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Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander Cryptos

89 points by imartin2k 9y ago

londons_explore 9y ago
A central banks role is to provide the monetary system for the exchange of goods and services in a country. If a countries citizens go and spend their personal money on risky or stupid investments, it is also the countries problem. If those investments fail, you will now probably have to use government funds to bail them out in some way. Bankruptcy is a government bailout of sorts. Therefore it does not seem unreasonable for a central bank, whose role is ensuring a strong monetary system, to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive. If the video should have had attribution is a policy issue for YouTube and the country. Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution.
- VMG 9y ago
  The irony is that Bitcoin was invented as a response to government bailouts of banks
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sgift 9y ago
    I have a feeling there is some lesson on trying to solve human nature with technology.
  - arkh 9y ago
    I like the theory presented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/7yvh55/wow_i_just_paid_060_to_transfer_3100_00193_fee_in/dujiwsn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/7yvh55/wow_i_just... > I actually believe that Bitcoin is a purposefully deployed project by large banks to restore faith to the financial system.
- nukeop 9y ago
  This was not an attempt at education, this was a piece of propaganda, based on deliberately untrue information.
- throwayawnotime 9y ago
  In my books, the role of central banks' has expanded quite a bit from your definition of providing a monetary system: How do quantitive easing, inflation targets, and implicit unemployment targets fit your description? Central Banks cannot be trusted anymore. I do not, you should not. Math is more reliable.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Pyramid schemes destroyed Albania, so it seems reasonable for Poland to warn people of the dangers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania
  - mavdi 9y ago
    LOL you have no idea what Cryptocurrencies are. The fact that you even compare the two is unsettling to say the least.
    - devwinportable 9y ago
      lol you have no idea about most recent ICOs and "ponzi schemes"
      - pennaMan 9y ago
        So because currency x can be used for financial scams we declare the currency itself a scam? Do ponzi schemes in Euros make the Euro a joke?
        Tech-Noir 9y ago
        If someone did call Euros a joke because of a Euro ponzi scheme, would anyone who has Euros in their bank give the slightest shit, never mind write an article about how the Euro is being "slandered"? Why do hodlers of cryptos get so irate then?
        pennaMan 9y ago
        I recognize how my previous comment read, so I will try to explain myself better. I have never owned any amount of a crypto, neither did I waste more than a few watt-minutes running a mining algo. I would actually be on the other end of the stereotype, "the bitter bitcon hater that has known about it since the early days (mainly from HN) but never invested a cent in it" but alas I do not fit there either. I am a neutral observer, interested in debate about novel forms of currency rather than any single implementation. The initial point I was trying to make is that I find the argument about ICOs (the vast majority of witch are obvious scams) detracts from the actual technology. The way the trading markets are acting does not help either.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  The central bank (allegedly) works for the people. The central bank using public resources to tamper with the desires of the people is a loss of purpose. The ultimate goal of the central bank is not to have the power to control currency, but provide value for the citizens. It is absolutely grotesque that public institutions engage in any kind of propaganda. It is also , might I add, incompetent, as a central bank revealed to do this shows that the radical crypto libertarians hating on central banks were right.
  - devwinportable 9y ago
    > It is absolutely grotesque that public institutions engage in any kind of propaganda no it's not... then how would you stop malicious foreign/external media influence? let people get scammed?
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      By far, the most damaging malicious media influence has been done by the state. People over-investing on crypto is a petty squabble to the misdemeanors of the institution that controls the entire money supply of the country
    - brann0 9y ago
      You educate people. Using shady propaganda is not the way to fight "scams".
      - devwinportable 9y ago
        there's always a limit to "morally right" "education". the other side is using their own 'shady' media channels ('youtube influencers') to advertise their shady product. how would you counter that?
        makomk 9y ago
