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Fungibility of the coins is a differentiating competitive advantage of bitcoin over, say, PayPal. Blacklisting coins leads to regulation, which leads to govern

Fungibility of the coins is a differentiating competitive advantage of bitcoin over, say, PayPal. Blacklisting coins leads to regulation, which leads to government control, etc. Soon I can't send money to someone in China because the Chinese government blocks coins that were used for something that they don't like. The system quickly falls apart and becomes much less useful.

kanzure 9y ago
Here are some bitcoiners and bitcoin developers talking about why privacy and fungibility is important. This might help to explain why so many of the bitcoin developers have been interested in coinjoin and confidential transactions: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/gmaxwell-confidential-transactions/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/gmaxwell-confidential-tran... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/bitcoin-adam3us-fungibility-privacy/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/bitcoin-adam3us-fungibilit... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/sf-bitcoin-meetup/2016-11-21-mimblewimble/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/sf-bitcoin-meetup/2016-11-... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/milan/fungibility-overview/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/milan/fungi... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/privacy-and-fungibility/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/privacy-and... Long-term, I expect mixers, coinjoin, confidential transactions or other technology to get implemented into the bitcoin protocol. Short-term I think that they are most likely to show up in sidechains or we'll just stick with the services already deployed (joinmarket, maybe tumblebit, etc.). And ultimately the whole blockchain data stuff could poof out of existence thanks to the near magic of recursive SNARKs.... which isn't going to get deployed any time soon; uh, maybe on a sidechain. That said, I recognize we're in a thread about some sort of SEC enforcement action. Stay legal, folks. Fungibility is a property of money, and if fungibility is deemed illegal then that's certainly interesting and something to consider. As a faithful internet comment author, I have not read the article at all, so I am absolutely certain that the accusation is not merely "omg fungible money" it's probably an accusation regarding a crime/scam or whatever. (Oh I guess I get a free pass-- Silly3rd's post says the mixer comment is unrelated to the article.)
peoplewindow 9y ago
Regulation and government control is what sillysaurus3 is after: he specifically mentioned ransomware and money laundering as the goal. If Bitcoin's advantage over PayPal is ransomware, that isn't an advantage governments will tolerate for very long, and why should they? Bans would be popular with the voters.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  They might be popular. Just completely ineffective.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    To ban Bitcoin you just have to ban fiat transfers to exchanges, something banks can easily do.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      And that would take the banning of any instrument like a gift card. How exactly do you think you could do that?
      - peoplewindow 9y ago
        They don't need to ban all Bitcoin trading to effectively wipe it out as a significant source of money laundering. Gift cards are not what money launderers want because they are hard work to turn back into real cash. What are you expecting people to do - post giant packages of iTunes gift cards to China in order to buy BTC? I think a lot of bitcoiners are in denial about how reliant the system is on tolerance by the authorities. If you can't move money in any significant quantity to exchanges then ransomware usages will go away (along with other usages). Even if residual trading by hard-core users continues it won't be at a scale that is large enough to care about.
        Frogolocalypse 9y ago

kanzure 9y ago

Here are some bitcoiners and bitcoin developers talking about why privacy and fungibility is important. This might help to explain why so many of the bitcoin developers have been interested in coinjoin and confidential transactions: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/gmaxwell-confidential-transactions/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/gmaxwell-confidential-tran... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/bitcoin-adam3us-fungibility-privacy/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/bitcoin-adam3us-fungibilit... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/sf-bitcoin-meetup/2016-11-21-mimblewimble/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/sf-bitcoin-meetup/2016-11-... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/milan/fungibility-overview/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/milan/fungi... http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/privacy-and-fungibility/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/privacy-and... Long-term, I expect mixers, coinjoin, confidential transactions or other technology to get implemented into the bitcoin protocol. Short-term I think that they are most likely to show up in sidechains or we'll just stick with the services already deployed (joinmarket, maybe tumblebit, etc.). And ultimately the whole blockchain data stuff could poof out of existence thanks to the near magic of recursive SNARKs.... which isn't going to get deployed any time soon; uh, maybe on a sidechain. That said, I recognize we're in a thread about some sort of SEC enforcement action. Stay legal, folks. Fungibility is a property of money, and if fungibility is deemed illegal then that's certainly interesting and something to consider. As a faithful internet comment author, I have not read the article at all, so I am absolutely certain that the accusation is not merely "omg fungible money" it's probably an accusation regarding a crime/scam or whatever. (Oh I guess I get a free pass-- Silly3rd's post says the mixer comment is unrelated to the article.)

peoplewindow 9y ago

Regulation and government control is what sillysaurus3 is after: he specifically mentioned ransomware and money laundering as the goal. If Bitcoin's advantage over PayPal is ransomware, that isn't an advantage governments will tolerate for very long, and why should they? Bans would be popular with the voters.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
They might be popular. Just completely ineffective.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  To ban Bitcoin you just have to ban fiat transfers to exchanges, something banks can easily do.
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    And that would take the banning of any instrument like a gift card. How exactly do you think you could do that?
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      They don't need to ban all Bitcoin trading to effectively wipe it out as a significant source of money laundering. Gift cards are not what money launderers want because they are hard work to turn back into real cash. What are you expecting people to do - post giant packages of iTunes gift cards to China in order to buy BTC? I think a lot of bitcoiners are in denial about how reliant the system is on tolerance by the authorities. If you can't move money in any significant quantity to exchanges then ransomware usages will go away (along with other usages). Even if residual trading by hard-core users continues it won't be at a scale that is large enough to care about.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago