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I urge lawmakers to completely regulate this so called 'crypto industry' before this number goes to $14B or higher in 2023. Crypto, NFTs, Blockchain and the re

I urge lawmakers to completely regulate this so called 'crypto industry' before this number goes to $14B or higher in 2023. Crypto, NFTs, Blockchain and the rest of this nonsense should never have existed in the first place. And yet we enter another year where there is still no legitimate usecase for all of this whatsoever.

seanw444 4y ago
Or we could spend less money on an ad campaign to explain what crypto actually is, and what it's good use cases are, and what it's not good for. Rather than, you know, binding it up in vague and obnoxious legalese.
- sumeno 4y ago
  An ad campaign for buying drugs and avoiding sanctions isn't going to go over very well
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    RT might take you up on it.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
  The "not good for" list is "practically everything." The "good use cases" effectively don't exist. Every crypto solution falls into one or more of these buckets... - Has substantial centralized elements, could be done vastly more efficiently with a DB - "Decentralized" but still requires some central authority to provide critical features (particularly any form of conflict resolution) - Depends on one or more smart contracts to effectively be perfect code with no bugs or unintended behaviors - Primarily used for illicit goods and services I'd prefer my tax dollars to not be spend advertising negligible positives. Now an ad campaign focused on crypto's problems? That I could get behind, would have far less peripheral damage potential.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Crypto has very limited good use cases. In countries where inflation has gone haywire (worse than Bitcoin) and the government and banks have put strict controls on the ability to exchange local currency for another, cryptocurrency can be a last resort for keeping money in some kind of value store exactly because the government can't regulate it effectively. With decentralised payment providers, this allows for normal exchange of money for goods and services in a time when your last paycheck may not be enough to pay for a single bread the next month. It's hardly usable in countries with stable economies, but in countries like Turkey and Argentina I can see crypto being a better alternative than the official currency. It just comes with the caveat that the unregulated nature of the money means it can stop existing or become worthless without warning and that a power or internet cutoff will make your funds useless. Smuggling foreign currency can be illegal or even dangerous but crypto can often be bought from the comfort of one's own home. Balancing that risk against the terrible mismanagement of one's nation's official currency can be a worthwhile effort for a very select group of people.
    - schmuelio 4y ago
      > In countries where inflation has gone haywire (worse than Bitcoin) Other comment has addressed the rest, I just want to point out that Bitcoin (and most other cryptocurrencies) are not _inflating_, they're _deflating_. If the buying power of a currency goes up over time then it is deflating. While this makes it (arguably) good for speculation, it actively punishes using it as a currency since what you buy today will be cheaper tomorrow. This - in turn - punishes the poor that would have to use crypto for necessities (food, shelter, water, etc.) since they will always have to buy necessities when they are expensive (today) rather than when they are cheap (tomorrow). Just felt compelled to add this since a lot of crypto discourse talks about how the traditional market is seeing record inflation or whatever, and crypto doesn't suffer from as much inflation. While this is _technically_ true, the reality is that a deflationary currency is significantly worse for the people using it than an inflationary one. Especially when it comes to things like concentration of wealth in the hands of a few rich people.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
- pohl 4y ago
  That'll never happen. Honest explanations don't help anyone pump & dump.
fallingknife 4y ago
Some of what is in the article is about exchanges losing massive amounts to hacks, in which case I would be inclined to agree that regulation of this space is needed, at least as far as ensuring customers get their money back in this case. But most of what is in there is about things like stealing Bored Apes, which is basically just phishing, or NFT value collapse, which is just a speculative bubble popping. In the first case, I don't see any way that regulators are going to be able to stop phishing. And in the second, that's just a standard bubble. No fraud involved. Not much different that the Beanie Baby speculative bubble. I don't really think there's a government role in preventing speculative nonsense like that. Fuck around and find out.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > ...or NFT value collapse, which is just a speculative bubble popping. > And in the second, that's just a standard bubble. No fraud involved. I disagree. There are plenty of shitty coin/NFT projects marketed using celebrities/influencers where the project founders have no intention of delivering on their promises. They're just there to pump and dump, which is a type[1] of fraud. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump

seanw444 4y ago

Or we could spend less money on an ad campaign to explain what crypto actually is, and what it's good use cases are, and what it's not good for. Rather than, you know, binding it up in vague and obnoxious legalese.

sumeno 4y ago
An ad campaign for buying drugs and avoiding sanctions isn't going to go over very well
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  RT might take you up on it.
sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
The "not good for" list is "practically everything." The "good use cases" effectively don't exist. Every crypto solution falls into one or more of these buckets... - Has substantial centralized elements, could be done vastly more efficiently with a DB - "Decentralized" but still requires some central authority to provide critical features (particularly any form of conflict resolution) - Depends on one or more smart contracts to effectively be perfect code with no bugs or unintended behaviors - Primarily used for illicit goods and services I'd prefer my tax dollars to not be spend advertising negligible positives. Now an ad campaign focused on crypto's problems? That I could get behind, would have far less peripheral damage potential.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Crypto has very limited good use cases. In countries where inflation has gone haywire (worse than Bitcoin) and the government and banks have put strict controls on the ability to exchange local currency for another, cryptocurrency can be a last resort for keeping money in some kind of value store exactly because the government can't regulate it effectively. With decentralised payment providers, this allows for normal exchange of money for goods and services in a time when your last paycheck may not be enough to pay for a single bread the next month. It's hardly usable in countries with stable economies, but in countries like Turkey and Argentina I can see crypto being a better alternative than the official currency. It just comes with the caveat that the unregulated nature of the money means it can stop existing or become worthless without warning and that a power or internet cutoff will make your funds useless. Smuggling foreign currency can be illegal or even dangerous but crypto can often be bought from the comfort of one's own home. Balancing that risk against the terrible mismanagement of one's nation's official currency can be a worthwhile effort for a very select group of people.
  - schmuelio 4y ago
    > In countries where inflation has gone haywire (worse than Bitcoin) Other comment has addressed the rest, I just want to point out that Bitcoin (and most other cryptocurrencies) are not _inflating_, they're _deflating_. If the buying power of a currency goes up over time then it is deflating. While this makes it (arguably) good for speculation, it actively punishes using it as a currency since what you buy today will be cheaper tomorrow. This - in turn - punishes the poor that would have to use crypto for necessities (food, shelter, water, etc.) since they will always have to buy necessities when they are expensive (today) rather than when they are cheap (tomorrow). Just felt compelled to add this since a lot of crypto discourse talks about how the traditional market is seeing record inflation or whatever, and crypto doesn't suffer from as much inflation. While this is _technically_ true, the reality is that a deflationary currency is significantly worse for the people using it than an inflationary one. Especially when it comes to things like concentration of wealth in the hands of a few rich people.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
pohl 4y ago
That'll never happen. Honest explanations don't help anyone pump & dump.

fallingknife 4y ago

Some of what is in the article is about exchanges losing massive amounts to hacks, in which case I would be inclined to agree that regulation of this space is needed, at least as far as ensuring customers get their money back in this case. But most of what is in there is about things like stealing Bored Apes, which is basically just phishing, or NFT value collapse, which is just a speculative bubble popping. In the first case, I don't see any way that regulators are going to be able to stop phishing. And in the second, that's just a standard bubble. No fraud involved. Not much different that the Beanie Baby speculative bubble. I don't really think there's a government role in preventing speculative nonsense like that. Fuck around and find out.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> ...or NFT value collapse, which is just a speculative bubble popping. > And in the second, that's just a standard bubble. No fraud involved. I disagree. There are plenty of shitty coin/NFT projects marketed using celebrities/influencers where the project founders have no intention of delivering on their promises. They're just there to pump and dump, which is a type[1] of fraud. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump