Co-creator of Dogecoin. https://t.co/gKAG8s9BZm
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) July 14, 2021
I am often asked if I will “return to cryptocurrency” or begin regularly sharing my thoughts on the topic again. My answer is a wholehearted “no”, but to avoid repeating myself I figure it might be worthwhile briefly explaining why here…
After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity.
Despite claims of “decentralization”, the cryptocurrency industry is controlled by a powerful cartel of wealthy figures who, with time, have evolved to incorporate many of the same institutions tied to the existing centralized financial system they supposedly set out to replace.
The cryptocurrency industry leverages a network of shady business connections, bought influencers and pay-for-play media outlets to perpetuate a cult-like “get rich quick” funnel designed to extract new money from the financially desperate and naive.
Financial exploitation undoubtedly existed before cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is almost purpose built to make the funnel of profiteering more efficient for those at the top and less safeguarded for the vulnerable.
Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today’s capitalist system (eg. corruption, fraud, inequality) and using software to technically limit the use of interventions (eg. audits, regulation, taxation) which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person.
Lose your savings account password? Your fault.
Fall victim to a scam? Your fault.
Billionaires manipulating markets? They’re geniuses.This is the type of dangerous “free for all” capitalism cryptocurrency was unfortunately architected to facilitate since its inception.
But these days even the most modest critique of cryptocurrency will draw smears from the powerful figures in control of the industry and the ire of retail investors who they’ve sold the false promise of one day being a fellow billionaire. Good-faith debate is near impossible.
For these reasons, I simply no longer go out of my way to engage in public discussion regarding cryptocurrency. It doesn’t align with my politics or belief system, and I don’t have the energy to try and discuss that with those unwilling to engage in a grounded conversation.
I applaud those with the energy to continue asking the hard questions and applying the lens of rigorous skepticism all technology should be subject to. New technology can make the world a better place, but not when decoupled from its inherent politics or societal consequences.
— GOP is still attempting to destroy democracy (@wackygiraffe91) July 14, 2021
And also, there’s this news…
The IRS & Pres. Biden are dialing up efforts to nail #bitcoin tax dodgers:
-subpoenas going out to centralized crypto exchanges
-2022 WH budget proposal could lead to new crypto reporting requirementsMore on this crackdown: https://t.co/Lb8ZAL6ivB @TheCryptoCPA @bakerbotts
— MacKenzie Sigalos (@KenzieSigalos) July 14, 2021
dlwchico
Going after the truly wealthy tax dodgers is too hard for the IRS but going after crypto tax dodgers isn’t?
Jerzy Russian
Perhaps he could have had these thoughts before he invented Dogecoin and who knows what else?
Gloomyjim
@dlwchico: yes
the shady shit hasn’t been codified as legit yet by policy or regulation, so by being proactive they can set up a tax capture structure capable (in theory) of actually clawing back some of that wealth created at the expense of our environment.
HypersphericalCow
El Salvador accepting Bitcoin as legal tender has two purposes: 1) get a lot of press coverage, 2) enable massive money laundering.
zzyzx
I remember the Ilumninatus Trilogy had the idea of multiple floating currencies that people could decide between. Like most anarcho-libertarian ideas, it turns out that the majority of people just don’t want to spend their time deciding on which currency to use. They just want it to be a means to doing fun things.
cthulhu
@dlwchico: Well, crypto is actually pretty simple to target because all you need is to establish similar IRS reporting requirements of the crypto exchanges as stock exchanges. The lone US crypto market, binance.us, already complied for Tax Year 2020. But a lot of Americans trade on international markets, though they are not supposed to, via international based VPNs. So there is a bit of complexity.
The tax dodges the super wealthy use are otherwise very complex and opaque.
NotMax
Live near a coast? Might want to think about stocking up on hip boots before there’s a run on them.
Roger Moore
@dlwchico:
Short response: Yep.
Longer response: The difficulty in going after a tax cheat depends a lot on how sophisticated they are. The pikers trying to cheat their taxes using cryptocurreny are mostly unsophisticated cheats. They think crypto is untraceable, so they’ll be able to slide right past the IRS. When this turns out to be wrong, they’ll be caught blatantly cheating, and they’ll be comparatively easy to prosecute. The truly wealthy are sophisticated cheats whose dodges are much more difficult to explain, and they’re saving enough through their tax cheats to afford an army of lawyers and accountants to fight the IRS if it challenges them. Of course, the really well off ones can frequently buy loopholes for themselves so they can avoid paying taxes legally.
