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Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exac

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

ckastner 5y ago
This is so on point. To me, and many others active somewhere on the "regulated finance" spectrum, the way crypto kept going on and on how awesome "deregulation" is from a consumer standpoint was tragically ironic. The vast majority of regulation is there to protect market participants.
- TruthIsHeresy 5y ago
  >The vast majority of regulation is there to protect market participants. Anyone involved with GME knows this isn’t true.
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    The vast majority of the nasty stuff that happened around GME was not the work of regulators trying to hurt ordinary investors.
  - puppyprogram 5y ago
    The vast majority of regulation is there to protect CERTAIN market participants.
  - im3w1l 5y ago
    I actually think the opposite. Causing a short squeeze is market manipulation. Regulatory agencies let it happen anyway because it was done by random nobodies.
    - reedjosh 5y ago
      If a short squeeze happens that by definition means the shorts were over zealous. If a market allows shorts it should allow a squeeze as a mechanism of balance.
      - jcranberry 5y ago
        The market allows short squeezes. SEC too. What the SEC doesn't allow is the deliberate triggering of short squeezes.
        formerkrogemp 5y ago
        I'll believe their not allowing it when their soft gums and limp regulations have teeth again. Fines are a cost of doing business in many cases, unfortunately.
  - ckastner 5y ago
    > Anyone involved with GME knows this isn’t true. People involved with GME used to refer themselves as the "Apes", and reading their main forum on /r/wallstreetbets back then, that would be a pretty accurate characterization of what they "know".
TruthIsHeresy 5y ago
>Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. I’m curious as to where you’ve seen this sentiment from crypto fans? It seems most of the people getting angry about this are people who already disliked crypto and are using this event to add more fuel to the flames.
- parkingrift 5y ago
  I doubt non crypto fans are doing investigatory research into Coinbase insider crypto purchases and complaining about it on Twitter, Reddit, and HN. Just a hunch.
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    Do you think cobie is mad here? Or implying he wants more regulation?
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    Is that a joke? That group is always looking for things they can point to and say "see I told you crypto was bad". This is typical of any industry or topic to actively look for confirmation bias, it's just human nature.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > I’m curious as to where you’ve seen this sentiment from crypto fans? I mean, Ethereum itself forked over "hey that's no fair" when the DAO got compromised.
  - TheColorYellow 5y ago
    Are you saying the fork was a bad thing? Or are you critiquing crypto people for not living up to their values? For both points, I'd like to mention that there is no universal value set or profile.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
datadata 5y ago
I think crypto fans want transparency and an equal playing field, and are more afraid of things like regulatory corruption and markets that are not open to them. It is not clear that "regulated finance" prevents comically unfair outcomes either. You still have insider trading that is legally protected, discriminatory rules like accredited investor qualifications, and abuse of the legal system by the rich to avoid regulations with loopholes or lobbying.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Um, being an accredited investor gives you exposure to investments that aren’t transparent. You don’t get the same access to financial statements as with public companies. If you want more transparent investments then you should be advocating for reforms that will encourage companies to go public sooner. This would be reversing the trend in recent years where companies stay private longer, which allows them to not disclose how they’re doing.
  - datadata 5y ago
    Accredited investor rules was an example of not having a even playing field. The market is not open to everyone which contributes to unfair outcomes. I'd welcome reforms to transparency as well there, as lack of transparency also contributes to unfair outcomes (the company can exploit investors).
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      The accredited investor rules are in place to protect people who can’t bear the losses from an extremely adversarial financial system. I promise you that even if you get rid of the rules, people with a few thousand dollars to spend still would not have access to the best investments.
      - datadata 5y ago
        I believe that every financial transaction has the potential to be adversarial, there are many ways outside of investing that the poor are disproportionately exploited (lotteries, debt interest). I think the libertarian perspective is that we shouldn't have protections that prevent people from making personal choices that result in harm to themselves, but only from harming others. I think that transparency for the companies seeking investment, or education of the investors themselves are better ways to restrict investment. Net worth/Income is not a fair criteria.
rchaud 5y ago
A lot of the rah-rah boosterism of "decentralization" is coming from VCs that saw how much money there is to be made by ignoring laws and regulations for long enough. Airbnb and Uber are the most brazen examples of this. What's left unsaid of course is that the only interest deep-pocketed investors have in dismantling elements of the financial system (MC/Visa dominance, KYC/AML checks, suspicious transactions disclosure rules), is so they can replace it with a system that they personally have an equity stake in.
- datadata 5y ago
  > they can replace it with a system that they personally have an equity stake in. Isn't this a fact about capitalism and not at all specific to the financial sector?
- nojs 5y ago
