Hacker News Reader

Comment by retube | Hacker News Reader

> but overall it's a pretty difficult thing to ban in practice.

That applies to just about everything. We have laws against tax evasion, fraud, murder... but people can (and do) still do these things. Just because a law doesn't or can't physically stop people doing things doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law.

The point is, if it is banned then you will severely constraint the ecosystem. On-off ramps and other intermediators will have to shut down, institutional participants will be forced to withdraw etc etc. Sure no doubt a handful of participants will flaunt the rules and continue to participate, trying to keep the dream alive, but for all practical purposes it'll be dead in the water.

View on HN

Off topic but I think you mean flout not flaunt. Although having read the link below it seems the misuse of flaunt may eventually become correct English[0].

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-it-wrong-to...

Fun little tangent, and cool link. I'll always associate "flout" with disdain, and "flaunt" with ostentation, but their confusion is understandable.

You can also ban drugs or even alcohol, both are a stellar success stories.

Crypto isn't likely to go away and the whole situation resembles to a global prisoners dilemma, I think the best governments could do is to come up with a sensible regulation.

Drugs and alcohol are fun (and/or they have inherent value).

Crypto is only fun when it’s arbitrarily going up in value, which would seem to be somewhat curtailed but these bans.

Of course crypto can be used to obtain (illegal) drugs, but it’s not clear that “sorta hard way to sometimes buy certain kinds of also illegal things” is as inherently valuable..

They are fun till hangover kicks in, to counter the downward trending crypto prices :)

Banning crypto also creates a massive incentive to find alternate ways to sell to this market which is quite large given India's population. Only this time the government gets nothing.

> Crypto is only fun when it’s arbitrarily going up in value

If you treat it like a casino then that is true.

Ideally, it takes over fiat currencies altogether and takes away the government’s ability to Arbitrarily create money out of thin air whenever it benefits them.

That may be your ideal but it is most definitely not mine.

I don’t understand how people can compare the austerity debacle and resulting outcomes in Greece with what the US was able to do (and turn a profit on) post financial crisis and decide that somehow the Greek way was better, countries shouldn’t be able to use monetary countermeasures, and these constraints will magically produce better politicians who will get it all right, because otherwise it would go wrong.

We’ll still get the incompetence, it will still go wrong, and the results are just worse all around.

Crypto fans obsessed with the handling of the financial crisis should brush up on the concept of Panglossian optimism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

> Crypto is only fun when it’s arbitrarily going up in value, which would seem to be somewhat curtailed but these bans.

From what I understand a huge use case for crypto is sending remittances. About 12 billion USD was sent to India from the USA in 2017 and the fees associated with a crypto transaction pale in comparison to that of Western Union.

The down side, of course, is the question of legality and market volatility.

This is not a use case that I personally have a use for, but I certainly understand the appeal of it.

> fees associated with a crypto transaction pale in comparison to that of Western Union.

Sending 1k USD to India via Wise costs 7.5 USD. The only reason remittance via crypto currencies seems cheaper is because pretty much every coin trades at a premium on Indian exchanges.

others have jumped onto your post and made some good comments.

- Crypto is fun for people who are in a repressive government (Canada).

- Crypto is fun for people who live in a country that is being mismanaged monetarily (Venezuela/Lebanon/Turkey).

- Crypto is fun for people who want to leave a country with capital controls (China)

- Crypto is fun for people who want their capital to not be debased unless they join a ponzi scheme (Stonks)

> Crypto is fun for people who want their capital to not be debased unless they join a ponzi scheme

And how do the valuations of crypto currencies differ from a Ponzi scheme?

There are plenty of countries which successfully cracked down on drugs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com