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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

Why does it matter? BlackRock can't print extra bitcoins, can't take them away from you (unless you give it to them to manage it first), can't block you from spending it one way or another, can't prevent you from sending it to someone else, can't block you from receiving it from someone... so, yeah.. the only problems are market manipulations, which ave been happening from day one.

In comparison, governments can print extra money (and they did, fucking up the economy with that), they can block your accounts, they can block accounts from people you want to send money to, they can block international money transfers if they don't like the other country, and in case of fully digital currencies, they can implement all the conspiracy theories, from social scores onwards...

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Didn’t crypto just crash and the bottom fall out on a bunch of coins/tokens because of mismanagement and scams? seems like Goverment or crypto people fill find a way to screw with the system

> mismanagement and scams

Just because some coins are mismanaged or are scams does not speak for the technology in itself. Only to the fact that a lot of crypto "investors" don't actually understand crypto.

This seems like the crypto version of "no true Scotsman" mixed with the "just world" fallacy. If someone loses money to a scam or rug pull they "don't actually understand crypto". How do we know? Because they lost money in a scam or rug pull - if they understood crypto they wouldn't have done that. Meanwhile, the technology and ecosystem around it can't be questioned.

If someone cons you into joining a ponzi around selling vacations, don't get pissed at everyone enjoying their vacation if you fall for it.

> BlackRock can't print extra bitcoins

BlackRock can't print extra shares of the components that make up the S&P500 that most mutual funds/ETFs invest in either

(I realized after you were alluding to the US government printing USD, not the stock market)

If you think the government doesnt have the power to knock on your door and take away your bitcoin you are delusional.

Wrench-attacking one person is easy. Wrench attacking 10% of your population is impossible.

In CS terms - Digital Central Bank money is O(1) to control. Bitcoin is O(n2).

If that would be needed it would be taken into control

It’s not though and nobody needs a wrench. Pretty easy to prevent any institution to exchange crypto for dollars and then you have a black market only currency with a plummeting value and usage which is criminal.

> Wrench attacking 10% of your population is impossible.

With digital goods/currencies, you just need to compromise their software. It's actually a lot easier, logistically, to confiscate bitcoin from 10% of your population than to confiscate cash from the same. How hard and for how long do you think Apple/Microsoft/Google could resist a legal mandate to block/confiscate bitcoin passing through the computer/phone OS that you use?

> How hard and for how long do you think Apple/Microsoft/Google could resist a legal mandate to block/confiscate bitcoin passing through the computer/phone OS that you use?

FB used a fun technique to get into the Vietnamese market. They got enough users onboarded that the government had no choice but to let people use their apps or face a huge amount of backlash for denying people access.

Peasant: You can’t take our Bitcoins!

King: That’s a nice house you have. Give 1000 Francs per year to our treasury OR ELSE.

Peasant: Anyone got Francs? I’ll trade you these shiny Bitcoin.

Actually it's really easy. It works in exactly the same way we did it with cash. You wrench attack and punish those that don't comply and the rest will comply willingly. Of course if 10% of people decide they don't care about the law anymore you have a problem anyways but we're not there.

With modern ZK tech, the day is quickly approaching where the government won’t even know you have bitcoin in the first place

I look forward to see social implications of ZK tech. It will be different society, building trust will be different. ( trust between yourself, your family, your government ).

Im OOTL, what is ZK tech?

Zero Knowledge, a variety of technologies which leverage cryptographic proofs that someone knows something is true, without revealing the knowledge to the verifier. This is useful for privacy, rolling a number of transactions into one bundle, and many other use cases.

That's funny, same is true with any bank account... the California Franchise Tax Board recently emptied one of my bank accounts without any warning. They thought I owed them taxes, which I did not. I'll be getting a refund some day...

I feel a lot safer with bitcoin in a wallet than I do with my bank account.

I wouldn't advise making potentially catastrophic decisions based on a feeling.

I've held bitcoin in wallets for many years and the government has yet to take them (beyond the taxes I've paid). I'm not saying that it can't or won't happen, but so far, my personal experience is strongly in favor of the bitcoin wallet.

They didn't need to put a gun to my head or make any sort of threats to empty my bank account. I suspect they'd need to do that with my bitcoin wallet.

Not your keys, not your coins.

Sure... the thing is by protecting your savings from an imaginary threat you're actually incurring a much higher risk of losing them. I'm just informing you that this is a stupid decision, but whatever do what "feels safer" and see how things turn out.

What part of the FTB emptying my bank account without even telling me or asking permission was imaginary?

All of it.

Ok, that's rude and clearly diminishes this conversation.

They already lost them (at least for now, it'll take weeks, months, maybe years) by trusting those you have told them to trust.

How tone deaf can one be?

> governments can print extra money

Aren't most coins doing exactly that constantly when people mine them?

The coins have to be introduced to the market somehow. Mining is a fair, open way to distribute these new funds. Literally anyone can participate on equal terms.

In the case of bitcoin, the monetary inflation/issuance rate of bitcoin is currently ~1.7%, below the Fed's target for the USD, and will drop by 50% in 2024. https://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-inflation/

And anyone with a bit of marketing power can create a new crypto currency.

As @aantonop has said for a long time... "the next bitcoin, is bitcoin"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0ftZgCEZos

Anyone with a bit of marketing power can create a new tech company. Tech is a scam.

There’s actually some truth to that. More than one tech company turned out to be fraud.

Exchanges can also print extra bitcoins.

The TornadoCash arrest is still high up on HN. If you think completely unaccountable money is going to be left alone you are mistaken. I only fear that the backlash is going to be excessive and leave the rest of us with intrusive restrictions.

It’s just the return of the crypto wars from the 90s. And privacy isn’t going to go down without a fight.

You're arguing that crypocurrency is a form of stable currency that can be trusted.

This argument, frankly, seems bizarre, given the short and tumultuous history of crypto.

Crypto seems to have the same problems as regular currency

Most regular currency doesn't have insane amounts of inflation/deflation the way crypto does...

> You're arguing that crypocurrency is a form of stable currency that can be trusted.

Actually, I don't think the parent comment was saying that. They were just listing out the defining features.

> This argument, frankly, seems bizarre, given the short and tumultuous history of crypto.

Agreed, because the features that the parent mention are inherently what make it deflationary. I don't know anyone who would actively want a deflationary currency.

People are wary of these God-complex "elites" and their entourage of sociopaths wherever they go. It doesn't matter if it's them getting into Bitcoin or them getting into soup kitchens. The end result is always bad for society at large.

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