SEC's Gensler Doesn't See Cryptocurrencies Lasting Long (wsj.com) 175
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, "Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said Tuesday he doesn't see much long-term viability for cryptocurrencies (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), underscoring the importance of protecting investors in the market and bringing it under regulatory oversight. CoinDesk reports: Gensler also discussed stablecoins, which have become a growing area of concern among federal regulators. Gensler told the Washington Post that the SEC is currently putting together a report about stablecoins under the guidance of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. He also said the SEC is working with banking regulators in order to get expanded authority from Congress to regulate stablecoins. Gensler has previously compared the crypto industry to the Wild West, an analogy he expanded on during Tuesday's interview. "We've got a lot of casinos here in the Wild West," Gensler said. "And the poker chip is these stablecoins."
Gensler stressed the importance of proactive crypto regulation. "I don't think it's a good idea to wait until there's a spill in aisle three," Gensler joked. "If we don't do anything and there's never a spill in aisle three, great ... I think there's just a lot of warning signs and flashing lights that we might have a spill on aisle three and I'd rather get ahead of it." Gensler also said several times during the interview that he doesn't see private forms of money as viable in the long term, comparing crypto to the Wildcat banking era of the 19th century when banks in remote areas of the U.S. distributed nearly worthless paper currency backed by bonds and other securities. "History tells us that private forms of money don't last long," Gensler told the Washington Post. "I don't think there's a long-term viability for 5,000 or 6,000 private forms of money."
Gensler stressed the importance of proactive crypto regulation. "I don't think it's a good idea to wait until there's a spill in aisle three," Gensler joked. "If we don't do anything and there's never a spill in aisle three, great ... I think there's just a lot of warning signs and flashing lights that we might have a spill on aisle three and I'd rather get ahead of it." Gensler also said several times during the interview that he doesn't see private forms of money as viable in the long term, comparing crypto to the Wildcat banking era of the 19th century when banks in remote areas of the U.S. distributed nearly worthless paper currency backed by bonds and other securities. "History tells us that private forms of money don't last long," Gensler told the Washington Post. "I don't think there's a long-term viability for 5,000 or 6,000 private forms of money."
As long as there is greed (Score:2)
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Probably. But it will not amount to much. Well, it does not amount to much at this time, just a mechanism for fraud and gambling, really. But as soon as it gets regulated (and anybody thinking this would not happen is utterly naive), it will amount to even less.
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One of the great parts about cryptocurrency is that you don't need "the internet" to operate with it.
There are now competitors to "the internet" which will obviously work well to replace the regulated centers.
Heck, Musk just launched a competitor to "the internet" which doesn't even need earth stations to operate -- and I am certain he will launch his own cryptocurrency which is 100% outside of government regulation.
Good luck censoring that.
Cryptocurrency is here to stay because fiat currency is inflating i
Re:As long as there is greed (Score:5, Informative)
Blockchains absolutely require internet connectivity for their "proof of work" signatures. Until a transaction gets signed by a miner, the money hasn't officially changed hands.
It doesn't require any specific internet, but due to how signing is a race, the people doing the signing aren't going to waste their time signing off on a backwater network where their work will be completely wasted if it gets out-competed by a longer chain that outruns it on a bigger network. Because of this, signing pretty much has to be done on the biggest network available because that's where the chains will grow the fastest. So you can't force a currency to use a specific network, it's going to use the fastest, most populated network by default. So your space network is definitely out ;)
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No. Bitcoin is not the only way to do it. Bitcoin is merely one of the stupidest ways and proof of work is probably the stupidest bit of Bitcoin.
But the psychology of fools is easy to exploit. Is that why you're defending Bitcoin?
The point of the story is that there are infinite ways to do "cryptocurrency". As soon as the buzz wears off and the shiny new aura of fake uniqueness wears off, the intrinsic values (of all of the cryptocurrencies) will return to zero. No actual scarcity there. (Alternatively, one
Re: As long as there is greed (Score:2)
There are multiple alternatives to proof of work. The oldest is a decade old.
Taking about all blockchains as if they are all proof of works shows you don't know much about the subject.
Re: As long as there is greed (Score:2)
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As long as there is a society that wants to reduce crime and provide for safety (physical, economic, etc) then there will be regulation.
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I think you seriously underestimate the ability of the government's pen to write literally any law it wants. They don't need to stop the blockchain. They only need to stop the people who are using it.
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You really have no clue what you are talking about. Nothing of what you just fantasized is true.
