9 ms·

Ban Cryptocurrency to Fight Ransomware

35 points by mgh2 5y ago

philihp 5y ago
Banning free speech would stop hate speech.
Oblong0 5y ago
Ban money to stop fraud
soonnow 5y ago
In my opinion Cryptocurrency is going to be attacked from three directions: - Environmental Reasons: Bitcoin alone is using as much power as a small country. "Bitcoin production is estimated to generate between 22 and 22.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year" (in 2019). A typical car emits 4.6 tons of Co2 per year. So immediately not using Bitcoin would save as much CO2 as 4.5 million cars of the road. The effort to remove that amount of CO2 through innovation or legislation is steep and faces backlash. - Monetary Control: The US have fought hard to become the reserve currency of the world and they will not give this up without a fight. As well as monetary easing and restrictions are one of the few ways to control economic cycles, to flatten a boom or bust curve. No country will give up this power without a fight, as has been seen in Turkey, which already declared Bitcoin illegal. - Crime and Money Laundering: I do not have hard numbers on this, but clearly cryptocurrency is being used in criminal activities and money laundering. It's like the perfect match for Columbian drug gangs who now can move money anonymously around the world without having to transport it in suit cases. The same is true for ransomware attacks. Those unmarked bills will be replaced with cryptocurrency for any competent criminal. For any of these reasons I would already expect states to make certain cryptocurrency illegal. Bitcoin being the most important one here. I see the future of cryptocurrency in coins that are: - Locked to a currency (as in notated in US dollars) - Reasonably environmentally friendly - Traceable, with basically the same tracking as any banking transaction today. I fully expect states will set these requirements at some point in law, once alternative coins exist that fulfill these conditions. I believe that Bitcoin will be illegal or irrelevant at some point and be replaced with better coins. I might be wrong on this. I'm not invested in the cryptocurrency space at all and I'd love to hear why I'm wrong.
- jeffshek 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I own some (not enough, I wish more). I think your points were valid when cryptocurrency first started, but now it's now a bit too entrenched to be easily squashed. 1) Many miners use renewable energy. China uses a bit of coal for mining, but recent news (or FUD) has most miners scrambling for "greener" energy. Bitcoin's energy usage is talked about quite a bit, but doesn't seem to really dissuade. 2) If Bitcoin had been started by a large organization versus grassroots - this likely would have been squashed. Instead, considering now how widespread it is, and how many politicians own crypto, along with Coinbase being affluent enough to lobby against this - this scenario now seems unlikely. However, I do agree, there will be a fight for monetary control and it may be ugly, but ultimately cryptocurrency will survive in some way or another. 3) Yes - in the beginning, the vast majority of crypto in was used for illegal reasons. Monero is probably a better use case as it's untraceable. Bitcoin has a public ledger making it much easier to track. However, the percentage of overall transactions (crypto) for illegal activities has decreased over time. USDC is probably the best bet of what you're imagining of a crypto pegged to the US Dollar. It also allows for a blacklist of addresses known in illegal activities. With all that being said, DeFi may prove to be a larger use case, as it's now possible to create "virtual" banks that run on code and no humans, etc.
  - soonnow 5y ago
    For the first point, I don't think it matters if the energy is green or not. It's still energy that is being wasted and could be used to in other ways. Just because the source is not directly burning coal, doesn't mean it doesn't have a net positive impact on emissions. And for example Bitcoin can very much be squashed in my opinion. Enforce all transactions to be declared above a certain limit. Already the norm for banking that will likely become a necessity for cryptocurrency transfers. I just literally can see no way that this wouldn't happen. Exchanges will need to report it. I feel this would remove a lot of speculation from the market and illegal usage and leave the mature coins. Like some of those that you mentioned. So when I was saying cryptocurrency I meant the large amount of unregulated coins, chief among them Bitcoin. I agree that there will be coins in the future especially government backed coins or coins that are linked to those coins. But I wouldn't expect Bitcoin to be relevant in a few years.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mythrwy 5y ago
Here's an idea: How about we just ban Ransomware? </s>
IceDane 5y ago
