What are your thoughts on BitCoin?

[Samson]

You've lost me.

It is not a very important point. If one is browsing the web with the tor browser then you have 2 options under the File menu, "New Identity" or "New tor circuit for this site", both of with will result in a new IP address. I have tried a few, and all of them get the useless but harmless page.

 

[Samson]

Binance, the world's biggest crypto-currency exchange, has been banned by the UK's financial regulator

I am not exactly sure what has happened here. It seems there are 2 very unclear things:

• What is Binance? There appears to be a whole load of companies with "Binance" in the name; Binance Markets Limited, Binance Group, Binance.com, Binance Holdings, Binance.US.
• What is banned? It seems buying crypto is allowed, but shorting/longing crypto is not.

My guess is that the regulator is thinking that something must be done, this is something therefore this must be done. On the other hand, speculating on cryptocurrency values looks to me functionally indistinguishable to playing roulette, except it probably has a higher expected return (closer to 1, so still expecting to lose money but not as much). On yet another hand these services are available on the internet over tor with no personal identity requirements, so any single country regulating them has zero effect. I am not sure what the answer is, but the big question for me is why they have not killed off all other sorts of internet gambling.

 

[Moriarte]

What is Binance

One of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, based in Cayman islands, where it migrated when climate in China became too hot. Naturally they own a lot of infrastructure within crypto world: the exchange, various news outlets, online analysis tools, own exchange-traded currency valued at 44bn. One of the biggest entities in crypto world. The big target.

Say what you want about crypto exchanges, but they freely offer to everyone something that was and still is available to select few in the traditional banking ‘verse. I am, of course, talking about trading instruments accessibility and market depth. The ease of registration. The level of security offered in these places is beyond what is offered by classical banking. But anyway, Binance recently started working with Visa, offering plastic to clients around the world. It can become an attack vector for those government institutions looking to shut down crypto.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I support the UK's financial regulator on this.

There is a long history of the unscrupulous luring people by offering
high financial returns varying from Barlow Clowes to Bernie Maddox.

And when the greedy and gullible lose their money, the lawyers jump in,
and threaten to sue to the regulator. So regulators very understandably want
to draw a clear line between what they are, and what they are not, regulating.

There is also to me a clear distinction between:

(a) gaming
(b) gambling
(c) trading
(d) speculating
(e) investing
(f) saving

and sadly, the manipulators have been too successful in confusing the public.

 

[Samson]

There is also to me a clear distinction between:

(a) gaming
(b) gambling

(d) speculating

and sadly, the manipulators have been too successful in confusing the public.

I really do not see the practical difference between these. For example, poliniex margin trading works just like forex trading (with only a 2% margin), so could be argued to be classical speculation. However, as these exchange rates are so variable and not based on underlying economies functionally it seems to me identical to internet gambling. Unlike internet gambling it requires no identification, and as it work over tor it can be done from anywhere in the world.

I guess I am mostly agreeing with you, except that the regulations are useless unless they are global, and that forex is actually gambling but used to be less accessible to the general public so it was less of an issue.

 

[Mise]

What's the politics of cryptocurrency these days? In the past it was tech utopians and internet gold bugs who really liked them. Who buys them now? Is it just so mainstream that there's no consistent thread linking people with it? Or is it still tech bros and dollar hawks? I'm aware that a lot of people just like the "get rich quick" aspect of it, but aside from that...

EDIT: Seeing crypto exchanges being advertised on Premier League football matches and now the Euros is quite something.

 

[Samson]

What's the politics of cryptocurrency these days? In the past it was tech utopians and internet gold bugs who really liked them. Who buys them now? Is it just so mainstream that there's no consistent thread linking people with it? Or is it still tech bros and dollar hawks? I'm aware that a lot of people just like the "get rich quick" aspect of it, but aside from that...

EDIT: Seeing crypto exchanges being advertised on Premier League football matches and now the Euros is quite something.

It seems to me dominated by Get Rich Quick and Fear Of Missing Out than politics, at least in who is buying significant quantities of the things.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Crypto sellers just want more customers to help them look mainstream. They remind me of of all the gold sellers from the 70s and 80s who wanted everyone to own a bit of bullion.

 

[warpus]

If you are getting into cryptocurrencies now or did in the last couple months you are probably in one or more of these groups:

- Those who invest already and want to diversify their portfolio
- Those who got FOMO

And to a lesser extent:

- Those who like the idea of decentralized finance and/or have a beef with the existing banking system
- Those who are already in a subculture where cryptocurrencies and/or blockchain technology are discussed or used. Including artists, programmers, "hackers", etc.
- Those who have a job working as a developer for a cryptocurrency or blockchain oriented company
- Those using cryptocurrency transactions for remittance purposes, i.e. sending money to relatives in other countries
- Those who happen to already own an Shiba Inu breed of dog

Also coming soon:

- Those who live in countries adopting bitcoin as a national currency

 

[Moriarte]

On topic of increases in energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. https://docsend.com/view/adwmdeeyfvqwecj2

Since large cryptocurrency network, such as bitcoin, attempts to establish financial infrastructure - it makes sense to compare energy consumption of classical banking sector worldwide and the btc infrastructure, the oldest and probably the most architecturally inefficient cryptocurrency.

