5 ms·
Big European states call for cryptocurrency curbs to protect consumers
- simion314 6y agoI apologize if off-topic, if you are in EU have you used bitcoin to buy things and if yes anything else except computer parts? I just did a search for my country Romania and I only found a small list of shops(it could be outdated), PayPal was not that popular here either (maybe it changed) but I could not use PayPal on the biggest store emag.ro
- bumblebee1 6y agoThe number of crypto criminals and money launderers from romania is ridiculously high. Last time i checked emag.ro was a cheap clone of amazon with some rather dodgy business practices, and you may want to stay away from it.
- simion314 6y agoI think you might be confused, there are sites with similar sounding names. But if I am mistaken can you tell me more? I am using this big website(they also have physicalo presence) for more then 10 years and I never had issues with products, warranty ore returning things. Personally I am more afraid of PayPal fucking me then emag.ro
- bumblebee1 6y agodefending criminality from romania wont help you much. there have even been reports in your country’s media about emag’s shady political links how they fucked over competitors. but you know how they say, you either see the problem or are part if the problem. pretty sure paypal was swamped by romanian criminals - friend of mine had money stolen via paypal from a romanian ip address just a few days back.
- simion314 6y agoI am not defending them, I am surprised about this since this is the biggest such site(I think) and I used it a lot without any issues. Also I don't know any "criminals" and I don't want to defend or protect anyone, if there is some tax or political involvement I am not aware and it was not what I was thinking on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bserge 6y agoIt's just a local online marketplace... and there's nothing in the news about anti-competitive practices or whatever. You may have the name confused with something else.
- mpfundstein 6y agoi use it do buy my vpn services and to speculate with altcoins
- xiphias2 6y agoI was able to get whole genome sequencing from DanteLabs anonymously with Bitcoin (I'm still waiting for the test results though). Also cheapair.com works well for plane tickets, though it's the opposite of cheap.
- bumblebee1 6y agogenuine question- why are so many from romania interested about their genome? is it to prove they are not related to a certain ethnicity? afaik racism is rampant to the point where people are held in ghettos and banned from public institutions in that country. so is it so that you can prove you are not roma? the race you love to hate in that country?
- xiphias2 6y agoWhole genome sequencing is made to understand someone's genetic diseases. It would be an overkill for heredity testing that can be made for $100.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoanother comment that is racist against Eastern Europeans by using the Roma as a shield to cover and justify your racist point. flagged!
- bumblebee1 6y agoflag it all you want - but the fact that romanians treat roma as americans treated blacks in the 30s wont change with this attitude. nor will their defending of an enormous number of crypto criminals coming from that country, including those whom happily dodge taxes using btc and altcoins.
- Symbiote 6y agoIs there much point to anonymity when you give someone your DNA to sequence? You have to completely trust they will delete all records and samples, otherwise they can link you to relatives who haven't paid anonymously.
- bserge 6y agoIsn't being able to buy from anywhere in the world the whole point of it? It's really popular for underground stuff, anyway, everything else can be purchased with a normal bank card (or Paypal). Bitcoin is not used by sellers in most countries afaik, because there's simply no need for it (yet).
- simion314 6y agoI mean I once bought something from a neighboring country because it was not here but it makes no sense to buy same product from other country just because you can do it with bitcoin, maybe there are some exceptions but with local stuff it should be cheaper, cheaper transport, easy to return or get warranty. What I ma thinking about is say someone offers to pay me in bitcoin I would have no choice to transform it in real money and put them on a bank account so I can use them. Probably makes sense to use bitcoin to create online accounts for stuff that you don't want your card or email to be linked to.
- lawn 6y agoIn Sweden Webhallen and Inet mostly sells computer parts, but also things like Lego and other toys. And of course digital goods are always a good option, no matter where you live. Like domains, hosting, email or VPNs.
- chroem- 6y agoI'll never understand protecting the middle class from "dangerous investments", but continuing to allow state-sponsored lotteries which are demonstrably scams.
- toyg 6y agoThey are not scams, they are “funny taxes”: people pay extra tax and have some fun doing it. Modern fiscal politics, from VAT onwards, is all about trying to tax the poor without them noticing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Normille 6y ago>They are not scams, they are “funny taxes” Or, as the cynics over here refer to it "The Stupid Tax". The odds of winning £1million on the UK National lottery are 14,000,000-1. If you really want to maximise your chances of winning £1million, go down your local friendly bookies and see if you can find 1,000,000-1 odds being offered on any stupendously unlikely event and put your money on that. Your bet is 14 times as likely to come up as your lottery ticket is.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago> Modern fiscal politics, from VAT onwards, is all about trying to tax the poor without them noticing. The US income tax is even worse. The poor pay higher marginal rates than the rich as a result of overlapping benefits phase outs. Then there's payroll tax, which not only charges higher rates to ordinary people than billionaires, it hides half of what you're paying by pretending the employer is paying it, even though they're not -- but doesn't hide it when you're a small business owner, which provides a psychological deterrent to entrepreneurship. The whole thing needs to be scrapped.
