alt Hacker NewsIran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait
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There's no insurance scheme the IRGC can concoct that protects against the US navy hitting your rudder with a 20mm gun.
The fact is that if they can control the strait, then any one else can also control the strait and extract rent. If we are not going to invade and occupy the land (probably a bad idea if its just us), then we can just make sure that we continue to prevent Iranian exports. Alternatives will be built to circumvent.
Why is everyone obsessed with US military when the news seems to be Bitcoin? Just like that the US Dollar suffered because clearly a crypto currency may well become what the US Dollar was, a commodity to exchange value in a way that nobody can reasonably refuse. Whether that is for better or worse, I think that is bigger news then whose got the bigger gun.
Even if Iran would charge $2 million per ship (like it has done) it would be manageable cost for for shipping companies and would generate same amount of income as Iran's domestic oil production.
When the US violates the law of the sea in the South America, why not. Everybody complains but understands.
Now.. and I am speaking just from the perspective of trying to achieve specific goals ( and accepting a level of pain for what those goals can demand ), if there was ever a possibility that US may ban/fully sanction bitcoin use, this actually might be it.
My first thought: what mining power does Iran have? Seems important.
The US should be happy about this. Maybe. Iran seeking reparations is a reasonable demand, this gives the US a way to satisfy a demand without having to pay themselves - which certainly would not be popular, to say the least - making an exit easier. There is of course the risk of setting an undesirable precedent and it is not clear what the consequences of that would be.
This is quite the, ahem, coup, for Bitcoin. I suppose it was inevitable in a fractured world. This will likely delay, or perhaps even block Pax-Sinica from taking shape.
It's quite the achievement, that the inventor(s) of Bitcoin have continued to stay anonymous to this day.
Bitcoin does make the transaction publicly traceable. Either they have not realised that, seems unlikely, or they prefer it that way.
More of a "Bitcoin-Backed Protection Racket", presumably?
Isn't this bad for bitcoin? I expect the US will immediately say "No don't pay that" and start prosecuting people that pay via bitcoin, because of course it's traceable. Am I missing something?
I’m not convinced that bitcoin is stable enough to use in insurance products. The currency volatility risk is too high to reasonably cover the covered losses which will need to be covered in some other currency to do things like replace boats etc.
You're the US and you're planning a 51% attack in a few weeks which will reverse NK and Iranian fortunes and claim the BTC of anyone who helped them. Any other objectives?
If this was open to non-Iranian shipping companies, it would be some Trump-level trolling. The aggressor that starts threatening tankers becomes the protector mobster, using non-USD as a middle finger. The US/Israel can't really start shooting at tankers without becoming the villain no one can accept. They're already low on trust capital everywhere.
So the few payouts for normal claims would be dwarfed by the war insurance premium currently being charged. They could even offer a discount to loyal clients and still have insane margins.
Yeah, I don't see how the US is coming out ahead in this conflict. Israel might have won some against their adversaries, setting them back a while or two.
Let’s be frank. Iran could have built at least crude gun type fission bombs since they reached industrial scale for enrichment. And this being very dismissing of Iranian scientific and technological capabilities.
Given modern computer consumer hardware, I don’t see why they couldn’t even have built implosion lens based fission devices without testing. DPRK would probably provide them with all the data they needed for the simulations.
Iran has been a few weeks from having a few bombs for the last 30 years because they decided not to build it.
I guess I'm just surprised they even bother trying to mask an obvious shake down under the euphemism "insurance" when it's such a trope. Obligatory Sopranos clip of old school mobsters trying to sell "protective insurance" to a Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
If they put a substantial portion of their wealth into bitcoin we might witness the ultimate rugpull when the BTC creators cash in their large share of previously untouched coins.
Nice ship you have there. Be a shame if something...happened to it.
That seems like a smart move, given how much the Trump Dynasty seems to be enmeshed in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
[Hearsay, I don't actually know more than what has been reported in the news ...]
"Insurance"
This global tax will be Trump’s legacy. It will be what the world knows him for generations after he is gone.
crypto insurance products have been very successful in the DeFi space for more than half a decade, a protocol you are using gets hacked and instead of whaling about it on hackernews the insurance policy you opened pays out immediately
there is a lot of examples on how to design it, and it doesn't really seem like this Iranian one for shipping is designed well if its just an insurance pool in bitcoin at all times
but if they are using the bitcoin blockchain to sign the insurance records of a policy and claim, and then the state administrator is acquiring bitcoin to pay out policies at time of claim, then that could work. that was one of the bullish cases theorized for bitcoin back in 2011, 2012, its a long list
One man’s insurance premium, is another man’s blackmail fee.
Are we just going to have yearly events now pushing up the cost of everything, in perpetuity? I feel like the billionaires got a bit addicted to post-COVID highs
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Maybe after the mobster losers in the white House finally get kicked out we can just ban this thing forever. How can we abide this crypto stuff?
“Insurance”
I had fairly deep knowledge about the bitcoin code base 7 years ago and I got a weird vibe from it as I've seen government code before. When I learned that Tor was funded by the Navy something clicked. Just as it makes sense to have a large onion network to allow spies abroad to surf the web anonymously, it would make sense to also have a currency you can use to fund agents or groups abroad that lived outside the banking system. Bitcoin makes sense for that purpose. If you have a large border-less digital currency with many people on it, even if it is traceable, it's still less risky then using cash which you would have to launder.
The fact that many states are now using it for funding purposes to get around the banking system further adds proof to bitcoin's potential origin.
Also, it doesn't help that Satoshi Nakamoto means basically central intelligence in Japanese...
I'm not saying Bitcoin was created by the government, but if it was there are signs...
Iran could easily have garnered a lot of international sympathy and support. Instead, they attacked their neighbors, impacted the world economy, and now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there...".
Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
Finally, the killer app for blockchain: Paying ransom to a terror state.
Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so)
The baffling part of this is that nearly everyone was aware that Iran could close the straight if pressed hard enough. The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.