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Whelp, that's the end of cryptocurrency... probably should sell your HODLings now. If we're going to Patriot Act the crud out of ransomware, Bitcoin is gonna be
by ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Whelp, that's the end of cryptocurrency... probably should sell your HODLings now. If we're going to Patriot Act the crud out of ransomware, Bitcoin is gonna be illegal.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoYeah, that's what happened with drugs. The price of drugs actually dropped to zero and it's now impossible to get LSD.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoI mean, does Bitcoin give people the sort of high that they'd risk going to prison for? I'm not sure nearly-random numbers has the staying power compared to addictive substances.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoYeah, opening it up and seeing 30%+ gains in a day does give me a sort of high.
- chitowneats 5y agoYou won't be seeing 30%+ gains when they're throwing people in prison for it. Most drug users are never prosecuted. But the threat of prosecution does very little to affect the quality of their purchase, relative to what it would do to BTC market as a whole.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoYeah, illegal things definitely don't end being sold above market price.
- handrous 5y agoI think this dynamic will play out very differently with something the value of which is mostly determined by current and future-expected transaction velocity & volume (to the extent that it's not sheer speculation). Now, the cost for services involving Bitcoin, like converting it into dollars, would probably shoot way up. Outlawing Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency generally) would cause a huge demand reduction. Some coins might adjust supply to compensate, but total crypto "market cap" would surely plummet.
- chitowneats 5y agoIf you can't exchange BTC for dollars other than in person, and if you can't use it to purchase goods online other than via TOR, that is not going to increase the price. It's going to crash it.
- jessaustin 5y ago...when they're throwing people in prison for it. I thought I smelled authoritarianism! Here we see the ultimate purpose of this entire desultory exercise. Having problems online? No backups? Don't fix your pathetic shit; just be the excuse for the USA military-enforcement-imprisonment-industrial complex to oppress everyone on earth. Good grief.
- chitowneats 5y agohttps://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disaster.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disas... Nations make laws against bad things. People who violate those laws go to jail. A ban on cryptocurrency (or rather, exchanging it for dollars) will be a hell of a lot easier than banning popular intoxicants. We're done putting up with this particularly pernicious iteration of tulip mania. Time to pull the plug before it does any more damage.
- jessaustin 5y agoI am shocked that I can't find the term "backup" at that authoritative link
- bouncycastle 5y agoDo you know how absurd that would be? Crypto like Bitcoin are just a database in essence. Throwing someone in prison for running a database on their computer would probably spell the end of general purpose computers. You will not be allowed to run databases anymore unless they are approved.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Do you know how absurd that would be? Bitcoin is just a database in essence It’s really bot unusual for the law to treat things differently based on the purpose for which they are used when they are “just a database, in essence”.
- bouncycastle 5y agoI know, in theory you can have a law for everything. For example, in the Soviet Union basic electronics such as radios were restricted and you were not allowed to tune your sets to western stations.
- chitowneats 5y agoYou can also have a total free for all. Murder, kidnapping, etc, all legal. See? I can do it too.
- bouncycastle 5y agoI don't think a database or a computer murdered or kidnapped anyone. I mean, a computer which runs the B-tree algorithm and talks with the rest of the internet according to a bunch of loops/if/then/else statements is not exactly an assault rifle. But yes, everything can be banned eventually. We'll just go back to living in the cave.
- chitowneats 5y agoI assume you'd have no issue taking down a database full of child pornography? You know there are some who argue that CP is just "bits on disk". What if society determines that cryptocurrency also has negative externalities? You're free to disagree but I just stuck my finger in the air and it's pretty clear which way the wind is blowing.
- okareaman 5y agoOpening it up and seeing 30%+ losses in a day must be quite a come down
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoYou're not wrong.
- rsj_hn 5y agoBitcoin is just math. The US isn't going to be able make holding bitcoin illegal, and I very much doubt it will ever be able to make the buying and selling of it illegal -- there are even free speech issues here. But what it can do is tax the hell out of it, regulate the exchanges as investment platforms, but they will have a hard time trying to make it illegal to pay someone to sign a cryptographic hash.
