4 ms·

Some of the negatives: 1)Phishing, if your private keys and password are compromised your money is gone. 2)Regulations, although governments would find it dif

Some of the negatives: 1)Phishing, if your private keys and password are compromised your money is gone. 2)Regulations, although governments would find it difficult, if not impossible, to regulate BitCoin. They can regulate the exchange of BitCoin into everyday fiat currencies. We seen this with the likes of e-gold when exchangers were cracked down on due to the ease of laundering money in the system. 3)Value, if people have no faith in the value of BitCoins then the system will not work. Right not there's a lot of commerce with BitCoin but it seems that it's only digital products or services that are accepting it. Once sellers of physical products start accepting BitCoin then it might become are more common currency. 4)Drugs, CP and money laundering. Although I don't believe in the scaremongering tactics used by politicians in order to regulate the likes of the internet, this system is going to be vulnerable to the similar attacks. We've already seen narcotics marketplaces open up that are now accepting BitCoin by operating through the TOR network. Soon enough this will receive a lot of unwanted attention.

noagendamarket 16y ago
If you leave your wallet on the beach your cash is gone or someone could pickpocket you. Egold was located on a central server that was liable to confiscation. You can buy alpaca socks with bitcoin. You can do money laundering ,cp and drugs with US dollars.
- ashconnor 16y ago
  You have recourse by contacting authorities. E-gold's centralised system was not what I was debating. It was the exchange of e-gold to fiat currencies. Alpaca socks I will assume are created by the person who actual sells them. Dealing with other suppliers who won't accept BitCoin was the obstacle I was detailing. I don't debate that you can launder money in USD but it is easier in this system. There's no paper trail, well there's no identity linked to wallets.
  - joelthelion 16y ago
    >no paper trail There's a lot of information in the blockchain. I'm not sure bitcoin is really that great for laundering.
    - ashconnor 16y ago
      You can generate multiple ids for the same wallet.
  - dublinclontarf 16y ago
    >You have recourse by contacting authorities. I'm sorry I would have replied to your comment earlier but I was incapacitated with laughter. How often have the "authorities" been able to help a person recover a stolen wallet? Or the funds taken from their bank account with a skimmed ATM card? Or any of the thousands of other kinds of fraud and theft or robbery? The "authorities" file reports, thats about it. What they do provide is the illusion of protection, a false sense of security. Really what are they the "authorities" going to do that a normal person can't?
dublinclontarf 16y ago
1) see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386956 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386956 2)In the near future there will be anonymous bitcoin exchanges, immune from government actions. http://weekly.co.nr/index.php?q=article/anonymous-money-needs-anonymous-exchange http://weekly.co.nr/index.php?q=article/anonymous-money-need... 3)If people have no faith in the $ then that system will not work, the reality is than money is what people accept for goods and services, every currency whether bitcoin, USD,or gold is backed by the goods and services people will accept it for. Right now there are merchants that accept bitcoin for goods and services, it's users do the same, I've hired someone paying with bitcoin. It works just fine. 4)Short of banning cryptography (good luck with that) there is nothing the government could do to prevent people using bitcoin whether it's used for the purchase of illegal guns, drugs, sex, hit contracts etc. The worst the governmet can do is target the exchanges, but as I said before that's not going to be an issue either.
- vilhelm_s 16y ago
  I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that it seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it seems legal in the first place. Soon enough, I expect law enforcement to start to actively target bitcoin exchanges (see e-gold). Sure people can respond to this by using elaborate schemes like the one you link to ("When depositing or withdrawing from ATM's the runners/operators face must be concealed as they have cameras. The ATM's used must constantly be changed, they must essentially be random otherwise the operators can be caught"). Then the only way to obtain or sell bitcoins will then be to take part in this elaborate and blatantly illegal money-laundering scheme. Criminals might still be willing to do that (although organized crime presumably have access to better money-laundering facilities already, so I'm not sure how many). But users of services like witcoin (bitcoin based micropayments to tip your favourite bloggers) presumably won't. Likewise, mining will become less popular if the only way to get money from it looks like it attracts the interest of the FBI. And how many will run the p2p client at all (so the entire trust network could collapse)?
  - kiba 16y ago
    I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it seems legal in the first place. I need to write an article on kitty activism and other ways to allow bitcoin to thrive.

noagendamarket 16y ago

If you leave your wallet on the beach your cash is gone or someone could pickpocket you. Egold was located on a central server that was liable to confiscation. You can buy alpaca socks with bitcoin. You can do money laundering ,cp and drugs with US dollars.

ashconnor 16y ago
You have recourse by contacting authorities. E-gold's centralised system was not what I was debating. It was the exchange of e-gold to fiat currencies. Alpaca socks I will assume are created by the person who actual sells them. Dealing with other suppliers who won't accept BitCoin was the obstacle I was detailing. I don't debate that you can launder money in USD but it is easier in this system. There's no paper trail, well there's no identity linked to wallets.
- joelthelion 16y ago
  >no paper trail There's a lot of information in the blockchain. I'm not sure bitcoin is really that great for laundering.
  - ashconnor 16y ago
    You can generate multiple ids for the same wallet.
- dublinclontarf 16y ago
  >You have recourse by contacting authorities. I'm sorry I would have replied to your comment earlier but I was incapacitated with laughter. How often have the "authorities" been able to help a person recover a stolen wallet? Or the funds taken from their bank account with a skimmed ATM card? Or any of the thousands of other kinds of fraud and theft or robbery? The "authorities" file reports, thats about it. What they do provide is the illusion of protection, a false sense of security. Really what are they the "authorities" going to do that a normal person can't?

dublinclontarf 16y ago

1) see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386956 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386956 2)In the near future there will be anonymous bitcoin exchanges, immune from government actions. http://weekly.co.nr/index.php?q=article/anonymous-money-needs-anonymous-exchange http://weekly.co.nr/index.php?q=article/anonymous-money-need... 3)If people have no faith in the $ then that system will not work, the reality is than money is what people accept for goods and services, every currency whether bitcoin, USD,or gold is backed by the goods and services people will accept it for. Right now there are merchants that accept bitcoin for goods and services, it's users do the same, I've hired someone paying with bitcoin. It works just fine. 4)Short of banning cryptography (good luck with that) there is nothing the government could do to prevent people using bitcoin whether it's used for the purchase of illegal guns, drugs, sex, hit contracts etc. The worst the governmet can do is target the exchanges, but as I said before that's not going to be an issue either.

vilhelm_s 16y ago
I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that it seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it seems legal in the first place. Soon enough, I expect law enforcement to start to actively target bitcoin exchanges (see e-gold). Sure people can respond to this by using elaborate schemes like the one you link to ("When depositing or withdrawing from ATM's the runners/operators face must be concealed as they have cameras. The ATM's used must constantly be changed, they must essentially be random otherwise the operators can be caught"). Then the only way to obtain or sell bitcoins will then be to take part in this elaborate and blatantly illegal money-laundering scheme. Criminals might still be willing to do that (although organized crime presumably have access to better money-laundering facilities already, so I'm not sure how many). But users of services like witcoin (bitcoin based micropayments to tip your favourite bloggers) presumably won't. Likewise, mining will become less popular if the only way to get money from it looks like it attracts the interest of the FBI. And how many will run the p2p client at all (so the entire trust network could collapse)?
- kiba 16y ago
  I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it seems legal in the first place. I need to write an article on kitty activism and other ways to allow bitcoin to thrive.