Topic: [2022-12-16] Germany calls for global regulation of the cryptospace - page 2. (Read 363 times)

Fortunately they can imagine all the regulations they want they will never be able to regulate further things than centralized platforms. They will never be able to stop people from exchanging cryptos p2p against goods, services, other cryptos or even fiats. They will never be able to stop people from creating and holding a seed wallet with some cryptos into it. Bitcoin has been designed to be fully decentralized and uncensorable. So I wish them good luck to try to regulate cryptos as if it was fiat money. If it was easy to do Bitcoin would have been replaced since many years.

This is a bait and switch.  They claim to want to regulate crypto to protect people, but they really want to regulate crypto to protect themselves and their power over people's money and consequently their lives.  They like being able to tax the people of the world 5-10% every year via inflation.  With around $460 trillion in global wealth, that is a TON of money they'd lose out on stealing from people with the "little guy" being hit the most with high inflation.  

The solution is easy:  hold your own keys.  
Buy your bitcoin (or mine it), move it to your own keys.  Use it or save it.  Don't exit.

Don't believe that you can get a 10% return safely from some muppet in cargo shorts (SBF).  Don't believe you can get a 12% return from some guy and his family who can't answer specific questions on an AMA (Celsius).

It isn't rocket science.  If you don't hold the keys you are a creditor.  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  That isn't specific to crypto.  If you don't like it, keep your money in a bank.  Whatever regulation they put in place would be redundant given the laws on the books already.  SBF is already in trouble, what specific law would've helped?  A law against Ponzi schemes and scams has been around for a century or so and the scams have been around longer than that yet people are still taken in.

I agree with the German government that some measures should be put in place to prevent scams, but it should be limited and not over regulated like the New York "BitLicense" that was introduced back in the day.

Bitcoin should be "Self-Policed" by the people who are using it, because governments tend to over regulate "new" innovation and thus causing a scenario where they slow down or kill adoption. 

I can agree in some of your argument that some regulation is good, however, what much of it will do is stop smaller, less advanced scammers. I am quite certain it will not stop the Bernie Maddofs, Elizabeth Holmes and the Sams in the world, who will have the proper connections to develop their scams and steal billions more in total compared to the small ICO, IOU, Defi and NFT scams of the world.

Also, ICO, IOU, Defi and NFT are not scams but only mediums that can be used for scams. This is very much similar to bitcoin where it can be used as a medium for scams but bitcoin itself is never the scam. I hope everyone will distinguish and accept the difference in this.

I read a German article about the BaFin conference. It's interesting that the Mark Branson (the president of BaFin, the German SEC) says there are basically two possibilities to deal with the crypto industry:

1) regulate it tighter, requiring from crypto-assets service providers similar requirements to to those affecting traditional financial institutions, and thus allowing it to merge with the traditional financial system.

2) "let it burn", i.e. leave the sector completely unregulated but separated from the traditional financial system, and hope for a collapse due to all the scams and frauds (here he cites a recent article of Stephen Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in the Financial Times, which hope that the crypto industry "burns" alone, and argue for a prohibition for traditional financial institutions to invest in cryptocurrencies).

Branson prefers the first strategy, and advocates for a global regulatory approach led by the G20.

While I generally don't have problems with regulations regarding liquidity and risk (i.e. requiring proof-of-reserves) it is problematic that he also mentions money laundering. Of course money laundering should be prevented too, but KYC/AML is already quite strict for European crypto providers, and he still deems it as insufficient.

Too strict KYC/AML is a threat for the security of crypto users, as it would lead to more personal documents stored on servers of crypto businesses of all sizes, only waiting for hackers to steal them and facilitating identity theft. And we've seen recently with the proposed Marshall Warren bill in the US that there are politicians wanting to extend KYC/AML even to miners and potentially to software developers, which would be of course impossible to comply.

My opinion would be: Regulate the centralized crypto service providers, apply most of financial regulations to them, but take into account the risks of a too strict KYC/AML for privacy of everyday people and leave a space for small-scale usage with only basic requirements (i.e. phone verification). And don't touch the protocols themselves and their elements, like miners.

I think that without strict regulation, we cannot expect that anything will change in the sense that no new Bankman or Kwon will appear. At the same time, I think that strict regulation should go in the direction of much more difficult opening of centralized CEX and strict supervision of their operations. Some may consider it a threat to Bitcoin, but I don't think that would be the case, because Bitcoin is just a collateral victim in all of this.

A money factory that has its base in thousands of cryptocurrencies is nothing but one big fraud, no matter what name it hid behind - ICO, IOU, DeFi, stablecoins, or NTF. We can lie as much as we want, but the amount of money that disappeared through everything I mentioned is measured in hundreds of billions of $, and all because current laws allow it.

I am therefore in favor of draining that swamp, no matter how much some are against it. Of course, the price has to be paid, and it certainly won't be small - the average person still believes that Bitcoin should be blamed for everything, no matter how pointless it is.

I reckon no amount of stricter regulations will stop the more advanced type or the higher level scammers similar to Sam Bankrupt-Fried who, has the political connections and who has wealthy financial backers that can finance their criminal and moneylaundering operations. Everyone should become very much aware of this.

I would be shaking my head if we, the commoners of the cryptospace, would support a move for stricter global regulations in crypto. This will only make the use of cryptocoins, Defi and other protocols harder for us commoners, however, it will certainly not make it more difficult for those higher level criminals to create and fund their scams in crypto.



Cryptocurrency regulation is currently a focal point for regulators and lawmakers all across the world. Regulators have been tightening the noose around the crypto industry to safeguard consumers from bad actors.

The colossal fall of the FTX crypto exchange has alarmed regulators even more, and lawmakers are trying to bring effective and efficient crypto regulation into place.

The president of BaFin has censured the current synopsis of the regime that governs the crypto sectors as not strict enough. This points toward the condition where the industry will not be able to keep bad actors in control.

Read in full https://bitcoinist.com/germany-calls-global-regulation-of-crypto-industry/