currency exchanges, trade fees
| and loan denomination. Terra has the ability to swap
| between many different currencies using stablecoins with
| almost no transaction fees.
|
| - low transaction fees
|
| BTC and Eth have extremely high transaction fees, but any
| V3 crypto has lower transaction fees than the current
| financial system. - self optimizing system due to capital
| market (one bank can do transactions faster and cheaper
| than you can)
|
| self optimizing system due to capital market (one bank
| can do transactions faster and cheaper than you can)
|
| Play around with some decentralized exchanges, solona or
| DOT. they can do transactions faster and cheaper than any
| incumbent, including VISA or the NYSE.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| > The simple fact is that the developed world could shut down
| what little utility cryptocurrencies (and NFTs) have tomorrow
| if they chose to. China banned mining and mining was gone
| immediately (largely moving to Kyrgystan it seems). Defenders
| will say you can't shut down the network and that might be true
| but it's irrelevant.
|
| How is it irrelevant? The ban in China did not affect the
| operation of the network.
|
| With regard to the "move", this is plagued by the same flaw the
| energy consumption statistics are: you don't know where the
| miners are. Not acknowledging this limitation is somewhere
| between disingenuous and stating a falsehood.
|
| This does not demonstrate that developed nations "could shut it
| down tomorrow".
| ninth_ant wrote:
| If Western nations enacted policies on bitcoin similar to
| China, this wouldn't shut down the network entirely but would
| drive it underground. This would limit the usefulness and
| presumably value of the network, at the very least.
| Hjfrf wrote:
| Banning miners would send them to the next-most corrupt
| country with cheap energy.
|
| A more meaningful move would be to ban exchanges, so that
| miners can no longer take exit liquidity at the expense on
| retail "investors".
| skybrian wrote:
| It's a good point that so far, major changes for miners
| haven't affected operations.
|
| I'm not sure it's true that nobody knows where they are.
| There are rankings by country. They need Internet access and
| power. Many operate openly. Large data centers aren't
| invisible.
|
| Also, miners were kicked out of Kyrgyzstan. Many machines
| were confiscated. It seems a lot of miners moved to the US
| because, even if they are eventually shut down, at least they
| will still have their machines, hopefully.
|
| Governments could greatly reduce the hash rate by cracking
| down on miners who operate openly, and then Bitcoin would be
| considerably less secure against a takeover.
|
| Suppose, after getting kicked out of many places, many miners
| move somewhere without strong property rights, and then the
| government takes control of the machines and runs them? Or
| maybe the miners keep running, but the government tells them
| which transactions to block?
| Yetioko wrote:
| They just stop it as they don't know how to use it and they
| also don't care about it anyway.
|
| Only the corrupt ones might accept a bribe.
| skybrian wrote:
| So far that's been true. Would you count on people never
| learning?
| phil21 wrote:
| > Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem
| I've ever seen.
|
| It seems like it precisely solved the problem it originally
| claimed to solve to me. Permissionless p2p transactions. Full
| stop, no political baggage to argue about.
|
| I think it's others look for "bigger" problems for it to fill
| that are the problem, not the tech itself.
|
| Blockchain's killer app is Bitcoin. Someday folks will finally
| realize this.
|
| Many will think it's useless until they unfortunately find a
| need for it.
| [deleted]
| mstipetic wrote:
| For me it's funny to see twitter comments now asking can we
| impose crypto sanctions on Russia. It's like all these
| institutions and mechanisms we have are there are for a reason
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| >Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem
| I've ever seen.
|
| People don't understand crypto yet... play around with it a
| bit.
|
| Things not possible in the current financial system:
|
| - Participate in a crowdlown on polkadot.
|
| - Play around in some DeFi. Earn yield on two assets.
|
| - Store some files hyperlocally and encrypted on peoples laptop
| with filecoin. And learn how persistant indexing will help the
| internet be more resiliant.
|
| - Sell some data using ZKsnarks.
|
| - Query the blockchains persistance with the graph.
