Binance halts deposits and withdrawals for customers in the UK
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Where are they headquartered is of interest to many people (for reporting on FBAR and/or taxes).
Storing your money with them on the other hand..
If I put up a stall in the street with a large "Bank" noticeboard no-one would give me wads of cash. Yet online that's exactly what people do.
>so the risk is almost zero
This article, and countless other crypto stories, demonstrate that the risk is not zero. It's just that it may takes some time to manifest itself.
What does it mean to "have a headquarter" in 2023?
At least in some jurisdictions it is actually mandatory to have this info on the company's website so that people can know who they are doing business with and also where to serve legal documents.
Any website that goes to some effort not to disclose anything has to raise a massive red flag.
I mean, they are optional, if you are thief or criminal, but perhaps I've given the answer away.
That "place of incorporation" is a very fluid thing, as it can be changed very quickly to adapt to changing regulations and optimize for rapid changes in the business ecosystem a company operates in.
And therefore: it doesn't mean much.
What really matters is:
- the company's assets financial and non-financial and what jurisdiction has sway over them.
- the people who control the company and what jurisdiction has sway over them
- the company's customers and what jurisdiction has sway over them
Where the headquarter actually is is IMO of precious little importance.
> Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK.
Year: 2021
This is why British people see all those “did you use Binance product X after Y date?” ads online. There's a bunch of people taking legal action against Binance UK.
Derivatives are way more volatile than base instruments, and since crypto is already volatile as a base instrument, crypto derivates are VERY volatile.
The string of collapses until now have been warning enough.
No crying if you lose your money when the next one goes pop.
"Starting Monday afternoon, new users will no longer be able to open accounts with GBP deposits on the platform.
"We regret to inform you that our GBP fiat partner, Skrill Limited, has informed us that it will stop offering GBP flat services, namely deposits and withdrawals via Faster Payments and card, to Binance users," the email read.
The suspension of GBP deposits and withdrawals will commence on May 22 and those who make any GBP deposits after that day will be refunded within seven working days, according to Binance."
I believe the acronym is SNAFU, not SAFU. :P
Different acronym :)
> Secure Asset Fund for Users
> A monetary fund created by the Binance exchange that holds 10% of all trading fees to indemnify customers in case the exchange is hacked. The term "safu" is also used to imply safe.
The wallet addresses are linked on this page:
https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/secure-asset-fund-fo...
I think you're referring to the rest of Binance proof-of-reserves, which are here. Note, I fully realize this isn't perfect.
https://www.binance.com/en/proof-of-reserves
There is also some interesting compliance stuff going on in Ceffu.
https://www.binance.com/en/blog/ecosystem/ceffu-formerly-bin...
https://www.ceffu.com/blog/ceffus-core-solution-achieves-soc...
https://www.ceffu.com/blog/ceffu-obtains-cold-storage-insura...
I believe that the OP was incorrect in their statement. It was originally allocated with 10%, not stated to be maintained at 10%.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-tops-up-safu-fund-at-...
"Binance’s SAFU began in 2018 by allocating 10% of the trading fee into a fund that is solely dedicated to backing up user holdings in the case of an incident. In February of this year, the fund hit $1 billion for the first time."
But the safeguards and regulations that governments put in place for money are mostly absent for crypto. It should remain this way. I want to see how far crypto can go without government regulations and protections.
We have seen enough of that: one rug-pull and scam after the other. Governments are stepping in with crypto precisely because of all the scams.
I'm still totally reeling from the XMR rug pull. Oh, wait...
Just because many are scams, doesn't mean there are no principled crypto currencies.
God forbid one should have to perform due diligence and actually think a bit about their currency.
There were other attempts at digital currency before BTC, but they were all taken down by people with guns.
That's kinda the whole point. That's why BTC uses energy. It's a means of resistance to people with guns.
That logic makes about as much sense as using crypto currencies in general.
Proof of Work is a means of preventing any one actor from controlling bitcoin. Proof of Work is energy intensive, but the currency exists in a government resistant manner without the use of guns because of Proof of Work.
No. It does not prevent majority attacks.
It has also been very effective as a mean to enforce an oligarchy of those who have the hardware and made billions, compared to those who did not and who were at the mercy of fluctuations. It makes sense from a perverse right-wing libertarian point of view, but it has nothing to do with democratisation or taking the power away from the government.
> those who have the hardware and made billions, compared to those who did not and who were at the mercy of fluctuations.
I don't know what you could even mean. Having hardware just means you can mine BTC. Miners still deal with price fluctuations, and in no way have they been able to control or print BTC.
> ...it has nothing to do with democratisation or taking the power away from the government.
If the government couldn't take limitless loans from the Fed which creates debt from nothing -- a fancy way of saying print money -- if the government couldn't print money it would have to tax for it's expenditure and would be naturally constrained in it's power.
I honestly can't understand any of your positions and can only believe you're incredibly uniformed about the reality of money, power, and the genisis of and technology behind many crypto currencies.