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So long as you live under the jurisdiction of a government, you can't be '100% outside of goverment regulation'. Ultimately, no matter how much privacy and independence you might manage to technically achieve to the problem of 'how do you make one person move numbers to another', you are ultimately paying for *something* that's going to include real goods and services that will be a real-world matter. You can't just tell the police locking you up in cuffs that they can't do anything because you used crypto
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And that is pretty much it. The argument that "fiat currencies are crashing" is completely bogus and only demonstrates a rather strong lack of insight as to how societies work on the part of those using it. But yes, you get "preppers" that can survive a year in their bunker but that have not thought beyond that at all. Modern society is full of idiots that think they are smarter than everybody else and quite a few of them think they can survive without a working society. They are kidding themselves.
On a sid
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But yes, you get "preppers" that can survive a year in their bunker but that have not thought beyond that at all.
This perspective is actually at least a little closer to practical than BTC. Hoarding actual resources like food and water at least have inherent utility, but currency, cryptocurrency or precious metals would be useless (with no authority to arbitrate, there's no reason for anyone to honor the exchange the 'money' changing hands is meant to represent).
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As soon as there are two people, there is government. Government is not some external entity, govenrment is the people - even if that people happens to be a warlord and a militia, or the patriarch of an extended family or tribe, etc. If you make your own enclave to escape the government then you have created yet another government. You cannot escape government, it's been around since before there were humans.
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Banks, for the most part, are already not using it. SOX compliance is pretty difficult to get with something built on hot air only.
And the large "investors" are only doing pump&dump. The small idiots think that next time they will for sure profit.
Governments can't allow it (Score:2, Troll)
It would be the loss of control, and they need centralised control.
Also, information control is too big a deal for governments to pass up -- introduce new incentives and controls on money at a highly granular level. Dictate how you spend money, dictate even how long the money remains valid. Apply nudges to achieve social and environmental policy outcomes.
This is a reason why we must all have a digital ID.
Add a bit of propaganda to justify a policy, and then impose it coercively in how your money transacts..
Re:Governments can't allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
"It would be the loss of control, and they need centralised control."
Centralised control of a currency is a Very Good Idea for a whole host of economic reasons. Just because you're going through a standard issue stick it to the man phase doesn't mean every control governments have is a bad idea.
"This is a reason why we must all have a digital ID."
Must we? I don't know about you but I don't have one other than whatever governments and banks have on me. But before computers it was all on paper, no difference - they still had the info. And no, I don't use social media.
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Centralised control of a currency is a Very Good Idea for a whole host of economic reasons.
Then it shouldn't be bothered by competition.
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Has anywhere banned cryptocurrency other than china (and probably north korea)? If western governments though bitcoin et al were a serious threat to national currencies and economic stability they would have been banned.
Re:Governments can't allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
Then it shouldn't be bothered by competition.
No one is. What concerns the SEC is fraud and tax evasion. There's a reason why regulators are focusing on exchanges.
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It's probably easier to enforce the rules at the exchanges instead of going after the 500-6000 or so coins.
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Not only easier, it's literally the only thing they care about - when BTC, which is an asset, is converted to/from real money, which is a taxable event.
Re:Governments can't allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
Having competing currencies undermines this.
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One basic reason why it is a good idea to have a centralized currency is that this allows governments some amount of control over inflation, which is good if you're living in a country where the government has at least some incentive to make decisions that benefit its population
What a load of crap.
De facto the US controls interest rates globally and most countries have no choice but to follow US rates in order to keep their currency at a somewhat stable exchange rate against the USD. That in turn is crucial for their economies especially if they trade with the US, which basically every country does. Since the FED fully controls the US interest rates, it effectively controls the interest rates of other countries as well, at least for those countries having a non-trivially sized
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Sure, that's why interest rates are the same as the US all over the world.
Re: Governments can't allow it (Score:2)
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Tots. These move precisely the same way. It's eerie. Truly USA world uber daddy.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/gr... [stlouisfed.org]
PS: I had Russia on the graph too, but I had to take them off because their 2000% interest rate made it so you couldn't see the other lines.
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What a load of crap.
De facto the US controls interest rates globally and most countries have no choice but to follow US rates in order to keep their currency at a somewhat stable exchange rate against the USD.
If you are going to write a wall of text it's best not to have your first sentence be laughably incorrect. Hint: Currencies aren't stablised against the USD. They are stabilised against foreign trade with whomever it is that they do the majority of trade with, and their stability is due to their own government policy.
Back to school with you.
