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The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

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Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#41

Post by knorker »

ams6110 wrote: post #32
knorker wrote: post #6

Moral of the story: No, people do NOT want the government out of their way. Turns out that even bitcoin fanbois DO want rule of law, and law enforcement. The reason money works the way it does is that it's almost entirely logically derived from hard requirements from everyone. Not that "the man" is trying to oppress you.

Rule of law and defense of rights and freedoms are things that even orthodox Libertarians recognize as an appropriate role of government. You can want a government to provide those things and also want it to stay out of your way in most of the rest of your life.

Yeah. But my point is that value set A logically implies restrictions on freedoms within value set A, and it doesn't matter how much you want it to not be true.

Really you want law enforcement to find actual financial crime, but there are many people who draw an ABSOLUTE line against the police taking a look at your financial dealings after getting probable cause.

And they have these values at the same time.

Back to bitcoin: People want to use it to get around restrictions on moving money around. Often laws. Then when money gets stolen they want the police because stealing is a crime. This is just another way of saying "I want to follow only the laws I agree with, and others should always follow the law I want them to follow".

But in civilized society you can't just pick and choose which laws to obey.

I'm not saying you, but bitcoin is so full of these people that I'm just so sick of it.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#42

Post by plankers »

lozenge wrote: post #28
plankers wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's not as easy to influence the policies and direction of bitcoin's core client as you might think. It requires consensus building, which is nowhere near as easy as enforcing consensus on the state of the blockchain. It's a messy process, involving much debate and hashing out (pun intended) of details. See here[1] for more. If it is a commodity, then it's one that's awfully easy to spend on whatever random bull…

It takes a concerted effort but it's definitely possible, especially by those who moderate forums and subreddits. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin were all successful in doing so, although they each only captured part of the original Bitcoin market cap.

You seem to be confusing the moderation of non-technical forums with the process of achieving consensus between experts on highly technical issues. My apologies if this isn't the case.

The bitcoin forks you name have experts working on their development, true. But these developers represent a small fraction of the number of contributors to the bitcoin core client. As the number of people increases, so too does the difficulty of coming to consensus on the direction of development.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#43

Post by plankers »

rednerrus wrote: post #31
plankers wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a "bitcoin fanboi," I never claimed to not want the rule of law. I just don't want some unaccountable third party mucking about with the monetary policy of the currency I'm using. If anything, I'd like _more_ rule of law when it comes to holding central banks accountable when they fuck up.

Bitfinexed would like to have a word with you. If Bitfinexs wash trading or printing Tether as fast as they can to prop up the value of BTC isn’t mucking about in the currency you’re using, I don’t know what is.

Solid point, but I'd prefer a permissionless system where any actor is able to have a voice in the direction of policy to a walled garden where wealth appears to be a prerequisite for membership.

Any permissionless system must allow maliciously self-interested actors to act as they please, so long as the underlying soundness of the currency is not affected. The mass printing of tether has no effect on the usefulness of bitcoin as a transaction medium, just a temporary effect on its usefulness as a store of value (and personally, the value of bitcoin seems to be doing just fine). I'm still able to transfer bitcoin from my personal device anywhere in the world in seconds (at 0 confirmations, about an hour for the recommended 6), as opposed to waiting days for an ACH or wire transfer to clear.

Anyway, bad actors are the reason that we need the rule of law in this space. If Bitfinex is as shady as is claimed, they won't be able to get away with their schemes indefinitely.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#44

Post by msiyer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
msiyer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Central banks can never be held accountable for anything. In most cases, they cannot even be audited.

> In most cases, they cannot even be audited Central banks are audited to a borderline-silly level of redundancy in every major trading economy ( i.e. the U.S., EU, Japan, UK, Canada and Switzerland).

The audit is a joke. Just hogwash. What exactly happens if wrongdoings are unearthed? What happens when taxpayers' money is found lost? Nothing.

Pentagon eats up trillions and no one has a clue. Trillions paid out in bank bailouts and no one questions. Billionaires take loans and declare bankruptcy...

Audits performed by those who are involved in the crime is hogwash.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#45

Post by close04 »

vignesh_m wrote: post #33
close04 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, unfortunately it's perfectly capitalist. Because the premise of capitalism [1] is (extremely simplified) "help the capital holder because they will have more power to help the others". If an employer does better he will hire more people so more well being. Another basic capitalist concept is that politics should not influence capital but capital should influence politics. That's because who would know better how…

Idk why you're being downvoted when you're right. I guess people are incorrectly thinking you support this behaviour instead of simply stating how it is capitalist.

People rarely take the time to understand what you're trying to say these days. They're also very misinformed and take it personally when they think you're attacking their "core values". In this case I think it's because I was highlighting some downsides of the practical implementation of capitalism. Or maybe criticizing anything related to capitalism makes me a communist? Who knows...

Very few people actually understand what capitalism or communism are or what they were supposed to be, beyond what quick consumption TV or internet media tells them. Also very few people accept to change their opinions as the facts change. They'd rather fight it.

Good for them I guess... some things really are bliss.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#46

Post by lozenge »

plankers wrote: post #42
lozenge wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a concerted effort but it's definitely possible, especially by those who moderate forums and subreddits. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin were all successful in doing so, although they each only captured part of the original Bitcoin market cap.

You seem to be confusing the moderation of non-technical forums with the process of achieving consensus between experts on highly technical issues. My apologies if this isn't the case. The bitcoin forks you name have experts working on their development, true. But these developers represent a small fraction of the number of contributors to the bitcoin core client. As the number of people increases, so too does the di…

You only need a couple of developers to fork, and they aren't necessarily motivated by those highly technical issues. After that, by moderating forums you can bring the users, which brings the valuation.

Re: The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist

#47

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

lozenge wrote: post #46
plankers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be confusing the moderation of non-technical forums with the process of achieving consensus between experts on highly technical issues. My apologies if this isn't the case. The bitcoin forks you name have experts working on their development, true. But these developers represent a small fraction of the number of contributors to the bitcoin core client. As the number of people increases, so too does the di…

You only need a couple of developers to fork, and they aren't necessarily motivated by those highly technical issues. After that, by moderating forums you can bring the users, which brings the valuation.

Right. I feel like anyone that believes the “truly decentralized” aspect of Bitcoin is being intentionally obtuse.
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