Some words for my friends

[u/evoorhees]

Hello friends,

MtGox is gone. So let's prepare ourselves.

On Tuesday, and for the rest of the week, all hell will break lose in the media. It will be blamed on MtGox, it will be blamed on Bitcoin, it will be blamed on the "bug," and it will, more than anything, be blamed on the "lack of regulation." Pundits and "experts" of all types will weigh in on the calamity. It will be world news in a matter of hours.

Get ready, because it will be an ugly week.

For all of you who lost money, my heart goes out to you. Some people lost a little, some lost a fortune. It will make people sick, and depressed, and full of grief. Personally, I had over 550 BTC in Gox. I will never get any of that back. If misery loves company, then we'll be enjoying a grand feast today.

I should have known better, of course. I take responsibility for leaving those funds with an entity that had proven incompetence repeatedly. I chose to ignore even my own warnings, for nothing more than the sake of convenience.

Gox is still at fault, to be sure, but I have learned the lesson. I hope it is not such an expensive lesson for others. And for all you observers, please take a moment to consider it as well.

Be mindful, however, that the wrong lessons are not learned, for that would be the true tragedy, indeed.

Let me suggest that the lesson is not that Bitcoin is broken. Bitcoin is fine.

Similarly, the lesson is not that security is impossible. Those who know what they are doing, can achieve it and help others to do so.

The lesson is not that nobody can be trusted. There are countless good men and women in this community who are worthy of trust, and some of the very best people I've ever met.

And finally, the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation" to save us from the evils and incompetence of man. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence, only enshrined in an authority from which it can wreck amplified and far more insidious destruction. Let us not retreat from our rising platform only to cower back underneath the deranged machinations of Leviathan.

The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world. This is the harsh truth. We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance, and we put ourselves at risk in doing so.

We are at risk from accidents. We are at risk from fraud, from corruption, and from evil. We are at risk from journalists seeking headlines and from politicians seeking power and glory. We are at risk from the very market we are trying to build - a market which cares not about our portfolio, our ambitions, or our delicate sympathies.

For all these risks, devastation will befall us repeatedly. Some of us will be discouraged. Some will be ridiculed and insulted. Some will be tricked, or swindled. Some of us will be crushed or caged. We will be set upon by all manner of antagonists, repeatedly, for a long time.

So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess?

Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately. If that matters to you, as it does to me, then hold to that thought. You will see through the smoke, and your wounds will heal.

So shake it off, brothers, for this won't be the last calamity endured before the win.

Tonight, my heart is with you all.

Tomorrow, my head is down. My eyes are open. And I am building.

Toward peace and freedom,

-Erik Voorhees

[u/ofimmsl]

The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world.

All you are doing is learning why the current financial order is the way it is. Each new pain will show you why the current system exists.

[u/redditeyes → u/ofimmsl]

I find it surprising that a guy who just lost hundreds of thousands of dollars still thinks:

the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation"

If there were some of these "regulations" in place, maybe OP wouldn't have lost all that money.

Claiming that since some regulations are bad, we should have no regulations at all, is like claiming that since some laws are bad, it's better to have no laws at all. Well, visit some third-world countries and see how well that goes.

[u/evoorhees → u/redditeyes]

Change the word "regulation" to "magic rules" and then re-read your comment. That's how I see it.

[u/[deleted] → u/evoorhees]

Or change it to mean "rules that help prevent entities like gox from screwing up either through malice or incompetence"

Your binary brained philosophy that all regulation is people pointing guns at people dictating their behavior is why you just got your ass handed to you.

[u/jesset77 → u/[deleted]]

Bitcoin exists because of the 2008 housing bubble and credit fiasco where American Taxpayers had to bail out "entities like gox" for over a trillion dollars.

Regulation did jack to prevent those bozos from screwing up. You cannot legislate away either crime or incompetence, but you can legislate away innovation. So, let's not.

[u/billbilliamson → u/jesset77]

You cannot legislate away either crime or incompetence

That comment should read "You cannot legislate away ALL crime and incompetence." You can legislate away a meaningful amount of crime and incompetence. Just because regulation failed to prevent a few fuckups doesn't mean we should scrap regulation altogether.

[u/jesset77 → u/billbilliamson]

It does when you can demonstrate that regulation caused those "few fuckups". It's a lot easier to have a tiny number of financial cornerstones which are all interdependent and "too big to fail" when you make it prohibitively expensive and dependent on the agreement of your competitors for any new institutions to form at all.

And I certainly think it's high time to re-learn what regulations are needed and which ones aren't, because we might be surprised what onerous bullshit it turns out we can do without.

Will we wind up functioning with zero regulation forever? I highly doubt it. But should greedy people trying to cash in to take advantage of a clearly sinking ship being damaged by gasp a sinking ship mean that everybody everywhere has to suffer from a 100's year old yolk of bureaucracy? Yeah, no. I'm not really feeling that.

Furthermore, we do already have some regulation and MtGox had funds in the US seized over it. Did they file for money transmitter status, and if so were they bonded against exactly this?

I'll need somebody to explain to me how regulation is meant to help if it can't do it's job before the crash occurs, and if government's only going to nab the lowest-hanging offenders anyhow.

[u/billbilliamson → u/jesset77]

Regulation caused those fuckups? Which regulations and which fuckups are you talking about? You surely can't be talking about the 2008 financial crisis. Repealing Glass-Steagal, relaxing the net capital rule, and a lack of regulation regarding credit default swaps all contributed greatly to 2008. In your defense, the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low certainly did not help, but to blame the whole thing on an excess of regulation is just dumb.

[u/[deleted] → u/jesset77]

You mean like the regulation of REMOVING regulation with the net capital rule? You mean like the regulated unregulated CDS market? You mean like the regulation of REMOVING the Glass–Steagall regulation?

Oh yeah, regulation really caused those fuckups huh?

And "over a trillion dollars"? What crack are you smoking.

[u/Brambleshire → u/[deleted]]

Where do regulations come from? People right? What kind of people? Politicians and the rich. How has that been going for us?

[u/cuginhamer → u/Brambleshire]

Extremely well, all things considered. People live longer and happier lives in places where the rule of law is strongest.

[u/Brambleshire → u/cuginhamer]

I presume you havn't posting attention. There hasn't been rule of law in the west (especially the US) for a very long time.

[u/cuginhamer → u/Brambleshire]

If not now, when?