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I'm surprised that it is taking as long as it is taking for this to occur. It's also one of the reasons why it is going to be virtually impossible to stop. Ov

I'm surprised that it is taking as long as it is taking for this to occur. It's also one of the reasons why it is going to be virtually impossible to stop. Over the past year there has been a corporate hijack attempt of the bitcoin consensus rules. The thing that is painfully obvious is how totally disorganised and incompetent the attack was. Anyone who understands how the technology works has listened to armies of get-rich-quick junkies explaining how their new fandangled blockchainz are gonna takeova da cryptoz. In reality, bitcoin is now stronger than it was six months ago, as its nodes are even more decentralized, and it is apparent to anyone who cares to look, that the threat of a PoW change that started being bandied about in bitcoin, actually made the corporate types slam on the brakes before they got crushed. But when state actors get involved, that is going to be an entirely different story. I expect that at some point over the next couple of years, governments (like the US) will black-list bitcoin addresses, which undermines the ability to shift funds. They'll go to coinbase, or every other exchange in western nations, and tell them which addresses they want payments halted in. Which is why technologies such as lightning have been developed, to further decentralize value transfers in the system. It will even allow for the routing of payments through a multiple of different blockchains if a route can't be found between participants. When any state actor decides that they want to start utilizing this value transfer system for things like oil, it will be trivially easy to circumvent sanctions. The greater the value of the market capitalization, the easier it will be to do this. I make no comment on whether it is good or bad. In many diplomatic arguments, sanctions are indeed a perfectly reasonable and effective way of addressing issues. They worked perfectly well in Iraq until the US invaded them anyway. They worked extremely well in the former Yugoslavia, and have curbed many of the worst excesses of Iran. But that only works when you control the money supply. The US, unfortunately, has abused that privilege for completely unrelated reasons, and now there is a method of permanently removing that control. It is what it is. The fireworks haven't even started in this space yet.

