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I still cannot understand how crypto advocates genuinely think governments will roll over and let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the st

I still cannot understand how crypto advocates genuinely think governments will roll over and let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the state: minting and control of the flow, supply, and thus value of the currency. Ironically, to me, crypto seems to already assume the utopia it aims to usher in (namely, the one in which decentralized currencies are legal and valid). Also the idea that we can bully or criticize governments into adopting crypto by calling the ones who don’t “tyrannical” is especially naive and hilarious to me. By virtue, the truly tyrannical do not care about being called such.

rafale 6y ago
It's considered property in the US. And the rights to own are protected by the constitution. As long as western governments don't go on a crusade, cryptocurrencies will continue to thrive.
- usaphp 6y ago
  You can still own it, but businesses can just be banned from accepting payments.
  - meowkit 6y ago
    How in the world is the (US government at least) going to stop a business from accepting whatever they want as a form of payment?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - fridif 6y ago
      how in the world is the US government going to stop restaurants from letting people inside?
      - meowkit 6y ago
        In some places they never did. Slowing the spread of a virus and dictating what people can trade with is an apples to orange comparison. This is not a good rebuttal.
- Afforess 6y ago
  This is a compelling argument because what? The US government is incapable of passing new legislation to regulate/outlaw property? An interstate-trading crypto ban would be legal, as far as I can tell.
- lovedswain 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
- uncomputation 6y ago
  A bit of a shaky analogy I’ll admit in advance, but drugs are also considered property in the US and that very possession is a crime itself. Possessions viewed by the government as harmful will eventually be legislated away, as you say “a crusade.” But to assume that the US is just going to let crypto walk through and displace the dollar (the pillar of the modern economy - the IMF uses the dollar as its barometer) is just ludicrous. Either crypto will be outright banned or will be mutated through legislation into a centralized currency - the very thing it sought to solve.
- baq 6y ago
  heroin is considered a property, too, i guess? i'm not in the US, so i'm not sure, but it at least used to not be a good thing to get caught owning heroin.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > And the rights to own are protected by the constitution. You don't have a constitutional right to own absolutely anything, though. If you buy grenades, for instance, the state will seize them and imprison you. Someone already mentioned Executive Order 6102, regarding gold.
- dheera 6y ago
  Which means that it isn't treated as a currency. I could buy a Tesla with Bitcoin, but what good is that if I have to pay capital gains tax for "selling" the Bitcoin even though I didn't actually sell it, I used it?
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    Because Bitcoin is property just like stock.
    - dheera 6y ago
      That's my point; it's treated as property, not currency, which sucks.
  - thinkloop 6y ago
    > what good is that if I have to pay capital gains tax You would (almost) never pay cap gains on cash even if the law required it, because cash goes down in value over time. Everyone knows this, so no one holds cash, they buy stocks, bonds and realestate. When it comes time for the Tesla, they have to sell those assets, pay cap gains, then buy it, just like BTC. If you wanted to avoid cap gains, your only choice is to hold cash, in which case you would have less overall money at the end. tl;dr: all appreciating assets are encumbered with cap gains, the only way to avoid it is to buy non-appreciating assets, which is worse
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    This treatment of secondary currencies (regular ones included) is not universal across the world.
nathias 6y ago
Decentralized currencies are legal (outside of Turkey)? How is that an utopic assumption?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- uncomputation 6y ago
  They are legal, for now. Once crypto becomes big enough to actually affect the changes it seeks to, we will see legislation shooting it down. Turkey is just one of the first examples.
  - asenna 6y ago