|
| And if you don't do any of the above and you still hate crypto,
| just do this for your future self.
|
| - Write a smart contract that sends some coins back to your
| wallet in 10 years.
|
| If you're correct in your opinion, you get to make fun of all
| your friends who spent a percentage of their portfolio in the
| crypto space. And joke about how they should have cashed out in
| 2020.
|
| But if you're wrong, you have missed the technological
| innovation of your generation and the potential to shake up the
| class system.
| malermeister wrote:
| > the potential to shake up the class system.
|
| 0.01% of bitcoin holders controls 27% of the currency in
| circulation. [0]
|
| If this is changing the class system in any way, it's for the
| worse.
|
| [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoins-one-percent-
| controls-l...
| massinstall wrote:
| Exactly this!
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| Because i doubt the roth childs are among those whales.
| danaris wrote:
| Replacing the _current_ megarich with a _different_ set
| of megarich isn 't "shaking up the class system". It's
| just changing the nametags.
| malermeister wrote:
| Think again.
| https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/07/20/rothschild-
| inves...
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| for the rothchilds it represents .00001% of their total
| wealth.
|
| The rothchilds keep their wealth in art, land and gold
| and why they have managed to stay rich for so long.
|
| I can point to atleast one person who's class shifted and
| that person is me.
|
| Also, you cherry picked one point among many and
| misunderstood it. Although there may be some of the
| financial elite who bought in early in BTC and crypto
| (Especially A-Z) there was alot of nerdy technologists
| among the winners. Also, alot of those winners have gone
| to set up hundreds of crypto companies who might even be
| more centralized.
|
| Anti-centralization isn't the point i was making, it was
| a redistribution of that centralization which obviously
| can never be supported with hard facts but rather a
| feeling and subjective experience i've had with crypto
| billionaires.
| malermeister wrote:
| What you're saying comes down to "it might make the
| problem of inequality and class worse, but hey maybe I'll
| be on top this time".
|
| I suspect you're having a hard time getting people to
| sympathize and are receiving a lot of pushback because
| that is an incredibly selfish view that makes people
| dislike what you're proposing.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| You're coming at if from an angle of fixed pie wealth,
| then yes. It might make inequality and class worse. But
| if the total wealth on planet earth is not fixed and you
| can create wealth through technological innovation,
| network effects and solidarity then no, giving the
| technologically driven nerds alot of money to do cool
| shit with hardly makes "he problem of inequality and
| class worse".
|
| Edit: Also, your WSj article is bullshit. I believed you,
| but that analysis is a bold faced lie and cherry picks
| alot of facts to arrive at the analysis. OFC all the
| exchanges are going to appear to have alot of btc and
| since they are "Actively" trading it, that's the only
| accounts showing up on the analysis. Most of the BTC
| owners are maxi's - they don't move or use their BTC.
| Look at a real wallet distrobution and exclude sitoshi's
| old wallets cause everyone is pretty sure those are lost
| to the world. BTC distro is ALOT more decentralized than
| the USD.
| leashless wrote:
| The problem is climate change.
|
| https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/can-the-world-...
|
| Smart contracts are the best shot we have of doing carbon,
| methane etc. tracking, managing offsetting payments and
| everything else required to start getting a grip on the CO2
| emissions of the consumer economy.
| namdnay wrote:
| I've got to admire the Chutzpah of claiming that crypto is
| the solution to climate change... and seriously, why on earth
| would this sort of tracking need smart contracts rather than
| say a database managed by a certification organization? Or
| even the UN?
| er4hn wrote:
| In case Justin Trudeau's war on truckers prevents you from
| helping them buy electric cybertrucks. Or you need to do
| some cap and trade with Russia. You've got to take the
| internationalist view here.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This may well be a troll. I really want to believe that it is
| because the alternative is too depressing. I have a sinking
| feeling it isn't a troll however. I see so many Crypto Andys
| who argue for crypto out of unadulterated gross naivete about
| how anything outside of a very narrow slice of crypto works.
