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Comment by tibanne | Hacker News Reader

How about letting people do what they want with their own money?

People can do what they want with their money. In this case, they can move their money to one of the many banks who don't place restrictions on transactions.

The beauty of the free market is that people are free to move their custom. And businesses are free to set the limitations necessary for profitable enterprise.

Some banks have decided that the risk to having to support customers who engage in risky behaviour is too high. There are literally dozens of free banks in the UK, and it is incredibly easy to switch provider.

In theory. I have lived in a country where all banks banned crypto exchange payments.

> In this case, they can move their money to one of the many banks who don't place restrictions on transactions.

Voting with your feet doesn't work. Moreover, banks or credit card processors shouldn't be the arbiters of what you should be allowed to spend your money on.

Of course it does - I have had banks close my accounts as they did not want to be associated with me. I opened accounts elsewhere and carried on.

I am free to do my business, they are free to not take my business. We are all free.

Society picks up the bill when mom and dad bet the pension savings on crypto and they have to take public money into retirement. The banks are trying to essential provide a cooling off period so regular people don't get obliterated. The same people that complain about the impinging government are usually the first to ask for a handout the moment something goes wrong etc etc.

Society pick up the bill when they bet the pension on a legal and regulated gambling site too. Or when they bet it all on leveraged tech stocks. Why stop you doing one thing and not the others?

I'm not particularly pro-crypto, but it's an interesting question that we haven't answered very well. It's clear to me that the state shouldn't stop you doing anything risky with your money - that also means stopping people starting businesses. But where do you draw the line? Problem gamblers often funnel every penny they have into betting sites - losing their house in the process. Wall street bets makes it clear that leveraged stocks can cause the same problems. Should we ban them too?

>The same people that complain about the impinging government are usually the first to ask for a handout the moment something goes wrong

Really? This doesn't seem to match my experience.

Ayn Rand, patron saint of those people, was on Social Security, for a famous example.

I recall society picking up a very large bill for said banks in 2008, when mom and dad bet everything on property prices rising indefinitely for reasons.

TARP recovered $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested

The "society" made a profit.

It is a reverse hostage situation. Banks enable the modern society to work but if they are gone so is our economy because of an insufficient "investment" in diversifying the money system. In theory we could do a multitude of alternative money approaches like barter clubs or local complementary currencies and then the risk of major banks failing wouldn't be the complete loss of the economy, only a big chunk.

> The same people that complain about the impinging government are usually the first to ask for a handout the moment something goes wrong etc etc.

Banks and Megacorps?

Are we all going to just forget 2008 and the simple fact that this technology was created to counter the UK's baiput policy (it's written in the genesis block!) and subsequent inflation tht is due to the rampant increase in money creation PRIMARILY made to bail-out businesses who couldn't or didn't have any savings and were on the verge on bankruptcy at the onset of COVID? The people got crumbs by comparison (extended UI benefits and some never got them at all) and were allowed to enter a roaring hot stock market created by tis glut f Capital pumped into the system and busineses lookign for yield any where they can find it and the minority of this sector (home owners) benefited from the sky high real estate appreciation boom, but it's peak tech-bro to say it was the average person who was the benefactors of any of this (some Industries were completely obliterated and many died in order to return to work despite being deemed essential workers) when it's clear it's the parasitic banking and corporations who are the ones that benefit the most.

I agree that 'crytpo' has been a misused moniker to describe the entirety of cryptocurrencies, but if you have anything but cursory knowledge on any of it and can resist letting yourself be swayed by click bait-headlines you'll realize that it's Bitcoin separated from the rest of crypto.

Sadly that is what scammers say too.

Banks are for money, not wild Ponzi schemes.

People can play Ponzi schemes as they like, banks probably should not be involved.

Because politicians will blame the banks when too many people lose their money

People who do what they want with their money sometimes need protecting from themselves.

Those who don't want banks involved in their lives are free to adopt some other form of exchange. This may be considered irony.

Tell that to all the crypto exchanges that stopped withdrawals...

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