Is this a serious article? How on earth did this pass editing and review? I guess the author might also want to propose just banning breaking the law while we're at it.
isitdopamine 5y ago
Ban knives to fight murders!!!
dgellow 5y ago
Let's say you ban cryptocurrency in the US. What happens? Bad actors now instruct their victims to get their BTC, XMR, etc from a p2p market, an offshore exchange, or from the black market. You got nothing but lost the ability to regulate domestic exchanges. Ransomware doesn't magically disappears because your specific country decided to ban access to cryptocurrencies. Bad actors don't care where victims get their coins from as long as they are paid. Pushing exchanges and cryptocurrencies in general to the black market doesn't kill the system, that makes it just less visible and difficult to monitor and oversee. Instead of this you can decide to keep exchanges around and heavily regulate them. From this point of view they are very important asset as they are the entry and exit points, you can easily define new regulatory rules, such as blacklisting addresses associated with coin mixers/tumblers and other shady tool, any address associated with criminal activity, etc.
- jcrben 5y ago
  This problem exists for many criminal issues such as tax evasion. We don't give up on these issues, we work on them globally.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    My point is that you won't fix ransomware by banning cryptocurrencies. A global cryptocurrency ban is very difficult to envisage, and will do very little to stop ransomwares. Offshore exchanges will still be a thing (it's already very common for US citizens to use offshore exchanges via VPNs in a regular basis), local p2p markets will still be a thing. But you now also banned honest actors and lost your main tool to regulate strictly what is happening domestically (i.e exchanges under your jurisdiction).
zoobab 5y ago
No Sympathy for Redmond.
Communitivity 5y ago
Sunburns are bad, therefore block the sun. When you make too broad arguments like this you risk losing all the benefits associated with the technology you want to ban. Bitcoin mining is in the process of becoming greener, but it has a long way to go. Some other cryptocurrencies are moving to proof of stake or algorithms instead of proof of work, but these moves are still early stage. The environmental reason is a matter of time - given enough time and public push, all of the cryptocurrencies will be forced to be green. Any technology will be used by criminals if it's beneficial. I do not subscribe to the 'if you are not guilty then you have nothing to hide, so give me access to all your data' policy. One of the biggest benefits of Bitcoin in my mind is that it is a currency not tied to any given world power. Cryptocurrency is almost, but not quite, at the alcohol level. Prohibition made alcohol go underground and secret, and not much of a secret. Criminalizing Bitcoin will do the same. Also, what about legitimate people who have invested in what was a legal thing, do you tell them 'Sorry, you are now out all that money?'. That seems a great way to ensure you lose the next election, if there are enough people who have invested (and in my surroundings there are more and more traditional middle-class families investing in cryptocurrency). Disclaimer: I own a fair bit of cryptocurrency.
- mgh2 5y ago
  Your argument does not make sense. A lot of things are banned because its negative externalities outweigh its benefits, regardless of how the public uses it (ex. drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, pedophilia, etc). As a call to your conscience, even if you don't directly participate in those activities (in for the money), would you be ok knowing that you are complicit? The evidence is pretty clear on the direct link of cryptocurrencies to organized crime, no matter how the tech industry (which controls the media) slices it. Don't underestimate the Fed, they usually move slow to gather evidence against any case. As for the invested, once corpses pile up, they will flee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275189
  - jjk166 5y ago
    Well you're on the internet right now, using a technology which has done more than any other to make selling drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, and pedophilia easier. Are you okay knowing you are complicit in supporting that infrastructure? There is no more a direct link between cryptocurrencies and organized crime than there is between matches and arsonists. The fact that one can be used as a tool by the other is not an indictment of the technology.
birracerveza 5y ago
Ban cars to stop hit and runs.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
Something desperately needs to be done about Fake News. I'm not saying we need to ban journalism, but we do need to look into licensing and tracking the news they produce. Perhaps we should consider outlawing Op-Eds, as they are the primary conduit for disseminating falsehoods in newspapers.

