18 ms·

Tech experts urge Washington to resist crypto industry’s influence

162 points by thm 4y ago

endmathabusenow 4y ago
I signed. I have worked in computational finance for 25 years--building mathematical models and managing their implementation. I have spent the past year anti-fraud modeling. I don't know if this qualifies me as a technologist. The leadership can decide.
eqmvii 4y ago
Thrilled to see organized action on this front. For too long, the only voices in the room were there for hype. It's easy for those with critical views to just ignore it.
- dqpb 4y ago
  The skeptic voices are almost always as idiotic as the hype voices.
marban 4y ago
https://archive.ph/IRztu https://archive.ph/IRztu
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ghuntley 4y ago
From: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1531920908696358912 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1531920908696358912 Today the global community of technologists sent a letter to Congress urging them to resist the crypto industry’s lobbying influence. The letter was signed by some of the most respected scholars and technologists in our field. And now we need your help. Crypto fraud is spiraling out of control. So-called "web3" is not going great. Regulators are paralyzed and people are getting hurt left and right. It's on us as citizens and responsible engineers to help fix the problem we created by our inaction. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ Crypto lobby is spending millions to tell leaders that crypto-assets are "innovation" and all fintech innovation is unqualifiedly good, no matter the human cost. Today we set the record straight on what computer scientists really think about blockchain. https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1522011168604409856 https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1522011168604409856 "The claims that the blockchain advocates make are not true," said Bruce Schneier. "It's not secure, it's not decentralised. Any system where you forget your password and you lose your life savings is not a safe system," he added. "The computational power is equivalent to what you could do in a centralised way with a $100 computer," said Miguel de Icaza. "We’re essentially wasting millions of dollars’ worth of equipment because we’ve decided that we don’t trust the banking system." The externalities related to crypto investments are neither isolated nor are they growing pains of a nascent tech. They are the inevitable outcomes of a technology that is not built for purpose and will remain forever unsuitable as a foundation for large-scale economic activity. Our call to action is simple. If you are a computer scientist or developer concerned about this issue, we're opening the letter to the wider tech community to sign and tell our policymakers that enough is enough, the status quo has to change. Read the letter and sign at https://concerned.tech/ https://concerned.tech/
- rvz 4y ago
  Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that. Perhaps these companies waited for this executive order: [3] to go through before getting back into using cryptocurrencies. The reality is that both the hard crypto-skeptics and the crypto-maximalists will be disappointed in achieving their utopian goals of fully stopping crypto and also gaining full adoption of it. Only a few of them will survive the test of time and further regulations. [0] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram-ceo-sees-a-future-in-stablecoin-remittances https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-06-23/algorand-to-record-official-chess-ratings-for-fide-online-arena-s-first-ever-digital-games https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-06-23/algorand... [3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
  - Kbelicius 4y ago
    > Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that. It must be going disastrously when your 3 examples of things going grate are a start of a pilot project, an announcement of a project and what seems to amount to a sponsorship deal. And you wonder why people don't speak more widely about it.
    - rvz 4y ago
      So those 3 projects I linked to have all been scrapped, abandoned or cancelled?, which would qualify your claim as what you described as 'going disastrously' assuming you have read the whole article and its links then? Can you at least backup your claims on them 'going disastrously' and being cancelled, scrapped or abandoned rather than making very unsubstantiated and baseless claims? Since I have already backed up my claims with links that these projects are still alive? > And you wonder why people don't speak more widely about it. Or is it because these companies know that the ones they selected are suitable for their use cases and are compliant with regulations and are not part of this extreme 'all cryptocurrencies is scam, ponzi, planet incinerating' narrative that these 'technologists' are pushing?
f0e4c2f7 4y ago
I wonder if people lobbied to keep the internet regulated and out of the hands of the general public. Surely someone must have.
- Seriomino 4y ago
- pjc50 4y ago
  They are and they do and it is; even in the US there are intelligence services in the routers and the FBI "seizing" websites. Truly unregulated anything lasts only until it starts causing large enough problems.
- jameshart 4y ago
  Bad analogy. In this case you have a finance industry trying to get congress to give them free rein to experiment with crypto. They're asking for latitude around things like securities law, financial disclosure requirements, anti-money-laundering, consumer finance protection, etc. - with the excuse being 'we have to be allowed to explore innovative technologies!' And what this letter represents is technologists trying to say, there's nothing sufficiently interesting here technologically speaking to justify granting that license. There's simply no equivalent to this in 'internet' regulation terms. ARPAnet wasn't opened up to commercial use based on finance industry lobbying over the objections of technologists.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    It's the other way around actually: Crypto is currently NOT covered by most of the things you list (securities laws, regulation etc). Coinbase etc just want to keep it (mostly) that way. This is an important difference because really you should be able to explore tech without having to show up-front (to the satisfaction of a government agency or a self appointed group) that it is sufficiently interesting technically to be permitted. Also, I don't entirely buy that Coinbase (specifically) want to prevent regulation. They've worked hard to position themselves as the regulated, above board, professional option in the space. More or Tighter regulation (but not an outright bad) would likely help them as they would likely already be compliant and other providers would either fold or close to US users or scramble to catchup...
