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With bitcoin, what would stop governments from passing laws making certain addresses tainted resulting in people that send coins to or receive coins from them t

With bitcoin, what would stop governments from passing laws making certain addresses tainted resulting in people that send coins to or receive coins from them to be audited and having to explain why and how they linked to certain causes. What makes you think if bitcoins (or any *coin) becomes the main currency in a country or region, we would not have laws were all addresses would need to be linked to people (or companies) and the ledger would not be used for figuring out and persecuting people supporting certain causes?

stale2002 8y ago
Well, for one, the government would actually have to make such a law, and then suffer the political consequences. I would much prefer that the government is forced to actually follow the legal process, instead of what happened in 2010 with WikiLeaks, where the government made vague illegal threats against the banks, in order to censor transactions between people who broke zero laws. It forces everything out in the open, instead of giving a couple banks the power to made hidden agreements between each other in order to collude and censor perfectly legal financial transactions. And so far, the government has NOT made such a law. So guess what, that means it works! This is not about people breaking the law. This is about people following the law, and yet private parties are STILL able to censor transactions through collusion and because of a few vague, and probably illegal, threats from the government. The fact that the government has so far NOT been able to pass such laws, is innovation in and of itself. It means that it works right now for the purpose of making censorship resistant transactions, because before people WERE succeeding in censoring them, and yet now they aren't!
- tekknik 8y ago
  Read up on money services business and the various regulations they must follow, including the anti money laundering regulations. You may find yourself surprised at what laws exist.
coralreef 8y ago
The government can do whatever it wants, the point is that it’s decentralized design makes it basically impossible to censor.
jancsika 8y ago
Given the size of Bitcoin's keyspace, what would you surmise is the cost to a particular cause of "tainting" one of its public keys?
sky_rw 8y ago
Coinbase seems to already do this to a degree. If you transfer to a flagged address your account is banned with zero explanation or recourse. This will likely be the norm going forward for any reputable exchange.

stale2002 8y ago

Well, for one, the government would actually have to make such a law, and then suffer the political consequences. I would much prefer that the government is forced to actually follow the legal process, instead of what happened in 2010 with WikiLeaks, where the government made vague illegal threats against the banks, in order to censor transactions between people who broke zero laws. It forces everything out in the open, instead of giving a couple banks the power to made hidden agreements between each other in order to collude and censor perfectly legal financial transactions. And so far, the government has NOT made such a law. So guess what, that means it works! This is not about people breaking the law. This is about people following the law, and yet private parties are STILL able to censor transactions through collusion and because of a few vague, and probably illegal, threats from the government. The fact that the government has so far NOT been able to pass such laws, is innovation in and of itself. It means that it works right now for the purpose of making censorship resistant transactions, because before people WERE succeeding in censoring them, and yet now they aren't!

tekknik 8y ago
Read up on money services business and the various regulations they must follow, including the anti money laundering regulations. You may find yourself surprised at what laws exist.

coralreef 8y ago

The government can do whatever it wants, the point is that it’s decentralized design makes it basically impossible to censor.

jancsika 8y ago

Given the size of Bitcoin's keyspace, what would you surmise is the cost to a particular cause of "tainting" one of its public keys?

sky_rw 8y ago

Coinbase seems to already do this to a degree. If you transfer to a flagged address your account is banned with zero explanation or recourse. This will likely be the norm going forward for any reputable exchange.