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Cryptocurrency enthusiasts cannot find a legitimate use for bitcoins, so they dream up hellscapes where "both sides" are bad and apolitical bitcoin saves the da

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts cannot find a legitimate use for bitcoins, so they dream up hellscapes where "both sides" are bad and apolitical bitcoin saves the day

doggosphere 6y ago
Maintaining privacy from government/corporate surveillance.
- klodolph 6y ago
  Isn't Bitcoin structured so that all transactions are recorded for everyone to see in the ledger? Doesn't that make surveillance easier?
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    They are. Monero and other privacy coins have features built in. But the ability for anyone to generate addresses anywhere adds for some level of privacy. The only way to identify the owner of an address is to have concrete information linking a person to an address.
    - NicoJuicy 6y ago
      So, when you are actually using it, then your privacy is revealed ( since you'll use that "anonymous" ledger to convert to USD/Eur). Every cloud application for doing this literally requires you to send your ID to them.
      - Forbo 6y ago
        One could mine it directly and never involve KYC. Or they could use a coin that has privacy features built-in, such that once it leaves the exchange they no long know what was done with it. There are also decentralized exchanges.
        NicoJuicy 6y ago
        You're suggesting to mine a bitcoin, which has a pretty big difficult rate by now or to join a cloud miner. Either way, you're arguments don't make any sense anno 2020. I'd rather trust my bank, that is regulated than some anonymous thing on the internet.
        Forbo 6y ago
        I've mined a few Moneroj just casually using my desktop PC. Makes for a good space heater in the winter time. Depending on it as a sole source of income, no. But it's not impossible to obtain cryptocurrency from mining in 2020.
    - Forbo 6y ago
      Pseudonymity is not the same as anonymity. Coin tracing companies exist because of this. Unless the currency itself has numerous privacy mitigations built in (a la Monero), it's only going to keep casual observers from knowing. I compare most cryptocurrencies' observability to common household locks. They aren't keeping real thieves out. They just keep honest people honest.
  - Forbo 6y ago
    Yes. To achieve privacy and fungibility, one would need to use something like Monero instead.
    - CharlesW 6y ago
      So called "privacy coins" are more private than Bitcoin, but do not (and cannot) offer absolute privacy guarantees. Zcash and Dash can now be tracked, and Monero is next. [1] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis-investigation-compliance-support-dash-zcash https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis... [2] https://news.bitcoin.com/chainalysis-and-integra-win-1-25-million-irs-contract-to-break-monero/ https://news.bitcoin.com/chainalysis-and-integra-win-1-25-mi...
      - Forbo 6y ago
        I'll believe Monero is traceable when someone claims any of the various bounties available for proving it.
  - merely-unlikely 6y ago
    A payment processor would help with this. Basic idea is you would buy a good online but you wouldn’t pay the merchant directly. You would pay a payments processor who would pay the merchant from its account. Somewhat similar to using Visa or Mastercard. Then the payments processor has data about you, but Mastercard and Visa sell your data today anyway. You can also using mixing pools and generate new addresses for each transaction to help mitigate tracking.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  People don't pay for privacy, that's why we have ads. + You can see all the transactions in bitcoin..
rvense 6y ago
I always think it's hilarious that people who call themselves Bitcoin enthusiasts will say things like "No one wants to live in a country where bitcoin has become vital for payments", when the original Bitcoin paper calls it "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" and the introduction quite clearly suggests that it would be better for people if they used Bitcoin to replace trust with cryptography. Please just read the first two paragraphs: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (Or actually, read the whole thing, it's interesting, but it's obvious that the experiment really didn't turn out the way it was planned)
- Izkata 6y ago
  Even without reading that, "electronic cash" seemed obvious to me when I first heard about bitcoin: I could see digital artists using it to sell commissions. Especially adult art, since PayPal has (had?) a tendency to kick them off the platform once they find out what's being sold.
- xoralkindi 6y ago
  > (Or actually, read the whole thing, it's interesting, but it's obvious that the experiment really didn't turn out the way it was planned) Bitcoin set out to implement the ideas of Wei Dai's b-money system and was also inspired by 2008 financial crush. I think Bitcoin is a success from the cypherpunks/crypto-anarchy perscpective and it is the fruits of their discussions/debates.
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    Bitcoin is not inspired by the financial crisis. A project like that takes many years to research and develop.
phreack 6y ago
In many cases it is true, but the one legitimate use case is helping out in countries where monetary freedom is restricted. When the state forbids you to sell a currency that's permanently losing value due to unchecked inflation, being able to work for any appreciating coin or even a stablecoin is benefitial to society.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > In many cases it is true, but the one legitimate use case is helping out in countries where monetary freedom is restricted. Don't forget the other major use case: online retail for illegal goods and services. Cash is impractical, and using the conventional payment systems is a good way for criminals to get caught.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
I wish I could filter out every "Bitcoin dumb LOL" reply that inevitably appears in the comments. We get it, we've heard all the jokes before, thank you.
xoralkindi 6y ago
You see money was one of the first distributed systems, it transcended languages and flags, the protocol was deployed everywhere. But this protocol of value exchange always had issues with trust, related to the double spending problem so it always required a third party. Gold is almost perfect because it is rare and recognizeable, but gold can be faked and is too heavy to carry around in large amounts also violence can come from gold and violence is a big no no for the cypherpunks. So for our traditional protocol to work we invented money printers that we trust to print our money (Banks) and monitor it for tax purposes. But now maybe for the first time in the world it is possible to have a P2P system of value exchange, no banks, kings or even governments required, the only requirement is a cpu. The new protocol offers new ways to structure our economy, it makes old ways obsolete but it has its own set of problems. Is the new protocol good or is it bad? I say it is too early to answer this, but I also think crypto-coins should be given a chance, it is good that people are starting to use this protocol it gives us real-life data to compare its pros and cons against our traditional protocol.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts cannot find a legitimate use for bitcoins, so they dream up hellscapes where "both sides" are bad and apolitical bitcoin saves the day