jcbrand 4y ago
Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The existing, centralized electronic payment systems are a disaster for financial privacy, and it'll only get worse with CBDCs. If you try to make something private, then you're helping money launderers, criminals and pedophiles. Therefore, the message from the incumbents: Shut up and embrace the unfolding panopticon, otherwise you're a bad person. Also, we reserve the right to dictate what you spend your money on and if you want to donate to causes (e.g. Wikileaks or truckers) that we don't approve of, we'll block your bank account and cut you off from the system. Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. It's enough for you to know that we are experts and have your best interests in mind. You don't need to concern yourself with how much money there is, how its supply is managed or the potential negative effects of our manipulation, you wouldn't understand the implications anyway.
- Shish2k 4y ago
  “Trust a democratically elected government to act in the interests of its citizens” isn’t ideal, but I’m not sure “trust a combination of tech-bros and anarchy” is an improvement? I’m working in a legal-but-taboo industry, where mastercard and visa don’t want to deal with us, which is a huge pain in the ass - but every time I’ve looked at crypto, it seems to fix one or two problems and introduce 10 more...
  - eterevsky 4y ago
    It's an improvement in the sense that it gives you an additional option.
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    You're making a mistake in thinking that monetary policy is somehow democratic and that there is some kind of meaningful oversight over it. Central Banks are privately owned and by design are meant to be "independent" of politics (otherwise politicians would use the money printer to continuously to buy votes, destroying the currency in the process). There is no real oversight over central banks and nobody (outside of the peanut gallery) has meaningfully questioned the extreme central bank policies of the last 10 years or asked the central bankers any uncomfortable questions.
newaccount2021 4y ago
marban 4y ago
Coinbase is the new Philip Morris Coinbase led the effort with 26 lobbyists and $1.5mn spent on lobbying in 2021
tromp 4y ago
> Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Is this arguing both for and against the need for financial privacy at the same time?
- nl 4y ago
  > Is this arguing both for and against the need for financial privacy at the same time? No. It's a perfectly reasonable position to take. I want my transactions to be private to the world but it's reasonable that law enforcement has a method to investigate criminal behavior.
  - lui8906 4y ago
    > I want my transactions to be private to the world but it's reasonable that law enforcement has a method to investigate criminal behavior. If law enforcement has a method to investigate your behavior, its not private. You want to have your cake and eat it too. Either you enjoy privacy (and so do criminals) or criminals do not (and neither do you).
    - nl 4y ago
      > If law enforcement has a method to investigate your behavior, its not private. That doesn't seem to reflect how the world has worked up until now. There are plenty of things that are private except with a legal warrant. There's an entire legal history of wiretap laws and circumstances under which law enforcement can open mail I'd invite you to look at.
    - krferriter 4y ago
      It seems like you're making a sweeping argument against the legitimacy of the subpoena and investigatory power of governments. If a government cannot compel private entities to hand over evidence in criminal investigations, their ability to enforce laws falls apart.
- eternalban 4y ago
favflam 4y ago
Regulators should take a look at crypto firms pushing 20x leverages derivative products on retail investors. Regulators should pay attention to MEV and order flows on decentralized exchanges. Some blockchains are not permissionless to write to (proof of stake). As such, they are ripe for front running and forced liquidations of retail users.
- jimmydorry 4y ago
  Increased regulation around leveraged products would be nice! The regulators are already asleep at the wheel in terms of oversight on traditional exchanges (or more specifically what is happening outside of them). Sure, additional oversight would be nice in crypto-land, but increasing the regulator's scope seems like wishful thinking to me. With decentralized exchanges at least, all of the data necessary to audit what is happening is all public and instantly available... so maybe things will flip and the additional oversight for decentralized crypto exchanges will be trivial?
- wanda 4y ago
  "One of the hallmarks of mania is the rapid rise in complexity and rates of fraud"
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    wasn't early internet a massive rise in complexity? and it came with a ton of fraud too?
    - johnmcgee 4y ago
- dropnerd 4y ago
  PoW protocols are just as susceptible to MEV (it's called "miner extractable value").
ryanmercer 4y ago
- rvz 4y ago
  Once again, why are companies like Stripe [0], Moneygram [1], still using cryptocurrencies then? Perhaps they recognise that not all of them are like what you just described, and they waited for further regulations to be clearer and chose mature cryptocurrencies to use for what they needed? Also why haven't the law makers in congress, the SEC and the White House totally banned all of them yet but are instead writing down regulations to determine complaint and non-compliant cryptocurrencies like in ISO 20022? I know people skeptical of crypto are going to hate this and people who are in favour of all cryptos taking over the financial system will also hate this but I have to say it: Not all of them are going to go away and only a few of cryptos will survive past regulations. That is the hard truth I'm afraid. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram-ceo-sees-a-future-in-stablecoin-remittances https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram... [1] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
