121–130 of 199 posts
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Don't take cash from citizens without proper process through the courts. Simple as that!
What is the proper process?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
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Regarding how awesome Bitcoin must be, can I just take a moment to point out that only half the reason crap like randomware exists (and hits places like hospitals, etc.) is suboptimal security. The other half is untraceable digital payments. Food for thought.
Perhaps the ease with which vulnerabilities can now be monetized will lead to them being found and fixed more quickly, vs being secretly used by more insidious attackers over time.
Yes, because we clearly need to fix software vulnerabilities at any and all costs, hospital patients and the poor/elderly be damned. And it's obviously their fault for paying for indirectly supporting the development of insecure software, right? Only an idiot would think tackling the payment side of ransomware might be a better solution. After all, ransomware must've obviously been a bigger problem before; there's no freakin' way our cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has made these problems worse or that it might be causing more problems than it's solving. Clearly the ability to make anonymous or untraceable payments is a human right more fundamental than being able to live a life free of others demanding such ransom from them in the first place.
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> Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency tries to get back to the idea of peer-to-peer financial exchange without needing that third party No, it doesn't. Because it relies on validation by a number of third-parties (whose identities and degrees of influence are opaque), who must (collectively, if not individually) be trusted and who (again, collectively, though this can end up fairly narrowly concentrated) control the fin…
That's a silly argument. Bitcoin does not rely on validation by 3rd parties. It relies on validation by a large number of independent third parties who can only act in a way inconsistent with the rules of the system if a majority of them collude. And even then what they can do is very narrowly prescribed (a double spend attack, specifically). That is vastly different from trusting a single independent third party lik…
One very good reason for this high level of regulation is that banks are a primary component of the money supply system. Having a functional monetary system is a great thing, for the society as a whole.
It has aspects of being a public good. (Some people argue that banking should be made a government supplied service, for this reason.)
Almost every aspect of modern life is subject to laws and regulations, by a sovereign entity of some sort.
Such an entity has very valid reasons for regulating the use of bitcoin.
Even people using bartering systems have gotten in trouble with the IRS.
A little bit of background about this site (bitcoin.com). This site is owned by a very controversial figure in the bitcoin world (Roger Ver). Many people feel his use of the domain is unethical, as the URL looks like an official voice for bitcoin when it is far from it. Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin's creator) registered the bitcoin.org site to present information on bitcoin, with the .org domain reflecting the open sour…
Blockstream, armed with venture funding tried (and is still trying) to "embrace, extend, extinguish" bitcoin to their own "open in name only" system. Just look at their attacks (including DDoS attacks against nodes, and reckless security disclosure motivated by sabotage) against Bitcoin XT, Classic, and Unlimited.
I can't wait until the day they go to jail.
A little bit of background about this site (bitcoin.com). This site is owned by a very controversial figure in the bitcoin world (Roger Ver). Many people feel his use of the domain is unethical, as the URL looks like an official voice for bitcoin when it is far from it. Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin's creator) registered the bitcoin.org site to present information on bitcoin, with the .org domain reflecting the open sour…
So if I sell a bitcoin to my friend for cash, I'm breaking the law?
Nope, but if you started a business where your friends gathered to sell each other large enough quantities of bitcoin for cash you would be. (Edited to add that IANAL and none of this is actually legal advice.)
The judge won't care how smart you think it was.
This strikes me as a cousin to the libertarian intuition that if it is possible to craft an activity that is literally impossible for the government to discover, such an activity simply can't be illegal. (I'm sympathetic to this intuition, but it doesn't take long to see the illogic behind it.)
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It's... like you're repeating exactly the objection I mentioned and not addressing the core problem with it. Oh no, that is what you just did. Ok then, carry on.
Yes, I'm arguing that these rules and regulations are the core problem.