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US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

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Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#51

Post by adamnemecek »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #49
tehwebguy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only did she pretend to be incredulous about NSA spying, she put forward the bill to excuse most of it after completely redirecting the conversation to "metadata." Now Ajit Pai made it a partisan issue she's having screaming about being pro net neutrality but a few years back she co-sponsored the PIPA bill! Worst of all she's considered to be basically impossible to replace. It would be very nice to see CA stop g…

Kevin de Leon is running against her and has some political and media support. Unfortunately, he's far to the left of her on the issue of gun control and that alone may nullify whatever small chance he had of getting elected.

Is his district (LA) particularly pro gun?

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#52

Post by lavamantis »

adventured wrote: post #25
jgh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh did you notice that huge tax cut they just gave the ultra-rich? They gotta start digging through the couch to pay for it ;)

The US has the most progressive taxation system among all developed nations. Nothing about that fundamental progressiveness has changed due to the tax cuts. The top 20% are paying 95% of all income taxes, that will continue. For example, the US is radically more progressive on taxation than all of Scandinavia: https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-the...

But the top tax rate has been steadily declining since the Eisenhower administration. This tax bill furthers that decline. Over that period we've seen an increase in inequality. Are they correlated?

I'm not sure the bit about what share of income tax is paid by the wealthy is meaningful here, outside of right wing think tank PR releases (your linked site is funded by the Koch Brothers btw. Just a heads up).

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#53

Post by jfoutz »

rothbardrand wrote: post #15
chroem- wrote: post #6

Good old Dianne Feinstein, always protecting me from the scary terrorists.

And freedom. Remember, freedom is scary. To the downvoters: Seriously it is. For example: Can you imagine what would happen if we allowed people to have bars? People are expected to DRIVE to a BAR and DRINK! Can you imagine what people would do then, if we legalized the existence of bars? People would drive home drunk! Banning bars is obviously the right thing to do!

Drivers and bartenders are licensed. Cars and booze are registered. Requiring a higher standard for risky stuff is how we handle everything.

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#54

Post by npx »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #49
tehwebguy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only did she pretend to be incredulous about NSA spying, she put forward the bill to excuse most of it after completely redirecting the conversation to "metadata." Now Ajit Pai made it a partisan issue she's having screaming about being pro net neutrality but a few years back she co-sponsored the PIPA bill! Worst of all she's considered to be basically impossible to replace. It would be very nice to see CA stop g…

Kevin de Leon is running against her and has some political and media support. Unfortunately, he's far to the left of her on the issue of gun control and that alone may nullify whatever small chance he had of getting elected.

Two words: Shia Labeouf

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#55

Post by X86BSD »

mirimir wrote: post #9
21 wrote: post #3

Bank secrecy is dead* To imagine that bitcoin could change that or not abide is foolishness. * for poor people anyway, with poor meaning < $10 mil which affords you lawyers and offshore shell companies

Well, bank secrecy is as dead as governments can make it, for obvious reasons. However, for cryptocurrencies, it's mainly exchange interfaces with meatspace currencies that are hard to keep private. If you use local wallets like Electrum, transact via Tor, mix thoroughly, and generally practice good OPSEC, your personas and their cryptocurrency can be as anonymous as you like. But only as long as you maintain compart…

Or you could just, use a secure anonymous coin like say monero and forget all this time consuming effort to try and anonymous a non anonymous coin.

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#56

Post by mirimir »

stale2002 wrote: post #38
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as you never use your currency to buy anything you've got a great anonymous currency. Sounds very useful.

If a coffee shop accepts bitcoin, your transaction is effectively as untraceable as cash is today. The more that people use bitcoin, the more useful it gets and the harder it is to stop.

That's true only if you practice good OPSEC. You must be using a wallet that's not associated with your meatspace identity. Not in any way. Not through bank accounts, IP addresses, etc. Nor through any Bitcoin transaction. Once a wallet is associated with you, all past and future transactions involving that wallet are also associated with you. So it's prudent to have many wallets, and to always mix when transferring among them.

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#59

Post by Retric »

teawrecks wrote: post #46
throwaway613834 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a coffee shop accepts bitcoin, your transaction is effectively as untraceable as cash is today. How? There is no globally public record of all cash transactions, unlike with Bitcoin.

Because at no point is your identity tied to the address.

If you have an account with 100 mill in stolen bitcoins and use it at a coffee shop then looking at security footage is relatively trivial as there is a clear time stamp involved. Cash on the other hand might be traced at the bank, but it it's hard to directly link it unless their is a clear pattern of behavior. Even better, a random 5$ bill may not end up at the bank directly if someone get's change at the end of the day.

Worse it's not just the government that can track bitcoins. I can easily see a gang keeping an eye on transactions looking for people with large accounts so they can use physical means of persuasion to liberate it.

Re: US Senate Bill S.1241 to Criminalize Concealed Ownership of Bitcoin

#60

Post by JoshTriplett »

DennisP wrote: post #50

The text doesn't sound so much to me like it's criminalizing intentionally concealed ownership of cryptocurrency, as ownership of accounts at exchanges...say, by signing up for an exchange with a fake ID.

As written, it'd be easy to interpret even a private wallet as an "account", since there's a record of it on the blockchain.
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