doggosphere 6y ago

Maintaining privacy from government/corporate surveillance.

klodolph 6y ago
Isn't Bitcoin structured so that all transactions are recorded for everyone to see in the ledger? Doesn't that make surveillance easier?
- doggosphere 6y ago
  They are. Monero and other privacy coins have features built in. But the ability for anyone to generate addresses anywhere adds for some level of privacy. The only way to identify the owner of an address is to have concrete information linking a person to an address.
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    So, when you are actually using it, then your privacy is revealed ( since you'll use that "anonymous" ledger to convert to USD/Eur). Every cloud application for doing this literally requires you to send your ID to them.
    - Forbo 6y ago
      One could mine it directly and never involve KYC. Or they could use a coin that has privacy features built-in, such that once it leaves the exchange they no long know what was done with it. There are also decentralized exchanges.
      - NicoJuicy 6y ago
        You're suggesting to mine a bitcoin, which has a pretty big difficult rate by now or to join a cloud miner. Either way, you're arguments don't make any sense anno 2020. I'd rather trust my bank, that is regulated than some anonymous thing on the internet.
        Forbo 6y ago
        I've mined a few Moneroj just casually using my desktop PC. Makes for a good space heater in the winter time. Depending on it as a sole source of income, no. But it's not impossible to obtain cryptocurrency from mining in 2020.
  - Forbo 6y ago
    Pseudonymity is not the same as anonymity. Coin tracing companies exist because of this. Unless the currency itself has numerous privacy mitigations built in (a la Monero), it's only going to keep casual observers from knowing. I compare most cryptocurrencies' observability to common household locks. They aren't keeping real thieves out. They just keep honest people honest.
- Forbo 6y ago
  Yes. To achieve privacy and fungibility, one would need to use something like Monero instead.
  - CharlesW 6y ago
    So called "privacy coins" are more private than Bitcoin, but do not (and cannot) offer absolute privacy guarantees. Zcash and Dash can now be tracked, and Monero is next. [1] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis-investigation-compliance-support-dash-zcash https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis... [2] https://news.bitcoin.com/chainalysis-and-integra-win-1-25-million-irs-contract-to-break-monero/ https://news.bitcoin.com/chainalysis-and-integra-win-1-25-mi...
    - Forbo 6y ago
      I'll believe Monero is traceable when someone claims any of the various bounties available for proving it.
- merely-unlikely 6y ago
  A payment processor would help with this. Basic idea is you would buy a good online but you wouldn’t pay the merchant directly. You would pay a payments processor who would pay the merchant from its account. Somewhat similar to using Visa or Mastercard. Then the payments processor has data about you, but Mastercard and Visa sell your data today anyway. You can also using mixing pools and generate new addresses for each transaction to help mitigate tracking.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
People don't pay for privacy, that's why we have ads. + You can see all the transactions in bitcoin..