  I think this is the expected cycle of business long term. 1. Entrepreneur notices an opportunity to avoid overzealous regulations and provide better value to customers 2. Everyone wants a piece of the action, bad actors start to move in and updated regulation is required 3. New regulations get out of hand and start to become extremely costly to comply with (see banks) 4. New entrepreneur comes along with a novel way of avoiding said regulations, providing better value to customers again. Repeat. At any given point in time the industry is either in cowboy crypto mode, or crusty overregulated bank mode. Both have drawbacks, and it’s just a pendulum that swings back and forth.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    “Overzealous regulation” = regulation they prevents me as an “entrepreneur” from profiting off of unsophisticated people, in this example.
    - qeternity 5y ago
      Who determines what qualifies as “unsophisticated”. This is where the overzealousness creeps in. Regulators always push for more regulations.
joshsyn 5y ago
Umm, I am a crypto fan and I still don't want regulation. You have to be an idiot to buy something on listing. Embrace this.
fourstar 5y ago
Coinbase is an SEC “compliant” company. What specifically about this company is “deregulated”?
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  There are very few compliance rules to begin with for this space. I'd imagine that the compliance department at Coinbase is just a dead goldfish
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    This is the kind of snarky, evasive answer that flippantly dismisses any counter argument and is so typical on this particular site when it comes to anything involving crypto. Never mind that the comment it replies to asked a perfeclty valid, serious question and mentioned exactly the heap of SEC regulations Coinbase is governed by. Absurd.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FabHK 5y ago
  There are SEC rules against insider trading, yet here appear to be instances of insider trading at Coinbase. So, either they don't apply to these transactions at Coinbase, and insofar this company is deregulated; or the company flouts the rules.
loceng 5y ago
Indeed, it's just shifting a regulatory/systems capture situation to the wild west.
agumonkey 5y ago
Trading (around crypto) made me realize that systems will always get twisted in all possible ways as long as some group can find a way to benefit. The finance world is filled with subsystems with different information sources and interest. This led to recurrent patterns and more subtle ideas. You cannot know this unless you are in these groups, or pay to be taught a few or wait years to discover it. It's always a blend of opposing forces of various nature. It's probably a very general principle (society works like that too)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rib3ye 5y ago
I think us zealots have been clear on this from the start: centralized, custodial exchanges are not crypto. Please come down on them HARD.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
berberous 5y ago
This is a strawman. It also paints “crypto fans”, as some monolithic group that all think the same way. I am a crypto fan and do not “want deregulated finance”. It is not “exactly what crypto is all about”. I think most in the space would actually like to see more sensible regulation.
- izzydata 5y ago
  I think "crypto people" are tired of things being a constant state of flux and just want governing bodies to make some kind of decisions. People really want to know what the rules are so they can make more informed decisions.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    This is quite true. Many of the calls for regulation by "crypto people" which I've seen are really just a reaction against an uncertain regulatory environment. In short, they just want the regulators to make up their minds already. The biggest wildcard and source of volatility in the crypto space, IMHO, lies in the inconsistent and unpredictable responses we've seen from politicians and bureaucrats, not the tech, the state of the market, or the possibility of falling for some kind of scam. However, one should keep in mind that certainty is not necessarily better—it depends on what the rules are. Operating in a grey area is better than being banned outright, and overly strict regulation can nullify all the advantages of a new system by forcing it into the mold of the old system it's meant to replace. The ideal outcome is that they explicitly adopt a hands-off approach so that the threat of adverse regulation is removed without being replaced by known adverse regulation in the present.
- esperent 5y ago
  > It also paints “crypto fans”, as some monolithic group that all think the same way. This is unfortunate. However, in my experience of crypto fans it seems like a large - probably very large - majority of them are fans of deregulation and consider this one of the main positive points of crypto. Would you say that's incorrect?
  - 5y ago
celticninja 5y ago
Do they though? Are you certain these are the same people or are you just lumping them all together as crypto fans because it allows you to shit on then? Crypto fans aren't all the same, it's a bit like saying all HN users hate crypto. They dont, it's a crass generalisation used to score some useless internet points.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
crystaln 5y ago
You’re conflating everyone in a massive group. Americans want abortion rights then they pass laws against abortion. Can’t make this up! Developers want open source then they make closed source products. Can’t make this up!
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  > Americans want abortion rights then they pass laws against abortion. Can’t make this up! Literally only 32% of Americans are completely pro-choice: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx And, actually, most Americans support limitations on abortion. I'm not sure how you came to the idea that the vast majority of Americans are pro-choice.
  - gcthomas 5y ago
    Your link shows 81% in favour of abortion, with or without some restrictions, with 19% against abortion. Wanting abortion rights is not synonymous with being pro-choice, which carries implications of no restrictions at all.
    - dlp211 5y ago
