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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • dhork@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.worldMusk says US aid agency will be closed.
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    3 days ago

    No, it’s not above board at all. It will be challenged in the courts, and the challenge will win. The question becomes, what happens then?

    A court can say “This is plainly illegal, it needs to stop and be reversed”, but if that ruling is ignored it’s not like they are going to send in US Marshals to kick DOGE out. Unless there is a clear enforcement mechanism that the court can use, Elon will just stay, like a squatter.

    In fact, a squatter is the perfect analogy. Elon simply moved in, without paying rent, because he is a friend of the property manager. And won’t leave because he knows it will take forever for the landlord to evict him and then even after that there is no force to it.









  • dhork@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.worldWhy big tech turned right
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    5 days ago

    The SEC wanted to consider every bit of crypto a security. But most securities are issued for the purpose of raising money. So, a company makes a formal offering of shares, or debt, and that is all regulated. The investors are essentially participating in whatever the company is doing.

    Cryptocurrencies with Blockchains aren’t like that, though. It’s not a cooperative enterprise where everyone is making a profit. It’s released on a set schedule according to the protocol. Anyone can join in the mining/staking process simply by having the right equipment (and in the case of staking, enough of the coin to qualify). Furthermore, you can buy and sell coins without participating in the underlying mining/staking mechanics. So it’s not a common undertaking at all, it really resembles a currency or commodity.

    The SEC went hard after US exchanges like Coinbase for selling “unregistered securities”, while not really defuning it all that well, and without actually giving exchanges a process to register even if they wanted to.

    Now, I will add that there exchanges also all sell shitty tokens like $TRUMP. Those are different, because they are governed by a smart contract riding on top of a Blockchain. They are a layer removed from the Blockchain they are riding on. There is no utility there; the utility is all in Ethereum or Solana or whatever Blockchain enabled the shitty token.

    The SEC could have done everyone a lot of favors by simply saying “Blockchain coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum are commodities, Shitty ERC-20 tokens (or their non-ethereum equivalent on other chains) are securities and need to be registered before being traded in the US”. If they provided a web form and charged $100 per shitty token, they might even make enough to fund all the crypto enforcement when those shitty tokens inevitably get pump-and-dumped. ($TRUMP will get dumped, too, eventually.)




  • dhork@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.worldWhy big tech turned right
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    6 days ago

    This article doesn’t mention what I think is the key difference: Democrats’ hostile regulatory environment against Crypto. I bet all of these Tech Bros bought Bitcoin and Ethereum early, and are sitting on a huge stash of it. Hell, we know Musk personally pumps Dogecoin every chance he gets. Some regulation is necessary in the space, but Biden’s SEC was going way too far.

    So, you have all these yoyos with extra money, and Citizens United which says it is speech. Is it any wonder they steered the money toward the guy who would let them do whatever the hell they want?