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Texas House introduces bill to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 30 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Nonpartisan doesn't mean it's not a scam.

Anybody can use them for anything*, but isn't it so convenient how easy it is to launder money with crypto? And isn't it convenient how they're happy to spend taxpayer money to set up this fund?

We're not talking about systems like VPNs, where you could argue they hide criminals in addition to human rights activists. That levels the playing field and protects people's right to privacy.

What rights is crypto protecting? We're talking about a vehicle where entire governments can pump up the value and reap the inflated price. We're talking about foreign billionaires who can covertly and easily "invest" in their favorite candidates without taking the roundabout way of using dark-money PACs.

Crypto is just another empty, ultra-capitalist "American Dream" promise shrouded in tech.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    isn’t it so convenient how easy it is to launder money with crypto?

    Depends on the coin, but the most popular ones have 100% transparent transactions, so it's actually not great for money laundering. There are a lot of obfuscations techniques, but those exist w/ digital fiat transfers as well. The most popular crypto exchanges are KYC, meaning they require a paper trail for any exchanges. There are options to move money between cryptocurrencies w/o using a KYC exchange, but doing anything w/ fiat is a lot more difficult without going through a KYC exchange.

    If you want to launder money, it's a lot easier to just deal in cash.

    There are cryptocurrencies designed to hide/obfuscate transactions (e.g. Monero or Bitcoin Lightning network), but you still have to interact w/ a KYC exchange at some point, which gives your local tax authority enough details to catch you when you try to cheat on your taxes.

    What rights is crypto protecting?

    That's the wrong way to look at it IMO.

    To me, it provides a check against national monetary policy and the major payment networks. If you live in a country with rapid inflation, your options are basically buy a different store of value (gold, cryptocurrencies, another nation's currency) or get screwed. Likewise, the major payment networks tend to charge 3% for all transactions, perhaps higher for international transactions, whereas cryptocurrencies give you an alternative method of payment.

    Cryptocurrencies don't protect rights per se, but using them is an expression of your right to transact with others however you want.

    We’re talking about a vehicle where entire governments can pump up the value and reap the inflated price.

    That describes fiat a lot more than cryptocurrencies, but in the opposite direction. You're at the mercy of your central bank w/ most fiat currencies, whereas your local government doesn't have any control over cryptocurrencies, they can merely interact like any other market participant can. Yes, they have a lot of money at their disposal, but governments also tend to need to do things transparently, so there are already checks against governments intentionally manipulating values through massive transactions.

    Crypto is just another empty, ultra-capitalist “American Dream” promise shrouded in tech.

    If you look at the crypto scams that exist, sure. But also remember that any new thing gets jumped on by people looking to make a quick buck. Look at all of those "stock tips" channels on YouTube (or any form of collectible, for that matter), those tend to just be pump-and-dump schemes. The fault here doesn't lie with cryptocurrencies, it's merely that it's very liquid so it's easy for someone to cash out.

    That said, it actually has very little to do with capitalism or economics at all, it's more of an anti-government initiative, similar to the whole idea behind the fediverse (can't shut us all down).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    It’s freedom of money. That simple.

    It shouldn’t be forced on anyone, but if you appreciate a cryptographic way to own your money securely (USDC or otherwise), decentralized monetary networks give you ways to do that.

    I work fulltime in the industry and the racket that is the traditional finance system is the one that resembles a ponzi/fraud/scam more than crypto in my mind.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Exactly. The core of the problem is the finance industry itself, they'd be scumbags regardless of the medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies merely give you alternative method for transactions.

    For every scam someone shows me about cryptocurrencies, I could probably show 10 with fiat currency.

    The main "problem" with cryptocurrency is also its main selling point: crazy swings in value. That's not great for regular savings, but it's basically proof that there's no central org messing with the currency and that value is determined purely based on supply and demand, just like gold and, to a lesser extent, stocks (stocks often pay dividends and provide voting privileges). And since it's transparent, you can see any attempts to mess with valuations, which is less true for central banks.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    crazy swings in value

    There’s plenty of trustworthy stablecoins now. And lending platforms have far better yield than a tardfi savings account.

    You don’t even need to speculate on some volatile token to move your savings onchain. Do it for the usd rate.

