Trump NFT Trading Cards - WTF!

[jimboston]

Mookie… you buy in for the LULZ?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/us/p ... rhero.html

[bigtoughralf]

Apparently the Zoom call you can win is a single call with all the winners on it. saxi's really gonna have to say something extra outrageous to stand out from that crowd.

[jimboston]

So I think we should all get together and file a class-action lawsuit against Trump for false advertising.

These NFT “Trading Cards” are supposed to be “of my life and career”.

That my friends IS NOT a picture of Donald Trump.

Also, although some believe he “made America Great Again” I don’t think he’s technically ever been a superhero.

[mookiemcgee]

Mookie… you buy in for the LULZ?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/us/p ... rhero.html

I was going to 'mint' one, but it asked for a copy of my drivers license or passport and i rolled on the ground laughing...

I almost bought one on the secondary market here for $75 on day 1 but didn't idk why:
https://opensea.io/collection/trump-dig ... ding-cards

the floor price doubled after they were all minted by day 2... they could have a run short term, but in time they will go to basically worthless. Current floor price (i just checked) is .5 ETH with is like $600. I should have aped and flipped lol

They 'exist' on the polygon chain (aka Matic), which is a fairly popular chain.... but I don't hold much on matic, most of my on chain holding are on ETH, Optimism, Arbitrum and avalanche right now. If any of you are 'crypto dumb' and need someone to hold your hand through the process feel free to reach out.

[jimboston]

I’m essentially crypto-dumb…but only because I see it all as a dead-end fad.

Yeah… there’s definitely money to be made by playing the market, and I think savvy people who stay aware can do well.

That said I see it all as a big Ponzi-Scheme… I see no long term value.

I see two types of people pushing for Crypto, and the goals of these two categories are in fundamental conflict.

Type 1: Speculators
These are people (I think like you Mookie) who invest and buy/sell different crypto’s or investments related to crypto’s. Yes some might like the idea of a currency not regulated or controlled by a government, but really they like making money in this market. These people need the prices to fluctuate… the more the better. The more variability in the value the more opportunity to make $$$.

Type 2: True Believers
These people want crypto-currency to becomes a valid currency for daily transactions. They believe the WHOLE POINT of crypto is it can be government-independent. They think it will open markets in Third World countries and enable a more fair and equitable economic basis for trade. Maybe it will allow for more direct transactions with remote producers, hurting conglomerates and helping “the little guy”. In order for this to work the currency needs to be fairly stable. Significant fluctuation in value makes this non-viable.

I think Type 1 is currently “winning”…. and I think that, because there’s nothing “REAL” supporting crypto value, the market will implode when it gets saturated with investors. That may have happened but I don’t think so. I think it’s got several more years, maybe a decade… then when there’s some economic catastrophe in late 2020’s or early 2030’s the bottom will fall out.

So ride the wave while you can. Likely you can make good cash now.

[jimboston]

I’m essentially crypto-dumb…but only because I see it all as a dead-end fad.

Yeah… there’s definitely money to be made by playing the market, and I think savvy people who stay aware can do well.

That said I see it all as a big Ponzi-Scheme… I see no long term value.

I see two types of people pushing for Crypto, and the goals of these two categories are in fundamental conflict.

Type 1: Speculators
These are people (I think like you Mookie) who invest and buy/sell different crypto’s or investments related to crypto’s. Yes some might like the idea of a currency not regulated or controlled by a government, but really they like making money in this market. These people need the prices to fluctuate… the more the better. The more variability in the value the more opportunity to make $$$.

Type 2: True Believers
These people want crypto-currency to becomes a valid currency for daily transactions. They believe the WHOLE POINT of crypto is it can be government-independent. They think it will open markets in Third World countries and enable a more fair and equitable economic basis for trade. Maybe it will allow for more direct transactions with remote producers, hurting conglomerates and helping “the little guy”. In order for this to work the currency needs to be fairly stable. Significant fluctuation in value makes this non-viable.

I think Type 1 is currently “winning”…. and I think that, because there’s nothing “REAL” supporting crypto value, the market will implode when it gets saturated with investors. That may have happened but I don’t think so. I think it’s got several more years, maybe a decade… then when there’s some economic catastrophe in late 2020’s or early 2030’s the bottom will fall out.