    You're saying the US legislation will directly attack the multiple $100Billion+ public traded companies in the crypto space? (Assumption is that Coinbase won't be the last company in crypto to go public). I don't see that happening anymore. There's too many startups with too many smart people working in the space and a LOT more people (including the legislatures) invested in Crypto.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      The current US administration nuked Canada's Keystone XL pipeline investment ($8 billion) with the stroke of a pen (due to climate emergency concerns). There is less crypto value intertwined in public securities than that (roughly $4 billion), ignoring Coinbase's valuation (which, if crypto is outlawed, I'm unsure the government would place much value in maintaining; there’s a reason executive insiders cashed out significant portions of their equity holdings at listing). But, if you believe otherwise as a capital market participant, buying and holding Bitcoin is a fine play to back such a belief.
    - nO0b 6y ago
      The US Navy has 11 aircraft carrier groups protecting the USD status as the world's reserve currency. History suggests that won't last forever, but it probably won't be COIN shareholders or activist hedge funds that forces a regime change as big as that.
dsyrk 6y ago
ok I’ll take your bait and it’s an easy answer the smart ones don’t. We aren’t even in the first battle of the coming war to wrestle currency back into private hands. My question for you would be why do you think governments even stand a chance? Try shutting down the internet, US SEC chairwoman admits will be very hard to stop without extreme technical measures. Please tell how are they going to stop cryptocurrency? With silly bans like Turkey’s? What a joke.
- fridif 6y ago
  "hello sir it seems you are using a banned currency for doing business in these fine lands, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can...."
  - dsyrk 6y ago
    But unless it is globally everywhere, which it won’t. it will eventually fail. If you study the history of money, which I have, basically eventually the “better” money wins. This is the case for the last 5000+ years of human history across many civilizations. What we have is the emergency of “better” money. Fiat has huge advantages if a nation needs to wage war, among many other features, but those features have lost utility over what new cryptocurrency can offer. Governments will obviously fight back soon, but I believe will lose completely in the long run.
    - WJW 6y ago
      Perhaps, but "eventually in the long run" does not imply anything about Turkey succeeding or failing with this particular ban. The long run might be several centuries, in which a lot of things could happen that would make any of the current cryptocurrencies completely irrelevant.
    - xwolfi 6y ago
      Probably but it's rare in history people are so crazy about a slower, more expensive, less fluid, more static currency and call it progress... That your savings' purchase power depends on Chinese electricity plant operating hours doesn't feel weird to you ? I prefer when it evolves slowly with the national debt :D
jb775 6y ago
Well look at how governments have been bullied and criticized by big tech. For the most part, governments have rolled over and taken it. The previous president of the United States was literally censored and eventually banned from Twitter and no one did anything about it.
- DarknessFalls 6y ago
  Didn't he violate their terms of use by inciting violence that led to multiple deaths?
  - jb775 6y ago
    You're an idiot
    - dang 6y ago
      We ban accounts that post like this. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.
  - the_optimist 6y ago
    No. He did not.
  - seriousquestion 6y ago
    If that's the case, why doesn't it apply to elected officials who make more explicit calls to violence? https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1383789523910369282 https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/13837895239103692...
- seriousquestion 6y ago
  The news media and activists bully tech. Twitter resisted banning a sitting president for years.
lucasyvas 6y ago
They will not roll over, but they will lose anyway. Fighting technological change is like pissing straight into the wind. We've seen it happen multiple times already, even in our lifetime.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  As a technologist, I'm sure this is an enjoyable mental model to hold (tech speaking to and overriding traditional power), but let's look at Edward Snowden's situation for example. He's persona non grata with no recourse (albeit for violating the law with, arguably, moral and ethical intentions), and there is nothing preventing the same happening to those who deeply believe in crypto and attempting to subvert government regulation by using it for the transfer of money or value. This is far different from battles such as PGP's export as a munition [1], which at least had freedom of speech protections as the argument for challenging the US government's position and regulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
  - christophilus 6y ago
    > there is nothing preventing the same happening to those who deeply believe in crypto The difference is that Bitcoin now has billionaires and multinational companies that have it on their books. Money talks, and government officials in democracies are unlikely to make a move that will rock their donors too much.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
megameter 6y ago