  - ryanmercer 4y ago
    >Once again, why are companies like Stripe [0], Moneygram [1], still using cryptocurrencies then? Because they want to be part of the current buzzword, just like every company throwing around "AI" and "machine learning". For the most part those companies are also fairly quickly converting any crypto into hard fiat, their risk is entirely minimal, yet the fees they are charging are quite profitable. They're mostly acting as moneychangers, not crypto fanatics. And their adoption doesn't change the fact that you can go on dozens (hundreds?) of DNMs and buy child pornography and drugs from the privacy of your living room. The vast majority of crypto is currently speculation/pump and dump and illegal commerce. Period. It is cancer, electricity-hungry cancer.
LatteLazy 4y ago
This is just another case of "should we ban things because some people are greedy and stupid and will hurt themselves accordingly"...
avg_dev 4y ago
Are non-US citizens allowed to sign? EDIT: Looks like one of the signatures is from Tim Bray, I think he lives in Vancouver.
koonsolo 4y ago
... then they fight you ...
- dropnerd 4y ago
  we may lose, unless the right people speak up
birracerveza 4y ago
ITT: We should ban emails, or we'll be overrun by nigerian princes!
- pjc50 4y ago
  Reminded of https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html ; I believe at its peak one third of USENET was spam and one third was "spam cancels", instructions to delete the spam. Email ended up with voluntary-but-effectively-central anti-spam efforts like SpamHaus and the RBL as a result.
igorkraw 4y ago
There's a lot of comments here and do far one thing which is missing to me the fact that we are seeing a classical libertarian playbook at play here: rail against the state while at the same time relying on regulatory capture. All state power and regulation is repugnant, except for the bits that benefit me. It's especially ironic because of the ongoing rhetoric of the value of bitcoin &co being independence from the store of trust that is centralised government and regulations. If they are truly that unstoppable, I'd expect them to not waste their time lobbying the old system and simply build the glorious new crypto economy that's been around the corner for the last 13+ years. But no, instead we are making sure that the money inflow and cash out options stay secure, and keep trying to worm a redundant at best and useless at worst technology into as many use cases as possible in order to show potential and keep the line going up. I'm sure, once there is a decentralised Blockchain Startup talking some municipality of doing their barbers license applications or municipal bonds via NFTs both the value and the democratising effects will kick in.
martialg 4y ago
So - I love thoughtful criticism. My ego doesn’t, but I generally find it very valuable. This letter is honestly not thoughtful criticism. It reads like a group of academics and specialists annoyed they were too early to profit from a technology they spent a lot of time thinking about esoterically and avoids specificity in…well… any meaningful way. It also makes no effort to segment the space. If a critical letter created by supposedly credible experts in a field can’t spare a paragraph to delineate between DeFi, NFTs, L1’s, smart contracts, stablecoins, and whatever else is bothering them then I think it’s fair to assume they don’t know the difference. And if they don’t know the difference then why are we even reading this letter? It’s a waste of our time (and theirs) to try and unpack what is pretty clearly frustration at the fact that the effective application of basic research is all that matters for adoption. I think (at its core) everything crypto is a novel economic incentive layer wrapped in a technology package. This creates the opportunity for blazingly fast user feedback loops and incentive alignment that wasn’t possible before (for better or worse). Taken from that perspective, this letter misses basically everything interesting about the potential of Crypto. So. Read it. Form your own opinion. And move on with your day. Gm everyone
- mfitzp 4y ago
  > annoyed they were too early to profit "na na sore loser" is quite the angle for someone bemoaning a lack of "thoughtful criticism." Do try and grow up.
  - martialg 4y ago
    This is somewhat fair. I guess my speculation stems from a lack of substance to poke holes in? Even going line by line beginning with the first real paragraph we find they launch into a classic straw man of rejecting the "industry claims that crypto-assets an innovative technology that is unreservedly good". Nobody with a whiff of tech acumen in crypto thinks or says this. Additionally, anyone not thoroughly anarcho-Libertarian also gets the need for guardrails to squash scams. A scattershot of the other tangible claims in the paper feel pretty similar. "Append-only digital ledgers are not a new innovation. They have been known and used since 1980 for rather limited functions." <- true, but the also can be said for the evolution of AI models and we see where we're finally at with those today. "Blockchain technology cannot, and will not, have transaction reversal mechanisms because they are antithetical to its base design." <- quasi true depending on the chain, but also we can approximate reversibility with clever escrow-like transactions (I'm actually building this full disclosure) "Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither." <- unequivocally stating blockchain tech can't mitigate fraud in ANY way is silly and reductionist. Deciding human-in-the-loop reversibility is the pinnacle of fraud mitigation is also pretty wild considered how much effort and resources developers just on HN put into removing humans from their process execution loops. "Finally, blockchain technologies facilitate few, if any, real-economy uses." <- partially true in the present tense (similar to how everything has to be adopted before it reaches mass adoption), but glaringly narrow minded if considering potential uses. Anywhere there is asymmetric trust and power between transacting parties one can imagine the possibility of an application! Not to say its necessarily the best use case, but the lack of effort of consideration seems intentional. There's more, but I hope this provides some context to my initial post
Tricky_Troll 4y ago