        So your logic is that because scammers use dishonest tactics to market their scams, it should be OK for the Polish central bank to use the same shady, dishonest tactics? The whole reason scammers are willing to use those tactics is because they're swindling people. It's one of the signs they're up to no good. If they're going to act like scammers, maybe we should treat them like scammers.
- mtgx 9y ago
  I'm guessing there are better ways to try and "educate the public" than secretly paying influencers to shape the public's opinion. And now that they were discovered they've just made it a lot worse for themselves because they lost all credibility on the issue. Also, is it even the central bank's role to do stuff like this? Shouldn't it be a political or governmental issue?
  - devwinportable 9y ago
    that's not how "media war" is played... the other side is already spending zillions to sell their ponzi-schemes... by secretly paying influencers
- knlinux 9y ago
  > If those investments fail, you will now probably have to use government funds to bail them out in some way Why? Should I then expect the government to bail me out after I lose all of my money in blackjack, provided that sufficient amount of people do the same. Sadly, the current party seems to be on the side of stepping in and bailing people out. Once in the instance of mortgages in Swiss Franc, which were taken in '00s (CHF went up significantly several years after, raising people's morgage almost 200%), and secondly in the case of a big precious metals investment scam (Google "Poland Amber Gold"). Those government interventions will not come without costs. A direct one resulting in forcing the taxpayers, which were responsible with their money, to reimburse those who were willing to risk taking a 30-year loan in a foreign currency, or those hoping for high profits from a precious metals investment by a company that existed for less than 2 years on the market. Another cost, which I would argue is a more dangerous one, is destroying fiscal responsibility in the mentality of people. In case of something like bitcoin it can only lead to three outcomes for the ruling party: a) the government regulates/defames or bans bitcoin, b) government accepts that it will need to bail people out at some point once a sufficient amount of "victims" complain, c) it loses the next elections to a party which will promise a bitcoin bail-out > (...) to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive. (...) Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution. I agree with the educational part, but not so much with the argument for concealing the attribution. The moment someone spills the beans, the smell of "propaganda" can have an opposite effect, i.e., "they did that in secret, because they want to keep taxing you through inflation, that's how powerful bitcoin is".
  - bgarbiak 9y ago
    > Why? Should I then expect the government to bail me out after I lose all of my money in blackjack, provided that sufficient amount of people do the same. Well, if the issue grows to such a great scale then bailing people out saves the society, and the economy, from collapsing. We can argue about the methods, but, well, I guess it's noble that the gov/bank tries to warn people about the dangers of cryptocurrencies. If you look at any crisis around the world the central banks usually turned a blind eye. Then it ended with bailouts and defaults. So, better to act before, than after.
- hisabness 9y ago
  then why not be transparent?
- aianus 9y ago
  This isn't education. An analogy would be a sex "education" campaign that teaches everyone they will get pregnant or AIDS the first time they have sex and that the only way to avoid such things is abstinence. Making up lies with the hope that it will influence behavior in the "right" way is not education and is not the way a government institution should behave.
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    Are you living in the Star Trek universe?
  - aiCeivi9 9y ago
    There is no need to search for analogies, anti-drug "DARE" campaign was just that and actually increased drugs use.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    Do you speak enough Polish to evaluate the video, whether it "lies" or not, whether it is clearly presented as a hypothetical worst case scenario that actually happens to some people like government media advertising usually does (and for that matter whether it is likely to have had any editorial oversight from the Polish govt)? It would actually be interesting to hear the views of some of the Polish speakers here. Because unless there's an awful lot lost in machine translation, the government information website it links to might be anti-crypto slanted but is pretty bland and factual about the risks involved in crypto and its status under Polish law. (Of course, what's easier to evaluate is the judgement of English language crypto websites like Trustnodes which attack the SEC for "effectively calling investors stupid" for having the temerity to suggest they might not be in possession of all the facts and for the "draconian" halting ICOs that were "legitimate" in every way except perhaps being precisely the sort of unlawful securities offering the SEC is tasked with shutting down. So there's a distinct possibility they just might be exaggerating a tad here)