 

[Ferocitus]

Crypto sellers just want more customers to help them look mainstream. They remind me of of all the gold sellers from the 70s and 80s who wanted everyone to own a bit of bullion.

And what better way than to get the kiddies involved. Give them your bank passwords and pack them off for a few days.

A Los Angeles summer camp is offering children as young as 5 "a crash course in all things crypto"

In a sign of the bubbling enthusiasm for digital currencies, the Crypto Kids Camp began Monday in a warehouse in a busy port district.
Over five days, the camp combines activities that would be common at any summer camp with a crash course in how to think about, buy
and even mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies... The camp is part of a trend toward young adults and even children becoming
immersed in cryptocurrency through online trading exchanges, school clubs, social media and other outlets. In Georgia, state lawmakers
this year considered a bill to require high school students to take a course on personal finance including cryptocurrency...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-n...hes-finer-points-alternative-finance-rcna1263

 

[Samson]

EU to ban anonymous crypto-asset wallets

I totally do not understand how that would work. The wallet is principally a number (the private key). Will this criminalise knowing a number? What about watch only wallets? That would be roughly equivalent to criminalising a URI.

 

[Samson]

Russia’s Hermitage Museum Partners with Binance to Sell Rare Art as NFTs

I totally do not get it. I see that NFTs can be a way to transfer copyright on the blockchaihn, but what good is an NFT of a work that is out of coyright?

The Hermitage Museum has announced the launch of a new project centered around non-fungible tokens (NFTs.) The museum says it will issue a limited number of NFT tokens that will be digital copies of works of art hanging on its walls. A total of five paintings from different artists will be the first to get the NFT treatment. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Madonna Lite’’, Giorgione’s “Judith”, Vincent van Gogh’s “Lilac Bush”, Composition VI” by Wassily Kandinsky, and “Corner of the Garden at Montgeron” by Claude Monet will be among the first group of artworks to be tokenized by the museum.

The addition of strict laws in Russia makes this sale particularly tricky. The museum itself points out that cryptocurrency is almost outright banned in Russia and other similar types of tokens are heavily regulated.
With that in mind, the Hermitage Legal Service collaborated with a legal consulting company to create a model of the minting and auction of the NFTs that comply 100% with Russian law. “Thus, an important precedent has been created that will allow to integrate the Russian market into the international turnover of NFT,” the museum says.
​

Spoiler NFTs 'explained' :

 

[Moriarte]

I totally do not get it.

The hope is that it becomes a legalised pyramid scheme, where the original creator of a digitalised art token (museum) gets reimbursed with small % each time a token changes hands. The museum wants their digital art to constantly change hands and with that fund the “long overdue restoration”. Whether there is or isn’t a copyright is besides the point. The idea is to summon a phantom of scarcity, spiral the price to the sky with that auction and then earn a small % in perpetuity. And with enough gullible people it may even work out in favour of the museum, for a while.

Edit: This is where hermitage tokens will be auctioned: https://www.binance.com/en/nft

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Samson My guess is that Putin and his cronies have a hand in this as a way to suck more money out of Russia.

 

[amadeus]

Well, I took the Mona Lisa and turned it into my own. I ran it through a couple of filters to give it that "Commodore 64 demo" look and slapped my name on it (it's pretty small!)

Now there's no new technology behind it... no blockchains, so no costly energy consumption. It's green? Well, there are shades of green. Anyway, does anyone want to bid on the concept (not the actual ownership thereof) of owning this masterpiece?

Bezos? If you can spend a billion dollars on a spaceship that looks like a willie then you can dump $500,000 on the world's most famous artwork.

 

[innonimatu]

@amadeus now just auction the URL for that image announcing it as a "green stringchain NFT". presto you have a valuable "NFT" for the sucker/greedy speculator wiling to bite.

 

[Moriarte]

View attachment 603684

Well, I took the Mona Lisa and turned it into my own. I ran it through a couple of filters to give it that "Commodore 64 demo" look and slapped my name on it (it's pretty small!)

Now there's no new technology behind it... no blockchains, so no costly energy consumption. It's green? Well, there are shades of green. Anyway, does anyone want to bid on the concept (not the actual ownership thereof) of owning this masterpiece?

Bezos? If you can spend a billion dollars on a spaceship that looks like a willie then you can dump $500,000 on the world's most famous artwork.

Wrong platform! You’re supposed to pitch this to a bunch of morons, preferably underaged.

 

[amadeus]

You’re supposed to pitch this to a bunch of morons

But they won't let me into [var Name_Local_Legislature]

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

All I know is I wish I hadn't spent the few I had many years ago. Tbf, it felt worth it at the time.