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You're probably right, but it could just as easily be signs that authorities finally are starting to understand them and it's step one in a crackdown. I'll adm

You're probably right, but it could just as easily be signs that authorities finally are starting to understand them and it's step one in a crackdown. I'll admit, that's partially due to a bias due to Bitcoin enthusiasts turning every event into a positive. Mt. Gox disaster? Oh well it's just the community policing itself. It's the sign of a healthy economy. To the moon! Sounds like an exaggeration, but checkout r/bitcoin and you'll know that sentiment. The really fun part about this is without tumblers or with regulated tumblers, you've now got a currency where every single transaction is globally available and traceable. Hits money launderers but hope you like the government tracking you. Cash transactions don't seem so bad after all.

cl0rkster 9y ago
That is almost true. However, transferring value between cryptos is trivial and at least Monero and zcash allow you to tumble your transactions and essentially completely disguise the inputs and outputs from anyone trying to search the public ledger.
- wmf 9y ago
  But do the latest regulations essentially ban Monero and ZCash?
  - Phlarp 9y ago
    Only to the extent to which any government can ban math.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
      But, they can keep the math as only math and prevent it from being used for real world goods and services.
    - vidarh 9y ago
      The difference here being that the next step can easily be to impose requirements on merchants to do checks, and require them to refuse to honour transactions where payments comes from known tumblers etc. In the UK, if you apply for a mortgage now, for example, your solicitor and mortgage provider will ask questions about where your deposit is coming from, and require documentation if it looks like it's not from regular savings or the like. Today that is manual and paper based, and so only viable for large purchases like a house, and additional documentation is only requested if there are indications of fairly large payments in your last 6 months of bank statements. My ex was bitten by this when buying a house recently, as she received part of her dads estate via bank transfer from abroad, and had to chase down documentation from the executor to demonstrate that it was a legitimate source. With crypto coins they could require execution of automated analysis of far more transactions going far further back in time. Won't stop it from being used for crime, and won't prevent people from finding ways of making transactions anonymous, but the point is they don't need to "ban math" because that maths intersects with physical actions taken by humans on a regular basis.
Qub3d 9y ago
See also: "This is good for bitcoin!"

cl0rkster 9y ago

That is almost true. However, transferring value between cryptos is trivial and at least Monero and zcash allow you to tumble your transactions and essentially completely disguise the inputs and outputs from anyone trying to search the public ledger.

wmf 9y ago
But do the latest regulations essentially ban Monero and ZCash?
- Phlarp 9y ago
  Only to the extent to which any government can ban math.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
    But, they can keep the math as only math and prevent it from being used for real world goods and services.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    The difference here being that the next step can easily be to impose requirements on merchants to do checks, and require them to refuse to honour transactions where payments comes from known tumblers etc. In the UK, if you apply for a mortgage now, for example, your solicitor and mortgage provider will ask questions about where your deposit is coming from, and require documentation if it looks like it's not from regular savings or the like. Today that is manual and paper based, and so only viable for large purchases like a house, and additional documentation is only requested if there are indications of fairly large payments in your last 6 months of bank statements. My ex was bitten by this when buying a house recently, as she received part of her dads estate via bank transfer from abroad, and had to chase down documentation from the executor to demonstrate that it was a legitimate source. With crypto coins they could require execution of automated analysis of far more transactions going far further back in time. Won't stop it from being used for crime, and won't prevent people from finding ways of making transactions anonymous, but the point is they don't need to "ban math" because that maths intersects with physical actions taken by humans on a regular basis.

Qub3d 9y ago