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Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

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Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#271

Post by Chris2048 »

dTal wrote: post #206
Chris2048 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but "illegal" is dependant on the nation it is relevant to, as an international currency legality is relative. Another way of seeing this: the benefits of global government / infrastructure without the need for global control - few nations are so democratically representative that the tax laws well represent the wills of the people.

Also true - but you might call that a separate problem, and one for which the solution is very unlikely to be "no government at all". Bitcoin takes currency permanently out of the purview of all forms of organized governance, barring unreasonable invasion of privacy. All of us now have to live in that world, and none of us were consulted - Satoshi didn't take a vote. That is far less democratic. Deliberately and unil…

> All of us now have to live in that world, and none of us were consulted

No one consulted me wrt the existence of other nations (outside my own) and their laws either, I'm not sure democracy needs to extend globally for all things.

To some degree, I think the "more/less democratic" argument is a little "whataboutism: individual freedoms are the goal of democracy, not the other way around, and btc/e2e are a form of power and civil disobedience that might help get them.

> undermining our organized institutions

Many of those institutions are private banks - they are not "mine", even though they get bailed out by tax money on occasion. Is it antisocial to be antisocial towards antisocial institutions?

> you could say all the same things about e2e encryption

You could, and the reason is a terrible record globally wrt privacy rights. I don't consider it a matter of free speech - free speech (to me) is primarily about what you can say/promote in public, privacy (to me) is about what you can keep private.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#272

Post by shlant »

majewsky wrote: post #270
shlant wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same way we ban heroine. Or murder Our attempt to ban heroin (war on drugs) has been a massive failure[1] only replaced/made worse by prescription opioids[2]. Not a good example. Murder is not something that really needs "banning" to stop the vast majority of people from committing it. The amount of people willing to use crypto is not comparable to the amount of people willing to murder (illegal or not). Not a…

> take the attempt to make torrenting/pirating illegal. Look how that turned out. 95+% of people don't use torrenting/pirating. That worked out fine. Not great, but it's not the total failure you make it out to be. > You think making crypto illegal... would stop people already using it for illegal reasons? No, but it would add more friction if you did not have a choice of legal exchanges.

> 95+% of people don't use torrenting/pirating. That worked out fine. Not great, but it's not the total failure you make it out to be.

Have any data to back that up? I do:

"More than a third of music consumers still pirate music."

"In 2016, 57 million Americans were still pirating music in one form or another."

"Illegally uploading or downloading copyrighted materials takes up nearly 24% of the bandwidth used in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific"

"57% of computer uses in the Asia Pacific and Central/Eastern Europe regions confess to having pirated software at least once."

https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/

> No, but it would add more friction if you did not have a choice of legal exchanges

"legal" in this sense means very little 1. because they are already doing something illegal so why would they care what interface they use? and 2. Making a site "illegal" in one country is very easy to get around - or else would you have to essentially advocate for a Great Firewall (which is still pretty easily circumvented)

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#273

Post by trompetenaccoun »

ryanlol wrote: post #263
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. If we're talking bigger fish it's speculation that they prefer cryptocurrency over traditional assets or cash in the first place. Follow the money and it often leads you to illegal activity. Banks like HSBC know all about laundering drug money and enabling scams. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...

> As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. This is not true. A few big markets have switched, not “all”. Besides drug markets, all the conventional cybercrime markets and forums still run on bitcoin.

The vast majority of goods sold in those markets is just drugs. Though admittedly I'm not a criminal and don't know anything about the more evil corners of the dark web.

Can you name a few of those "conventional" crime markets? I'm curious to know.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#274

Post by smt88 »

tomputer wrote: post #268
smt88 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is BTC a better store of value than real estate or gold? It literally has no intrinsic value, unlike real estate or gold. Stocks are also technically valuable because they are a share of a real company and that company's profits.

These are also a store of value / investments but Bitcoin is different. As far as I know, I can not buy small parts of real estate. Gold supply is not fixed and it’s hard to validate. Companies can go bankrupt. I can not transfer real estate, gold or stocks over the internet to someone else directly, without using a third party.

> As far as I know, I can not buy small parts of real estate.

Of course you can[1].

> Gold supply is not fixed and it’s hard to validate.

Gold supply is more difficult to shock than crypto supply.

> Companies can go bankrupt.

Yes they can, but that doesn't mean you lose your stake in them. Large, public companies go bankrupt very slowly anyway. You usually have years of warning.

> I can not transfer real estate, gold or stocks over the internet to someone else directly, without using a third party.

How many people self-host their wallet? Very, very few.

Also, you can absolutely buy stocks without an intermediary[2]. I don't see why you'd want to, though.

1. https://www.investopedia.com/top-reits-4582128

2. https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#275

Post by ryanlol »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #273
ryanlol wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as known darknet markets go they've all switched from Bitcoin to Monero. This is not true. A few big markets have switched, not “all”. Besides drug markets, all the conventional cybercrime markets and forums still run on bitcoin.

The vast majority of goods sold in those markets is just drugs. Though admittedly I'm not a criminal and don't know anything about the more evil corners of the dark web. Can you name a few of those "conventional" crime markets? I'm curious to know.

Exploit.in, verified, maza, xss. Loads of public runet forums, english language crime forums like darkode have all died but the russian forums welcome english speakers.

Fraud shops like unicc, ferum, slilpp move more money than darknet drug markets and primarily use BTC or LTC (I don’t think any accept XMR)

Hydra, the biggest darknet drug market still doesn’t accept monero.

Of course it would make sense for all of these people to be using monero, just like the efficient market hypothesis makes sense.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#276

Post by tomputer »

smt88 wrote: post #274
tomputer wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are also a store of value / investments but Bitcoin is different. As far as I know, I can not buy small parts of real estate. Gold supply is not fixed and it’s hard to validate. Companies can go bankrupt. I can not transfer real estate, gold or stocks over the internet to someone else directly, without using a third party.

> As far as I know, I can not buy small parts of real estate. Of course you can[1]. > Gold supply is not fixed and it’s hard to validate. Gold supply is more difficult to shock than crypto supply. > Companies can go bankrupt. Yes they can, but that doesn't mean you lose your stake in them. Large, public companies go bankrupt very slowly anyway. You usually have years of warning. > I can not transfer real estate, gold…

Didn’t know about real estate trust funds. Thanks! :)

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#277

Post by trompetenaccoun »

ryanlol wrote: post #275
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of goods sold in those markets is just drugs. Though admittedly I'm not a criminal and don't know anything about the more evil corners of the dark web. Can you name a few of those "conventional" crime markets? I'm curious to know.

Exploit.in, verified, maza, xss. Loads of public runet forums, english language crime forums like darkode have all died but the russian forums welcome english speakers. Fraud shops like unicc, ferum, slilpp move more money than darknet drug markets and primarily use BTC or LTC (I don’t think any accept XMR) Hydra, the biggest darknet drug market still doesn’t accept monero. Of course it would make sense for all of th…

Cheers!

Hard to say what's the biggest shadow market of course but afaik WHM is the largest one for drugs and they only accept Monero. You're right, Bitcoin is still popular in the Russian forums, but that's at least partly because it's easier to cash it out anonymously over there. Lots of services that let you exchange your BTC for cash and my guess is the remaining coins just go through tumblers until they're clean.

https://news.bitcoin.com/darknet-giant-white-house-market-dr...

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#278

Post by rjmunro »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #144
rjmunro wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is buying companies and property (or small parts of them, i.e. stocks) not a "real store of value"?

If it's a leasehold, you don't really own anything, you're basically just renting with more security. Even freeholds sometimes you don't really own the land, just again renting it extremely long term. 1 bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin and there will only ever be 21 million of them.

Yeah, don't buy leasehold.

1km² of land will always be worth 1km² of land and there will only ever be 500 million km² of them. But you can use the land.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#279

Post by ryanlol »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #277
ryanlol wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exploit.in, verified, maza, xss. Loads of public runet forums, english language crime forums like darkode have all died but the russian forums welcome english speakers. Fraud shops like unicc, ferum, slilpp move more money than darknet drug markets and primarily use BTC or LTC (I don’t think any accept XMR) Hydra, the biggest darknet drug market still doesn’t accept monero. Of course it would make sense for all of th…

Cheers! Hard to say what's the biggest shadow market of course but afaik WHM is the largest one for drugs and they only accept Monero. You're right, Bitcoin is still popular in the Russian forums, but that's at least partly because it's easier to cash it out anonymously over there. Lots of services that let you exchange your BTC for cash and my guess is the remaining coins just go through tumblers until they're clean…

FWIW Hydra is vastly bigger drug market than WHM.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#280

Post by SXX »

dTal wrote: post #223
SXX wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

--Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907 (in case you thought it was someone ancient or famous)

Thanks. It was actually one of quotes that I was certain is originated from greek philosophers. Yeah it seems like it's my turn to cite something incorrectly.
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