|
| The obvious problem is that crypto is hugely energy
| inefficient. Bitcoin in particular consumes a ton of energy
| with PoW (proof-of-work aka proof-of-waste). Defenders will
| then point to PoS (proof-of-stake) but that creates a
| different set of problems (eg the computing power for PoW is
| part of what keeps the network robust whereas PoS is more
| like a democracy where you get one vote for every $1 you
| have).
|
| Carbon trading is never going to happen. It's an idea that's
| been around for at least 30 years. The only people who are
| interested in it are those who are invested in it. The only
| thing that will reduce carbon emissions is the alternatives
| being cheaper. That's it. Absolutely no one is going to even
| mildly inconvenience themselves otherwise.
|
| And again, any such ideas suffer from the same problem all
| crypto does: interfacing with the real world. Like how do you
| agree on the value of something releasing (or potentially
| sequestering) carbon (or methane or whatever)? It's up for
| debate. How do you make sure what someone emits is what they
| claimed to have?
|
| It's a bit like the ivory traders of Hong Kong who magically
| have never run out of ivory even though the trade was banned
| and they're only meant to sell existing stocks.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| >whereas PoS is more like a democracy where you get one
| vote for every $1 you have
|
| Less like this and more of how a company is run in real
| life. Investor, founder, codebase contributor and early
| coin buyers have alot of the say in the network... Which
| actually is exactly how it should be. If you were involved
| in the creation of the network, you should have a say in
| it's path forward... So am i missing something or does POS
| completely invalidate your arguments?
|
| >And again, any such ideas suffer from the same problem all
| crypto does interfacing with the real world. Like how do
| you agree on the value of something releasing (or
| potentially sequestering) carbon (or methane or whatever)?
| It's up for debate. How do you make sure what someone emits
| is what they claimed to have?
|
| Same way we do it now... Outside validation. The only thing
| it would do is make it more resistant to fraud is you can
| have multiple oracles in an open contract that eveeryone
| will cry foul over if it. Additionally, some of those
| oracles can be IOT objects controlling and reporting
| emissions.
|
| These are all solved problems that you are bringing up, the
| only thing new here is that smart contracts would allow a
| number of novel things to be done with carbon credits like
| swapping them for various assets, more controlled reporting
| with a fixed standard, greater visibility across the supply
| chain, etc. etc.
|
| I get he didn't explain himself, but there are smart
| contracts on !Ink which is POS and eth is trying to
| transition to POS if they can convince individuals to bet
| on the concensus change.
| avip wrote:
| cryptocurrency saving us from climate crisis! no one saw that
| one coming
| mmaunder wrote:
| Agreed. I think the Russia situation may be an interesting test
| to see whether cryptocurrency can be a viable replacement for
| SWIFT. I don't think it will be because, as you said, it is not
| extragovernmental, and at some points those funds need to be
| repatriated. And of course cryptocurrency provides a useful
| public ledger all the way to repatriation.
| samarama wrote:
| somenewaccount1 wrote:
| Yes, we have reviewed the white purple yellow paper that's 9
| inches thick. It was mostly just cat memes.
| samarama wrote:
| So you're just a troll without any carefully researched
| knowledge.
| i67vw3 wrote:
| Most of them know what exactly
| cryptocurrencies/blockchain are in detail. But usually
| the negativity comes 'muh climate change' while having
| 100x carbon footprint than an average individual let's
| say in El Salvador.
|
| Other point is that a lot of these folks dislike what
| cryptocurrencies are used for like decentralization,
| censorship-resistance, financial privacy etc
|
| Then there are those who are still butthurt that they did
| not buy Bitcoin when it was $100.
| na85 wrote:
| Then there are those of us who think crypto has lots of
| theoretical but no actual advantages over cash, while
| also carrying lots of additional risk.
| anm89 wrote:
| This really is a very low level of discourse.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How
| do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new
| enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be
| valuable?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| What about drugs? Cheaper, less middlemen, higher quality,
| safer delivery. What's not to like?
