I’m a long time TYT viewer (since the Obama days). I am by no means a right winger.
By far TYT’s worst issue is the issue of cryptocurrency.
You guys get it so wrong.
Not only are you guys wrong, but highly opinionatedly wrong. Thats even worse.
I feel like I’m wasting my time writing this because you all seem to just want to remain ignorant.
I am not even in favor of the “strategic crypto reserve”. Its too bad no discussion can be had regarding this issue because the actual issue here is a college level issue, and TYT is still in crypto kindergarden.
First off, please stop saying this is a “giveaway to crypto billionaires”. Its not just billionaires who hold cryptocurrency. Also, it’s not a giveaway. The common argument is that crypto billionaires want to sell their “worthless” coin, but they need the government to backstop their trades. That is just preposterous. The 24 hour exchange volume of the entire crypto market as of today is 178 Billion USD. If a crypto billionaire wants to cash out, they have plenty of liquidity to do so. The real reason why crypto people want this reserve is because it gives legitimacy to the industry. The actual purchasing of the cryptos that will fill the reserves is a tiny blimp that will hardly move the market.
The reason for such a reserve is for the same reason why the US has a strategic gold reserve. Its to hedge against the collapse of the dollar. The dollar is more likely to collapse than the BTC is (in my opinion).
Honestly, I have a lot less respect for Cenk that I did in the past. His terrible views on crypto says a lot of how he views his fellow members of humanity. He seems to actually think all those people who have invested their time in actually understanding what crypto is all about, are all just a bunch of morons who like giving their money to billionaires. It says a lot about Cenk’s psyche, and quite frankly it’s not good.
Guys like Cenk and Sam Seder are not techs; it’s not their bailiwick to understand it.
The problem is a MAJORITY of crypto actors are just speculators and crackpot libertarians (note that I believe there are a very small number of libertarians who walk the walk, and not just use sophistries to justify magnification of their wealth while expecting someone else to pay for services they benefit from…)
I used bitcoin from 2012-2017. It worked! When I say I used it, I got paid (modest) amounts for services and paid for services that I needed (like webhosting, and paying for living expenses…) We had a “bitcoin civil war” in 2017, and after that most coins were just about “hodling” and speculation -not payments and utility.
Digital currencies offer great opportunities to make money work much more for those who use them. But what do we NOW have? Speculation built on speculation!
So can you blame him and Seder for having such negative views?
Gensler at the SEC was putting his finger on the scale and treating a number of digital currencies unfairly; many of the currencies he was tangling with (as opposed to complex financial instruments…) should have been left to regulation by the CFTC. It was pretty clear that a big part of his agenda was not about protecting investors but federal monetary hegemony.
But the Trump lawless alternative (case in point: his pardon of someone who unabashedly traded in addicting drugs on a very big scale and even facilitated some murders for hire, when he could have chosen to stick to non-addicting ones…) is doing an amazing job of discrediting most crypto ventures.
Did you notice how cryptos ramped after Bunker Boy’s strategic reserve announcement -and then went back to where they started? Not a good [near-term] omen for crypto markets.
I’m sorry that you were essentially made fun of. I try to avoid conversations about Bitcoin and crypto because I know nothing about it. Cenk likes to think he knows fucking everything about everything and that only he has the best ideas and answers. (Remind you of anyone that lives in a house painted white?) What they should do is get some damn experts on! If you watch the show live, call him out. Yesterday, he was acting like a man-baby, insulting people who don’t support his teaming up with Dr. Phil. We had a little back and forth, which he wasn’t happy about, but he was essentially talking to me. I am really understanding and patient, but I don’t tolerate disrespecting people, you know? I like Cenk when he’s acting like an adult. I fucking can’t stand it when he acts like a bully.
I tried to watch the Phil and Cenk thing but it just pissed me off too much so I have no further comment on that. However, I agree that Cenk needs to get some expert guests. My first choices are Professor Richard Wolff and Professor Michael Hudson. But even more expert on the technology economics side is Yanis Veroufakis, author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. He’d be a terrific guest!
If you mean me, I am sorry. Maybe Its just the old guy in me, but I didnt think the comment was harsh. Yes, I poked a little fun, but no real disrespect intended. I guess Im a dinosaur. Im sure I just dont understand it, well enough. Maybe, if someone could explain its value in 2 sentences or less, I could grasp it. Again, though, I was just having a bit of fun, hope we can still be friends.
