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I think this is a really good sign that it's a good idea to get out of crypto currencies. China is actually pretty good at making decisions to defend it's count

I think this is a really good sign that it's a good idea to get out of crypto currencies. China is actually pretty good at making decisions to defend it's country from negative outside influence. Anywhere that hosts a bitcoin exchange is also hosting criminal activity. Consequently, Bitcoin exchanges are going to make areas more dangerous to live. It's just a bad business decision to allow it to exist in your country.

sova 9y ago
Many of us analysts who are deep in the game recognize that China is simply shutting them all down to start its own cryptocurrency that (probably) has ID/government name linked to it.
- intopieces 9y ago
  Interesting. Do you know of any articles about this? I would like to learn more about the potential of a Chinese state-owned crypto currency.
- tunetine 9y ago
  Cite this please.
  - sova 9y ago
    https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own-cryptocurrency https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own...
    - vasilipupkin 9y ago
      I don't get it. What's the point of a country issuing a cryptocurrency? isn't decentralization the whole point of bitcoin, ethereum, etc. ?
      - sova 9y ago
        It is! unless you are China and you still want to make money while making sure the company line is toted by all. China is able to track their populous really well, or at least have their population believing so, and thus anything that adds pseudo-anonymity kinda ruins their mission. In the future it is probable that all countries will have their own cryptocurrency, backed by some sort of tangible asset like Au (gold) or Ag (silver). What strikes me as very important for the US is establishment of a national cryptocurrency. It can be anonymous (everyday cash is essentially anonymous), but the consensus on how to regulate one is very much a process of education (elder generation finance people don't really get bitcoin yet). So once regulatory measures can be taken to ensure there's no theft etc, then it'll be easy. China's thinking on the matter is that if it cannot be regulated, shut it down and make a version that can be.
      - betterunix2 9y ago
        There are various forms of decentralization. Bitcoin tries to be as extremely decentralized as possible but you can greatly increase energy efficiency by centralizing a few aspects. Here is a thought experiment: Imagine a system where the money is issued by a central authority. The users would register their identities with the authority, and receive a certificate. When the bank issues money, it assigns a random serial number R, and it signs it with the bank's key and specifies whose money it is by the user's public key U: S[U, R]. Now suppose Alice has S_Bank[Alice, R] and wants to pay Bob. She can sign the money over to Bob: S_Alice[Bob, S_Bank[Alice, R]]. Bob could do the same to give Charles some money. Eventually, someone will deposit the money they received with the bank. The bank will check if money with the same serial was ever deposited previously. It can then catch the cheater who double-spent the money by looking for the "fork" in the signature chain. So if the bank tied identities to some offline ID, the police can go arrest the fraudster (or you can imagine other punishments, like blacklisting them from the entire system, etc.). Notice that even though money creation, identification, and double-spending defense are all centralized, payments remain decentralized: unlike credit cards etc., in this system, one need not contact the bank in order to spend money. True, there may be more of a delay in catching double spending; on the other hand, we have gotten rid of the very expensive mining process. We have also avoided one of the more subtle and annoying issues with Bitcoin: bootstrapping the P2P connection (you only need to connect to whomever you are trying to pay when you are trying to pay them). [This is just a simplified version of "ecash," which cryptographers have been studying since the 1980s. What I left out is the mechanism for ensuring payment privacy, which is pretty interesting in the offline payments case.]
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
This is a really good point. I live Downtown near a BitCoin ATM. The neighborhood was really posh when I moved in. Since the the BitCoin ATM was installed, home prices are down 25%, crime is WAY UP, and the transient population has exploded. People are talking about moving to Detroit to get away from the general rot and decay of the BitCoin defiled inner city. /s
- johndevor 9y ago
  There's a good argument to be made that crypto ATMs reduce violent crime by taking cash and the drug trade off the streets.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    I think it was sarcasm :)

sova 9y ago

Many of us analysts who are deep in the game recognize that China is simply shutting them all down to start its own cryptocurrency that (probably) has ID/government name linked to it.

intopieces 9y ago
Interesting. Do you know of any articles about this? I would like to learn more about the potential of a Chinese state-owned crypto currency.
tunetine 9y ago
Cite this please.
- sova 9y ago
  https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own-cryptocurrency https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own...
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    I don't get it. What's the point of a country issuing a cryptocurrency? isn't decentralization the whole point of bitcoin, ethereum, etc. ?
    - sova 9y ago
      It is! unless you are China and you still want to make money while making sure the company line is toted by all. China is able to track their populous really well, or at least have their population believing so, and thus anything that adds pseudo-anonymity kinda ruins their mission. In the future it is probable that all countries will have their own cryptocurrency, backed by some sort of tangible asset like Au (gold) or Ag (silver). What strikes me as very important for the US is establishment of a national cryptocurrency. It can be anonymous (everyday cash is essentially anonymous), but the consensus on how to regulate one is very much a process of education (elder generation finance people don't really get bitcoin yet). So once regulatory measures can be taken to ensure there's no theft etc, then it'll be easy. China's thinking on the matter is that if it cannot be regulated, shut it down and make a version that can be.
    - betterunix2 9y ago
      There are various forms of decentralization. Bitcoin tries to be as extremely decentralized as possible but you can greatly increase energy efficiency by centralizing a few aspects. Here is a thought experiment: Imagine a system where the money is issued by a central authority. The users would register their identities with the authority, and receive a certificate. When the bank issues money, it assigns a random serial number R, and it signs it with the bank's key and specifies whose money it is by the user's public key U: S[U, R]. Now suppose Alice has S_Bank[Alice, R] and wants to pay Bob. She can sign the money over to Bob: S_Alice[Bob, S_Bank[Alice, R]]. Bob could do the same to give Charles some money. Eventually, someone will deposit the money they received with the bank. The bank will check if money with the same serial was ever deposited previously. It can then catch the cheater who double-spent the money by looking for the "fork" in the signature chain. So if the bank tied identities to some offline ID, the police can go arrest the fraudster (or you can imagine other punishments, like blacklisting them from the entire system, etc.). Notice that even though money creation, identification, and double-spending defense are all centralized, payments remain decentralized: unlike credit cards etc., in this system, one need not contact the bank in order to spend money. True, there may be more of a delay in catching double spending; on the other hand, we have gotten rid of the very expensive mining process. We have also avoided one of the more subtle and annoying issues with Bitcoin: bootstrapping the P2P connection (you only need to connect to whomever you are trying to pay when you are trying to pay them). [This is just a simplified version of "ecash," which cryptographers have been studying since the 1980s. What I left out is the mechanism for ensuring payment privacy, which is pretty interesting in the offline payments case.]

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

This is a really good point. I live Downtown near a BitCoin ATM. The neighborhood was really posh when I moved in. Since the the BitCoin ATM was installed, home prices are down 25%, crime is WAY UP, and the transient population has exploded. People are talking about moving to Detroit to get away from the general rot and decay of the BitCoin defiled inner city. /s

johndevor 9y ago
There's a good argument to be made that crypto ATMs reduce violent crime by taking cash and the drug trade off the streets.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  I think it was sarcasm :)