9 ms·

Letter in Support of Responsible Crypto Policy

26 points by noch 4y ago

jkarni 4y ago
I played a lot of chess as a kid. The story of Kasparov beating the pawn-of-the-regime Karpov was quite thrilling then. Strange twist that he became a pawn of ultra-capitalism - Peter Thiel, cryptocurrencies, NFTs [0], all under the guise of morality. Sad. [0] https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/12/14/garry-kasparov-leads-new-nft-auction-of-star-collectibles https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/12/14/garry-kasparov-l...
- _zllx 4y ago
  Read the article looking for any mention of Peter Thiel, couldn't find one. Tried Ctrl+F for thiel, no results. Cryptocurrency isn't all about Peter Thiel. Plenty of people want to use NFTs to earn money for their art or other achievements, and plenty of people are doing it outside of energy-hungry platforms like Ethereum. What's immoral is to deny anyone that opportunity under the guise of morality. Yes, the typical hype projects like BAYC are garbage, but that shouldn't invalidate everything.
  - jkarni 4y ago
    Thiel is one of the big donors to HRF, the foundation Kasparov and another co-signatory, Gladstein, work for.
    - _zllx 4y ago
      I'll take your word for it that Kasparov may be unfortunately engaged in shady dealings, but I maintain that this should not condemn cryptocurrency tech. I don't imagine the recent rise of the anti-bitcoin movement is squeaky clean either; they're not doing all this PR work out of the goodness of their hearts.
vesinisa 4y ago
What's next? Letters in support by money launderers, drug cartels, online scammers, ransomware authors and pedophiles? El Salvador made it a government policy to adopt Bitcoin as an official currency and it is not going too well - it remains a novelty used by just a few privileged individuals. As these technologies are not viable for everyday use, a country with unstable local currency will in reality start using USD or EUR based shadow banking instead of BTC/stablecoins. This is most recently evident in Turkey where people moved to EUR & USD after lira's collapse in late 2021.
- once_inc 4y ago
  Check Alex Gladstein(one of the writers)'s weblog and check some of his articles. Bitcoin is inherently a-political and inclusive; it doesn't know who is doing what with bitcoin at the protocol level. Yes, this allows scammers et al to do bad things, but it also makes financial inclusion possible for most of the people currently gatekept away from financial inclusion. El Salvador is frontrunning, and acceptance isn't at the levels the government had hoped, but it is still early and most people will need time to learn to adjust and find out how everything works.
  - vesinisa 4y ago
    Right. It's always "early" for Bitcoin. It's been "early" for 13 years now. A high time someone blew the whistle on this destructive madness.
    - once_inc 4y ago
      My Early reference is in relation the the El Salvador bitcoin legal tender law, which is less than a year old. What is destructive exactly?
      - vesinisa 4y ago
        Bitcoin's resource use, comparable to a mid-size country: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ Lacking viable uses outside of the criminal underworld and speculation, this is wasted energy. And it will only keep growing unless regulators step in.
astoor 4y ago
The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was stolen by scammers pretending to be Ukraininans, and more much money was transferred more securely and efficiently through traditional means), but any good that did was completely undone many times over by Russia's use of cryptocurrency. Put politely, cryptocurrency is a net negative for our society and environment (by a considerable margin).
- yoaviram 4y ago
  There's a bigger picture: http://nonstructured.com/in-defense-of-web3/ http://nonstructured.com/in-defense-of-web3/
- _zllx 4y ago
  Are there any resources to read about Russia's use of cryptocurrency during wartime? It seems purely hypothetical at this stage. I thought, like China, they would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked)
  - giaour 4y ago
    > I thought, like China, [Russia] would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked) You're kind of proving GP's point here. Evading capital controls is a criminal activity, and, though this is an example of a crime that we would all agree is morally righteous, you're still arguing that cryptocurrency is good because it makes crime easier.
    - _zllx 4y ago
      Good catch, but assuming evading capital controls is crime, then this becomes a debate of victimless crime. Under normal circumstances, it's not victimless, because it can hurt the economy and everyone in it. Who is the victim of a Russian civilian evading their establishment? I don't see the criminals running the establishment as a victim; they already did the most damage to their economy, and they're still the perpetrators of other crimes with many victims. Cryptocurrency makes everything pertaining to money easier, unfortunately crime too depending on what is considered crime, and I think it's still a net benefit. No matter what happens, we can't rely on implicit control of money as an easy way to punish crime anymore, no amount of debating or essays or letters will close that box.
jagged-chisel 4y ago
Cryptocurrency policy. Not encryption policy. Yes, I’m still having this problem.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
You-Are-Right 4y ago

26 points by noch 4y ago

I played a lot of chess as a kid. The story of Kasparov beating the pawn-of-the-regime Karpov was quite thrilling then. Strange twist that he became a pawn of ultra-capitalism - Peter Thiel, cryptocurrencies, NFTs [0], all under the guise of morality. Sad. [0] https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/12/14/garry-kasparov-leads-new-nft-auction-of-star-collectibles https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/12/14/garry-kasparov-l...