For me Crypto is the new Stocks. And it is a lot easier for Oligarchs and the Uber Rich to launder their money with Crypto than with stocks because the stock market is actually regulated. Me? I don’t have the extra money for either so I say do away with both
I prefer to refer to “digital currencies”, which are focused on PAYMENTS (as opposed to complex financial instruments, called defi or decentralized finance and contracts, which few can follow -so they often tend to be shell games, like complex derivatives; “follow the pea…”) “Crypto” covers both currencies and defi instruments.
Digital currencies are simply a money for the Internet.
So why not go through the banks for all ytour payment needs?
FEES (hey, digital currencies also have transaction fees; but if your currency is a good one, they will be less than a bank fee…)
When a security breach occurs, do the banks who opted for the faulty security architecture they used pay for it? NO; like the credit card companies, all the users of the financial services pay a service fee, rolled into other service fee(s); not the banks or credit card companies themselves.
Money is power; power can be abused: addicting drugs, murders for hire (are you hearing me, crackpots who wanted a full pardon for Ulbricht…), sex enslavement (as opposed to consenting sex…), child porn… money needs a mechanism to check the abuse of its power (crackpot libertarians -not that all libertarians are crackpots- will claim that is not needed; they would also argue it’s fine for anyone to keep a nuclear warhead in their basement…) The auditing mechanism for abuse was enforced through the cooperation of banks. The problem with only financial institutions doing it is that they do not always see that you, a user of their financial services, are being guaranteed due process. If law enforcement rolls into a bank and wants info, they will sometimes surrender it without somebody checking their legal paperwork, to make sure it’s not out of bounds (and that issue is extremely relevant at this point, given the legal oversteps often being engaged in by this administration and its numerous agencies, thanks to the Supreme Court having surrendered to it…)
There is a way to have auditing and due legal process on a money for the Internet; it’s called “decentralized id”, using sanctioned legal representatives (I welcome some to go read about it; too much to go into here!)
In the meantime: there’s no good reason that SMALL amounts cannot be sanctioned for purchases. When you buy a newspaper at a kiosk, do you have to provide id? Such a small amount in law is called a “de minimus” amount. If one tries to do “structuring”, to conceal the transfer of large amounts, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
But the biggest problem facing digital currencies right now is the inclination of people to NOT use them for payments and hold them for speculation purposes. This causes volatility in the valuation of the currency, making it unsuitable for payments.
ONE workaround to the “hodl” problem (holding of a currency for speculation…) is the use of “stablecoins”; that is a currency offered by an exchange and guaranteed to be redeemable by them for a government-backed currency (there are another class of “stablecoins” that are based on algorithms; those are more like perpetual motion machines, and I am not talking about them here; they are another scam or self-delusion, take your pick…)
With [asset backed or government-based currency] stablecoins, you don’t have to route a payment through the banks. Keep in mind: anyone who runs a stablecoin, to be taken seriously, needs surprise audits to be done by third-party accountants that do not have a conflict of interest, and that can be legally sanctioned for failing to keep a straight set of numbers, to verify that their reserves are accounted for at all times. There are few exchanges with the ability to play by those rules.
Governments take an unkind view of stablecoins since a government spends a lot of effort maintaining the stability of their currency (they have traders who manage that…), so they see exchanges that provide stablecoins as interlopers, challenging the monitoring of who uses their currency (which is an important thing that governments expect with their currencies…)
I believe the “hodl” and auditing challenges are fixable…
So, back to my pervious post. For me this is the problem with Digital Currencies (did I say that right?) is the seeming complexity. If you could reduce it all and just explain the value of the currency, it would go a long way. If I want to, briefly, explain the value of the dollar in 2 sentences or less I would say something like “The U.S. Dollar is a form of currency that facilitates the sale of goods and services. Its underpinnings are some amount of gold, the FDIC and a giant VAG/Dong (gotta be inclusive) we, quaintly, refer to as the Pentagon”. Now that, I understand and the security is plain to see. It has depth and weight, I can quantify its value and contribution to the system. Its an evil and corrupt system that is sick to its core, but I can see it. With Crypto I dont get the same clarity and when it comes to money, most of us need clarity. I am not saying the value is not plain to see in the, generally, verbose explanations I am used to seeing. Its just that my eyes glaze over at about paragraph 2. I am sure its just me and with all the other stuff happening, I just cant afford the bandwidth I would need. No offense, hey, its a free country. I just dont want it comingled with the U.S. Treasury in any way, and I sure as shit dont want to insure it with public money.
