6 ms·

And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. You can pay taxes with it. It is backed by a strong authority and is used

And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. You can pay taxes with it. It is backed by a strong authority and is used as the reserve currency/economic driver of the world's countries. It is stable and does not suffer price volatility. Fortunes do not get lost if they are in cash at the bank. Crypto has none of these things. There's been an uptick of crypto fanboys coming to this forum lately. I'm fine with that and the technology is interesting. However, if you try to pollute our space with ideologies and conspiracy theories about the fed, you will not be unchallenged. Just like USD, crypto has downsides. Do not sweep the downsides of crypto under the rug for some utopiaic ideology. Be reasonable.

knocte 6y ago
> And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. If somebody steals your crypto and you know her/his identity, you can still go through courts to get it back (provided you are paying your taxes; which you can pay today in crypto in some jurisdictions). Now, before you tell me: but most of the time when someone steals your crypto you don't know who is it. Well: you need better IT security/know-how (same as when people were starting to use the internet on the late-80s or 90s). PS: Cryptocurrency is not about not paying taxes. In fact I think taxes would be easier to collect if every merchant implemented this payment system.
- whoisburbansky 6y ago
  Saying crypto isn’t about taxes sidesteps the most obvious way in which the dollar has any real value at all, which is that the IRS only accepts dollars, which has nothing to do with merchants per se, and more to do with the fact that the government can throw you in jail for not having enough dollars.
  - knocte 6y ago
    That will be a moot point soon, considering that even if converting bitcoin to USD is not that difficult anyway, some places (read: not merchants, see link) will just convert it for you automatically when taking your payment, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_mayor_francis_suarez_just_got_miami/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_m... BTW I had my doubts about if it's true that the state can incarcerate you for not paying taxes, and it turns out that if you are considered a person to be in a state of bankruptcy, some laws such as the 14th Amendment prevent you to get jailed. Read more about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debtors'_prisons_(1970%E2%80%93current) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debto...
    - XorNot 6y ago
      The state will send you to prison for lying about the taxes you owe. You can be massively in-debt for taxes, but the debt has to be a matter of public record. But you're missing the point about "automatic conversion": the USD has to come from somewhere. Converting from BTC isn't transmutation - the BTC is sold for USD. The transaction happens in USD and must come from available USD for BTC sellers.
      - knocte 6y ago
        > But you're missing the point about "automatic conversion": the USD has to come from somewhere. Converting from BTC isn't transmutation - the BTC is sold for USD. The transaction happens in USD and must come from available USD for BTC sellers. So what? So long as the USD exists, there will always be liquidity in the BTCUSD orderbooks. And the conversion can be done by the state itself when getting paid (see my link about Miami).
        notahacker 6y ago
        > So what? So long as the USD exists, there will always be liquidity in the BTCUSD orderbooks. There is only liquidity in the order book if more people wish to obtain BTC in return for USD at the price you wish to sell at than wish to sell at that price. There is no particular property of Bitcoin that ensures this will be the case (the "it will hold its value because people will want it as a store of value" reasoning is entirely circular). On the other hand, the USD has the property of being legally guaranteed to be able to settle 1USD worth of debt (and the design of the financial system ensures there will always be people who need dollars to discharge their debts). So it's "backed" by mountains of debt. 46k USD has the unique property of being sure to be able to pay a $46k bill on a future date. $46k worth of anything else relies on your ability to swap it for at least $46k actual dollars closer to that date. Some of those non-dollar things have other useful properties like being able to live in them that compensate for the downside risk of losing money in a future exchange, others directly pay you coupons and/or have collateral associated with them. A BTC has no consumption benefit, legal claims on anything or coupon payment to compensate you for the risk you might not be able to exchange it for $46k when that bill is due - it's as pure an example of "fiat" creation of assets not backed by anything at all as you're ever likely to see. The only thing it's really got going for it is being more durable than, say, $46k of fruit, but that applies to a lot of other physical and financial products.
Sleepytime 6y ago
