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Bitcoin discussion and news

q_w_e_r_t_y said:
Its not that new - bitcoin has been around for well over a decade now.
The problem with regulation is who writes it and who enforces it.

  • Alexey Pertsev is currently in jail awaiting extradition to the US because he wrote code that the US government later decided it didnt like.
  • Virgil Griffith is in jail with a sentance of 5 years for teaching people that the US didnt like how to use bitcoin.
  • Ross Ulbricht is in jail on a life sentance for allowing people to safely buy things that the US didnt like.
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Not sure what your point is here. Of course the brutal US justice system is going to mete out gross injustice against those it considers a threat to the system. I don't know about the first two, but I would wholeheartedly support the immediate release of Ross Ulbricht. I'd be surprised if anyone on here didn't.

But your own posts lay out clearly enough why most people most of the time in large parts of the world, including the whole of Europe, should opt for places with maximum government regulation when they are storing any money they have. It is possible for this fact to coexist with the fact that the same authorities are also capable of doing monstrous things. That's the continuous fight all of us have to establish/maintain a free society, a fight that is never over, that always has to be renewed, that always faces threats from the powerful.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Not sure what your point is here. Of course the brutal US justice system is going to mete out gross injustice against those it considers a threat to the system. I don't know about the first two, but I would wholeheartedly support the immediate release of Ross Ulbricht. I'd be surprised if anyone on here didn't.

But your own posts lay out clearly enough why most people most of the time in large parts of the world, including the whole of Europe, should opt for places with maximum government regulation when they are storing any money they have. It is possible for this fact to coexist with the fact that the same authorities are also capable of doing monstrous things. That's the continuous fight all of us have to establish/maintain a free society, a fight that is never over, that always has to be renewed, that always faces threats from the powerful.
Click to expand...
Though if you do go down the 'offshore route' a good rule of thumb is 'would a taxman quite like an all expenses paid 'holiday' at your dodgy dealing offshore office'. Avoid the clichés and 'invest'in wartorn shitholes
 
Supine said:
Sounds like regulation is the path being picked

View attachment 356389
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Yep loads of CBDC pliots either ongoing or about to kick in...Conspiracy theorists going to say WEF but first public call I found was Mark Carney at Jackson Hole few years back...inclined to believe global FIAT and the petro-dollar probably are a headache to peak oil AND global warming concerns
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Not sure what your point is here. Of course the brutal US justice system is going to mete out gross injustice against those it considers a threat to the system. I don't know about the first two, but I would wholeheartedly support the immediate release of Ross Ulbricht. I'd be surprised if anyone on here didn't.
Click to expand...
Alexey Pertsev was one of the developers of Tornado Cash, mixer on the ethereum chain. Tornado cash is the first piece of software ever to be put on a US sanctions list. Any US national using that code can now face 30 years jail (US nationals should use a fork instead). Pertsev was in Amsterdam when the code got sanctioned. The US immediately moved for his arrest and extradition.

Virgil Griffith gave a talk to a cryptocurrency conference in North Korea. The US arrested and charged him on his return, he took a plea deal.

littlebabyjesus said:
But your own posts lay out clearly enough why most people most of the time in large parts of the world, including the whole of Europe, should opt for places with maximum government regulation when they are storing any money they have. It is possible for this fact to coexist with the fact that the same authorities are also capable of doing monstrous things.
Click to expand...
Fiat money yes, because you have no way of protecting that money except storing it under your mattress if the unscrupulous decide to scam you. I mean look at the number of people who have had bank accounts shut down overnight and then spend weeks and months trying to get access to it through the regulator. Without that regulator, who would have a chance against a global entity like HSBC or Barclays.

Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It is really not difficult to properly secure bitcoin.

littlebabyjesus said:
That's the continuous fight all of us have to establish/maintain a free society, a fight that is never over, that always has to be renewed, that always faces threats from the powerful.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you recognise this, but regulation is not the way.
SBF, the guy behind FTX, was super-keen on regulation. He was best friends with the regulators. He was writing the damn regulations.
Do you think he'd have been doing that if it put him out of business and into jail?
Regulations arent designed to protect you, they are designed to protect the system.
 
