Bittrex to Cease Operations in the US
bittrex.com
bittrex.com
I also believe Gemini is on its last legs. The SEC combined with anemic volumes, GUSD went nowhere, Nifty Gateway market collapsed, Gemini Earn is in bankruptcy. Winklevoss will just buy and hold BTC from now on.
The extortion racket bucket shops cant go fast enough!
Long live DEX’s, liquidity pool technology has been an incredible boon to the crypto space, shifting dynamics away from exchanges directly to the project issuers and community.
I mean it certainly does the job but I'd die from stress if I would risk releasing a bug that could wipe hundreds of millions of users' money. I respect people who are good enough at Solidity to be reasonably confident.
Even Paypal and Cashapp are trusted crypto exchanges now. The crypto you receive there can be withdrawn and access the entire crypto economy.
Regardless, the point being made in the comment upthread wasn't "you will never need a centralized entity ever again": that was a total strawman. It wasn't even that you wouldn't want any centralized exchanges! It was merely that the "long tail" of random exchanges who specialize in listing more random tokens is effectively dead as who would bother with all that trouble to navigate all the red tape--particularly to operate in the United States--to support and vet these tokens when every token ever can be made available on a decentralized exchange. You might thereby still want a handful of the largest exchanges... but do you really need Bittrex enough for them to make enough money to put much effort into existing?
But that relegates the centralized exchange into the position of being nothing more than a "fiat on-ramp"
The only reason Circle isn't bothering with this market is seemingly that they didn't want to deal directly with retail
But I'm willing to bet that they won't, because dealing with retail investors is a hassle. You have to have customer service. You have to deal with additional regulation. You have to deal with random social media firestorms. It's a mess. I don't blame Citadel for leaving it to Robinhood to deal with these issues and I wouldn't blame Circle for leaving it to Coinbase to deal with the retail issues surrounding crypto.
They have 75% of $33 billions (with a 'b') of the USDC circulating as short-term US treasuries (with every single individual ID of the short-term treasuries publicly posted).
So someone is basically printing free money by having about $25 bn in short term US treasuries yielding atm something insane like 4% yearly.
I don't know who's pocketing that money but that's about $1 billion, yearly, in yields from the short term US treasuries.
If somehow Coinbase (or "Centre" but Centre is Circle + Coinbase) is pocketing that money, they probably could allow 0% fees trading everywhere and still be one of the most profitable HN unicorn out there.
Does Coinbase give APY on people keeping USDC at Coinbase? I have no idea. Does Coinbase give APY on people withdrawing USDC to private wallets? I think they don't. I'm nearly sure they don't.
What happens to that money?
I've never seen anything posted on the subject.
FWIW, I specifically chose to say "Coinbase" as my mental model here is that Coinbase is an exchange and Circle issues the stablecoin and maybe Coinbase has a deal to get interest from Circle for all the USDC held by Coinbase and maybe even is given some kind of kickback for deposits and withdrawals, but that doesn't really mean much for the business model of running an exchange: Circle directly provides fiat on-ramp services to companies and could to individuals as well (given that their competitor Paxos supports both kinds of user).
FWIW, my defense of Coinbase in specific is that they are a very large exchange that has achieved enough of a network effect that in a world where only one exchange is used by people in the United States, it probably will be Coinbase. The only other competitors right now are Kraken--which I love but have to admit is quite a bit smaller--and... Binance.US... which I think is much more likely to perish under US regulatory crackdown.
But like, Bittrex wouldn't have been on my list yesterday and now can't be on my list as they decided to shut down in the United States, and I think the argument monero-mxr made--that this is because decentralized exchanges now exist and "long tail" centralized exchanges are somewhat pointless--makes a lot of sense.
But then people did the usual thing of kind of trying to claim decentralized exchanges were meaningless as you still are going to likely want at least one company to deal with USD directly... and that went too far, as the decentralized exchange can still dominate the landscape even if you still need this trivial dumb money pipe on the other side, the same way my ISP doesn't make anywhere need as much money as AOL was hoping to because it got commoditized by the world wide web.
Bittrex Global continues, along with the other 600+ centralised exchanges [0] unfortunately excluded in American-centric reality.
Fun fact, Nintendo Switch cartridges are coated in it.