    You’ve hit on another problem with the industry, and that is the fact that we are focused on the speculative network or project coins when retail would benefit so much from the network without changing their unit of value. They can just use USD.

    We need to stop trying to sell Bitcoin as store of value or eth/sol as gas and start just onboarding usd.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    My issue with stablecoins are that pretty much nobody actually accepts them for payment, whereas I can usually find someone to accept Bitcoin, ETH, or Monero, and of those, Monero is my favorite (less speculation, low transaction costs, privacy).

    If stablecoins were commonly accepted, I'd probably use them for payment.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Payments is a beast of a final boss. I don’t use any of em for payments often at all. I just store value there. Like a brokerage account. And my business treasury.

    If you’re into this space and not a Solana lover, you have to check it out. Huge ecosystem. All the large caps bridged as SPL tokens. Fast confirms. It makes defi fun and as responsive as a brokerage account or banking app

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I can see two use cases for stablecoins:

    • P2P/vendor transactions
    • crypto speculation (i.e. settlement fund)

    I don't speculate on crypto because the expected return is negative (zero sum + exchange fees). So, transactions are the only reason I'd be interested, and that's much easier to find for BTC, ETH, or XMR.

    And I'm discounting the "store of value" here because the stablecoin I'd get would be tied to USD, so I might as well just hold USD and benefit from regulatory oversight and interest (I mostly buy US treasuries and treasury MMFs) and not open myself to the added risk and costs of holding crypto.

    So until merchants accept stablecoins, I'll stick with BTC, ETH, and XMR since they're actually accepted by some merchants.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    When was the last time YOU have "laundered money with crypto"?

    Why don't you do it and tell us how it goes?

    You have to do serious KYC everywhere before you can even think of withdrawing cash (any serious amount). I know, i had to do few of these in past 18 months just to retain access to few largest exchanges. Bitcoin is not anonymous. On the contrary.

    And if you think loundering is converting from BTC to XMR and buying drugs with it, well let's just say that crypto has a very, very long way to go before it comes even remotely close to Dollar.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    According to what I understand of what's being proposed here, no taxpayer money would go to purchase any Bitcoin whatsoever. It would all be people paying their taxes in Bitcoin and such. Not actually the purchase of Bitcoin by the state. I do think that we have totally different views on crypto, though, because the right I see it protecting is our right to capital that cannot be seized and controlled by the government. Yes, that enables some bad things. But on a whole, I believe it helps society. If you need to leave an oppressive situation, you can. If your government causes inflation to ruin the value of your money, you can protect your wealth with crypto because they have no control over it. I totally agree that most crypto is indeed a scam. There's no argument for me on that. My argument is that there are legitimate projects doing legitimate things and those should not be thrown out with the bathwater like the baby.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I like your measured view of crypto. I still am not convinced by your argument, mainly because I do not believe in capital as something to be protected, but I do think that regular people having the means to act apart from government oversight is good.

    My issue is still that it doesn't level the playing field. The benefits of privacy and decentralization for the wealthy outclass what benefits the rest of us get from the same thing. It's just another way for the rich to get richer, while the poor stay poor.

    While good things are done with it, my opinion is that it's still a net negative.

    Either way, have a lovely day. Hopefully I didn't come off too harsh.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    But regular people from countries which are sanctioned by countries do benefit from it, yet their benefit is still not worth it? I understand being critical and wary and vigilant, but to outright deny its usefulness for people with little options outside of official government sanctioned forms of economic power? You've deemed their plight and cause as outweighed and tainted by the wealthy who they have zero control over.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but that's not how sanctions work. It's the people within their own country who are hurt by their country's sanctions, not sanctions from other countries. This leads to domestic companies buying less exports, which is supposed to lead to more domestic production (or hurt the other country's economy), but regular people aren't typically buying exports direct from the producers. That's not a problem Bitcoin can solve, unless import companies start using it or regular people start importing themselves.

    However, it's still the wealthy who most benefit from crypto. It's the wealthy who make the barrier to entry higher, and it's the wealthy who can very easily manipulate the value of this value-less currency (just look what they can do with the stock market, and that's regulated).

    It's not that I'm against the plight of the downtrodden, I just don't see how crypto actually helps them; like I said, it's another "American Dream," a promise of wealth that will never materialize for most, because the wealthy have rigged the system.

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