[envolt]

Never read a better summary before -

> These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments which take advantage of people who are suffering from economic hardship and growing global wealth inequality. Few to no legitimate use-cases for this technology have been found; instead it is mostly used for fraudulent “get rich quick” schemes and to facilitate criminal activity, such as ransomware, illicit trade, and sanctions evasion. These projects often encourage large-scale energy waste and electronics waste, which contributes to the declining health of Earth’s environment. The presence of these projects on SourceHut exposes new victims to these scams and is harmful to the reputation of SourceHut and its community.

I'm going to send this to everyone who I know is involved in crypto/blockchain.

[Bilal_io]

> > and sanctions evasion.

Yeah, most people in sanctioned countries are victims of their own governments. Please punish them more by not allowing them to send and receive money that their lives could depend on. Cryptocurrency helps remove at least a little bit of that pain for many families around the world.

> I'm going to send this to everyone who I know is involved in crypto/blockchain.

I bet you've complained about people trying to talk you into cryptocurrency, and you didn't like it. It's annoying and you'd be doing the same.

[bayindirh]

Technological solutions to social problems are the root of all evil.

The solution doesn’t lie in the cryptocurrencies or similar systems.

This only results in more cat and mouse games, nothing else.

Ah, we also waste a lot of energy, I bet this is not important in the midst of climate change and energy crisis we’re having.

[Bilal_io]

We use* a lot more energy to maintain fiat money that's controlled by governments and their central banks. What's your point?

[bayindirh]

I don't think we spend a country worth of energy to run data centers which support the financial system around the world.

A top of the line supercomputing center needs 4-6 megawatts of energy, cooling and utilities included. CERN's main power supply is around 12-15 megawatts IIRC. Bitcoin network needs as much energy as a mid sized European country, which is way bigger than this number.

A normal bank data center probably needs 1-2 megawatts at most, on the other hand.

That's the power aspect.

On the other hand cryptocurrencies are slowly started to being regulated, so they'll be divided to legal and illegal ones. So money laundering will be no different regardless of the medium/currency you use.

It's the cat and mouse game part. Cryptocurrencies are trying to go against systems which are built over centuries, if not millenia.

Good luck with that.

[ddevault]

Iranians trying to get cash so they can buy groceries are not the problem. North Korea using ransomware to get lots of cryptocurrency they can use to fund their nuclear weapons program is the problem.

[tossl568]

Either the money is permissionless or it isn't. If everyone can use it that means people you don't like can too. Like the internet. If I can send packet to my friend with a message then so can a terrorist.

[kragen]

Do you really want to turn SourceHut into an instrument of US foreign policy, even if it keeps Iranians from buying groceries? US foreign policy doesn't have a great track record on human rights or diminishing global inequality, you know. It's killed and imprisoned a hell of a lot more people than North Korea.

[hrbf]

Since the company incorporated in the EU, I don’t quite see how this is relevant.

[2pacMarxHentai]

Posting on a throwaway for obvious reasons that you'll see in a minute. In general, I smiled reading the news. Scams, fraud, and absurd energy waste have given crypto such a ridiculously tainted image.

But I think the sanctions evasion line is silly, personally. I may have a controversial opinion here, but I think sanctions avoidance is one of the few legitimate uses of crypto.

Sure, North Korea benefits, but so do plenty of other normal, everyday people. For example, I went to university in Siberia for a few years, and so I know a ton of Russians. Quite literally, out of my entire department, I can think of, maybe, two people, at most, who are in favor of the invasion of Ukraine, or, at least, don't see it as black and white as most others (and fairly understandably so, given one of them lived in Donetsk until a couple of years ago; of course things aren't going to be as black and white when the military has been shelling you for years).

