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> You can create all sorts of regulations but that will only harden the stance of crypto maxis because it will only prove them right. They can harden their sta

> You can create all sorts of regulations but that will only harden the stance of crypto maxis because it will only prove them right. They can harden their stance all they want, but breaking the crypto ecosystem is incredibly easy if governments really wanted to. All you have to do is ban companies from interacting with crypto currencies in any form, be it accepting, exchanging, holding, or producing them. That would immediately shut off the gateways between the crypto ecosystem and the real economy, which reduces crypto to P2P transactions in parking lots.

puranjay 6y ago
History has shown that when the potential rewards are large enough, the players will literally move jurisdictions to tap into the rewards. All that happens is forgone tax revenues for nations. Because unless you have a one world government (hopefully, no one is a proponent of this), there will be at least some countries that will welcome you. And since the rewards will be large enough, market participants will even do illegal things to access it. All it will eventually do is make your country less competitive until you have no recourse but to change the law. FOMO isn't just for people; it's for nations as well.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  International sanctions are a thing, _especially_ in the world of banking. The rewards are minuscule. It's a niche industry with no potential of it ever not being niche unless is has mass adoption.
cblconfederate 6y ago
I mean, companies are barely interacting with crypto right now, very few businesses use it for trade, but it keeps going up so i dont see how that works. US based onramps are useful only to americans, and i m sure people will seek ways to convert their dollars elsewhere, like they did for years before coinbase or other us based exchanges existed
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  > companies are barely interacting with crypto right now Not sure that is true > According to security firm Sophos, 51% of organizations it sampled globally found themselves the targets of ransomware attacks in 2019. The crooks succeeded in encrypting data in 73% of these attacks. Just over a quarter of these organizations paid the ransom, or their insurance companies forked over the cash. https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/4/251337-the-worsening-state-of-ransomware/fulltext https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/4/251337-the-worsening...
selectodude 6y ago
All they'd really have to do is announce that they were going to build enough computing power to initiate a 51 percent attack on bitcoin. I imagine the NSA is already there but it would be a nice cash injection for Intel or whatever. Bitcoin has a very, very short history of being a decent store of value and the US Government publicly saying they plan to break it would collapse the entire scheme.
- programmarchy 6y ago
  It’d have to be a very prolonged 51% attack. Other nation states would likely join in, and it’s not like the USG can stop millions of people around the world from mining. Even if they succeeded in driving the price of most coins to zero, it’d be a Pyrrhic victory with USG looking like giant, insecure assholes spending a huge amount of resources just to destroy something that democratized money and banking. Months later, a new white paper would come out that finds a way to disadvantage state actors and viola, the game of whack-a-mole begins anew. People want out of dollars because the US economy is mismanaged, and that demand isn’t going away.
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  This is a silly proposal, bitcoin could just switch to a new PoW algo within days if not hours if someone did that.
- puranjay 6y ago
  Bitcoin can die tomorrow and crypto would still remain a $1T industry

puranjay 6y ago

History has shown that when the potential rewards are large enough, the players will literally move jurisdictions to tap into the rewards. All that happens is forgone tax revenues for nations. Because unless you have a one world government (hopefully, no one is a proponent of this), there will be at least some countries that will welcome you. And since the rewards will be large enough, market participants will even do illegal things to access it. All it will eventually do is make your country less competitive until you have no recourse but to change the law. FOMO isn't just for people; it's for nations as well.

Daishiman 6y ago
International sanctions are a thing, _especially_ in the world of banking. The rewards are minuscule. It's a niche industry with no potential of it ever not being niche unless is has mass adoption.

cblconfederate 6y ago

I mean, companies are barely interacting with crypto right now, very few businesses use it for trade, but it keeps going up so i dont see how that works. US based onramps are useful only to americans, and i m sure people will seek ways to convert their dollars elsewhere, like they did for years before coinbase or other us based exchanges existed

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
> companies are barely interacting with crypto right now Not sure that is true > According to security firm Sophos, 51% of organizations it sampled globally found themselves the targets of ransomware attacks in 2019. The crooks succeeded in encrypting data in 73% of these attacks. Just over a quarter of these organizations paid the ransom, or their insurance companies forked over the cash. https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/4/251337-the-worsening-state-of-ransomware/fulltext https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/4/251337-the-worsening...

selectodude 6y ago

All they'd really have to do is announce that they were going to build enough computing power to initiate a 51 percent attack on bitcoin. I imagine the NSA is already there but it would be a nice cash injection for Intel or whatever. Bitcoin has a very, very short history of being a decent store of value and the US Government publicly saying they plan to break it would collapse the entire scheme.

programmarchy 6y ago
It’d have to be a very prolonged 51% attack. Other nation states would likely join in, and it’s not like the USG can stop millions of people around the world from mining. Even if they succeeded in driving the price of most coins to zero, it’d be a Pyrrhic victory with USG looking like giant, insecure assholes spending a huge amount of resources just to destroy something that democratized money and banking. Months later, a new white paper would come out that finds a way to disadvantage state actors and viola, the game of whack-a-mole begins anew. People want out of dollars because the US economy is mismanaged, and that demand isn’t going away.
FDSGSG 6y ago
This is a silly proposal, bitcoin could just switch to a new PoW algo within days if not hours if someone did that.
puranjay 6y ago
Bitcoin can die tomorrow and crypto would still remain a $1T industry