>And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. Dubious. I've had the police tell me or others I know something to the effect of 'let us know if you find anything out, we will never catch them' half a dozen times across both coasts. Teams of investigators on your case for long periods of time is a privilege generally reserved for the rich (or the big cases if you're more generous than I). If you have a good enough case to get a refund through the courts they will order a refund of crypto just the same as with USD, a PlayStation, or a stolen motorcycle. >You can pay taxes with it. This it a truism. The state that issues a currency lets you pay taxes with it? I Don't think that's slipping by anyone talking about bitcoin. >It is backed by a strong authority It is backed by the trustworthiness of the US government and financial system, which is debatable at best. >is used as the reserve currency/economic driver of the world's countries. Is now doesn't mean it will continue to be. The US continues to print money and sell off gold reserves in staggering numbers. Maybe it will work out, but I'm not holding out hope. China is buying gold in huge numbers, and look to be positioning themselves to be the new reserve currency. I've also read some compelling arguments that the USD as a reserve currency is propped up by US militarism and geopolitical games with oil pricing but I haven't done enough research to come to that conclusion myself. >It is stable and does not suffer price volatility. Discussed ad nauseum. Change from buying a sandwich with bitcoin a few years ago can buy a nice used car now, while the value of the dollar has dropped for decades. Short term volatility averages out pretty well into the long term trend, especially against a currency that is trending in the opposite direction. If volatility is an issue, dollar cost averaging is a simple and effective way to mitigate it. >Fortunes do not get lost if they are in cash at the bank. This happens regularly throughout history though. You also assume that they are "in the bank". As of March the Fed lowered reserve requirements to zero.[1] We are only a decade into cryptocurrency, the technology is still moving very fast. With things like hardware wallets, M of N keys, and social recovery wallets it's getting harder and harder to lose it all. It's programmable, you could write something cool to help prevent it like time-locked or time-unlocked transactions? >There's been an uptick of crypto fanboys coming to this forum lately. Your account is only a month old. Presumably you've been lurking for a long time. Maybe you should give the same benefit of the doubt to others? Lots of old hands don't talk about it from their primary accounts because the fun money they put in it years ago is worth millions. >if you try to pollute our space This entire paragraph is polluting HN. 1: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm
chillacy 6y ago
Don’t you think HN harbors a larger percentage of people who were more likely to be early adopters of crypto (and possibly crypto millionaires by now)?
- shuckles 6y ago
  There’s a substantial gulf between those who stumbled into wealth through a cool technology (they generally acknowledge the fluke), and those whose visions of wealth depend on further pumping and thereby spend a lot of their energy on propaganda.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
> you can go through courts and banks to get it back That's something you read on the internet and that people keep repeating without having any understanding of. In reality it's quite far from the truth, because most fraudsters don't just steal your money and keep it on their accounts. They use fictional shell companies, they move the money around, they steal identities etc... The money is just not there to be returned. Yes, you can go to the courts, but they are not going to magically give you some new money if there is none to be taken back, or none to be found. This is a very common occurrence. Also courts only even help when there are very large sums involved. In all other cases it still costs more to go to the court than there is money to be saved, so it's a oot point. Oh, and above all, the courts work exactly the same way with crypto, haven't you noticed this? Stealing is illegal and can be dealt with in courts, whether it's USD or BTC, it doesn't matter to the court. So what is the point of mentioning this?? If your fraudster still has their BTC, the court will get them back. Government has also seized a lot of BTC from criminals, so again, it's working exactly as USD in this regard.
- LukeShu 6y ago
  You've only mentioned courts, but the parent comment also mentioned banks. Sure, if you're going to take someone to court, you need to find them, and everything you say is true. But you often don't need to take someone to court; the bank will handle it. "they are not going to magically give you some new money if there is none to be taken back" I mean, they kinda will. It's not magically new money; it came from somewhere, but as far as the user needs to know it's magic. Especially since there are laws limiting individual liability for stolen identities. Me: "There's been fraud on my card." (to the tune of $1000) Teller: "Are you sure it wasn't a family member or a mistaken purchase?" Me: "Yeah, the charges were in Texas and I haven't been to Texas in years." Teller: "Great. hands me a printout of recent charges and a highlighter Can you highlight all of the unauthorized charges?" Me: "Sure." Teller: "Ok, we'll provisionally credit you the amount back to your account, while your claim gets reviewed; you'll have access to it immediately, but will be liable to pay it back if the claim gets denied. We'll let you know when the claim approval is finalized, which usually takes 2-3 weeks. We'll get you a new card, which should arrive in 2-3 days, if you don't get it by the third day, let us know." Me: "Thanks!"
_trampeltier 6y ago
Or you walk over the street and the police thinks you have nice usd in your wallet .. and just take it all .. until you can proof these dollars came on a legal way to your wallet. (A bit black humor, but since it's not a serious topic anyway, I think it's ok for HN for once).
jMyles 6y ago
> backed by a strong authority Is it weird that I translate this as military empire?