Despite the fact that no one is happy about the war, they all must suffer the consequences of it [1]. As an example, in Russia, all men under 27 can be called up for conscription. One way to avoid it is to do military training during university (basically their ROTC equivalent). Normally this has been a relatively "good deal" for years; you spent one day a week for a couple of years doing training, and at the end you're an officer and avoid spending twelve continuous months in the actual military, whilst never getting called up to serve. So, I have a handful of friends who made that choice. One of whom recently got accepted into a study abroad program, but due to the sanctions would've been unable to pay the dorm fees as there was no way to legitimately transfer the money. Shortly afterwards, the news broke that Russia would begin calling people up in the reserve, like him, to serve.

Surely it doesn't make much sense, if we actually want peace, to be complicit in sending young people who aren't in favor of the war to go die invading someone else's land?

I have seen little evidence that sanctions work. Even using North Korea as an example, it's not like they've stopped their weapons program [2]. My view is that:

- sanctions are ineffective.

- sanctions by far hurt the average person the most (and that's the point: they are meant to cause instability to the point of revolution unless the leadership stops doing whatever it is they are doing -- except this neglects to take into account that most of these sanctioned countries will also supposedly murder you over the smallest grievances, so....).

- sanctions cause many who'd normally be against the government to gain sympathy for them after suffering at the hands of those sanctioning them.

Sanctions avoidance is good! I am tired of seeing people from countries that cannot unify over things as 'minor' [relative to genocide, etc] as public transport and healthcare to expect a hundred million people to unify against a totalitarian dictatorship when they could simply, you know, not risk dying. The expectations people have of people like Russians et al are absurdly and irrationally high.

I am especially tired of the virtue signaling coming from people whose countries have been responsible for the deaths of millions in the very regions we act so concerned about -- e.g., West and East Asia. There is an irony in acting as if sanctioning North Korea is for the Koreans when the Korean war [a US-Soviet proxy war] resulted in the deaths of millions of Koreans. There is an irony in sanctioning Syria and Iran for 'peace' while Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are irreparably damaged due to wars and invasions by the same countries which have sanctioned them.

As an Arab, it may be petty [3], but it boils my blood seeing the "Save Ukraine" flags on half the damn sites and GitHub projects I click on. The IDF has killed so many Palestinians, yet we continue to fund Israel. Yemen is at the brink of starvation, yet we fund the Saudis who kill them. Iraq and Afghanistan are destroyed, yet we invaded them -- HELL, not only did we invade them, UKRAINE WAS PART OF THE COALITION THAT INVADED IRAQ, yet I am not meant to hold any resentment.

It makes me so angry. I am sick and tired of the ONLY time Europe and the Anglo outposts seem to care about 'peace' and war being when their white brethren are killed. Fuck your sanctions, man. I could not care less about the agenda of your governments; the US military is the largest, most well-funded terrorist organization in the world.

[1]: I am sure someone will read this and think "this is what you get when you elect XYZ". However, I find the logic beautifully ironic, given a year ago, you'd read how one cannot protest in Russia without getting detained, beaten or killed, and yet now we expect the average Russian to throw away their life just to get arrested or worse. These people have just as little control over their circumstances as most Americans did during the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, if not less.

[2]: As a side note:

- A: Why would they ever stop? The US backed out of the Iran deal because Trump was, well... Trump. When Gaddafi agreed to stop the Libyan weapons program, the US funded the very rebels that overthrew Libya and sodomized Gaddafi with a bayonet before brutally executing him. What sane person would EVER trust the U.S. and Europe to hold their words regarding weapons programs when time and time again, it has been shown that words mean nothing. Nuclear weapons are the only way for North Korea to ensure they have a future as a country.

- B: Why should they stop? If nuclear weapons are not the defensive necessity that North Korea claims they are but instead, simply a global threat, why does to the US, France, UK, etc, get to keep their nuclear stockpile?

