Woah, and trump wants to set up a bunch of US bitcoin stuff that will massively pump up its value and give Russia free billions on their holdings?????
I never would have guessed!
Strategic Bitcoin ~~Reserve~~ Pump & Dump
ahhh. ok. This does explain why trump and the republicans want to trade in a portion of fort knox for bitcoin. Its definitely a pump and dump scheme -- a bailout of the russian economy. Gotta hand it to Putin, thats clever. Get the American taxpayer to bail out Russia. I bet it works.
Ahhh thats where Apartheid Clyde comes in, if theres one thing he knows it's stock manipulation.
Yeah, but Elon wants people to invest in Doge. So what will Trump do?
in the crypto space, the trading values of most coins are loosely tied to bitcoin's value- it's sort of a "reserve currency" of the cryptosphere, most major trading platforms focus on converting Bitcoin to and from other coins. If BTC goes up, the rising tide lifts most/all boats in the space.
Stablecoins excluded, obviously.
Lots of other shitcoins too.
I'm sort of torn on whether it's a good thing that this is possible.
Like, I don't think it's good for Russia to be able to keep doing what they're doing, but US sanctions are also often used for evil (IMO) so in those cases the existence of methods to evade them could be good.
It'd be nice if the sanctions were only used in good ways in the first place, but that's not currently the reality.
US embargo on Cuba is inhumane for anyone needing an example
Yeah. I’m glad there are ways to spend money that are untrackable. I’m not glad Russia has access to them.
If you think crypto is utrackable, you haven't been paying attention.
The entire ledger of every transaction ever made, is 100% public.
The only reason it's kind of anonymous, is that the wallet ids are random strings of characters.
But the second you know whose a wallet is, you can go back and see every place their money has ever been, as well as transparently watch every place it will ever go.
HUGE numbers of wallets have already been deanonymized, and that's a process that can't be undone. Sure you can make a new wallet, but if you move your money into it from your old one, it'll be pretty obvius who you are.
If bank accounts were replaced by crypto wallets, everyones transaction history would effectively reveal who they are, since the ids of hospitals, shops, websites and services would have to be public.
Matching that transaction data with even a little bit of personal info about someone would be beyond easy.
No one could anonymously move money ever again.
Yeah hilariously, cash is actually more untraceable. Anything digital can eventually be tracked. It's not easy, but it's doable.
That is true for Bitcoin and most crypto tokens, but not for some that specialize in privacy, like Monero or even Ergo with ErgoMixer.
Crypto ≠ Bitcoin
Monero is untraceable. At least until quantum computers break the encryption(s).
But yes, pretty much aside from that, the best you're gonna get is pseudo-anonymity.
BTC is trackable, its just immune to sanctions due to not being tied to any body of government.
BTC is very trackable, ZCash and Monero are coins that strive for privacy. Watch ZCash spike as BTC gets cashed out just before BTC retraces down 40%. Has happened for the last 2 or 3 all time highs. That's how they will mix their Ill gotten gains.
The greatest demand for anything truly private/secure is from nefarious actors. That’s just the way it is. There are legitimate uses, including for private individuals who like the feeling of protecting their digital nuts. But we have to remember that there are enormous shadow empires with very deep pockets constantly thirsting for these technologies and prepared to use them at scale.
The situation becomes more complex when you admit those controlling the “official ways” are evil too.
True. There is something to that phrase about “the devil you know,” though.
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/