So ride the wave while you can. Likely you can make good cash now.

Mookie… i was hoping you’d comment on these thoughts.

[saxitoxin]

The whole Trump NFT trading card thing is obviously a legalized money laundering scheme. The fact they sold out of all 40,000 of them within 24 hours seems to indicate Trump, himself, bought all of them - or a significant portion - and then is the one reselling them on the secondary market at 5X markups to prearranged buyers. If you need to quietly get $1MM to Trump without a transaction record you just buy 1,000 Trump NFTs on the secondary market from "User A74162."

What surprised me is that no-one called this out (at least that I saw, maybe someone did). I guess it looks slightly more legitimate than the Hunter Biden art selling scheme - another obvious money laundering operation - and after Russiagate the media felt they now need a rock solid case to make any accusation of any kind against Trump, that clear suspicion in the absence of evidence is insufficient. On the other hand, the press seem acutely dumb in identifying in-your-face money laundering. Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

[jimboston]

The whole Trump NFT trading card thing is obviously a legalized money laundering scheme. The fact they sold out of all 40,000 of them within 24 hours seems to indicate Trump, himself, bought all of them - or a significant portion - and then is the one reselling them on the secondary market at 5X markups to prearranged buyers. If you need to quietly get $1MM to Trump without a transaction record you just buy 1,000 Trump NFTs on the secondary market from "User A74162."

What surprised me is that no-one called this out (at least that I saw, maybe someone did). I guess it looks slightly more legitimate than the Hunter Biden art selling scheme - another obvious money laundering operation - and after Russiagate the media felt they now need a rock solid case to make any accusation of any kind against Trump, that clear suspicion in the absence of evidence is insufficient. On the other hand, the press seem acutely dumb in identifying in-your-face money laundering. Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

This would be genius if true, but clearly you’re losing your mind.

[mookiemcgee]

The whole Trump NFT trading card thing is obviously a legalized money laundering scheme. The fact they sold out of all 40,000 of them within 24 hours seems to indicate Trump, himself, bought all of them - or a significant portion - and then is the one reselling them on the secondary market at 5X markups to prearranged buyers. If you need to quietly get $1MM to Trump without a transaction record you just buy 1,000 Trump NFTs on the secondary market from "User A74162."

What surprised me is that no-one called this out (at least that I saw, maybe someone did). I guess it looks slightly more legitimate than the Hunter Biden art selling scheme - another obvious money laundering operation - and after Russiagate the media felt they now need a rock solid case to make any accusation of any kind against Trump, that clear suspicion in the absence of evidence is insufficient. On the other hand, the press seem acutely dumb in identifying in-your-face money laundering. Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

Ok so what you really need to understand about how the 'creators' make money is through the aftermarket sales. the creators get 'royalties' for every sale, in this NFT's case it's 10%.
So the income breakdown so far for the creator: (we can pretend it's Trump if you want, but it's almost certainly a licensing deal. Trump gets 5m up front and 1% of the 10% royalty in perpetuity or something like that)

45000 x $100 minting cost = $4,500,000 they get 100% of this.
Total volume sold aftermarket to date = 7,910 ETH = $9,500,000 is sales volume of which they get 10% so = $950,000 so far

So basically just shy of 5.5m so far in revenue.

So sure they could lauder money by trading the NFTs at weirdly high prices, but since it's all a public ledger those weirdly high sales would stand out. All they really have to do is drum up some fake volume and get the fomo going and take their 10% cut. They can go back to the well anytime they need to raise funds.

It's a particularly great way to launder funds to trump from across borders. Say you were a russian oligarch and needed to get 1m to trump asap. Just trade the NFTs back and forth like 1000s of times and no one knows who or where the wallet owners are in the world.

[Dukasaur]

Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

I heard nothing about it, either. What happened there?

[saxitoxin]

Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

I heard nothing about it, either. What happened there?

This is a long story, I emailed it to someone awhile ago so I'm just copy/pasting here with a few edits.

show

[bigtoughralf]

NFTs aren't regulated so you could be as blatant as the methods saxi suggested. Unless the feds got evidence NFT purchases might be linked to some sort of corruption then no one could or would investigate the trades. It's not like something like stock trading or gambling where a large or unusual enough trade taking place would trigger an investigation all by itself.