| joosters wrote:
| Fewer middlemen? Now to buy from your dealer, you have to
| go via a marketplace, after converting your real money on
| an exchange. That's at least two other intermediaries...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Your dealer... may just be buying online (and stepping on
| it).
|
| Depends on what they're supplying. Something locally
| grown, ok, but overseas labs synthetics can involve a lot
| of middlemen.
| rvz wrote:
| Easy. Criminals, extremists and fraudsters use Signal for
| E2EE communications and MobileCoin (an untraceable, privacy
| cryptocurrency) to fund it all. [0]
|
| It is what criminals and terrorists are using to make their
| activities impossible to trace. Got to thank MobileCoin for
| enabling that.
|
| [0] https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360057625692-In...
| nileshtrivedi wrote:
| MobileCoin whitepaper didn't make any claims about
| untraceability, AFAIK.
| rvz wrote:
| What does _' No one except for the sender and receiver
| can see the details of the transaction.'_ with an
| encrypted blockchain tell you about MobileCoin's
| traceability?
| dsco wrote:
| It could provide as a store and transpiration means of value
| in times of crisis. For instance some of the Ukrainian banks
| are now shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your
| wealth. Same thing applies for Russian citizens who have
| nothing to do with the war but will soon have their assets
| frozen. Did you consider all use cases before posting, or
| just glee at yet another anti crypto post on HN and thought
| "yay! I get to post something negative about crypto again
| today"?
| tomgp wrote:
| didn't bitcoin price take a nose dive when russia invaded?
| the opposite behaviour than what you'd want from a store of
| value
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Yeah, went from $35,000 each to $39,000... it's about a
| 8% increase or "nose dive" as you call it.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| And... 18 hrs prior to being at $35000 it was at.... wait
| for it... hang on... can you guess... ? $39000.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| You realise, if the banks go, so does the internet, right?
|
| https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497409488403505153
| phs318u wrote:
| Assuming ill-intent is not an argument. Engage with the
| argument. This is HN.
| mirntyfirty wrote:
| The operative word here is "could". There are a number of
| pie in the sky benefits of crypto that may be supported by
| small handfuls of anecdotes that don't and never will
| generalize to the public at large. When comparing the
| potential pros to the existing cons, crypto is a gigantic
| net negative that is being pushed in order to make small
| pockets of investors very wealthy, nothing more. And yes, I
| understand the data structures, protocols, and most of the
| ideological rationalizations used to promote the fantasy.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > For instance some of the Ukrainian banks are now
| shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your wealth.
|
| For instance, the Russians were cut off SWIFT. If the
| oligarchs had crypto, they could access their wealth and
| render sanctions ineffective.
|
| Believe it or not the Ukrainians are in a war, and currency
| is not their biggest problem - that would be the tanks, and
| the bombs and the planes. Once the war resolves, so will
| their access to money. On the other hand, systems designed
| to evade sanctions are making that process longer and more
| painful - and more likely to resolve in the aggressors
| favor, as the Russians are better capitalized. The Russian
| people need to feel the pain to pressure their government
| to end the conflict.
|
| Some pain is good, and so is our ability to inflict it.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Keep in mind that "financial crimes" can mean very different
| things to very different regimes. In Nazi Germany, it was a
| "financial crime" for Jews to take any wealth with them when
| they emigrated.
| [deleted]
| Yetioko wrote:
| Just that normal people don't benefit overall.
|
| If you are for bitcoin and its 'benefits' and you are not
| someone who is doing tax fraud in a big way, you do not
| benefit from crypto, you are loosing.
|
| Unreported income is tax money which is missing for
| schools, infrastructure and co.
|
| It might not be used always efficency but it benefits you
| more than not having it. It should also be a much higher
| motivation for everyone of us to stop tax fraud all
| together instead of complaining about taxes and trying to
| avoid taxes.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it enables
| "good" crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive governments) is
| at odds with the hard facts that cryptocurrency is used for
| "bad" crimes far more often. Many orders of magnitude more
| often, in fact.
