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It's not just money-laundering laws. It's also more general "financial repression", i.e. being forced to hold local currencies while the government inflates the

by dash2 5y ago

It's not just money-laundering laws. It's also more general "financial repression", i.e. being forced to hold local currencies while the government inflates them and/or holds the interest rate down. The two tend to blur into each other, I guess.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> two tend to blur into each other Not entirely. Capital controls and currency bans are distinct from AML. South Africa's proximate problem is capital controls. Cryptocurrencies make those controls easier to circumvent. If you look at the countries that are responding forcefully to crypto, it's the ones who want a sovereign monetary policy and relatively fixed exchange rate [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zionic 5y ago
Exactly. 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply, but relatively few people use crypto to buy coke and that’s suddenly what it’s all about.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply Not necessairly if those people have a lot of debt, or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage.
  - mhuffman 5y ago
    > or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage We have many examples throughout history where dumping large amounts (multiples) of money into an economy causes inflation. And to my knowledge, we have no examples to the contrary (ie, it being a mirage). What would make you think that this time it could be a mirage?
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > What would make you think that this time it could be a mirage? Because people have been wailing about hyperinflation fears for the last decade at least, and it hasn't happened.
      - octopoc 5y ago
        You can delay the consequences of bad currency management, but eventually the consequences will hit you, hard. The normal rules are on hold because the USD is the world reserve currency. When USD are manufactured, a huge chunk of them is bought by wealthy foreigners to store value. That means that we haven't felt the consequences of printing lots of money because we've been sharing the consequences with a huge and growing number of wealthy foreigners. But the only reason the USD is the world reserve currency is because there's nothing better. When something better enough comes along, all that USD will come flooding back and we'll suffer all the inflationary consequences of printing money for decades. Those consequences will be compressed to a very short amount of time.
        JetSpiegel 5y ago
        > The normal rules are on hold because the USD is the world reserve currency. As it has been for more than 50 years. Entire people's lives happened between those "consequences". On the long term, we are all dead.

by dash2 5y ago

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> two tend to blur into each other Not entirely. Capital controls and currency bans are distinct from AML. South Africa's proximate problem is capital controls. Cryptocurrencies make those controls easier to circumvent. If you look at the countries that are responding forcefully to crypto, it's the ones who want a sovereign monetary policy and relatively fixed exchange rate [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zionic 5y ago

Exactly. 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply, but relatively few people use crypto to buy coke and that’s suddenly what it’s all about.

tablespoon 5y ago
> 350+ million people get screwed when the government triples the money supply Not necessairly if those people have a lot of debt, or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage.
- mhuffman 5y ago
  > or the inflation fears turn out to be a mirage We have many examples throughout history where dumping large amounts (multiples) of money into an economy causes inflation. And to my knowledge, we have no examples to the contrary (ie, it being a mirage). What would make you think that this time it could be a mirage?
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > What would make you think that this time it could be a mirage? Because people have been wailing about hyperinflation fears for the last decade at least, and it hasn't happened.
    - octopoc 5y ago
      You can delay the consequences of bad currency management, but eventually the consequences will hit you, hard. The normal rules are on hold because the USD is the world reserve currency. When USD are manufactured, a huge chunk of them is bought by wealthy foreigners to store value. That means that we haven't felt the consequences of printing lots of money because we've been sharing the consequences with a huge and growing number of wealthy foreigners. But the only reason the USD is the world reserve currency is because there's nothing better. When something better enough comes along, all that USD will come flooding back and we'll suffer all the inflationary consequences of printing money for decades. Those consequences will be compressed to a very short amount of time.
      - JetSpiegel 5y ago
        > The normal rules are on hold because the USD is the world reserve currency. As it has been for more than 50 years. Entire people's lives happened between those "consequences". On the long term, we are all dead.