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Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

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Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#41

Post by brndnmtthws »

ineedasername wrote: post #8

This is what I never understood about bitcoins's reputation, especially earlier on, about its supposed anonymity. I suppose that's much less the case now. But it always seemed odd that people considered it at all anonymous when the blockchain kept a record of everything. Sure it might not be immediately identifiable with a specific individual, but unless it was a wholly closed system, entry & exit points would always…

Monero[1] was created, among other reasons, to solve the privacy problem. It uses something called a ring signature[2], which is composed of a group 'decoy' public keys, plus yours, as part of every transaction which makes it impossible for an outsider to trace. Monero is fungible, whereas Bitcoin is not.

[1]: https://getmonero.org/

[2]: https://getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/ringsignatures.h...

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#42

Post by [deleted] »

celticninja wrote: post #31
ineedasername wrote: post #8

This is what I never understood about bitcoins's reputation, especially earlier on, about its supposed anonymity. I suppose that's much less the case now. But it always seemed odd that people considered it at all anonymous when the blockchain kept a record of everything. Sure it might not be immediately identifiable with a specific individual, but unless it was a wholly closed system, entry & exit points would always…

0.1btc was only worth approx $200 in the last 12 months so I am not sure how you sold 1/10th of a bitcoin for $200 a few years ago because 1 bitcoin would have cost approximately that.

[deleted]

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#43

Post by tonfa »

honestlyreally wrote: post #26
chx wrote: post #22

> There are many legitimate uses of Bitcoin What are those. I have claimed here and will repeatedly do so -- there are none. I mean, sure, there are a few companies which integrate the sell-your-bitcoins-buy-our-product in one go but the volume of that is near irrelevant. And no, international transfers do not count as a usage because not only the sender needs to buy bitcoins the seller needs to sell them too...

Very bizarre to state the obvious use cases, then nullify it with handwaving. The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency. As for current working use cases Factom[0] stores an auditable timestamped data trail in a merkle tree structure, which is then anchored into the b…

> The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency.

I'm fairly sure the cost is close to 0 for eur using SEPA. I've also transferred chf and usd across borders with no fees.

FX fees are different (around 0.01% with a decent broker?) but I suppose BTC spread+commission is higher than that anyway.

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#45

Post by SwellJoe »

honestlyreally wrote: post #26
chx wrote: post #22

> There are many legitimate uses of Bitcoin What are those. I have claimed here and will repeatedly do so -- there are none. I mean, sure, there are a few companies which integrate the sell-your-bitcoins-buy-our-product in one go but the volume of that is near irrelevant. And no, international transfers do not count as a usage because not only the sender needs to buy bitcoins the seller needs to sell them too...

Very bizarre to state the obvious use cases, then nullify it with handwaving. The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency. As for current working use cases Factom[0] stores an auditable timestamped data trail in a merkle tree structure, which is then anchored into the b…

And, yet, it cost me eight bucks to move a few hundred bucks from Coinbase BTC into USD.

Also, are BTC transaction fees really that low ($1 for a 10m transaction)? I've been hearing complaints for a while now about how long it takes to process minimum fee transactions. I don't have any experience with it, as I haven't messed around with BTC in a few years, but, it's definitely part of the argument for the changes happening tomorrow.

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#46

Post by choffman »

chx wrote: post #22

> There are many legitimate uses of Bitcoin What are those. I have claimed here and will repeatedly do so -- there are none. I mean, sure, there are a few companies which integrate the sell-your-bitcoins-buy-our-product in one go but the volume of that is near irrelevant. And no, international transfers do not count as a usage because not only the sender needs to buy bitcoins the seller needs to sell them too...

It is much safer for me to buy things on the Internet with cryptocurrencies than credit cards. It seems like every few months there's a huge leak of customers and credit card information.

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#47

Post by rkowalick »

ethbro wrote: post #16
ineedasername wrote: post #8

This is what I never understood about bitcoins's reputation, especially earlier on, about its supposed anonymity. I suppose that's much less the case now. But it always seemed odd that people considered it at all anonymous when the blockchain kept a record of everything. Sure it might not be immediately identifiable with a specific individual, but unless it was a wholly closed system, entry & exit points would always…

Randomly swapping coins is an attempt to address anonymity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler

This is basically money laundering, right?

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#48

Post by [deleted] »

ethbro wrote: post #16
ineedasername wrote: post #8

This is what I never understood about bitcoins's reputation, especially earlier on, about its supposed anonymity. I suppose that's much less the case now. But it always seemed odd that people considered it at all anonymous when the blockchain kept a record of everything. Sure it might not be immediately identifiable with a specific individual, but unless it was a wholly closed system, entry & exit points would always…

Randomly swapping coins is an attempt to address anonymity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler

[deleted]

Re: Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

#50

Post by X86BSD »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #41
ineedasername wrote: post #8

This is what I never understood about bitcoins's reputation, especially earlier on, about its supposed anonymity. I suppose that's much less the case now. But it always seemed odd that people considered it at all anonymous when the blockchain kept a record of everything. Sure it might not be immediately identifiable with a specific individual, but unless it was a wholly closed system, entry & exit points would always…

Monero[1] was created, among other reasons, to solve the privacy problem. It uses something called a ring signature[2], which is composed of a group 'decoy' public keys, plus yours, as part of every transaction which makes it impossible for an outsider to trace. Monero is fungible, whereas Bitcoin is not. [1]: https://getmonero.org/ [2]: https://getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/ringsignatures.h...

That is why I have embraced it. I never liked the features lacking from bitcoin. And when the anonymous coins like monero and zero coin came out even then it took me a while to research and embrace one. Monero was what I settled on. I like cash because it's untraceable. I like Monero because I can carry out transactions in private and anonymously. It's no ones business what I do with my money including governments. I have always felt that way. Time will tell wether Monero's ring signatures and other privacy features hold up. But for now that is where I park some of my assets.
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