I don't have the heart to read the rest of your comment. My guess I don't have the time to correct whatever nonsense is in there.
Re: Governments can't allow it (Score:2)
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I think the previous poster is more correct.
The investment flows and the money markets are much larger and faster than trade-required money flows. Among developed markets changes in relative interest rates, and expected changes thereof, govern changes in exchange rates primarily. Money flows quickly to currencies with higher short term rates, right away.
Look at what FX traders need to care about to be successful. What changes the FX markets the most, and what matters the most? Central bank policies. T
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Even if you're not, governments have a pretty strong incentive to keep their currencies stable. Contrary to Internet hand wringing, hyperinflation is a symptom of an economy on he ropes, not a cause. Unstable currency tends to lead pretty quickly to the people in charge not being in charge anymore. And often not being alive anymore.
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If you followed the links in TFS, you might have learned about why its extremely annoying to have 1000s of different scrip in circulation in a given area.
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Just because you're going through a standard issue stick it to the man phase doesn't mean every control governments have is a bad idea.
Of course. The point is, when they get excessive control. It is about balance.
Re:Governments can't allow it (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a particularly salient saying here (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
The cryptocurrency bullshit will come crashing down some day, either under the weight of its own vaporwareness, when it starts burning so much energy pointlessly that it will drive the cost of electricity up for everybody else, or when world governments start banning it en masse to fight tax dodging and stabilize their legit currencies. When it does, a lot of johnny-come-latelies will lose a lot of money. Kind of like, you know, in a Ponzi scheme: the last entrants are the suckers.
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This is particularly true of so-called stablecoins. The entire cryptocurrency market is currently based on this shared belief that they can issue tokens tied 1:1 to hard currency, and no one is bothering to stop and think if this is even feasible - or why there's a need for "stable" tokens to begin with.
I mentioned Tether a couple times in the past as a prime example. Here's a stablecoin with a marketcap of ~$69bn, all supposedly backed by a company (Bitfinex) with a net worth which is nowhere near that fig
Re:There is a particularly salient saying here (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitcoins, must like a lot of currencies, depend on someone else thinking they're worth what you claim they're worth. I have this glass of juice here. I claim it's worth a dollar. If you agree, or think it's worth more, have a dollar and want a glass of juice, I will have a dollar and you will have a glass of juice.
But that dollar has no intrinsic value. It's a pice of ... what stuff are dollars printed on anyway? It has this value because I, too, believe it's worth a glass of juice. Or more than that.
Now, "believe" is maybe not the correct term here. I believe that because there's a fairly strong economy backing that currency with the value of its goods, and a quite powerful government that promises that it will give me my dollar's worth in exchange for that piece of green whatever. So there is actually a reaons to believe that.
The only question that really remains in this scenario is whether the economy and the government promising these things are powerful enough to fullfill that promise if push comes to shove. Hint: They're not. But that's fine, no government on this planet is. August 15, 1971. That's when Nixon said that you could no longer go and demand "your" gold for the dollar you hold. Until then, you could realistically expect to dump a bunch of green sheets onto the US government and tell them to hand over the equivalent value of gold. 35 dollars per ounce.
An ounce of gold is currently 1,775 Dollars. Yeah... that would be a sweet deal if it still worked.
So is the dollar as much a vaporware currency as bitcoins? Not quite. Because there's a lot more people who "believe" in it. And that believe is actually pretty much in the vicinity of faith. Because purely logically, the dollar isn't exactly backed fully with the US gold reserves, GDP and governmental possessions either anymore. But at the very least, there is something backing it.
With bitcoins, there is literally nothing.
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Why not? Western Union, VISA, Mastercard and your bank do that all the time. A "stable coin" is just a way to get around the regulations those other organizations have to follow because {technobabble}, which is why the SEC is so interested in regulating it. There's no reason to use a blockchain, except to provide a source of technobabble since you've got a central authority guaranteeing the exchange rate anyway.
The big offer is cheap transaction fees, which are a problem with our banking system. Oh, and The
I tend to agree (Score:3)
Crypto currency that arn't backed by any nation state will never be anything more than a speculation vehicle. OTOH block chain has a very extensive future ahead of it.
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Crypto currency that arn't backed by any nation state will never be anything more than a speculation vehicle. OTOH block chain has a very extensive future ahead of it.
This exactly!
If anyone thinks that any of the independent cryptocurrencies will last long, ask yourself: why didn't we have any successful non-government issued paper money so far? (issued by private people, banks, or any non-government owned corporation)
Check the history of Liberty Dollar if you have any doubts.
