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> Users can trade the tokens anonymously 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from anywhere, unhindered by capital controls, “know your client” rules imposed on b

> Users can trade the tokens anonymously 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from anywhere, unhindered by capital controls, “know your client” rules imposed on broker-dealers, and other frictions of the traditional financial system. I find it really weird how crypto folks keep pretending that financial regulation is an obviously bad thing, as opposed to restrictions put in place in response to real problems

armada651 5y ago
Financial regulations are bad, because they criminalize honest fraudsters and scam artists. How are they supposed to make a living in our current system? /s
mmiliauskas 5y ago
Not that it is bad, just useless, money always find the way around them.
- root_axis 5y ago
  The same thing could be said about laws prohibiting theft and murder.
- lottin 5y ago
  No, it doesn't. Obviously you don't have a clue about financial regulation.
danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Isn't it also weird that crypto enthusiasts assume that you obviously can't trust a central clearing house (or similar mechanism) when they have been working well for hundreds of years? In numerous cases humans trust institutions for certain things, and those institutions are usually strongly incentivized to act honorably, and do so. And when they don't, the court system works pretty well. At least in the countries where the vast majority of economic activity occurs. These are two premise which... don't seem to hold water?
- sneak 5y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says-funding-is-blocked https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says... Governments can arbitrarily censor legal payments at will, without legal cause.
- ique 5y ago
  Trusting facebook as the central clearing house for all of our personal data doesn’t seem to have worked out very well.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Let's call it regulated clearing houses then.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Regulated by who tho? There is a natural misstrust for everything involving the U.S. As service provider around here because of the weak privacy laws compared to us (Switzerland) or our neighbors . And yet we heavily depend(ed) on the American led credit card system.
      - danielmarkbruce 5y ago
        Not for most people. Most people in the US trust institutions without even realizing/thinking about it. I don't think they care.
- carlsborg 5y ago
  Neither of the two hold water if you look at how Chinese institutions dealt with the Ant IPO and recently the Didi fiasco and probably many more if you look.
  - liaukovv 5y ago
    That seems to be an issue with chinese institutions, not with concept of trust in general.
jayd16 5y ago
Whats worse is many assume the crypto kabuki dance also absolves them from regulation.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
Ayn Rand libertarians and people with a massive Dunning-Kruger effect who didn't go past economy 101 form a significant part of cryptocurrency proponents.
barnabee 5y ago
I see three things going on here: 1. The practical: It’s not that regulation is bad but that many existing regulations are bad. They make obviously useful things illegal or impractical, are often worded in such a way they are basically impossible to apply to, for example, peer-to-peer systems. It’s possible to imagine (and indeed we should, and some countries are!) good regulation that is less stifling. (Note also that no regulation of specific financial products is required to make fraud and mis-selling illegal.) 2. The political: Financial regulations as they stand enable a huge surveillance and censorship/control apparatus. Purportedly this helps prevent terrorism etc. but many people do not agree that this is the right trade off. Financial regulations currently also give a handful of countries (and one in particular) a lot of power over the global financial system. Many believe they have too much power. These are political arguments but it is not a completely inexplicable political position for someone to be against financial surveillance and censorship, particularly when it comes to the US and other countries using them to exert power outside their borders. In which case, the financial regulatory environment we currently have is “bad” in that it delivers those things. 3. The countercultural: Cryptography and cryptocurrency are intertwined with countercultural groups and thinking (most obviously, but not exclusively the “cypherpunks”) because they are tools that allow activists, anarchists, subversives, marginalised or oppressed groups, organised crime (which, yes, is a form of counterculture), and others to communicate and operate more effectively and with lower risk. This means those groups are more highly represented in crypto. Obviously they’re likely to think rules that make their lives harder are bad. (This may seem like the “bad group” and maybe you like them being shut out and suppressed, but much social and political progress started as persecuted countercultural movements and subversive ideas.) So yeah… is financial regulation bad? No. Not always and not necessarily. Are current financial regulations bad? Yes if you value innovation, have certain political beliefs, or are part of a group that is (intentionally or otherwise) shut out of the system by them. Let’s try and have better rules!
puranjay 5y ago
You're seeing this from a western, first world perspective. If you're in a third world country, you likely don't have access to robust, transparent local stock markets. Whatever exchanges might exist tend to be rife with scammy companies, insider trading and poor regulation. If you want to invest in, say, the US stock market, you'd have to jump through a ton of hoops or have a ton of money, essentially locking out all but the wealthiest. These crypto "stocks" essentially allow anyone living anywhere to "invest" in top-tier stocks like AAPL. I don't see any reason why you'd buy these crypto stocks if you're living in the US. But if you're living in Somalia or Madagascar? Hell yes. Again, all the crypto criticism is very myopic and first world. HN needs to step out of that POV to understand the value. Decentralized, global markets don't benefit first world citizens, but they definitely level the playing field for us third worlders.
- clavigne 5y ago
  So first, investing in DEFI is not exactly simple. If I am reading it properly, you lose 20% in fees at least if you buy bitcoin with Madagascar dollars on paxful, https://paxful.com/buy/bitcoin/madagascar https://paxful.com/buy/bitcoin/madagascar How many more hoops do you then have to jump through to acquire fake stocks? Second, you then have to make sure you avoid pyramid schemes (like OneCoin), rug pulls, exit scams, bad exchanges and bad "smart" contracts (like the Parity bug). This is not easy even for highly informed tech workers in the Global North. Now if you happen to speak another language (as I do) I recommend you go and Google "how to invest in Defi" or whatever in it. In my case (French), you get just articles after articles that are sponsored content from very dubious sounding wallet and exchanges, especially if you add "Madagascar" or "Congo" or whatever to your search. So frankly, I think the idea that "crypto markets are great for the Global South" is more of a convenient story.
  - puranjay 5y ago
    Complex onboarding is still better than not having access to the markets at all. I don't really understand the resistance about this - an imperfect process is always better than no process. Could things be improved? 100% yes. But that doesn't mean this truly global, permissionless market is somehow a scam.
herbst 5y ago
From personal Perspective: ALL scam I had as a seller was with credit cards. I always ate the costs by refunding with extra fees. Over Easter I could not transfer money for 5 days!! Because holidays. Also no transfers on weekends. European and American banks refuse to open a private account for me because money laundering laws. Even thought I have an EU passport but just living in Switzerland locks me out of this. And at last the fees. A few years back I paid well over 1000 dollars in banking fees within a year, mostly because I was getting transfers in Euro or dollars and withdraw in Eur on CHF account. Or how microtransactions are essentially non existent on the internet because of fees. Say what you want, for me personally traditional banking is more of a burden than anything.
antihero 5y ago
It's because like other libertarian/anarcho-capitalist politics, which seem to be heavily tied in with cryptocurrency, it's based on some idea that every individual is super smart and rational and shouldn't be hindered by the regulations, combined with a fairly righteous mistrust of government and big institutions. It's a kind of arrogance that they personally don't feel like there's a colossal power asymmetry they need protection from and cryptocurrency proves this. Perhaps some are clued enough to not get steamrollered by institutions and fraudsters, however they appear to have utter contempt and disregard for people who lack the time or ability or learning speed to protect themselves.