|
| I just can't buy into these arguments that we should be
| overlooking these rampant frauds and crimes (like the
| multi-billion fraud in this article and many more like it)
| because it might hypothetically enable some oppressed
| people somewhere in the world to escape some government
| oppression.
|
| In these hypothetical scenarios, are we supposed to believe
| that the oppressive governments would just look the other
| way and let people transfer their wealth into crypto
| exchanges before fleeing? That would defeat the purpose of
| the government restrictions, so obviously not. Or are we
| supposed to believe that they moved all of their wealth
| into crypto and took it out of exchanges and into private
| wallets before the oppression? The crypto maximalists would
| love that because it would drive up crypto prices, but it's
| not practical in a world where most people have their weath
| in assets like houses, cars, and diversified investments.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it
| enables "good" crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive
| governments) is at odds with the hard facts that
| cryptocurrency is used for "bad" crimes far more often.
|
| The Fifth Amendment is invoked far more often by actual
| criminals to hide their crimes than people avoiding
| government oppression. Doesn't mean the Fifth should be
| abolished.
| vmception wrote:
| Actually yes assume those things happen and move the
| oppressive government further down the line to see a pro-
| crypto absurdity:
|
| Are we supposed to believe that crypto is magically
| cleaned when the oppressive government seizes it and uses
| it or resells it? for all purposes right now, thats true
| and no transaction flagging software is advanced enough
| to consider that yet.
|
| _Woah woah that crypto came out of a mixer at some point
| in time!!! Thats used for "bad" crimes orders of
| magnitude more than "good crimes", I think...._
|
| _Oh nevermind, this passed through one of the seoveriegn
| washer addresses later, all good!"_
| blueprint wrote:
| This is bullshit. People deserve a way to send money without
| middlemen and unfortunately that requires a means of
| attempting censorship resistance or at least consensus within
| a nearly arbitrarily adversarial network.
| malermeister wrote:
| > People deserve a way to send money without middlemen
|
| Why? Please don't just make unfounded assertions.
| blueprint wrote:
| because it crosses the line into censorable speech
| lottin wrote:
| Payments are not speech. Find a better argument.
| teddyh wrote:
| The free movement of capital is a long-established right
| in Europe.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Capi
| tal
| malermeister wrote:
| If you read what you linked, you'll find that this only
| applies for _Euros within the Eurozone, with exceptions
| for capital controls in place_.
| lottin wrote:
| That's the European single market. Single market means
| freedom of movement of goods and services, capital and
| labour. In other words, it's not just capital. And it
| applies to a small set of countries which all agree to
| having a number of common rules and regulations. And it's
| not without intermediaries.
| neither_color wrote:
| What's "deserved" is subjective, but I'll bite. People
| from countries that are fiscally irresponsible and have
| tight capital controls "deserve" access to an asset that,
| while volatile, gives them a better hedge than
| hyperinflation and can't effectively be blocked by their
| dysfunctional government. See Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and
| citizens of any country that has a black market exchange
| rate for dollars/euros(Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey). You
| could make the case that this is something for
| international organizations like the UN/IMF to solve,
| but, they don't on any timescale that's meaningful to the
| person whose weekly paycheck buys less bread every week.
| They already have access to the same information and
| websites we do(with a VPN), accessing a globally
| distributed and decentralized ledger is as fundamental as
| their right to access twitter/facebook.
|
| Americans and Europeans have very limited experience with
| hyperinflation and volatile currencies, plus we have
| robust banking/fin-tech sectors so of course we're more
| prone to scoff at the problems cryptos _will_ solve.
| malermeister wrote:
| Are you sure crypto will solve the problem of _volatile
| currencies_? BTC crashes on around a yearly basis [0], it
| 's to find any currency more volatile than that.
|
| [0] https://www.yahoo.com/video/7-biggest-bitcoin-
| crashes-histor...
| Yetioko wrote:
| Your logic doesn't make sense.
|
| You are part of a system like a country. You are part of
| that country and the country acts on your behalf.
