The way the law works is often by banning based on intent and meaning and content. Exchanging information is too general: the law looks at what information, by whom, for what purpose.
Nearly every white collar crime fundamentally involves some sort of unauthorized communication. (Insider trading, for example, involves receiving information by virtue of a trusted position and then communication information to a broker which causes them to execute trades on your behalf). We can even get beyond white collar: hiring a hitman is obviously illegal even if it involves. communication.
I'm not saying (in this comment) crypto is necessarily bad. I am saying you need to defend it on the merits; it's just info so it's ok isn't how anything in society works.
You don't get to summarily declare crypto verboten and make crypto prove it's okay -- the burden is on crypto's detractors to show specifically why it's bad.
Gensler doesn't get to wave his hand and eliminate crypto. But he does get to bring lawsuits against crypto companies alleging they violate existing law. He will have the burden of proof in those lawsuits. If he wins them he may be able to effectively eliminate crypto through application of existing law.
Edit: I realize "you have to defend it on the merits" was poorly phrased. What I meant was that I predict judges will find crypto against existing law. So if you want it to be allowed you'll need to argue for new laws. But it was a very bad way to put it.
And that will be when things get really interesting; the entire point of crypto is to route around this.
I'm not saying this as particularly pro OR anti, but feels like there's a lot of heads in the sand on the fact that some of this stuff provably works VERY WELL, and its especially odd that even tech folks (who would be expected to understand it) appear to be so "luddite" on it.
> its especially odd that even tech folks (who would be expected to understand it) appear to be so "luddite" on it.
Have you considered the alternative hypothesis that these smart people are actually understanding the true nature of crypto very well, and you are stuck in a confirmation bias loop?
Whether the "tech" works is very different question than the social effect of it. A biochemist can be awed by the effectiveness of fentanyl while also maintaining that the average person should never be getting their hands on it.
I almost like your fentanyl comparison -- but where it fails to me is that your biochemists will have very specific ideas about what will happen.
To me, tech's war on crypto feels more like "the War on Drugs." It's fine to be against, but it's the extreme lack of interest in discussing detail (which if you were anti you'd need to get into to stop it) and they don't do that.
Let's say you wanted to attack crypto on principle? Great. First you'd need to ID and figure out their weak points. Bitcoin kills the environment so you attack there. Now, others don't - but a lot of the post ETH coins are centralized with a small number of founders, so you can get them there. Now, ETH is going to be harder because they've done a better job on decentralization...
ETC.
That little paragraph above is orders of magnitude more detailed than any actual attack I've seen. Which again- SUPER WEIRD for tech folks!
Your problem is thinking that the issue with crypto is primarily technological. It is not, it's mostly social.
Same reason why you don't see people arguing about the technical details of the slot machine in gambling regulation. However innovative the mechanism is, the ill is social and that's how it should be regulated. Or similarly, the regulation around alcohol are centered around limiting the social ills (like drunk drivers plowing into unsuspecting people). I am perfectly happy with crypto getting a similar regulation, with Coinbase getting similar terms, disclosure requirements, and responsibilities as the sports betting sites. What I am not ok with is Coinbase shilling tokens as "finance of the future" when it's really just the dumping ground of the latest of Anderssen Horowitzs' scam coins.
Very fair point. I guess the part of me that keeps wanting folks to consider is sort of analogous to perhaps guns or other kinds of weapons.
My strong belief is that SOMEONE is absolutely going to be using this stuff. It's going to be a thing, a big and very influential thing. Might as well get ahead of it and understand it and possibly use it for good?
The difference between regulating cars and regulating crack cocaine is that cars have actual, provable use cases. Even fentanyl has legitimate, real world use cases in anesthesia. And no, money laundering isn't a valid use case.
> And no, money laundering isn't a valid use case.
Working-class folks sending money to their families abroad without predatory middlemen like Western Union, on the other hand, is a valid use case. So is making/accepting payments without being subject to credit card processors playing morality police (or payment handlers like Paypal outright confiscating money from individuals/businesses they don't like).
Real question: have you ever sent money to a third world country? Because I have, both using traditional means and using crypto. And using Wise has been _so much_ easier (5 minutes and money goes from your bank account to their mobile banking account) than figuring out binance's bullshit, and finding a buyer at the other end for the sent cryptocurrency, especially after the "leveraged trading" aka gambling market imploded.
Sorry, your bullshit "but muh African finance!" would have probably worked for less world-aware folks. But not today.
I hope you really are a person deluded by crypto pumper propaganda rather than an intentionally evil pump-and-dumper, and in that case, please take the above anecdote as a real counterpoint to the hopium you've been fed by other pumpers.
> Real question: have you ever sent money to a third world country?
Yes.
> And using Wise has been _so much_ easier (5 minutes and money goes from your bank account to their mobile banking account) than figuring out binance's bullshit, and finding a buyer at the other end for the sent cryptocurrency, especially after the "leveraged trading" aka gambling market imploded.
And yet plenty of people figure it out nonetheless. Maybe they're better able to grasp the technology? Or perhaps simply more motivated to do so?
> Sorry, your bullshit "but muh African finance!" would have probably worked for less world-aware folks.
Sorry, your bullshit "but muh pump-and-dumpers" would have probably worked for less socioeconomically-aware folks.
I hope you really are a person deluded by the legacy financial system's propaganda rather than an intentionally evil beneficiary of said legacy financial system, and in that case, please recognize that anecdotes do not meaningfully refute even so much as others' anecdotes, let alone actual facts.
Yeah, bad example. I do know plenty of people (non-Americans sending money home from here) that are absolutely using crypto in this generally legit and intended way.
Nearly every white collar crime fundamentally involves some sort of unauthorized communication. (Insider trading, for example, involves receiving information by virtue of a trusted position and then communication information to a broker which causes them to execute trades on your behalf). We can even get beyond white collar: hiring a hitman is obviously illegal even if it involves. communication.
I'm not saying (in this comment) crypto is necessarily bad. I am saying you need to defend it on the merits; it's just info so it's ok isn't how anything in society works.