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I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. What you realize is a judge in a courtroom has a lot of power. They can take your money, fr

I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. What you realize is a judge in a courtroom has a lot of power. They can take your money, freedom or even kids. However, if I had few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros, well, the government can't take it. It is truly yours. No one can take it. That must be horrifying proposition for (some) governments - the inability to control people.

xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
And if you go hide a few million bucks in cash in the middle of a desert, they can't take it either. The hard part has always been getting it out and not getting caught. Nothing is truly yours.
- ransom1538 9y ago
  You can trade for goods or services with your coins. You cannot trade for anything with cash dug in the desert. Cash is confiscated daily by authorities.
  - agrajag 9y ago
    If I buy a house or a car with cryptocurrency that can be confiscated. If I live a lavish lifestyle while under a judgement I'm not paying, then the court can imprison me indefinitely under contempt of court. Courts have centuries of case law for how to deal with people that hide assets from judgements. They're not going to care whether your assets are in a shell company or a cryptocurrency.
    - piaste 9y ago
      You are correct, when it comes to protecting your assets from (minimally competent) authorities, cryptocurrencies aren't much better than a hole in the ground full of cash. Where they are much better than a hole in the ground is when it comes to moving your assets to a different jurisdiction. As long as you can physically get yourself from Somecountry to Othercountry, all your e-cash will be accessible in Othercountry regardless of what Somecountry may have to say about it. And even if Somecountry imprisons you, you can still hand over your e-cash to someone else with a single message. I can't think of any asset that offers that particular advantage.
      - zimzam 9y ago
        Sure, but extradition treaties make the list of viable country hops limited. You also can only pull this trick once: after you are a known flight risk the next country to come after you will be careful to make sure your detainment comes as a surprise. Finally, as much fun as it can be to game out, for how many people in the world is this use case actually applicable?
        piaste 9y ago
        You're thinking of a known criminal holding ill-gotten funds, whom his new country would like to prosecute as much as the old one. Think instead of an ordinary person fleeing a disintegrating economy and/or an oppressive regime, who had stashed away some e-cash for such an eventuality.
      - notahacker 9y ago
        The offshore banking industry has been helping people hide, launder and transfer funds for centuries. It's not infallible, but neither is the process of converting your cryto assets into something readily accepted in Othercountry.
- RexetBlell 9y ago
  That could work, but cryptocurrencies are more convenient. You could transfer your coins anywhere in the world much easier. For example, you could donate your coins Wikileaks undetected, but it's much harder to do that with cash buried in the desert. It's also possible that the government may declare some bills invalid (what happened in India with larger bills). Also, government could inflate away your wealth by printing more currency.
  - agrajag 9y ago
    While cryptocurrencies have been great (so far) for speculation, give how quickly their worth changes they make a pretty poor store of wealth. I'd prefer my cash to be worth in 1 year roughly the same as it's worth today.
    - imaginenore 9y ago
      Oh, those poor bitcoin/ethereum holders, they only gained a few hundred/thousand percent in the last couple of years.
      - Avshalom 9y ago
        And if all you ever do is hold on to them your high score looks great, the problem is that if rent comes due in USD in the middle of a down swing. What was 1M usd is now 100K usd and rent is now 1-2% of your bitcoin instead of .1-2%, if you get unlucky a few times that can start eating your holdings real quick. Medium to long term growth only matters in assets you won't need to spend in the short term.
  - aub3bhat 9y ago
    It's also possible that the government may declare some bills invalid (what happened in India with larger bills). Also, government could inflate away your wealth by printing more currency. At end of the day governments control both the network via (ISPs & Networking equipment) and processors (Try producing an 8080 in your backyard.). You make mistake of assuming that countries won't put up a global firewall that makes bitcoin/ether network impossible to operate. If China can filter traffic at internet scale, crippling Bitcoin network even if say EU/US/China are on board is trivial. Currencies are backed by the only thing that matters, its will/trust of the people. And no amount of crypto changes that. Unless of course you have some magical way of baking silicon on your own into processors and other chips used in computers and networking equipment in your backyard.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  Not really a good analogy. On the Internet, everything is at distance Zero. Plus as more avenues for directly using bitcoins opens up, the 'getting it out' problem becomes a non-issue. Plus, mixers!
