Bitcoin discussion thread - Page 69

The chief executive of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange, plans to step down and plead guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money laundering requirements, in a deal that may preserve the company’s ability to continue operating, according to people familiar with the matter.

Changpeng Zhao is scheduled to appear in Seattle federal court Tuesday afternoon and enter his plea, the people said. Binance, which Zhao owns, will also plead guilty to a criminal charge and agree to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion, which includes amounts to settle civil allegations made by regulators, the people said.

The deal would end long-running investigations of Binance. Zhao founded the firm in 2017 and turned it into the most important hub of the global crypto market. The criminal probe, in particular, has shadowed the company even as its market share initially grew after the collapse last year of FTX, one of its main offshore competitors.

Executives have recently fled Binance, and the exchange has laid off a chunk of its employees this year as the company struggled to come to terms with the U.S. probes.

The deal would allow Zhao to retain his majority ownership of Binance, although he won’t be able to have an executive role at the company. He would face sentencing at a later date.

The outcome resembles an earlier case that prosecutors brought against the executives of BitMEX, an exchange for trading crypto derivatives that was based in the Seychelles. Its former CEO, Arthur Hayes, pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering law and was later sentenced to two years probation, avoiding a possible prison term of six to 12 months.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

On March 12 2024 15:37 KingzTig wrote:
Huge Bitcoin fan here and I am still reading the same shit talks about it everywhere.

The thing most people screaming about how Bitcoin is pump and dump, no intrinsic value etc, don't really matter.

FX trading volume is way larger than all stock market trading volume combined. It's trillions per day, and that's not counting bond market which is essentially a money market trading between gov and speculative trader.

There is 0 intrinsic value for fiat, and majority of golds value are just on "store of value" aspect. Or monetary premium I think some would cal it.

A currency that is transparent and designed to become more scarce? It's the counter thesis of fiat currencies.

Market value is determined by free market, but its core value is infinitely more desirable than fiat.

On March 12 2024 22:38 WombaT wrote:

And this makes it good, as a general-use currency, how?

You’re just substituting problems for different problems. Namely that early adopters can end up with considerable chunks of a set finite resource.

Which is basically why crypto is much more frequently used as a speculative investment vehicle and traded than it is as an actual purchasing currency.

And this issue compounds as its popularity as a speculative investment vehicle sees it fluctuate more than most fiat currencies generally do, making it even less suitable to replace them.

This isn’t to deny some use cases, nor that the fiat system is absolute optimal perfection either. But fiat = bad let’s do effectively the opposite is fraught with issues, issues that have consistently, consistently been borne out time and again in the crypto sector.

On March 13 2024 07:46 KingzTig wrote:

Sure, let's tackle that, shall we?

as a medium of exchange, it's more "why isn't bitcoin better" than anything else.

It takes banks days to have final settlement on the backend, and longer for international transaction.
Bitcoin has much faster transaction, on an immutable ledger, 24/7 and cross border.
On lightning network, transaction is so fast (and pretty much fee free) that I am literally streaming small bitcoins to individual podcasters, every second.

There's literally no need for banks, middleman, auditors, payment processing companies like visa/mastercard.

so why isn't it better? Anyone who has tried to send cross border transaction knows how painful it is.

There are 180 fiat currencies worldwide, how many are needed?
How many exist only because the government insist they need to pay tax in it?
How many have any significance in global "actual" transaction that you care about?

Most don't have the liquidity depth bitcoin has, nor are they transacted nearly as much as bitcoin.

Fiat money isn't just not perfect, but is at extreme risk because how much is tied up to the government policy.
It is also a mandatory adoption, when majority has no real presence globally.

I lived through Asia financial crisis where a bunch of Asia currencies went MAJOR devaluation and almost collapsed the entire society. My city had at least 3 different currencies over the last 2 centuries.

