<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>diab0lic</author><text>I see the argument that cryptos reduce the grasp of oppressive regimes on here pretty frequently but the truth is that a) the null hypothesis (no effect) has yet to be rejected with any data and b) oppressive regimes are very good at eliminating or severely restricting internet access when it suits them.&lt;p&gt;A slight tangent -- you can&amp;#x27;t just take two options and say we don&amp;#x27;t have any data so we can&amp;#x27;t judge. We have a prior: most things do not have an effect in this case.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ballenf</author><text>&amp;gt; who have provided less than zero benefit or service to our society&lt;p&gt;Was following your argument up to that point. Making such a value judgment requires, in my opinion, a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; more data and deep analysis. Cryptocurrencies have the potential of loosening the grasp of oppressive regimes over their people. And it takes those other investors for the process to function.&lt;p&gt;But, the reality and therefore data is needed to judge whether these new currencies can deliver on that promise.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Want to clarify that I&amp;#x27;m talking about *coin buyers&amp;#x2F;sellers. Not scam ICO backers. Agree that those folks are scum with negative value to society. If the parent was mainly talking about ICO scams, then please ignore my response and apologies for the misinterpretation.</text></item><item><author>aje403</author><text>Of course they would have laughed in their face. Do you see Nasdaq trying to list Dogecoin? There is no ambiguity or uncertainty here - there is a big problem and they&amp;#x27;re trying to reign it in with gloved hands before it becomes one and it turns into a big economic mess that the government will have to foot the bill to eventually clean up.&lt;p&gt;This site likes to complain about wealthy inequality - common people like your grandparents and uninformed but good hearted relatives are providing liquidity for a growing number of new millionaires and billionaires to exit imaginary money who have provided less than zero benefit or service to our society and are leaving the country to avoid tax payments and taking money out of our economy.</text></item><item><author>TallGuyShort</author><text>So if some anonymous person invents cryptocurrencies, at what point are you supposed to be considered securities? If the first exchange had gone to SEC to register as a securities exchange, would the SEC not have laughed in their face? The headline itself really captures the ambiguity and uncertainty of all of this: &amp;quot;potentially unlawful&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms for Trading Digital Assets</title><url>https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/enforcement-tm-statement-potentially-unlawful-online-platforms-trading</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>shmageggy</author><text>I fail to see how crypto-speculators making large sums of USD has anything to do with oppressive regimes.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ballenf</author><text>&amp;gt; who have provided less than zero benefit or service to our society&lt;p&gt;Was following your argument up to that point. Making such a value judgment requires, in my opinion, a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; more data and deep analysis. Cryptocurrencies have the potential of loosening the grasp of oppressive regimes over their people. And it takes those other investors for the process to function.&lt;p&gt;But, the reality and therefore data is needed to judge whether these new currencies can deliver on that promise.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Want to clarify that I&amp;#x27;m talking about *coin buyers&amp;#x2F;sellers. Not scam ICO backers. Agree that those folks are scum with negative value to society. If the parent was mainly talking about ICO scams, then please ignore my response and apologies for the misinterpretation.</text></item><item><author>aje403</author><text>Of course they would have laughed in their face. Do you see Nasdaq trying to list Dogecoin? There is no ambiguity or uncertainty here - there is a big problem and they&amp;#x27;re trying to reign it in with gloved hands before it becomes one and it turns into a big economic mess that the government will have to foot the bill to eventually clean up.&lt;p&gt;This site likes to complain about wealthy inequality - common people like your grandparents and uninformed but good hearted relatives are providing liquidity for a growing number of new millionaires and billionaires to exit imaginary money who have provided less than zero benefit or service to our society and are leaving the country to avoid tax payments and taking money out of our economy.</text></item><item><author>TallGuyShort</author><text>So if some anonymous person invents cryptocurrencies, at what point are you supposed to be considered securities? If the first exchange had gone to SEC to register as a securities exchange, would the SEC not have laughed in their face? The headline itself really captures the ambiguity and uncertainty of all of this: &amp;quot;potentially unlawful&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms for Trading Digital Assets</title><url>https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/enforcement-tm-statement-potentially-unlawful-online-platforms-trading</url></story>