If Washington can't resist oil money and gun money why would they resist crypto money? Besides, tech experts aren't really the ones we should be asking about crypto. The ramifications of the technology blockchain has allowed us to build actually creates new paradigms in finance and human coordination, As a result, economists, sociologists and political scientists who are educated on web 3 technology are probably best placed to evaluate what crypto has to offer society.
Dmitriysz 4y ago
Too many people have opinions on what a money is, and not enough people understand what a money is
MrPatan 4y ago
Lobbyists dislike new competing lobbyists, news at eleven.
Layke1123 4y ago
No amount of currency is going to work unless we acknowledge that every human life deserves certain basic rights, like a house, food, health, education, etc. If a job cannot provide these, then they are being exploited and we should stop the exploitation. No one is worth more than any other, and modern society letting this notion not be held first and foremost is a detriment and directly responsible for measuring people in terms of dollars and not inalienable rights.
gfodor 4y ago
This is fundamentally embarrassing to all involved, and will one day feel similar to if a professional software engineer signing a letter condemning Linux as "communist" and demanding the government stop it during the Microsoft heyday. If I had my name on such a letter today it would be something I'd cringe anytime I thought about it.
cdata 4y ago
Even if I didn't already have well-formed opinions on this topic, reading the comments here would be enough to convince me that "tech" does not speak with any sort of unified voice on this topic. I wonder if we will start identifying factions of tech by the political orientations expressed by the technology in question.
- mrpf1ster 4y ago
  One of the (many) problems with cryptocurrency is that it’s holders are financially incentivized to generate hype and get people to buy in to it to drive the value of their coins up. Thus I am extremely skeptical of people with pro-cryptocurrency views on this website. If I had significant holdings in crypto, you can bet I would also be on hacker news trying to legitimize and defend anything to do with crypto to get people to buy in. This is also amplified by the sunken cost fallacy, and not wanting to admit someone convinced you to spend thousands of dollars on fake coins and an ape jpeg for your twitter profile.
  - cdata 4y ago
    I consider myself a centrist in this debate. I don't think "crypto" technology is one giant scam (though there is a lot of scamming taking place), and I don't think it has delivered on most of its promises either (I suspect this will change in time). In your comment I read rhetoric that attempts to de-legitimize the other side by questioning if they are even authentic members of your community. Your comment is not "wrong" but it paints with a very broad brush (something I see a lot of crypto fans doing all the time). It certainly places you in one of two sincere-but-polarized political groups. I wish more people would foster nuanced attitudes about topics such as this. It makes for more interesting discussion.
    - mrpf1ster 4y ago
      I agree that I am definitely on one side of the fence regarding cryptocurrency. And perhaps my comment was a little too inflammatory. However, how do you approach a nuanced debate on this issue when one side has a financial incentive to promote their views and is liable to act in bad faith because of it? Not to mention the proliferation of bots online making it extremely hard to trust that any online discourse is genuine anymore. Not suggesting that half of hacker news is bots, but it only takes a few to seed an idea in a community.
mrpf1ster 4y ago
I feel like half of HN has taken crazy pills with crypto. Cryptocurrency has been a energy wasting, grift enabling nightmare. It will (and already has) go in the history books as an example of the biggest Ponzi scheme amplified in the social media era. I can’t wait until the world moves on. Until then I hope you all enjoy expensive ape jpegs.
smoovb 4y ago
Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither. Human-in-the-loop is costly. Twitter, Youtube and card payments can't manage fraud mitigation well with all-kinds-of-humans-in-the-loop. Can't hurt to give the blockchain folk some space and time to innovate on cheaper, irreversible transactions.
mintyDijon 4y ago
I know that Monero or any other crypto won't be accepted as a "legitimate" digital asset by governing agencies, so this doesn't really impact crypto. If bitcoin became a legal tender then Monero would have that bridge though, so I'm routing for it, but it doesn't effect crypto all that much either way. So many of these "cryptocurrencies" everyone and they're dog loves are just scams. If they get legal support then governments will just have a new set of rich incompetents to bail out... Not that they can't afford it. Total US money supply ~21 Trillion Total monopoly money supply (the boardgame) 20,580 x 250,000,000 = 5.145 Trillion They have some to spare. Real crypto will always be underground. That's where it's ment to be.
Trouble_007 4y ago
>28 May 2022 - Huw van Steenis Co-chair, Global Future Council on Responsive Financial Systems, The World Economic Forum<* "The Future of Finance" - Davos 2022 : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/what-i-learned-davos2022-financial-futures-expert/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/what-i-learned-davos2... -- >The penny has dropped, That without regulation [crypto] can’t inject the trust and stability which a financial system at scale needs. — Huw van Steenis.
Odytrice 4y ago
The solution to the Crypto Regulation Problem by CTO Larsson https://youtu.be/wXI9729DTww https://youtu.be/wXI9729DTww
jonathancrisp 4y ago
This letter is now on FLO. https://floexplorer.net/address/f6shpgd8zrmhhpbe4lot2nzxlxqvgemcrc https://floexplorer.net/address/f6shpgd8zrmhhpbe4lot2nzxlxqv... Also, the first transaction to this address (115f93d1e...) contains its private key.
- jonathancrisp 4y ago
  Oop https://floexplorer.net/address/F6sHpGd8zRMHHPbe4Lot2nZXLXQVGEmcRC https://floexplorer.net/address/F6sHpGd8zRMHHPbe4Lot2nZXLXQV...
  - jonathancrisp 4y ago
    In my defense this is the first day I've used a Kindle, I didn't know they copy uppercase letters as lowercase.
    - jonathancrisp 4y ago
      In my defense this is the first day I've used a Kindle, I didn't know their address bars turn uppercase letters lowercase.*
      - jonathancrisp 4y ago

