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Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

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Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it was a tradeoff they knowingly made to not have it become illegal immediately.

No, it wasn't.

The BTC core team was highly concerned with the legality of the network due to previous failed currency's (eCash, B-money, Bit Gold, and Hashcash) that ended up driving certain decisions in architecture.

The original btc had a networked pokergame along with the wallet, but was taken out for a couple of reasons, including regulatory issues.

I'm not saying parent is right, or wrong but to dismiss it and to speak for the core team out of hand is folly.

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#62
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems about right. More users would use Tornado Cash if regulation was clear and allowed it. Zcash and Monero lack smart contracts which limits their use cases. ZK based privacy was possible and working fine for many users through TC before the sanctions. Now it is risky as you may end up with locked funds or in jail for seeking privacy. Edit: Should also mention Aztec and Aleo. These are working currently but in the…

> More users would use Tornado Cash if regulation was clear and allowed it This is simply not going to happen in the current anti-money-laundering environment. The US made Switzerland give up hiding money, they're not going to let some random geeks make trillions of dollars vanish.

>they're not going to let some random geeks make trillions of dollars vanish.

i've heard this sentiment conveyed in the crypto space since 2011... still waiting on this prophecy to come true.

Due to incompetence, profit motive or traitors to their country, who can tell the difference? (Paraphrasing Robespierre here)

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#63

As far as I know, the state of crypto privacy is that everything is directly traceable except: * Bitcoin lightning transactions when the lightning nodes involved are trusted to not keep logs * Transactions through mixers with a lot of users * Monero transactions * Zcash private transactions And everything is de-facto traceable except: * Tornado cash users who use standard-size amounts (or users of another equivalentl…

> Am I missing anything?

Bitcoin transactions that use CoinJoin (e.g. Wasabi Wallet). https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/CoinJoin

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems about right. More users would use Tornado Cash if regulation was clear and allowed it. Zcash and Monero lack smart contracts which limits their use cases. ZK based privacy was possible and working fine for many users through TC before the sanctions. Now it is risky as you may end up with locked funds or in jail for seeking privacy. Edit: Should also mention Aztec and Aleo. These are working currently but in the…

> More users would use Tornado Cash if regulation was clear and allowed it This is simply not going to happen in the current anti-money-laundering environment. The US made Switzerland give up hiding money, they're not going to let some random geeks make trillions of dollars vanish.

The blockchain does pose new questions about digital privacy rights. Cryptography that privatizes transactional flow of USDC tokens is indistinguishable from the same cryptography that privatizes transactional flow of digital assets.

Want to purchase an ENS name without corporations and the US government having clear knowledge of it? Too bad, the US government will not allow that. The privacy that we enjoy wish cash purchases will erode as we continue down the path of stripping away privacy in digital transactional systems.

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it was a tradeoff they knowingly made to not have it become illegal immediately.

No, it wasn't.

Please share your reasoning - as the sibling comment mentions, there was a series of high profile online cash cases at the time, KYC being the biggest problem. It'd be weird if they didn't think hard about avoiding the same fate and perhaps this was they way they've chosen.

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#66

As far as I know, the state of crypto privacy is that everything is directly traceable except: * Bitcoin lightning transactions when the lightning nodes involved are trusted to not keep logs * Transactions through mixers with a lot of users * Monero transactions * Zcash private transactions And everything is de-facto traceable except: * Tornado cash users who use standard-size amounts (or users of another equivalentl…

Satoshi's largest error was not making Bitcoin private by default and it strikes me as out of character given his/her level of commitment to being anonymous.

Bitcoin may not be private but it's pseudonymous, multiple public keys per private key. I think if it had have been private though, it never would have taken off. The transparency and exploitability of blockchains is key to their success. Without Bitcoin & other prominent open source blockchain-based crypto-currencies and crypto-assets, private crypto-currencies and crypto-assets wouldn't stand up.

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#67
post #43

Imagine the outcry if government announced that every transaction you ever do will be recorded in a publicly available database. Bitcoin as it currently exists will never be a replacement for fiat --- not even close --- for a multitude of reasons.

This is a popular layer 2 solution to make Bitcoin anonymous on the public blockchain, already handled more than 30M transactions. https://v2.viewblock.io/mixin/asset/fe6b7788944d328778f98e3e...

https://coingeek.com/bitcoin-mixers-are-illegal-and-anonymit...

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#69

As far as I know, the state of crypto privacy is that everything is directly traceable except: * Bitcoin lightning transactions when the lightning nodes involved are trusted to not keep logs * Transactions through mixers with a lot of users * Monero transactions * Zcash private transactions And everything is de-facto traceable except: * Tornado cash users who use standard-size amounts (or users of another equivalentl…

Satoshi's largest error was not making Bitcoin private by default and it strikes me as out of character given his/her level of commitment to being anonymous.

So is it safe to say Monero is a sort of Bitcoin 2.0? I mean if Bitcoin had 'versions' that would be great. Then we wouldn't have to invent entirely new cryptocurrencies, we could just iterate on existing ones, and have our userbase intact without having to 'gain traction' for an entirely new alt-coin.

Re: Chainalysis: A startup that helps governments trace crypto

#70

As far as I know, the state of crypto privacy is that everything is directly traceable except: * Bitcoin lightning transactions when the lightning nodes involved are trusted to not keep logs * Transactions through mixers with a lot of users * Monero transactions * Zcash private transactions And everything is de-facto traceable except: * Tornado cash users who use standard-size amounts (or users of another equivalentl…

> Am I missing anything? Bitcoin transactions that use CoinJoin (e.g. Wasabi Wallet). https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/CoinJoin

It's been a couple of years, but I thought Chainalysis said they could break CoinJoin.
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