      I hope I didn't misunderstand what you wrote, but where did you get the idea that being pro-choice means the ability to get an abortion from 0 months to 9 months pregnant? There is obviously a spectrum to being pro-choice, but if I had to bet I'd put the majority of pro-choice folks follow: that woman has the right to choose to have an abortion while the fetus is generally considered pre-viability by the medical profession and under extreme circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk and/or the baby is now non-viable or will suffer a short and traumatic life.
      - gcthomas 5y ago
        Thanks, it seems that I have been interpreting the term pro-choice incorrectly.
  - 5y ago
renewiltord 5y ago
I’d prefer Coinbase insider trading over Nancy Pelosi insider trading. So this isn’t the end of the world. There’s no universe where there’s no insider trading and you’re asking me to switch the Coinbase situation for the Pelosi situation. And I prefer the Coinbase situation. So I can accept the lesser of two evils and kick up a fuss when I don’t like it. After all, if switching to regulated finance is what you recommend, the cure is worse than the disease.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  Coinbase would be frontrunning every trade you make. This would be a direct tangible loss to you. Think of it like a GME level fiasco but carried out every few weeks or so. Compared to that any insider trading Nancy does would be diffuse and unlikely to affect you personally.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    This is a fair point. I don't trade on Coinbase, but this is what happens at other exchanges too. It is rational to prefer the Nancy-style situation over the Coinbase situation.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    Frontrunning gets you a worse price for your trade, so traders would naturally avoid exchanges which practice it in favor of others which offer a deal. There is no natural monopoly on crypto exchange services, though regulation does tend to raise artificial barriers to entry and promote centralization. The "GME level fiasco" was only possible as a one-time event. You don't get situations like that on a recurring basis because the market adapts.
    - cuteboy19 5y ago
      And yet Coinbase is one of the top exchanges in the world and routinely goes down for "unplanned maintenance" everytime a dip happens. Others are worse!
bogota 5y ago
What does this even mean? I’m a crypto fan but I dont want to deregulate finance completely. So maybe i’m not a crypto fan. Or maybe the crypto fan online isn’t really representative of reality like most online communities that are largely based off what reddit is spouting. Im not close to being alone on this. I don’t know anyone in my life who is a “crypto fan” and doesn’t think rules should exist around exchanges. It’s easy to fight the boogeyman and the HN boogeyman is one of the silliest ones I have seen.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  Just like any other group of people, crypto fans are not a monolith. There certainly are some extreme libertarians that think nothing in the financial world should be illegal and that the Free Market(tm) will sort everything out on its own. To them, insider trading isn't unethical, quite the opposite. People should be using every advantage at their disposal. To them, getting a job at Coinbase to get the inside scoop on upcoming coin listings would be a genius move.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > To them, insider trading isn't unethical, quite the opposite. This does not follow. Even under the most "extreme libertarian" position insider trading, narrowly construed, would still be an unethical violation of the agent/principal relationship which exists between the employee and the company's owners (the shareholders). Abusing confidential information you have access to as a result of your position for personal gain at the expense of the shareholders would be violation of trust—and most likely a direct breach of your employment contract.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
"Crypto fans" never wanted centralized exchanges dominating the entire space. Cryptocurrency was invented to put an end to banks, not to create new unregulated pseudo-banks that are even worse than the previous system. You think we're not aware of the fact that exchanges have access to vast amounts of market information? They can literally bet against their own users on futures if they want. We want deregulation when it comes to our money. We want the ability to transact with absolute unconditional freedom and privacy. These exchanges? Hell yes, go ahead and regulate the crap out of them. They are not our friends. They're banks. The biggest failure of crypto is the need for exchanges. We were supposed to mine our own coins and use them in everyday transactions.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Exchanges create the use case for virtually every transaction. Strict P2P is closer to the original vision, but the world of using crypto as a fiat proxy, the potential for profit, and the entire industry of mining equipment, etc, is made possible by the fiat-crypto bridge enabled by exchanges.
- thruway516 5y ago
  From my experience in cryptoverse, you and all the idealists who still think like this are in the minority, completely swamped by all the people who don't care which way it goes so long as they get filthy rich
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    Count me part of the minority then
  - jl2718 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s a minority position, but we haven’t figured out how to make it work yet.
  - bobsomers 5y ago
    Another “minority” checking in.
bobsomers 5y ago
> Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. I don't think this is a fair characterization. Most crypto fans I know want regulations, they just want them clearly defined and enforced with software and distributed consensus rather than through corrupt and ineffective organizations like the SEC.
- joshsyn 5y ago
  nope not me.
jl2718 5y ago
There is a difference between ‘unregulated’ and ‘poorly-regulated’. The more defensible position is that regulation never works as intended; it just benefits those that can hire the most lawyers, and state power is used against their weaker competitors.

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

ckastner 5y ago

This is so on point. To me, and many others active somewhere on the "regulated finance" spectrum, the way crypto kept going on and on how awesome "deregulation" is from a consumer standpoint was tragically ironic. The vast majority of regulation is there to protect market participants.

TruthIsHeresy 5y ago
>The vast majority of regulation is there to protect market participants. Anyone involved with GME knows this isn’t true.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  The vast majority of the nasty stuff that happened around GME was not the work of regulators trying to hurt ordinary investors.
- puppyprogram 5y ago
  The vast majority of regulation is there to protect CERTAIN market participants.
- im3w1l 5y ago
  I actually think the opposite. Causing a short squeeze is market manipulation. Regulatory agencies let it happen anyway because it was done by random nobodies.
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    If a short squeeze happens that by definition means the shorts were over zealous. If a market allows shorts it should allow a squeeze as a mechanism of balance.
    - jcranberry 5y ago
      The market allows short squeezes. SEC too. What the SEC doesn't allow is the deliberate triggering of short squeezes.
      - formerkrogemp 5y ago
        I'll believe their not allowing it when their soft gums and limp regulations have teeth again. Fines are a cost of doing business in many cases, unfortunately.
- ckastner 5y ago
  > Anyone involved with GME knows this isn’t true. People involved with GME used to refer themselves as the "Apes", and reading their main forum on /r/wallstreetbets back then, that would be a pretty accurate characterization of what they "know".

TruthIsHeresy 5y ago

>Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. I’m curious as to where you’ve seen this sentiment from crypto fans? It seems most of the people getting angry about this are people who already disliked crypto and are using this event to add more fuel to the flames.