    - rando444 9y ago
      I can speak some basic polish, but it's pretty clear from the video that this is all hypothetical. The basic moral of the video is kind of a combination of don't just assume you're going to get rich off of crypto investing and on a broader stroke, don't put all of your eggs in one basket. (e.g. - don't invest your daily spending money)
devwinportable 9y ago
well that's still an uneven balance between ICO fraudsters spending zillions on "get rich quick" scheme videos...
nukeop 9y ago
Of course they did, because cryptos are a dire threat to their hegemony. Visa introduced changes to charge more for purchasing cryptos with their cards. Some banks block cards that are used for purchasing cryptos. Sometimes even your credit scored is lowered just for purchasing them. The banking cartels have a vested interest in discouraging the public from taking any interest in cryptocurrencies at all, and they're only getting started. They will bring out the big guns soon, an you'll seeplain as day that the only thing they're interested in is they're bottom line, which is dependent on them controlling all your finances and taking a cut of every transaction you make. Cryptos are a way to circumvent their control, and it's like cutting off their oxygen supply, if they become too popular the big banks and credit card companies will wither and die.
- mavdi 9y ago
  As always HN has this sore anti-crypto bias.
  - SuddsMcDuff 9y ago
    Read it again, without your own bias.
- viraptor 9y ago
  > Sometimes even your credit scored is lowered just for purchasing them. Got any links about it? That's at least unexpected. One of the parties in the transaction would have to explicitly report that. I'd like to see what that credit line would look like. The rest I'd expect, since those issues are directly related to Visa / banks protecting themselves from specific transactions. It doesn't even matter that it's specifically cryptocurrency on the other end. Just like they charge more for using credit cards for preorders at standard currency exchanges.
  - pja 9y ago
    What they /probably/ mean is that VISA set a higher charge level for cryptocurrency exchanges than for other vendors. Since the charges imposed by VISA are intimately related to the level of fraud they expect to see from a given vendor & the cryptocurrency space is stuffed to the brim with fraudsters and con artists this ought to be entirely unsurprising. No cryptic (hah!) conspiracy theory required.
jxub 9y ago
Interesting note: Polish government wanted to implement a Polish cryptocurrency backed by the Polish currency PLN (similar to Tether) named dPLN, but then backed off the project [1] (link in Polish). Has anyone got any insider info on this? [1] http://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/kryptowaluta-digital-pln-ministerstwo-cyfryzacji-wycofuje-sie-z-patronatu-nad-projektem-polskiego-bitcoina http://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/kryptowaluta-digital-pl...
- wowoc 9y ago
  No, it wasn't the government - just a private company running within a state-sponsored accelerator. The government withdrew their funds after finding out about it.
pjc50 9y ago
This article is itself propaganda, of course, being from a pro-cryptocurrency "news" site. It's a little tricky to establish corroboration of the claims as all other sources are in Polish. > "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens." This isn't true, or at least I'm not aware of places where it is; this would make it very hard to do "public information" advertising.
- devwinportable 9y ago
  > "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens." the real issue with this is "then how should some gov. agency stop malicious external/foreign media influence?"
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Technically it's not necessarily tricky to establish corroboration, it's just that you don't speak Polish. It's a problem with you, not the article. Your assumption of propaganda is just speculation.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  I wish it were more true. Commuting between Hayward and San Francisco, I got to see lots and lots of advertising, mostly government propaganda. It fell into two categories: 1. "Instead of killing yourself, why not call a suicide hotline?" I guess BART tracks see elevated levels of suicide. I don't really have much of a problem with this one. 2. "If you let your infant sleep in the bed with you, you are a bad parent." I have a problem with this. What a disgusting thing for the government to be doing.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    The second message was, IIRC, motivated by a statistic showing several cases of parents inadvertently smothering their infant children when rolling onto them while asleep. Now I have no idea if the number of cases was statistically meaningful enough to warrant action, compared to other public health risks. But I can sort of see why someone would be motivated to "do something", considering how devastating something like that must be, even compared to other accidental deaths of infants.
