This is an extraordinary article by the BBC. Against the background of severe criminal & fraud issues with FTX, Tether, NFTs (...and back to MtGox, etc.) -- the SEC is now enforcing existing legislation.
To describe this as an attack on crypto repeats the propaganda of an industry built on fraud. What's happening is enforcement of laws previously unenforced on an industry with widespread law-breaking.
The reason these cypto companies aren't in the US is because the US gov will enforce the law.
But they're not actually enforcing existing legislation, per se. One of the major issues wrt crypto in the US is that the SEC won't tell you what's legal or not. Seriously, when companies ask them "is doing XYZ ok?" or "can we trade ABC?" or "what can we do to be in compliance?" the literally SEC refuses to issue clear guidance. To say many industry players are upset is an understatement.
Eh, there's plenty of other types of laws an industry could break in a widespread fashion that aren't fraud-related. Environmental dumping laws, antitrust laws, bribery of domestic or foreign officials to name a few.
The article fails to point out that cryptocurrency has already effectively been banned (or at least delegitimised) in other major economies like China and India, so the US is in some sense just playing catch-up. At this stage, at the national level, cryptocurrency is primarily supported by mafia states like Russia, rogue states like North Korea, micro-states like various Caribbean islands, and otherwise failing states.
I mean, why would any state support crypto, something explicitly designed to bypass state control of money? Only those suffering oppression of their ability to transact, of course.
Crypto was not designed to bypass state but to provide transparency and stability to currency/money. Say you are in Venezuela where your money is constantly devalued and your political power is diminished, every option that you have to survive that doesn't harm people directly should not be considered in high horse moral terms.
Some states have accepted that they are unable to run a trusted currency and used the US dollar instead. Bitcoin seems like a straightforwardly better choice there, since the US Fed can't print bitcoins.
Dang: Please change the title so "crypto" becomes "cryptocurrency". I realize that's the original title, but here at HN the term "crypto" is confusing (I presumed they meant cryptography, not cryptocurrency). Thanks so much!!
I hate that these days it is not clear what is meant by "crypto" without having more context. Because usually they want to kill the wrong kind of crypto.
I remember a time when "crypto" just meant cryptography. Heck, the cryptography module in e.g. NodeJS is called "crypto", the Web Crypto API has nothing to do with cryptocurrencies or NFTs, etc.
I remember that too and I wish it could stay that way. But today when someone not familiar with technology mentions "crypto", it unfortunately means "cryptocurrencies". And those are only useful for fraud.
Personally feel that people should be allowed to gamble all they want with their own money.
But the gambling/crypto/options platforms need to be regulated and transparent. Because otherwise, you don’t know how much the game is rigged against you, the player.
Allow crypto platforms to operate and even thrive. But bring them under regulation so that users can buy without the constant threat of market manipulation, insider trading, and all the opaque shenanigans that currently happen with crypto.
Yes, making rules about other people’s money is the government’s favourite hobby. Justifications include the redistribution of consequences/patriot act talking points and “investor protections” (ie. you are being rescued, please don’t resist).
Let's not forget the Internet please. This has enabled populists governments and terrorists spreading their propaganda everywhere. Drug selling has been made easier while reading comments in online forum feals like earth is devoid of any intelligence
If you ascertain some value to the permissionless and self-custodial value of cash. And you see value in the internet's ability to connect the entire world. Then it follows immediately that you see value in cryptocurrency.
Because you cannot use cash to transact globally, and you cannot use digital forms of central bank issued currency permissionlessly or have self-custody. Cryptocurrency gives you all those three properties.
So you must give up something. HNers typically are willing to give up the permissionless and self-custody properties. After all, most of HN audience lives in developed democratic countries where personal freedoms are considered fundamental pillars and protected. But at a minimum you should consider that, not all the world lives under those circumstances. And that there are no guarantees that those circumstances will always be preserved in your cozy first world country. Certainly if you are willing to give them up so easily.
Don't be so quick to assume it cannot happen where you live.
One day they may go after some fringe truckers protesting in Canada. Another day they may go after some camgirls earning a living in ways that some executive board of a payment processor considers reprobable. Maybe one day they will tell you in what you can or cannot spend your money or where you can invest it and how much.
> 'Self custody digital currency' is not a use case anybody has asked for.
The number of hardware wallets clearly shows that this statement is false. Someone who uses Bitcoin today might not have asked for it but now that it exists they use it just like smart phones.
> The current system already has a solution that is better than Bitcoin, and that everyone already uses it's called:
Cash.
Cash and Bitcoin are not directly comparable as they have different properties but even if you were to focus on the one property that they share notice how controls of cash are getting more and more restrictive.
> Why does Bitcoin still gets seized by the government?
Because people allow it to be seized by their own volition or their own incompetence.
> It also needs to engulf the planet in enormous electricity waste to compute billions of meaningless puzzles.
The same could be said for video games. Video games cause more e-waste, use more electricity, are designed to be addictive and rob people of doing productive things for themselves and others.
> Other countries have better systems that doesn't use Bitcoin and are far cheaper and scale better than Bitcoin.
Far cheaper and scale better but have none of the properties that make Bitcoin attractive or essential in the first place.
Of course it can be seized if you write it down. Of you just remember the 12 words there's no way they can extract it (Other than the $5 wrench meme)
For me this has also been an attraction to crypto as I lost faith in the banking sector after 2007. But I have no crypto left because the regulation makes it so difficult. And I don't care about the speculation, I just wanted a truly safe place to store my money.
As crypto has a netto negative impact on the world I hope that Coinbase and the other platforms get wrecked.
Regular currency is also abused, but at least it has a clear beneficial use case. Crypto only destroys, it sucks wealth away from those who often can’t spare it.
Crypto is the culmination of all the hubris of both men and capitalism combined. A solution without a problem.
The crypto people have it so backwards: they looked at those bankers and HF traders and they didn’t think: this industry must be regulated to death. No, they didn’t see anything wrong: they just want their cut, they were entitled to (temporary embarrassed millionaires).
The whole Wall Street Bets / GameStop phenomenon is also exactly that. But trying to join a destructive industry is only self absorbed nihilism (getting rich at the expense of others (which may be a tautology)). It doesn’t solve any of the systemic underlying causes and most other people end up being the bag holders.
Crypto in short is so similar to HF trading, just sucking out value without creating any value and as a society at large we can do without.
At least AI provides actual value immediately - you can generate cool pictures right now. You don't have to HODL something and hope that you will be able to sell it to a greater fool.
Crypto bros and most crypto companies have no technical talent. In AI, you need to actually offer solutions. In crypto, you just need to lie/shill your way into scams.
You need to offer solutions eventually. Right now, in this VC bubble moment, it's enough to mention looking into "AI" or to change the name of your company to "[something] AI" no matter how ridiculous that something is.
There was a moment like this for cryptocurrencies a few years ago, but that was when every CEO and startup was trying to do something with "blockchain" to make investors salivate.
>Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University, thinks crypto is inherently susceptible to boom-and-boost cycles and manipulation by insiders, and thinks it should be banned.
I don’t know or care much for crypto, but man does it bring out Ayn Rand villains you thought only existed in books.
To describe this as an attack on crypto repeats the propaganda of an industry built on fraud. What's happening is enforcement of laws previously unenforced on an industry with widespread law-breaking.
The reason these cypto companies aren't in the US is because the US gov will enforce the law.