Is Bitcoin regulation good or bad?
130 sats \ 11 comments \ @tomlaies 2 Jul 2022 bitcoin
Regulating Bitcoin can improve adoption as a financial security or currency. That's good.
But on the other hand I fear that the borders (between the fiat world and the decentralized world) harden and the Bitcoin standard gets harder to achieve. Are we getting imprisoned? Is the escape into the free world getting more difficult?
What are your feelings? Overall net good or overall net bad?
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103 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 3 Jul 2022
In a world where something requires regulation before it can be used, then regulation is good.
But in an ideal world, regulation aka. giving permission for a technology wouldn't be a thing. Thats how i feel about it.
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35 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 2 Jul 2022
It's both and depends on the regulation. It's bad if they ban it or make it unusable for things like value transfer. It's good if they permit its use cases and make normals feel more comfortable with using it.
It seems like the decent governments are waiting to see how the use cases shake out before regulating it. My main plausible fear is it keeps the label 'property' and every tx becomes a taxable event. This will cripple most transaction utility.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cornholio 3 Jul 2022
I wonder what things will be like once Strike brings the Bitcoin network to checkout and self checkout systems as was announced at the last conference. I believe they said they plan to have partners coming online by the end of the year. It will be very interesting to be able to check out at Walmart using your Lightning wallet and I suspect this will be something that helps the government shape regulation surrounding Bitcoin.
The good news is even if Bitcoin fails at being a currency because of its legal classification as property, the network itself can still be used as a payments network regardless of how the currency part of it is regulated. So if we cant spend it, we will just become liquidity providers. I wouldn't be too worried.
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12 sats \ 0 replies \ @EnormousPony 3 Jul 2022
BAD /thread
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4 sats \ 0 replies \ @KingZing 3 Jul 2022
If it is too big to ignore and unbannable, regulation will happen one way or another. And it isnt difficult for regulate and authorities to track transactions unfortunately.
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4 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cornholio 3 Jul 2022
Both but I like to think it will be more good than bad. Either way I see Bitcoin consuming most if not the entire financial system. The only thing regulation will do is accelerate adoption because there are institutions that would love to get into it, but cannot because they have no legal guidance and don't want to take on the risk.
I recognize there are Bitcoiners that are strongly against this and I get it. Less government and all that good stuff. But there is just no reality where that will ever be a thing, so I just try to keep my expectations realistic.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @cozy 3 Jul 2022
Bitcoin regulation is an oxymoron, Bitcoin is designed to provide regulatory arbitrage, once only available to authorities, to anyone with an internet connection.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies OP 3 Jul 2022
Bitcoin is a free world, fiat is a regulated world.
  1. The words "Bitcoin regulation" DO NOT mean regulating the free world. It means regulating the border between them.
This is a common mistake. So I don't blame you. But pls stop spreading it.
  1. Also, things can get regulated in theory with out the rules being enforceable in reality.
We're talking theory here. If you want to argue that you can meet your pals in a pizzaria and send the 1 sat and nothing can stop you... Then you are right. But this is not what I'm talking about and you know that.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cozy 4 Jul 2022
If we're talking theory, let's start with why regulations exist and why Bitcoin was created.
Regulation requires enforcement. Enforcement requires authority. Reality has no authority greater than the individual person. Any person is capable of understanding anything that is understandable. Thus, there is no way to, for example, communicate in such a way as to not be misunderstood/misinterpreted--because theory creation happens in individual minds. All observations are theory-laden. There is no "authority" that has some magic ability to understand something that any other human could not in principal also understand.
So, back to enforcement: Force and coercion are always impediments to creativity and understanding real explanations. If the explanation is understood, for example the risk with buying Bitcoin, then there would be no need for regulation. Kids ask for bumpers at the bowling alley, sure. Sometimes, perhaps, people will ask for 'bumpers' at their shitcoin casino--but there's a difference between an option and force. Regulation isn't about optionality in principal.
Bitcoin is a way to do what rich people have done for ages. Move between regulatory games (read: governments). If you buy Bitcoin once, and you have enough money to travel and get around, that means it's possible to choose any jurisdiction you want.
The underlying theory behind regulation is something like: "people are too stupid to understand something and/or control themselves, so we will force them to do something until they either adopt the behavior without understanding it, or understand it to the point of not questioning it." Regulations change when disobedient creative people break the rules to solve problems. In this war regulations are always a parochial solutions to long term problems.
If you stretch the definition of 'regulation' to encompass 'explanation' (reason), then Bitcoin itself always has its own regulations which users agree do when they use the software. Regulations about fees, where the fees go, when transactions will occur, who gets to make those transactions, etc.
Is it useful, then, to add extra analog regulations on top of Bitcoin's coded 'regulations'? Why? I'm not sure it is. However, I think the way to do that, for example solving the long term problem of digital stablecoins, isn't by going backward. It's by going forward. Something like Somsen's Spacechains which create anti-speculative one-way-pegged sidechain tokens directly on Bitcoin. But try explaining that to "regulatory authorities".
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies OP 2 Jul 2022
Another argument against regulation is that finance-politicians want to regulate Bitcoin as a security. I don't want it to be a security, I want it to be recognized as the currency that it is.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @falsejaguar 3 Jul 2022 freebie
Bitcoin should be unregulated and untaxed. Crypto should be adults only with disclaimers that they will lose all their money. That way if they gain, they are ahead, but when they lose, they can't act like they had no idea it could happen.