pjf 9y ago
I'm Polish and I feel offended by this article, especially the last paragraph. Whatever our national bank did, it's not OK to write about it in such a tone.
- xchaotic 9y ago
  Indeed. The author of the article seems to be implying certain things without any evidence. Most people in Poland dabbling in crypto are very well aware of information in English and use exchanges and websites that are in English anyway, so not sure where that article conclusion came from...
  - viraptor 9y ago
    According to Wikipedia Poland's got 37% people who can speak English. That's across all population/ages. So yeah, claiming lack of access to primarily-English information is just silly.
    - gocartStatue 9y ago
      Since nineties English class is mandatory at school on any level. B1 English is required to get our "bachelors" equivalent.
  - ozim 9y ago
    People dabbling in crypto are not target audience for such advert. This advert is for general public. As for the grandparent, I think he might be in some english speaking bubble in Poland. My friends that are not IT related and are not living/working abroad are for instance not aware of the same information sources about crypto. Internet speed ranking is some BS put there to show how Poland is behind. That could be taken out from article. But if author implies that people in Poland are so behind in technology, then they should not dabble in cryptocurrencies, and government is doing right thing. Just this week I was explaining bitcoin to a friend. He is not frequenting english language internet, only for buying stuff from China. He knew there is bitcoin and that you can earn a lot on it. So I had to make sure that he knows buying bitcoin is buying magic beans from unknown people on internet. So this kind of campaign is good for general public. If someone is really into it, knows risks let him play. For other people, make sure they know the risks and that they can loose real money.
viraptor 9y ago
So here's some more context about the campaign, because this article is very biased as well. The information campaign is owned by both the central bank and the financial supervision committee (not sure if there's an official translation of that name). It's not a local idea, but rather a local implementation of the European effort. You can find more details here: http://www.eba.europa.eu/-/esas-warn-consumers-of-risks-in-buying-virtual-currencies http://www.eba.europa.eu/-/esas-warn-consumers-of-risks-in-b... The committee's involvement is not surprising in this case. One of the agency's goals is to provide information about financial risks. It even keeps a public registry of companies reported for not paying their debts (think credit score for businesses). It's very much what they should be involved in. In case anyone thinks they're on the banks' side - they're involved in prosecuting banks and pension funds regularly. As for the contents of the campaign's site https://uwazajnakryptowaluty.pl/ https://uwazajnakryptowaluty.pl/ - it's very reasonable. I couldn't find anything outright wrong on it. It doesn't even tell you that you shouldn't buy Bitcoin. The repeated information and claims are not very different from what you sign when you open a share dealing account - you can lose money, gains are not guaranteed, these investments are not insured, lack of liquidity is possible, etc. The social advertisement campaigns are also nothing uncommon in Poland. Sober driving, don't dive in shallow water, read to your kids, and similar topics are the common target of the social ads / PSAs that are created when some issue gets too common in the country. The fact that the are no gov logos in the video clip is weird. (Also the clip is extremely cheesy - think high school video project about misinformation surrounding cryptocurrencies) But the campaign itself seems fine. The post is very sensational.
- baq 9y ago
  speak polish, can confirm that the page is very reasonable and only a bit sensational. haven't looked at the clip, though.
- FeatureRush 9y ago
  Can confirm, this is mostly campaign to remind about risks so people make more informed decisions. There was some other campaign couple moths ago that warned about "kryptowaluty i ich podróbki" that tried to target project advertising as cryptocurrencies that are just normal scams like OneCoin and clones (Dascoin etc). I've seen many people here in Poland falling for that. Sure people make their own decisions, but for it to work there needs to be certain level of information available.
creo 9y ago
"Poland’s lack of access, in general, to English language information" Im laughing so hard at this.