[Dukasaur]

Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

I heard nothing about it, either. What happened there?

This is a long story, I emailed it to someone awhile ago so I'm just copy/pasting here with a few edits.

show

Amazing. Thank you.

[saxitoxin]

The whole Trump NFT trading card thing is obviously a legalized money laundering scheme. The fact they sold out of all 40,000 of them within 24 hours seems to indicate Trump, himself, bought all of them - or a significant portion - and then is the one reselling them on the secondary market at 5X markups to prearranged buyers. If you need to quietly get $1MM to Trump without a transaction record you just buy 1,000 Trump NFTs on the secondary market from "User A74162."

What surprised me is that no-one called this out (at least that I saw, maybe someone did). I guess it looks slightly more legitimate than the Hunter Biden art selling scheme - another obvious money laundering operation - and after Russiagate the media felt they now need a rock solid case to make any accusation of any kind against Trump, that clear suspicion in the absence of evidence is insufficient. On the other hand, the press seem acutely dumb in identifying in-your-face money laundering. Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

Ok so what you really need to understand about how the 'creators' make money is through the aftermarket sales. the creators get 'royalties' for every sale, in this NFT's case it's 10%.
So the income breakdown so far for the creator: (we can pretend it's Trump if you want, but it's almost certainly a licensing deal. Trump gets 5m up front and 1% of the 10% royalty in perpetuity or something like that)

45000 x $100 minting cost = $4,500,000 they get 100% of this.
Total volume sold aftermarket to date = 7,910 ETH = $9,500,000 is sales volume of which they get 10% so = $950,000 so far

So basically just shy of 5.5m so far in revenue.

So sure they could lauder money by trading the NFTs at weirdly high prices, but since it's all a public ledger those weirdly high sales would stand out. All they really have to do is drum up some fake volume and get the fomo going and take their 10% cut. They can go back to the well anytime they need to raise funds.

It's a particularly great way to launder funds to trump from across borders. Say you were a russian oligarch and needed to get 1m to trump asap. Just trade the NFTs back and forth like 1000s of times and no one knows who or where the wallet owners are in the world.

You work out the details, I'm the big picture guy. As long as we're agreed it's a money laundering scheme that's fine.

[mookiemcgee]

The whole Trump NFT trading card thing is obviously a legalized money laundering scheme. The fact they sold out of all 40,000 of them within 24 hours seems to indicate Trump, himself, bought all of them - or a significant portion - and then is the one reselling them on the secondary market at 5X markups to prearranged buyers. If you need to quietly get $1MM to Trump without a transaction record you just buy 1,000 Trump NFTs on the secondary market from "User A74162."

What surprised me is that no-one called this out (at least that I saw, maybe someone did). I guess it looks slightly more legitimate than the Hunter Biden art selling scheme - another obvious money laundering operation - and after Russiagate the media felt they now need a rock solid case to make any accusation of any kind against Trump, that clear suspicion in the absence of evidence is insufficient. On the other hand, the press seem acutely dumb in identifying in-your-face money laundering. Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party presidential campaign was one of the most egregious schemes in American history and I never saw a single article about it.

Ok so what you really need to understand about how the 'creators' make money is through the aftermarket sales. the creators get 'royalties' for every sale, in this NFT's case it's 10%.
So the income breakdown so far for the creator: (we can pretend it's Trump if you want, but it's almost certainly a licensing deal. Trump gets 5m up front and 1% of the 10% royalty in perpetuity or something like that)

45000 x $100 minting cost = $4,500,000 they get 100% of this.
Total volume sold aftermarket to date = 7,910 ETH = $9,500,000 is sales volume of which they get 10% so = $950,000 so far

So basically just shy of 5.5m so far in revenue.

So sure they could lauder money by trading the NFTs at weirdly high prices, but since it's all a public ledger those weirdly high sales would stand out. All they really have to do is drum up some fake volume and get the fomo going and take their 10% cut. They can go back to the well anytime they need to raise funds.

It's a particularly great way to launder funds to trump from across borders. Say you were a russian oligarch and needed to get 1m to trump asap. Just trade the NFTs back and forth like 1000s of times and no one knows who or where the wallet owners are in the world.

