US Senate Banking Committee's Chairman Says 'Maybe' to Banning Cryptocurrency (thehill.com) 88
The U.S. Senate's Banking Committee chairman "said federal agencies need to address the cryptocurrency market and 'maybe' ban it," reports the Hill, "after the high-profile collapse of cryptocurrency market FTX last month."
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), told NBC's "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd that the Treasury Department and "all the different agencies" need to get together and assess any possible action related to the cryptocurrency market. "Maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work," Brown said....
Brown on Sunday said the cryptocurrency market is a "complicated, unregulated pot of money" and the issue was much larger than FTX. "So we've got to do this right," the senator said, adding that he has talked to the Treasury Department to do a related assessment across regulatory agencies. "I've spent much of the last eight years and a half in this job as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee," Brown added "educating my colleagues and trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and the consumers that get hoodwinked by them."
Brown on Sunday said the cryptocurrency market is a "complicated, unregulated pot of money" and the issue was much larger than FTX. "So we've got to do this right," the senator said, adding that he has talked to the Treasury Department to do a related assessment across regulatory agencies. "I've spent much of the last eight years and a half in this job as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee," Brown added "educating my colleagues and trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and the consumers that get hoodwinked by them."
Will it matter? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the whole crypto fad was just about over.
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Hopefully. I'm getting tired of laughing at people who get ripped off in this whole pyramid scheme.
That "pyramid scheme" now includes people falling for both sides peddling. Crypto isn't going anywhere. Elon pumps it for investment reasons. His political opponents dump on it for obvious fucking reasons. This ain't rocket science figuring out the crypto value battle royale of the week that happens to also be the fiscal EOY.
Next month they'll invent some other bullshit to get #altcoin value to be about as stable as a penny in a washing machine. In a world full of hedge fund betting, an ever-changing v
Re: Will it matter? (Score:2)
The rules may change to require cryptocurrency to be backed by solid means.
Re: Will it matter? (Score:2)
Re: Will it matter? (Score:2)
That is utter nonsense.
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Not if it's U235.
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I read bitcoin is holding strong as people exit stable coin positions, which often don't allow for direct conversion to USD, so people are buying bitcoins with their altcoins, on their way to exit crypto. Bitcoin transactions are slow and expensive (when not traded on an exchange), so the exodus from BTC to USD will take time. HODLers haven't lost faith completely, just losing it a bit at a time as reality sets in that bitcoin is a ponzi scheme above $10 / btc. Crypto does have a use, there is a need for de
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Re: Will it matter? (Score:2)
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If I were that dumb, I'd post as AC as well...
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Drumpf's NFT Collection Crashes Over 50% After 12-Hour Selloff Frenzy [msn.com]
A fool and his money...
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Like all scams it will live on with promises of "this time for sure!" until it is killed. If there's a buck to be made, someone's gonna try to make it.
Re:Will it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the whole crypto fad was just about over.
The value of the crypto industry this year, post crash still stands quite close to $1 trillion USD.
No, we've had a market downturn, and an exchange worth a pathetically small $32 billion USD just went under, but unfortunately the stupidity very much continues.
Current estimated energy consumption of just bitcoin alone: 10.5GW, or 7 large nuclear reactors for those people who think building nuclear will solve our problems.
Incidentally the former Orange-retard-in-Chief of the USA just released the single lamest NFTs I've ever seen and which sold out basically straight away. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/d... [cbsnews.com]
THAT is the state of crypto.
Re: Will it matter? (Score:5, Funny)
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Here's the reality of crypto: Anyone can start their own currency or make their own NFT with very little effort. It's monopoly money. Try to cash out and watch about 20% of your imaginary value instantly vanish ... if you can cash out at all, as some crypto 'millionaires' have discovered ...
The value of the crypto industry this year, post crash still stands quite close to $1 trillion USD.
1 Trillion? Is that based on the value assigned by the exchanges? Color me skeptical. Also, are you sure we're "post crash"? It looks like BTC is only hanging on because people see it as the best way to exit crypto
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I guess you're not counting my coin, which is valued at $100 trillion dollars.
