10 ms·

Let me get this straight: the world's largest Bitcoin exchange just announced that they will no longer allow retail customers to withdraw cash, and you're telli

Let me get this straight: the world's largest Bitcoin exchange just announced that they will no longer allow retail customers to withdraw cash, and you're telling us, with a straight face, that this is good for Bitcoin?

Gigachad 4y ago
These comments make more sense when you realise that bitcoin is more of a religion and way of life than a technology. Nothing can ever be bad for bitcoin because it’s an accepted fact of life that bitcoin _is_ the future.
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  You can say the same about fiat too.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    Just calling money fiat is like calling people "infidel" :D
    - dgellow 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Bitcoin maximalism has immediate parallels to religious doctrine that regular currencies do not. 1) Divine creator whose existence is impossible to prove 2) A holy book: (whitepaper) that's taken as absolute truth and therefore doesn't require any revisions or updates. Proposed changes to core beliefs create split factions (BTC v BCH, Old v New Testament, or the Shia-Sunni split in Islam). 3) Monotheism: Belief in the primacy of Bitcoin blockchain over all other competing chains, and warning of divine punishment for apostates (NGMI).
    - datadata 4y ago
      Well before bitcoin, I never felt comfortable with dollar bills stating "In God We Trust" on the back.
      - jakelazaroff 4y ago
        They were actually introduced to dollar bills (and mandated on all money) relatively recently: in the 1950s, as a symbolic effort to oppose communism.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - Gemoto 4y ago
    Fiat is the best fine tuned PoS system we have. Is it perfect? No. Is it ages ahead of Bitcoin? Yes
- notch656c 4y ago
  Which is why even though I don't believe in the bible I would be happy to own a pallet of fancy ones to hawk. I don't believe in crypto. But I know plenty of religious zealots to sell it to. So I'm happy to own it. My bet is it isn't a dying religion.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    I admire the honesty around investing in the unsophisticated.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Think about whole institutions created to indoctrinate people roughly from birth to remain unsophisticated.
      - unityByFreedom 4y ago
        [flagged]
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Sorry?
        unityByFreedom 4y ago
        [flagged]
        jacquesm 4y ago
        You did not name atheism you made some weird statement about 'the other institution' and how they would prevent births, which makes zero sense at all. Women should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies, atheists and religious folks alike and those that have no horse in the race should stfu because all they are doing is telling other people how they should live, something that unfortunately is very common.
- jcpham2 4y ago
  On the one hand in a cynical and sarcastic way, I wholeheartedly agree with you. OTOH sha256 proof of work mining is a billion dollar industry and the Bitcoin mining hashrate just hit an all time high after a long protracted bear market. Miners are in the black, price will follow Edit: a word
- olalonde 4y ago
  I wonder if people made similar observations when commodity money or paper money were invented...
pid-1 4y ago
Few understand.
- m3kw9 4y ago
  That’s not a good thing actually
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - danrocks 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - longitudinal93 4y ago
        [flagged]
int_19h 4y ago
Anything that increases the probability of another crash large enough to significantly reduce the amount of speculation is good for the ecosystem long term. Not so good for the "store of value" believers, though.
015a 4y ago
I don't hold a strong opinion one way or the other, but let me make an argument for why it isn't necessarily all bad (which: is different from it being a "good thing", to be clear). Blur your eyes enough and any "thing" in an economic system is (at least) one of: Consumable, Utilitarian, Currency, or an Asset. The fun thing about economics is: which category some Thing lands in depends as much on its Design as its Perception; cars are generally Utilitarian, somewhat Consumable, but rare ones could be classified as Assets. Houses are, generally, Utilitarian Assets in the United States; but in many countries they're Utilitarian Consumables. Perception matters. Critical characteristics of an asset: it has a dynamic market-priced value denominated in a currency; that market has a meaningful level of liquidity to support its actors; and its actors, to varying degrees, Perceive the value of this asset as priced to that currency to increase over time. There are obviously a ton of different, diverse voices in every community, but a big problem the "crypto is money" crowd has had is that, traditionally, crypto has been perceived as an Asset, not a Currency; even though its functionally good at being one. The vast majority of actors in the crypto economic system perpetuate this; we talk about Ethereum as it is priced to USD, we talk about Bitcoin going down 20%, etc. There's an argument to be made, though I don't totally believe it, that forcing crypto to become more divorced from traditional currencies could, especially outside of the developed US-led western world, force it into a place where it starts looking less like an asset and more like a currency. The recent scandals, schemes, and restrictions concerning traditional-to-crypto bridge systems are all doing a fairly good job of perpetuating this; but this ultimately comes down to what you mean by "good for Bitcoin". None of what has happened to crypto over the past two years will be good for its USD-denominated market price. But; its utility as a currency hasn't changed, and would actually become more stable as perception on its purpose changes and its exit liquidity reduces. To spin a metaphor: Britain formed the US as a colony, and in the early years the US was tremendously reliant on trade and resources from Britain. With that reliance came a natural cap on the US's ability to grow; and the conditions of that reliance (e.g. taxes) eventually made the relationship unsustainable. Severing that relationship was bloody and ugly; but now, the US is far more powerful. In this metaphor, that relationship is the traditional-to-crypto bridge; and severing it is a reduction of traditional-to-crypto market liquidity. To be clear, I'm not arguing this will be good for crypto no matter the camp you're in. Just that, this would be the argument if you are in the crypto-is-money camp. My opinion is: crypto-as-money is still far, far too nascent; the world's assetization of crypto over the past decade has mostly destroyed any hope of it becoming money without some kind of civilization-level shock to existing money systems (which would be just as likely to impact the vast network of computer systems necessary to keep crypto running). And even if it did happen, at any level of significance, there are no existing crypto systems I'm aware of which would actually make Healthy Money at a country/regional/global macroeconomic scale (not remotely high-scale enough & too much deflation).
powerapple 4y ago
I didn't read the article, only the title, it seems to suggest banks stops transfers. Are you sure this is initiated by Binance? Stopped by bank: this could indicate there are more regulation to come in near future Stopped by Biance: is there a problem with the platform
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
Please don't take HN threads into generic flamewar. We've been through this a zillion times. It never goes anywhere good and this time we got religious hell. The guidelines ask you not to do this for good reason! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34472790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34472790. It's true that the comment you were replying to was generic and therefore not good, but yours was repetitive generic flamebait and therefore much worse. Please don't post like that here. We want curious conversation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Gigachad 4y ago