35 points by mgh2 5y ago

philihp 5y ago

Banning free speech would stop hate speech.

Oblong0 5y ago

Ban money to stop fraud

soonnow 5y ago

In my opinion Cryptocurrency is going to be attacked from three directions: - Environmental Reasons: Bitcoin alone is using as much power as a small country. "Bitcoin production is estimated to generate between 22 and 22.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year" (in 2019). A typical car emits 4.6 tons of Co2 per year. So immediately not using Bitcoin would save as much CO2 as 4.5 million cars of the road. The effort to remove that amount of CO2 through innovation or legislation is steep and faces backlash. - Monetary Control: The US have fought hard to become the reserve currency of the world and they will not give this up without a fight. As well as monetary easing and restrictions are one of the few ways to control economic cycles, to flatten a boom or bust curve. No country will give up this power without a fight, as has been seen in Turkey, which already declared Bitcoin illegal. - Crime and Money Laundering: I do not have hard numbers on this, but clearly cryptocurrency is being used in criminal activities and money laundering. It's like the perfect match for Columbian drug gangs who now can move money anonymously around the world without having to transport it in suit cases. The same is true for ransomware attacks. Those unmarked bills will be replaced with cryptocurrency for any competent criminal. For any of these reasons I would already expect states to make certain cryptocurrency illegal. Bitcoin being the most important one here. I see the future of cryptocurrency in coins that are: - Locked to a currency (as in notated in US dollars) - Reasonably environmentally friendly - Traceable, with basically the same tracking as any banking transaction today. I fully expect states will set these requirements at some point in law, once alternative coins exist that fulfill these conditions. I believe that Bitcoin will be illegal or irrelevant at some point and be replaced with better coins. I might be wrong on this. I'm not invested in the cryptocurrency space at all and I'd love to hear why I'm wrong.

jeffshek 5y ago
Disclaimer: I own some (not enough, I wish more). I think your points were valid when cryptocurrency first started, but now it's now a bit too entrenched to be easily squashed. 1) Many miners use renewable energy. China uses a bit of coal for mining, but recent news (or FUD) has most miners scrambling for "greener" energy. Bitcoin's energy usage is talked about quite a bit, but doesn't seem to really dissuade. 2) If Bitcoin had been started by a large organization versus grassroots - this likely would have been squashed. Instead, considering now how widespread it is, and how many politicians own crypto, along with Coinbase being affluent enough to lobby against this - this scenario now seems unlikely. However, I do agree, there will be a fight for monetary control and it may be ugly, but ultimately cryptocurrency will survive in some way or another. 3) Yes - in the beginning, the vast majority of crypto in was used for illegal reasons. Monero is probably a better use case as it's untraceable. Bitcoin has a public ledger making it much easier to track. However, the percentage of overall transactions (crypto) for illegal activities has decreased over time. USDC is probably the best bet of what you're imagining of a crypto pegged to the US Dollar. It also allows for a blacklist of addresses known in illegal activities. With all that being said, DeFi may prove to be a larger use case, as it's now possible to create "virtual" banks that run on code and no humans, etc.
- soonnow 5y ago
  For the first point, I don't think it matters if the energy is green or not. It's still energy that is being wasted and could be used to in other ways. Just because the source is not directly burning coal, doesn't mean it doesn't have a net positive impact on emissions. And for example Bitcoin can very much be squashed in my opinion. Enforce all transactions to be declared above a certain limit. Already the norm for banking that will likely become a necessity for cryptocurrency transfers. I just literally can see no way that this wouldn't happen. Exchanges will need to report it. I feel this would remove a lot of speculation from the market and illegal usage and leave the mature coins. Like some of those that you mentioned. So when I was saying cryptocurrency I meant the large amount of unregulated coins, chief among them Bitcoin. I agree that there will be coins in the future especially government backed coins or coins that are linked to those coins. But I wouldn't expect Bitcoin to be relevant in a few years.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mythrwy 5y ago