So long as flagrant copyright violation also continues to exist online, bans pose minimal threat to cryptocurrency diffusion. This time is not different.
- frankbreetz 6y ago
  This argument seems strange to me. When you buy something don't you typically revive a physical good? It seems easier police that then the copying of various files. If cyrpto is outlawed you aren't going to use it at Amazon or Walmart. It is also hard to see a commerce org of any size existing with out government permission. This argument seems to assume people will only use cyrpto to buy other cyrptos. That is useless money. Money is used to buy goods and services.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    How could you tell whether a physical good was paid with Bitcoin or not? Just purchase from another country. In general there is no incentive for other governments to follow suit because those which don't institute bans would stand to profit more by taxing their miners.
    - frankbreetz 6y ago
      This may work for smaller shops, but it's easy to catch larger companies doing this. Public ledger and this transaction involves knowing the buyers address. Plus if a large enough website allowed you to pay with Bitcoin they could easily get shut down. The start-up cost for a store are way higher then hosting a hard drive full of copy-righted files, so they couldn't be as elusive.
TheBlight 6y ago
Your logic seemingly reduces to "Governments are too tyrannical to allow revolution against their tyrannical practices, therefore it's ridiculous to try."
- foepys 6y ago
  China is controlling over 50% of the mining power for Bitcoin. Giving away control over currency to Bitcoin equals giving China control over currency. A 51% attack to rewrite blocks with new transactions doesn't even need to happen. The miners just have to not include certain transactions to inflict massive economic damage. This is the case for all decentralized crypto currencies. If you don't know who's appending the chain and thus creating currency and/or including transactions, you cannot be sure it isn't your enemy.
  - jcbrand 6y ago
    This is FUD. There is competition between miners and even if some miners for whatever reason don't want to include certain transactions (and how would they even know which transactions they want to exclude?), other miners will, because there are transaction fees to be earned.
    - foepys 6y ago
      China is a one party communist state. When the party says that somebody has to do something in regards to national security, it gets done. Otherwise it's time for prison or death and somebody else does it anyways. That's has been China's MO since Mao. No mining incentive beats men with guns.
      - jcbrand 6y ago
        Even if that was the case, miners from outside of China would include the transactions that the Chinese miners don't want to include.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the state: minting and control of the flow, supply, and thus value of the currency I think crypto proponents have exaggerated the threat that cryptocurrency poses to government controlled currencies. The narrative plays well to audiences that distrust institutions and want to be early adopters of a new cryptocurrency paradigm (in which they would be at the top of the wealth spectrum), but the reality is that cryptocurrencies are additive on top of existing currencies, not replacements. In practice, average people in average countries (e.g. not Venezuela) benefit more from having centrally controlled currencies than they lose. Average people also benefit from having an established currency rather than being forced to switch to one that is majority controlled by a few early adopters. If you think wealth inequality is bad now, the wealth inequality in a hypothetical Bitcoin economy would be orders of magnitude worse. The idea that one day Bitcoin will reign supreme and everyone will be forced to buy 0.0000001 Bitcoin to get any transactions done is attractive to someone who wants Bitcoin prices to go the moon, but the average person wants nothing of the sort.
- aeternum 6y ago
  The average person definitely doesn't want to use bitcoin, but they also do not want their savings & spending money to devalue. Debt levels are quite high, so governments must either continue expanding the money supply or must increase interest rates and bankrupt a significant proportion of citizens. It's not an easy choice and throughout history most governments have chosen the devaluation path.
- doggosphere 6y ago
  If you think wealth inequality is bad now, the wealth inequality in a hypothetical Bitcoin economy would be orders of magnitude worse. Please explain, is this belief because wealthy people have front run Bitcoin by accumulating it early on? As it stands now, fiat currency drives wealth inequality when the federal reserve injects trillions of dollars into the system. That money makes its way to store of value assets like stocks and real estate. Poorer people tend not to own those assets, but of course would one day like to. Since most of their net-worth is comprised of cash, they suffer the most when cash is devalued by printing. Every day that passes makes it more unlikely that they will ever own those safe haven assets, or they'll own proportionally even less. In a Bitcoin economy, there is no flip of the switch, no button to be pressed that allows this to happen. In a hyperbitcoinization event, where all the world's wealth is transferred into Bitcoin, the earliest people are rewarded the most. But no further arbitrary devaluation of assets can occur. Monetary saving power is restored to people, not governments.
shafyy 6y ago
Exactly. What many people who tout the idealogical benefits of crypto don't understand is that it's not a technology problem, it's a political problem that can't be solved by technology. This with Turkey is a good example. If it's illegal for a business to accept crypto, there's nothing crypto can do about that. Turkish businesses need to comply or face fines and shut downs. What do you think will happen most likely?
wyager 6y ago
Bitcoin is inherently censorship-resistant and unaffected by borders, so banning in any given country will have minimal effect on its usefulness as a savings mechanism unless it’s banned ~everywhere and regulatory arbitrage becomes too inefficient. First-world governments that are relatively constrained in what they are allowed to do to their citizens may be unable to ban Bitcoin even if they wanted to.
victor106 6y ago
Bitcoins’ biggest strength is also its weakness: anonymity. It only takes a few bad actors to do something nefarious for the US to ban it. After the ban Bitcoin might still continue to exist but it won’t be institutionalized and so it will loose it’s appeal. Also, for people who think the US does not have the power to ban it, see this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act#Litigation_arising_from_GRA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act#Litigation_...
- Jommi 6y ago
  It's 2021 and there are still people that think Bitcoin is anonymous. It's not. It's pseudonym ous.
  - victor106 6y ago
    You are right. By anonymous I meant if the user takes reasonable precautions then it’s very very hard for law enforcement to know who that user is. The transaction log is public but who is actually behind those transactions is not.
    - Jommi 6y ago
      I dont think thats fair either. The transactions are public and the addrresses are public and addresses are basically just unique usernames. So you always know what address is behind a transaction, but ownership info is not always guaranteed.
csomar 6y ago
> I still cannot understand how crypto advocates genuinely think governments will roll over and let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the state They'll not rollover. But it'll happen in two ways: 1. They don't understand it (never underestimate the stupidity of politicians and regulators) and thus they'll either allow it or not know how to stop it; or 2. Crypto is widespread and the government has little control over on-off ramps. It doesn't help that crypto-currencies wreak havoc on their economy stability (which further makes them unable to control the population).
- xwolfi 6y ago
  But if the people decide they want none of it, they can vote for a government that will put people in jail for using crypto in the open. I mean, some voted to leave the European Union, so why not that ?
  - csomar 6y ago
    That would be fun trying to see that happen in a public referendum. Crypto is people-friendly or at least gives the illusion of meritocracy and equality. Otherwise, people could still trade on off-shore exchanges, and exchange secretly (drugs are still selling on the streets, aren't they?) on the streets.
clomond 6y ago
One thing that this article only briefly skims over (Turkish lira’s dropping and issues in management at their central bank) are in their own way burying the lede. Historically (re: recent history of Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe ) crypto assets’ “clunkiness” and functional downside aside- get rapidly adopted when the centrally managed currency loses confidence of the people. This further threatens this “central bank managed currency” via accelerated wealth outflows, in this case of the Lira - and all other reasons mentioned smell like cover to me. This ban is but a reaction and protective measure to slow down wealth transfer out of the governments reach of regular Turkish citizens. A closer look at the state of the Turkish central bank and drivers of monetary policy would likely also reduce your confidence that they know what they are doing and this is a broadly anti crypto move. As a result, this ban has nothing to do with thought through policy. It’s meant to limit outflows from the Lira as the Turkish economy sadly spins out of control.
- imtringued 6y ago
  The problem is that Erdogan doesn't let the central bank do its job. Back in 2018 Erdogan bascially took direct control over monetary policy which caused a loss in confidence. It's extremely surprising because the Turkish economy was doing well until 2018. The only thing it was lacking was a properly set interest rate, which requires high central bank independence, the primary factor in low inflation.