These comments make more sense when you realise that bitcoin is more of a religion and way of life than a technology. Nothing can ever be bad for bitcoin because it’s an accepted fact of life that bitcoin _is_ the future.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago
You can say the same about fiat too.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Just calling money fiat is like calling people "infidel" :D
  - dgellow 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
- rchaud 4y ago
  Bitcoin maximalism has immediate parallels to religious doctrine that regular currencies do not. 1) Divine creator whose existence is impossible to prove 2) A holy book: (whitepaper) that's taken as absolute truth and therefore doesn't require any revisions or updates. Proposed changes to core beliefs create split factions (BTC v BCH, Old v New Testament, or the Shia-Sunni split in Islam). 3) Monotheism: Belief in the primacy of Bitcoin blockchain over all other competing chains, and warning of divine punishment for apostates (NGMI).
  - datadata 4y ago
    Well before bitcoin, I never felt comfortable with dollar bills stating "In God We Trust" on the back.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      They were actually introduced to dollar bills (and mandated on all money) relatively recently: in the 1950s, as a symbolic effort to oppose communism.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- Gemoto 4y ago
  Fiat is the best fine tuned PoS system we have. Is it perfect? No. Is it ages ahead of Bitcoin? Yes
notch656c 4y ago
Which is why even though I don't believe in the bible I would be happy to own a pallet of fancy ones to hawk. I don't believe in crypto. But I know plenty of religious zealots to sell it to. So I'm happy to own it. My bet is it isn't a dying religion.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  I admire the honesty around investing in the unsophisticated.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Think about whole institutions created to indoctrinate people roughly from birth to remain unsophisticated.
    - unityByFreedom 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Sorry?
        unityByFreedom 4y ago
        [flagged]
        jacquesm 4y ago
        You did not name atheism you made some weird statement about 'the other institution' and how they would prevent births, which makes zero sense at all. Women should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies, atheists and religious folks alike and those that have no horse in the race should stfu because all they are doing is telling other people how they should live, something that unfortunately is very common.
jcpham2 4y ago
On the one hand in a cynical and sarcastic way, I wholeheartedly agree with you. OTOH sha256 proof of work mining is a billion dollar industry and the Bitcoin mining hashrate just hit an all time high after a long protracted bear market. Miners are in the black, price will follow Edit: a word
olalonde 4y ago
I wonder if people made similar observations when commodity money or paper money were invented...

