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Comment by avs733 | Hacker News Reader

>Someone will sue Mark Karpelès until he doesn't have a billion dollars' worth of bitcoins any more. The bankruptcy estate might only owe the customers $500 per bitcoin, but they -- and regulators, etc. -- might have a case that Karpelèsowes them the remainder, due to negligence or unjust enrichment or general come-on-man

I...and perhaps I'm being to glib...find it highly amusing that the same people making the argument of rejecting states and fiat currency and regulation and structure are frustrated that their attempts to use those structures requires them to adopt all the parts of it, not just the parts they need to recoup their losses from a con man.

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This is true for most crypto communities, but Bitcoin in general has a staggering number of individuals looking to get rich quick. They don't care about the philosophy or idea. They just want money.

I recognize I'm misunderstanding you on purpose, but there are many crypto communities that contain virtually zero people looking to get rich quick.

I do not believe that for a second.

I believe it totally - it follows from 'there are many crypto communities with virtually zero people'.

I wasn't clear enough. For decades "crypto" has meant "cryptography".

> find it highly amusing that the same people making the argument of rejecting states and fiat currency and regulation and structure are frustrated that their attempts to use those structures requires them to adopt all the parts of it...

This holds true for so many Bitcoin related disputes. I also find it highly amusing when bitcoin using champions of rejecting regulation and structure mysteriously seem to need a great deal of it when heaven forbid things don't go as they hoped.

There is a pretty big difference in my mind between the kind of over regulation people dislike and simple enforcement of basic fraud and theft laws.

Could you explain, in detail, that difference?

Whether or not they profit him, obviously.

Yep. When I need the law on my side, it's "simple enforcement". When the law is on the other side, it's overregulation!

The former reflects classical liberalism, which is the belief that the government should get involved when fraud or aggression has occurred, and deter crime through deterrence.

The current regulatory system reflects the belief that government ought to preempt crime by creating centralized gatekeepers that impose blanket bans on entire categories of voluntary exchange (e.g. securities issuance), that are only lifted on a case-by-case basis if one is approved/registered by/with that gatekeeper.

Probably things like bailouts, the Fed insuring things it has no business insuring, etc. Basically he seems to be espousing libertarian economics - prevent people from actively harming me, but don't try to otherwise actively participate in the financial system.

For sure that argument can probably be made, but that's not really the point I think myself or the parent comment is making. If you follow the kind of "code is law" style rhetoric of some crytpo-currency evangelists, we can supposedly build a system that doesn't require "laws" or regulations as we know them today at all. Reality it seems often disagrees, especially when disputes inevitably arise. I'm simplifying greatly, but there's some truth to this idea in practice I think.

I know. The bizarre conflation between advocating for a free market and advocating anarchy is surprisingly common any time the topic of cryptocurrency comes up.

Anarchist Profits And Socialized Losses

Not entirely new. 2008? Profits to the banks losses (bail-oiuts) to the tax payer

I was trying to play off the phrase 'privatize profits and socialize losses' from that time period.

Explain to me how getting back some 5% of what you're owed, when they recovered 80% of it, is "socialized losses"?

Also explain to me how this is similar to 2008.

well for starters it was a joke not a serious argument.

Yes because bitcoin is all about not having courts. /sarc

This is exactly why I love Bitcoin threads like this so much, they always contain a bunch of idiots who inevitably lose their Dunning-Krugerrands to scammers and insolvent exchanges, of which all the regulations with fiat they claim to hate so much are there to prevent in the first place.

To be fair, the hardcore crypto-anarchists and such would never keep their money on exchanges. Ideally they'd keep money on cold wallets, physically secure.

But also they don't care about usability, which sucks in that case. Being your own bank sucks, pretty much.

Bitcoin: Dunning-Krugerrands is going on a tee shirt. That phrase is my million-dollar riff. thank you sir (or madam, or space donkey. we're not choosy in cyber space)

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there are plenty of people who don't want more of their currency printed but still think theft is wrong.

So this bunch of idiots can't access the legal system or expect justice, unless they fully accept the inevitability of currency debasement or the revolving-door system between banks and government?

That's exactly why I love bitcoin threads like this. Because of the sour grapes who stood by the sidelines over the past 8 years.

Btw, applying "plain" justice or bankruptcy to insolvent financial institutions was exactly what they didn't do in 2008. Listen to the recordings of Irish bankers how they would approach regulators. "If they say, if they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide, they might decide they have a choice."

Instead of putting skin in the game of people like this, they socialized the losses, suspended mark-to-market and papered it over with ridiculous amounts of legislation that was written with the help of the same people who were bailed out. Almost nobody went to jail. That's probably why we have blockchain to begin with and why 10 years later we'll have to go through something similar or worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jun/24/anglo-irish...

>this bunch of idiots can't access the legal system or expect justice

Sure they can, but they should also not be surprised when a lack of controls on currency transfers result in their shit getting stolen, when part of the 'appeal' of Bitcoin to so many people is that there's no controls on it.

>sour grapes

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Bitcoin is fucking stupid, a huge waste of electricity and CPU power, and its ultimate destiny is to crash and burn. Some people might make money off of that, good for them if they do I guess, but I don't really care either way.

>'the banking system is corrupt and bad'

Agreed. People didn't go to jail that should have, and society suffered for it. I don't agree that Bitcoin is the solution to those problems, though.

That legal principle of "come-on-man" is extremely useful. If only it existed.

I demand your courts help me but not using the currency your courts operate in is like Calvin Ball for cryptocapitalists.

>Calvin Ball for capitalists

I'll pocket this phrase for future use.

Just pay me in bitcash rather than bitcoin and we won't have a problem.

Well it kind of does exist in the sense that common law courts will revert to basic principles of equity and fairness when there's nothing applicable in law or precedent.

So legal system and monetary system are a package deal now? We can't sue a criminal unless we cease the search for alternatives to currency debasement, bailouts and finance cartels?

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