The government doesn't like competition when it comes to money-printing. They have to have this monopoly to ensure they can control the economy and to ensure their own survival by collecting tax
Economist: but there have been private currencies (Score:2)
>why didn't we have any successful non-government issued paper
>money so far? (issued by private people, banks, or any non-
>government owned corporation)
But we have!
historically, the bulk of paper money *was* issued privacy. The US was well into the 20th century before federal paper crowded the rest out.
In the colonial and pre-federal period, sheets of exchange rates for bank notes issued, with increasing premium for added risk by distance from the issuing bank as well as the perceived solvency of
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Maybe, but doing what? Don't get me wrong, I used to think blockchain had a lot of potential to do important things, and especially so around the public record and still do to some extent, yet here we are coming up on 13 years since Satoshi's whitepaper and other than underpinning crypto-currencies and a few trial balloons (often built on Ethereum's Smart Contracts) we're essentially still waiting for anything that even looks like it might be a "ki
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Proof of ownership and non deletable transaction history are the main things right now, but no doubt other uses will come along.
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Proof of ownership and non deletable transaction history are the main things right now, but no doubt other uses will come along.
While I agree with you in principle, every attempt to find a problem for which blockchain has been the solution so far has failed miserably. With the exception of NFTs of course, but then that's at least consistent with crypto as blockchain being a solution only to the problem of tax evasion.
The reality is 100% of anything we have ever done as a human race has shown that we can effectively verify and complete transactions without the overhead of a blockchain. And it is an overhead, not only in processing, b
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The closest I've seen to a viable proposed use of blockchain was the dilemma of a truck arriving at a destination warehouse apparently a pallet short. The trucking company database claims that it only picked up 8 pallets but the source warehouse company database says the trucking company picked up 9. Someone at one of the companies retroactively altered their database to make a pallet disappear, and both possibilities are equally likely and require investigation. Blockchain in that application promises to
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At this point I think the crux of the issue is that, while blockchain does have some novel features over a traditional ledger or notarized document, those features alone do not offset the additional complexity required to shift over to a blockchain based approach. If they're done properly the current approaches ain't particular broken or unworkable, so why fix them?
I think the issue is there is more a disincentive to fix it. The current approach is inefficient in a lot of ways and needs a lot people to make it work. Try doing a 'cash' real-estate transaction for few $100k. Should be simple right - but you need multiple professionals and county clerks to do title work, you need banks and escrow services to handle wires and cashiers checks, and all of them charge a fee! Even if there is no lending involved at all you'll be lucky to get all done for less that $1000.
My po
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Incorrect. Fiat currencies are backed by men with guns.
Correct, but misleading. Fiat currencies are backed by debt, meaning contracts. And the contracts are backed by courts... which are backed by men with guns, so you're not wrong, but skipping the debt contracts makes it seem like the backing is far more arbitrary than it is, and feeds the common erroneous belief that fiat currencies have no actual value.
In fact, the value of a dollar derives from the existence of a contract that legally binds someone to provide goods or services worth one dollar. The way t
False prophecy (Score:2)
But unless the government bans cryptocurrencies his claims are a false prophecy, since cryptocurrencies can now stand on their own. If Iran or Venezuela start trading oil for Bitcoin then we have a huge problem on our hands since the USD could plummet if BTC gains traction in the commodit
nt (Score:2)
Someone get Gensler a Twitter account. (Score:2)
It's refreshing to have an anti-Musk to create these great dips, ie. good entry points.
Also interesting to hear from the choir of crypto opponents who don't seem to know about later-generation Proof of Work alternatives like Ethereum's Proof of Stake, Solana's Proof of History, or Helium's Proof of Coverage. Or the advent of decentralized exchanges. Or how decentralized systems may be rather resistant to regulation. Will be interesting to see how it all develops. In the meantime...buy the dip?
HIstory Lesson (Score:2)
"History tells us that private forms of money don't last long," Gensler told the Washington Post.
Gold and silver have been used as money for thousands of years.
The current non-convertible federal reserve notes have only been around since 1973.
All anonymous currencies are cash. (Score:2)
Cash has limited value outside the banking system. A 10$ bill in your wallet has same value as a 10$ credit in your bank account. A million dollars in a briefcase has much less value tha
Private money (Score:3)
Private forms of money don't last long because they're generally small and controlled by a single entity. Distrust of that entity generally precludes it becoming very big either.