rafale 6y ago

It's considered property in the US. And the rights to own are protected by the constitution. As long as western governments don't go on a crusade, cryptocurrencies will continue to thrive.

usaphp 6y ago
You can still own it, but businesses can just be banned from accepting payments.
- meowkit 6y ago
  How in the world is the (US government at least) going to stop a business from accepting whatever they want as a form of payment?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fridif 6y ago
    how in the world is the US government going to stop restaurants from letting people inside?
    - meowkit 6y ago
      In some places they never did. Slowing the spread of a virus and dictating what people can trade with is an apples to orange comparison. This is not a good rebuttal.
Afforess 6y ago
This is a compelling argument because what? The US government is incapable of passing new legislation to regulate/outlaw property? An interstate-trading crypto ban would be legal, as far as I can tell.
lovedswain 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
uncomputation 6y ago
A bit of a shaky analogy I’ll admit in advance, but drugs are also considered property in the US and that very possession is a crime itself. Possessions viewed by the government as harmful will eventually be legislated away, as you say “a crusade.” But to assume that the US is just going to let crypto walk through and displace the dollar (the pillar of the modern economy - the IMF uses the dollar as its barometer) is just ludicrous. Either crypto will be outright banned or will be mutated through legislation into a centralized currency - the very thing it sought to solve.
baq 6y ago
heroin is considered a property, too, i guess? i'm not in the US, so i'm not sure, but it at least used to not be a good thing to get caught owning heroin.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> And the rights to own are protected by the constitution. You don't have a constitutional right to own absolutely anything, though. If you buy grenades, for instance, the state will seize them and imprison you. Someone already mentioned Executive Order 6102, regarding gold.
dheera 6y ago
Which means that it isn't treated as a currency. I could buy a Tesla with Bitcoin, but what good is that if I have to pay capital gains tax for "selling" the Bitcoin even though I didn't actually sell it, I used it?
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Because Bitcoin is property just like stock.
  - dheera 6y ago
    That's my point; it's treated as property, not currency, which sucks.
- thinkloop 6y ago
  > what good is that if I have to pay capital gains tax You would (almost) never pay cap gains on cash even if the law required it, because cash goes down in value over time. Everyone knows this, so no one holds cash, they buy stocks, bonds and realestate. When it comes time for the Tesla, they have to sell those assets, pay cap gains, then buy it, just like BTC. If you wanted to avoid cap gains, your only choice is to hold cash, in which case you would have less overall money at the end. tl;dr: all appreciating assets are encumbered with cap gains, the only way to avoid it is to buy non-appreciating assets, which is worse
- lostmsu 6y ago
  This treatment of secondary currencies (regular ones included) is not universal across the world.

nathias 6y ago

Decentralized currencies are legal (outside of Turkey)? How is that an utopic assumption?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
uncomputation 6y ago
They are legal, for now. Once crypto becomes big enough to actually affect the changes it seeks to, we will see legislation shooting it down. Turkey is just one of the first examples.
- asenna 6y ago
  You're saying the US legislation will directly attack the multiple $100Billion+ public traded companies in the crypto space? (Assumption is that Coinbase won't be the last company in crypto to go public). I don't see that happening anymore. There's too many startups with too many smart people working in the space and a LOT more people (including the legislatures) invested in Crypto.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    The current US administration nuked Canada's Keystone XL pipeline investment ($8 billion) with the stroke of a pen (due to climate emergency concerns). There is less crypto value intertwined in public securities than that (roughly $4 billion), ignoring Coinbase's valuation (which, if crypto is outlawed, I'm unsure the government would place much value in maintaining; there’s a reason executive insiders cashed out significant portions of their equity holdings at listing). But, if you believe otherwise as a capital market participant, buying and holding Bitcoin is a fine play to back such a belief.
  - nO0b 6y ago
    The US Navy has 11 aircraft carrier groups protecting the USD status as the world's reserve currency. History suggests that won't last forever, but it probably won't be COIN shareholders or activist hedge funds that forces a regime change as big as that.

