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Crypto facilitates bypassing financial regulations, drug trade, evading taxes, extorting ransoms, breaking sanctions and so on. I’m not at all surprised it’s p

Crypto facilitates bypassing financial regulations, drug trade, evading taxes, extorting ransoms, breaking sanctions and so on. I’m not at all surprised it’s popular. I’m surprised that even relatively sane US admin did not crush it.

divbzero 1y ago
China, on the other hand, did. [2017]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/bitcoin-price-falls-on-reports-that-china-is-closing-local-exchanges.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/bitcoin-price-falls-on-repor... "Bitcoin price falls again on reports that China is shutting down local exchanges" [2021]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/china-crypto-crackdown-wipes-nearly-300-billion-off-market-btc-slides.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/china-crypto-crackdown-wipes... "China’s renewed crypto crackdown wipes $400 billion off the market as bitcoin slides"
- dist-epoch 1y ago
  You realize the irony of looking at those titles, and then at the present day price of bitcoin, which is 25x, 10x the price at the time of those articles.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Is that trade happening substantially in China and the Yuan?
    - spaceman_2020 1y ago
      If you are even remotely involved in crypto, you know how big crypto is in China. The biggest exchanges are Chinese or Chinese owned (Binance)
toenail 1y ago
Money is used in crime, nothing surprising there, and the most popular money for crime is the USD.
- BoppreH 1y ago
  Well, USD has many other (legal) uses. I have yet to see a legal use for Bitcoin that was not better served by cash or traditional banking.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Cross-border remittances is one. Making donations to organizations that are being actively persecuted/censored by the state is another.
    - BoppreH 1y ago
      Sometimes that's the right thing to do, but none of those examples sound legal.
      - toenail 1y ago
        Cross border remittances are not legal?
        BoppreH 1y ago
        Of course it can be legal, but if someone is using cryotocurrencies for this purpose then they're probably skipping some necessary steps. They could also just really like cryptocurrencies, but that's not a point in favor of the technology.
        toenail 1y ago
        Maybe they don't like the high fees of the traditional financial system
        BoppreH 1y ago
        The fees come from fulfilling legal requirements like detection of money laundering and terrorism financing, and also customer security features like fraud detection and multi-factor authentication. There are fintechs for customers who want lower fees and don't need e.g. physical branches or phone support. That's perfectly fine. But a fintech that didn't perform KYC would be shut down pretty quickly by the police, so there's a floor on how low fees can be while remaining legal.
tim333 1y ago
It's hard to crush. The whole design is made that way so if you shut it down in one country it continues in other ones. Also it funnels money to the people running it which enables them to lobby etc politicians.

divbzero 1y ago

China, on the other hand, did. [2017]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/bitcoin-price-falls-on-reports-that-china-is-closing-local-exchanges.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/bitcoin-price-falls-on-repor... "Bitcoin price falls again on reports that China is shutting down local exchanges" [2021]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/china-crypto-crackdown-wipes-nearly-300-billion-off-market-btc-slides.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/china-crypto-crackdown-wipes... "China’s renewed crypto crackdown wipes $400 billion off the market as bitcoin slides"

dist-epoch 1y ago
You realize the irony of looking at those titles, and then at the present day price of bitcoin, which is 25x, 10x the price at the time of those articles.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Is that trade happening substantially in China and the Yuan?
  - spaceman_2020 1y ago
    If you are even remotely involved in crypto, you know how big crypto is in China. The biggest exchanges are Chinese or Chinese owned (Binance)

toenail 1y ago

Money is used in crime, nothing surprising there, and the most popular money for crime is the USD.

BoppreH 1y ago
Well, USD has many other (legal) uses. I have yet to see a legal use for Bitcoin that was not better served by cash or traditional banking.
- sneak 1y ago
  Cross-border remittances is one. Making donations to organizations that are being actively persecuted/censored by the state is another.
  - BoppreH 1y ago
    Sometimes that's the right thing to do, but none of those examples sound legal.
    - toenail 1y ago
      Cross border remittances are not legal?
      - BoppreH 1y ago
        Of course it can be legal, but if someone is using cryotocurrencies for this purpose then they're probably skipping some necessary steps. They could also just really like cryptocurrencies, but that's not a point in favor of the technology.
        toenail 1y ago
        Maybe they don't like the high fees of the traditional financial system
        BoppreH 1y ago
        The fees come from fulfilling legal requirements like detection of money laundering and terrorism financing, and also customer security features like fraud detection and multi-factor authentication. There are fintechs for customers who want lower fees and don't need e.g. physical branches or phone support. That's perfectly fine. But a fintech that didn't perform KYC would be shut down pretty quickly by the police, so there's a floor on how low fees can be while remaining legal.

tim333 1y ago

It's hard to crush. The whole design is made that way so if you shut it down in one country it continues in other ones. Also it funnels money to the people running it which enables them to lobby etc politicians.