Is anyone else starting to become a bit worried? mod note in first post

MrMusician18 wrote: »

What's wrong with regulation if it weeds out the criminals?
Clean crypto would then be immune to the criticisms it faces now.

It depends on what is meant with by regulation.

If you listen to the likes of Elizabeth Warren in the US, regulation is not very different from banishment.

Clearly she has other motives (she wants a CBDC with no easy opt-out for citizens so that her allies can enforce heavy-handed MMT policies), so any regulation she comes up with will be aiming at suppressing crypto rather than fixing potential issues.

If you take another US lawmaker such as Cynthia Lummis, then yes regulation is probably a good thing as she seems to genuinely support crypto and to see regulation as a way to make it more legit and trusted.

MrMusician18 wrote: »

What's wrong with regulation if it weeds out the criminals?
Clean crypto would then be immune to the criticisms it faces now.

Nothing wrong with it, but there's a strong anti-establishment streak in crypto that is firmly against any regulation, no matter how common sense. Of course when a massive amount of funds is siphoned off an exchange they're all asking why it wasn't better regulated.

cnocbui wrote: »

That's a laugh. All the KYC banking stupidity that prevents many people from opening bank accounts and which causes endless hassles for others, hasn't made a dent in money laundering or illegal activity. Same way the war on drugs which has been raging for half a century stamped out drug use, right?

Murdering people is illegal - has that stopped? Fraud is is illegal, with a lot of it happening via the internet, and it seems to be growing faster than any other are of crime, it seems - shut down the internet.

Bit excessive but point stands I suppose.

Then again we are dealing with makey uppy nonsense that is driven by pure conjecture, so anything that would slow the mad dips (when china says X or Elon says Y) would not be the worst thing.

cnocbui wrote: »

That's a laugh. All the KYC banking stupidity that prevents many people from opening bank accounts and which causes endless hassles for others, hasn't made a dent in money laundering or illegal activity.

It deters/prevents criminal and sanctioned entities from opening accounts anywhere they want. It allows financial institutions detect if they are being used by individuals with criminal intent. It helps identify money launderers, individuals linked with fraud, etc.

Murdering people is illegal - has that stopped? Fraud is is illegal, with a lot of it happening via the internet, and it seems to be growing faster than any other are of crime, it seems - shut down the internet.

Christ what a stupid argument. Laws/rules/regulation act as a deterrent and punishment. The aim is to reduce illicit activity.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

It deters/prevents criminal and sanctioned entities from opening accounts anywhere they want. It allows financial institutions detect if they are being used by individuals with criminal intent. It helps identify money launderers, individuals linked with fraud, etc.

Christ what a stupid argument. Laws/rules/regulation act as a deterrent and punishment. The aim is to reduce illicit activity.

Do you believe there is significantly less money laundering, prostitution and drug use than 20 years ago because of the success of increasingly obstructive and punitive legislation? Really?

All the incredibly strict anti terrorism funding measures didn't stop ISIS, did they? The Qatarie's just jumped on their private jets with suitcases full of cash and flew it to Turkey.

Would you like to buy a bridge, one careful previous owner?

All this KYC and AML rubbish does is squeeze the tube of toothpaste in the middle, instead of the end, it imposes costs to individuals and financial institutions that likely far outweigh the amount of revenue gained - if there even is any. I'll bet more money would have been raised by governments by just putting a micro tax on on all financial transactions and everyone would have vastly preferred it an it would have cost business and individuals far less.

Legislation doesn't prevent or reduce crime, it just lets you penalise it after it's happened one time in 50.

Financial institutions have been fined $26 B worldwide for AML non-compliance - that's not a success in preventing money laundering, it's a tax on financial institutions that didn't cost money launderers a penny.

The cost in the US and Canada of AML compliance alone is a staggering $31.5 B. So say it costs $60 B globally; add the fines and you get a global cost of $86 B. What a stupid waste of a lot of money, for nothing.

As an absolute, money laundering is now three times more than it was 30 years ago, or about $2.5 trillion. As a ratio of market volume, it's not much better. Why?

https://www.teradata.com/Blogs/Have-Billions-of-Dollars-in-Organizations-Technology-and-Regulatory-Fines-Actually-Reduced-Money-Lau

Anti money laundering has less than 1% impact on crime. At what cost?
September 25, 2020
by Nicky Morris

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/anti-money-laundering-has-less-than-1-impact-on-crime-at-what-cost/

I get you have a stake in this as it's literally your bread and butter, but as Upton Sinclair once said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Isn't the real problem though that increased regulation and cleaning out of criminals will reduce the demand and consequently value of crypto assets. This isn't some high minded libertarian motivated objection - it's just greed.

cnocbui wrote: »

Do you believe there is significantly less money laundering, prostitution and drug use than 20 years ago because of the success of increasingly obstructive and punitive legislation? Really?