[3]: I should be clear. I don't support the war in Ukraine. It hurts my heart listening to the parents who've lost their children, and vice versa. But I am petty in the sense that I am jealous: I am so deeply saddened by the fact that places like Poland nearly caused a political crisis in the EU by refusing Arab refugees, despite being part of the coalition that invaded Iraq, yet the moment Ukraine gets invaded, Poland offers to take millions. Like fuck you, if you want to talk about bearing responsibility for your actions, fuck you, bear some responsibility.

Like, yes, amazing, I am happy; that is a GOOD thing. But Jesus Christ if that doesn't make me feel worthless as a human being, what should? It feels like confirmation that simply due to my ethnicity, my life will NEVER be valued the same as a white man. I am so sadden by the fact that the whole world cares about these situations, yet cannot be bothered to care about their own damn war crimes.

I moved to the United States as a child shortly before 9/11. I will never forget the way we were treated afterwards. I will never forget being in school and having the teacher inform us about the Turkish kid who'd be enrolling next week, and having the little white kids initially react with excitement and curiosity, come back the next day and play a game where they made imaginary traps for the Turk, talking about dumping their imaginary boiling hot coffee on him, etc. These are children. Who taught them that way? Their parents. Children aren't like that naturally.

I am tired of the most hateful countries in the world acting so concerned about others.

My father is not a terrorist, yet when my father returned to Israel while studying in Germany, simply due to the fact that he ran the Palestinian student union at his university, he was detained. They claimed he was a member of the PLO, and tried him as a terrorist, and held him in Israeli prison for two years. He never got to finish his degree.

To this day, despite being an Israeli citizen myself, when I go through the Ben Gurion airport I am assigned a 'six' in the first digit of the barcode they place on my passport -- the "secret" security rating they give you, on a range of 1 to 6, with 1-2 being common for most Israeli citizens, and 6 being the highest level of threat.

When my grandmother was sick and at the end of her life, we returned to Israel. After she passed, upon trying to re-enter the United States, they found out about my dad's false terrorism conviction, and he was, of course, denied entry. I was 10, and I was told I'd see him again in six months, and that we'd figure things out. I didn't get to see him again for another 8 years.

When I first saw him again as an adult, I was so happy, but it was the most bittersweet feeling in the world. When you communicate with someone over Skype on a 480p webcam for years, it hides the wrinkles in their face. I cried and cried and cried all night that first night -- I was so happy but I was so sad; he looked so old. I didn't realize how old my father was. I felt robbed by the universe; it wasn't my mother's fault, it wasn't my father's fault. I was just unlucky.

I know I am rambling, but the point is: really, if anyone actually cared about the morality, why do countries like Israel get away with ruining my life? Why do countries like the US get away with killing millions? These sanctions aren't here for peace, they are here for someone's political agenda, and that's all.

--

Anyway, I know my schizoposting anti-American ramblings are not helping my cause whatsoever, but I am very upset. I shouldn't be this upset, but I don't know why, I think it was just the straw that broke the camel's back tonight. I am very exhausted.

I guess the last thing:

To anyone who reads this and thinks "what a nutter - it's probably a good thing they watch people like him and deny them entry" -- sure, maybe. But remember: my feelings of resentment were not something I was born with. I am a child of American and European foreign policy.

[srhtftw]

99% of crypto/blockchain projects give the rest a bad name, so I especially like this part:

> We will exercise discretion when applying this rule. If you believe that your use-case for cryptocurrency or blockchain is not plagued by these social problems, you may ask for permission to host it on SourceHut, or appeal its removal, by contacting support.

looking forward to seeing what (if any) crypto projects there manage to meet this standard.

[tossl568]

Bitcoin

[fl0id]

btc is probably the worst as it will never move from PoW. And only has the price it does due to bridging to other chains probably.

[tossl568]

PoW is the only way to secure a decentralised ledger. It's literally the magic that makes it valuable as money. Thank God it'll never move away from Proof-of-Work.

[hda2]

And I'm going to reply with this (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33417786):

> Terrorists cause far more physical harm than all of crypto will ever do. Do we ban Signal and Telegram repos so that we can "protect the people"?