I guess this is good for Bitcoin in the absolute shortest term... I expect Bitcoin/maincoin dominance will go up if Bittrex has any reasonable volume.
It's like the maga incels who work at walmart but complain taxes are too high.
Have to say that as an EU based user I feel a bit uneasy about this though. Perhaps it’s time for some cold wallets or, as I’m reading here, a dex.
Well then.
Crypto has no use case at all and the exchanges harboring these speculative tokens needs to be destroyed.
saying “no use case” and “speculative” in the same sentence is always hilarious, yeah, service the speculators
its financial services and entertainment, the latter of which is also a big sector and valuable to humans
It is a morally repugnant gambling speculative vice which destroys lives and is even worse than fiat.
Not to mention Bitcoin and the like burning the planet trying to solve useless puzzles.
yes, gambling is a big industry too, why do you keep naming use cases that have validation of their value?
What good is there in a so called currency based on fictitious tokens created out of thin air and backed by completely nothing and adding nothing useful to society?
Even Nvidia agrees:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/26/cryptocur...
At least gambling is regulated where as crypto is a unregulated decentralised wild west where there is no protections whatsoever.
Where is the use case in people losing money in a pyramid scheme using crypto tokens?
Speculation is not a legitimate use case for something that aims to become a currency. If I am trying to buy a loaf of bread with a crypto token and the price plummets and fluctuates wildly for no reason that is backed by nothing, it is not useful at all.
You can try and justify crypto all you want, However and objectively speaking, there are far too many pyramid schemes, far too many ponzi schemes, scams, rugpulls and ransomware crypto payments, unregistered ICOs that crypto is harbouring to even take seriously after 15 years of its existence.
I'm glad the crackdown is happening.
You could just say a relevant point rather than failing to make a point like crypto.
Pro-tip going forward in life: try not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
In fact crypto bros like yourself are the ones asking for regulatory clarity, to which it is you that is in need of an external authority to save you from yourselves.
Because crypto and it's industry clearly cannot save itself, that's why it needs regulation. With or without regulation crypto will collapse anyway.
It's unclear why you think putting words in my mouth is going to achieve anything. ICOs don't need any special regulations, existing contract law is fine.
Finally, I'm not sure why you've written "regulatory clarity" there. Of course we'd like the authorities to act in a predicable way, but that's an orthagonal issue to how restrictive those regulations should be. It feels like you're just throwing out phrases you don't quite understand.
So? Whether or not you chose 15 at random, it still does not change my point.
I still don't see the point you're trying to make here, crypto is completely unregulated and doesn't provide any benefit to society at all.
At best it needs to be pushed off shore, banned completely or both.
It is great to see this crypto exchange ceasing operations and getting the message that they are not welcome in the US, hopefully other countries will do the same and show crypto the door.
Modern currencies like USD, EUR, JPY etc. don't have intrinsic value either.
> It is a morally repugnant gambling speculative vice which destroys lives and is even worse than fiat.
We should ban speculative buying of comics, gaming skins, Pokémon cards and, of course, gambling in casinos worldwide too. Also, the gambling on Robinhood is morally repugnant too, as grown up adults can't be trusted to manage their money.
> Not to mention Bitcoin and the like burning the planet trying to solve useless puzzles.
The value in solving the puzzles is securing the network (no other network is as secure as Bitcoin, see [1]). Gold mining uses the same energy amount as BTC. [2] Only 8% of Gold of the gold dug up is used for productive means by the industry. The rest is bought by speculators, jewelries and central banks because it's shiny. [3]
[2] https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...
Arguably, they are like ownership into the country's GDP and military influence no?
Well, yes, but that doesn't give you intrinsic value. If you are long a currency, you make a bet that other people have confidence in the government's ability to enforce the currency and keep economic output high enough to keep the value stable.
However, if the government collapses, the money becomes completely worthless. There is no commodity, product, or service backing it up.
> Education is speculative gambling... Driving is speculative gambling...Eating is speculative gambling...
I also hope and assume you have reputable evidence of all three of these in the next hour or two (!)
Government backed money is the worst form of money, except all the others have been tried including crypto.
What it has done, which seems to exist outside the blinkered view, is that for a number of years now, bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies have been very successful at being transferable between two parties no matter their geographical location and without a third party acting as intermediary or authority.
