6 ms·

What actual real world problem does bitcoin solve other than foreign exchange transfers and black market operations?

by tardo99 9y ago

homero 9y ago
With more civil asset forfeiture, bitcoin is the only easy to store value, gold can be seized
- jrimbault 9y ago
  "They" need only seize you and beat you with a wrench to get your passphrase/convoluted security mechanism(s) protecting your private key(s). Or just pass a law requiring you comply or else.
  - homero 9y ago
    True but I can have a hidden bigger wallet
    - tardo99 9y ago
      The size of your wallet doesn't matter when you're in prison or dead.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  Bitcoins can and have been seized.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Besides the objection that government Bitcoin seizure is not impossible, consider your threat model. You arguably have less exposure to government seizure (again, questionable, to me), but you have far more exposure and less protection from more prosaic kinds of theft and fraud, which I think most of us are far more likely to encounter.
romanovcode 9y ago
99% of black market operations use either dollars or euro. It's not even that popular in black-market, unless you are living in your silicon bubble.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  If we're looking at Bitcoin as a proportion of black-market transactions, I have no doubt that is correct. But the more interesting question to me is what percentage of Bitcoin transactions are black market, especially if we exclude speculation?
laichzeit0 9y ago
The Bitcoin blockchain can be used for proof of ownership, proof of existence, proof of integrity, etc. It can be used as a decentralized trusted time stamping authority [1]. Try this out for a real implementation: https://proofofexistence.com https://proofofexistence.com It could be used by digital forensics to timestamp digital evidence and prove that it was not "tampered with" during the analysis phase. The Bitcoin blockchain can be used for many things other than a "currency". [1] http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04015v1 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04015v1
- vec 9y ago
  The blockchain is a towering achievement in theoretical computer science, but that wasn't the question. What is bitcoin, the currency, actually useful for?
- tardo99 9y ago
  Are those even problems in modern society? Setting aside conspiracy theories and outlier cases like the OJ Simpson trial, do people really fight (with meaningful evidence) over chains of ownership for things like assets and pieces of evidence? To expand on this, a simple cryptographic hash stored in a safe can be used to do something like proving a digital item hasn't been tampered with. The blockchain seems to me to only solve for the problem where the "system" is so corrupt that you can't trust anyone. I just don't think the "system" is that corrupt. So, I doubt blockchain has any real-world merit. Time will tell.
andrewla 9y ago
Reading from the book of Genesis Block: > The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks A real-world problem is governments giving trillions of made-up dollars to the huge companies that lost trillions of dollars, while allowing them to keep the money they made when they started taking these risks. A real-world problem is that governments creating trillions of dollars is not a risk-free endeavor; the value has to come from somewhere, and it comes from you. A real-world problem is that central banks are not good at their jobs, and they enable governments to behave irresponsibly with their currencies.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well, I think even in a zero-inflation or even deflationary world we could imagine ways a government could still take money from citizens and give it to businesses.

What actual real world problem does bitcoin solve other than foreign exchange transfers and black market operations?

homero 9y ago

With more civil asset forfeiture, bitcoin is the only easy to store value, gold can be seized

jrimbault 9y ago
"They" need only seize you and beat you with a wrench to get your passphrase/convoluted security mechanism(s) protecting your private key(s). Or just pass a law requiring you comply or else.
- homero 9y ago
  True but I can have a hidden bigger wallet
  - tardo99 9y ago
    The size of your wallet doesn't matter when you're in prison or dead.
0xfeba 9y ago
Bitcoins can and have been seized.
emodendroket 9y ago
Besides the objection that government Bitcoin seizure is not impossible, consider your threat model. You arguably have less exposure to government seizure (again, questionable, to me), but you have far more exposure and less protection from more prosaic kinds of theft and fraud, which I think most of us are far more likely to encounter.

romanovcode 9y ago

99% of black market operations use either dollars or euro. It's not even that popular in black-market, unless you are living in your silicon bubble.

emodendroket 9y ago
If we're looking at Bitcoin as a proportion of black-market transactions, I have no doubt that is correct. But the more interesting question to me is what percentage of Bitcoin transactions are black market, especially if we exclude speculation?

laichzeit0 9y ago

The Bitcoin blockchain can be used for proof of ownership, proof of existence, proof of integrity, etc. It can be used as a decentralized trusted time stamping authority [1]. Try this out for a real implementation: https://proofofexistence.com https://proofofexistence.com It could be used by digital forensics to timestamp digital evidence and prove that it was not "tampered with" during the analysis phase. The Bitcoin blockchain can be used for many things other than a "currency". [1] http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04015v1 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.04015v1

vec 9y ago
The blockchain is a towering achievement in theoretical computer science, but that wasn't the question. What is bitcoin, the currency, actually useful for?
tardo99 9y ago
Are those even problems in modern society? Setting aside conspiracy theories and outlier cases like the OJ Simpson trial, do people really fight (with meaningful evidence) over chains of ownership for things like assets and pieces of evidence? To expand on this, a simple cryptographic hash stored in a safe can be used to do something like proving a digital item hasn't been tampered with. The blockchain seems to me to only solve for the problem where the "system" is so corrupt that you can't trust anyone. I just don't think the "system" is that corrupt. So, I doubt blockchain has any real-world merit. Time will tell.

andrewla 9y ago

Reading from the book of Genesis Block: > The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks A real-world problem is governments giving trillions of made-up dollars to the huge companies that lost trillions of dollars, while allowing them to keep the money they made when they started taking these risks. A real-world problem is that governments creating trillions of dollars is not a risk-free endeavor; the value has to come from somewhere, and it comes from you. A real-world problem is that central banks are not good at their jobs, and they enable governments to behave irresponsibly with their currencies.

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, I think even in a zero-inflation or even deflationary world we could imagine ways a government could still take money from citizens and give it to businesses.