89 points by imartin2k 9y ago

A central banks role is to provide the monetary system for the exchange of goods and services in a country. If a countries citizens go and spend their personal money on risky or stupid investments, it is also the countries problem. If those investments fail, you will now probably have to use government funds to bail them out in some way. Bankruptcy is a government bailout of sorts. Therefore it does not seem unreasonable for a central bank, whose role is ensuring a strong monetary system, to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive. If the video should have had attribution is a policy issue for YouTube and the country. Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution.

VMG 9y ago
The irony is that Bitcoin was invented as a response to government bailouts of banks
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sgift 9y ago
  I have a feeling there is some lesson on trying to solve human nature with technology.
- arkh 9y ago
  I like the theory presented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/7yvh55/wow_i_just_paid_060_to_transfer_3100_00193_fee_in/dujiwsn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/7yvh55/wow_i_just... > I actually believe that Bitcoin is a purposefully deployed project by large banks to restore faith to the financial system.
nukeop 9y ago
This was not an attempt at education, this was a piece of propaganda, based on deliberately untrue information.
throwayawnotime 9y ago
In my books, the role of central banks' has expanded quite a bit from your definition of providing a monetary system: How do quantitive easing, inflation targets, and implicit unemployment targets fit your description? Central Banks cannot be trusted anymore. I do not, you should not. Math is more reliable.
pjc50 9y ago
Pyramid schemes destroyed Albania, so it seems reasonable for Poland to warn people of the dangers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania
- mavdi 9y ago
  LOL you have no idea what Cryptocurrencies are. The fact that you even compare the two is unsettling to say the least.
  - devwinportable 9y ago
    lol you have no idea about most recent ICOs and "ponzi schemes"
    - pennaMan 9y ago
      So because currency x can be used for financial scams we declare the currency itself a scam? Do ponzi schemes in Euros make the Euro a joke?
      - Tech-Noir 9y ago
        If someone did call Euros a joke because of a Euro ponzi scheme, would anyone who has Euros in their bank give the slightest shit, never mind write an article about how the Euro is being "slandered"? Why do hodlers of cryptos get so irate then?
        pennaMan 9y ago
        I recognize how my previous comment read, so I will try to explain myself better. I have never owned any amount of a crypto, neither did I waste more than a few watt-minutes running a mining algo. I would actually be on the other end of the stereotype, "the bitter bitcon hater that has known about it since the early days (mainly from HN) but never invested a cent in it" but alas I do not fit there either. I am a neutral observer, interested in debate about novel forms of currency rather than any single implementation. The initial point I was trying to make is that I find the argument about ICOs (the vast majority of witch are obvious scams) detracts from the actual technology. The way the trading markets are acting does not help either.
conanbatt 9y ago
The central bank (allegedly) works for the people. The central bank using public resources to tamper with the desires of the people is a loss of purpose. The ultimate goal of the central bank is not to have the power to control currency, but provide value for the citizens. It is absolutely grotesque that public institutions engage in any kind of propaganda. It is also , might I add, incompetent, as a central bank revealed to do this shows that the radical crypto libertarians hating on central banks were right.
- devwinportable 9y ago
  > It is absolutely grotesque that public institutions engage in any kind of propaganda no it's not... then how would you stop malicious foreign/external media influence? let people get scammed?
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    By far, the most damaging malicious media influence has been done by the state. People over-investing on crypto is a petty squabble to the misdemeanors of the institution that controls the entire money supply of the country
  - brann0 9y ago
    You educate people. Using shady propaganda is not the way to fight "scams".
    - devwinportable 9y ago
      there's always a limit to "morally right" "education". the other side is using their own 'shady' media channels ('youtube influencers') to advertise their shady product. how would you counter that?
      - makomk 9y ago
        So your logic is that because scammers use dishonest tactics to market their scams, it should be OK for the Polish central bank to use the same shady, dishonest tactics? The whole reason scammers are willing to use those tactics is because they're swindling people. It's one of the signs they're up to no good. If they're going to act like scammers, maybe we should treat them like scammers.
mtgx 9y ago
