Not saying BTC is that, but just because the government is against it doesn't mean it's suddenly useful
It would have been easy for Turkey to prevent this, but instead, they turn the victims into criminals.
Is there anybody of note in the Bitcoin space that has ever suggested that custodial arrangements of crypto should be completely without legal or technical means of protection for depositors?
No. But there is almost nothing that any government on earth offers for that kind of assurance to the consumer. Conversely, they have all established legal and technical means that they may confiscate deposits.
They’re not doing anything to stop this ‘ponzi scheme’. They’re just making sure they can profit from it.
This is a gist of all anti-btc posts. Make up you mind people.
Or maybe BTC is a Schrödinger's new cat.
Replace "unthreatening" with "harmful" and you'll have a more accurate reason for governments to ban it, and no contradiction.
If bitcoin is inconsequential, why regulate / ban it? And why are institutional asset manager trying to figure out how to profit off of it? [1]
Well, is the answer not becoming overwhelmingly obvious?
[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/jp-morgan-launches-bitcoin-...
If you believe it's a speculative, ponzi scheme (not saying it actually is) where the money winds up in Singapore or wherever, do you want your population investing in it?
>[In 2018] Some estimates state at least 30 percent of South Koreans have invested in them. Simon Kim, CEO of Hashed (Korea’s leading crypto fund) told me that number could be as high as 50 percent among white-collared professionals.[0]
Would you not be worried about this?
[0]https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/14/why-south-korea-is-crypto...
Governments are probably worried about what "consequential" looks like. And they could be coming from a benevolent point of view (might be used to aid in the commission of a crime/evade taxes/etc), from a malevolent PoV (could be used to expatriate capital), or even from a position of ignorance, laziness, and/or position of weakness (we just don't want to deal with the BS, especially objections from large international trade partners).
The USA and China are powerful trading partners. If one of them says, "ban crypto," the smaller country is likely to comply.
Ah because they've agreed on so many things in the past.
What I mean is the USA and China force their laws on smaller trading partners. When the USA tells Vietnam that they need to pass certain IP laws as terms of a trade deal, VN passes those laws.
To a degree, this also happens with larger partners, such as Germany, but it's really noticeable with the smaller ones.
One issue if bitcoin is that countries will block it because countries don't want to loose the co trol over currency.
It is also purely against btc not the idea of cryptocurrency or the thought of having one global trusty cryptocurrency.
My personal btc hatred comes from the huge energy waste though.
Something like this needs time.
Normal government does not monitor btc as closely as people on hn.
This is more about Erdogan destroying democracy and the secular state than anything else.
The other factor is crypto is a very easy way to launder and move money outside of the government's view so pretty much any government hates it from that perspective.
I so often here the complete opposite, that the blockchain is all public and provides no anonymity at all. No one can make up their mind on why they hate crypto.
That's the old narrative, now it's a "Store of value" and a "hedge against inflation".