You work out the details, I'm the big picture guy. As long as we're agreed it's a money laundering scheme that's fine.

[mookiemcgee]

NFTs aren't regulated so you could be as blatant as the methods saxi suggested. Unless the feds got evidence NFT purchases might be linked to some sort of corruption then no one could or would investigate the trades. It's not like something like stock trading or gambling where a large or unusual enough trade taking place would trigger an investigation all by itself.

Frankly it's way more capital efficient to just make a large volume of trades just over the floor price and let the degens fomo it higher and higher than it is to make 1 large very sus trade in order to move the funds. Trump doesn't even have to be connected to either side of those trading them back and forth, he just gets the 'royalties'.

The big obstacle here isn't how to we get trump the money from russian accounts. You wouldn't even need NFTs for that, and you'd more likely use a privacy chain like monero for it that and NFT on Polygon.

The real obstacle for Trump is 'how do I explain where these funds come from when i turn them back into fiat'. when it's totally above board looking sales volume for his very public NFT collection then it's pretty darn easy for him to claim it legit business income. If it's 'income' from some other source (like selling 1 NFT aftermarket from his own ownership at 1000x the normal price) it's fairly difficult.


I buy 1 NFT for 1 million dollars from Trump himself... not good

I buy and sell $1.5million in trump NFTs at just above the floor price. because I'm just buying and selling to myself my only loss of capital goes directly to royalties ($150,000), then a bunch of regards think it's about to explode in value and organic volume picks up to the tune of $9m, creating another $900k in royalties. Cost to me $150,000, net proceeds to Trump 1,050,000. Nothing connecting me to Trump at all. Trump can claim all of it as legit proceeds of a business.

Anyway, that ends my lesson today for how to wash trade NFTs in order to launder money exclusively through royalties and maintain full plausible deniability.

[bigtoughralf]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

[jimboston]

This is genius… and another reason why Governments aren’t gonna let Crypto and EFT shit get too big.

They don’t really care if Trump makes a few million.
They actually like the idea that they can also use these schemes to fund shit they wouldn’t otherwise be able to fund.

It getting big enough to threaten the US Dollar?
That happens they squash it right quick.

[mookiemcgee]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

Well yes and no, I mean Gov't can't stop BTC from moving from 1 wallet to another but they can 100% track it. That's how we know the BTC is going to Iran, and since they are a sovereign gov't they have the regulatory power to control the BTC to Rial flows. We just can't stop it...but you best believe the USG is montioring all address involved in the chain that leads to the destination address in Iran. I think we talked in here a year or so ago about Tornado Cash which was a common mixing/laundering service that tried to mask the trail when sending ETH on ETH chain but the USG basically shut it down, and the fees to use it were like 30%. There is not currently BTC version of this service.

Monero is an example of a non-public ledger blockchain. Where you can't track all inter-wallet movements. So like if you just wanted to send funds directly and untraceably across borders this would be a better option that BTC, ETH, USDC or any of the more common crypto names you hear all the time. But using Monero is also a bit red-flaggy because it's main raison-d'tre is laundering. Also, it's getting harder in certain countries to find centralized exchanges (fiat on/offramps) that will accept monero (because of gov't pressure)

[jimboston]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

Well yes and no, I mean Gov't can't stop BTC from moving from 1 wallet to another but they can 100% track it. That's how we know the BTC is going to Iran, and since they are a sovereign gov't they have the regulatory power to control the BTC to Rial flows. We just can't stop it...but you best believe the USG is montioring all address involved in the chain that leads to the destination address in Iran. I think we talked in here a year or so ago about Tornado Cash which was a common mixing/laundering service that tried to mask the trail when sending ETH on ETH chain but the USG basically shut it down, and the fees to use it were like 30%. There is not currently BTC version of this service.

Monero is an example of a non-public ledger blockchain. Where you can't track all inter-wallet movements. So like if you just wanted to send funds directly and untraceably across borders this would be a better option that BTC, ETH, USDC or any of the more common crypto names you hear all the time. But using Monero is also a bit red-flaggy because it's main raison-d'tre is laundering. Also, it's getting harder in certain countries to find centralized exchanges (fiat on/offramps) that will accept monero (because of gov't pressure)

Right if the US and the West just stop a specific chain-to-fiat transfer then it can make exchanging it more difficult.