Now, FTX, was obviously not worth $32 billion, but it did happen to have some number of billions of actual dollars which can realistically be valued as $1 per.
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Now, FTX, was obviously not worth $32 billion
What something is worth in its field and what someone has on hand are not actually related to each other, not in the crypto field, not in any other financial field. The impact of the loss of perceived value is a real issue since it is perceived value on which financial trades are made and not fixed assets. That is precisely why the FTX collapse is a such a big deal.
So yes FTX was worth $32billion. What it wasn't is backed up with any underlying real value, but given its debts it very much shocked the indust
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Incidentally the former Orange-retard-in-Chief of the USA just released the single lamest NFTs I've ever seen and which sold out basically straight away.
Maybe. The only evidence we have that they sold out is Trump's word. And we all know what that's worth.
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Not at all. NFTs are publicly traded. The sellout can be verified by the trading volume of the unique NFTs and the sellout is corroborated by companies specifically monitoring these kinds of scams.
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Incidentally the former Orange-retard-in-Chief of the USA just released the single lamest NFTs I've ever seen and which sold out basically straight away.
LOL! [msn.com] The "value" dropped 50% in less than a day.
It seems sill to talk about the current value of this nonsense when, in reality, the true value has always been zero. The only reason anyone wanted these in the first place is the mistaken belief that they could be resold to an even bigger sucker for more than they paid.
Don't be a sucker.
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That's very selective reading. The value dropped 50% in less than a day from the trading high. For the people who bought the original NFT, they are still 400% up on the original sale price.
That said I agree with you such scammy shit is worthless and to not be a sucker.
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I was feeling a bit of HOPE along those lines...
Maybe they should shove it off to the EPA because of how much wasted energy has gone into it.
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And we can thank Sam Beavis-Fried for snuffing it out.
Snort Snort..."Hey Butthead. I think I just killed crypto."
Butthead: "Beavis you are such a moron."
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It used to be over $68,000. It's only hanging on at the moment because people are converting their alternative crypto to bitcoin in the hope that they'll actually be able to cash out before the last few suckers run out of cash.
Amusing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amusing (Score:5, Insightful)
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How come we have to prevent investors from investing in bad investments?
Those of us who saw this coming a mile away are amused.
Why not ban scratch off tickets?
Ban beer, tobacco etc. That is not a good use of a persons money.
Ban money from politics. No contributions. No ads. That's not helping society. People are hungry, having trouble paying their bills, might lose their car because they can't make the payments, and we have companies like Comcast, AT&T etc giving obscene amounts of money (that came out
Re: Amusing (Score:1)
Re: Amusing (Score:2)
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You should try selling your own scratch tickets, beer or tobacco without any of that gubmint interference. Report back here how it goes.
Re: Amusing (Score:3)
The moment the link between the US financial system and exchanges is cut, crypto goes to zero.
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Hilarious that they think they can ban crypto.
It is even more hilarious that some people think it cannot be banned.
Will the ban eradicate crypto completely, probably not, but when buying or selling crypto coins for USD became as difficult and illegal as buying or selling child porn, who else except criminals would use it? Even randomwares won't use it because their victims would find it impossible to buy bitcoins to pay the ransom, worse, their victims would be themselves breaking the law when doing so, further discouraging them from doing so.
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If you can't "cash out" and convert your crypto into real money, it's worthless.
It's hard to "cash out" now. Making it near impossible is an easily achievable goal.
But if you want to pretend your monopoly money is "real money" and trade various currencies and NFTs among yourselves, no one is going to care. You can even pretend that you're millionaires and billionaires if you want.
Re:Amusing (Score:5, Interesting)
Some obvious avenues of attack are to ban (or heavily regulate) mining in US territories, put ever more onerous regulatory frameworks around it, e.g. requiring audits and proof of reserves, taxation of any positive returns, and so on. As you note, that won't stop the criminals and at least some of the hardcore fanbois and members of the public from continuing to use it (see 3D printing, P2P platforms, etc., etc., etc.), but it could reduce both institutional and private interest by a potentially quite sizeable degree, and without that extra churn to hide wash trades and other shady activity, it'll become far more risky to break whatever regulatory frameworks and laws might be put into place.