|
| IF there is a good reason that the state only allows
| sending money after certain criteria are met, its for the
| good of the country (normal countries, not corrupt ones).
|
| Then the country and its laws has the right to reduce that
| freedom.
|
| You might believe in the republic idea of everyone for
| him/herself but studies also show that for normal earning
| people, this is not helping them at all.
|
| Its not a global basic right to 'deserve a way to send
| money without middleman'. I'm not even allowed to just move
| to another country. I'm in one way or another imprisoned in
| my birth country.
| blueprint wrote:
| I'm not the property of a government. And please show me
| where rights are granted to governments and by who and
| for what basic purpose.
|
| And it's not always about govs.
|
| You may be imprisoned. but dont imprison others with your
| assumptions
| notabotyet wrote:
| I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every
| day without committing financial crimes and without paying
| any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses.
|
| Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential
| for plumbers.
| dymk wrote:
| It's more that you found a legitimate use for Agent Orange.
| 542458 wrote:
| Fun fact (and not to detract from your allegory), agent
| orange was widely used by Ontario Hydro from the fifties
| to late seventies to clear trees from around power lines.
| The people handling it weren't really well-informed of
| what exactly it was or how dangerous it was, so there
| have been a number of lawsuits. I have an uncle who
| recalls being jokingly hosed down with the stuff on a hot
| day by a guy working a sprayer in the back of a truck.
| Whoops.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1048075
| petenick wrote:
| Curious - what is your use case?
| [deleted]
| arcticbull wrote:
| Folks tend not to answer this question because they know
| it's not a good one.
|
| Let's take bitpay, probably the largest and oldest
| merchant processing system for crypto transactions. They
| publish stats. [1]
|
| - 40% of all of their transactions globally are for
| prepaid gift cards.
|
| - 20% of all of their transactions globally are for
| "internet."
|
| - 14% of all of their transactions globally are for
| "vpn."
|
| So 75% of all of their transactions globally are for
| merchant categories closely associated with fraud. And
| the reason is obvious: it's slower, more expensive and
| less convenient than using a credit or debit card. So it
| self-selects.
|
| Folks who "find a way to make it work" are usually
| ideological, in crypto (i.e. found other people who don't
| care that it's impractical or criminal) or have otherwise
| found ways of "processing crypto transactions" (i.e.
| using bitpay where the merchants do not receive crypto
| because of course they don't why would they).
|
| [1] https://bitpay.com/stats/
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And fiat money can be used to deal drugs.
|
| I mean I don't defend crypto, the way things are going is
| that they'll be just as regulated and centralized as
| digital fiat is, and a lot of it is people getting rich, or
| hoping to - I mean I'm one of those people, still waiting
| for my handful of dogecoin to go up 10.000% so I can
| retire. But I also have a regular job, regular savings, and
| regular stonks because savings account interest is a joke.
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| The exchanges can be regulated, but good luck trying to
| regulate a global peer to peer network!
| jonathankoren wrote:
| You just need to regulate the end points. At some point,
| someone needs real money instead of robux.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| pid-1 wrote:
| Look at bittorrent. While it's impossible to kill it,
| targeting agregation platforms definitely made the
| protocol immensely less relevant than it was 20 years
| ago.
| dwaite wrote:
| Seems like a mix of port blocks and criminal penalties,
| while not killing cryptocurrency, would greatly hinder
| its overall utility and thus any associated fiscal value.
| [deleted]
| rvz wrote:
| What these critics don't tell you is that the transactions
| of these cryptocurrencies are traceable and transparent
| making the majority of many cryptocurrencies pointless to
| use for 'committing financial crimes'.
|
| Otherwise, why do you think that these criminals are
| turning to privacy coins like Monero and MobileCoin, etc?
| deutschewelle wrote:
| What exactly is the valuable problem you are thinking in your
| head and how is it better solved by cryptocurrency and
| blockchain that can't already be done with existing methods,
| technologies and contractual agreements backed by various
| international treaties and dialectic tests for loopholes
| through thousands and thousands of years trading between
| countries, provinces, cities and entities?