I'm guessing there are better ways to try and "educate the public" than secretly paying influencers to shape the public's opinion. And now that they were discovered they've just made it a lot worse for themselves because they lost all credibility on the issue. Also, is it even the central bank's role to do stuff like this? Shouldn't it be a political or governmental issue?
- devwinportable 9y ago
  that's not how "media war" is played... the other side is already spending zillions to sell their ponzi-schemes... by secretly paying influencers
knlinux 9y ago
> If those investments fail, you will now probably have to use government funds to bail them out in some way Why? Should I then expect the government to bail me out after I lose all of my money in blackjack, provided that sufficient amount of people do the same. Sadly, the current party seems to be on the side of stepping in and bailing people out. Once in the instance of mortgages in Swiss Franc, which were taken in '00s (CHF went up significantly several years after, raising people's morgage almost 200%), and secondly in the case of a big precious metals investment scam (Google "Poland Amber Gold"). Those government interventions will not come without costs. A direct one resulting in forcing the taxpayers, which were responsible with their money, to reimburse those who were willing to risk taking a 30-year loan in a foreign currency, or those hoping for high profits from a precious metals investment by a company that existed for less than 2 years on the market. Another cost, which I would argue is a more dangerous one, is destroying fiscal responsibility in the mentality of people. In case of something like bitcoin it can only lead to three outcomes for the ruling party: a) the government regulates/defames or bans bitcoin, b) government accepts that it will need to bail people out at some point once a sufficient amount of "victims" complain, c) it loses the next elections to a party which will promise a bitcoin bail-out > (...) to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive. (...) Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution. I agree with the educational part, but not so much with the argument for concealing the attribution. The moment someone spills the beans, the smell of "propaganda" can have an opposite effect, i.e., "they did that in secret, because they want to keep taxing you through inflation, that's how powerful bitcoin is".
- bgarbiak 9y ago
  > Why? Should I then expect the government to bail me out after I lose all of my money in blackjack, provided that sufficient amount of people do the same. Well, if the issue grows to such a great scale then bailing people out saves the society, and the economy, from collapsing. We can argue about the methods, but, well, I guess it's noble that the gov/bank tries to warn people about the dangers of cryptocurrencies. If you look at any crisis around the world the central banks usually turned a blind eye. Then it ended with bailouts and defaults. So, better to act before, than after.
hisabness 9y ago
then why not be transparent?
aianus 9y ago
This isn't education. An analogy would be a sex "education" campaign that teaches everyone they will get pregnant or AIDS the first time they have sex and that the only way to avoid such things is abstinence. Making up lies with the hope that it will influence behavior in the "right" way is not education and is not the way a government institution should behave.
- heavenlyblue 9y ago
  Are you living in the Star Trek universe?
- aiCeivi9 9y ago
  There is no need to search for analogies, anti-drug "DARE" campaign was just that and actually increased drugs use.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Do you speak enough Polish to evaluate the video, whether it "lies" or not, whether it is clearly presented as a hypothetical worst case scenario that actually happens to some people like government media advertising usually does (and for that matter whether it is likely to have had any editorial oversight from the Polish govt)? It would actually be interesting to hear the views of some of the Polish speakers here. Because unless there's an awful lot lost in machine translation, the government information website it links to might be anti-crypto slanted but is pretty bland and factual about the risks involved in crypto and its status under Polish law. (Of course, what's easier to evaluate is the judgement of English language crypto websites like Trustnodes which attack the SEC for "effectively calling investors stupid" for having the temerity to suggest they might not be in possession of all the facts and for the "draconian" halting ICOs that were "legitimate" in every way except perhaps being precisely the sort of unlawful securities offering the SEC is tasked with shutting down. So there's a distinct possibility they just might be exaggerating a tad here)
  - rando444 9y ago
    I can speak some basic polish, but it's pretty clear from the video that this is all hypothetical. The basic moral of the video is kind of a combination of don't just assume you're going to get rich off of crypto investing and on a broader stroke, don't put all of your eggs in one basket. (e.g. - don't invest your daily spending money)