dsyrk 6y ago

ok I’ll take your bait and it’s an easy answer the smart ones don’t. We aren’t even in the first battle of the coming war to wrestle currency back into private hands. My question for you would be why do you think governments even stand a chance? Try shutting down the internet, US SEC chairwoman admits will be very hard to stop without extreme technical measures. Please tell how are they going to stop cryptocurrency? With silly bans like Turkey’s? What a joke.

fridif 6y ago
"hello sir it seems you are using a banned currency for doing business in these fine lands, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can...."
- dsyrk 6y ago
  But unless it is globally everywhere, which it won’t. it will eventually fail. If you study the history of money, which I have, basically eventually the “better” money wins. This is the case for the last 5000+ years of human history across many civilizations. What we have is the emergency of “better” money. Fiat has huge advantages if a nation needs to wage war, among many other features, but those features have lost utility over what new cryptocurrency can offer. Governments will obviously fight back soon, but I believe will lose completely in the long run.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Perhaps, but "eventually in the long run" does not imply anything about Turkey succeeding or failing with this particular ban. The long run might be several centuries, in which a lot of things could happen that would make any of the current cryptocurrencies completely irrelevant.
  - xwolfi 6y ago
    Probably but it's rare in history people are so crazy about a slower, more expensive, less fluid, more static currency and call it progress... That your savings' purchase power depends on Chinese electricity plant operating hours doesn't feel weird to you ? I prefer when it evolves slowly with the national debt :D

jb775 6y ago

Well look at how governments have been bullied and criticized by big tech. For the most part, governments have rolled over and taken it. The previous president of the United States was literally censored and eventually banned from Twitter and no one did anything about it.

DarknessFalls 6y ago
Didn't he violate their terms of use by inciting violence that led to multiple deaths?
- jb775 6y ago
  You're an idiot
  - dang 6y ago
    We ban accounts that post like this. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.
- the_optimist 6y ago
  No. He did not.
- seriousquestion 6y ago
  If that's the case, why doesn't it apply to elected officials who make more explicit calls to violence? https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/1383789523910369282 https://twitter.com/BryanDeanWright/status/13837895239103692...
seriousquestion 6y ago
The news media and activists bully tech. Twitter resisted banning a sitting president for years.

lucasyvas 6y ago

They will not roll over, but they will lose anyway. Fighting technological change is like pissing straight into the wind. We've seen it happen multiple times already, even in our lifetime.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
As a technologist, I'm sure this is an enjoyable mental model to hold (tech speaking to and overriding traditional power), but let's look at Edward Snowden's situation for example. He's persona non grata with no recourse (albeit for violating the law with, arguably, moral and ethical intentions), and there is nothing preventing the same happening to those who deeply believe in crypto and attempting to subvert government regulation by using it for the transfer of money or value. This is far different from battles such as PGP's export as a munition [1], which at least had freedom of speech protections as the argument for challenging the US government's position and regulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
- christophilus 6y ago
  > there is nothing preventing the same happening to those who deeply believe in crypto The difference is that Bitcoin now has billionaires and multinational companies that have it on their books. Money talks, and government officials in democracies are unlikely to make a move that will rock their donors too much.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

megameter 6y ago

So long as flagrant copyright violation also continues to exist online, bans pose minimal threat to cryptocurrency diffusion. This time is not different.