parkingrift 5y ago
I doubt non crypto fans are doing investigatory research into Coinbase insider crypto purchases and complaining about it on Twitter, Reddit, and HN. Just a hunch.
- thepasswordis 5y ago
  Do you think cobie is mad here? Or implying he wants more regulation?
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Is that a joke? That group is always looking for things they can point to and say "see I told you crypto was bad". This is typical of any industry or topic to actively look for confirmation bias, it's just human nature.
ceejayoz 5y ago
> I’m curious as to where you’ve seen this sentiment from crypto fans? I mean, Ethereum itself forked over "hey that's no fair" when the DAO got compromised.
- TheColorYellow 5y ago
  Are you saying the fork was a bad thing? Or are you critiquing crypto people for not living up to their values? For both points, I'd like to mention that there is no universal value set or profile.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago

datadata 5y ago

I think crypto fans want transparency and an equal playing field, and are more afraid of things like regulatory corruption and markets that are not open to them. It is not clear that "regulated finance" prevents comically unfair outcomes either. You still have insider trading that is legally protected, discriminatory rules like accredited investor qualifications, and abuse of the legal system by the rich to avoid regulations with loopholes or lobbying.

skybrian 5y ago
Um, being an accredited investor gives you exposure to investments that aren’t transparent. You don’t get the same access to financial statements as with public companies. If you want more transparent investments then you should be advocating for reforms that will encourage companies to go public sooner. This would be reversing the trend in recent years where companies stay private longer, which allows them to not disclose how they’re doing.
- datadata 5y ago
  Accredited investor rules was an example of not having a even playing field. The market is not open to everyone which contributes to unfair outcomes. I'd welcome reforms to transparency as well there, as lack of transparency also contributes to unfair outcomes (the company can exploit investors).
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    The accredited investor rules are in place to protect people who can’t bear the losses from an extremely adversarial financial system. I promise you that even if you get rid of the rules, people with a few thousand dollars to spend still would not have access to the best investments.
    - datadata 5y ago
      I believe that every financial transaction has the potential to be adversarial, there are many ways outside of investing that the poor are disproportionately exploited (lotteries, debt interest). I think the libertarian perspective is that we shouldn't have protections that prevent people from making personal choices that result in harm to themselves, but only from harming others. I think that transparency for the companies seeking investment, or education of the investors themselves are better ways to restrict investment. Net worth/Income is not a fair criteria.

rchaud 5y ago

A lot of the rah-rah boosterism of "decentralization" is coming from VCs that saw how much money there is to be made by ignoring laws and regulations for long enough. Airbnb and Uber are the most brazen examples of this. What's left unsaid of course is that the only interest deep-pocketed investors have in dismantling elements of the financial system (MC/Visa dominance, KYC/AML checks, suspicious transactions disclosure rules), is so they can replace it with a system that they personally have an equity stake in.

datadata 5y ago
> they can replace it with a system that they personally have an equity stake in. Isn't this a fact about capitalism and not at all specific to the financial sector?
nojs 5y ago
I think this is the expected cycle of business long term. 1. Entrepreneur notices an opportunity to avoid overzealous regulations and provide better value to customers 2. Everyone wants a piece of the action, bad actors start to move in and updated regulation is required 3. New regulations get out of hand and start to become extremely costly to comply with (see banks) 4. New entrepreneur comes along with a novel way of avoiding said regulations, providing better value to customers again. Repeat. At any given point in time the industry is either in cowboy crypto mode, or crusty overregulated bank mode. Both have drawbacks, and it’s just a pendulum that swings back and forth.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  “Overzealous regulation” = regulation they prevents me as an “entrepreneur” from profiting off of unsophisticated people, in this example.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    Who determines what qualifies as “unsophisticated”. This is where the overzealousness creeps in. Regulators always push for more regulations.

joshsyn 5y ago

Umm, I am a crypto fan and I still don't want regulation. You have to be an idiot to buy something on listing. Embrace this.

fourstar 5y ago

Coinbase is an SEC “compliant” company. What specifically about this company is “deregulated”?

cuteboy19 5y ago
There are very few compliance rules to begin with for this space. I'd imagine that the compliance department at Coinbase is just a dead goldfish
- helloworld11 5y ago
  This is the kind of snarky, evasive answer that flippantly dismisses any counter argument and is so typical on this particular site when it comes to anything involving crypto. Never mind that the comment it replies to asked a perfeclty valid, serious question and mentioned exactly the heap of SEC regulations Coinbase is governed by. Absurd.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FabHK 5y ago
There are SEC rules against insider trading, yet here appear to be instances of insider trading at Coinbase. So, either they don't apply to these transactions at Coinbase, and insofar this company is deregulated; or the company flouts the rules.