alanfalcon 9y ago
How do you effectively blacklist an address when you can just generate a new one? Treat it like a one time pad; unless the government is sending out these black lists in real time (but even then...)
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  You could blacklist the originated address and then algorithmically ban any addresses they have spent money to, recursively. If your address is banned by being downstream, you have to do an in person ID check or whatever and explain where you got the coins from. Edit: I have always wondered about the fungability of bitcoin. The case above would mean you have some 'hot' bitcoins that are probably worth less than market value. Someone may buy them with freshly mined ones for an exchange rate < 1. Another scenario is really old bitcoins from 2010. Would they be worth more to 'collectors' if you can get a nice lineage.
  - tCfD 9y ago
    Old transaction outputs will be worth more at very least because future forks will try to legitimize their distribution as being, at least, no worse than Bitcoin by cloning its blockchain. Though that tactic may have run its course by now, if you already hold old outputs you probably aren't inclined to move them anyway, especially if they have the potential to spawn new, disposable offspring.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  Bitcoin is just a chain of transactions. This address to this address to this address to this address, right back to the block it was created in. It is not terribly difficult to validate whether the payment you're currently looking at existed as bitcoin in that address at some point or another. Like I said though, even the ability of that is likely to be undermined over the next 3-4 years.
tCfD 9y ago
So I guess the takeaway here is that the secret ingredients to bitcoin's success have been facilitation of crime and corruption by obfuscating the agency principal relationship, thus concentrating wealth in the hands of the corruptible, leading to facilitation of bigger and better crime and corruption. Congratulations are in order for Bitcoin both reinforcing the most degenerate aspects of human nature more effectively than ever before and for its charter adopters and boosters getting rich off the spiraling chain of negative externalities as the cancer spreads?
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  The secret to bitcoins success is that if you cry wolf enough times, and take away peoples freedom to such an extent that they are impoverished by the wealthy, they will find a way to exert their power. This is what happens when you lose the moral high-ground. Freedom is hard. Actually requiring probable cause before being subjected to the justice system used to be a thing. Then the US government started stealing peoples money without ever even charging them with a crime. So now we have crypto. So the government can't do it anymore. "But but but what if they are committing a crime!" they say. Prove it i say. You know. Rule of law. That's what democracies are supposed to be about aren't they? That attack on freedom now has crypto as a response. The thing that it is counter-intuitive about crypto, is that the solution to electronic anonymous and censorship resistant money, turned out being record everything forever. When someone can flick a switch and take everything from you, you don't have freedom. When you can access the ledger from anyone, prove that it it is valid, and be able to send your money to anyone, for whatever purpose, you do. This technology has been developed as a direct response to the insidious and anti-democratic implementation of AML/KYC laws on a global scale over the past 30 years. The extrapolation of these laws, given a long enough timeline, is slavery. Not figurative slavery, actual slavery. Bitcoin is the technical response to that problem.
  - acdha 9y ago
    That’s a rather incongruous jumble of ideas and, as usual, Bitcoin doesn’t actually solve any of the mentioned problems. If you’re concerned about asset forfeiture laws, vote better to change them – your Bitcoin will be seized and liquidated like everything else, and if you think you can hide a wallet ask how that’ll work out better than burying money or storing it offshore.
Firebrand 9y ago
I thought Coinbase, and many other U.S. based exchanges, already blacklist addresses and ban accounts attempting to send money to them.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think this will have been at the direction of the US government, and not in a coordinated way. I would expect they have identified funds that have come from known hacks, and blacklisted them. But as I said, it wouldn't surprise me that much. If it hasn't happened already, it's going to. Only a matter of time. I think it's one of the reasons why they have been so against some of the other crypto technologies like segwit and lightning. It removes them from the possibility of having that oversight role. I'm not the conspiracy type really, but it wouldn't come as a surprise that they have already had these discussions with regulatory authorities. Common sense really. The only real question is whether they have been encouraged to support or undermine technologies based upon those hypothetical discussions. They are who they are, and they work in that regulatory environment. It's not to be negative about them. They have a hand dealt to them, they play it.
- tehlike 9y ago
  This only applies if they are using bitcoin. Monero, for example, is impossible to trace (with current known technologies).
AlexCoventry 9y ago
It's perfectly feasible to stop it: Acquire sufficient computational resources to rewrite the blockchain history, and use it to discredit the blockchain as a reliable medium of exchange by constructing double spends.
IIAOPSW 9y ago
>I expect that at some point over the next couple of years, governments (like the US) will black-list bitcoin addresses Monero
- Larrikin 9y ago
  You keep hyping up this alt coin. How many do you own?
  - IIAOPSW 9y ago
    I mentioned it twice because it was relevant to the discussion. Vast majority of my posts have nothing to do with Monero. I prefer not to disclose my personal finances. If you think I'm hyping alt coins on HN for personal gain well then I guess there's nothing I'm willing to do to disprove that hypothesis.
perfmode 9y ago
If addresses become banned, can’t the owner tumble the contents?
- tehlike 9y ago
  Yes they can, or they can use something like monero or zcash.
throwaway43241 9y ago
Indeed ! On some deeply visceral level, I really want the underdogs to beat the US (yes, I know the rulers of said places are not exactly 'nice' folk.)

alanfalcon 9y ago

How do you effectively blacklist an address when you can just generate a new one? Treat it like a one time pad; unless the government is sending out these black lists in real time (but even then...)

quickthrower2 9y ago
You could blacklist the originated address and then algorithmically ban any addresses they have spent money to, recursively. If your address is banned by being downstream, you have to do an in person ID check or whatever and explain where you got the coins from. Edit: I have always wondered about the fungability of bitcoin. The case above would mean you have some 'hot' bitcoins that are probably worth less than market value. Someone may buy them with freshly mined ones for an exchange rate < 1. Another scenario is really old bitcoins from 2010. Would they be worth more to 'collectors' if you can get a nice lineage.
- tCfD 9y ago
  Old transaction outputs will be worth more at very least because future forks will try to legitimize their distribution as being, at least, no worse than Bitcoin by cloning its blockchain. Though that tactic may have run its course by now, if you already hold old outputs you probably aren't inclined to move them anyway, especially if they have the potential to spawn new, disposable offspring.
Frogolocalypse 9y ago
Bitcoin is just a chain of transactions. This address to this address to this address to this address, right back to the block it was created in. It is not terribly difficult to validate whether the payment you're currently looking at existed as bitcoin in that address at some point or another. Like I said though, even the ability of that is likely to be undermined over the next 3-4 years.

