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I think the main takeaway is that governments are making a strong case for an alternative, decentralized currency: * preventing transactions they don't agree

I think the main takeaway is that governments are making a strong case for an alternative, decentralized currency: * preventing transactions they don't agree with * inflating savings away * freezing bank accounts of adversaries * seizing cash at security checkpoints

joe_the_user 16y ago
The problem is that since an alternative currency is still pretty purely hypothetical, we don't know with any certainty that it wouldn't be subject to similar abuses. Moreover, aside from inflation, the other abuses you list are essentially abuses of power and if governments maintain power - their official monopoly of force and violence, they will continue to be able to engage in these other actions. EI, I don't think there is any imaginable electronic currency that couldn't be "taken" from you if a group of armed men burst in, seized your computer and demanded your passwords. And if bitcoins became ubiquitous, the state certainly would believe that you owed taxes on your bitcoin transactions and it would send it's armed-men to collect. Edit: grammar
- mike_esspe 16y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, at least in US you can't be forced to reveal your password?
  - gaius 16y ago
    Then they do you for "contempt of court" rather than whatever they charged you with originally, surprise surprise the sentence is the same.
- richcollins 16y ago
  Why don't you include inflation in that list?
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Inflation is pretty much directly based on the control of the currency. While I don't necessarily advocate a society using gold-money, it's an example of a situation where the state couldn't directly control the currency. A state in such a society could still tax and arbitrarily confiscate money but it couldn't create inflation (well, under normal circumstances...).
- indrax 16y ago
  With a Truecrypt partition you could show them your insignificant bitcoin wallet, and only go back to your regular bitcoin wallet after they leave. True this would currently require a lot more security consciousness than most people have, but conceivably all the necessary features could be built into a bitcoin client.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Actually, Bitcoin transactions are public - it's inherent in the scheme that verifies the transactions. Thus determining a person's net worth should be extremely easy. This fact might make bit coin less appealing than cash for many things where anonymity is important. (Also, Whether having public transactions would be enough to make the transaction "work" would be a different question - what happens when you don't delivery the promised goods - but that's a different question).
    - Sapient 16y ago
      There are a number of escrow services available for Bitcoin transactions. https://clearcoin.appspot.com/ https://clearcoin.appspot.com/ for example.
    - narcissus 16y ago
      I think a lot of that problem disappears when you start using separate receive addresses with each transaction. Yes, that can become a bit of a pain, but it's more than doable. From what I remember, the default of the GUI, at least, is to generate you a new receive address as soon as you receive something on your current address. That should remove a lot of the problems of tracking net worth.
      - joe_the_user 16y ago
        No, you don't understand... a look at the article will show that publicness is inherent in the protocol... Without a public "audit trail", the problem of re-using bitcoins (which are just numbers) you hypothetically "spent" would clearly unsolvable (though I'm doubtful if you could truly free of this problem even with the public audit trail).

joe_the_user 16y ago

The problem is that since an alternative currency is still pretty purely hypothetical, we don't know with any certainty that it wouldn't be subject to similar abuses. Moreover, aside from inflation, the other abuses you list are essentially abuses of power and if governments maintain power - their official monopoly of force and violence, they will continue to be able to engage in these other actions. EI, I don't think there is any imaginable electronic currency that couldn't be "taken" from you if a group of armed men burst in, seized your computer and demanded your passwords. And if bitcoins became ubiquitous, the state certainly would believe that you owed taxes on your bitcoin transactions and it would send it's armed-men to collect. Edit: grammar

mike_esspe 16y ago
If I'm not mistaken, at least in US you can't be forced to reveal your password?
- gaius 16y ago
  Then they do you for "contempt of court" rather than whatever they charged you with originally, surprise surprise the sentence is the same.
richcollins 16y ago
Why don't you include inflation in that list?
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Inflation is pretty much directly based on the control of the currency. While I don't necessarily advocate a society using gold-money, it's an example of a situation where the state couldn't directly control the currency. A state in such a society could still tax and arbitrarily confiscate money but it couldn't create inflation (well, under normal circumstances...).
indrax 16y ago
With a Truecrypt partition you could show them your insignificant bitcoin wallet, and only go back to your regular bitcoin wallet after they leave. True this would currently require a lot more security consciousness than most people have, but conceivably all the necessary features could be built into a bitcoin client.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Actually, Bitcoin transactions are public - it's inherent in the scheme that verifies the transactions. Thus determining a person's net worth should be extremely easy. This fact might make bit coin less appealing than cash for many things where anonymity is important. (Also, Whether having public transactions would be enough to make the transaction "work" would be a different question - what happens when you don't delivery the promised goods - but that's a different question).
  - Sapient 16y ago
    There are a number of escrow services available for Bitcoin transactions. https://clearcoin.appspot.com/ https://clearcoin.appspot.com/ for example.
  - narcissus 16y ago
    I think a lot of that problem disappears when you start using separate receive addresses with each transaction. Yes, that can become a bit of a pain, but it's more than doable. From what I remember, the default of the GUI, at least, is to generate you a new receive address as soon as you receive something on your current address. That should remove a lot of the problems of tracking net worth.
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      No, you don't understand... a look at the article will show that publicness is inherent in the protocol... Without a public "audit trail", the problem of re-using bitcoins (which are just numbers) you hypothetically "spent" would clearly unsolvable (though I'm doubtful if you could truly free of this problem even with the public audit trail).