For those who participate, this is an exchange of value. For those who don't participate it should be at least seen as a half decent proof of concept of something that could be used as an exchange of value (money).
Yet this 'proof of concept' is too slow to be used in the real world after 15+ years with little to nobody using it at all.
UPI has been available for 6 years with almost 700 million users and is expanding their network globally.
So even by trying to send money, there is no need for crypto at all for this case as this has already been improved and done by the current system.
You might as well use Wise, UPI and other regulated money transfer services that exist in current system.
I look forward to FedNow removing even more need for crypto to exist.
Or then we have a very different definition of "complete mess". For the record, I have no reason to doubt the value of my savings account fluctuates wildly and the savings account is guaranteed by government for my practical purposes. I can make all the payments I need to make free/with very modest fee. In most cases, for practical purposes, the payments are immediate. If I happen to need, I can borrow money against my non-money non liquid assets. I can't describe this situation as "a complete mess". To my understanding crypto offers practically none of these benefits in any kind of robust way. This from european perspective.
Just FYI, payments in the traditional banking systems are very much not immediate, they just appear that way from your perspective. The perspective usually breaks down if you try to move a large amount of currency around, you will get anything from straight up denials, many month waiting periods, money getting "lost" in processing for months, and large surprise fees. The "immediate" transaction illusion you see are just agreements between major financial entities to make transactions appear fast but are limited volume to reduce banks risk. For example, common credit card transactions, no matter how small, are not actually cleared for over 150 days. Based on my experience European banks are no different although I haven't tried it as often as I have in the US.
Hmmm. There is this thing within the current awful mess of a finacial system called credit card which allows me to pay very practically all over the world. Funny enough, though, that cryptofolk were at some point very vocally telling that you can "use" crypto by using a crypto credit card.
> Just FYI, payments in the traditional banking systems are very much not immediate, they just appear that way from your perspective
And that is why I was careful to formulate "In most cases, for practical purposes"
It powers the whole world. Almost every kind of transaction you can think of.
If people would follow the regs most things would work.
I think the biggest issue is transactional drag aka something needs to replace VISA, and should be nicer consumer protections for personal accounts but for the most part it works.
Nothing Crypto has offered is better, not even close.
I suggest someday that may happen, but it will 'feel' much more like traditional bakning when it happens.
There is a reason why banking is the most 'buttoned down, small-c conservative' industry because oversight, competency etc. all of that matters. It's that world.
... notwithstanding some other issues that would exist with crypto as well, such as mortgage lending etc..
This is a sentence that could be said at any point in history, about any dominant "system", financial or otherwise.
How could slavery be a 'a mess'? It powers the whole world. How could feudalism be 'a mess'? It powers the whole world. How could nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes be 'a mess'? It powers the whole world.
Free to use any regulated currency. Crypto is completely unregulated and too volatile to be used as a currency. It will be made illegal very quickly in a few years time, we already have India and China clamping down so you won't have to wait that long.
Inevitably, we will see when the governments of the world band together to push crypto into the dark web and you'll never be able to cash out your crypto tokens into the real world through exchanges.
Once again, another easy way to lose your money.
Except if you are in the crypto exchange business and you need to unload your fake tokens for real cash, just like how FTX and other failed exchanges took everyone's money from their wallets when they failed.
When will you stop running from exchange to exchange to try cash out your tokens because of a bank run?
Should it also be illegal to trade my fake tokens for other fake tokens other via decentralized exchanges?
There is no investor protections in crypto at all, especially if is all retail getting scammed all the time.
> Should it also be illegal to trade my fake tokens for other fake tokens other via decentralized exchanges?
Once it is deemed an unregistered security then yes, it should be illegal and it will be illegal.
There is no way around it once crypto gets pushed down into the dark web where you can only cash out with illegal drugs instead of fiat.
This is where crypto is heading.
Seems to me that FTX's spectacular collapse was a bigger case of looting than what your getting confused with, caused by their own mess rather than the state.
> ...and not supposed investor protections
I fail to see where was investor protections were when FTX and other exchanges collapsed.
> The code for all decentralized exchanges is open source.
Irrelevant.
> You aren’t being scammed by anyone, you volunteered to participate in the market. You aren’t a victim for losing a trade you chose to participate in.
When family members, cousins, in-laws and friends are getting themselves involved with crypto and asking everyone around to bail them out or join, it is a major problem for everyone who knows them.
