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With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. With IPFS you can host and access files that can't be censored. (same

With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. With IPFS you can host and access files that can't be censored. (same level of censorship resistance as torrents) With Monero you can transact free from surveillance. The biggest applications on Ethereum right now is decentralized finance, with billions of dollars locked in.

corrys 6y ago
Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.
- doggosphere 6y ago
  Lets clarify semantics. Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Can the government seize your bank account directly? Yes. Can they threaten you with jail if you don't hand over your Bitcoin? Yes
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Yes, it can. The U.S. government has in fact seized Bitcoin directly and sold it at auction several times. It is arguably the single largest non-exchange seller of Bitcoin in Bitcoin's history.
    - doggosphere 6y ago
      It can only be taken in these events: 1) Seed phrases are discovered (ie. plaintext document or physical artifact). 2) Seed phrases are handed over by willing party. If #1 doesn't exist, then #2 is the only option.
      - elvatoloco55 6y ago
        Nobody here seems interested in actually understanding how BTC works. It looks like a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals coping with not buying early.
      - gamblor956 6y ago
        This is the same as with cash money. Money can only be seized if the safe is found. And the combination is handed over by a willing party. The difference is that money is actually more secure because you don't have a public ledger telling you that it exists and who owns it and how much of it they own as you do with the public cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
        doggosphere 6y ago
        Cash needs to be accessible to be useful. Crypto is magnitudes more accessible. I can travel to any country in the world with an encrypted usb drive of my seed words, and no one is wiser. OR even upload a file to the internet and forego carrying anything at all. A government can try to censor transactions belonging to an address, but we don't have good precedent to see how the network will behave. Miners in other jurisdictions have no reason to follow someone else's censorship.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    > Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. A government could seize miners, and given that ~50% of the world's Bitcoin mining capacity appears to be located in one country, that might give them considerable leeway to rewrite the blockchain to their liking.
    - doggosphere 6y ago
      Yes. The solution to this is a software fork.
      - microtherion 6y ago
        Did you mean "soft fork", or are you thinking of a different concept I'm not familiar with? Forks can and have been used to deal with isolated malicious incidents, but do you think they can be successful against an actor in extended control of a substantial part of the hash rate?
        doggosphere 6y ago
        You can alter the hashing algorithm to one that is more ASIC resistant. Monero did this.
schmichael 6y ago
> With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. Private keys can be confiscated like anything else. They won't do you much good if you're thrown in prison for not turning them over if legally compelled. Sure you can try to hide your ownership, but my point is that actual cryptocurrencies are only one layer of very deep opsec you need to resist state actors. For the common illegal goods consumer it's unlikely to do much more than provide a false sense of security due to other opsec failures (use of phones, use of cookies, use of mailing addresses, use of non-e2e chat, using a hosted wallet, lack of anonymous vpn, etc etc etc). > The biggest applications on Ethereum right now is decentralized finance, with billions of dollars locked in. Interesting use of "dollars." How much is actually Tether? How much is manipulated market cap (through wash trading or more convoluted defi mechanisms)? How much is actually liquid USD?
- doggosphere 6y ago
  A wrench attack will always be the easiest vector. That said, there is no other asset in history that gives you this level of security for such marginal cost. The cost of securing $100 is essentially the same as the cost of securing $100m.
  - ProZsolt 6y ago
    The chances of loosing $100 is essentially the same as the chances of loosing $100m. If you loose your private key nobody can help you recover your money.
    - doggosphere 6y ago
      I would hope that someone with $100m in crypto is smart enough to not leave their seed words on a piece of paper on their coffee table. Your exactly correct that nobody can help you recover your money if you lose your keys.
mdoms 6y ago
> With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. So the killer app for bitcoin is owning bitcoin?

corrys 6y ago

Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.

doggosphere 6y ago
Lets clarify semantics. Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Can the government seize your bank account directly? Yes. Can they threaten you with jail if you don't hand over your Bitcoin? Yes
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Yes, it can. The U.S. government has in fact seized Bitcoin directly and sold it at auction several times. It is arguably the single largest non-exchange seller of Bitcoin in Bitcoin's history.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    It can only be taken in these events: 1) Seed phrases are discovered (ie. plaintext document or physical artifact). 2) Seed phrases are handed over by willing party. If #1 doesn't exist, then #2 is the only option.
    - elvatoloco55 6y ago
      Nobody here seems interested in actually understanding how BTC works. It looks like a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals coping with not buying early.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      This is the same as with cash money. Money can only be seized if the safe is found. And the combination is handed over by a willing party. The difference is that money is actually more secure because you don't have a public ledger telling you that it exists and who owns it and how much of it they own as you do with the public cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
      - doggosphere 6y ago
        Cash needs to be accessible to be useful. Crypto is magnitudes more accessible. I can travel to any country in the world with an encrypted usb drive of my seed words, and no one is wiser. OR even upload a file to the internet and forego carrying anything at all. A government can try to censor transactions belonging to an address, but we don't have good precedent to see how the network will behave. Miners in other jurisdictions have no reason to follow someone else's censorship.
- microtherion 6y ago
  > Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. A government could seize miners, and given that ~50% of the world's Bitcoin mining capacity appears to be located in one country, that might give them considerable leeway to rewrite the blockchain to their liking.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    Yes. The solution to this is a software fork.
    - microtherion 6y ago
      Did you mean "soft fork", or are you thinking of a different concept I'm not familiar with? Forks can and have been used to deal with isolated malicious incidents, but do you think they can be successful against an actor in extended control of a substantial part of the hash rate?
      - doggosphere 6y ago
        You can alter the hashing algorithm to one that is more ASIC resistant. Monero did this.

schmichael 6y ago

> With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. Private keys can be confiscated like anything else. They won't do you much good if you're thrown in prison for not turning them over if legally compelled. Sure you can try to hide your ownership, but my point is that actual cryptocurrencies are only one layer of very deep opsec you need to resist state actors. For the common illegal goods consumer it's unlikely to do much more than provide a false sense of security due to other opsec failures (use of phones, use of cookies, use of mailing addresses, use of non-e2e chat, using a hosted wallet, lack of anonymous vpn, etc etc etc). > The biggest applications on Ethereum right now is decentralized finance, with billions of dollars locked in. Interesting use of "dollars." How much is actually Tether? How much is manipulated market cap (through wash trading or more convoluted defi mechanisms)? How much is actually liquid USD?

doggosphere 6y ago
A wrench attack will always be the easiest vector. That said, there is no other asset in history that gives you this level of security for such marginal cost. The cost of securing $100 is essentially the same as the cost of securing $100m.
- ProZsolt 6y ago
  The chances of loosing $100 is essentially the same as the chances of loosing $100m. If you loose your private key nobody can help you recover your money.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    I would hope that someone with $100m in crypto is smart enough to not leave their seed words on a piece of paper on their coffee table. Your exactly correct that nobody can help you recover your money if you lose your keys.

mdoms 6y ago

> With Bitcoin you own property that can never be confiscated or debased by any government. So the killer app for bitcoin is owning bitcoin?