And before I catch heat for the lighthearted mention of inclusivity, please know I am a true Progressive. I arrive at the Progressive stance on any topic, 9 times out of 10, because its usually the most honest perspective. Inclusivity, to me, is a very real issue. Its so illogical for a society to say, um yeah, we only want to hear from like 30 percent of you, when we need ideas. The rest just keep your head down and await further orders. On its face its almost as absurd as legalized bribery. In spirit I fully support real DEI initiatives and I am ashamed of my fellow, old white guys for being so short sided. I hope that clears up my position on inclusivity., Now, assuming a member of a marginalized group qualifies for sainthood, simply by being in a protected class, is equally short sided and regressive. Bad people come in all shapes, sizes, colors and genders.
How intriguing–thank you for the explanation! This is the most I’ve ever learned on the topic. While I can see why people like it, my financial and economic acumen is too limited.
To me, therein lies the issue for most folks. We need to easily understand why it has the security and value to represent our wealth or, in my case, lack thereof.
Nixon took the dollar off a gold backing. But in any case, with stablecoins, it IS just a dollar -but it can be executed electronically, so you are not bound to a location nor do you need an account at a bank -it’s electronic cash.You just need a wallet, and can interact with others who accept a stablecoin via a scan of a QR code. Its stability is assured by an exchange, and the exchange has to make the case to people using it that, like a bank, their accounting is tight and they have examiners periodically visiting to make sure the reserves are in place. So you have to be an educated consumer and demand the due diligence before buying their stablecoin. USDC (Circle) is a reputable coin; there are a number that are not. I’d like to see a trade organization for exchanges that lays out uniform rules for reporting (that may come some day, if the exchanges set aside some of their competitiveness and realize there’s more to be gained by doing things that way…)
Non-stablecoins, like bitcoin, are underpinned by a communal belief -people engaged in that they would sooner do that than rely on banks. The banks did such a bad job with their fees that they brought about an uptick in interest. As for it being a criminal tool: in the case of bitcoin, it’s a poor one, because you need to reveal a geographic location, and much of the bitcoin network has effectively taps deployed through it, allowing tracking (Chainalysis is a company that offers this as a paid service…) Bitcoin’s price grew steady from 2011 and afterwards. But even though it went up steadily, it usually was not all over the place like it is now. That’s because THEN many people were using it for payments, but now it’s a speculator’s paradise (it got crazy after the “bitcoin civil war”…) Even if it goes up steeply in a matter of an hour, that’s not great when you need to make payments! I believe there is a solution to that, but it would take a will on the people who use any such currency to stop being so obsessed about hodling. We’re not there yet…
I am not aligned with crypto crackpots who believe that any purchasing of goods and services, no matter how destructive, are fine. I’d like to see decentralized id and legal intermediaries be adopted by the digital currency community.
I think it’s healthy that banks and credit card companies (and Paypal) are getting some competition from digital currencies.
Going back to the 1970s, we used to have many banks in America; now? It’s a monopoly of mostly a dozen, which made it easy for them to wheel and deal a TARP bailout, right? Digital currencies are pushing back on that consolidation of power. When wikileaks got their donations cut off by credit card companies, they were able to adapt to using bitcoin for donations.
Omg. Can’t wait to read this thread. I think Cenk doesn’t understand that a blockchain is a platform on which a ledger is placed and an open public ledger would be interesting vs the actual trading "currency " unit that you put on top of the ledger. It’s how i understand it. But someone just needs to remind him that his motto is open minds open hearts. Regardless, it’s the conversation of currency of now that we aren’t addressing. Whe should have kept the gold standard and added silver instead of backing our currency with cotton and domination of the oil trade. We didn’t do that did we? So now we need to think about the future. If our future demands a renewable energy grid in order to survive and avert a climate catastrophe then we should have a currency backed by renewable energy units on a renewable energy infrastructure. By the time Trump and Elon are done robbing us we won’t have any gold left, so going back to the gold standard will be impossible. Regardless of wether the currency is cash or electronic and cryptic.
