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EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

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Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#181

Post by Hokusai »

avnigo wrote: post #148

I've experienced HN to be highly anti-Bitcoin for some reason -- got instantly downvoted for commenting neutrally on it [0]. However, I sort of expected more people on here would sympathize with the Cypherpunk Manifesto [1] and band together against pressures to minimize our privacy. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28114156 [1]: https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

HN is different depending on the time of the day. It's 02:00AM here in Europe, most of it at least. So the opinions that you see are not Europe time opinions but USA time opinions. I'm going to sleep now, but I'm part of the crowd that is strongly in favor of this type of regulations. I doubt that is going to be perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

HN is not a person but many different people in different places. Your message and mine will be probably received differently at another time of the day.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#183

Post by andrewmcwatters »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #173
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's an established technology that only attracts speculation and scams because it detaches the creation of capital from the utilization of labor and production and replaces it with hardware. It's a fundamentally "wrong" currency in that you cannot request labor in exchange for debt. Instead you can request labor in exchange for waiting for a machine to generate the value of labor. People say, well that'…

You have bought into the debt argument, and loose money. I like hard money. Infinity / 21M

Then you don't understand how currencies work today. It's like saying we should go back to the gold standard.

It makes no sense. Labor capacity increases as population grows. Gold does not grow. Should we all exchange slivers of gold? No. That would be nonsensical.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#184

Post by andrewmcwatters »

glitchc wrote: post #170
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's an established technology that only attracts speculation and scams because it detaches the creation of capital from the utilization of labor and production and replaces it with hardware. It's a fundamentally "wrong" currency in that you cannot request labor in exchange for debt. Instead you can request labor in exchange for waiting for a machine to generate the value of labor. People say, well that'…

It seems like this comment appears in every Bitcoin post. I get a deja vu feeling when I read it. To the OP, is this copy-pasted to every new BTC post? Truly curious.

No, it's not copypasta. If you consistently hear this from other people, I would reflect on it, then.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#185

Post by randomhodler84 »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #183
randomhodler84 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have bought into the debt argument, and loose money. I like hard money. Infinity / 21M

Then you don't understand how currencies work today. It's like saying we should go back to the gold standard. It makes no sense. Labor capacity increases as population grows. Gold does not grow. Should we all exchange slivers of gold? No. That would be nonsensical.

“We should adopt a bitcoin standard”. It will end all wars; bring freedom, peace and prosperity to the planet.

I don’t think we should go back to physical element based scarcity to measure wealth, the asteroids are full of it. What nothing else in the universe is full of is nonces for near hash collisions in SHA256. That’s as good or better than any other way to secure the ledger.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#186

Post by randomopining »

imtringued wrote: post #101
oceanplexian wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments can either get onboard, and come up with a reasonable, practical regulatory environment, or alternatively they will be left behind and Crypto will evolve to circumvent their wishes. It is a shame but the USA may end up leapfrogging the EU in the same way they have done with other innovations, like Social Media, Self Driving Cars, and other cutting edge tech. It turns out regulating entire sectors of the e…

Cutting edge? The only special thing about Bitcoin is the blockchain which only matters when there is a shortage of trust. Bitcoin may force government to be more responsible because it can be used to circumvent capital controls or price controls. Any advantage other than trust that a public blockchain has can be replicated through a private blockchain. It's just software after all. Considering the monetary philosoph…

Good comparison.

What if Bitcoin continues as it is, which is a way to preserve a part of wealth in a semi-liquid way. Once it hits an equilibrium point, it doesn't go any higher due to the limit in it's liquidity.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#188

Post by randomopining »

vjust wrote: post #134

Reaffirming the fact that Cash is king, as far as traceability is concerned. Unless of course, the FBI is tracking the bill numbers. But for all nefarious activities good old fashioned cash rules. No transaction or 'gas' fees either. If you can handle the physical bulk/inconvenience. Bitcoin transactions take minutes or even hours to settle sometime, so 'digital speed' is vaporware at this point.

Yeah but cash you have to physically transfer and exchange, which places you at a place at a point in time. Which is the ultimate "trace".

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#189

Post by sennight »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #180
sennight wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beginning, like when people were commonly introduced to the concept through the whitepaper and a link to the reference client source? And those people thought "public ledger" meant "governments can’t track how I spend my money"? A short time after the USG shuttered a non-fractional, gold reserve backed, paypal-like financial network? Okey dokey.

Well, a little bit later. Usually those were the people getting on bandwagon based on the wrong premise. "Independent from a centrally controlled bank system", "the government cannot track me", "the government cannot take my crypto away" (so they technically cannot but they can definitely block moving it so that it essentially becomes worthless), you name it. In the hindsight, the central control over crypto may give…

That is one of the more honest admissions I seen. Like I said, I've been around long enough to have seen it occur in real time - and I regularly argued with people in the early years... I almost miss the beany baby comparisons. The majority of the time the beef seemed to be ego shielding, followed by a slightly smaller group that was just frustrated about reality not aligning to their world model. But the journalists that had declared bitcoin to be dead at some point in the past - those were the most unhinged... I'm talking life ruination levels of assmad.

Clueless people didn't start showing up in appreciable numbers until much later, well after the events of the MtGox implosion. Even then they stuck mostly to the scamcoins, because "who can afford spending $125 for one coin?!"

I don't know what you're referring to with regard to centralized control lending credibility, but I will say that fungibility is a property of currency that people generally don't seem to understand - and that you may want to consider proposed "anti-fraud" methods in that light. That was what we were talking about years ago - a currency, that was the premise. It still is, there is just a more representative cross section of the general population showing up now - unsurprisingly half of them posses a below average level of intelligence.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#190

Post by sennight »

Sevii wrote: post #133
imtringued wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting edge? The only special thing about Bitcoin is the blockchain which only matters when there is a shortage of trust. Bitcoin may force government to be more responsible because it can be used to circumvent capital controls or price controls. Any advantage other than trust that a public blockchain has can be replicated through a private blockchain. It's just software after all. Considering the monetary philosoph…

Considering that trust in government is at an all time low public blockchains provide some much needed openness. The reason we went off the gold standard is because the US government printed off more money than they had gold and then got caught. Instead of trying to make up for their crime the government decided to ban ownership of gold. Cryptocurrency doesn't have a deflationary restriction. If bitcoin is too simila…

The inflationary coin was tried more than once. I remember one that wasn't content with infinitely expanding the monetary base - it would delete balances at random, watching people try to defend the idea was hilarious.
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