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
Alexey Pertsev was one of the developers of Tornado Cash, mixer on the ethereum chain. Tornado cash is the first piece of software ever to be put on a US sanctions list. Any US national using that code can now face 30 years jail (US nationals should use a fork instead). Pertsev was in Amsterdam when the code got sanctioned. The US immediately moved for his arrest and extradition.

Virgil Griffith gave a talk to a cryptocurrency conference in North Korea. The US arrested and charged him on his return, he took a plea deal.


Fiat money yes, because you have no way of protecting that money except storing it under your mattress if the unscrupulous decide to scam you. I mean look at the number of people who have had bank accounts shut down overnight and then spend weeks and months trying to get access to it through the regulator. Without that regulator, who would have a chance against a global entity like HSBC or Barclays.

Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It is really not difficult to properly secure bitcoin.


I'm glad you recognise this, but regulation is not the way.
SBF, the guy behind FTX, was super-keen on regulation. He was best friends with the regulators. He was writing the damn regulations.
Do you think he'd have been doing that if it put him out of business and into jail?
Regulations arent designed to protect you, they are designed to protect the system.
Click to expand...
 
Varoufakis with a take that crypto will have its uses but not as money (NB// his opponent's not terribly interesting, you won't lose much by spinning past them):

 
ooh - miner capitulation incoming! Still more to come tho, IMHO unless there is a major upswing in the exchange rate, which I cant see at least for a few months. Cost to mine has dropped to $18.8k per bitcoin, but still approx $2k above market rate.

Bitcoin doesnt care of course, it just keeps producing blocks every 10 minutes just as it has since the start of blocktime.

More info on CS bankrupcy
 
Rob Ray said:
Varoufakis with a take that crypto will have its uses but not as money (NB// his opponent's not terribly interesting, you won't lose much by spinning past them):

Click to expand...

Depends what you define as money.

If you want to keep the damp apps runnng without government interference, they have to be paid for using something independent of all governments.
 
Once again showing that the only "safe" way of dealing with your cryptocurrency is to handle all of it yourself, the usual libertarian nonsense. "I don't need food safety laws when I can just test the food I buy myself", because apparently libertarians have an ideological problem with the idea of division of labour in a complex technological society.
 
NoXion said:
Once again showing that the only "safe" way of dealing with your cryptocurrency is to handle all of it yourself, the usual libertarian nonsense. "I don't need food safety laws when I can just test the food I buy myself", because apparently libertarians have an ideological problem with the idea of division of labour in a complex technological society.
Click to expand...


If there is one thing I try to impress on anyone that I talk to about crypto, it is "not your keys, not your coins". The only way to bitcoin is to self-custody, the only people that hold bitcoin on exchanges are gamblers, the naive and the daft.

What on earth is so complex about bitcoin that you are comparing it to food safety tests ffs!
Seriously some of the stuff on this thread just makes my head hurt, why do people see it as being some kind of complex thing.

My offer to send satoshis to anyone who downloads a lightning wallet still stands btw.
Want to get 100 sats and start practicing NoXion ?
 
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
What on earth is so complex about bitcoin that you are comparing it to food safety tests ffs!
Click to expand...

If administering one's own cryptocurrency reserve is so easy, then why does anyone bother with the exchanges and other services in the first place?

Gamblers, the naive and the daft you say? OK, but then why are there so many of those people in the crypto space? Could it possibly be that there's something inherent to cryptocurrency that attracts hustlers and the hustled?

q_w_e_r_t_y said:
Seriously some of the stuff on this thread just makes my head hurt, why do people see it as being some kind of complex thing.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be all that complex in order to be a pain in the arse to manage. I could withdraw all of my money from my current account and stash it as cash in my house, it wouldn't be complicated to do that. But it would still be massively inconvenient in a number of other ways. Having money in the bank makes it a lot easier to deal with recurring bills or pay for a wider range of goods and services. Plus I would have no protection if something were to go wrong. If I get robbed or my house burns down, that shit's gone. Of course banks can and do collapse, but nowhere near as often as theft or fire in a domestic context. At least when it comes to real money, it makes a lot of sense to hold it with a trusted third party.