Look at how much Japanese central bank spend to keep the bond yield curve promise, which in turns tanked the Yen. And now their stock market is pumping ATH.
Look at China which has been pumping and fueling its GDP with extreme amount of debt, and constant implosion with local banks.
US with its debt level but will be last to go since the world depends on it.

Bitcoin is volatile because of its market is still extremely young (Yes, we are still far too early imo).
Normal fiat currencies (strong ones) value are "stable" because they are all going down in real terms, it's just a relative change amongst each other. (floating exchange rate)
They are not stable because they are used in "real" economy, in 1996-ish Bernard Lietaer said around 97.5% of currency transactions are speculative trading. This should really end all discussion about how fiat is better because it's used in a real economy.

Bitcoin is volatile because it has hard cap supply but more importantly, the institutions, retirement funds, nation states are only getting into bitcoin.

Bitcoin has significant less volatility than majority of weak currencies, and with upside potential which only really USD has. Bitcoin is free from anyone "fixing" the supply to "improve" economy.
How is it not better?

I only use bitcoin, and bitcoin only. 99% of other cryptocurrencies are fundamentally insecure, and having public known founders are not decentralized nearly enough.

On March 13 2024 07:53 WombaT wrote:

A remarkable amount of words to almost wholly sidestep every point I made.

On March 13 2024 08:03 KingzTig wrote:

More like your points are simply incorrect, I gave you a long response to wrap your head around it, but let's keep it simple then.

1.
You assume bitcoin is more volatile because normal fiat is used in every day transaction.
-
you are wrong when 97.5% of the volume are on FX market, which is leveraged option play on currencies. Traded 24/7, with trillions of dollars per day.


2.
You assume bitcoin is a less attractive currencies because of its volatility.
-
Bitcoin transact faster, more transparent, settle faster than any other fiat network, operate 24/7. especially cross border, and more liquidity.
It also is adopted in countries where it has significantly less volatility than local currencies and with upside potential.

3.
You assume bitcoin is worse than fiat currency
-
which of the 180 currencies is bitcoin worse than? And what time frame?

4.
You assume bitcoin is always going to be volatile
-
not when bitcoin becomes a national reserve currencies for more nations, and more adoption from institutional funds and pension funds.
Especially not when bitcoin "monetary policy" is fixed and publically known, there's no central banks to say they are keeping bond yield at 2%.
Its monetary base is more predictable and stable than any fiat currency.

On March 13 2024 08:16 WombaT wrote:
I assume Crypto is more volatile because it’s been more volatile for borderline 20 years. I assume it’s not a particularly suitable currency because it has been singularly unable to become a stable, widely used currency in 20 years.

On March 13 2024 08:28 KingzTig wrote:

More volatile than what? Some fiat currencies literally swapped for something else in the last ~20 years, and even Argentina is considering dollarization.

So that's a strange assumption to make.

It takes large market value to become less volatile which leads to nation state adoption, Bitcoin has already been less volatile over time.
No one is adopting taiwan dollar or Turkey lira in Venezuela or Zimbaware. They are adopting USD and bitcoin, pretty widely.

I don't see how when nation state like El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender, is somehow causing you to think things are regressing like adoption is not there.

Also again, bitcoin not crypto.
If you insist on the term crypto, then USDT and stable coins are very "stable" and has a very high adoption rate in Africa as proxy USD.

On March 13 2024 08:43 WombaT wrote:

You’re responding to a lot of claims I never made, but kudos for thoroughness I guess.

My initial claim is why is a finite currency innately better than fiat currency, given the aforementioned early adopter and speculation issue that comes with that structure?

On March 13 2024 10:15 KwarK wrote:
A currency with which you cannot buy things is not a currency. It’s beanie babies for the digital age.

On March 13 2024 14:46 KwarK wrote:
The argument that you can turn bitcoin into a useful currency is not an argument for it being a currency, it is an argument for it not being a currency. Useful currencies are already useful currencies. Bitcoin debit cards and the like don’t pay vendors in bitcoin, they pay them in money and liquidate bitcoin at spot to generate that money. It’s not money.