- chii 6y agoTo play the devil's advocate, lotteries are scams, but the amount lost is tiny (per person). Crypto investments are difficult to judge by the unsophisticated investor, and can easily be persuaded to invest large amounts. The loss is quite devastating for that individual. And when it happens, it makes for bad PR for the gov't and financial regulators. Better to nip it in the bud before it happens - even if it takes out investments that _would_ have been good for said unsophisticated investors. It's a conservative approach to policy making.
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoIt would be wiser if they did it in an effort to protect the environment.
- donatj 6y ago> The five countries want all stablecoins to be pledged at a ratio of 1:1 with fiat currency, with reserve assets denominated in the euro or other currencies of EU members states, and deposited in an EU-approved institution So either backed in whole is fine, and not backed at all is fine? But not partially backed? No room for a middle ground? Seems silly, and mindless. Yet banks, whose entire business is partially backed fiat money are kosher? Almost seems like bias towards old businesses. I have nothing against banks but this smells kinda like big-bank flexing it’s muscles to push out competition.
- londons_explore 6y agoBanks (and their customers) get government protection in return for following a very extensive set of restrictions about how they can run their business.
- buran77 6y agoIf any "cryptocurrency institution" is under the same scrutiny as a regular bank then it may get the same conditions. Otherwise most people want currency that they can use anywhere ideally also without the use of any tech, that is stable, and "chaperoned" by institutions that are under some pretty intense supervision (all things considered).
- donatj 6y agoBut why is there no room for middle ground? If I’m personally fine with the risk/reward balance of non-protected partially backed finance, why is it not acceptable?
- kasperni 6y agoLots of people are fine with the risk/reward balance of using recreational drugs, driving without a seatbelt, working as a sex worker, and tons of other things. And somehow that's not acceptable.
- 6y ago
- cribbles 6y agoThis article focuses heavily on Facebook’s Libra, which to my knowledge has recently scaled back from offering a currency balanced by (and collateralized against) a basket of commodities to offering a handful of 1-to-1 fiat-anchored stablecoins.[1] This is way less technically ambitious, and seems pretty similar to the old Facebook Credits system of in-app purchases. Where this gets interesting for me is 1) stablecoins like DAI, which collateralize using other cryptocurrencies, 2) projects like Celo, which are doing something similar to Libra but with way less initial runway for backing EU-sanctioned reserves, and 3) projects like Reserve Protocol, which aim for something similar to Libra’s original goal (achieving “stability” relative to an algorithmic balance between the real value of currencies, goods, etc). From the article it’s not obvious to me whether a lot of this could be evaded simply by not marketing your project as a stablecoin. [1] https://fortune.com/2020/04/16/facebook-libra-multiple-single-currency-coins/ https://fortune.com/2020/04/16/facebook-libra-multiple-singl...
- jillesvangurp 6y agoThe problem blockchain companies have is that at some level they need to interact with the traditional financial system to make money. That means dealing with legal entities in various states and dealing with lots of pesky regulations that those states have around investing and transacting. Basically, in most civilized places, if you want to be a bank there are some rules to be taken into account. That's why stablecoins are so hard to do because as soon as you start transacting, you are exposed to those rules because you basically become a bank like entity. So, authorities wake up and start paying attention as soon as you do that. The projects you name are interesting because they are all based in the US and are being built with good old investor cash raised from the usual suspects (i.e. VCs). So, they have share holders and are operating under US law. Basically all three are really talking about building similar things but as an outsider you have to wonder who wins if their token business is successful: the share holders or the token holders? There's a bit of friction here between the marketing on one hand projecting some kind of utopian decentralized thing and the obvious desire of the investors to turn this thing into a very centralized money funnel straight into their pockets. The reality is of course that these are companies and not charities and the reason investments are so high is that they are looking to tap into significant streams of cash. Just like banks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- louwrentius 6y agoI don't see any real purpuse for cryptocurrencies that benefits the greater good, to be frank. https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-... I wish that smart people involved with this kind of technology would spend their time on something more relevant / important.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoProof of Work is not the only way to do cryptocurrency and there are less wasteful distributed ways of doing cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has a useful purpose: freeing people from government and the choices that government impose on people. Your government doesn't want you to buy weed? You can buy it with cryptocurrency from an online market instead of doing a shady deal in a dark alley, with a higher risk to be scammed. Your government is filling the economy with bubbles through quantitative easing and "stimuli" or by printing money? You can move part of the economy to cryptocurrency. Your government is stealing 50% of your income under threat of violence? Some cryptocurrency can be made harder to track and can be a useful tool to fight government aggression. I doubt cryptocurrency will get us anywhere because the government can just ban cryptocurrency at any time, but there is a clear purpose.
- bumblebee1 6y agoIf there is a post on tools for avoiding tax and money laundering, there will be commenters from a certain country. I guarantee it. Hint: Country name starts with r and ends with omania.