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I just realized Breaking Bad might have ended very differently if it was set in the present day.
- kahnpro 9y ago
  This is ultimately the problem. People forget that, for that money to have any value, you eventually have to interact with the rest of human society. As another commenter said, we've been dealing with this for centuries--black markets, cartels, smugglers, etc. Everything old is new again.
vectorpush 9y ago
How do you turn eth into spendable money without a bank account?
- ransom1538 9y ago
  It is a currency. You can trade it for goods or services. The idea of moving it into a national currency is what we do now because we are in the early stages. I see a future where you just pay in coin.
  - vectorpush 9y ago
    It's a currency that can't buy much of anything, so it's close to useless as far as paying for the needs of a typical person. You can speculate about the future of crpyotcurrencies all you like, but the future you imagine is not inevitable and certainly not the reality of today or the foreseeable future. Beyond that, if we're speculating, a world where all transactions live on a blockchain is an ideal one for a government bent on tyrannical control of the economy. It is likely that governments of the future will have advanced methods of associating wallet activity with real-life activity, especially for citizens who intend to interact with the larger law-abiding economy (if you ask me, blockchain money is the ideal currency for a tyrant). Of course, you can just continue to speculate about future crpytocurrencies that will solve all these issues and that is the reason why this type of speculation gets us nowhere.
    - epa 9y ago
      >It's a currency that can't buy much of anything, Yet. Everything needs to start somewhere.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        And when faced with competition from legitimized currencies, that somewhere is black market goods and services. Eventually, someone asks the question, "Why can I buy weed with Bitcoin, but not pizza and chips?" And delivery of munchies is a legit business that can be advertised. Once recognized as a viable model, it can then be poached by major corporate players as part of a local pilot program, which can then be rolled out to larger jurisdictions. The problem, as usual, isn't that you can't buy anything with it--it's that you can't buy everything with it. As long as you can't pay your electric bill with cryptocoins, the business that accepts one as payment can't also pay its employees with that same cryptocoin. Honestly, would you even apply to a job posting if it said salary to be paid exclusively in Floopcoins?
lz400 9y ago
Well, if a court makes you liable for some payment and you have eth assets, they will force you to liquidate and pay. They can't confiscate it but if you refuse you go to jail.
- ericd 9y ago
  Ah, the old encryption vs. monkey wrench scenario. Never forget the monkey wrench.
  - delazeur 9y ago
    This is critical: clever math is not going to protect your assets from the organization that has a monopoly on violence.
    - Avshalom 9y ago
      It's not a monopoly that's important here, just willingness and ability. Jimmy-the-Stereotype is but one entrant in the free market of violence but he can still force you to liquidate your assets unless you have a grudge against your own kneecaps.
      - occamrazor 9y ago
        You can hire Johnny-the-Mobster to protect you from Jimmy-the-Stereotype, but not against Uncle Sam or Grandpa Vladimir. State actors still have a disproportionate power.
        Avshalom 9y ago
        Sure but Johnny-the-Mobster isn't exactly clever math either.
      - delazeur 9y ago
        The term "monopoly on violence" refers specifically to legitimate violence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
bradleyjg 9y ago
Beatty Chadwick had a similar notion.
SkyMarshal 9y ago
>few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros I would advise not storing anything having to do with your Ethereum private keys in a Github repo.
taway_1212 9y ago
They can throw you to jail for contempt until you give up that money though.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
calafrax 9y ago
Nothing online is anonymous. Everything you do is logged and tracked. Real cash is much more anonymous than stupid blockchains where every single transaction is published globally for all time.
- tinfoilman 9y ago
  Check out Monero, Tech wise interesting from a privacy point of view. You are right the web is tracked so even if Monero itself has untraceable transactions, buying Xmr generally requires an exchange which in turn kyc.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
> I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. Wait - does that mean you could literally get off on a technicality?