162 points by thm 4y ago

I signed. I have worked in computational finance for 25 years--building mathematical models and managing their implementation. I have spent the past year anti-fraud modeling. I don't know if this qualifies me as a technologist. The leadership can decide.

eqmvii 4y ago

Thrilled to see organized action on this front. For too long, the only voices in the room were there for hype. It's easy for those with critical views to just ignore it.

dqpb 4y ago
The skeptic voices are almost always as idiotic as the hype voices.

marban 4y ago

https://archive.ph/IRztu https://archive.ph/IRztu

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ghuntley 4y ago

From: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1531920908696358912 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1531920908696358912 Today the global community of technologists sent a letter to Congress urging them to resist the crypto industry’s lobbying influence. The letter was signed by some of the most respected scholars and technologists in our field. And now we need your help. Crypto fraud is spiraling out of control. So-called "web3" is not going great. Regulators are paralyzed and people are getting hurt left and right. It's on us as citizens and responsible engineers to help fix the problem we created by our inaction. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ Crypto lobby is spending millions to tell leaders that crypto-assets are "innovation" and all fintech innovation is unqualifiedly good, no matter the human cost. Today we set the record straight on what computer scientists really think about blockchain. https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1522011168604409856 https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1522011168604409856 "The claims that the blockchain advocates make are not true," said Bruce Schneier. "It's not secure, it's not decentralised. Any system where you forget your password and you lose your life savings is not a safe system," he added. "The computational power is equivalent to what you could do in a centralised way with a $100 computer," said Miguel de Icaza. "We’re essentially wasting millions of dollars’ worth of equipment because we’ve decided that we don’t trust the banking system." The externalities related to crypto investments are neither isolated nor are they growing pains of a nascent tech. They are the inevitable outcomes of a technology that is not built for purpose and will remain forever unsuitable as a foundation for large-scale economic activity. Our call to action is simple. If you are a computer scientist or developer concerned about this issue, we're opening the letter to the wider tech community to sign and tell our policymakers that enough is enough, the status quo has to change. Read the letter and sign at https://concerned.tech/ https://concerned.tech/

rvz 4y ago
Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that. Perhaps these companies waited for this executive order: [3] to go through before getting back into using cryptocurrencies. The reality is that both the hard crypto-skeptics and the crypto-maximalists will be disappointed in achieving their utopian goals of fully stopping crypto and also gaining full adoption of it. Only a few of them will survive the test of time and further regulations. [0] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram-ceo-sees-a-future-in-stablecoin-remittances https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-06-23/algorand-to-record-official-chess-ratings-for-fide-online-arena-s-first-ever-digital-games https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-06-23/algorand... [3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  > Seems to be going great for Stripe [0] and Moneygram [1] and FIDE Online Arena [2], but obviously crypto-skeptics and crypto-maximalists will not tell you that. It must be going disastrously when your 3 examples of things going grate are a start of a pilot project, an announcement of a project and what seems to amount to a sponsorship deal. And you wonder why people don't speak more widely about it.
  - rvz 4y ago
    So those 3 projects I linked to have all been scrapped, abandoned or cancelled?, which would qualify your claim as what you described as 'going disastrously' assuming you have read the whole article and its links then? Can you at least backup your claims on them 'going disastrously' and being cancelled, scrapped or abandoned rather than making very unsubstantiated and baseless claims? Since I have already backed up my claims with links that these projects are still alive? > And you wonder why people don't speak more widely about it. Or is it because these companies know that the ones they selected are suitable for their use cases and are compliant with regulations and are not part of this extreme 'all cryptocurrencies is scam, ponzi, planet incinerating' narrative that these 'technologists' are pushing?

f0e4c2f7 4y ago

I wonder if people lobbied to keep the internet regulated and out of the hands of the general public. Surely someone must have.

Seriomino 4y ago
pjc50 4y ago
They are and they do and it is; even in the US there are intelligence services in the routers and the FBI "seizing" websites. Truly unregulated anything lasts only until it starts causing large enough problems.
jameshart 4y ago
Bad analogy. In this case you have a finance industry trying to get congress to give them free rein to experiment with crypto. They're asking for latitude around things like securities law, financial disclosure requirements, anti-money-laundering, consumer finance protection, etc. - with the excuse being 'we have to be allowed to explore innovative technologies!' And what this letter represents is technologists trying to say, there's nothing sufficiently interesting here technologically speaking to justify granting that license. There's simply no equivalent to this in 'internet' regulation terms. ARPAnet wasn't opened up to commercial use based on finance industry lobbying over the objections of technologists.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  It's the other way around actually: Crypto is currently NOT covered by most of the things you list (securities laws, regulation etc). Coinbase etc just want to keep it (mostly) that way. This is an important difference because really you should be able to explore tech without having to show up-front (to the satisfaction of a government agency or a self appointed group) that it is sufficiently interesting technically to be permitted. Also, I don't entirely buy that Coinbase (specifically) want to prevent regulation. They've worked hard to position themselves as the regulated, above board, professional option in the space. More or Tighter regulation (but not an outright bad) would likely help them as they would likely already be compliant and other providers would either fold or close to US users or scramble to catchup...

jcbrand 4y ago

Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The existing, centralized electronic payment systems are a disaster for financial privacy, and it'll only get worse with CBDCs. If you try to make something private, then you're helping money launderers, criminals and pedophiles. Therefore, the message from the incumbents: Shut up and embrace the unfolding panopticon, otherwise you're a bad person. Also, we reserve the right to dictate what you spend your money on and if you want to donate to causes (e.g. Wikileaks or truckers) that we don't approve of, we'll block your bank account and cut you off from the system. Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. It's enough for you to know that we are experts and have your best interests in mind. You don't need to concern yourself with how much money there is, how its supply is managed or the potential negative effects of our manipulation, you wouldn't understand the implications anyway.