- hocuspocus 5y agoThe US very much decides who, where, and what can be bought or sold in USD. Worldwide.
- rawtxapp 5y agoSo if I give 10$ cash to buy something, the US government is right above my right shoulder approving that transaction? You realize that doesn't make any sense right.
- chitowneats 5y agoThis is the only scenario in which you will be able to exchange BTC for $. Literally in person. If you don't see how this mean the price will crash, I don't know what to tell you.
- rsj_hn 5y agoThat is a blanket statement that doesn't bear up to scrutiny as you are confusing things like international transactions with national transactions, regulations by states versus by the federal government, and completely ignoring all the constitutional restrictions we have. It's like someone talking about freedom of contract and you counter with trade sanctions against North Korea. How does one respond to such high level dismissals so removed from the specific legal issues at play here?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> that's what happened with drugs Drugs are renowned as a special case when it comes to states' enforcement power. Currency control is not. Outside failed states, capital controls and foreign currency restrictions have been historically well enforced and followed. The U.S. banning cryptocurrencies, sanctioning connected individuals and firms and committing to leveling repeated 51% attacks would functionally destroy most cryptocurrencies. (There is zero indication this is being contemplated.)
- vmception 5y agoI laughed so hard without my mask that I almost got kicked out of this WeWork
- randomhodler84 5y agoAgree — These ban happy nocoiner rantings about outlawing math are funny if they weren’t so damn authoritarian.
- chitowneats 5y agoWe're not outlawing math. You can still run your little calculations on your machine. You just can't exchange them for dollars. That's what we're proposing here. Currency control. Are you confusing this with the debate around encryption? That wouldn't surprise me coming from someone who uses the phrase "nocoiner".
- jessaustin 5y agoSure, the people who aren't proposing to outlaw mathematics are the confused ones...
- chitowneats 5y agoIf you honestly believe shutting down the likes of Coinbase and Kraken requires "outlawing math", you're gonna be real disappointed.
- jessaustin 5y agoThanks for finally admitting your intentions. I don't see a similar suggestion anywhere ITT or TFA, but it all did seem a bit too coy. Physically, it would be possible to shut down e.g. Coinbase. Legally, that seems a stretch. Politically, with the particular investors they now have, you're trying to shut the barn door after the horse has joined the circus. Shutting down Coinbase, however, will have no effect on bitcoin or the people who use it. That's the point of bitcoin, and it has been since the protocol was published.
- colecut 5y agoI have to admit, it is harder than I would like
- MattGaiser 5y agoYou generally can't exchange cash for Bitcoin all that easily. You need some part of the fiat electronic banking system to get from cash to Bitcoin.
- dan-robertson 5y agoI think if you’re a criminal with a lot of Bitcoins you can do it. One way is through exchange insiders taking a bunch of your balance and giving you a bag of cash (but you sell your coins to them at a discount of course.) See eg https://cybernews.com/security/how-we-applied-to-work-with-ransomware-gang/ https://cybernews.com/security/how-we-applied-to-work-with-r...
- cammikebrown 5y agoIt’s funny you say that, there actually was a huge LSD bust in 2000 that did make it harder to find for awhile. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoRight, but in 2021, I'm sure you can find LSD at an inflated price due to government action.
- kingTug 5y agoLSD was and still is one of the cheapest black market drugs you’ll find. There is no shortage. Imo it’s easier to get and test for safety than ever before.
- 3GuardLineups 5y agocan confirm. You can get verifiably pure and potent LSD for well under $5 a tab online
- reader_mode 5y agoDifference is if corporations and funds can't hold bitcoin/crypto - you're back to $1/BTC. The whole value proposition of BTC hype bubble bursts if it's illegal in a major market like USA. Don't doubt some cyberpunk nuts will keep playing with it.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoAnd presumably if nobody can easily convert large quantities of crypto to and from USD. Sure, you find an international exchange, willing to give you some other fiat, but American KYC laws are still going to be chasing you all over the globe.