Roger Moore
@Jerzy Russian:
In fairness, Dogecoin was invented as a joke to make fun of the other forms of cryptocurrency. That people are actually taking it seriously and it’s allegedly worth billions of dollars now isn’t his fault.
cthulhu
@Jerzy Russian: He created Dogecoin as a joke over a weekend simply by replacing certain lines in the publicly available BitCoin code (this is how easy it is to start a cryptocurrency). For a very long time, it stayed a joke as Redit users would tip each other in Dogecoin for liked posts.
Eventually the scammers came to his door…
NotMax
Is DC Comics offering Kryptocurrency yet?
“Two paws up. Woof!”
:)
Just Chuck
@Jerzy Russian: Perhaps he could have been perfect and wholly enlightened from birth and ever since.
waspuppet
@zzyzx: That’s the thing. No one was sitting around saying “Gee I wish money was private and not issued by a government,” and no one ever will. The idea of cryptocurrency is not actually popular and never will be.
From there, all that remains to be seen is whether a few connected bros can force it into existence.* Sadly, they might.
*(Not only do they never say why it’s a good idea, but it never even seems to occur to them that that’s something they should do.)
NotMax
@Just Chuck
Trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
:) //
Kent
99.9% of IRS compliance is voluntary. Very few people get audited for any reason. If the IRS writes regulations that extend tax reporting to Bitcoin and other crypto currencies then most people will comply. To not do so will be to be engaging in felonious tax evasion. Are you truly positive you won’t ever get caught? People thought that about Swiss bank accounts too. Most people will probably be caught when they try to convert their bitcoin back to regular currency or use it to buy stuff. That is when you start leaving a paper trail. You don’t think you leave a paper trail if you say…..buy a Tesla with bitcoin?
A Ghost to Most
Cryptocurrency was never funny. It’s a crime against nature.
Roger Moore
@waspuppet:
There’s a difference between saying the idea is unpopular and saying nobody believes it. There is obviously a core group of libertarians who really do want to privatize the money supply. Ten years ago, they would have been goldbug acolytes of Ron Paul. Today, they’re advocating for cryptocurrency. And then, of course, there are the grifters who don’t really care about the details but see crypto as the con of the moment.
Elizabelle
I’m not interested in cryptocurrency. This was interesting to me, though. Frank Luntz is ringing the firebell.
Mind you, they interviewed several of these morons at a CPAC conference, which is the worst diner in the world.
Just Chuck
@Kent: This. It’s not the money that attracts attention from the IRS, it’s the stuff you buy with it.
laura
Cryptocurrency is the distillation of the essence of libertarian move fast, break things, profit (!) bro culture. Also, underpants gnome.
Just Chuck
@Elizabelle:
We are all reaping what Mr Luntz has helped to sow with his Orwellian manipulations, and there appears to be zero acknowledgment from him on that.
Some real Profiles In Courage right there.
Immanentize
@cthulhu: i so agree. Crypto is not.currency. regardless of proclamations by needy governments, it cannot buy anything (except Tesla’s?) Today, one bitcpin it is worth about $32,000. Poor and middle class, hell, most lower upper class cannot own a Bitcoin. It is primarily suited to crime and money laundering.
As a Int. Crim. Law Scholar, I would recommend that the US declare Bitcoin a “pirate” market and go after it and those who own it hard.
NotMax
FYI.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Unless there has been a very recent change of posture, Tesla no longer accepts bitcoin.
Immanentize
@NotMax: sadly, kryptocurrency gets within three feet of me and I’m like a bald Samson!
Just Chuck
@Immanentize: Bitcoins are denominated in fractions. Increasingly smaller fractions at that, since it’s a deflationary currency by design. The price tag of a full bitcoin has no bearing on BTC’s affordability: a poor person can burn a $10 bill as easily as a rich person can burn $100, and both of those will get you their corresponding value in BTC.