This is a stupid summary with glaring false statements. It should be rightly ridiculed and rejected.

[Rantenki]

I forget the actual source of this quote that I am about to mangle, but:

    Bitcoin/Blockchain was designed specifically to circumvent the legal frameworks used
    to regulate financial transactions. It follows then that any non-fraudulent use of
    these technologies is the exception, not the norm.

Blockchain currencies are designed to avoid being regulated. I am not saying that all of the current regulations are _good_, but irreversible "anonymous" transactions are always going to be attractive to fraudsters.

[gnull]

Can anyone elaborate on this? Cryptography course at my university covers blockchains and we were never made aware of this. And academic community in general seems to be unaware, not a single blockchain talk I attended drew attention to this.

[fl0id]

elaborate on what specifically? There are plenty of academics talking about blockchain = bad. If you took a CS course, likely people were invested themselves or do not see it that way, f.e. if they either care about making money or a libertarian idea of freedom which sees government as bad, and needs 'uncensored' money.

[gnull]

I took courses with focus on theory, performance and security of blockchains. I never cared much about the practical situation, and all those things Drew criticizes blockchain for. Blockchain is a cool thing from TCS perspective — end of story for me.

I'm actually teaching a course in Cryptography right now that touches blockchain a bit. And I asked this question with a practical purpose to know if there are any warnings I should give my students about practical implications of the technology.

> elaborate on what specifically?

> plenty of academics talking about blockchain = bad

Elaborate of what is "bad" specifically, and suggest any specific trustworthy academics who made any statements like that.

[wrs]

From an academic cryptography perspective, blockchains (as opposed to just Merkle trees, as found in lots of useful things like Git) are an interesting and valid solution to the problem of constructing a shared distributed ledger with no trusted party.

From a non-academic perspective, the trouble is there are few or no real-world problems for which such a thing is the best solution (judged by logistical practicality, performance, or ethics).

[tossl568]

A monetary unit that can't be debased running on an open, permissionless financial network anybody can use is the use-case. The big and only use case. Research suggests less than 1% of "crypto" usage is for criminal activity. Energy isn't fungible and it isn't wasted if it's securing hundreds of billions of value for hundreds of millions of people.

So maybe you shouldn't send something to everyone you know if it isn't true.

[garren]

> Research suggests less than 1% of "crypto" usage is for criminal activity.

I’m really curious to know where this statistic is coming from. Spend a day following other sources [0] and you’d be hard-pressed not to come to the same conclusion.

[0] https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

[zeroclip]

See [1].

$14B in illicit activity in a year sounds like a lot, but it's about a single percent of $1T, and Chainalysis is tracking $1T worth of transactions per month in crypto.[2]

[1] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...

[2] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/series-f/

[minraws]

WTH my man, not just Tornedo(Or whatever) and such are criminal, but any fraud or scam in crypto should also be considered criminal.

And I know atleast 5 banks with over 1 Billion in cap, went down. Not sure how that's not over 1 percent my man. But sure hell there are issues with Crypto as it stands.

Also I can for certain say more than 1 percent of fiat is used in illegal stuff. Not sure how crypto is doing so much better... When all I hear are stories of Hacks, Frauds and Rugpulls.

You can also use GNU Taler if you just want zero knowledge and mostly permissionless...

[erik_seaberg]

It’s not permissionless for payees, and seems completely dependent on certain German/French/Swiss banks supporting a protocol unfamiliar to me.

[hrbf]

> Energy isn't fungible and it isn't wasted if it's securing hundreds of billions of value for hundreds of millions of people.

Sadly, this echoes the kind of defective reasoning I have observed with a majority of “crypto” proponents.

Also, without a proper source for a claim, I can just as well state that research has shown that less than 1% of cryptocurrency proponents are aware enough to realize the hole they’ve dug themselves in.