rvense 6y ago

I always think it's hilarious that people who call themselves Bitcoin enthusiasts will say things like "No one wants to live in a country where bitcoin has become vital for payments", when the original Bitcoin paper calls it "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" and the introduction quite clearly suggests that it would be better for people if they used Bitcoin to replace trust with cryptography. Please just read the first two paragraphs: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (Or actually, read the whole thing, it's interesting, but it's obvious that the experiment really didn't turn out the way it was planned)

Izkata 6y ago
Even without reading that, "electronic cash" seemed obvious to me when I first heard about bitcoin: I could see digital artists using it to sell commissions. Especially adult art, since PayPal has (had?) a tendency to kick them off the platform once they find out what's being sold.
xoralkindi 6y ago
> (Or actually, read the whole thing, it's interesting, but it's obvious that the experiment really didn't turn out the way it was planned) Bitcoin set out to implement the ideas of Wei Dai's b-money system and was also inspired by 2008 financial crush. I think Bitcoin is a success from the cypherpunks/crypto-anarchy perscpective and it is the fruits of their discussions/debates.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  Bitcoin is not inspired by the financial crisis. A project like that takes many years to research and develop.

phreack 6y ago

In many cases it is true, but the one legitimate use case is helping out in countries where monetary freedom is restricted. When the state forbids you to sell a currency that's permanently losing value due to unchecked inflation, being able to work for any appreciating coin or even a stablecoin is benefitial to society.

ardy42 6y ago
> In many cases it is true, but the one legitimate use case is helping out in countries where monetary freedom is restricted. Don't forget the other major use case: online retail for illegal goods and services. Cash is impractical, and using the conventional payment systems is a good way for criminals to get caught.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

I wish I could filter out every "Bitcoin dumb LOL" reply that inevitably appears in the comments. We get it, we've heard all the jokes before, thank you.

xoralkindi 6y ago

You see money was one of the first distributed systems, it transcended languages and flags, the protocol was deployed everywhere. But this protocol of value exchange always had issues with trust, related to the double spending problem so it always required a third party. Gold is almost perfect because it is rare and recognizeable, but gold can be faked and is too heavy to carry around in large amounts also violence can come from gold and violence is a big no no for the cypherpunks. So for our traditional protocol to work we invented money printers that we trust to print our money (Banks) and monitor it for tax purposes. But now maybe for the first time in the world it is possible to have a P2P system of value exchange, no banks, kings or even governments required, the only requirement is a cpu. The new protocol offers new ways to structure our economy, it makes old ways obsolete but it has its own set of problems. Is the new protocol good or is it bad? I say it is too early to answer this, but I also think crypto-coins should be given a chance, it is good that people are starting to use this protocol it gives us real-life data to compare its pros and cons against our traditional protocol.