armada651 5y ago

Financial regulations are bad, because they criminalize honest fraudsters and scam artists. How are they supposed to make a living in our current system? /s

mmiliauskas 5y ago

Not that it is bad, just useless, money always find the way around them.

root_axis 5y ago
The same thing could be said about laws prohibiting theft and murder.
lottin 5y ago
No, it doesn't. Obviously you don't have a clue about financial regulation.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago

Isn't it also weird that crypto enthusiasts assume that you obviously can't trust a central clearing house (or similar mechanism) when they have been working well for hundreds of years? In numerous cases humans trust institutions for certain things, and those institutions are usually strongly incentivized to act honorably, and do so. And when they don't, the court system works pretty well. At least in the countries where the vast majority of economic activity occurs. These are two premise which... don't seem to hold water?

sneak 5y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says-funding-is-blocked https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says... Governments can arbitrarily censor legal payments at will, without legal cause.
ique 5y ago
Trusting facebook as the central clearing house for all of our personal data doesn’t seem to have worked out very well.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Let's call it regulated clearing houses then.
  - herbst 5y ago
    Regulated by who tho? There is a natural misstrust for everything involving the U.S. As service provider around here because of the weak privacy laws compared to us (Switzerland) or our neighbors . And yet we heavily depend(ed) on the American led credit card system.
    - danielmarkbruce 5y ago
      Not for most people. Most people in the US trust institutions without even realizing/thinking about it. I don't think they care.
carlsborg 5y ago
Neither of the two hold water if you look at how Chinese institutions dealt with the Ant IPO and recently the Didi fiasco and probably many more if you look.
- liaukovv 5y ago
  That seems to be an issue with chinese institutions, not with concept of trust in general.

jayd16 5y ago

Whats worse is many assume the crypto kabuki dance also absolves them from regulation.

ohgodplsno 5y ago

Ayn Rand libertarians and people with a massive Dunning-Kruger effect who didn't go past economy 101 form a significant part of cryptocurrency proponents.