devwinportable 9y ago

well that's still an uneven balance between ICO fraudsters spending zillions on "get rich quick" scheme videos...

nukeop 9y ago

Of course they did, because cryptos are a dire threat to their hegemony. Visa introduced changes to charge more for purchasing cryptos with their cards. Some banks block cards that are used for purchasing cryptos. Sometimes even your credit scored is lowered just for purchasing them. The banking cartels have a vested interest in discouraging the public from taking any interest in cryptocurrencies at all, and they're only getting started. They will bring out the big guns soon, an you'll seeplain as day that the only thing they're interested in is they're bottom line, which is dependent on them controlling all your finances and taking a cut of every transaction you make. Cryptos are a way to circumvent their control, and it's like cutting off their oxygen supply, if they become too popular the big banks and credit card companies will wither and die.

mavdi 9y ago
As always HN has this sore anti-crypto bias.
- SuddsMcDuff 9y ago
  Read it again, without your own bias.
viraptor 9y ago
> Sometimes even your credit scored is lowered just for purchasing them. Got any links about it? That's at least unexpected. One of the parties in the transaction would have to explicitly report that. I'd like to see what that credit line would look like. The rest I'd expect, since those issues are directly related to Visa / banks protecting themselves from specific transactions. It doesn't even matter that it's specifically cryptocurrency on the other end. Just like they charge more for using credit cards for preorders at standard currency exchanges.
- pja 9y ago
  What they /probably/ mean is that VISA set a higher charge level for cryptocurrency exchanges than for other vendors. Since the charges imposed by VISA are intimately related to the level of fraud they expect to see from a given vendor & the cryptocurrency space is stuffed to the brim with fraudsters and con artists this ought to be entirely unsurprising. No cryptic (hah!) conspiracy theory required.

jxub 9y ago

Interesting note: Polish government wanted to implement a Polish cryptocurrency backed by the Polish currency PLN (similar to Tether) named dPLN, but then backed off the project [1] (link in Polish). Has anyone got any insider info on this? [1] http://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/kryptowaluta-digital-pln-ministerstwo-cyfryzacji-wycofuje-sie-z-patronatu-nad-projektem-polskiego-bitcoina http://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/kryptowaluta-digital-pl...

wowoc 9y ago
No, it wasn't the government - just a private company running within a state-sponsored accelerator. The government withdrew their funds after finding out about it.

pjc50 9y ago

This article is itself propaganda, of course, being from a pro-cryptocurrency "news" site. It's a little tricky to establish corroboration of the claims as all other sources are in Polish. > "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens." This isn't true, or at least I'm not aware of places where it is; this would make it very hard to do "public information" advertising.

devwinportable 9y ago
> "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens." the real issue with this is "then how should some gov. agency stop malicious external/foreign media influence?"
mattmanser 9y ago
Technically it's not necessarily tricky to establish corroboration, it's just that you don't speak Polish. It's a problem with you, not the article. Your assumption of propaganda is just speculation.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
I wish it were more true. Commuting between Hayward and San Francisco, I got to see lots and lots of advertising, mostly government propaganda. It fell into two categories: 1. "Instead of killing yourself, why not call a suicide hotline?" I guess BART tracks see elevated levels of suicide. I don't really have much of a problem with this one. 2. "If you let your infant sleep in the bed with you, you are a bad parent." I have a problem with this. What a disgusting thing for the government to be doing.
- matt4077 9y ago
  The second message was, IIRC, motivated by a statistic showing several cases of parents inadvertently smothering their infant children when rolling onto them while asleep. Now I have no idea if the number of cases was statistically meaningful enough to warrant action, compared to other public health risks. But I can sort of see why someone would be motivated to "do something", considering how devastating something like that must be, even compared to other accidental deaths of infants.