… but couldn’t you go from Monero to BTC then to the Dollar?

They’d have to track the Monero to BTC to flag a User.

With it all being digital you can have large numbers of small transfers to large numbers of fake/clone/bot accounts… which probably increases your costs, but makes it harder to track.

No?

[mookiemcgee]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

Well yes and no, I mean Gov't can't stop BTC from moving from 1 wallet to another but they can 100% track it. That's how we know the BTC is going to Iran, and since they are a sovereign gov't they have the regulatory power to control the BTC to Rial flows. We just can't stop it...but you best believe the USG is montioring all address involved in the chain that leads to the destination address in Iran. I think we talked in here a year or so ago about Tornado Cash which was a common mixing/laundering service that tried to mask the trail when sending ETH on ETH chain but the USG basically shut it down, and the fees to use it were like 30%. There is not currently BTC version of this service.

Monero is an example of a non-public ledger blockchain. Where you can't track all inter-wallet movements. So like if you just wanted to send funds directly and untraceably across borders this would be a better option that BTC, ETH, USDC or any of the more common crypto names you hear all the time. But using Monero is also a bit red-flaggy because it's main raison-d'tre is laundering. Also, it's getting harder in certain countries to find centralized exchanges (fiat on/offramps) that will accept monero (because of gov't pressure)

Right if the US and the West just stop a specific chain-to-fiat transfer then it can make exchanging it more difficult.

… but couldn’t you go from Monero to BTC then to the Dollar?

They’d have to track the Monero to BTC to flag a User.

With it all being digital you can have large numbers of small transfers to large numbers of fake/clone/bot accounts… which probably increases your costs, but makes it harder to track.

No?

Well again yes and no... there is no direct way (permissionless, on chain way) to turn BTC into Monero. They are different tech, and there is no cross chain links or bridges. So you need a 'centralized exchange' (a coinbase, or Binance or FTX) to do it. So you'd send BTC to the CEX, exchange it for monero there, and then withdraw the monero to a monero wallet (or fiat to a bank account). This is where gov'ts can still effectively regulate, freeze funds ect. This is their point of maximum leverage. All CEX that operate in the USA, and most that operate internationally do KYC... So coinbase knows your Social Security number and identity and if the USG asks them for your transacting history because they think there is fraud/illegal stuff they are gonna give it over. So it depends on what exchange, where it's based out of, which gov'ts can exert control over it.

With the Iran example I have no fucking clue what options are available to them for fiat on/offramps, but since in that example it's the gov't itself trying to receive the funds they can probably sort it out with their banks.

The whole grail for crypto people is a way to turn BTC into Dollars (or other fiat) without using a '3rd party' like CEX or a bank of some kind. No one has figured it out yet, but if they do it's gonna be really hard to stop crypto adoption from exploding. Again for americans who have a strong currency crypto use is basically a game of speculation and ponzinomics. But for a citizen of a country that has 100%/yearly inflation it holds real world useful-ness and function effectively as a store of value (so does USD for them, and gold but both carry their own drawbacks)

[jimboston]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

Well yes and no, I mean Gov't can't stop BTC from moving from 1 wallet to another but they can 100% track it. That's how we know the BTC is going to Iran, and since they are a sovereign gov't they have the regulatory power to control the BTC to Rial flows. We just can't stop it...but you best believe the USG is montioring all address involved in the chain that leads to the destination address in Iran. I think we talked in here a year or so ago about Tornado Cash which was a common mixing/laundering service that tried to mask the trail when sending ETH on ETH chain but the USG basically shut it down, and the fees to use it were like 30%. There is not currently BTC version of this service.

Monero is an example of a non-public ledger blockchain. Where you can't track all inter-wallet movements. So like if you just wanted to send funds directly and untraceably across borders this would be a better option that BTC, ETH, USDC or any of the more common crypto names you hear all the time. But using Monero is also a bit red-flaggy because it's main raison-d'tre is laundering. Also, it's getting harder in certain countries to find centralized exchanges (fiat on/offramps) that will accept monero (because of gov't pressure)

Right if the US and the West just stop a specific chain-to-fiat transfer then it can make exchanging it more difficult.