Also, if the US pull the legal plug (figuratively and literally) on mining as China has already done, I suspect the EU will rapidly follow suit as a means to help address the energy crisis they are facing. Sure, mining new coins at a steady rate, isn't essential to crypto functioning, but it is a major part of the verification model and consolidation of miners makes 51% attacks much more likely. I can't see BTC making a quick transition to PoS after seeing how long that process took for ETH, so that'll be another nail in the coffin as BTC is generally what most people who are not insiders think of first when you mention crypto.
Before they can do any of this though, they need to provide an off-ramp. That's what I think was meant by "so we've got to do this right"; he's referring to either a means for speculators to bring themselves into compliance with whatever rules and regulations are passed and/or for institutional investors and other members of the 1% to divest their holdings without too much financial pain. They might even allow for some of the 99% to do the same as well, although I wouldn't count on much support if you miss the boat and end up holding the bag if it all implodes. I don't think crypto is going away either, but I do think there is going to be a massive shakeout of the market and the idea of a decentralised/deregulated financial system free from government interference is probably already dead at this point.
They don't want to ban it, they want donations (Score:1)
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We know you have a lot of money laying around
They have crypto, which is just pretend money. You can sometimes exchange it for money, but that requires a bigger sucker than the person who bought it in the first place. Bigger suckers are in increasingly short supply.
Do it (Score:2, Insightful)
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There we go trying to regulate math again
How will people ever learn if you keep saving them from themselves?
You learn not to touch a hot frying pan because of getting burned. We're turning America into a population of idiots by saving them from every wrong decision they make. Or what ends up happening is the people who were savvy end up bailing out the idiots that wouldn't listen.
Re:Do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do it (Score:5, Insightful)
How will people ever learn if you keep saving them from themselves?
Yeah, how is that baby going to learn to avoid wood chippers if you don't let it fall in?
Re:Do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans have this thing called language, education, and culture (and laws) that helps us bypass inefficient learning.
Re: Do it (Score:2)
Re: Do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Second is that proof of work, in a currency with a finite amount of coins, ties energy efficiency to money and monetises more efficient (renewable and waste) energy sources
This is like arguing that you are going to continue banging your head against the wall, so what is required are softer walls.
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> I love your green washing on what has to be one of the most grotesque misuses of power in modern times
If you support Central Banking and the War Machine's energy usage but oppose Bitcoin at over 1000x [substack.com] less, then YOU are the problem Bitcoin was meant to solve.
And, yes, the Military Industrial Complex finds the abolishment of their continuing rape of humanity to be "grotesque".
Too bad, your days are numbered. Humans will once again flourish on Earth and the psychopaths will be defeated.
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Oh yes, proof of work is very decentralized into mining pools. That's *totally* the opposite of staking pools. Totally.
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> Oh yes, proof of work is very decentralized into mining pools. That's *totally* the opposite of staking pools. Totally.
The Federal Reserve can now buy $ETH in an afternoon from an air-conditioned office.
You are correct.
All Crypto/DLTs are not Equal (Score:1)
The current wide range of cryptos/DLTs range from scams to networks that are not fully evolved. Besides the scams and shit coins there are networks that will evolve and will solve some of the most challenging problems in our time... These networks will provide efficiencies that provide true decentralized governance and consensus. Decentralized transactions and decentralized value exchange will be part of our everyday life. We'll use these to secure and increase efficiencies, trust, and usher in real dec
Re: All Crypto/DLTs are not Equal (Score:2)
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As the banks & government looked on cryptocurrency was taking control of money and handing it back to the common man it the streets.
This is not even close to a thing that happened.
Re: FTX the latest fall guy (Score:1)
Re: FTX the latest fall guy (Score:5, Insightful)
The common man did not at all get control of cryptocurrency. The common man who did some mining or whatever is now a nobody. Cryptocurrency mining is dominated by businesses with mining farms, and cryptocurrency is essentially worthless without exchanges, which are also not owned by the common man.