I’m not in favour of bailouts to anybody, nor taxes that fund those bailouts. Take nobody’s money from them and give nobody’s money to me. Like I said, the code is all open source, you can verify any suspicions you have yourself. There is no scam, you’re just grasping for reasons to regulate other people’s money.
Liquidity for cashing out will begin to dry up and more on other exchanges such as Binance will do the same thing.
Decentralised Exchanges (with absolutely no investor protections, unregulated and are highly prone to rug pulls) will be ordered to shut down, also forcing a drain on liquidity.
Once crypto crashes the market will 'loot' your wallet by deeming your crypto worthless and you will forever try to cash out your worthless coins.
> There is no scam, you’re just grasping for reasons to regulate other people’s money.
It is a scam, just ask the people who lost money with FTX.
Or the many people who have been rug pulled here:
Calling it a scam doesn’t make it a scam. Again, the source is available online, free for you to see. That is the contract you agree to when you choose to participate in crypto. You cannot consent to being scammed, that goes against the very definition of being scammed. Making it illegal for consenting individuals to do what they want is typical authoritarian trash behaviour. Perhaps you’d be happier in Cuba where you can freely control other people’s money to your liking.
Who consented their crypto funds to be lost to rug pulls, ransomware, thefts, hacks, pump and dumps, commingling of funds, and their funds being used for leveraged trading?
So $12+ Billon lost in crypto is not a scam? and the users agreed and consented to all of this?
I'm assuming then that you know some information that suggests that the $12 Billion lost is somehow insured?
> Again, the source is available online, free for you to see.
This doesn't mean anything.
All the people who completely lost their money in FTX, LUNA, BlockFi, etc. do not care about source code. This makes no sense at all. If I was rug pulled in a scam the last thing anyone would care about is the source code.
> That’s cool, I don’t really care though. Leave my money alone,
You will care once liquidity goes dry and once the crypto crackdown ramps up, then all these tokens plus Bitcoin go to zero.
I shouldn't see you moving money or cashing out your crypto because another exchange has fallen down due to regulations or insolvency and the price of these tokens crash.
If you actually get scammed by a proprietary and centralized entity like FTX, then go after FTX and not me. Stop defending the redistribution of consequences, my money is not your basic human right.
This is why what your saying about 'open source' and 'reed the code' is irrelevant.
> You can’t get scammed by an open source project...If you actually get scammed by a proprietary and centralized entity like FTX, then go after FTX and not me.
Wormhole got exploited for $320M even though it was an open source DeFi project, this hack is the 2nd biggest of all time for a DeFi project.
PolyNetwork got exploited for $620M even though it was an open source DeFi project, the biggest of all time.
Where were those reading the code there to stop it?
So when your wallet gets drained are you going to 'reed the code' to reassure yourself that you're not going to get your money back?
> ...then go after FTX and not me. Stop defending the redistribution of consequences, my money is not your basic human right.
It's already happening that FTX is being brought to the law, privacy coins will follow and will be outlawed as they already are from governments around the world.
The law is doing all the work and the precedent for crypto will be set from there.
You can have a tantrum all you want. But you wanted regulation and regulatory clarity, it's coming and it will affect the crypto prices negatively and will tread on your wallet.
As far as I’m concerned, all those exploits were 100% fair game. Again, it’s not a centralized exchange. There is no CEO making promises to you, there are no guarantees. The code you chose to interact with behaved exactly as it was written. That’s what makes crypto unique, there are no “Bitcoin developers”, they don’t have any more power over bitcoin than anyone else. Their changes are only merged in because holders voted those changes in. That’s the very thing that makes it not a security.
Don’t like that? Make better choices next time, or don’t use cryptocurrencies. As I said, that was always an option.
So I'm assuming you know every function and know the control flow of any crypto project or smart contract that your interacting with in detail and reviewing each PR. Unless you use a vulnerability scanner like everybody else and you don't bother reading the code.
The Ronin Network (which is open source) was hacked for $620M even though the code was 'allegedly' solid and those playing Axie Infinity were indirectly affected and lost their money as a result. Where does 'reed the code' fit here?
In the eyes of the law 'reed the code' is a moot point. You can't lose 'money' in the billions and expect no regulation or nothing to happen.