… but couldn’t you go from Monero to BTC then to the Dollar?

They’d have to track the Monero to BTC to flag a User.

With it all being digital you can have large numbers of small transfers to large numbers of fake/clone/bot accounts… which probably increases your costs, but makes it harder to track.

No?

Well again yes and no... there is no direct way (permissionless, on chain way) to turn BTC into Monero. They are different tech, and there is no cross chain links or bridges. So you need a 'centralized exchange' (a coinbase, or Binance or FTX) to do it. So you'd send BTC to the CEX, exchange it for monero there, and then withdraw the monero to a monero wallet (or fiat to a bank account). This is where gov'ts can still effectively regulate, freeze funds ect. This is their point of maximum leverage. All CEX that operate in the USA, and most that operate internationally do KYC... So coinbase knows your Social Security number and identity and if the USG asks them for your transacting history because they think there is fraud/illegal stuff they are gonna give it over. So it depends on what exchange, where it's based out of, which gov'ts can exert control over it.

With the Iran example I have no fucking clue what options are available to them for fiat on/offramps, but since in that example it's the gov't itself trying to receive the funds they can probably sort it out with their banks.

The whole grail for crypto people is a way to turn BTC into Dollars (or other fiat) without using a '3rd party' like CEX or a bank of some kind. No one has figured it out yet, but if they do it's gonna be really hard to stop crypto adoption from exploding. Again for americans who have a strong currency crypto use is basically a game of speculation and ponzinomics. But for a citizen of a country that has 100%/yearly inflation it holds real world useful-ness and function effectively as a store of value (so does USD for them, and gold but both carry their own drawbacks)

but that (the bolded part) relates to what I said about the fluctuation of crypto.

That’s WHY it’s not a good currency.

I suppose if you live in some place with more inflation and fluctuation than Bitcoin then yeah… but that’s not universal and even in those places it’s hopefully not a forever problem.

[mookiemcgee]

Re your Russian point: maybe you could use Bitcoin. I know that works for sending money in and out of Iran without triggering US sanctions, which I presume(?) means no one anywhere is able to properly keep track of who owns which Bitcoin wallet or which wallets transfers are being made between.

Trump would have to worry about how he gets Bitcoin out of those wallets and explains it but in theory it could reach those wallets easily enough.

Well yes and no, I mean Gov't can't stop BTC from moving from 1 wallet to another but they can 100% track it. That's how we know the BTC is going to Iran, and since they are a sovereign gov't they have the regulatory power to control the BTC to Rial flows. We just can't stop it...but you best believe the USG is montioring all address involved in the chain that leads to the destination address in Iran. I think we talked in here a year or so ago about Tornado Cash which was a common mixing/laundering service that tried to mask the trail when sending ETH on ETH chain but the USG basically shut it down, and the fees to use it were like 30%. There is not currently BTC version of this service.

Monero is an example of a non-public ledger blockchain. Where you can't track all inter-wallet movements. So like if you just wanted to send funds directly and untraceably across borders this would be a better option that BTC, ETH, USDC or any of the more common crypto names you hear all the time. But using Monero is also a bit red-flaggy because it's main raison-d'tre is laundering. Also, it's getting harder in certain countries to find centralized exchanges (fiat on/offramps) that will accept monero (because of gov't pressure)

Right if the US and the West just stop a specific chain-to-fiat transfer then it can make exchanging it more difficult.

… but couldn’t you go from Monero to BTC then to the Dollar?

They’d have to track the Monero to BTC to flag a User.

With it all being digital you can have large numbers of small transfers to large numbers of fake/clone/bot accounts… which probably increases your costs, but makes it harder to track.

No?

Well again yes and no... there is no direct way (permissionless, on chain way) to turn BTC into Monero. They are different tech, and there is no cross chain links or bridges. So you need a 'centralized exchange' (a coinbase, or Binance or FTX) to do it. So you'd send BTC to the CEX, exchange it for monero there, and then withdraw the monero to a monero wallet (or fiat to a bank account). This is where gov'ts can still effectively regulate, freeze funds ect. This is their point of maximum leverage. All CEX that operate in the USA, and most that operate internationally do KYC... So coinbase knows your Social Security number and identity and if the USG asks them for your transacting history because they think there is fraud/illegal stuff they are gonna give it over. So it depends on what exchange, where it's based out of, which gov'ts can exert control over it.

