undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdavid_draco6y ago0 comments

> Who is "we"?

Presumably society.

> You can't "set aside" something which a free market has chosen to accept.

We have set aside CFCs even though they were accepted by the free market. They were harmful to the environment, creating the ozone hole.

Similarly, PoW mining has an enormous and well-documented ecological cost.

> If you're upset about PoW, invent a superior replacement which the market would prefer over PoW. > However, I suspect you cannot. I'm doubtful that such thing can exist.

PoS exist.

> Bitcoin is now an essential commodity because there is no replacement for it when it comes to saving money or evading warrantless (illegal) surveillance.

All transactions and account balances in Bitcoin are public. From meta data and corresponding networks one can figure out where and who the people are (NSA does this too). It is not very private at all.

> The central banks and governments around the world caused this, and they aren't capable of reversing it.

I doubt that it is a essential commodity and suspect you are overestimating the economic importance of Bitcoin.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

sparkie6y ago· 2 in thread

> Presumably society.

Which society?

> We have set aside CFCs even though they were accepted by the free market. They were harmful to the environment, creating the ozone hole.

Some regulations can be enforced. It's going to be a different story attempting to regulate something which can be hidden trivially with encryption, has no physical presence, and can be stored in ones head to prevent seizure.

> All transactions and account balances in Bitcoin are public. From meta data and corresponding networks one can figure out where and who the people are (NSA does this too). It is not very private at all.

This is true for plain use of Bitcoin, but there are ways of evading chain analysis, and you can also swap out your Bitcoin for Monero for spending.

> I doubt that it is a essential commodity and suspect you are overestimating the economic importance of Bitcoin.

It may not be essential to you, but there are plenty who consider it so, and these will only grow as people further distrust their governments and central banks.

Nursie6y ago

> It's going to be a different story attempting to regulate something which can be hidden trivially with encryption

Regulate on/off ramps. Watch it wither on the vine. Job done.

sparkie6y ago

How does regulation work for illegal drugs, prostitution, or other black markets, which can overall amount to double-digit percentages of economies?

Bitcoin only needs the black market to be a huge success. If it can avoid any surveillance ramps, that is ideal. It doesn't need to be everywhere.

IMO, the surveillance on/off ramps are going to have a hard problem ahead of them, of their own making. Black markets are only going to accept "cleaned" bitcoins because they won't put themselves at risk of being surveilled. The "cleaned" bitcoins will not be usable on AML exchanges. The "unclean" bitcoin can be cleaned through CoinJoins and such, at the risk of whoever obtained them in their unclean state, but once cleaned, they'll be back on the black markets.

Trading fiat currencies for Bitcoin will happen mainly in person, with cash, to avoid the surveillance.

You will be able to tell, to an extent, whether bitcoin are clean or unclean through their transaction history - a clean coin will be one which originates as the output of a CoinJoin. All transactions on the black markets will be a CoinJoin of some kind.

For most purposes, this won't matter because the majority of trade will be conducted over the Lightning Network, which has sender anonymity, and will very likely get receiver anonymity in the near future. Node operators can use Tor to avoid being surveilled - and the transport protocol used is fully end-to-end encrypted and authenticated.

Since the majority of trade will be happening on the black markets, exchanges which built their castles in KYC land will eventually fail. Nobody will care for "unclean" bitcoin if they are too heavily regulated. There will probably be a premium on clean bitcoin due to the risk involved in anybody who decides to wash unclean bitcoin.

Savers will not care if they have to resort to black markets to protect their wealth from theft or seizure. As long as they can find some local black market vendors who'll trade them for some other goods or fiat cash.

For governments to attempt to stamp out the black markets, the solution involved will be much worse than anything you could imagine being caused by Bitcoin - complete totalitarianism is the only way it could be enforced, and your open internet will be finished long before then. Careful what you wish for.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse