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> "We recognize that the vast majority of activity that's happening in the virtual currencies is legitimate activity," Deputy Treasury Secretary Adeyemo told re

> "We recognize that the vast majority of activity that's happening in the virtual currencies is legitimate activity," Deputy Treasury Secretary Adeyemo told reporters during a briefing. Welp, there goes most of HN’s arguments against cryptocurrency. Just a matter of time before the EPA says the environmental impact argument is misinformation in favor of remarkably sustainable use of the energy.

KptMarchewa 5y ago
"vast majority" is very weak statement. Vast majority of cars did not get stolen last year.
- vmception 5y ago
  I don't understand the analogy, they are saying the vast majority of cryptocurrencies were not stolen or part of anything illegal. Thats the point of my post. Did you misread, or do I just misunderstand what you are saying.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    I think the point is 'vast majority' isn't relative. If 10% of cars get stolen every year that's a LOT, but 'the vast majority of cars did not get stolen'. In this case we'd need to relate it to normal asset/currency transactions. Is the rate of illegitimate transactions the same? 10X? 1000X? It can have several orders of magnitude more illegitimate activity while the statement 'the vast majority....' remains true.
    - vmception 5y ago
      ah okay, so the goal post moves from imagining the vast majority was illegitimate use, to imagining "orders of magnitude" above other asset classes contains illegitimate transactions. now I understand. I don't personally care about that. Its more important that the US Deputy Treasury Secretary has intelligently differentiated between sanctionable centralized institutions and the network itself. A lot of people have talked themselves out of cryptocurrency by imagining that the [US] government would attack or outlaw the networks themselves, instead of acknowledging their legitimacy, and supported that with the imagination that the vast majority of use was illegitimate.
      - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
        > ah okay, so the goal post moves from imagining the vast majority was illegitimate use, to imagining "orders of magnitude" above other asset classes contains illegitimate transactions. The only one who is moving goal posts is you, who have somehow setup this strawman that the collective position on HN was that the vast majority of crypto was illicit use.
        vmception 5y ago
        Yeah I did. Anyone that actually harbored that opinion should feel silly now.
        hackingforfun 5y ago
        I agree that the collective opinion on HN seems to be that crypto is pretty much only used for illegitimate use. I think it's great to see a government official directly challenging that assumption.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- blueprint 5y ago
  yes but how is it e.g. on a knife maker to control who uses it? it's up to the police to police it. private payments just make ransomware payments easier. they don't create a new source of the criminal intent. should we, therefore, not improve global access to food and healthcare because some of the people whose actions would be empowered by it are criminals? plus, private payments are in theory a literal requirement for soundness of the money system due to fungibility concerns, and also, you might argue, a requirement to protect the freedoms of certain people such as abused spouses. there might be some sufficiently important human rights issues that only a censorship resistant private money system can solve... and I'm not sure if ransomware increases are really much to do with the availability of digital currencies so much as a symptom of other social problems. it's somewhat a question of whether solving e.g. ransomware issues is worth the effort if it means we get the other humanitarian solutions and social benefits from something like Monero.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

"vast majority" is very weak statement. Vast majority of cars did not get stolen last year.

vmception 5y ago
I don't understand the analogy, they are saying the vast majority of cryptocurrencies were not stolen or part of anything illegal. Thats the point of my post. Did you misread, or do I just misunderstand what you are saying.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  I think the point is 'vast majority' isn't relative. If 10% of cars get stolen every year that's a LOT, but 'the vast majority of cars did not get stolen'. In this case we'd need to relate it to normal asset/currency transactions. Is the rate of illegitimate transactions the same? 10X? 1000X? It can have several orders of magnitude more illegitimate activity while the statement 'the vast majority....' remains true.
  - vmception 5y ago
    ah okay, so the goal post moves from imagining the vast majority was illegitimate use, to imagining "orders of magnitude" above other asset classes contains illegitimate transactions. now I understand. I don't personally care about that. Its more important that the US Deputy Treasury Secretary has intelligently differentiated between sanctionable centralized institutions and the network itself. A lot of people have talked themselves out of cryptocurrency by imagining that the [US] government would attack or outlaw the networks themselves, instead of acknowledging their legitimacy, and supported that with the imagination that the vast majority of use was illegitimate.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      > ah okay, so the goal post moves from imagining the vast majority was illegitimate use, to imagining "orders of magnitude" above other asset classes contains illegitimate transactions. The only one who is moving goal posts is you, who have somehow setup this strawman that the collective position on HN was that the vast majority of crypto was illicit use.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Yeah I did. Anyone that actually harbored that opinion should feel silly now.
        hackingforfun 5y ago
        I agree that the collective opinion on HN seems to be that crypto is pretty much only used for illegitimate use. I think it's great to see a government official directly challenging that assumption.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
blueprint 5y ago
yes but how is it e.g. on a knife maker to control who uses it? it's up to the police to police it. private payments just make ransomware payments easier. they don't create a new source of the criminal intent. should we, therefore, not improve global access to food and healthcare because some of the people whose actions would be empowered by it are criminals? plus, private payments are in theory a literal requirement for soundness of the money system due to fungibility concerns, and also, you might argue, a requirement to protect the freedoms of certain people such as abused spouses. there might be some sufficiently important human rights issues that only a censorship resistant private money system can solve... and I'm not sure if ransomware increases are really much to do with the availability of digital currencies so much as a symptom of other social problems. it's somewhat a question of whether solving e.g. ransomware issues is worth the effort if it means we get the other humanitarian solutions and social benefits from something like Monero.