The common man exists only to be fleeced in this system, same as the other system. Cryptocurrency solves no problems.
Also Ban NFTPonzi (Score:4, Insightful)
It's funny at first to see the morons waste their money on NFTPonzi schemes, but as the disease spreads, some simple but decent people get caught up.
NFTPonzis take your money and giving you nothing back.
Ban them.
Government! (Score:2)
really? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know this is anathema to anyone in government, but something being "unregulated" is not, in and of itself, a reason we absolutely have to regulate it.
I know, it's a crazy concept.
Re: really? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Maybe deal with the actual financial fraud and the bad actors, then?
What you're talking about is basically the same as after a school shooting, trying to regulate the bullets.*
*don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people this stupid, too.
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Maybe deal with the actual financial fraud and the bad actors, then?
That's the plan. They're going to deal with it through regulation.
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I can't help but think this sounds a lot like:
"Instead of installing airbags, we should just get rid of bad drivers on the road."
Which is periously close to:
"just stop crashing."
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You know what is the absolute LAST line of safety protection in any industrial environment?
PPE.
Because safety professionals understand that fundamentally safer behavior is far better at protecting people than simply slapping on a hard hat or steel-toed-boots.
To your example, which is going to ultimately result in safer highways:
1) airbags, or
2) increasing driver training from the perfunctory $70, 30 hours of classroom and 50 hours behind the wheel to a serious driver's ed comparable to getting a DL in, say,
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You miss my point - We've tried education on many problems, and I'm going to be someone who mostly agrees with you that some people can be trained to be safer. I can't train a random deer to not jump out in front of my car. I can't train someone to not have a random heart attack and crash into me.
There's going to be crashes. If we can have better safety for that, I can't think why we should not implement it.
Also, I'll point out we still require those hard hats...
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Let's also outlaw the USD... (Score:1)
Seriously, this guy doesn't know what crypto is, he's just trying to ride the wave of govt haters and get in front of the cameras...
Truth is, crypto suffers the same kind of problems as the USD; it is created and used by trusted people and entities and yes there's a few bad apples out there that figured out how to bilk unsuspecting people from some of their money. In fact, scams against the poor using USD is far more damaging than scams against those with coins and access (typically not the poor)...
Jinni's and Bottles (Score:1)
More government is rarely the answer (Score:1)
History shows us that laws rarely restrain technology. Let people assume the risk with their own money and if they end up bankrupt, let them take jobs from illegal immigrants or incels. Crypto is here to stay and, while it lacks the benefits of state currency i.e. backed by tangible properties and machine guns, trying to "regulate" or criminalize it will simply create a more powerful black market. We have tens of millions of lines of law, and most of it just adds costs which are always passed down directly
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Nobody wants to ban blockchains, and while the government would like to ban useful cryptography, that's ostensibly not what they're talking about at this time. This is not about restraining technology.
No fan of crypto (Score:2)
But it's your money use it, play with, set it on fire, you're an adult it's your call.
The last thing I want is 535 of the most corrupt people in the world trying to be my Jimminy Cricket.
Ban the USD and the Fed (Score:2)
So, let's ban the USD and the Fed.
Sauce for the goose, right?
They can't do that (Score:1)
Everyone knows Crypto is safe and anonymous.
Right?
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Everyone knows Crypto is safe and anonymous.
Right?
And if we keep repeating that lie IT MIGHT COME TRUE...right?
never happen (Score:1)
the
The exception would be for CBDC (Score:2)
Because we know the central banks are the good guys. They would never do anything illegal or unethical or turn off your finances like what's been routinely done in China.
market vs industry (Score:2)
Makes me happy to see cryptocurrency called "market" and not use the word "industry".
Words matter.
Geesus (Score:2)
Why are you people so eager to ban things? Y'all trying to raise your social credit scores before they roll out a fedcoin? Gambling is fine but crypto is no bueno? Oh, crypto but not bitcoin? Do we need to build a new clipper chip so you all can feel safer logging into Facebook and Google? I'm going into the boot business and get rich charging you fools $10 apiece to lick them.
Cryptocurrency is worth less than Dutch tulips (Score:1)