Crypto is inherently not controlled by a single entity. You have to trust an algorithm, not an entity and the behavior of algorithms is known. Private money on the other hand could be withdrawn or inflated to worthlessness at the absolute whim of its controller.
Governments are the same as private money to some degree, but you usually have no choice, the size problem is solved by forcing all citizens of a country to use it, and in many countries you have at least some influence over it in the form of elections.
reasons (Score:3)
It's also worth considering that a lot of the time when a group very publicly says "it's just a fad, it won't last", that's just their public statement while they either are scrambling to get a new version of their product to market, or are trying to eek a few more years out of their outdated tech before the public decides to leave it for the new boy in town.
(but either way, it's just them trying to gas-light us)
Old Man Yells at Cloud (Score:3)
People Get to Decide What is Money (Score:2)
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and cryptocoin shills keep thinking their game tokens are money even though they fail all tests of money. They just don't get it, they will continue not to get it.
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Hunter Biden is a well known artist? News to me.
NFTs are a fad. In a few years nobody will even know what they were.
As to money-laundering, you have to declare any cryptocurrency you are holding as assets in most countries even if there is no explicite requirement. The thing is, as a company you have to declare all assets, no matter what. As a private individual, it depends. Not declaring them is just the same crime as not declaring other assets.
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Yes he is extremely well known to anyone paying attention for commanding riddiculous sums of money for works that look like the stuff college kids crank out in 100 level art classes every day and making subsequent introductions to his politically important father.
You yourselef would be posting it over and over again if his name was Don Jr, or Eric - but as usual because the people involved are Democrats its a non story.
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So I’m supposed to be outraged because he makes mediocre art and people pay for it? I’m sure his laptop story will break any day now.
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You yourselef would be posting it over and over again if his name was Don Jr, or Eric - but as usual because the people involved are Democrats its a non story.
And where do you take that from? Because I would not. Who, BTW, is "Don Jr" or "Eric?"? I have never heard of them.
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NFTs are a fad. In a few years nobody will even know what they were.
NFTs blow my fucking mind. There's people legit paying serious money for links to algorithmically-generated monkey pixel art, completely convinced that shit will be worth something down the line.
Re: Delusional thinking (Score:2)
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That's the thing though. You're not buying anything but bragging rights when you buy a NFT; it's a glorified URL.
I recently ran into someone's Twitter who puts random NFT images as avatars for his account, and people go apeshit about how this person can be using someone else's NFT without his permission.
Re: Delusional thinking (Score:2)
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But, there's no copyright to be applied on NFTs :) Remember, you don't own the image; you just own a non-fungible token with a link to it.
As of why people think this is worth any money, your guess is as good as mine.
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That Heinlein novel were Disney went to war with Coca Cola and someone wiped out Acapulco.
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An NFT can contain the actual data, not just a link such as a URL (which is just an arbitrary string of text anyway). Making them out of URLs was just a way of "selling" famous tweets.
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I think at least some of them understand the future value of the 'asset' will be near $0. Its its own 'performance art' for some and a "look at how rich and powerful I am you plebs, I just set half a million dollars on fire for all intents because I can! So stop thinking you have influence or power, I make the rules" for others.
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NFTs are a fad. In a few years nobody will even know what they were.
NFTs blow my fucking mind. There's people legit paying serious money for links to algorithmically-generated monkey pixel art, completely convinced that shit will be worth something down the line.
No mind-blowing here. Some people are always intent on doing even more stupid things and some of them have money.
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Government wants to squish money laundering. When an entire category of financial instrument apparently exists largely to facilitate money laundering, governments will try to destroy that category. It's just a question of whether they succeed, and exactly why there's not a long-term future in it.
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Government wants to squish money laundering.
No, not quite. Government only wants to eliminate competition. They want to be in charge of the (non-stop QE) printing presses, not anyone else.
When an entire category of financial instrument apparently exists largely to facilitate money laundering, governments will try to destroy that category. It's just a question of whether they succeed, and exactly why there's not a long-term future in it.
The world of art is so public that we have dedicated entire buildings to warehouse it. And the world of art when it comes to money laundering is so obvious that Hunter Biden is a "well-known" artist now, because he's certainly commanding more money for his work than many actual known artists. The laundering is so obvious that out of nowhere NFTs are making Picas
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No, not quite. Government only wants to eliminate competition. They want to be in charge of the (non-stop QE) printing presses, not anyone else.
You're equating cryptocurrencies to money. As much as people want to make believe this is true, it is not - most (if not all) cryptocurrencies out there are traded as speculative assets., hoping for a big payday down the line.
