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Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

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Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#261

Post by lifeisstillgood »

notch656a wrote: post #256
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #249

I do struggle with the "you coppers will never track me with my new cryptocoin!" mentality I see around (and on this thread). I do not subscribe that the view that "innocent have nothing to fear". If our transactions are visible for all to see then huge amounts of privacy issues become salient. It's just that I don't believe secrecy is the solution. Firstly, there is no digital secrecy. But mean maybe you have years…

I object to the whole notion of laundering. Prosecute the underlying crime. Obscuring the source/nature of money (aka privacy) should not be a crime.

Oh come on! Privacy and secrecy are not the same thing. Privacy is where everybody else legally agrees to pretend we don't know what you are doing. Secrecy is ... an illusion that the CIA are struggling with.

I am reminded of a quote from Iain M Banks, where the hero was talking to a sentient nebula, and the background includes how the fleshy races would discuss if the nebula was "truly sentient", partly on philosophical grounds "but mostly because they could do immensely profitable things with a cloud of gas a million cubic parsecs in size"

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#262

Post by deepspace »

josefresco wrote: post #210
alexb_ wrote: post #80

I have refused to shop at numerous stores because they make a point of not accepting cash. Cash is incredibly important for modern society due to actually being untraceable and allowing for private transactions. Plus, a society without cash is one where you are forced to use central banking. Blockchain is just trying to imitate cash digitally, which as it turns out is really hard to do. So it just ends up that people…

> The point is, cash is hard to trace. When I see a business that doesn't take credit, I think... tax evasion.

Exactly. The number of people who NEED to keep their transactions private for non-criminal purposes is miniscule compared to the number of tax evaders.

It pains me every time I go to Costco and I see contractors dressed in their work clothes pull out a wad of cash to pay for their groceries. They are effectively getting a 30% discount on the price I pay by not processing their income through the banking system and not paying their fair share of tax on it.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#263

Post by zaphar »

irusensei wrote: post #209
zaphar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern monetary system used to have all of the same obvious scams. They made participating in any economic activity risky and depressed local as well as global economic activity as a result. None of these scams are new and the regulations and tools that crypto is attempting to get away from were created as a response to these scams in the past. To my mind Crypto has not yet made the case that it is better than th…

This argument pops at least 10 times everytime crypto is mentioned but I'm not sure it holds water when you compare Bitcoin and the traditional system. The traditional monetary system prevents fraud by relying on trust and reputation of participating entities. Frauds can happen naturally but also can be reverted by making a few calls. Of course this system suffer from its own problems specially being prone to corrupt…

I'm pretty good at stuff like keeping keys safe and personal op sec. But even I have issues where I need a key reset or some other escape hatch at least once every couple years. The level of care required to participate in the crypto world as you describe means it's effectively a non-starter for me beyond the occasional speculation.

Everything you said above is true and as a result crypto is fundamentally unsuited for the vast majority of the human population to use and always will be. Unless they begin to adopt the same safeguards that the current monetary system uses.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#264

Post by deepspace »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #250
josefresco wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is, cash is hard to trace. When I see a business that doesn't take credit, I think... tax evasion.

Uh huh. When I see somebody with a locked smartphone, I think criminal with something to hide.

Those two are not even remotely equivalent. Tax evasion through cash transactions is rampant, and there is very little actual reason for most law-abiding people to keep their transaction secret. Keeping a smartphone with your secrets locked is just good security.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#265

Post by dogma1138 »

tadfisher wrote: post #254
jlarocco wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand that response. Paper money was never designed to be tracked, and IMO that's a good thing. You're saying you'd like to see better tracking of paper money?

Paper money is tracked all the time. US bills have serial numbers. This has resulted in the arrest of bank robbers, ransomers, and hijackers in the past.

For money to be effectively tracked it needs to be scanned and recorded at every transaction the reality is that most bills especially lower denominations tend to circulate without being deposited, in fact many of them would circulate until they are in such bad shape that they have to be destroyed without ever being deposited back at a bank.

Even when they are deposited at a bank the banks don’t tend to keep those records forever, they have lists of serial numbers that they need to watch for but if you deposit cash into your account the bank would hold the bill information for a relatively short period of time and they don’t actively share that information with LEOs or other agencies unless explicitly requested to do so.

Even with robberies it sometimes takes years or even decades before enough bills surface to actually trigger an alert and many of them never do.

