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> You are misinformed. The people who provide the dollars to this market are the customers of the exchanges. It seems like you are not familiar with how a currency exchange works.

I fear you're misinformed. Besides localBitcoins, how does one get fiat to an exchange?

That's right — a bank. Exchanges like Bitfinex only survive because of things like Tether, which requires other fiat accepting exchanges.

If all exchanges were like Bitfinex, there would be a liquidity crunch, as the OP is saying.


No, that's not what OP is saying at all. Read his posts. He's under the impression that exchanges take out bank loans to pay dollars to their customers, which is false.

When banks refuse to deal with an exchange like Bitfinex, it has nothing to do with liquidity concerns. It's because banks are required by law to verify who they are transferring money to (AML/KYC), and they don't believe Bitfinex abides by those laws (they are right).

BTW, Bitfinex recently reopened bank deposits and withdrawals.


> No, that's not what OP is saying at all. Read his posts. He's under the impression that exchanges take out bank loans to pay dollars to their customers, which is false.

Although that would be incorrect, there still are valid fears for a liquidity crunch, as I stated. This, regardless of why (be it laws or fund availability) does create a concern due to liquidity.

> BTW, Bitfinex recently reopened bank deposits and withdrawals.

Clearly not true. Especially for U.S. customers: https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/227


True that US customers are banned from Bitfinex, however they did recently announce that bank deposits and withdrawals are reopened for other countries. If you don't believe them that's fine, I don't trust them either, but they did announce it. https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7enpoo/bitf...


The first string of comments says they haven't announced yet (besides on reddit) and nothing on their site claims anything to that affect either.

Also, if the Fed barred any Bitcoin sales/buys with USD (however unlikely) almost all reputable bank would drop those as well, regardless of country. This has been discussed in detail on r/BitcoinMarkets, actually.


So wherein lies the liquidity problem?

I deposit USD to an exchange...then use that USD to place a Bitcoin buy order. Then I sell some Bitcoin another buyer on the exchange, who was only able to make this transaction happen because they too deposited USD or fiat into their account.

I get the money, they get the Bitcoin. Who is getting screwed?


If the banks cut off access to the funds (e.g.: GDAX can no longer accept USD deposits/withdraws, or possibly even the funds in their own accounts) they basically can't be considered an "off ramp" anymore. If all exchanges were barred from doing business from U.S. banks, than there is no way to get money from 1 BTC (or any other denomination/currency). Herein lies the screw.

LocalBitcoins would become a seller or buyers only recourse, for U.S. customers anyway, which takes a lot of coordination/time, and essentially becomes an obvious form of money laundering.


Ok, so the problem is in the legal arena; the government bans banks from allowing cryptocurrency transactions.

This doesn't seem like a fundamental problem due to the structure of Bitcoin or exchanges.


I had a large argument about this on r/conspiracy with someone recently.

They were claiming since the CIA uses AWS to the tune of ~$900 million a year, the CIA has a direct line to WaPo.

Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue, but it does pose an interesting, all be it slight, conflict.


A paper does not achieve the prestige and respect that WaPo commands by allowing it to be a conflict. Sure, there are a number of papers at which that could be a conflict, but Amazon or its customers reaching into the WaPo newsroom to spike, push, or alter a story would almost certainly trigger a mass exodus starting with the editors involved. Bear in mind that the newsroom employs people with their own, respected, careers to look after, just like when trading firms demand their traders sacrifice their reputations.

At that level, editorial independence is practically a commandment, and Marty Baron wouldn't allow conflicts like that to happen. Think about it, since any of that would have to go through him, the guy who went after the Catholics in Boston. You're telling me he gets to the Washington Post, of all places, and hangs up his integrity? Come on.

It's amazing how often those fake news theories fly in the face of simple logic, and amazing how effective they are at swaying people who do not utilize it or do not understand how a newsroom works. That's probably the failure we're seeing unfold, that journalism has emphasized content over form and failed to educate the public on exactly how it works, and is asking readers to overlook their increasing distrust in institutions. Journalism looking something like "I spoke to blah, she said blah," with recordings next to the text, rather than the way it's currently written in the third person, is probably a necessary evolution now.


I completely agree with you — you're preaching to the choir, bud. But "conspiracy theorists" will make an excuse to discredit them, regardless.


> But "conspiracy theorists" will make an excuse to discredit them, regardless.