Here's an idea: How about we just ban Ransomware? </s>

IceDane 5y ago

Is this a serious article? How on earth did this pass editing and review? I guess the author might also want to propose just banning breaking the law while we're at it.

isitdopamine 5y ago

Ban knives to fight murders!!!

dgellow 5y ago

Let's say you ban cryptocurrency in the US. What happens? Bad actors now instruct their victims to get their BTC, XMR, etc from a p2p market, an offshore exchange, or from the black market. You got nothing but lost the ability to regulate domestic exchanges. Ransomware doesn't magically disappears because your specific country decided to ban access to cryptocurrencies. Bad actors don't care where victims get their coins from as long as they are paid. Pushing exchanges and cryptocurrencies in general to the black market doesn't kill the system, that makes it just less visible and difficult to monitor and oversee. Instead of this you can decide to keep exchanges around and heavily regulate them. From this point of view they are very important asset as they are the entry and exit points, you can easily define new regulatory rules, such as blacklisting addresses associated with coin mixers/tumblers and other shady tool, any address associated with criminal activity, etc.

jcrben 5y ago
This problem exists for many criminal issues such as tax evasion. We don't give up on these issues, we work on them globally.
- dgellow 5y ago
  My point is that you won't fix ransomware by banning cryptocurrencies. A global cryptocurrency ban is very difficult to envisage, and will do very little to stop ransomwares. Offshore exchanges will still be a thing (it's already very common for US citizens to use offshore exchanges via VPNs in a regular basis), local p2p markets will still be a thing. But you now also banned honest actors and lost your main tool to regulate strictly what is happening domestically (i.e exchanges under your jurisdiction).

zoobab 5y ago

No Sympathy for Redmond.

Communitivity 5y ago

Sunburns are bad, therefore block the sun. When you make too broad arguments like this you risk losing all the benefits associated with the technology you want to ban. Bitcoin mining is in the process of becoming greener, but it has a long way to go. Some other cryptocurrencies are moving to proof of stake or algorithms instead of proof of work, but these moves are still early stage. The environmental reason is a matter of time - given enough time and public push, all of the cryptocurrencies will be forced to be green. Any technology will be used by criminals if it's beneficial. I do not subscribe to the 'if you are not guilty then you have nothing to hide, so give me access to all your data' policy. One of the biggest benefits of Bitcoin in my mind is that it is a currency not tied to any given world power. Cryptocurrency is almost, but not quite, at the alcohol level. Prohibition made alcohol go underground and secret, and not much of a secret. Criminalizing Bitcoin will do the same. Also, what about legitimate people who have invested in what was a legal thing, do you tell them 'Sorry, you are now out all that money?'. That seems a great way to ensure you lose the next election, if there are enough people who have invested (and in my surroundings there are more and more traditional middle-class families investing in cryptocurrency). Disclaimer: I own a fair bit of cryptocurrency.

mgh2 5y ago
Your argument does not make sense. A lot of things are banned because its negative externalities outweigh its benefits, regardless of how the public uses it (ex. drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, pedophilia, etc). As a call to your conscience, even if you don't directly participate in those activities (in for the money), would you be ok knowing that you are complicit? The evidence is pretty clear on the direct link of cryptocurrencies to organized crime, no matter how the tech industry (which controls the media) slices it. Don't underestimate the Fed, they usually move slow to gather evidence against any case. As for the invested, once corpses pile up, they will flee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275189
- jjk166 5y ago
  Well you're on the internet right now, using a technology which has done more than any other to make selling drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, and pedophilia easier. Are you okay knowing you are complicit in supporting that infrastructure? There is no more a direct link between cryptocurrencies and organized crime than there is between matches and arsonists. The fact that one can be used as a tool by the other is not an indictment of the technology.

birracerveza 5y ago

Ban cars to stop hit and runs.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

Something desperately needs to be done about Fake News. I'm not saying we need to ban journalism, but we do need to look into licensing and tracking the news they produce. Perhaps we should consider outlawing Op-Eds, as they are the primary conduit for disseminating falsehoods in newspapers.