| [deleted]
| jayd16 wrote:
| Read past the first sentence. Comment is tongue in cheek.
| ssijak wrote:
| whatsaaaaa whatsaaaaaaappp!!!
|
| one of the craziest public performances I have ever seen. and
| people fell for it. mind boggling.
| kosasbest wrote:
| Why do people trust middlemen to handle their crypto in a safe
| manner? The whole idea behind crypto is that it's decentralized.
| Interacting with exchanges, investment platforms, etc is asking
| for trouble. Assume any exchange is another MtGox waiting to
| happen. Assume you no longer own your funds once you interact
| with any crypto platform. Fraud is rampant in the crypto scene
| and has been since the beginning. And for those crying 'But
| Coinbase!'. I don't trust them either. Coinbase must have a
| really hard time sleeping knowing they're the custodians /
| middlemen of so much wealth.
| twblalock wrote:
| For the same reason people use banks and brokerages -- it's
| easy.
|
| There are also significant risks to managing your own crypto:
| managing wallet security is not trivial, people have lost money
| because they lost their passwords etc. There is a staggering
| amount of scams to avoid.
|
| The level of complexity and risk inherent in self-managing
| crypto is just too much to expect from the general public.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| While I agree with the premise of not _leaving_ crypto in
| online wallets, at this point it 's absurd to think you can
| interact with crypto without interacting with exchanges. Very,
| very, very few people are _paid_ in crypto, and still very few
| (legitimate) merchants actually _accepts_ crypto as the final
| form of payment for goods, so if you actually want to use
| crypto as, you know, money, at some point you 'll be dealing
| with an exchange.
| [deleted]
| nikanj wrote:
| For a lot of people, running your own node is technobabble.
| They see the billboard, install the app, and hope they are
| going to get rich - quick!
| Tenoke wrote:
| The biggest part is for onboarding. The second biggest is for
| lower fees. The third biggest is because it's easier.
| lolinder wrote:
| And all three of those parts are why the crypto dream of
| decentralized payments for all will never come to fruition.
| It is simply not possible for a decentralized system to have
| the same convenience and low cost as a centralized system. In
| the end, any decentralized system will tend to have a
| centralized layer built on top of it that eventually makes
| the underlying decentralized system obsolete.
|
| We see this everywhere: in Web 2.0, in Apple's walled garden,
| in Canonical's dominance in the desktop Linux space, and in
| the political history of basically any country you can name.
| Even most people who in theory support decentralization end
| up in practice choosing the centralized system every time.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I don't see the issue. Plenty of things exist and are
| useful without being convenient for Joe sixpack to use
| directly.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Fees are why I haven't moved my ETH after using an exchange
| to buy some for USD. I don't want to pay the stupidly high
| costs to move the ETH into a wallet that I fully control.
| Especially because turning that back to USD so it's actually
| usable in day-to-day transactions would require paying yet
| more fees to move the ETH back to an exchange (or to an
| independent buyer).
| trotro wrote:
| Have you had a look at gas prices recently? A transfer
| costs between 1$ and 2$ depending on the time of the day.
| It's still much higher than it should be, and let's hope
| that will change soon with the merge and L2 adoption, but
| that's not what I would call _stupidly high costs to move
| the ETH_.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I hadn't checked recently. If they're that low then I'm
| going to pull the coins out now.
| Tenoke wrote:
| A single transfer for ETH maybe but that's also in part
| because ETH price is low. If you want to move erc20s it
| costs significantly more And if your portfolio includes
| many projects it is unseemly. Also a lot of exchanges or
| at least the biggest one - Binance - have higher withdraw
| fees in part because they must make multiple transactions
| to send your money out.
| FlyNestor wrote:
| The Bitconnect Coin was among the world's most successful
| cryptocurrency token until its price collapsed.