No. You are making a bizarre argument that because a type of crime exists, then measures to reduce it don't work. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

The use case for crypto is not 100% ransomware, tax evasion, gambling, child porn & the dark web……but i think one would be completely ignorant of the facts to not admit that 95% of use cases/transactions, currently, fit into one of those buckets…….lets be kind and call the gambling bucket asset appreciation/investing.

The question or debate is not the statement above - the real question is whether bitcoins usefulness /advantages are sufficiently significant enough to negate its downsides……………..which is indeed as a better widget for the carrying on of crime than the previous solution….. cash or bank transfers.

You dont think so? - why the payment method of choice for Colonial Pipeline/ HSE attack……because the cyber hackers are stupid? No because they’re smart and crypto is the better vehicle for crime over and above cash/bank transfer. Not perfect but incrementally more likely to not get them caught & deliver expected returns.

Please dont tell me that the Colonial Pipeline BTC was eventually recovered - the point is the best monetary instrument available right now to scumbags is a some form of crypto…….yet crypto has failed to trickle down and demonstrate real benefits to the non-laser beam eyed masses……and please dont tell me about a handful of people in bitcoin beach in El Salvador who use crypto to pay for tomatoes. I’m talking about your ole one sending money to her friend for bingo and telling you how great it is and how easy. That’s when tech advances truly become mainstream…like your ole one getting a smartphone and getting the Lotto number on her phone……….society can tolerate the downsides created by any tech……advancements like the internet, mobile phones, automobiles……..wonderful advances which have some negative consequences but to all rational observers are clearly out weighed by the advantages.

Cash before people bring it up - was/is a wonderful advancement………….it of course facilities bad things and bad people but its invention supports today something like 20% of commerce value…..close to 99% not so long ago…..………but if CASH went away tomorrow your gonna find normal life greatly disrupted and less convenient.

If crypto disappeared tomorrow from Ireland - tell me of the 5 million people in the Republic - how many people would know? and more importantly how many would be impacted in terms of how they go about their daily commerce……like basically nobody…..0.0001%

This is the real issue for BTC - it has failed to gain mass popular adoption (yet) such that its downsides can be explained away by its benefits. It fails the “ole one test” and so remains vulnerable to regulatory action because no one can point to how anybody in the normal world will be impacted if it went away. This is the big downside for Bitcoin………..its still desperately trying to find, in Silicon Valley terms, product market fit. That’s its risen 300 or 400% in the last twelve months is beside the point, so what - so has Tesla, Plug Power, Nio, GameStop, AMC. Just because a crowd start chasing an asset class upwards….buying and selling to each other……..it doesn’t signal anything……its just noise and the madness of crowds. Its especially crazy when I feel, as I’ve mentioned before in this thread, that the regulatory authorities are doing the math on BTC……pluses & minuses and weighing up the right course of action for their respective societies……..the answer currently is as I’ve covered already is not good for BTC/crypto……the questions asked are:

’what does crypto help with again exactly?”
“What problem does is solve that isn’t currently being solved by other payment instruments/solutions”
‘Who uses crypto and for what exactly anyway’
‘why is it better again than cash/electronic transfer/credit/debit cards’

The irony is the questions above would be asked by the average dragons den investor looking at any ‘new’ product…….the answer, if anyone cared to answer, would be in my opionion very flimsy for BTC right now…….and the entrepreneurial investor would say your crazy and pass.

Crypto.com has made a $100 m advertising sponsorship deal with a Formula One racing team, Aston Martin.

Does that give crypto a James Bond 007 imprimatur/cred ?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancampbell/2021/06/29/cryptocurrency-is-expanding-its-presence-in-formula-one-with-a-100-million-deal/

Deleted User wrote: »

This is bad news?

It might crash?

Or maybe they all have the same information on what is and isn't going on there

"FUD"

Interesting

What exactly is hard cash based on? How do banks loan money they don't own? Many other questions could be asked of the established financial institutes/framework

The USA prints billions of dollars to just give to people for free