Shish2k 4y ago
“Trust a democratically elected government to act in the interests of its citizens” isn’t ideal, but I’m not sure “trust a combination of tech-bros and anarchy” is an improvement? I’m working in a legal-but-taboo industry, where mastercard and visa don’t want to deal with us, which is a huge pain in the ass - but every time I’ve looked at crypto, it seems to fix one or two problems and introduce 10 more...
- eterevsky 4y ago
  It's an improvement in the sense that it gives you an additional option.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  You're making a mistake in thinking that monetary policy is somehow democratic and that there is some kind of meaningful oversight over it. Central Banks are privately owned and by design are meant to be "independent" of politics (otherwise politicians would use the money printer to continuously to buy votes, destroying the currency in the process). There is no real oversight over central banks and nobody (outside of the peanut gallery) has meaningfully questioned the extreme central bank policies of the last 10 years or asked the central bankers any uncomfortable questions.

newaccount2021 4y ago

marban 4y ago

Coinbase is the new Philip Morris Coinbase led the effort with 26 lobbyists and $1.5mn spent on lobbying in 2021

tromp 4y ago

> Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Is this arguing both for and against the need for financial privacy at the same time?

nl 4y ago
> Is this arguing both for and against the need for financial privacy at the same time? No. It's a perfectly reasonable position to take. I want my transactions to be private to the world but it's reasonable that law enforcement has a method to investigate criminal behavior.
- lui8906 4y ago
  > I want my transactions to be private to the world but it's reasonable that law enforcement has a method to investigate criminal behavior. If law enforcement has a method to investigate your behavior, its not private. You want to have your cake and eat it too. Either you enjoy privacy (and so do criminals) or criminals do not (and neither do you).
  - nl 4y ago
    > If law enforcement has a method to investigate your behavior, its not private. That doesn't seem to reflect how the world has worked up until now. There are plenty of things that are private except with a legal warrant. There's an entire legal history of wiretap laws and circumstances under which law enforcement can open mail I'd invite you to look at.
  - krferriter 4y ago
    It seems like you're making a sweeping argument against the legitimacy of the subpoena and investigatory power of governments. If a government cannot compel private entities to hand over evidence in criminal investigations, their ability to enforce laws falls apart.
eternalban 4y ago

favflam 4y ago

Regulators should take a look at crypto firms pushing 20x leverages derivative products on retail investors. Regulators should pay attention to MEV and order flows on decentralized exchanges. Some blockchains are not permissionless to write to (proof of stake). As such, they are ripe for front running and forced liquidations of retail users.

jimmydorry 4y ago
Increased regulation around leveraged products would be nice! The regulators are already asleep at the wheel in terms of oversight on traditional exchanges (or more specifically what is happening outside of them). Sure, additional oversight would be nice in crypto-land, but increasing the regulator's scope seems like wishful thinking to me. With decentralized exchanges at least, all of the data necessary to audit what is happening is all public and instantly available... so maybe things will flip and the additional oversight for decentralized crypto exchanges will be trivial?
wanda 4y ago
"One of the hallmarks of mania is the rapid rise in complexity and rates of fraud"
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  wasn't early internet a massive rise in complexity? and it came with a ton of fraud too?
  - johnmcgee 4y ago
dropnerd 4y ago
PoW protocols are just as susceptible to MEV (it's called "miner extractable value").

ryanmercer 4y ago

rvz 4y ago
Once again, why are companies like Stripe [0], Moneygram [1], still using cryptocurrencies then? Perhaps they recognise that not all of them are like what you just described, and they waited for further regulations to be clearer and chose mature cryptocurrencies to use for what they needed? Also why haven't the law makers in congress, the SEC and the White House totally banned all of them yet but are instead writing down regulations to determine complaint and non-compliant cryptocurrencies like in ISO 20022? I know people skeptical of crypto are going to hate this and people who are in favour of all cryptos taking over the financial system will also hate this but I have to say it: Not all of them are going to go away and only a few of cryptos will survive past regulations. That is the hard truth I'm afraid. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram-ceo-sees-a-future-in-stablecoin-remittances https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-29/moneygram... [1] https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto https://stripe.com/blog/expanding-global-payouts-with-crypto [2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
- ryanmercer 4y ago
  >Once again, why are companies like Stripe [0], Moneygram [1], still using cryptocurrencies then? Because they want to be part of the current buzzword, just like every company throwing around "AI" and "machine learning". For the most part those companies are also fairly quickly converting any crypto into hard fiat, their risk is entirely minimal, yet the fees they are charging are quite profitable. They're mostly acting as moneychangers, not crypto fanatics. And their adoption doesn't change the fact that you can go on dozens (hundreds?) of DNMs and buy child pornography and drugs from the privacy of your living room. The vast majority of crypto is currently speculation/pump and dump and illegal commerce. Period. It is cancer, electricity-hungry cancer.

LatteLazy 4y ago

This is just another case of "should we ban things because some people are greedy and stupid and will hurt themselves accordingly"...

avg_dev 4y ago

Are non-US citizens allowed to sign? EDIT: Looks like one of the signatures is from Tim Bray, I think he lives in Vancouver.

koonsolo 4y ago

... then they fight you ...

dropnerd 4y ago
we may lose, unless the right people speak up

birracerveza 4y ago

ITT: We should ban emails, or we'll be overrun by nigerian princes!

pjc50 4y ago
Reminded of https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html ; I believe at its peak one third of USENET was spam and one third was "spam cancels", instructions to delete the spam. Email ended up with voluntary-but-effectively-central anti-spam efforts like SpamHaus and the RBL as a result.

igorkraw 4y ago

There's a lot of comments here and do far one thing which is missing to me the fact that we are seeing a classical libertarian playbook at play here: rail against the state while at the same time relying on regulatory capture. All state power and regulation is repugnant, except for the bits that benefit me. It's especially ironic because of the ongoing rhetoric of the value of bitcoin &co being independence from the store of trust that is centralised government and regulations. If they are truly that unstoppable, I'd expect them to not waste their time lobbying the old system and simply build the glorious new crypto economy that's been around the corner for the last 13+ years. But no, instead we are making sure that the money inflow and cash out options stay secure, and keep trying to worm a redundant at best and useless at worst technology into as many use cases as possible in order to show potential and keep the line going up. I'm sure, once there is a decentralised Blockchain Startup talking some municipality of doing their barbers license applications or municipal bonds via NFTs both the value and the democratising effects will kick in.

martialg 4y ago

So - I love thoughtful criticism. My ego doesn’t, but I generally find it very valuable. This letter is honestly not thoughtful criticism. It reads like a group of academics and specialists annoyed they were too early to profit from a technology they spent a lot of time thinking about esoterically and avoids specificity in…well… any meaningful way. It also makes no effort to segment the space. If a critical letter created by supposedly credible experts in a field can’t spare a paragraph to delineate between DeFi, NFTs, L1’s, smart contracts, stablecoins, and whatever else is bothering them then I think it’s fair to assume they don’t know the difference. And if they don’t know the difference then why are we even reading this letter? It’s a waste of our time (and theirs) to try and unpack what is pretty clearly frustration at the fact that the effective application of basic research is all that matters for adoption. I think (at its core) everything crypto is a novel economic incentive layer wrapped in a technology package. This creates the opportunity for blazingly fast user feedback loops and incentive alignment that wasn’t possible before (for better or worse). Taken from that perspective, this letter misses basically everything interesting about the potential of Crypto. So. Read it. Form your own opinion. And move on with your day. Gm everyone

mfitzp 4y ago
> annoyed they were too early to profit "na na sore loser" is quite the angle for someone bemoaning a lack of "thoughtful criticism." Do try and grow up.
- martialg 4y ago
  This is somewhat fair. I guess my speculation stems from a lack of substance to poke holes in? Even going line by line beginning with the first real paragraph we find they launch into a classic straw man of rejecting the "industry claims that crypto-assets an innovative technology that is unreservedly good". Nobody with a whiff of tech acumen in crypto thinks or says this. Additionally, anyone not thoroughly anarcho-Libertarian also gets the need for guardrails to squash scams. A scattershot of the other tangible claims in the paper feel pretty similar. "Append-only digital ledgers are not a new innovation. They have been known and used since 1980 for rather limited functions." <- true, but the also can be said for the evolution of AI models and we see where we're finally at with those today. "Blockchain technology cannot, and will not, have transaction reversal mechanisms because they are antithetical to its base design." <- quasi true depending on the chain, but also we can approximate reversibility with clever escrow-like transactions (I'm actually building this full disclosure) "Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither." <- unequivocally stating blockchain tech can't mitigate fraud in ANY way is silly and reductionist. Deciding human-in-the-loop reversibility is the pinnacle of fraud mitigation is also pretty wild considered how much effort and resources developers just on HN put into removing humans from their process execution loops. "Finally, blockchain technologies facilitate few, if any, real-economy uses." <- partially true in the present tense (similar to how everything has to be adopted before it reaches mass adoption), but glaringly narrow minded if considering potential uses. Anywhere there is asymmetric trust and power between transacting parties one can imagine the possibility of an application! Not to say its necessarily the best use case, but the lack of effort of consideration seems intentional. There's more, but I hope this provides some context to my initial post

Tricky_Troll 4y ago

If Washington can't resist oil money and gun money why would they resist crypto money? Besides, tech experts aren't really the ones we should be asking about crypto. The ramifications of the technology blockchain has allowed us to build actually creates new paradigms in finance and human coordination, As a result, economists, sociologists and political scientists who are educated on web 3 technology are probably best placed to evaluate what crypto has to offer society.

Dmitriysz 4y ago

Too many people have opinions on what a money is, and not enough people understand what a money is

MrPatan 4y ago

Lobbyists dislike new competing lobbyists, news at eleven.

Layke1123 4y ago

No amount of currency is going to work unless we acknowledge that every human life deserves certain basic rights, like a house, food, health, education, etc. If a job cannot provide these, then they are being exploited and we should stop the exploitation. No one is worth more than any other, and modern society letting this notion not be held first and foremost is a detriment and directly responsible for measuring people in terms of dollars and not inalienable rights.

gfodor 4y ago

This is fundamentally embarrassing to all involved, and will one day feel similar to if a professional software engineer signing a letter condemning Linux as "communist" and demanding the government stop it during the Microsoft heyday. If I had my name on such a letter today it would be something I'd cringe anytime I thought about it.

cdata 4y ago

Even if I didn't already have well-formed opinions on this topic, reading the comments here would be enough to convince me that "tech" does not speak with any sort of unified voice on this topic. I wonder if we will start identifying factions of tech by the political orientations expressed by the technology in question.

mrpf1ster 4y ago
One of the (many) problems with cryptocurrency is that it’s holders are financially incentivized to generate hype and get people to buy in to it to drive the value of their coins up. Thus I am extremely skeptical of people with pro-cryptocurrency views on this website. If I had significant holdings in crypto, you can bet I would also be on hacker news trying to legitimize and defend anything to do with crypto to get people to buy in. This is also amplified by the sunken cost fallacy, and not wanting to admit someone convinced you to spend thousands of dollars on fake coins and an ape jpeg for your twitter profile.
- cdata 4y ago
  I consider myself a centrist in this debate. I don't think "crypto" technology is one giant scam (though there is a lot of scamming taking place), and I don't think it has delivered on most of its promises either (I suspect this will change in time). In your comment I read rhetoric that attempts to de-legitimize the other side by questioning if they are even authentic members of your community. Your comment is not "wrong" but it paints with a very broad brush (something I see a lot of crypto fans doing all the time). It certainly places you in one of two sincere-but-polarized political groups. I wish more people would foster nuanced attitudes about topics such as this. It makes for more interesting discussion.
  - mrpf1ster 4y ago
    I agree that I am definitely on one side of the fence regarding cryptocurrency. And perhaps my comment was a little too inflammatory. However, how do you approach a nuanced debate on this issue when one side has a financial incentive to promote their views and is liable to act in bad faith because of it? Not to mention the proliferation of bots online making it extremely hard to trust that any online discourse is genuine anymore. Not suggesting that half of hacker news is bots, but it only takes a few to seed an idea in a community.

mrpf1ster 4y ago

I feel like half of HN has taken crazy pills with crypto. Cryptocurrency has been a energy wasting, grift enabling nightmare. It will (and already has) go in the history books as an example of the biggest Ponzi scheme amplified in the social media era. I can’t wait until the world moves on. Until then I hope you all enjoy expensive ape jpegs.

smoovb 4y ago

Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither. Human-in-the-loop is costly. Twitter, Youtube and card payments can't manage fraud mitigation well with all-kinds-of-humans-in-the-loop. Can't hurt to give the blockchain folk some space and time to innovate on cheaper, irreversible transactions.

mintyDijon 4y ago

I know that Monero or any other crypto won't be accepted as a "legitimate" digital asset by governing agencies, so this doesn't really impact crypto. If bitcoin became a legal tender then Monero would have that bridge though, so I'm routing for it, but it doesn't effect crypto all that much either way. So many of these "cryptocurrencies" everyone and they're dog loves are just scams. If they get legal support then governments will just have a new set of rich incompetents to bail out... Not that they can't afford it. Total US money supply ~21 Trillion Total monopoly money supply (the boardgame) 20,580 x 250,000,000 = 5.145 Trillion They have some to spare. Real crypto will always be underground. That's where it's ment to be.

Trouble_007 4y ago

>28 May 2022 - Huw van Steenis Co-chair, Global Future Council on Responsive Financial Systems, The World Economic Forum<* "The Future of Finance" - Davos 2022 : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/what-i-learned-davos2022-financial-futures-expert/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/what-i-learned-davos2... -- >The penny has dropped, That without regulation [crypto] can’t inject the trust and stability which a financial system at scale needs. — Huw van Steenis.

Odytrice 4y ago

The solution to the Crypto Regulation Problem by CTO Larsson https://youtu.be/wXI9729DTww https://youtu.be/wXI9729DTww

jonathancrisp 4y ago

This letter is now on FLO. https://floexplorer.net/address/f6shpgd8zrmhhpbe4lot2nzxlxqvgemcrc https://floexplorer.net/address/f6shpgd8zrmhhpbe4lot2nzxlxqv... Also, the first transaction to this address (115f93d1e...) contains its private key.

jonathancrisp 4y ago
Oop https://floexplorer.net/address/F6sHpGd8zRMHHPbe4Lot2nZXLXQVGEmcRC https://floexplorer.net/address/F6sHpGd8zRMHHPbe4Lot2nZXLXQV...
- jonathancrisp 4y ago
  In my defense this is the first day I've used a Kindle, I didn't know they copy uppercase letters as lowercase.
  - jonathancrisp 4y ago
    In my defense this is the first day I've used a Kindle, I didn't know their address bars turn uppercase letters lowercase.*
    - jonathancrisp 4y ago