6 ms·

The only reason BTC works in this scenario is that the authorities are not chasing it down. If they decide to, it will be just as unviable as the other options

The only reason BTC works in this scenario is that the authorities are not chasing it down. If they decide to, it will be just as unviable as the other options and authorities have many methods at their disposal to make bitcoin transfers difficult. BTC is cool, but no amount of tech can solve what is essentially a policy issue: overseas remittances.

feanaro 6y ago
Why is it obvious that no amount of tech can solve it? Tech can also influence policy. If something is nearly impossible to stop, it likely won't be stopped. The policy will be changed instead.
- graeme 6y ago
  This hasn’t proven true in countries with functioning govts: they very much have applied tax and securities law to bitcoin.
  - jimmaswell 6y ago
    The rideshare industry had a clear impact on local laws in every first world country for one example.
    - graeme 6y ago
      Right, because it was hard to control and ridesharing was clearly better. My point was the experience in functioning countries has not shown this to be true of bitcoin. It has been easy enough for govts to enforce tax and security laws where they’ve tried. What laws have been changed for bitcoin?
      - jimmaswell 6y ago
        The IRS issued official guidance on it but there's no need for new laws around it.
        graeme 6y ago
        That’s the point! Bitcoin didn’t bend the world to its will. Whereas ridesharing forced legalization of ridesharing.
        jimmaswell 6y ago
        You could argue its popularity has prevented governments from regulating against it as hard as they would have liked to.
        feanaro 6y ago
        I should note that I do not necessarily imply in my comment that it would be Bitcoin that would bend the world to its will. Bitcoin is just one member of a larger cluster of cryptocurrencies. There are certainly some cryptocurrencies for which it is not so obvious that governments will be able to enforce exactly the same laws as they enforce now. That said, even with Bitcoin, I do think it shifted the world ever so slightly in a new direction of financial independence which just wasn't there before. There is something distinctly different about sending money to someone else in any part of the world just by typing their address, with no one being able to stop you. With traditional methods, governments could impose and have regularly interfered and imposed bureaucracy already on this sending step. With Bitcoin they do not do this because it isn't very practical.
- xapata 6y ago
  > nearly impossible to stop What's nearly impossible to stop? Can't the government simply shut down the internet to stop Bitcoin? Or insert itself as the man in the middle of all network traffic.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    No, the government can't "just shut down the internet". If any government did that, then the country would suffer extreme economic damages, if such a policy was maintained for a long time. Your argument would be like if someone were to say "actually, the government can stop all theft, now and forever. All it has to do is launch 1 thousand nukes, start world war 3, and kill off 99% of the population". Like, sure. The government could end the world, by launch a nuke at every major city in the world. And it is true that by doing this it would end all theft .. because everyone is dead. But you are kinda missing the bigger picture if you are seriously suggesting this as a counter argument to anything.
    - xapata 6y ago
      My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. > extreme economic damages We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population. It seems that they don't care about damage, only power domestically, not internationally. The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. And yet, here we are, living in a world where such controls are pretty difficult to enact and simply aren't happening. Even in places where there are government controls over the internet, such controls are apparently not even close to perfect, on many many people are successfully able to get around them. So, the evidence shows, that despite any argument that you are making about how governments might control the internet and stop anyone from ever doing anything at all that they don't like, that is simply not happening right now to such a perfect degree that you suggest should happen, even in currently authoritarian countries. > We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population And yet, despite all of that, it doesn't really seem to be enacting extreme/perfect control over the internet, despite many motivations to do so, that have nothing to do with crypto. > The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy. Ok, and Venezuela isn't at all successfully preventing this damage. They aren't doing that. So the evidence shows that, for some reason, Venezuela is unable or unwilling to put extreme controls on crypto, do the the consequences or difficulty of doing so. Any hypothetical, or arguments that you can possibly think of, as for why Venezuela should put extreme controls on crypto or the internet, needs to deal with the fact that Venezuela simply isn't doing that right now, likely for a good reason. Because it is very difficult to do that.
Kranar 6y ago
You can make the same argument about AirBNB or Uber. The bottom line is that when a technology becomes available that makes life much easier for its users, it's really hard for the government to then crack down on it. There's not much reason for any government to want to crack down on BTC simply for the sake of cracking down on it. People talk about governments cracking down on BTC because it will undermine the local currency or banking system but I think that's mostly paranoia, there's not much of any evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that any government is fearful of cryptocurrencies. There were some governments and regulatory agencies that were concerned that BTC is a scam, or needs to be subject to security regulations, and had legitimate concerns about it but for the most part governments don't care that much about BTC in terms of a danger or a threat to their legitimacy.
- syshum 6y ago
  >>People talk about governments cracking down on BTC because it will undermine the local currency or banking system but I think that's mostly paranoia Incorrect, the government has no concerns over undermining the local currency. The primary purpose of banking regulations is population control, it has nothing to do with currency perservation Know your Customer laws, book keeping regulations, etc are all about control and intelligence. If they can get this intel and allow BTC to operate as is they will leave it alone, if however they can not get the intel they need on how money is moving well you can bet your life they will crack down hard Governments, all governments even yours, are about Power, Control, and Authority not what people seem to naively think that the government is there to "help" or "protect" or any other just altruistic goals.
  - xapata 6y ago
    Government isn't a monolith. There are individuals within the government that have altruistic goals. It may be helpful for certain analyses to simplify and consider a government as an individual, but for other analyses that's counter-productive.
    - syshum 6y ago

feanaro 6y ago

Why is it obvious that no amount of tech can solve it? Tech can also influence policy. If something is nearly impossible to stop, it likely won't be stopped. The policy will be changed instead.

graeme 6y ago
This hasn’t proven true in countries with functioning govts: they very much have applied tax and securities law to bitcoin.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  The rideshare industry had a clear impact on local laws in every first world country for one example.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Right, because it was hard to control and ridesharing was clearly better. My point was the experience in functioning countries has not shown this to be true of bitcoin. It has been easy enough for govts to enforce tax and security laws where they’ve tried. What laws have been changed for bitcoin?
    - jimmaswell 6y ago
      The IRS issued official guidance on it but there's no need for new laws around it.
      - graeme 6y ago
        That’s the point! Bitcoin didn’t bend the world to its will. Whereas ridesharing forced legalization of ridesharing.
        jimmaswell 6y ago
        You could argue its popularity has prevented governments from regulating against it as hard as they would have liked to.
        feanaro 6y ago
        I should note that I do not necessarily imply in my comment that it would be Bitcoin that would bend the world to its will. Bitcoin is just one member of a larger cluster of cryptocurrencies. There are certainly some cryptocurrencies for which it is not so obvious that governments will be able to enforce exactly the same laws as they enforce now. That said, even with Bitcoin, I do think it shifted the world ever so slightly in a new direction of financial independence which just wasn't there before. There is something distinctly different about sending money to someone else in any part of the world just by typing their address, with no one being able to stop you. With traditional methods, governments could impose and have regularly interfered and imposed bureaucracy already on this sending step. With Bitcoin they do not do this because it isn't very practical.
xapata 6y ago
> nearly impossible to stop What's nearly impossible to stop? Can't the government simply shut down the internet to stop Bitcoin? Or insert itself as the man in the middle of all network traffic.
- stale2002 6y ago
  No, the government can't "just shut down the internet". If any government did that, then the country would suffer extreme economic damages, if such a policy was maintained for a long time. Your argument would be like if someone were to say "actually, the government can stop all theft, now and forever. All it has to do is launch 1 thousand nukes, start world war 3, and kill off 99% of the population". Like, sure. The government could end the world, by launch a nuke at every major city in the world. And it is true that by doing this it would end all theft .. because everyone is dead. But you are kinda missing the bigger picture if you are seriously suggesting this as a counter argument to anything.
  - xapata 6y ago
    My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. > extreme economic damages We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population. It seems that they don't care about damage, only power domestically, not internationally. The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. And yet, here we are, living in a world where such controls are pretty difficult to enact and simply aren't happening. Even in places where there are government controls over the internet, such controls are apparently not even close to perfect, on many many people are successfully able to get around them. So, the evidence shows, that despite any argument that you are making about how governments might control the internet and stop anyone from ever doing anything at all that they don't like, that is simply not happening right now to such a perfect degree that you suggest should happen, even in currently authoritarian countries. > We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population And yet, despite all of that, it doesn't really seem to be enacting extreme/perfect control over the internet, despite many motivations to do so, that have nothing to do with crypto. > The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy. Ok, and Venezuela isn't at all successfully preventing this damage. They aren't doing that. So the evidence shows that, for some reason, Venezuela is unable or unwilling to put extreme controls on crypto, do the the consequences or difficulty of doing so. Any hypothetical, or arguments that you can possibly think of, as for why Venezuela should put extreme controls on crypto or the internet, needs to deal with the fact that Venezuela simply isn't doing that right now, likely for a good reason. Because it is very difficult to do that.

Kranar 6y ago

You can make the same argument about AirBNB or Uber. The bottom line is that when a technology becomes available that makes life much easier for its users, it's really hard for the government to then crack down on it. There's not much reason for any government to want to crack down on BTC simply for the sake of cracking down on it. People talk about governments cracking down on BTC because it will undermine the local currency or banking system but I think that's mostly paranoia, there's not much of any evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that any government is fearful of cryptocurrencies. There were some governments and regulatory agencies that were concerned that BTC is a scam, or needs to be subject to security regulations, and had legitimate concerns about it but for the most part governments don't care that much about BTC in terms of a danger or a threat to their legitimacy.

syshum 6y ago
>>People talk about governments cracking down on BTC because it will undermine the local currency or banking system but I think that's mostly paranoia Incorrect, the government has no concerns over undermining the local currency. The primary purpose of banking regulations is population control, it has nothing to do with currency perservation Know your Customer laws, book keeping regulations, etc are all about control and intelligence. If they can get this intel and allow BTC to operate as is they will leave it alone, if however they can not get the intel they need on how money is moving well you can bet your life they will crack down hard Governments, all governments even yours, are about Power, Control, and Authority not what people seem to naively think that the government is there to "help" or "protect" or any other just altruistic goals.
- xapata 6y ago
  Government isn't a monolith. There are individuals within the government that have altruistic goals. It may be helpful for certain analyses to simplify and consider a government as an individual, but for other analyses that's counter-productive.
  - syshum 6y ago