xyzzy_plugh 9y ago

And if you go hide a few million bucks in cash in the middle of a desert, they can't take it either. The hard part has always been getting it out and not getting caught. Nothing is truly yours.

ransom1538 9y ago
You can trade for goods or services with your coins. You cannot trade for anything with cash dug in the desert. Cash is confiscated daily by authorities.
- agrajag 9y ago
  If I buy a house or a car with cryptocurrency that can be confiscated. If I live a lavish lifestyle while under a judgement I'm not paying, then the court can imprison me indefinitely under contempt of court. Courts have centuries of case law for how to deal with people that hide assets from judgements. They're not going to care whether your assets are in a shell company or a cryptocurrency.
  - piaste 9y ago
    You are correct, when it comes to protecting your assets from (minimally competent) authorities, cryptocurrencies aren't much better than a hole in the ground full of cash. Where they are much better than a hole in the ground is when it comes to moving your assets to a different jurisdiction. As long as you can physically get yourself from Somecountry to Othercountry, all your e-cash will be accessible in Othercountry regardless of what Somecountry may have to say about it. And even if Somecountry imprisons you, you can still hand over your e-cash to someone else with a single message. I can't think of any asset that offers that particular advantage.
    - zimzam 9y ago
      Sure, but extradition treaties make the list of viable country hops limited. You also can only pull this trick once: after you are a known flight risk the next country to come after you will be careful to make sure your detainment comes as a surprise. Finally, as much fun as it can be to game out, for how many people in the world is this use case actually applicable?
      - piaste 9y ago
        You're thinking of a known criminal holding ill-gotten funds, whom his new country would like to prosecute as much as the old one. Think instead of an ordinary person fleeing a disintegrating economy and/or an oppressive regime, who had stashed away some e-cash for such an eventuality.
    - notahacker 9y ago
      The offshore banking industry has been helping people hide, launder and transfer funds for centuries. It's not infallible, but neither is the process of converting your cryto assets into something readily accepted in Othercountry.
RexetBlell 9y ago
That could work, but cryptocurrencies are more convenient. You could transfer your coins anywhere in the world much easier. For example, you could donate your coins Wikileaks undetected, but it's much harder to do that with cash buried in the desert. It's also possible that the government may declare some bills invalid (what happened in India with larger bills). Also, government could inflate away your wealth by printing more currency.
- agrajag 9y ago
  While cryptocurrencies have been great (so far) for speculation, give how quickly their worth changes they make a pretty poor store of wealth. I'd prefer my cash to be worth in 1 year roughly the same as it's worth today.
  - imaginenore 9y ago
    Oh, those poor bitcoin/ethereum holders, they only gained a few hundred/thousand percent in the last couple of years.
    - Avshalom 9y ago
      And if all you ever do is hold on to them your high score looks great, the problem is that if rent comes due in USD in the middle of a down swing. What was 1M usd is now 100K usd and rent is now 1-2% of your bitcoin instead of .1-2%, if you get unlucky a few times that can start eating your holdings real quick. Medium to long term growth only matters in assets you won't need to spend in the short term.
- aub3bhat 9y ago
  It's also possible that the government may declare some bills invalid (what happened in India with larger bills). Also, government could inflate away your wealth by printing more currency. At end of the day governments control both the network via (ISPs & Networking equipment) and processors (Try producing an 8080 in your backyard.). You make mistake of assuming that countries won't put up a global firewall that makes bitcoin/ether network impossible to operate. If China can filter traffic at internet scale, crippling Bitcoin network even if say EU/US/China are on board is trivial. Currencies are backed by the only thing that matters, its will/trust of the people. And no amount of crypto changes that. Unless of course you have some magical way of baking silicon on your own into processors and other chips used in computers and networking equipment in your backyard.
FooHentai 9y ago
Not really a good analogy. On the Internet, everything is at distance Zero. Plus as more avenues for directly using bitcoins opens up, the 'getting it out' problem becomes a non-issue. Plus, mixers!
nathan_f77 9y ago
I just realized Breaking Bad might have ended very differently if it was set in the present day.
kahnpro 9y ago
This is ultimately the problem. People forget that, for that money to have any value, you eventually have to interact with the rest of human society. As another commenter said, we've been dealing with this for centuries--black markets, cartels, smugglers, etc. Everything old is new again.