With the Iran example I have no fucking clue what options are available to them for fiat on/offramps, but since in that example it's the gov't itself trying to receive the funds they can probably sort it out with their banks.

The whole grail for crypto people is a way to turn BTC into Dollars (or other fiat) without using a '3rd party' like CEX or a bank of some kind. No one has figured it out yet, but if they do it's gonna be really hard to stop crypto adoption from exploding. Again for americans who have a strong currency crypto use is basically a game of speculation and ponzinomics. But for a citizen of a country that has 100%/yearly inflation it holds real world useful-ness and function effectively as a store of value (so does USD for them, and gold but both carry their own drawbacks)

but that (the bolded part) relates to what I said about the fluctuation of crypto.

That’s WHY it’s not a good currency.

I suppose if you live in some place with more inflation and fluctuation than Bitcoin then yeah… but that’s not universal and even in those places it’s hopefully not a forever problem.

It doesn't have to solve all the worlds problems and eliminate all fiat currencies overnight to be 'useful and relevant' to a good chunk of the world. It doesn't have to be a static solid price vs the USD to be useful to people in Venezuela. Say you live in the USA, but have family suffering in Venezuela from being paid in a currency that loses 50% of it's buying power every month. How do you help them? Virtually all wire services, and all banks have blocked payments from USA destined for Venezuela for political reasons. There aren't alot of options, the main one right now is BTC.

The USD is and has been a very good currency. comparing a new technology with no centralized backing to it and because the price isn't as solid as the USD saying it's not a good currency is maybe a little myopic. BTC is a helluva lot better than many other currencies.

In a down year like 2022 BTC might see a much larger % drop than the the South African Rand saw against the USD... but the SAR has bleed vs the USD for decades (I purposely picked a relatively stable African currency for this example). Lost 25% of it's value of 5 years, 50% over 10 years. It's down only, forever. BTC is down from its 2021 highs by alot... but over 5 years it's even vs the USD (and that mainly because exactly 5 years ago was a huge price peak), compare it to 4 or 6 years ago and it's up over 100++% vs the USD. So idk, your argument i think is price stability is what makes for a good currency, and my main answer here is relative to what? BTC supply side inflation is pre-programmed to go down slowly for the next 80 years until the supply is capped. Sure it could fail and maybe becomes worth zero due to demand side breakdown, but if it's real world utility scales and people choose to use it and it becomes easier over to time to use (i mean like can i use it to buy a carrot of Krogers)... how do you think it's price vs USD will look like in 25 years as the fed just prints trillions of new dollars out of thin air ever year?

Is it a currency, or a store of value, or a speculative investment... all these are open questions and you opinion is perfectly valid. My personal opinion is the odds for a $250k/btc price by 2030 is greater than the odds it goes to zero by 2030. Time will tell... and I'm not even a BTC maxi.

[jimboston]

but if it stabilizes, so as-to-become a ‘valid currency’ in more parts of the world…

Doesn’t that make it lose interest to investors like yourself who play the market?

I’m saying it can’t be both.

[mookiemcgee]

but if it stabilizes, so as-to-become a ‘valid currency’ in more parts of the world…

Doesn’t that make it lose interest to investors like yourself who play the market?

I’m saying it can’t be both.

(if successful) it won't be both... it will transition from being one into the other based on the adoption curve. Early = volatile , Late = stable

But listen, I'm just outlining what the hardcore believers think. There is a massive and growing camp of crypto maxi's that think BTC is already dead for a few reasons (most of them are ETH maxis)
a) it's sticking with POW (proof of work), meaning it continues to be a large electricity use chain.
b) It is by it nature inflationary (at least until the end of the century)
c) You can't build anything on the chain directly (you can't have smart contracts/dapps built on chain to leverage it's security for transaction beyond just send/receive BTC)

They would point to the fact that (again aside from price action) Ether is true 'ultra sound money' because the switch to POS from POW transitioned it to being deflationary. (new supply is being created, but an equal or greater amount is being burned through network gas fees)
https://ultrasound.money/

Also the fact that you can actually build stuff on ETH network to leverage it's security.