loceng 5y ago

Indeed, it's just shifting a regulatory/systems capture situation to the wild west.

agumonkey 5y ago

Trading (around crypto) made me realize that systems will always get twisted in all possible ways as long as some group can find a way to benefit. The finance world is filled with subsystems with different information sources and interest. This led to recurrent patterns and more subtle ideas. You cannot know this unless you are in these groups, or pay to be taught a few or wait years to discover it. It's always a blend of opposing forces of various nature. It's probably a very general principle (society works like that too)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rib3ye 5y ago

I think us zealots have been clear on this from the start: centralized, custodial exchanges are not crypto. Please come down on them HARD.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

berberous 5y ago

This is a strawman. It also paints “crypto fans”, as some monolithic group that all think the same way. I am a crypto fan and do not “want deregulated finance”. It is not “exactly what crypto is all about”. I think most in the space would actually like to see more sensible regulation.

izzydata 5y ago
I think "crypto people" are tired of things being a constant state of flux and just want governing bodies to make some kind of decisions. People really want to know what the rules are so they can make more informed decisions.
- nybble41 5y ago
  This is quite true. Many of the calls for regulation by "crypto people" which I've seen are really just a reaction against an uncertain regulatory environment. In short, they just want the regulators to make up their minds already. The biggest wildcard and source of volatility in the crypto space, IMHO, lies in the inconsistent and unpredictable responses we've seen from politicians and bureaucrats, not the tech, the state of the market, or the possibility of falling for some kind of scam. However, one should keep in mind that certainty is not necessarily better—it depends on what the rules are. Operating in a grey area is better than being banned outright, and overly strict regulation can nullify all the advantages of a new system by forcing it into the mold of the old system it's meant to replace. The ideal outcome is that they explicitly adopt a hands-off approach so that the threat of adverse regulation is removed without being replaced by known adverse regulation in the present.
esperent 5y ago
> It also paints “crypto fans”, as some monolithic group that all think the same way. This is unfortunate. However, in my experience of crypto fans it seems like a large - probably very large - majority of them are fans of deregulation and consider this one of the main positive points of crypto. Would you say that's incorrect?
- 5y ago

celticninja 5y ago

Do they though? Are you certain these are the same people or are you just lumping them all together as crypto fans because it allows you to shit on then? Crypto fans aren't all the same, it's a bit like saying all HN users hate crypto. They dont, it's a crass generalisation used to score some useless internet points.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

crystaln 5y ago

You’re conflating everyone in a massive group. Americans want abortion rights then they pass laws against abortion. Can’t make this up! Developers want open source then they make closed source products. Can’t make this up!

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
> Americans want abortion rights then they pass laws against abortion. Can’t make this up! Literally only 32% of Americans are completely pro-choice: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx And, actually, most Americans support limitations on abortion. I'm not sure how you came to the idea that the vast majority of Americans are pro-choice.
- gcthomas 5y ago
  Your link shows 81% in favour of abortion, with or without some restrictions, with 19% against abortion. Wanting abortion rights is not synonymous with being pro-choice, which carries implications of no restrictions at all.
  - dlp211 5y ago
    I hope I didn't misunderstand what you wrote, but where did you get the idea that being pro-choice means the ability to get an abortion from 0 months to 9 months pregnant? There is obviously a spectrum to being pro-choice, but if I had to bet I'd put the majority of pro-choice folks follow: that woman has the right to choose to have an abortion while the fetus is generally considered pre-viability by the medical profession and under extreme circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk and/or the baby is now non-viable or will suffer a short and traumatic life.
    - gcthomas 5y ago
      Thanks, it seems that I have been interpreting the term pro-choice incorrectly.
- 5y ago

renewiltord 5y ago

I’d prefer Coinbase insider trading over Nancy Pelosi insider trading. So this isn’t the end of the world. There’s no universe where there’s no insider trading and you’re asking me to switch the Coinbase situation for the Pelosi situation. And I prefer the Coinbase situation. So I can accept the lesser of two evils and kick up a fuss when I don’t like it. After all, if switching to regulated finance is what you recommend, the cure is worse than the disease.