knocte 6y ago

> And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. If somebody steals your crypto and you know her/his identity, you can still go through courts to get it back (provided you are paying your taxes; which you can pay today in crypto in some jurisdictions). Now, before you tell me: but most of the time when someone steals your crypto you don't know who is it. Well: you need better IT security/know-how (same as when people were starting to use the internet on the late-80s or 90s). PS: Cryptocurrency is not about not paying taxes. In fact I think taxes would be easier to collect if every merchant implemented this payment system.

whoisburbansky 6y ago
Saying crypto isn’t about taxes sidesteps the most obvious way in which the dollar has any real value at all, which is that the IRS only accepts dollars, which has nothing to do with merchants per se, and more to do with the fact that the government can throw you in jail for not having enough dollars.
- knocte 6y ago
  That will be a moot point soon, considering that even if converting bitcoin to USD is not that difficult anyway, some places (read: not merchants, see link) will just convert it for you automatically when taking your payment, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_mayor_francis_suarez_just_got_miami/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_m... BTW I had my doubts about if it's true that the state can incarcerate you for not paying taxes, and it turns out that if you are considered a person to be in a state of bankruptcy, some laws such as the 14th Amendment prevent you to get jailed. Read more about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debtors'_prisons_(1970%E2%80%93current) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debto...
  - XorNot 6y ago
    The state will send you to prison for lying about the taxes you owe. You can be massively in-debt for taxes, but the debt has to be a matter of public record. But you're missing the point about "automatic conversion": the USD has to come from somewhere. Converting from BTC isn't transmutation - the BTC is sold for USD. The transaction happens in USD and must come from available USD for BTC sellers.
    - knocte 6y ago
      > But you're missing the point about "automatic conversion": the USD has to come from somewhere. Converting from BTC isn't transmutation - the BTC is sold for USD. The transaction happens in USD and must come from available USD for BTC sellers. So what? So long as the USD exists, there will always be liquidity in the BTCUSD orderbooks. And the conversion can be done by the state itself when getting paid (see my link about Miami).
      - notahacker 6y ago
        > So what? So long as the USD exists, there will always be liquidity in the BTCUSD orderbooks. There is only liquidity in the order book if more people wish to obtain BTC in return for USD at the price you wish to sell at than wish to sell at that price. There is no particular property of Bitcoin that ensures this will be the case (the "it will hold its value because people will want it as a store of value" reasoning is entirely circular). On the other hand, the USD has the property of being legally guaranteed to be able to settle 1USD worth of debt (and the design of the financial system ensures there will always be people who need dollars to discharge their debts). So it's "backed" by mountains of debt. 46k USD has the unique property of being sure to be able to pay a $46k bill on a future date. $46k worth of anything else relies on your ability to swap it for at least $46k actual dollars closer to that date. Some of those non-dollar things have other useful properties like being able to live in them that compensate for the downside risk of losing money in a future exchange, others directly pay you coupons and/or have collateral associated with them. A BTC has no consumption benefit, legal claims on anything or coupon payment to compensate you for the risk you might not be able to exchange it for $46k when that bill is due - it's as pure an example of "fiat" creation of assets not backed by anything at all as you're ever likely to see. The only thing it's really got going for it is being more durable than, say, $46k of fruit, but that applies to a lot of other physical and financial products.