vectorpush 9y ago

How do you turn eth into spendable money without a bank account?

ransom1538 9y ago
It is a currency. You can trade it for goods or services. The idea of moving it into a national currency is what we do now because we are in the early stages. I see a future where you just pay in coin.
- vectorpush 9y ago
  It's a currency that can't buy much of anything, so it's close to useless as far as paying for the needs of a typical person. You can speculate about the future of crpyotcurrencies all you like, but the future you imagine is not inevitable and certainly not the reality of today or the foreseeable future. Beyond that, if we're speculating, a world where all transactions live on a blockchain is an ideal one for a government bent on tyrannical control of the economy. It is likely that governments of the future will have advanced methods of associating wallet activity with real-life activity, especially for citizens who intend to interact with the larger law-abiding economy (if you ask me, blockchain money is the ideal currency for a tyrant). Of course, you can just continue to speculate about future crpytocurrencies that will solve all these issues and that is the reason why this type of speculation gets us nowhere.
  - epa 9y ago
    >It's a currency that can't buy much of anything, Yet. Everything needs to start somewhere.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      And when faced with competition from legitimized currencies, that somewhere is black market goods and services. Eventually, someone asks the question, "Why can I buy weed with Bitcoin, but not pizza and chips?" And delivery of munchies is a legit business that can be advertised. Once recognized as a viable model, it can then be poached by major corporate players as part of a local pilot program, which can then be rolled out to larger jurisdictions. The problem, as usual, isn't that you can't buy anything with it--it's that you can't buy everything with it. As long as you can't pay your electric bill with cryptocoins, the business that accepts one as payment can't also pay its employees with that same cryptocoin. Honestly, would you even apply to a job posting if it said salary to be paid exclusively in Floopcoins?

lz400 9y ago

Well, if a court makes you liable for some payment and you have eth assets, they will force you to liquidate and pay. They can't confiscate it but if you refuse you go to jail.

ericd 9y ago
Ah, the old encryption vs. monkey wrench scenario. Never forget the monkey wrench.
- delazeur 9y ago
  This is critical: clever math is not going to protect your assets from the organization that has a monopoly on violence.
  - Avshalom 9y ago
    It's not a monopoly that's important here, just willingness and ability. Jimmy-the-Stereotype is but one entrant in the free market of violence but he can still force you to liquidate your assets unless you have a grudge against your own kneecaps.
    - occamrazor 9y ago
      You can hire Johnny-the-Mobster to protect you from Jimmy-the-Stereotype, but not against Uncle Sam or Grandpa Vladimir. State actors still have a disproportionate power.
      - Avshalom 9y ago
        Sure but Johnny-the-Mobster isn't exactly clever math either.
    - delazeur 9y ago
      The term "monopoly on violence" refers specifically to legitimate violence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

bradleyjg 9y ago

Beatty Chadwick had a similar notion.

SkyMarshal 9y ago

>few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros I would advise not storing anything having to do with your Ethereum private keys in a Github repo.

taway_1212 9y ago

They can throw you to jail for contempt until you give up that money though.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

calafrax 9y ago

Nothing online is anonymous. Everything you do is logged and tracked. Real cash is much more anonymous than stupid blockchains where every single transaction is published globally for all time.

tinfoilman 9y ago
Check out Monero, Tech wise interesting from a privacy point of view. You are right the web is tracked so even if Monero itself has untraceable transactions, buying Xmr generally requires an exchange which in turn kyc.

LyndsySimon 9y ago

> I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. Wait - does that mean you could literally get off on a technicality?