Elizabelle
@Just Chuck: Indeed.
I just wish the unvaccinated would keep the deaths and longterm disability to themselves. Covid, sadly, does not work that way.
There has been some interest in COVID aftereffects and impotence. On the one hand, that might spur some to consider the vaccine.
On the other, righwing media is already flush with impotence solution ads. It’s one of their grifters’ main lines of revenue.
cthulhu
They do but it is mostly libertarian gibberish. One interesting oddity I have noted is the intersection between gold buggery and crypto-proponents is very much not zero though it should be in a logical world.
To be fair though to the crypto-investors, many stock markets are pretty untethered to actual underlying value. That there is zero underlying value to crypto is not that big of a logical jump. This may say more about the irrationality of stock markets than many people are willing to admit.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
Yes but, is it anything like the Diner at the End of the Universe? Because I want to know what the best cut is today.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: I use it to buy bootleg Yoko Ono music
NotMax
Jab creation.
Another Scott
@NotMax: Google and others have done very interesting things with Google Earth (and similar tools) to show very clearly what coastal cities are up against. E.g. Shanghai after 2C warming (most of it is under water…).
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Wonderful news. Makes me so proud of the Biden administration.
Poor Haiti. A deadly pandemic is not even the top of the dangers their citizens face right now.
PS: I loved Heave it to Beaver.
Immanentize
@NotMax: i think old Elon has backpedaled on his ban, but it is fuzzy.
I do believe that buying anything in Bitcoin — a car, a house, etc. Is a red flag under the money laundering crimes statutes.
Steeplejack
@laura:
The Cartman startup plan.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
A bitcoin may be very expensive, but it’s possible to carry out transactions in tiny fractions of a bitcoin. IIRC, it’s theoretically possible to carry out transactions as small as 1/2^32 bitcoin.
Immanentize
@Just Chuck: today it has a value, but tomorrow it does not. It is equity share, not a currency — and its only value is imaginary. It is a Ponzi scheme.
It is Not a currency, no matter how many two-steps people do.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NotMax:
The notion of a Kryptonian dog always bothered me. It’s got all the impulsiveness and bumpiness that characterizes Terran canines, but superstrength. When it pees, it cuts boulders in half. It’s turds can clear out cities. And if it starts hunching on your leg, you’ll wind up with a severed limb….
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Never read that. Is that series a must read? I’ve heard good things about Douglas Adams.
Do the books still stand up?
PS: I am still smiling over Immp getting the all clear for now.
Just Chuck
@Roger Moore:
For the muggles, that’s a bit under 1/4 of a billionth of a bitcoin.
Roger Moore
@cthulhu:
I disagree. Gold buggery and crypto-mania have the same basic root: fear of government control over the money supply. I think it’s tightly tied to fears of a Weimar/Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. They’re sure, absolutely certain, that the whole fiat money economic system is going to collapse any time now, and they’ll be the ones to get the last laugh by investing in something of real value.
NotMax
Exit, pursued by a
bearsubpoena. (WaPo link.)Just Chuck
@Immanentize: Sure, it’s completely bogus as a currency. I’m just saying that when it comes to bitcoin, poor people can waste their cash as easily as the rich, they don’t have to waste a full coin’s worth.
Another Scott
@Kent: Or even sooner.
GSA.gov:
The winning bidder has to give a wire transfer number and a SS/Tax ID number.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: i hope, because I like you, that you don’t own any. How are you going to prove to the feds that your bitcoins are not the product of, or co-mingled with (in order to prop or increase value) illegally gotten proceeds of a specific unlawful (criminal) activity?
That’s the standard. Are your investments and their gains “innocent?”
If you buy Bitcoin on a secondary market, you cannot claim they are innocent.
NotMax
Whether one at a time or in bunches, the dastardly dominoes are falling.
Immanentize
@Just Chuck: And what will that beautiful small piece be worth when Bitcoin goes to 10,000? Or 3,000?
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: this is the real insight. That and it is a way for criminals to launder money.
NotMax
“Doctor,” my aunt Fanny.