pid-1 4y ago

Few understand.

m3kw9 4y ago
That’s not a good thing actually
- xwolfi 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - danrocks 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - longitudinal93 4y ago
      [flagged]

int_19h 4y ago

Anything that increases the probability of another crash large enough to significantly reduce the amount of speculation is good for the ecosystem long term. Not so good for the "store of value" believers, though.

015a 4y ago

I don't hold a strong opinion one way or the other, but let me make an argument for why it isn't necessarily all bad (which: is different from it being a "good thing", to be clear). Blur your eyes enough and any "thing" in an economic system is (at least) one of: Consumable, Utilitarian, Currency, or an Asset. The fun thing about economics is: which category some Thing lands in depends as much on its Design as its Perception; cars are generally Utilitarian, somewhat Consumable, but rare ones could be classified as Assets. Houses are, generally, Utilitarian Assets in the United States; but in many countries they're Utilitarian Consumables. Perception matters. Critical characteristics of an asset: it has a dynamic market-priced value denominated in a currency; that market has a meaningful level of liquidity to support its actors; and its actors, to varying degrees, Perceive the value of this asset as priced to that currency to increase over time. There are obviously a ton of different, diverse voices in every community, but a big problem the "crypto is money" crowd has had is that, traditionally, crypto has been perceived as an Asset, not a Currency; even though its functionally good at being one. The vast majority of actors in the crypto economic system perpetuate this; we talk about Ethereum as it is priced to USD, we talk about Bitcoin going down 20%, etc. There's an argument to be made, though I don't totally believe it, that forcing crypto to become more divorced from traditional currencies could, especially outside of the developed US-led western world, force it into a place where it starts looking less like an asset and more like a currency. The recent scandals, schemes, and restrictions concerning traditional-to-crypto bridge systems are all doing a fairly good job of perpetuating this; but this ultimately comes down to what you mean by "good for Bitcoin". None of what has happened to crypto over the past two years will be good for its USD-denominated market price. But; its utility as a currency hasn't changed, and would actually become more stable as perception on its purpose changes and its exit liquidity reduces. To spin a metaphor: Britain formed the US as a colony, and in the early years the US was tremendously reliant on trade and resources from Britain. With that reliance came a natural cap on the US's ability to grow; and the conditions of that reliance (e.g. taxes) eventually made the relationship unsustainable. Severing that relationship was bloody and ugly; but now, the US is far more powerful. In this metaphor, that relationship is the traditional-to-crypto bridge; and severing it is a reduction of traditional-to-crypto market liquidity. To be clear, I'm not arguing this will be good for crypto no matter the camp you're in. Just that, this would be the argument if you are in the crypto-is-money camp. My opinion is: crypto-as-money is still far, far too nascent; the world's assetization of crypto over the past decade has mostly destroyed any hope of it becoming money without some kind of civilization-level shock to existing money systems (which would be just as likely to impact the vast network of computer systems necessary to keep crypto running). And even if it did happen, at any level of significance, there are no existing crypto systems I'm aware of which would actually make Healthy Money at a country/regional/global macroeconomic scale (not remotely high-scale enough & too much deflation).

powerapple 4y ago

I didn't read the article, only the title, it seems to suggest banks stops transfers. Are you sure this is initiated by Binance? Stopped by bank: this could indicate there are more regulation to come in near future Stopped by Biance: is there a problem with the platform

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

Please don't take HN threads into generic flamewar. We've been through this a zillion times. It never goes anywhere good and this time we got religious hell. The guidelines ask you not to do this for good reason! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34472790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34472790. It's true that the comment you were replying to was generic and therefore not good, but yours was repetitive generic flamebait and therefore much worse. Please don't post like that here. We want curious conversation.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]