|
| So you have to be quick if you want to ride the wave of a
| scamcoin
| ziml77 wrote:
| Not untrue. If you're quick to get in and time your exit right,
| you can make some seriously good money. Basically leveraging
| someone else's scam to scam people yourself.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Early adopters tend to make out big if they time the sell
| right... Just like any ponzi scheme
| bredren wrote:
| > "Today's indictment reiterates the FBI's commitment to
| identifying and addressing bad actors defrauding investors and
| sullying the ability of legitimate entrepreneurs to innovate
| within the emergent cryptocurrency space," said Special Agent in
| Charge Eric B. Smith of the FBI's Cleveland Field Office.
|
| I found this notable. The messaging is clear: the DoJ supports
| crypto within whatever the current legal framework is.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Funny how both "Cryptocurrency Derangement Syndrome" and "Trump
| Derangement Syndrome" are both un-ironically used to describe
| critical people who are strongly against both of those scams,
| when they much more accurately describe gullible people who are
| deeply fooled by both of those scams.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Interesting that there is no mention that he has been charged of
| being involved in a Ponzi scheme in the headline - just
| "Cryptocurrency Scheme".
| space_rock wrote:
| Is there a cryptocurrency token sale that's not designed to
| defraud the buyers?
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Yes, Blockstream has a token that represents Bitcoin miner
| shares.
|
| The most important thing is to wait until the token is
| registered by SEC, so far all scam tokens skipped that step.
| capableweb wrote:
| There are a couple of "token sales" (they don't call them
| that) that only allowed accredited investors to invest, and
| had their "token sales" registered with the SEC before they
| went live with them. If those were designed to defraud the
| investors, I'm pretty sure SEC would go after those first.
| space_rock wrote:
| Yep. It comes down to information asymmetry. Harder to
| trick and scam accredited investors
|
| Most token sales make good money with very low effort scams
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Sadly a lot of token sales were pump and dumps through
| VCs, so even this is not true. SEC registering looks like
| a better filter for now.
| wmf wrote:
| Of course, any SEC-registered token probably won't be
| allowed to do anything interesting so there's no point in
| investing.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It'd be tricky to define criminal criteria based solely on
| running a Ponzi scheme so there isn't a "USC Section #" crime
| called "Ponzi Scheming". They just charge the various illegal
| parts of the scheme separately. His charges:
|
| Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud--Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1349
|
| Maximum penalty: Twenty years in prison, forfeiture,
| restitution, and $250,000 fine
|
| Wire Fraud--Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1343
|
| Maximum penalty: Twenty years in prison, forfeiture,
| restitution, and $250,000 fine
|
| Conspiracy--Title 18, U.S.C., Section 371
|
| Maximum penalty: Five years in prison, and $250,000 fine
|
| Operation of Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business--Title 18,
| U.S.C., Section 1960
|
| Maximum penalty: Five years in prison, forfeiture, and $250,000
| fine
|
| Money Laundering Conspiracy--Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1956(h)
|
| Maximum penalty: Twenty years in prison, forfeiture, and
| $250,000 fine
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/founder-fraudulent-cryp...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Meanwhile in other news, water is wet, the sky is blue, Putin is
| a tyrant with blood on his hands, and I'm SHOCKED, SHOCKED to
| find that GAMBLING is going on in here!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
| bogwog wrote:
| You're so ignorant. It isn't gambling, it's grass-roots
| investing to disrupt the centralized financial system owned by
| the government that's trying to inject you with a microchip
| under the guise of stopping a scamdemic, just like they did to
| the frogs (which are all gay now)
|
| If the US constitution was originally minted as an NFT, none of
| this would be necessary.
| er4hn wrote:
| You had me in the first half, I'm not gonna lie.
|
| Considering how immutable many consider the US constitution
| to be, it really should be an NFT for them!
| malermeister wrote:
| Man Poe's Law strikes hard here
| beiller wrote:
| Bitcoin is like bit torrent. A technology that has legitimate use
| cases in theory, even can be really truly useful tech, but is
| used mostly for shady things.
| swinglock wrote:
| BitConnect is crypto, not Bitcoin.
| lawn wrote:
| Bitconnect isn't even a real crypto.
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