The only thing the government wants from you is to pay your due taxes on these.
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As is done with currencies everyday. The is not that they are speculative assets. They absolutely do have more in common with dollars than with any commodity. The crypto bros like to claim its a commodity much of the time too; but definitely isnt that. You can't fork gold, oil, or pork - but bitcoin cash exists..
Bitcoin is 'money' but its private money, which is virtually always 'bad money' because its not truly tied to anything. Even if was 'on a gold standard' or something there simply isn't a strong enou
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As is done with currencies everyday. The is not that they are speculative assets.
Please google the definition for the latter.
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I would actually argue the other way. Crypto coins ARE a speculative asset, and so are the other currencies. There are people making money every day trading recognized national currencies back and forth.
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Bitcoin is 'money' but its private money, which is virtually always 'bad money' because its not truly tied to anything.
All 'money' is like this, the supply is controlled by someone else and they could start printing more whenever they want in order to inflate what you have into worthlessness.
Bitcoin does not have this characteristic, the supply is known and predictable - even more so than gold.
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but again bitcoin cash exists - there is no 'fork of gold' Silver isn't a substitute, and neither is platinum - they different commodities.
There is nothing real distinguishable among many of these crypto-currencies. With a central authority who is to say on of the other forks don't take off and people quit taking your bitcoins? It might seem like there is critical mass but the number of active users is still almost vanishingly small really.
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Bitcoin is 'money' but its private money, which is virtually always 'bad money' because its not truly tied to anything.
Ah, right, now we know you have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry.
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You're equating cryptocurrencies to money. As much as people want to make believe this is true, it is not - most (if not all) cryptocurrencies out there are traded as speculative assets., hoping for a big payday down the line.
The only thing the government wants from you is to pay your due taxes on these.
While not being a fan of cryptocurrencies, I do need to accept in a number of places it is accepted as money. The Merriam-Webster describes money as follows:
something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment: such as
This means if a business or person can accept payment in Bitcoins, for example, then by that definition it is acting as money.
Myself, I see it all as bartering, but with a common interchange unit. Unless you are working the stock market or currency exchanges, you aren’t having to decide on how much wheat you get for your sheep. Instead you are go
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While not being a fan of cryptocurrencies, I do need to accept in a number of places it is accepted as money.
It is not. A number of websites accept payments in BTC, but pretty much all of them convert it to hard currency on the spot. Bitcoin would then be "money" in the same sense a credit card is.
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I think you missed the 'generally accepted' part. 'A' person or business accepting Bitcoins does not mean Bitcoins are 'generally accepted'.
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You're equating cryptocurrencies to money. As much as people want to make believe this is true, it is no
It is true, no matter how much you would wish to believe it isn't. Money is a matter of belief, as Adam Smith once said. It does not get defined by governments, or you.
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If they were serious about squishing money laundering they'd have actually busted the "legitimate' banks doing the big laundering for cartels and terrorists instead of just taxing the proceeds.
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That was nothing more than a piece of the action. They've made many billions. So, what do you call it when you have to give 10% of your profit to the government?
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Hundreds of millions of fines on billions of profits
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People gonna launder.
And if they can hoover up the savings of a few naive "investors" along the way then that's even better.
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I'm not so sure crypto-currencies deserve the rap for laundering. Especially after HSBC laundered all that money for the cartels and terrorists and all the regulators did was demand a piece of the action. If all else fails we'll see laundry detergent used as an exchange medium for laundering Yes, that's a bit on the nose but I'm not kidding [businessinsider.com].
Re:What a surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stable coins are a particular problem for them, as they are a perfectly viable alternative to fiat currencies.
Sure. That's why every single cryptocurrency worth is measured against "stable" coins - a.k.a. US dollar.
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No, the only thing the US needs is more efficient financial markets for USD over RNB. At global scale fractions of a percent in inefficiencies add up to real dollars (or RNB) over billions of dollars transferred. The only way RNB replaces USD on a global scale is if the overhead of using it as a medium of exchange is less than that of using USD, including both the transaction system as well as global inertia toward one currency or the other.
Note that more efficient financial markets for USD doesn't automa
Re: (Score:2)
Automobiles had intrinsic value, had utility and created wealth.
None of those things are true for cryptocoin, they're just gaming tokens for a virtual casino. Cryptocoin isn't money, fails all the tests of money.
Hilarious a week ago bitcoin shills saying we're going to 250K, then thing takes a $7K shit in last four days. Toxic trash.