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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 exchan

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.

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.