Sleepytime 6y ago

>And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. Dubious. I've had the police tell me or others I know something to the effect of 'let us know if you find anything out, we will never catch them' half a dozen times across both coasts. Teams of investigators on your case for long periods of time is a privilege generally reserved for the rich (or the big cases if you're more generous than I). If you have a good enough case to get a refund through the courts they will order a refund of crypto just the same as with USD, a PlayStation, or a stolen motorcycle. >You can pay taxes with it. This it a truism. The state that issues a currency lets you pay taxes with it? I Don't think that's slipping by anyone talking about bitcoin. >It is backed by a strong authority It is backed by the trustworthiness of the US government and financial system, which is debatable at best. >is used as the reserve currency/economic driver of the world's countries. Is now doesn't mean it will continue to be. The US continues to print money and sell off gold reserves in staggering numbers. Maybe it will work out, but I'm not holding out hope. China is buying gold in huge numbers, and look to be positioning themselves to be the new reserve currency. I've also read some compelling arguments that the USD as a reserve currency is propped up by US militarism and geopolitical games with oil pricing but I haven't done enough research to come to that conclusion myself. >It is stable and does not suffer price volatility. Discussed ad nauseum. Change from buying a sandwich with bitcoin a few years ago can buy a nice used car now, while the value of the dollar has dropped for decades. Short term volatility averages out pretty well into the long term trend, especially against a currency that is trending in the opposite direction. If volatility is an issue, dollar cost averaging is a simple and effective way to mitigate it. >Fortunes do not get lost if they are in cash at the bank. This happens regularly throughout history though. You also assume that they are "in the bank". As of March the Fed lowered reserve requirements to zero.[1] We are only a decade into cryptocurrency, the technology is still moving very fast. With things like hardware wallets, M of N keys, and social recovery wallets it's getting harder and harder to lose it all. It's programmable, you could write something cool to help prevent it like time-locked or time-unlocked transactions? >There's been an uptick of crypto fanboys coming to this forum lately. Your account is only a month old. Presumably you've been lurking for a long time. Maybe you should give the same benefit of the doubt to others? Lots of old hands don't talk about it from their primary accounts because the fun money they put in it years ago is worth millions. >if you try to pollute our space This entire paragraph is polluting HN. 1: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

chillacy 6y ago

Don’t you think HN harbors a larger percentage of people who were more likely to be early adopters of crypto (and possibly crypto millionaires by now)?

shuckles 6y ago
There’s a substantial gulf between those who stumbled into wealth through a cool technology (they generally acknowledge the fluke), and those whose visions of wealth depend on further pumping and thereby spend a lot of their energy on propaganda.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

> you can go through courts and banks to get it back That's something you read on the internet and that people keep repeating without having any understanding of. In reality it's quite far from the truth, because most fraudsters don't just steal your money and keep it on their accounts. They use fictional shell companies, they move the money around, they steal identities etc... The money is just not there to be returned. Yes, you can go to the courts, but they are not going to magically give you some new money if there is none to be taken back, or none to be found. This is a very common occurrence. Also courts only even help when there are very large sums involved. In all other cases it still costs more to go to the court than there is money to be saved, so it's a oot point. Oh, and above all, the courts work exactly the same way with crypto, haven't you noticed this? Stealing is illegal and can be dealt with in courts, whether it's USD or BTC, it doesn't matter to the court. So what is the point of mentioning this?? If your fraudster still has their BTC, the court will get them back. Government has also seized a lot of BTC from criminals, so again, it's working exactly as USD in this regard.

LukeShu 6y ago
You've only mentioned courts, but the parent comment also mentioned banks. Sure, if you're going to take someone to court, you need to find them, and everything you say is true. But you often don't need to take someone to court; the bank will handle it. "they are not going to magically give you some new money if there is none to be taken back" I mean, they kinda will. It's not magically new money; it came from somewhere, but as far as the user needs to know it's magic. Especially since there are laws limiting individual liability for stolen identities. Me: "There's been fraud on my card." (to the tune of $1000) Teller: "Are you sure it wasn't a family member or a mistaken purchase?" Me: "Yeah, the charges were in Texas and I haven't been to Texas in years." Teller: "Great. hands me a printout of recent charges and a highlighter Can you highlight all of the unauthorized charges?" Me: "Sure." Teller: "Ok, we'll provisionally credit you the amount back to your account, while your claim gets reviewed; you'll have access to it immediately, but will be liable to pay it back if the claim gets denied. We'll let you know when the claim approval is finalized, which usually takes 2-3 weeks. We'll get you a new card, which should arrive in 2-3 days, if you don't get it by the third day, let us know." Me: "Thanks!"

_trampeltier 6y ago

Or you walk over the street and the police thinks you have nice usd in your wallet .. and just take it all .. until you can proof these dollars came on a legal way to your wallet. (A bit black humor, but since it's not a serious topic anyway, I think it's ok for HN for once).

jMyles 6y ago

> backed by a strong authority Is it weird that I translate this as military empire?