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The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

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Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#181

Post by mirimir »

DanBC wrote: post #138
mirimir wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us see P2P cryptocurrencies as a way to opt out of government regulation. Governments can't regulate entities that maintain strong anonymity. Most vulnerable are asset movements to and from meatspace. But there are well-known methods for dealing with that.

> entities that maintain strong anonymity An impossible task for the vast majority of people. Especially since bitcoin is not anonymous.

> An impossible task for the vast majority of people

I freelance ;)

> ...bitcoin is not anonymous

Bitmixer.io / bitmixer2whesjgj.onion

foggeddriztrcar2.onion / foggedddxlunnaaa.onion [Bitcoin Fog]

grams7enufi7jmdl.onion/helix/light

See https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-ano... (somewhat outdated, but hey).

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#182

Post by mirimir »

ThomPete wrote: post #130
mirimir wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm arguing that these rules and regulations are the core problem.

you cant have your cake and eat it. you cant just opt out of regulation and not all the other things. you would litterally have to start your own nation from scratch.

True. But it's not in meatspace. It's primarily online. And it's not really a nation. Voluntary associations only.

What you don't get is the ability to fight wars in meatspace. But long term, that's not such a bad thing. You'd need to focus on asymmetric cyber warfare. Maybe drone armies, if it came to that.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#183

Post by mirimir »

ThomPete wrote: post #160
timbowhite wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people like Rosa Parks should have started their own nation? [0] What an incredibly frightening way of thinking. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

Rosa Park fought to get equal rights. You want to have privileges. The fact that you don't see that is the only frightening thinking here.

What we want is the right to be left alone. It's a form of nonviolent resistance.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#184

Post by mirimir »

legulere wrote: post #112
mirimir wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I see it, the most powerful criminals control governments. And then they get to define whatever they don't like as criminal. The game is rigged. But fighting is pointless. It's better to just walk away.

The problem with no- or low-state solutions is that you remove accountability to the people that you even have in places like China.

I don't see a lot of "accountability to the people" anywhere. Just bullshit, propaganda and exploitation. The truly wealthy own everything, and the rest of us are pawns at best.

It's been that way for thousands of years. I see the Internet as the best shot for transforming that. Because it can empower individuals, permit free and private association, create space for people to be free of coercion, and so on. Time will tell.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#185

Post by aianus »

chx wrote: post #170
aianus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transferwise is stupidly expensive. Costs about $140 in fees to transfer $10k from US to Canada vs. ~$0 for BTC depending on how sophisticated you are in timing the trade.

How much does it cost to buy and sell those BTC? And are you saying transaction fees are zero?

No, I'm saying the market is illiquid enough (or it was a year ago when I was doing this) to write a bot and wait for the price difference across the US exchange and CA exchange to cancel out the 0.5% round trip trading fees.

Which, by the way, are already much cheaper than transferwise at 1.4%.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#186

Post by CJefferson »

icebraining wrote: post #165
CJefferson wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can stop you spending the money, and the "they wouldn't do it as they would kill the goose" applies to banks and governments too.

How can they do that?

I would recommend going and reading about how the blockchain would in depth, it is complex but interesting.

In short, miners build up a log of all exchanges of currency. While you have to "sign" any payments you make so no-one can steal your money, miners can choose to ignore your payments, and not add them to the blockchain.

Now, if the mining power was spread among many people, someone would put your payments on the chain. However, we are currently in a situation where a very small number of groups (between 4 and 6, depending on when you check), control over 50% of all mining. If they went rogue they could, in principle, lock the account of anyone they like, stopping them spending any of their bitcoins.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#187

Post by dwaltrip »

csomar wrote: post #91
dwaltrip wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roger Ver isn't an angel, but the core developers are far from deserving uncritical respect. They've failed for 3+ years to implement any of the dozens of proposed scaling improvements.

This is a very political comment. The Core developers are free to do what they want. The software is open source and running it is the choice of the users. The Core developers are not compelled by any means to do any implementation even if the majority of users, exchanges and investors want it.

The parent comment implied that saying anything negative about core developers is a terrible thing, which is a view that many people don't share. My comment was intended to provide some insight into that aspect.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#188

Post by dwaltrip »

zby wrote: post #120
dwaltrip wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roger Ver isn't an angel, but the core developers are far from deserving uncritical respect. They've failed for 3+ years to implement any of the dozens of proposed scaling improvements.

The problem is with deployment, not with development. The code is there.

Well, they haven't released any versions of the bitcoin client that support scaling, either. I do believe the core developers are in charge of releasing new versions of the reference client.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#189

Post by Jabanga »

Kiro wrote: post #93
Jabanga wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer-to-peer electronic cash has numerous uses beyond tax evasion and money laundering, just as physical cash does. But to your point, even these laws are part of a new trend. Money laundering is a relatively new crime, and widespread taxation of private transactions only came into force in the early 20th century, with governments around the world instituting income taxation. 50 years ago, almost all transactions wer…

> Peer-to-peer electronic cash has numerous uses beyond tax evasion and money laundering What are the biggest ones? I don't see any point of physical cash personally but I'm in a country where no-one uses it.

Physical cash is a primitive technology so its use cases are quite limited given the superiority of alternatives.

Electronic cash in the form of cryptocurrency can make money transfer much cheaper than it otherwise would be. It also doesn't require you to jeopardize your privacy every time you form a financial relationship with a new company, as happens every time you use a credit card with a new company. In fact, your privacy is at risk every time you use an identity linked payment system, given the possibility of hacks/leaks.

Re: The Slow Criminalization of Peer-To-Peer Transfers

#190

Post by ThomPete »

mirimir wrote: post #183
ThomPete wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rosa Park fought to get equal rights. You want to have privileges. The fact that you don't see that is the only frightening thinking here.

What we want is the right to be left alone. It's a form of nonviolent resistance.

Wanting to be left alone is exactly a privilege.
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