Presumably these crypto exchanges also provided conveniences to their users, plus peace of mind in the case that if their house is robbed or their personal devices compromised, their crypto is still safe. If those people are naive and daft, then it's because they thought that crypto exchanges were as well regulated and protected as real banks, which they should be. Crypto may not be real money, but it's still a speculative commodity and thus falls under the purview of regulatory bodies such as the SEC and Financial Conduct Authority.

q_w_e_r_t_y said:
My offer to send satoshis to anyone who downloads a lightning wallet still stands btw.
Want to get 100 sats and start practicing @NoXion ?
Click to expand...

What possible use could I have for such a thing? Practising at what? Commodity speculation? I'd prefer to earn my money.
 
Supine There are risks with lightning, but its fine for small amounts, for anything over a couple of hundred dollars worth tho, its worth using mainnet.
Setting up a node can be a bit tricky, but its not rocket science.

NoXion I was offering to send you the equivalent of 2 cents in bitcoin. Even bitcoin went parabolic, I doubt if your "currency speculation" would net you more than a cup of coffee, but then currency speculation isnt what bitcoin is for. You can send some 10 sat tips to podcasters and article writers, send 50 sats to your mate in Timbuktu in seconds, and even have some left over to paint a few pixels on satoshi's place.

Anyway, I just dropped by cos I thought Urban would love this article!
futurism.com

Dutch Startup Mining Bitcoin to Grow Tulips, and We Can't Tell If They're Joking

A startup in The Netherlands is using the heat being expelled by Bitcoin mining rigs to grow tulips. Ironic, given the historical context.
futurism.com futurism.com
 
NoXion said:
If administering one's own cryptocurrency reserve is so easy, then why does anyone bother with the exchanges and other services in the first place?
Click to expand...
Because when they start out, most people earn in fiat, so they need a way to convert their fiat to crypto.

It can be done permissionlessly (Robosats, peach, bisq etc), but you need crypto to use them, so people generally start with exchanges and then think that once they see a number in their exchange wallet, they have that amount of bitcoin. Also many people are simply using it as an "investment" (/get rich quick scheme) so they dont really care whether they have bitcoin or not, because the intention was always to change it back to fiat....until they find out that they never had it in the first place.
NoXion said:
It doesn't have to be all that complex in order to be a pain in the arse to manage. I could withdraw all of my money from my current account and stash it as cash in my house, it wouldn't be complicated to do that. But it would still be massively inconvenient in a number of other ways. Having money in the bank makes it a lot easier to deal with recurring bills or pay for a wider range of goods and services.
Click to expand...
Most people still keep some fiat in banks even when they are heavily into crypto. That will change tho and sooner than you think.

NoXion said:
Plus I would have no protection if something were to go wrong. If I get robbed or my house burns down, that shit's gone.
Click to expand...
There are ways...steel backup, shamir secret sharing, social recovery, encryption in plain sight, glacier protocol.

NoXion said:
Of course banks can and do collapse, but nowhere near as often as theft or fire in a domestic context. At least when it comes to real money, it makes a lot of sense to hold it with a trusted third party.
Click to expand...
I dont trust anyone more than I trust myself, I sure as hell dont trust fuckers like HSBC, Barclays, RBS etc more than I trust myself.

NoXion said:
Presumably these crypto exchanges also provided conveniences to their users, plus peace of mind in the case that if their house is robbed or their personal devices compromised, their crypto is still safe.
Click to expand...
Convenience yes, but most exchanges are not insured. If it gets hacked/seized/compromised funds are gone.
An exchange wallet is a massive honeypot. Why try to rob Mrs Miggins 0.01btc when you could rob AnyExchange and get thousands of btc.
What if the SEC decides that all exchange funds are theirs now, and tell them to hand over the keys or prison forever?
What if the founders just decide to do a runner?

NoXion said:
If those people are naive and daft, then it's because they thought that crypto exchanges were as well regulated and protected as real banks, which they should be. Crypto may not be real money, but it's still a speculative commodity and thus falls under the purview of regulatory bodies such as the SEC and Financial Conduct Authority.
Click to expand...
The SEC/FCA dont hold any crypto, how are they going to protect depositors.
If a bank gets compromised and 10bn stolen, ultimately, the can just tell the g;ment to print 10bn more to compensate the depositors. Where are they going to magic up stolen BTC from?
 
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