frankbreetz 6y ago
This argument seems strange to me. When you buy something don't you typically revive a physical good? It seems easier police that then the copying of various files. If cyrpto is outlawed you aren't going to use it at Amazon or Walmart. It is also hard to see a commerce org of any size existing with out government permission. This argument seems to assume people will only use cyrpto to buy other cyrptos. That is useless money. Money is used to buy goods and services.
- shawnz 6y ago
  How could you tell whether a physical good was paid with Bitcoin or not? Just purchase from another country. In general there is no incentive for other governments to follow suit because those which don't institute bans would stand to profit more by taxing their miners.
  - frankbreetz 6y ago
    This may work for smaller shops, but it's easy to catch larger companies doing this. Public ledger and this transaction involves knowing the buyers address. Plus if a large enough website allowed you to pay with Bitcoin they could easily get shut down. The start-up cost for a store are way higher then hosting a hard drive full of copy-righted files, so they couldn't be as elusive.

TheBlight 6y ago

Your logic seemingly reduces to "Governments are too tyrannical to allow revolution against their tyrannical practices, therefore it's ridiculous to try."

foepys 6y ago
China is controlling over 50% of the mining power for Bitcoin. Giving away control over currency to Bitcoin equals giving China control over currency. A 51% attack to rewrite blocks with new transactions doesn't even need to happen. The miners just have to not include certain transactions to inflict massive economic damage. This is the case for all decentralized crypto currencies. If you don't know who's appending the chain and thus creating currency and/or including transactions, you cannot be sure it isn't your enemy.
- jcbrand 6y ago
  This is FUD. There is competition between miners and even if some miners for whatever reason don't want to include certain transactions (and how would they even know which transactions they want to exclude?), other miners will, because there are transaction fees to be earned.
  - foepys 6y ago
    China is a one party communist state. When the party says that somebody has to do something in regards to national security, it gets done. Otherwise it's time for prison or death and somebody else does it anyways. That's has been China's MO since Mao. No mining incentive beats men with guns.
    - jcbrand 6y ago
      Even if that was the case, miners from outside of China would include the transactions that the Chinese miners don't want to include.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the state: minting and control of the flow, supply, and thus value of the currency I think crypto proponents have exaggerated the threat that cryptocurrency poses to government controlled currencies. The narrative plays well to audiences that distrust institutions and want to be early adopters of a new cryptocurrency paradigm (in which they would be at the top of the wealth spectrum), but the reality is that cryptocurrencies are additive on top of existing currencies, not replacements. In practice, average people in average countries (e.g. not Venezuela) benefit more from having centrally controlled currencies than they lose. Average people also benefit from having an established currency rather than being forced to switch to one that is majority controlled by a few early adopters. If you think wealth inequality is bad now, the wealth inequality in a hypothetical Bitcoin economy would be orders of magnitude worse. The idea that one day Bitcoin will reign supreme and everyone will be forced to buy 0.0000001 Bitcoin to get any transactions done is attractive to someone who wants Bitcoin prices to go the moon, but the average person wants nothing of the sort.

aeternum 6y ago
The average person definitely doesn't want to use bitcoin, but they also do not want their savings & spending money to devalue. Debt levels are quite high, so governments must either continue expanding the money supply or must increase interest rates and bankrupt a significant proportion of citizens. It's not an easy choice and throughout history most governments have chosen the devaluation path.
doggosphere 6y ago
If you think wealth inequality is bad now, the wealth inequality in a hypothetical Bitcoin economy would be orders of magnitude worse. Please explain, is this belief because wealthy people have front run Bitcoin by accumulating it early on? As it stands now, fiat currency drives wealth inequality when the federal reserve injects trillions of dollars into the system. That money makes its way to store of value assets like stocks and real estate. Poorer people tend not to own those assets, but of course would one day like to. Since most of their net-worth is comprised of cash, they suffer the most when cash is devalued by printing. Every day that passes makes it more unlikely that they will ever own those safe haven assets, or they'll own proportionally even less. In a Bitcoin economy, there is no flip of the switch, no button to be pressed that allows this to happen. In a hyperbitcoinization event, where all the world's wealth is transferred into Bitcoin, the earliest people are rewarded the most. But no further arbitrary devaluation of assets can occur. Monetary saving power is restored to people, not governments.

shafyy 6y ago

Exactly. What many people who tout the idealogical benefits of crypto don't understand is that it's not a technology problem, it's a political problem that can't be solved by technology. This with Turkey is a good example. If it's illegal for a business to accept crypto, there's nothing crypto can do about that. Turkish businesses need to comply or face fines and shut downs. What do you think will happen most likely?

wyager 6y ago

Bitcoin is inherently censorship-resistant and unaffected by borders, so banning in any given country will have minimal effect on its usefulness as a savings mechanism unless it’s banned ~everywhere and regulatory arbitrage becomes too inefficient. First-world governments that are relatively constrained in what they are allowed to do to their citizens may be unable to ban Bitcoin even if they wanted to.

victor106 6y ago

Bitcoins’ biggest strength is also its weakness: anonymity. It only takes a few bad actors to do something nefarious for the US to ban it. After the ban Bitcoin might still continue to exist but it won’t be institutionalized and so it will loose it’s appeal. Also, for people who think the US does not have the power to ban it, see this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act#Litigation_arising_from_GRA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act#Litigation_...

Jommi 6y ago
It's 2021 and there are still people that think Bitcoin is anonymous. It's not. It's pseudonym ous.
- victor106 6y ago
  You are right. By anonymous I meant if the user takes reasonable precautions then it’s very very hard for law enforcement to know who that user is. The transaction log is public but who is actually behind those transactions is not.
  - Jommi 6y ago
    I dont think thats fair either. The transactions are public and the addrresses are public and addresses are basically just unique usernames. So you always know what address is behind a transaction, but ownership info is not always guaranteed.

csomar 6y ago

> I still cannot understand how crypto advocates genuinely think governments will roll over and let cryptocurrencies take away one of the primary powers of the state They'll not rollover. But it'll happen in two ways: 1. They don't understand it (never underestimate the stupidity of politicians and regulators) and thus they'll either allow it or not know how to stop it; or 2. Crypto is widespread and the government has little control over on-off ramps. It doesn't help that crypto-currencies wreak havoc on their economy stability (which further makes them unable to control the population).

xwolfi 6y ago
But if the people decide they want none of it, they can vote for a government that will put people in jail for using crypto in the open. I mean, some voted to leave the European Union, so why not that ?
- csomar 6y ago
  That would be fun trying to see that happen in a public referendum. Crypto is people-friendly or at least gives the illusion of meritocracy and equality. Otherwise, people could still trade on off-shore exchanges, and exchange secretly (drugs are still selling on the streets, aren't they?) on the streets.

clomond 6y ago

One thing that this article only briefly skims over (Turkish lira’s dropping and issues in management at their central bank) are in their own way burying the lede. Historically (re: recent history of Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe ) crypto assets’ “clunkiness” and functional downside aside- get rapidly adopted when the centrally managed currency loses confidence of the people. This further threatens this “central bank managed currency” via accelerated wealth outflows, in this case of the Lira - and all other reasons mentioned smell like cover to me. This ban is but a reaction and protective measure to slow down wealth transfer out of the governments reach of regular Turkish citizens. A closer look at the state of the Turkish central bank and drivers of monetary policy would likely also reduce your confidence that they know what they are doing and this is a broadly anti crypto move. As a result, this ban has nothing to do with thought through policy. It’s meant to limit outflows from the Lira as the Turkish economy sadly spins out of control.

imtringued 6y ago
The problem is that Erdogan doesn't let the central bank do its job. Back in 2018 Erdogan bascially took direct control over monetary policy which caused a loss in confidence. It's extremely surprising because the Turkish economy was doing well until 2018. The only thing it was lacking was a properly set interest rate, which requires high central bank independence, the primary factor in low inflation.