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I have a lot of respect for Raul Pal, but when he talks about crypto you start to see his limits in understanding. He still thinks governments can't ban crypto

I have a lot of respect for Raul Pal, but when he talks about crypto you start to see his limits in understanding. He still thinks governments can't ban crypto if they wanted, he is very wrong about that. He also thinks that governments would allow a crypto to rival a state currency. The most likely success story for crypto is it will be only for banks while regular people will be banned from owning it. There is simply no way a government will allow irreversibly hackable assets in the wild. There are no limits to the damage entities can do with anonymous GDP-scale wealth.

wsc981 6y ago
But if you look at his video, he does say governments might attempt to ban crypto, but it would be hard to totally ban, since other governments might adopt cryptos. For an effective ban all world governments have to work together on this, and that's quite unlikely to happen. Actually Iran is using cryptos right now to circumvent some bans from the US government. Certainly Iran would not be in favour for banning crypto. As Raoul Pal mentions, this is the state of game theory. One country might ban, another might adopt. If you can't spend (or exchange for fiat) the cryptos in your own country, you might move to another country. I don't believe Bitcoin will be banned ... at least not while Bitcoin is still a relatively small asset class. Especially since institutional investors are now entering the crypto markets. And perhaps at some point, if enough institutional investors have entered the crypto markets, governments might hesitate to ban crypto, as it could destroy a lot of wealth in pension funds, etc...
- vladimirralev 6y ago
  He gives the gold ban as an example of "failure" for governments to ban it. He thinks the technology behind bitcoin is somehow so advanced that it is even better protected from governments than gold is. Those are his main points. And I think they are both wrong. The gold example is from ancient times without KYC/AML and absolute surveillance. There is nothing substantial you could possibly do nowadays without proper invoicing and inventory tracking. Regulators will notice instantly. The tech behind bitcoin isn't really that advanced and hiding from the government was never a focus. The tech used by regulators has evolved significantly from the times of previous "defeats". People don't realise how much work goes into tracing payments worldwide. Remember FATCA took only two years to deploy worldwide along with a roadmap to tighten control over the next decade.

wsc981 6y ago

But if you look at his video, he does say governments might attempt to ban crypto, but it would be hard to totally ban, since other governments might adopt cryptos. For an effective ban all world governments have to work together on this, and that's quite unlikely to happen. Actually Iran is using cryptos right now to circumvent some bans from the US government. Certainly Iran would not be in favour for banning crypto. As Raoul Pal mentions, this is the state of game theory. One country might ban, another might adopt. If you can't spend (or exchange for fiat) the cryptos in your own country, you might move to another country. I don't believe Bitcoin will be banned ... at least not while Bitcoin is still a relatively small asset class. Especially since institutional investors are now entering the crypto markets. And perhaps at some point, if enough institutional investors have entered the crypto markets, governments might hesitate to ban crypto, as it could destroy a lot of wealth in pension funds, etc...

vladimirralev 6y ago
He gives the gold ban as an example of "failure" for governments to ban it. He thinks the technology behind bitcoin is somehow so advanced that it is even better protected from governments than gold is. Those are his main points. And I think they are both wrong. The gold example is from ancient times without KYC/AML and absolute surveillance. There is nothing substantial you could possibly do nowadays without proper invoicing and inventory tracking. Regulators will notice instantly. The tech behind bitcoin isn't really that advanced and hiding from the government was never a focus. The tech used by regulators has evolved significantly from the times of previous "defeats". People don't realise how much work goes into tracing payments worldwide. Remember FATCA took only two years to deploy worldwide along with a roadmap to tighten control over the next decade.