pjf 9y ago

I'm Polish and I feel offended by this article, especially the last paragraph. Whatever our national bank did, it's not OK to write about it in such a tone.

xchaotic 9y ago
Indeed. The author of the article seems to be implying certain things without any evidence. Most people in Poland dabbling in crypto are very well aware of information in English and use exchanges and websites that are in English anyway, so not sure where that article conclusion came from...
- viraptor 9y ago
  According to Wikipedia Poland's got 37% people who can speak English. That's across all population/ages. So yeah, claiming lack of access to primarily-English information is just silly.
  - gocartStatue 9y ago
    Since nineties English class is mandatory at school on any level. B1 English is required to get our "bachelors" equivalent.
- ozim 9y ago
  People dabbling in crypto are not target audience for such advert. This advert is for general public. As for the grandparent, I think he might be in some english speaking bubble in Poland. My friends that are not IT related and are not living/working abroad are for instance not aware of the same information sources about crypto. Internet speed ranking is some BS put there to show how Poland is behind. That could be taken out from article. But if author implies that people in Poland are so behind in technology, then they should not dabble in cryptocurrencies, and government is doing right thing. Just this week I was explaining bitcoin to a friend. He is not frequenting english language internet, only for buying stuff from China. He knew there is bitcoin and that you can earn a lot on it. So I had to make sure that he knows buying bitcoin is buying magic beans from unknown people on internet. So this kind of campaign is good for general public. If someone is really into it, knows risks let him play. For other people, make sure they know the risks and that they can loose real money.

viraptor 9y ago

So here's some more context about the campaign, because this article is very biased as well. The information campaign is owned by both the central bank and the financial supervision committee (not sure if there's an official translation of that name). It's not a local idea, but rather a local implementation of the European effort. You can find more details here: http://www.eba.europa.eu/-/esas-warn-consumers-of-risks-in-buying-virtual-currencies http://www.eba.europa.eu/-/esas-warn-consumers-of-risks-in-b... The committee's involvement is not surprising in this case. One of the agency's goals is to provide information about financial risks. It even keeps a public registry of companies reported for not paying their debts (think credit score for businesses). It's very much what they should be involved in. In case anyone thinks they're on the banks' side - they're involved in prosecuting banks and pension funds regularly. As for the contents of the campaign's site https://uwazajnakryptowaluty.pl/ https://uwazajnakryptowaluty.pl/ - it's very reasonable. I couldn't find anything outright wrong on it. It doesn't even tell you that you shouldn't buy Bitcoin. The repeated information and claims are not very different from what you sign when you open a share dealing account - you can lose money, gains are not guaranteed, these investments are not insured, lack of liquidity is possible, etc. The social advertisement campaigns are also nothing uncommon in Poland. Sober driving, don't dive in shallow water, read to your kids, and similar topics are the common target of the social ads / PSAs that are created when some issue gets too common in the country. The fact that the are no gov logos in the video clip is weird. (Also the clip is extremely cheesy - think high school video project about misinformation surrounding cryptocurrencies) But the campaign itself seems fine. The post is very sensational.

baq 9y ago
speak polish, can confirm that the page is very reasonable and only a bit sensational. haven't looked at the clip, though.
FeatureRush 9y ago
Can confirm, this is mostly campaign to remind about risks so people make more informed decisions. There was some other campaign couple moths ago that warned about "kryptowaluty i ich podróbki" that tried to target project advertising as cryptocurrencies that are just normal scams like OneCoin and clones (Dascoin etc). I've seen many people here in Poland falling for that. Sure people make their own decisions, but for it to work there needs to be certain level of information available.

creo 9y ago

"Poland’s lack of access, in general, to English language information" Im laughing so hard at this.