cuteboy19 5y ago
Coinbase would be frontrunning every trade you make. This would be a direct tangible loss to you. Think of it like a GME level fiasco but carried out every few weeks or so. Compared to that any insider trading Nancy does would be diffuse and unlikely to affect you personally.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  This is a fair point. I don't trade on Coinbase, but this is what happens at other exchanges too. It is rational to prefer the Nancy-style situation over the Coinbase situation.
- nybble41 5y ago
  Frontrunning gets you a worse price for your trade, so traders would naturally avoid exchanges which practice it in favor of others which offer a deal. There is no natural monopoly on crypto exchange services, though regulation does tend to raise artificial barriers to entry and promote centralization. The "GME level fiasco" was only possible as a one-time event. You don't get situations like that on a recurring basis because the market adapts.
  - cuteboy19 5y ago
    And yet Coinbase is one of the top exchanges in the world and routinely goes down for "unplanned maintenance" everytime a dip happens. Others are worse!

bogota 5y ago

What does this even mean? I’m a crypto fan but I dont want to deregulate finance completely. So maybe i’m not a crypto fan. Or maybe the crypto fan online isn’t really representative of reality like most online communities that are largely based off what reddit is spouting. Im not close to being alone on this. I don’t know anyone in my life who is a “crypto fan” and doesn’t think rules should exist around exchanges. It’s easy to fight the boogeyman and the HN boogeyman is one of the silliest ones I have seen.

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Just like any other group of people, crypto fans are not a monolith. There certainly are some extreme libertarians that think nothing in the financial world should be illegal and that the Free Market(tm) will sort everything out on its own. To them, insider trading isn't unethical, quite the opposite. People should be using every advantage at their disposal. To them, getting a job at Coinbase to get the inside scoop on upcoming coin listings would be a genius move.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > To them, insider trading isn't unethical, quite the opposite. This does not follow. Even under the most "extreme libertarian" position insider trading, narrowly construed, would still be an unethical violation of the agent/principal relationship which exists between the employee and the company's owners (the shareholders). Abusing confidential information you have access to as a result of your position for personal gain at the expense of the shareholders would be violation of trust—and most likely a direct breach of your employment contract.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

"Crypto fans" never wanted centralized exchanges dominating the entire space. Cryptocurrency was invented to put an end to banks, not to create new unregulated pseudo-banks that are even worse than the previous system. You think we're not aware of the fact that exchanges have access to vast amounts of market information? They can literally bet against their own users on futures if they want. We want deregulation when it comes to our money. We want the ability to transact with absolute unconditional freedom and privacy. These exchanges? Hell yes, go ahead and regulate the crap out of them. They are not our friends. They're banks. The biggest failure of crypto is the need for exchanges. We were supposed to mine our own coins and use them in everyday transactions.

bdcravens 5y ago
Exchanges create the use case for virtually every transaction. Strict P2P is closer to the original vision, but the world of using crypto as a fiat proxy, the potential for profit, and the entire industry of mining equipment, etc, is made possible by the fiat-crypto bridge enabled by exchanges.
thruway516 5y ago
From my experience in cryptoverse, you and all the idealists who still think like this are in the minority, completely swamped by all the people who don't care which way it goes so long as they get filthy rich
- reedjosh 5y ago
  Count me part of the minority then
- jl2718 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s a minority position, but we haven’t figured out how to make it work yet.
- bobsomers 5y ago
  Another “minority” checking in.

bobsomers 5y ago

> Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. I don't think this is a fair characterization. Most crypto fans I know want regulations, they just want them clearly defined and enforced with software and distributed consensus rather than through corrupt and ineffective organizations like the SEC.

joshsyn 5y ago
nope not me.

jl2718 5y ago

There is a difference between ‘unregulated’ and ‘poorly-regulated’. The more defensible position is that regulation never works as intended; it just benefits those that can hire the most lawyers, and state power is used against their weaker competitors.