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Is the US trying to kill crypto?
- slowmotiony 3y agoThe SEC is just taking out the trash, it should have been done years ago but better late than never.
- astoor 3y agoThe article fails to point out that cryptocurrency has already effectively been banned (or at least delegitimised) in other major economies like China and India, so the US is in some sense just playing catch-up. At this stage, at the national level, cryptocurrency is primarily supported by mafia states like Russia, rogue states like North Korea, micro-states like various Caribbean islands, and otherwise failing states.
- kristjank 3y agoIf you don't agree with my outlook on cryptocurrency, you're mafia, rogue, too small to matter, or failing otherwise. Sheesh, what a well balanced outlook on the state of affairs.
- qeternity 3y agoRussia has been a mafia state long before the advent of crypto…
- KptMarchewa 3y agoAnd to add, they are not for using it internally, just as an additional method for scamming westerners.
- jacknews 3y agoI mean, why would any state support crypto, something explicitly designed to bypass state control of money? Only those suffering oppression of their ability to transact, of course.
- roguas 3y agoCrypto was not designed to bypass state but to provide transparency and stability to currency/money. Say you are in Venezuela where your money is constantly devalued and your political power is diminished, every option that you have to survive that doesn't harm people directly should not be considered in high horse moral terms.
- jacknews 3y agoIndeed, the comment that only NK, narco-states etc support crypto is a bogus moral attack on crypto NO state truly supports crypto, as it bypasses state-controlled money (by design or not; I'd argue that is exactly one of the design goals).
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoAre we ignoring El Salvador now? Or is its support not "true"?
- amadeuspagel 3y agoSome states have accepted that they are unable to run a trusted currency and used the US dollar instead. Bitcoin seems like a straightforwardly better choice there, since the US Fed can't print bitcoins.
- ChatGTP 3y agoBecause they're benefiting from it? I'm not sure how true it is, but I have read N Korea uses cryptocurrencies to trade ?
- theknocker 3y ago[dead]
- dwheeler 3y agoDang: Please change the title so "crypto" becomes "cryptocurrency". I realize that's the original title, but here at HN the term "crypto" is confusing (I presumed they meant cryptography, not cryptocurrency). Thanks so much!!
- drpixie 3y agoYes - I was thinking it was about the attempts to ban encrypted messaging. Really - who cares about cryptocurrencies any more!?
- sampa 3y ago[flagged]
- seviu 3y ago[flagged]
- panzi 3y agoI hate that these days it is not clear what is meant by "crypto" without having more context. Because usually they want to kill the wrong kind of crypto.
- 5350-uiop-1130 3y agocryptocurrencies and exchanges mostly resemble casinos now. so maybe they can just be classified as some kind of gambling product.
- sabellito 3y agoI fully agree with your casino comment. And how about day traders and individual "investors" trying their luck with options?
- spaceman_2020 3y agoPersonally feel that people should be allowed to gamble all they want with their own money. But the gambling/crypto/options platforms need to be regulated and transparent. Because otherwise, you don’t know how much the game is rigged against you, the player. Allow crypto platforms to operate and even thrive. But bring them under regulation so that users can buy without the constant threat of market manipulation, insider trading, and all the opaque shenanigans that currently happen with crypto.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoThat's what at least a couple of youtube presenters have suggested -- something more akin to sports betting. Only downside is that sports betting doesn't let you move money across borders
- louwrentius 3y agoAs crypto has a netto negative impact on the world I hope that Coinbase and the other platforms get wrecked. Regular currency is also abused, but at least it has a clear beneficial use case. Crypto only destroys, it sucks wealth away from those who often can’t spare it. Crypto is the culmination of all the hubris of both men and capitalism combined. A solution without a problem. The crypto people have it so backwards: they looked at those bankers and HF traders and they didn’t think: this industry must be regulated to death. No, they didn’t see anything wrong: they just want their cut, they were entitled to (temporary embarrassed millionaires). The whole Wall Street Bets / GameStop phenomenon is also exactly that. But trying to join a destructive industry is only self absorbed nihilism (getting rich at the expense of others (which may be a tautology)). It doesn’t solve any of the systemic underlying causes and most other people end up being the bag holders. Crypto in short is so similar to HF trading, just sucking out value without creating any value and as a society at large we can do without.
- jmeister 3y ago>Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University, thinks crypto is inherently susceptible to boom-and-boost cycles and manipulation by insiders, and thinks it should be banned. I don’t know or care much for crypto, but man does it bring out Ayn Rand villains you thought only existed in books.
- jjjjjjth 3y ago[flagged]
- colesantiago 3y ago> Bitcoin had only one purpose: to provide an alternative to the established financial system. No. > And it works perfectly for that. And how did that go after 15 years?
- jjjjjjth 3y agoYes, and I use it every single day money to move money abroad without getting fucked by my government.
- colesantiago 3y agoThe government are 'fucking' it with tight regulation and that is good. Crypto still failed to gain any meaningful legitimate adoption.
