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Who needs bitcoin when Deutsche Bank and HSBC exist?
by tempsy 6y ago
Who needs bitcoin when Deutsche Bank and HSBC exist?
- 1996 6y agoThis, so much! But politicians have friends & famility working at DB and HSBC - so they'd rather show teeth and get votes by attacking the newcomers. Who cares if there's less illegal activity there? At least they won't have to fear retaliation by cartels!
- wslh 6y agoBecause you don't live in Latin America, Africa, etc. Probably you never experience a change of business and finance rules every few months.
- arcticbull 6y agoWhat does that have to do with Bitcoin? That literally continues to apply exactly whether Bitcoin is the currency of record or not. It's not some magical fairy sauce that solves any problem even remotely adjacent to money.
- zadler 6y agoThe key is that people in Latin American countries will use crypto to sidestep tax as well as capital controls. Whereas previously that was more difficult because of the lack of an alternative currency system on the internet.
- arcticbull 6y agoSo, crime then. Crime is still illegal, the blockchain is public and visible to everyone, it's easy to deanonymize now. So what, an express train to prison?
- anm89 6y agoIt's funny to watch this chain because it appears you truly cannot comprehend what he is saying. If you have a shoe store in Azerbaijan and one month you have a bank that allows you to accept payments, and then the next month your accounts are frozen, and then the next month it costs 60% to accept payments, your business has been stripped out from under you because you don't have reliable banking infrastructure. But when all you've ever known is reliable infrastructure and a bank which reliably holds your money its easy to lose this point. The bitcoin block chain is never going to freeze your funds. The bitcoin block chain has changing transaction costs but they not susceptible to wild swings in cost by administrative decree. These points sound attractive when you don't have access to good banking infrastructure. None of these things have anything to do with crime of any sort.
- arcticbull 6y agoSure but in those countries, is a $10 transaction fee an acceptable trade-off? It probably isn't. That's the thing. The fee is only palatable in countries that have banking infrastructure, and in ones that don't it's beyond extortionate. Like, monthly salary extortionate. Certainly when you factor in the $80 of electricity per transaction that's currently being socialized across block reward. 7tx/sec is enough for an average Costco or a big flea market, not a country. And once you move to Layer 2, the guarantees you're pointing at no longer apply as an exchange can shut you off just as an unreliable bank can - and you can just as easily set up a bank as set up an exchange. If this is about providing banking infrastructure to countries that don't have it, the fees are not acceptable, and so Bitcoin is not a solution. If this is about evading taxes when running a business, I suspect having your business shut down is still in the cards.
- anm89 6y agoThis seems pretty naive to me. Depends on what they are selling. Is it a stick of bubble gum? Ok probably not bitcoin. Is it a house? Yeah, I think theyll manage the fee. Is it somewhere in the middle?im confident theyll figure it out case by case and distribute costs as necessary and possible. Still none of this has anything to do with crime and everything to do with serving the underbanked.
- psychlops 6y agoNo, the key is that people in failing Latin America countries have a competing stable currency that can help them keep their wealth from being stolen or manipulated by those in power. This option never existed before.
- arcticbull 6y agoThey couldn't buy assets? They couldn't buy gold or stonks or bonds? The currency is irrelevant, if you exchange it for assets as soon as you get it net of your expenses.
- petre 6y agoGold is impractical, can be easily confiscated and no they could not buy stocks and bonds other than Venezuelan style stocks and bonds if you know what I mean.
- psychlops 6y agoOr in other words, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."
- arcticbull 6y agoWell, I'm not exactly suggesting they eat cake (btw, I didn't realize she actually said brioche - TIL!), I was asking if there were other alternatives. There may not have been. With that in mind, my position has always been: if the currency is failing, it's because the government is failing. If the government is failing you have bigger problems than your currency. Once you remediate the government, your currency is no longer a problem.
- wslh 6y agoBitcoin is a liquid instrument of escape beyond any ideology attached to it. You can apply a similar application in other crypto assets but the liquidity factor is critical. Most people outside the crypto echo chamber don't know about even ETH, USDT, USDC, etc.
- 01100011 6y agoDoes the money laundering and fraud taking place in DB and HSBC cause substantial volatility in the price of my accounts held there?
- jayd16 6y agoWhat is this glib comment arguing? Bad thing exists, ignore other bad thing?
- u678u 6y ago30+ years ago banks would transfer money for anyone that wanted it. Then regulations clamped down and enforcement was lax - as a result banks were fined. Now banks including non-US banks like DB and HSBC are strict and the US government will see exactly what you're doing esp in USD. Maybe some big exchanges like Coinbase follow the US laws closely but mostly crypto is like the old days where most people in the world can do what they want. Its in no way like these big global banks.
- malikNF 6y agoYes regulations and fines will have an impact on crime prevention, but not when those fines have any impact on the ones doing the crime. Also, I agree with the OP, I feel HSBC is a criminal organization because there is so many ethically questionable actions taken by this org[1] and even after getting caught and being fined for aiding criminals they still repeated it. [2] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Controversies [2]https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...
- jimz 6y agoWell, in part, it's not a good idea to throw stones at glass houses and if you are a regular reader of Inspectors General's reports on various agencies it quickly becomes evident that the agencies tasked with stopping said crime are just trying their hardest not to do that. A few that just involve the improper handling or oversight in conducting money laundering operations that came out this past year, which, because of the pandemic and politics, have seen fewer IG reports than usual: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/audit-drug-enforcement-administrations-income-generating-undercover-operations https://oig.justice.gov/reports/audit-drug-enforcement-admin... https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2020-09/OIG-20-66-Aug20.pdf https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2020-09/O...
- u678u 6y agoThat's great, now do how much reporting was done by crypto exchanges globally.