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Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

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41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#41
post #31
post #18

I welcome all the USA has to throw at btc. It will only make it stronger in the long run and further erode any credibility the us gov has.

Talk about underestimating. If the USA wanted to, it could easily destroy bitcoin, they have more than enough computing power. It might not be legal for them to do so, but that's their own self imposed limitation, not inability.

>they have more than enough computing power.

All the servers, personal computers AND super computers in the world COMBINED do not share enough computational power to put a dent in the Bitcoin network thanks to the widespread use of specialized Bitcoin mining hardware, i.e. ASIC Bitcoin miners.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#43
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bitcoin guys think you can push buttons on your computer and code around the system. So naive. Sorry to be a pessimist, but they can just say anyone transferring bitcoin to another party without going through a KYC compliant intermediary is money laundering and then send the swat team out to whatever ip they can track down via NSA whatever. Game. Set. Match. Banks win as usual, all done. They'll take it down just…

Are you trolling? The Pirate Bay is doing better than ever.

But it's not a legitimate method of obtaining (a lot of) data. The only legitimate uses I for BT I've used are WOW updates and maybe getting Linux distros.

The Pirate Bay may still be up, but it's a shady corner of the internet.

If businesses can't legitimately use BC, it doesn't matter if I can still do shady things with it.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The location of all Bitcoins, and therefore the address with the most Bitcoins, is public knowledge. This is an inherent property of the system. If anybody tells you Bitcoin is anonymous, they haven't the first clue how Bitcoin works. Run away as quickly as possible, for they are dangerously clueless.

While blanket statements like that sound true on their face, I think it's safe to say that an unknown person may have a large number of coins spread over a lot of wallets. Especially people trying to hide their total balances, including people using tumblers.

His statement doesn't just "sound true on [it's] face"... It also happens to be completely true. He never made any assertion or even alluded to the idea that someone couldn't spread balances over multiple addresses...

You're statement is an unnecessary unveiling of a ridiculously obvious possibility which comes across as braggadocios and condescending.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#45
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bitcoin guys think you can push buttons on your computer and code around the system. So naive. Sorry to be a pessimist, but they can just say anyone transferring bitcoin to another party without going through a KYC compliant intermediary is money laundering and then send the swat team out to whatever ip they can track down via NSA whatever. Game. Set. Match. Banks win as usual, all done. They'll take it down just…

It's peer to peer, they'd have to take down the internet to stop it.

Bitcoin is only valuable because it can be converted into real tangible goods. If government makes it hard to impossible to convert bitcoins into goods, its value will plummet overnight.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#46
post #13

This is more about the government trying get its share of the pie and control and monitor bitcoin. Inherent in the philosophy of bitcoin is a society where no central authority can control the means of exchange. I think the more control the governments puts around bitcoin the more people will be driven to alternative crypto-currencies...

Why would government want a piece of the bitcoin pie? They already have the entire pie in terms of control of the money supply. If anything bitcoin is becoming an existential threat to one of the main pillars of government power. I predict terrible things for bitcoin going forward.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#47
post #18

I welcome all the USA has to throw at btc. It will only make it stronger in the long run and further erode any credibility the us gov has.

This is missing the point. Bitcoin's value is completely derived from being able to convert it into tangible goods (well, basically cash at this point). They can easily make this conversion next to impossible for the majority of people. The fate of bitcoin rests completely in the hands of various governments, and I don't think its future is bright.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#48
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you're not going to completely squash it but it will then be considered a "dirty" service and only be used for illegal activities. No U.S. business will ever touch it again.

The recent shutdown of Liberty Reserve, another digital currency favored by criminals, shows the extent to which the U.S authorities are willing to go in cases like this. Nowhere on earth is safe if you are running/facilitating a multi-billion dollar money laundering operation.

Unless your a large bank "too big to fail"... Or give any serious punishment to for money laundering.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#49
post #14
post #5

I love how there is no 'one' person in charge of bitcoin, who are they planning on summoning.

None or the developers are anonymous, so one imagines they will be summoned. At least some of them are US based. Even if they don't own or control anything, they'll still be blamed.

This is just a shakedown to get some dollars for the upcoming election season.

Re: Bitcoin Comes Under Senate Scrutiny

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While blanket statements like that sound true on their face, I think it's safe to say that an unknown person may have a large number of coins spread over a lot of wallets. Especially people trying to hide their total balances, including people using tumblers.

His statement doesn't just "sound true on [it's] face"... It also happens to be completely true. He never made any assertion or even alluded to the idea that someone couldn't spread balances over multiple addresses... You're statement is an unnecessary unveiling of a ridiculously obvious possibility which comes across as braggadocios and condescending.

It's a question of audiences.

To an expert on bitcoin, the description of "the address with the most Bitcoins" is self-explanatory and, yes, has one well-defined answer that it can be determined from the block-chain alone. If you're this person, I can understand why you think I'm being pedantic, and I'm sorry if I came off that way.

But someone who says "If anybody tells you Bitcoin is anonymous, they haven't the first clue how Bitcoin works" isn't talking to an expert on bitcoin. They're talking to someone that they fear may not know enough to avoid being easily swayed by the kind of inexact language that a non-expert doesn't even know that they're looking for. They're talking to the exact kind of audience that doesn't know that "person" and "address" are not interchangable

This person may then go on to claim, based on this evidence, that (1) no anonymity can ever be obtained by bitcoin (which isn't true in theory or in practise for the reasons I mention) and (2) that we know "who" (as in person, not address) has all of the bitcoins. But that's just not true, and it's a really, really important detail to someone that makes policy decisions, or that wants to decide if or how to use the technology.

It's the same problem with equating an IP address with a human. You may use exact language when you talk about these things, and you may understand that when someone offhandedly points at an IP address on a diagram and says "...but this guy over here..." that "guy" doesn't refer to an actual human being. But you aren't any of the grandparents to this conversation, nor are you the hypothetical uneducated observer (to whom I mean no ill will; we all are, given the right conversation). Most importantly, you're not ninetax, who is clearly referring to a person and not to an address, nor are you nknighthb, who is clearly referring to the notion of an address rather than a person.

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