_zllx 4y ago
Read the article looking for any mention of Peter Thiel, couldn't find one. Tried Ctrl+F for thiel, no results. Cryptocurrency isn't all about Peter Thiel. Plenty of people want to use NFTs to earn money for their art or other achievements, and plenty of people are doing it outside of energy-hungry platforms like Ethereum. What's immoral is to deny anyone that opportunity under the guise of morality. Yes, the typical hype projects like BAYC are garbage, but that shouldn't invalidate everything.
- jkarni 4y ago
  Thiel is one of the big donors to HRF, the foundation Kasparov and another co-signatory, Gladstein, work for.
  - _zllx 4y ago
    I'll take your word for it that Kasparov may be unfortunately engaged in shady dealings, but I maintain that this should not condemn cryptocurrency tech. I don't imagine the recent rise of the anti-bitcoin movement is squeaky clean either; they're not doing all this PR work out of the goodness of their hearts.

vesinisa 4y ago

What's next? Letters in support by money launderers, drug cartels, online scammers, ransomware authors and pedophiles? El Salvador made it a government policy to adopt Bitcoin as an official currency and it is not going too well - it remains a novelty used by just a few privileged individuals. As these technologies are not viable for everyday use, a country with unstable local currency will in reality start using USD or EUR based shadow banking instead of BTC/stablecoins. This is most recently evident in Turkey where people moved to EUR & USD after lira's collapse in late 2021.

once_inc 4y ago
Check Alex Gladstein(one of the writers)'s weblog and check some of his articles. Bitcoin is inherently a-political and inclusive; it doesn't know who is doing what with bitcoin at the protocol level. Yes, this allows scammers et al to do bad things, but it also makes financial inclusion possible for most of the people currently gatekept away from financial inclusion. El Salvador is frontrunning, and acceptance isn't at the levels the government had hoped, but it is still early and most people will need time to learn to adjust and find out how everything works.
- vesinisa 4y ago
  Right. It's always "early" for Bitcoin. It's been "early" for 13 years now. A high time someone blew the whistle on this destructive madness.
  - once_inc 4y ago
    My Early reference is in relation the the El Salvador bitcoin legal tender law, which is less than a year old. What is destructive exactly?
    - vesinisa 4y ago
      Bitcoin's resource use, comparable to a mid-size country: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ Lacking viable uses outside of the criminal underworld and speculation, this is wasted energy. And it will only keep growing unless regulators step in.

astoor 4y ago

The problem is that any "legitimate" use case is negated many times over by all the illegitimate ones. It would be like saying let's legitimise terrorism because sometimes the terrorists might (just might) be freedom fighters, when in actual fact terrorism on the whole does way more harm than it does good. In the opening example, sure some money may have got through to Ukraine via cryptocurrency (although some was stolen by scammers pretending to be Ukraininans, and more much money was transferred more securely and efficiently through traditional means), but any good that did was completely undone many times over by Russia's use of cryptocurrency. Put politely, cryptocurrency is a net negative for our society and environment (by a considerable margin).

yoaviram 4y ago
There's a bigger picture: http://nonstructured.com/in-defense-of-web3/ http://nonstructured.com/in-defense-of-web3/
_zllx 4y ago
Are there any resources to read about Russia's use of cryptocurrency during wartime? It seems purely hypothetical at this stage. I thought, like China, they would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked)
- giaour 4y ago
  > I thought, like China, [Russia] would ultimately ban it to prevent civilians from easily exiting the Russian economy. (another legitimate use of cryptocurrency that is often overlooked) You're kind of proving GP's point here. Evading capital controls is a criminal activity, and, though this is an example of a crime that we would all agree is morally righteous, you're still arguing that cryptocurrency is good because it makes crime easier.
  - _zllx 4y ago
    Good catch, but assuming evading capital controls is crime, then this becomes a debate of victimless crime. Under normal circumstances, it's not victimless, because it can hurt the economy and everyone in it. Who is the victim of a Russian civilian evading their establishment? I don't see the criminals running the establishment as a victim; they already did the most damage to their economy, and they're still the perpetrators of other crimes with many victims. Cryptocurrency makes everything pertaining to money easier, unfortunately crime too depending on what is considered crime, and I think it's still a net benefit. No matter what happens, we can't rely on implicit control of money as an easy way to punish crime anymore, no amount of debating or essays or letters will close that box.

jagged-chisel 4y ago

Cryptocurrency policy. Not encryption policy. Yes, I’m still having this problem.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

You-Are-Right 4y ago