tCfD 9y ago

So I guess the takeaway here is that the secret ingredients to bitcoin's success have been facilitation of crime and corruption by obfuscating the agency principal relationship, thus concentrating wealth in the hands of the corruptible, leading to facilitation of bigger and better crime and corruption. Congratulations are in order for Bitcoin both reinforcing the most degenerate aspects of human nature more effectively than ever before and for its charter adopters and boosters getting rich off the spiraling chain of negative externalities as the cancer spreads?

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
The secret to bitcoins success is that if you cry wolf enough times, and take away peoples freedom to such an extent that they are impoverished by the wealthy, they will find a way to exert their power. This is what happens when you lose the moral high-ground. Freedom is hard. Actually requiring probable cause before being subjected to the justice system used to be a thing. Then the US government started stealing peoples money without ever even charging them with a crime. So now we have crypto. So the government can't do it anymore. "But but but what if they are committing a crime!" they say. Prove it i say. You know. Rule of law. That's what democracies are supposed to be about aren't they? That attack on freedom now has crypto as a response. The thing that it is counter-intuitive about crypto, is that the solution to electronic anonymous and censorship resistant money, turned out being record everything forever. When someone can flick a switch and take everything from you, you don't have freedom. When you can access the ledger from anyone, prove that it it is valid, and be able to send your money to anyone, for whatever purpose, you do. This technology has been developed as a direct response to the insidious and anti-democratic implementation of AML/KYC laws on a global scale over the past 30 years. The extrapolation of these laws, given a long enough timeline, is slavery. Not figurative slavery, actual slavery. Bitcoin is the technical response to that problem.
- acdha 9y ago
  That’s a rather incongruous jumble of ideas and, as usual, Bitcoin doesn’t actually solve any of the mentioned problems. If you’re concerned about asset forfeiture laws, vote better to change them – your Bitcoin will be seized and liquidated like everything else, and if you think you can hide a wallet ask how that’ll work out better than burying money or storing it offshore.

Firebrand 9y ago

I thought Coinbase, and many other U.S. based exchanges, already blacklist addresses and ban accounts attempting to send money to them.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think this will have been at the direction of the US government, and not in a coordinated way. I would expect they have identified funds that have come from known hacks, and blacklisted them. But as I said, it wouldn't surprise me that much. If it hasn't happened already, it's going to. Only a matter of time. I think it's one of the reasons why they have been so against some of the other crypto technologies like segwit and lightning. It removes them from the possibility of having that oversight role. I'm not the conspiracy type really, but it wouldn't come as a surprise that they have already had these discussions with regulatory authorities. Common sense really. The only real question is whether they have been encouraged to support or undermine technologies based upon those hypothetical discussions. They are who they are, and they work in that regulatory environment. It's not to be negative about them. They have a hand dealt to them, they play it.
tehlike 9y ago
This only applies if they are using bitcoin. Monero, for example, is impossible to trace (with current known technologies).

AlexCoventry 9y ago

It's perfectly feasible to stop it: Acquire sufficient computational resources to rewrite the blockchain history, and use it to discredit the blockchain as a reliable medium of exchange by constructing double spends.

IIAOPSW 9y ago

>I expect that at some point over the next couple of years, governments (like the US) will black-list bitcoin addresses Monero

Larrikin 9y ago
You keep hyping up this alt coin. How many do you own?
- IIAOPSW 9y ago
  I mentioned it twice because it was relevant to the discussion. Vast majority of my posts have nothing to do with Monero. I prefer not to disclose my personal finances. If you think I'm hyping alt coins on HN for personal gain well then I guess there's nothing I'm willing to do to disprove that hypothesis.

perfmode 9y ago

If addresses become banned, can’t the owner tumble the contents?

tehlike 9y ago
Yes they can, or they can use something like monero or zcash.

throwaway43241 9y ago

Indeed ! On some deeply visceral level, I really want the underdogs to beat the US (yes, I know the rulers of said places are not exactly 'nice' folk.)