- alphanullmeric 3y agoYes, making rules about other people’s money is the government’s favourite hobby. Justifications include the redistribution of consequences/patriot act talking points and “investor protections” (ie. you are being rescued, please don’t resist).
- mr_woozy 3y ago[dead]
- nathanaldensr 3y agoCrypto bros and con artists killed crypto.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago> Crypto bros and con artists killed crypto ...but you repeat yourself
- steveBK123 3y agoThey’ve all pivoted to AI now, so take that for what its worth…
- zirgs 3y agoAt least AI provides actual value immediately - you can generate cool pictures right now. You don't have to HODL something and hope that you will be able to sell it to a greater fool.
- steveBK123 3y agoYes, AI has real use cases. It also is going to (already has) have a flood of fraud, BS and fake it til you make it products/companies.. Notice every tech company is an AI play now? haha.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago[flagged]
- senttoschool 3y agoThey'll have a much harder time scamming in AI - unless they're literally using AI to scam more crypto.
- steveBK123 3y agoNo, I'd argue its the opposite. Every CIO/CTO of every company in every industry is now "looking at AI". Much more so than any were ever looking at crypto. There is now a rich market of B2B customers looking to write checks for "AI stuff".
- neallindsay 3y ago"crypto" in the title is talking about cryptocurrency, not cryptography generally.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- colesantiago 3y agoYes. And the US should. It should just die already. Crypto, NFTs, Web3, Blockchain, whatever, I mean ALL of it. Nobody needs or wants it. It has really been almost 15 years with no viable legitimate use case at all. For the crypto bro pedants out there, this also includes the biggest energy wasting, 'distributed sudoku solver' that is Bitcoin. There exists not one use case that crypto solves at all that the current system already does better.
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoThere is no way for an individual to self custody digital currency in the current system. Bitcoin solves this. For the record I don't hold any Bitcoin or classify as a "crypto bro". Your comment is just factually incorrect.
- colesantiago 3y ago> There is no way for an individual to self custody digital currency in the current system. 'Self custody digital currency' is not a use case anybody has asked for. The current system already has a solution that is better than Bitcoin, and that everyone already uses it's called: Cash. UPI also already solves this as well in India, to the order of hundreds of millions in less than 10 years it has existed. Other countries are following suit as well. > Bitcoin solves this. No it doesn't. Why does Bitcoin still gets seized by the government? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/feds-seize-3point36-billion-in-bitcoin-the-second-largest-recovery-so-far.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/feds-seize-3point36-billion-... Is that the goal of Bitcoin? It also needs to engulf the planet in enormous electricity waste to compute billions of meaningless puzzles. Other countries have better systems that doesn't use Bitcoin and are far cheaper and scale better than Bitcoin. There is no need for a volatile unregulated token that nobody takes as payment such as Bitcoin.
- mypastself 3y agoCash is not digital.
- baal80spam 3y agoOne can only hope.
- mjburgess 3y agoThis is an extraordinary article by the BBC. Against the background of severe criminal & fraud issues with FTX, Tether, NFTs (...and back to MtGox, etc.) -- the SEC is now enforcing existing legislation. To describe this as an attack on crypto repeats the propaganda of an industry built on fraud. What's happening is enforcement of laws previously unenforced on an industry with widespread law-breaking. The reason these cypto companies aren't in the US is because the US gov will enforce the law.
- hnbad 3y ago> the propaganda of an industry built on fraud > an industry with widespread law-breaking I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference.
- remich 3y agoEh, there's plenty of other types of laws an industry could break in a widespread fashion that aren't fraud-related. Environmental dumping laws, antitrust laws, bribery of domestic or foreign officials to name a few.
- glimshe 3y agoIn TFA, replace every instance of "crypto" by "fraud" and see how the article reads perfectly right. Like "fraudcurrencies", "Fraud King" etc.
- rmah 3y agoBut they're not actually enforcing existing legislation, per se. One of the major issues wrt crypto in the US is that the SEC won't tell you what's legal or not. Seriously, when companies ask them "is doing XYZ ok?" or "can we trade ABC?" or "what can we do to be in compliance?" the literally SEC refuses to issue clear guidance. To say many industry players are upset is an understatement.
- colesantiago 3y agoGood.
- ranaexmachina 3y agoI really wish people would stop calling cryptocurrencies "crypto". :(
- panzi 3y agosame
- milliams 3y agoExactly, I'm always expecting it to be about cryptozoology!
- ykonstant 3y agoI was all fired up and ready to defend the rights of Chupacabras to secure communications!
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESSIE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESSIE
- creshal 3y agoNot fast enough.
- nkcmr 3y ago"Is the US trying to enforce pre-existing financial regulation on Crypto in the US?" fixed that crappy title for you! and no need to read, the answer is "Yes."
- carpenecopinum 3y agoWhich basically means the same thing, as the main use of crypto right now is to avoid financial regulation.