4 ms·

Banning is the "easy solution"--just as easy as banning alcohol, drugs, and gambling has been in the past. What banning money exchanges will do is 1) drive it u

by np- 4y ago

Banning is the "easy solution"--just as easy as banning alcohol, drugs, and gambling has been in the past. What banning money exchanges will do is 1) drive it underground to money exchanges being done by unsavory characters who have no issues committing crimes up to and including physical violence, 2) Drive up enforcement costs and create an entire police enterprise whose mandate and funding depend on hunting these unsavory characters, 3) Deprive Uncle Sam of any and all tax revenue from capital gains, etc, etc... I mean, all of this literally happened with alcohol, with cannabis, etc etc. Are we just going to keep repeating this cycle forever.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago
> Drive up enforcement costs and create an entire police enterprise This is a feature if you're the government.
Nursie 4y ago
Those other things are desirable in themselves. Cryptocurrency seems unlikely to fit the same mould.
- SlickNixon 4y ago
  Wait until you find out what people buy with cryptocurrency.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    Sure, but at that point the cryptocurrency is a means to an end, not the end itself.
    - SlickNixon 4y ago
      A buyer's intentions after the purchase of an illicit item have zero relevance to the evasion of law enforcement during the purchase itself.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        I'm not sure I understand what this is a response to. The assertion was that banning things is counterproductive, just look how much it failed for alcohol/drugs/gambling. My counterpoint is that these things are desirable in themselves, cryptocurrency isn't really. Your comeback is that it gets used for some of these things like drugs and gambling - yes, it does, that's a fine point. I agree My response is that OK great, but cryptocurrency is a means there, not an end. And then you've said something about enforcement and intentions. Perhaps I should have expanded on my last post. What I meant is if cryptocurrency is harder to get, I don't think we'll see the exact same demand phenomenon as we would with those others things, even though cryptocurrency is used to pay for them right now, because cryptocurrency is not the object of desire itself. Make drugs illegal, people still want drugs, so they go to the black market, which thrives, criminals make bank etc. They take risks to get the drugs. Make gambling illegal, people still want to gamble, so they go to the gambling black market, which thrives, criminals make bank etc. They take risks to gamble. Make cryptocurrency illegal, people still want ... drugs and gambling, so they either go to the crypto black market or maybe they find another way to pay for the drugs and gambling? They take risks to get drugs or gamble, not specifically for the crypto. So I don't think this is wrong - > A buyer's intentions after the purchase of an illicit item have zero relevance to the evasion of law enforcement during the purchase itself. However I also don't think it really addresses the point that I was making, that while I agree prohibition has a history of not doing what it's supposed to, in the case of cryptocurrency I don't think it's safe to assume the same historical pattern would play out, because (for most people who aren't ideologically wed to it) cryptocurrency is second-order desirable, rather than the object of desire itself.
        SlickNixon 4y ago
        I understand your point more fully now, and agree that my second reply was somewhat orthogonal to it. Crypto is a huge risk minimizer for buying illicit goods. Unless you make the punishment for purchasing cryptocurrencies severe (on par with buying/possession of the goods in question) you won't remove the motivation for using them as an intermediate means of exchange. If you do make the punishment sufficiently severe, you'll be sending people to jail for the exchange of the equivalent of digitally encrypted beanie babies. Have you thought through the implications of that? For whom is that solution easy? Cryptocurrencies are a second-order desirable in the same way that meeting in private, instead of public, is. Would you support criminalizing private meetings and encrypted communications to the same end?
deleted 4y ago
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by np- 4y ago

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

> Drive up enforcement costs and create an entire police enterprise This is a feature if you're the government.

Nursie 4y ago

Those other things are desirable in themselves. Cryptocurrency seems unlikely to fit the same mould.

SlickNixon 4y ago
Wait until you find out what people buy with cryptocurrency.
- Nursie 4y ago
  Sure, but at that point the cryptocurrency is a means to an end, not the end itself.
  - SlickNixon 4y ago
    A buyer's intentions after the purchase of an illicit item have zero relevance to the evasion of law enforcement during the purchase itself.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      I'm not sure I understand what this is a response to. The assertion was that banning things is counterproductive, just look how much it failed for alcohol/drugs/gambling. My counterpoint is that these things are desirable in themselves, cryptocurrency isn't really. Your comeback is that it gets used for some of these things like drugs and gambling - yes, it does, that's a fine point. I agree My response is that OK great, but cryptocurrency is a means there, not an end. And then you've said something about enforcement and intentions. Perhaps I should have expanded on my last post. What I meant is if cryptocurrency is harder to get, I don't think we'll see the exact same demand phenomenon as we would with those others things, even though cryptocurrency is used to pay for them right now, because cryptocurrency is not the object of desire itself. Make drugs illegal, people still want drugs, so they go to the black market, which thrives, criminals make bank etc. They take risks to get the drugs. Make gambling illegal, people still want to gamble, so they go to the gambling black market, which thrives, criminals make bank etc. They take risks to gamble. Make cryptocurrency illegal, people still want ... drugs and gambling, so they either go to the crypto black market or maybe they find another way to pay for the drugs and gambling? They take risks to get drugs or gamble, not specifically for the crypto. So I don't think this is wrong - > A buyer's intentions after the purchase of an illicit item have zero relevance to the evasion of law enforcement during the purchase itself. However I also don't think it really addresses the point that I was making, that while I agree prohibition has a history of not doing what it's supposed to, in the case of cryptocurrency I don't think it's safe to assume the same historical pattern would play out, because (for most people who aren't ideologically wed to it) cryptocurrency is second-order desirable, rather than the object of desire itself.
      - SlickNixon 4y ago
        I understand your point more fully now, and agree that my second reply was somewhat orthogonal to it. Crypto is a huge risk minimizer for buying illicit goods. Unless you make the punishment for purchasing cryptocurrencies severe (on par with buying/possession of the goods in question) you won't remove the motivation for using them as an intermediate means of exchange. If you do make the punishment sufficiently severe, you'll be sending people to jail for the exchange of the equivalent of digitally encrypted beanie babies. Have you thought through the implications of that? For whom is that solution easy? Cryptocurrencies are a second-order desirable in the same way that meeting in private, instead of public, is. Would you support criminalizing private meetings and encrypted communications to the same end?

deleted 4y ago

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