11–20 of 98 posts
* Enough privacy that activists don't wind up facing death squads * Not so much privacy that drug cartels wind up running the country.
The problem is that cryptography is all or nothing: for a given observer, the transaction is either private or it isn't.
I'm fascinated by models like differential privacy. Maybe there are ways of making systems which snare large scale abuses but provably leave the minnows free.
Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…
For specific sanctioned entities, a possibility would be to let users specify a list of addresses they're not willing to share an anonymity pool with.
Here's Vitalik talking about these ideas in a recent interview:
https://podclips.com/c/K3RLE1?ss=r&ss2=ethereum&d=2023-02-28
Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…
> the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-more. While I agree the implications are concerning, I think its difficult to overstate just how much of a stranglehold the US regulatory and surveillance machine has over the global financial system. Trying to buy and sell things online without sharing your real name or address is functio…
Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…
Crypto has been pretty unsuccessful at moving large volumes anonymously over a multi year timespan https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60462182
Randomly pumped tokens/NFTs - even newly issued and pumped ones - are moving large volumes anonymously.
You act like a random trader that caught the wave, but really you are also the addresses pumping the asset with the dark money that isn’t intended to be cashed out. The pumped addresses just wind up with the asset and will never cash out. Your KYC'd address just looks like a good crypto trader.
A clean 8,000% gain doesn't look different than a dirty 8,000% gain.
Younger me was so excited by bootstrapping new connectivities & systems, resented government survelliance of personal lives. The Manifesto of Cyberspace was scrawled across my brain. But wow, my dislike for how many vast powers in the world are so very un-observable was also high then, & the implications of bitcoin & cryptocurrency to let these systems grow & be harder to deal with has only gone up & up & up ever-mor…
I recently had to leave working for a cryptocurrency adjacent startup because my stomach kept getting into knots about how oligarchs are doing a lot of VC funding in the space, and the reason they are funding it is to cement their authority.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crypto has been pretty unsuccessful at moving large volumes anonymously over a multi year timespan https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60462182
I think there are a lot of things that aren't tracked very well. Randomly pumped tokens/NFTs - even newly issued and pumped ones - are moving large volumes anonymously. You act like a random trader that caught the wave, but really you are also the addresses pumping the asset with the dark money that isn’t intended to be cashed out. The pumped addresses just wind up with the asset and will never cash out. Your KYC'd a…
Yo!*Welcome to [redacted]!*
What can we offer you
We providing quality crypto pumps. *We share the name of target coin in advance.*
*We are professional cryptotraders*
And finally, we show you how to beat the market and be ahead of everyone.
**This is your chance to multiply your investment together with the cryptocurrency market whales**!
** The amount of invites is limited! Hurry up to take your place there:** : [redacted]Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently had to leave working for a cryptocurrency adjacent startup because my stomach kept getting into knots about how oligarchs are doing a lot of VC funding in the space, and the reason they are funding it is to cement their authority.
Interesting, can you provide more details without doxxing yourself?
> The Biden Administration is trying to strangle crypto.
> A lot of folks have been trying to stifle that criticism, but the effort to destroy the industry is quiet but pervasive across the exec branch.
> The time to make crypto an issue that wins or loses the Presidency is now.
Investors in my company support that view. It's an example of doing things indistinguishable from what oligarchs want: no questions on their authority, even in the wake of massive consumer harms relating to token speculation and fundamentally unsolvable UX issues for retail consumers.
I had to leave mostly because I couldn't deal with the constant cognitive dissonance. The only reliable source of income in crypto is arbing yields on customer deposits to US treasuries, and the whole space is reliant on the government for macroeconomic stability already and they are creating big deposit flow risks and banks are rightfully worried about it. [2]
[1] https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1624563275760279554
[2] https://twitter.com/ecommerceshares/status/16302871693307494...
Everyone needs a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger.
I've mentioned this to a few friends, who've always called it dystopian, yet all alternate systems seems to be worse in terms of illegal abuse.
After being in the crypto space for a while, and thinking a lot about the problem of tracing money, I've come to the conclusion that the system I'd prefer would be a hybrid. Everyone needs a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger. I've mentioned this to a few friends, who've always called it dystopian, yet all alternate systems seems to be worse i…
You're describing cash + digital money.
After being in the crypto space for a while, and thinking a lot about the problem of tracing money, I've come to the conclusion that the system I'd prefer would be a hybrid. Everyone needs a quota of anonymous spending, say $50/day, $1000/ month and anything after that is public on government ledger. I've mentioned this to a few friends, who've always called it dystopian, yet all alternate systems seems to be worse i…
worse than that system, sure. Worse compared to a fascist state that has near total control over everyone? I don't think it's clear that tax evasion and black market deals are worse than that, the scale is just different.
China is much deeper in technology than the Soviet Union ever was. Imagine what Stalin had done with China's abilities in 2023, I think accepting Oligarchs, tax evasion and Drug Cartels is a fine trade off to avoid that.