Conspiracy theorists will always find because they want to. I don’t think anyone needs to worry about what they will or won’t latch on to, because worrying about it implies that if something wasn’t the case, they wouldn’t latch on to something else. But they always will.


Apologies for being a grammar nazi but I thought I'd let you know that it isn't 'all be it', it's "albeit."


I assumed that but really didn't care. Language is cool like that — when you know how rules apply and are interpreted, you can break them at will.


Fair enough. I couldn't stop myself from putting it out there, but I also believe that as long as it's intelligible that it really doesn't matter how you put it.


Sorry if I sounded harsh, I actually appreciate your correction, but was trying to mainly say what you said in the second half of your statement.


Why isn't that possible, if only in the "pissed of CEO talks to subsidiary president"?

AWS grosses ~$4Bn yearly, so if the CIA truly spends $0.9Bn (~23%) favours can happen and doors can get opened.

There's nothing "direct" about that, to be sure, but "give me WaPo EOC's cell number" is viable.


> Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue

Guess I'm irrational then. $900M/yr is an insanely substantial chunk of change for even the largest companies in the world.


That's $900M/yr of revenue. At AWS. And the WashPo is entirely different company.

Nope.


Not to mention that's less than 10% of Amazon yearly revenue from AWS alone.[1] Gambling an entire business on the fact that nobody will find out you're giving away their proprietary information just for an extra bump in revenue of a couple points does not sound sane to me. For another perspective, the profit AWS generates is multiples of that entire $900M.

1: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-o...


They also built them AWS Secret.


Yes, but that's included in that $900M/yr of revenue. It isn't an extra revenue line.


in 2016 amazon's annual revenue was 136 billion dollars. That means it was .66% of it's total revenue. I would argue that the potential damage to Amazon's brand is quite a bit more than that.


Ver rode the Cash band-wagon to help his position of control over the ecosystem, as did many others. Hundreds of millions of value was created — and a lot instantly lost — in a day. It's been pumped over and over again by mining pools looking to make a quick buck while the difficulty is low as well.

That is where the "scam" lies. It isn't discrediting BCH — BCH already did that to itself.


Do you have a problem with Ver helping to restore Bitcoin’s original functionality of making instant, practically free transactions?

If you don’t like BCH then don’t use it, you can leave that to everyone else.


"Everyone else". Lol.

24HR Transactions:

* BTC — 328,580 [1]

* BCH — 20,255 [2]

[1]: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/

[2]: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20cash/


Here is an example of a typical clueless Bitcoin investor with irrational hate toward a prominent player in the space who did nothing more than express their genuinely held opinion.


Well, good job at assuming incorrectly. You wouldn't know by my comment that I've been in the space since '11, or that I've contributed to the codebase (however slightly).

Nope, you just see a completely pragmatic view of Ver's actions as an attack, probably formed on the r/btc sub (that he mods).

I love how you say "completely clueless" too — because it's ironically you.


So an individual exercising their economic freedom to buy and sell an asset and express their opinion is an "Attack" in your book?


> I don't really think you want to live in a country where the IC influences elections.

We already do. One of the contributions to the Democrat's nominee loss was the FBI director's letter.


I don't agree. On Windows, Firefox is much better with RAM and battery than Chrome — and on both Windows and macOS, looks much better too.


I was agreeing with the begining of your post, but

> You are free to choose to restrain the means in which you apply your free speech and association rights based on this narrow, misguided, elitist view of the role of the hoi polloi, of course.

Is where I burst out laughing and moved on.


Not even close to the idea of what Epcot was suppose to be, though.


It's not knee-jerk conservatism. Literally in his comment:

> Prove it works. Qualify it properly.

I'm the same way. I refuse to use whatever's hot tomorrow unless it's been qualified and tested. That's not knee-jerk conservatism, that's just smart product development.


Exactly that.

I have had many bad experiences where unreliable software has fucked production even if it is the current fad and has an arena of consultants and conferences behind it. If you don’t independently test and understand the software and just chuck it in and see what happens, which is how some people think it should be done, then you’re burning your business badly.


Consultants and conferences are a warning sign ..


Technology doesn't magically become qualified and tested by itself, it's something you have to do.


No shit. That's why it's done, and then used in production. That's the whole point.


The airlines cost are based on weight, as that determines the fuel use for the flight (not including in-flight variances that would also contribute to fuel costs).


Not sure why I my question was just about carry-ons...

For checked bags, what do the departing and arriving airports charge the airline per-bag for handling?


The quote:

"You know what the fellow said—in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

The Third Man (1949)


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