Not to mention that there are billions in counterfeit dollars in circulation at any point in time and many of them are rarely caught because they never reach a point where a good enough forgery would be discovered.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#266

Post by anonporridge »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #247
helf wrote: post #52

“No shit”. Wait, you mean something that literally tracks any and all actions in a literal chain of history that is immutable is easy to track?!? You mean that pattern recognition can be applied to even “randomized” in both size, time, and destination of transactions can be done to track like how they can track burner phones? I’m shocked! Shocked I say!

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, a lot of people involved are so ignorant that "water is wet" statements come as a genuine revelation to them. Why? Bitcoin advocates have been deliberately targeting very ignorant and naive people because they're easy money.

Bitcoin advocates have generally been exceedingly clear about these kinds of things. To the point of begging people to listen. From "not your keys, not your coins" to "KYC/AML bought coins are easy to trace" to "please, for the love of god, don't give your coins to the centralized Celsius to try to eek out an extra 10% gains you greedy dumbass".

People consistently don't listen.

Crypto pumpers on the other hand tend to not care and say whatever BS they want to pump their bags.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#267

Post by MichaelCollins »

anonporridge wrote: post #266
MichaelCollins wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, a lot of people involved are so ignorant that "water is wet" statements come as a genuine revelation to them. Why? Bitcoin advocates have been deliberately targeting very ignorant and naive people because they're easy money.

Bitcoin advocates have generally been exceedingly clear about these kinds of things. To the point of begging people to listen. From "not your keys, not your coins" to "KYC/AML bought coins are easy to trace" to "please, for the love of god, don't give your coins to the centralized Celsius to try to eek out an extra 10% gains you greedy dumbass". People consistently don't listen. Crypto pumpers on the other hand tend…

> Bitcoin advocates have generally been exceedingly clear about these kinds of things. To the point of begging people to listen. From "not your keys, not your coins" to "KYC/AML bought coins are easy to trace"

Such advocates are the fringe. Most bitcoin advocates are saying "If you're not buying bitcoin you're an idiot! It's easy money! My critics are no-coiners who didn't listen to me!"

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#268

Post by MichaelCollins »

deepspace wrote: post #264
MichaelCollins wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh. When I see somebody with a locked smartphone, I think criminal with something to hide.

Those two are not even remotely equivalent. Tax evasion through cash transactions is rampant, and there is very little actual reason for most law-abiding people to keep their transaction secret. Keeping a smartphone with your secrets locked is just good security.

Only accepting cash and locking your phone are both perfectly legal decisions that nobody needs to account for. It is your right to do either.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#269

Post by dsr_ »

nohankyou wrote: post #260
username_exists wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you're saying the blockchain is not made up of physical blocks?

It isn't? Crap, I've been investing in Lego this whole time.

If your investment horizon is long enough and your secure storage space cheap enough, Lego might be a more prudent investment.

Basic strategy: buy and hold unopened copies of the 'flagship' sets of each Lego theme. If a theme is small enough, get complete sets of sets. For instance, the Muppets minifigs were sold in blind bags, but every case was guaranteed to hold three complete sets, so buy a whole case, not random bags. The Speed Champions line, after the switch to 8-stud wide models, had a dozen or so sets over two years (so far).

At your time horizon, decide whether you want to sell as parts or sets.

In 2000, the UCS X-wing (7191-1) was about $150 new. There appears to be one incomplete set on the open market for $831. The parts are worth about twice that if sold individually. I suspect an unopened set would go for about $2000, implying a return rate of about 12.5% APY.

Re: Chainalysis CTO said blockchain is easier to trace than paper money

#270

Post by anonporridge »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #267
anonporridge wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin advocates have generally been exceedingly clear about these kinds of things. To the point of begging people to listen. From "not your keys, not your coins" to "KYC/AML bought coins are easy to trace" to "please, for the love of god, don't give your coins to the centralized Celsius to try to eek out an extra 10% gains you greedy dumbass". People consistently don't listen. Crypto pumpers on the other hand tend…

> Bitcoin advocates have generally been exceedingly clear about these kinds of things. To the point of begging people to listen. From "not your keys, not your coins" to "KYC/AML bought coins are easy to trace" Such advocates are the fringe. Most bitcoin advocates are saying "If you're not buying bitcoin you're an idiot! It's easy money! My critics are no-coiners who didn't listen to me!"

Such advocates are the ones with the credentials to actually bother listening to, like core devs or the people who literally wrote the book on understanding the technical nature of the system.

They're not the fringe, they're the core that the fringe pump monkeys looking for a quick buck latch onto and promptly ignore.

The majority of people who talk about literally anything aren't worth listening to, and if you can't differentiate between the two, we have bigger problems to work through.

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