barnabee 5y ago

I see three things going on here: 1. The practical: It’s not that regulation is bad but that many existing regulations are bad. They make obviously useful things illegal or impractical, are often worded in such a way they are basically impossible to apply to, for example, peer-to-peer systems. It’s possible to imagine (and indeed we should, and some countries are!) good regulation that is less stifling. (Note also that no regulation of specific financial products is required to make fraud and mis-selling illegal.) 2. The political: Financial regulations as they stand enable a huge surveillance and censorship/control apparatus. Purportedly this helps prevent terrorism etc. but many people do not agree that this is the right trade off. Financial regulations currently also give a handful of countries (and one in particular) a lot of power over the global financial system. Many believe they have too much power. These are political arguments but it is not a completely inexplicable political position for someone to be against financial surveillance and censorship, particularly when it comes to the US and other countries using them to exert power outside their borders. In which case, the financial regulatory environment we currently have is “bad” in that it delivers those things. 3. The countercultural: Cryptography and cryptocurrency are intertwined with countercultural groups and thinking (most obviously, but not exclusively the “cypherpunks”) because they are tools that allow activists, anarchists, subversives, marginalised or oppressed groups, organised crime (which, yes, is a form of counterculture), and others to communicate and operate more effectively and with lower risk. This means those groups are more highly represented in crypto. Obviously they’re likely to think rules that make their lives harder are bad. (This may seem like the “bad group” and maybe you like them being shut out and suppressed, but much social and political progress started as persecuted countercultural movements and subversive ideas.) So yeah… is financial regulation bad? No. Not always and not necessarily. Are current financial regulations bad? Yes if you value innovation, have certain political beliefs, or are part of a group that is (intentionally or otherwise) shut out of the system by them. Let’s try and have better rules!

puranjay 5y ago

You're seeing this from a western, first world perspective. If you're in a third world country, you likely don't have access to robust, transparent local stock markets. Whatever exchanges might exist tend to be rife with scammy companies, insider trading and poor regulation. If you want to invest in, say, the US stock market, you'd have to jump through a ton of hoops or have a ton of money, essentially locking out all but the wealthiest. These crypto "stocks" essentially allow anyone living anywhere to "invest" in top-tier stocks like AAPL. I don't see any reason why you'd buy these crypto stocks if you're living in the US. But if you're living in Somalia or Madagascar? Hell yes. Again, all the crypto criticism is very myopic and first world. HN needs to step out of that POV to understand the value. Decentralized, global markets don't benefit first world citizens, but they definitely level the playing field for us third worlders.

clavigne 5y ago
So first, investing in DEFI is not exactly simple. If I am reading it properly, you lose 20% in fees at least if you buy bitcoin with Madagascar dollars on paxful, https://paxful.com/buy/bitcoin/madagascar https://paxful.com/buy/bitcoin/madagascar How many more hoops do you then have to jump through to acquire fake stocks? Second, you then have to make sure you avoid pyramid schemes (like OneCoin), rug pulls, exit scams, bad exchanges and bad "smart" contracts (like the Parity bug). This is not easy even for highly informed tech workers in the Global North. Now if you happen to speak another language (as I do) I recommend you go and Google "how to invest in Defi" or whatever in it. In my case (French), you get just articles after articles that are sponsored content from very dubious sounding wallet and exchanges, especially if you add "Madagascar" or "Congo" or whatever to your search. So frankly, I think the idea that "crypto markets are great for the Global South" is more of a convenient story.
- puranjay 5y ago
  Complex onboarding is still better than not having access to the markets at all. I don't really understand the resistance about this - an imperfect process is always better than no process. Could things be improved? 100% yes. But that doesn't mean this truly global, permissionless market is somehow a scam.

herbst 5y ago

From personal Perspective: ALL scam I had as a seller was with credit cards. I always ate the costs by refunding with extra fees. Over Easter I could not transfer money for 5 days!! Because holidays. Also no transfers on weekends. European and American banks refuse to open a private account for me because money laundering laws. Even thought I have an EU passport but just living in Switzerland locks me out of this. And at last the fees. A few years back I paid well over 1000 dollars in banking fees within a year, mostly because I was getting transfers in Euro or dollars and withdraw in Eur on CHF account. Or how microtransactions are essentially non existent on the internet because of fees. Say what you want, for me personally traditional banking is more of a burden than anything.

antihero 5y ago

It's because like other libertarian/anarcho-capitalist politics, which seem to be heavily tied in with cryptocurrency, it's based on some idea that every individual is super smart and rational and shouldn't be hindered by the regulations, combined with a fairly righteous mistrust of government and big institutions. It's a kind of arrogance that they personally don't feel like there's a colossal power asymmetry they need protection from and cryptocurrency proves this. Perhaps some are clued enough to not get steamrollered by institutions and fraudsters, however they appear to have utter contempt and disregard for people who lack the time or ability or learning speed to protect themselves.