Kent
Yes, I have always that that bitcoin was basically goldbuggery for millenials.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
I do not have any cryptocurrency, and I don’t intend to acquire any until there’s one endorsed by the US government as being just as good as dollars for paying my taxes. I have generally been conservative in my investment strategy. The craziest investment I’ve made was putting some money into my BIL’s company, which I did more to help him pursue his dream than in hope of making any money on it.
Kent
When you can take out a 30-year mortgage denominated in Bitcoin, then you will know it is a real currency.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
Of course investing in cryptocurrency is a really dumb way to insulate yourself from the collapse of the fiat money system. You’d be much better off to invest in something of tangible value, like real estate or a business that makes something people want. If the economy collapses to the point those things lose their value, your cryptocurrency isn’t going to be worth anything, either.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore:
Ah, the BiL or friend investment. I always assume going in I will never see a dollar back, so to me it’s not unlike setting an amount of $$$ one is willing to lose without regrets before entering a casino.
Amount varies based on relationship.?
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: art! Invest in valuable art! There is a market just about as corrupt as crypto.
Although I do buy art that I love to look at for my house. But nothing expensive. But maybe someday!
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: Nah, someone will have a bike-powered generator hooked up to a salvaged laptop, pedaling and calculating away to update the blockchain.
“Come back in 2 weeks when the update is done, then you can get your sparrow and curtain rod.”
Cheers,
Scott.
Urza
@Another Scott: That is one hell of a callback. And sadly more accurate as the years go by.
NotMax
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Ever read Larry Niven’s essay?
Mart
@Immanentize: Seems like the only companies that require bitcoin to get paid for services provided are ransomware criminals. Seems like a sane global response would be to bust them up.
Xavier
@Roger Moore: “You’d be much better off investing in something of tangible value like real estate or a business.”
If fiat currency collapses you’re gonna need canned goods and ammo.
jl
@Just Chuck: The fact that bitcoin has a fixed upper limit of supply, makes it inherently deflationary. So disastrous for any macroeconomy. It’s the ultimate Scrooge McDuck economy.
But it approaches the upper limit asymptotically, IIRC. So, wasting ever more fuel to squeeze out the that last few nanobits. Just like rolling coal in your pickup truck
Edit: OTOH, there will be other cryptocurrencies too, so we’ll have competition between an ever expanding zoo of private and autonomous non-governmental currencies. So, who knows what will happen. Been sort of tried before in the era of free banking in the US, which were ‘interesting’ times if you weren’t filthy rich.
Another Scott
@Xavier: People can’t eat gold or other “non-fiat” currencies, either. Of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Another Scott
‘Hanukkah gelt‘ nothwithstanding.
:)
waspuppet
@cthulhu: Sure. I mean, there’s no underlying value to regular money either, in the way most of us would understand it. (In fact, if you gave most people, including me, a hunk of gold, what would they do with it anyway? Sell it for cash.) And most people know that; it’s a social construct. But the crypto bros are like “Why trust in a social construct that’s lasted centuries and involves millions of people when you can trust in a social construct created by a 26-year-old beardo?”
Which answers itself.
Craig
@Elizabelle: … Podcast host Megyn Kelly”. Hahahaha!
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: The Hitchhiker’s 5-book trilogy (that’s part of the joke) is funny in places. It’s British humor, so it depends on whether you think that’s funny or not. The best thing I got from those books was the concept of the SEP field – Somebody Else’s Problem. If you put an SEP field around something, no one sees it because everyone thinks it’s someone else’s problem. That applies to a lot of things.
Elizabelle
@Craig: Good point. LOL. She’s still got NBC’s money, though.
@Soprano2: SEP. Useful concept.
karen marie
Exit Scam is an interesting podcast about one scammy episode of crypto.
karen marie
@Elizabelle: The best way to experience HHGTTG, in my opinion, is either the original radio plays or the original TV series. Stick to the Primary Phase and Secondary Phase, though, for the radio plays. The follow-ons I did not like as well. The movie is awful. Or just read the books. I’ve read them several times. Very entertaining.
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: I use it a lot. The overflowing trash cans in the lunchroom have SEP fields around them.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Elizabelle: el jefe juat needs to channel the latter-day saints, whose leadership had convenient revelations against polygamy (when statehood was in play) & in favor of Black priesthood (when Brazilian missions started).