Good thing they weren't built to resist laws made by people with 5$ wrenches /s
Not at all. Otherwise they’d be truly anonymous. People with guns know how to parse the blockchain and how to find you if they need.
And as for BTC, the lightning network will add a level of anonymity as well.
Further, even if people with guns can track you, at least the people with guns can print more BTC or XMR to buy still more guns with.
Does that mean it'll eventually eclipse and live in front of the current timeline of banking, so we'll see banking and finance following the crypto industry at one point, repeating the same mistake that happens in cryptocurrencies?
But it would be funny if banks started encrypting my files and demanding ransom.
They're making a jab at a large usage of cryptocurrency: payment for ransomware exploits
As banking transactions can be reversed and are as opposite of anonymous as is practically possible, it would be (darkly) amusing if a traditional bank did that, precisely because the damage would be undone and the guilty parties trivially identified.
Every oil pipeline, school, hospital, farm, old age home that's ransomed is 100% thanks to Bitcoin and its progeny. But hey, at least it's found a use case.
> One of the first ransomware attacks ever documented was the AIDS trojan (PC Cyborg Virus) that was released via floppy disk in 1989. Victims needed to send $189 to a P.O. box in Panama to restore access to their systems, even though it was a simple virus that utilized symmetric cryptography.
[1] https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/ransomware/his...
Not your ability to keep your Ledger safe under your birdbath.
That's speculation 101.
He likes gambling too and I try to tell him it’s the same.
Feels close to the theory behind homeopathy. If something can trigger some symptom in a healthy person, then the same something can revert it in a sick person. They just remove any trace of it from the medicine to increase the effect.
But that's not all, otherwise they'd perfectly align with interest rates, and stagflation would've been impossible, just as whatever it is that we have now.
If you look closely, it's the idea that "if X caused Y, it must have also caused !Y" that I compared to homeopathy, not the idea that monetary policy exists.
Binance is a centralized service which allows people to buy cryptocurrencies, but which is not strictly necessary to use in order to use cryptocurrencies.
People can use decentralized exchanges like Bisq if they want to avoid these issues.
EDIT: Remember how Hackernews was supposed to be a community which has a focus on software development, and thus finding technical solutions to problems of users?
Now it seems we're more about bashing people for using the wrong technology? Advocating for a technical solution to their problems is disapproved of?
and linux is gnu/linux
.... now get off my lawn? dunno
Hence it does not seem logical to go to a "grow your own food" subthread and wonder why it makes a point about store-bought food not being grown at home.
As with all things in life, a golden rule applies:
If you don't like it then don't use it, that's ok!
Often the thing that’s envisioned by the creators is not the final say on market fit
I merely care about the fact that the tomatoes are being called non-industrial even though they are 100% factory grown.
I.e. Binance is not "crypto".
If there were no exchanges to provide a friction-free way for speculators and suckers to buy Bitcoins and Bitcoin recipients to turn them into spendable cash, there would be virtually no demand to buy or accept goods for Bitcoins, and the supply of Bitcoins exceeding the demand for them would obviously render them useless as a "store of value"
To draw an analogy, I support the individual right to keep and bear arms. But I don't want criminals to have access to weapons, and we can impose some reasonable rules to prevent that.
The moment general population became aware of "bitcoin" as "something you can buy that'll get more expensive", the whole technology and ideals behind it were overshadowed by speculative investors.
I don't care what you call it, calling the centralized Binance exchange "crypto" is just not accurate.
They don't deserve to co-opt the word.
Looking for hard drives in the trash does not scale.
> No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer... Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.
So personally, I fundamentally disagree with the statement "no losses borne by the taxpayer," believe this is used to obfuscate the issue, and am sad to see our treasury play this game. But it is standard fare these days, especially when people think they are protecting us from a banking run and the next great depression. But my concern is these measures lead to more economic inequality, populism, and eventual political turmoil.
[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone... [2] https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/ins...
It isn’t always said, because it isn’t always true. If the business you’re looking at has profits, then it has pricing power, and the conditions for 100% pass-through don’t exist.
That'll be a market contraction of 1000x. The uses of crypto will then be extremely limited.
I think it's safe to say that exchanges are crypto for most people.
Crypto exchanges seem likely to persist in some form for the foreseeable future. After all, it only takes 1, as "mtgox" was showing many years ago, and Binance shows today, in the sense that it dominates.
And if we look sideways to other 'nefarious online activities' - even after literally decades of concerted efforts, jailings, etc etc, thepir^tebay dotorg is still perfectly present, exactly as pir^tebay-ish as it ever was, along with it's endless host of similars. The only way commercial business ameliorated their effect was, ultimately, to adopt the tech and approach, and be better at it - in the process, displacing the nefarious.
To be more accurate...
Crypto: Going from banking the unbanked to centralized entities attempting to unbank the newly unbankable!
Who did I scam? Bitcoin is digital cash, nothing more nothing less. If someone hurt you using a digital currency I'm sorry but don't take it out on the very concept of digitizing money.