- daxfohl 5y agoI mean, it could still be used as an IOU of sorts for illegal activities. But if this is the sole remaining use case, I'd imagine there are better means for this than hosting on a public ledger.
- dcolkitt 5y agoWe have plenty of historical and current examples of governments imposing capital controls to restrict access to foreign currency. Very rarely does it result in the market price of the foreign currency going down. Usually quite the opposite. Heck, even in American history we once tried to ban private ownership of gold bullion. The black market price of gold rose substantially.
- reader_mode 5y ago> We have plenty of historical and current examples of governments imposing capital controls to restrict access to foreign currency. Very rarely does it result in the market price of the foreign currency going down. Usually quite the opposite. That's a nonsense comparison. When governments impose capital controls it means their currency is already sinking and it's a last ditch attempt to prevent this inevitable scenario. BTC valuation is entirely based on narratives about how it's going to replace standard currency in whatever story is popular, and from what I can see right now it's being pumped up by funds who can't find other good investments in this markets and are willing to play with crypto. If it's illegal for US funds/citizens to hold it/be involved with it - the selloff alone would kill the market instantaneously.
- Bellamy 5y agoWhat? How? When? What? I don't get the joke.
- thereare5lights 5y agoThis seems like hyperbole. Bitcoin is easier than hard cash to track. There's no need to make it illegal. I suppose you could argue that government is heavy handed enough to simply ban the mechanism by which ransomware payments are so easily conducted by. My intuition is that government would prefer to regulate it rather than outright ban it.
- boxingdog 5y agoterrorists also use dollars, let's ban that as well
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> If we're going to Patriot Act the crud out of ransomware, Bitcoin is gonna be illegal Terrorist financing is illegal. Cash is not.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoThe majority of the uses of cash are legal. The majority of uses of Bitcoin are criminal. And bear in mind, Bitcoin hasn't just been a boon to ransomware, it's been a strategy to evade financial sanctions by countries like Iran: https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-lessen-impact-sanctions-study-finds-2021-05-21/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-l... So there's a lot of reasons the US government just may find themselves happier without it.
- jessaustin 5y agoThere's a difference between a proposition one can pull out of an orifice and a proposition one can defend in court.
- Karunamon 5y ago>the majority of uses of Bitcoin are criminal Citation badly needed.
- selsta 5y agoDo you have a source for your claim that the majority of Bitcoin uses are criminal? Research by blockchain analysis companies show that only a small percentage of Bitcoin usage is illicit [1][2][3]. [1] https://www.elliptic.co/resources/typologies-concise-guide-crypto-leaders https://www.elliptic.co/resources/typologies-concise-guide-c... [2] https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-and-anti-money-laundering-report/ https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-a... [3] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-crypto-crime-report-intro-ransomware-scams-darknet-markets https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-crypto-crime-repor...
- Vadoff 5y agoCriminal? Maybe in 2013 Silk Road days. There's a ridiculous amount of volume on Bitcoin and it's mostly moving to and from exchanges. There's no way a majority of those are illegal.
- TameAntelope 5y agoHow much success, historically, has the US government had at regulating math? I can't think of any, but it's not really my specialty so I'm curious if anyone's encountered a successful example.
- NationalPark 5y agoQuite a lot? The SEC and ITAR both come to mind.
- TameAntelope 5y agoIf you think the ITAR has stopped any math from dropping into "disallowed" hands in any meaningful way, I have a bridge to sell you.
- khuey 5y agoThey don't have to regulate math, they just have to regulate where cryptocurrency touches the "real" financial system which they're actually really good at.
- rsj_hn 5y agoI would assume most diehard bitcoin holders are just fine with no financial system entity touching them. After all, that's what many of them are trying to route around. They want peer-to-peer transactions independent of state actors, and have very little desire to hold BTC in their Fidelity-managed 401K portfolio. Rather it's been the banks that have been clamoring to get a piece of the bitcoin action, not the other way around.