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I hope this will get attention. Just so more people will realise that bitcoin is dangerous to use and accept because it is not private. Even if youre doing noth

I hope this will get attention. Just so more people will realise that bitcoin is dangerous to use and accept because it is not private. Even if youre doing nothing wrong, would you want to unintentionally receive funds linked to this?

jbverschoor 6y ago
Same with a bas of cash, or just a transfer to your account.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Cash is private so it doesn't matter Bank transfers are not a peer-to-peer system and there are processes in place for anti-moneylaundering
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dieortin 6y ago
You could also receive funds linked to terrorism if you’re using any other form of currency.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Those funds won't have an immutable public record anyone can study and observe in 5 years with other forms of currency
bdamm 6y ago
One should always be aware of where one's money is coming from, otherwise one doesn't know who holds leverage over one's future cash flow. Bitcoin is not special in that regard, it's just another instrument for transmitting value.
rvz 6y ago
> Just so more people will realise that bitcoin is dangerous to use and accept because it is not private. So cash is just as dangerous then as it is also used by criminals?
- wavefunction 6y ago
  There are a lot of people who assume that cryptocurrency is an anonymous way to transmit value and while it's somewhat possible for the technically capable, it's good to educate people about the reality. Cash is often more anonymous than a publicly distributed ledger especially when the recipient and sender addresses are known. I of course do not support terrorism or funding terrorism, but I do support educating people so they don't take a risk they shouldn't have in the first place. Better to donate those funds to a local charity in your community that will provide constructive use for your immediate area.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Cash is private so it doesn't matter
scintill76 6y ago
I suggest the problem is more about you knowing, or the public knowing, that the funds are linked to it. After all, some dollars you receive might have a sordid past, but there's not such an easy way for anyone to publicly demonstrate exactly what it was.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  That is what I intended to imply
SimonPStevens 6y ago
I'm not sure of the point here, this seems a bit nonsensical. Do you avoid using cash too because criminals use it? Using or accepting Bitcoin is not dangerous because of this. And you have no more chance of unintentionally recieving funds linked to this than you have of unintentionally recieving cash used for criminal purposes. (Not intending to start an argument for or against Bitcoin, and there are other pros and cons of it I'm sure, but this particular one is not really valid)
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Cash is private so it doesn't matter. When you pay with it, nobody knows where it came from. You can have extreme inconvenience for being linked to illegal bitcoin transactions.
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    Eh, I usually don't like comparing bitcoin to cash, but you can be inconvenienced with cash as well. I had a roommate who had >$100K tied up into an online poker platform, which was frozen for months because the platform was doing some illegal activity.
    - smcl 6y ago
      That's not quite "cash"
  - SimonPStevens 6y ago
    Cash is only private if you never put it in a bank. But if the reason for taking the payment is legitimate you're going to have no more problems with Bitcoin than you will with cash in this regard. If your reason for taking the payment is illegal then I agree, Bitcoin puts you at some greater risk. But if that's you're point then perhaps you should be clearer. Bitcoin can be dangerous to use for criminals because it's more traceable. If your use is legal, it's no more or less dangerous than cash.
    - 6y ago
stickfigure 6y ago
> would you want to unintentionally receive funds linked to this? Unequivocally, yes. Just don't expect to get them back.
technonerd 6y ago
Dangerous to use if you're not careful. I guess that is one of the many downfalls of not having secure defaults. Taproot and Schnorr are slowly coming to bitcoin. But would this blog post even exist if they had used a coinjoin/payjoin or lightning?
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  It is essentially certain that strong privacy will never come to bitcoin. Taproot and schnorr will make no meaningful difference, unless you mean it will assist people in doing atomic swaps to a private currency like Monero. Average people will never make the effort to do expensive (or cheap) coinjoins that will make them look suspicious. Lightning network does not have strong privacy guarantees and it continues to struggle to gain adoption, safety and usability.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I may, perhaps, lack imagination, but I really can't fathom how privacy comes to a system where the fundamental artifact of creation is an ever-growing record of every transaction. It seems like the kernel of Bitcoin is maximally open information, not secrecy. Obfuscation of transaction is possible, but any solution that could actually hide transaction information would be incompatible with the trust model that Bitcoin is based on.
  - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
    Monero can be traced with CipherTrace.
    - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
      There is no evidence of this at all. In fact the US government put out a bounty to trace monero transactions just after Ciphertrace made such claim, and ciphertrace failed to win the bounty, so it appears to be ineffective
parliament32 6y ago
You do understand that I can go to your bank and make a deposit into your account with just your name and DOB, right?
- tanseydavid 6y ago
  You cannot do this in the US without presenting your own ID and electronic fingerprinting.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    Well.. exactly. Just like with bitcoin, there's a record of who gave money to who, but there's no need to "accept" or authorize the deposit. You have no way to refusing a donation from some fringe group into your account.
spurdoman77 6y ago
Depends what you are selling. It is not illegal to sell bread to criminals. Or cars. Maybe if done knowingly? I dont see big risks in accepting bitcoin as a payment method for legal goods and services.
hwillis 6y ago
gotta say, people sending me money is probably my very last concern about bitcoin
csomar 6y ago
Same thing could be said about the Internet. You are leaving digital traces and fingerprints all the time. Are you going to stop using the Word Wide Web?
sprash 6y ago
The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future. However right now the technology to properly anonymize bitcoin already exists via coinjoin wallets. The most mature implementation so far is the Samourai Wallet using Whirlpool. If you are doing it right there is no danger using Bitcoin at all. In fact it might even less dangerous than any other method of anonymous transactions including physical delivery of Gold.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  All BTC privacy technologies will be opt-in, and all empirical evidence shows this doesnt work - both from a technical and sociological perspective. On the technical side, analysis is always much more difficult to stop than people think. In terms of people's behaviour, adoption is nearly impossible and services will ban or flag such transactions, if mining pools even mine the transaction. Sure grandma can just practice output control (that I still struggle with after using BTC for 8+ years) and pay hundreds in fees for coinjoins with every transaction, problem solved /s > The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future. I only see papers finding flaws that prevent it from being private, and that people are struggling to get it to work even without thinking about privacy. Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now, lets not make absurd privacy claims alongside it. Relying on Tor is an issue in itself.
  - sprash 6y ago
    The problem is not that the technologies are opt-in. The problem is that there is no simple UI implementation at this point in time. In the end any anonymized Lightning Wallet transaction will be just as simple as scanning a QR code with a simple slider that lets you choose the level of anonymity. And the ability to "opt-in" will give the market the opportunity to properly price anonymity. This is a feature not a bug. > Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now Scaling is essentially a solved problem thanks to Lightning. Adoption is currently a problem but will become a non-problem as soon as transaction fees rise so much that it is worth the effort for everyone to get Lightning Network running. Right now this is not the case.
rootsudo 6y ago
People use cash all the time to fund terrorism. There is no difference. What about the US government using cash to fund future enemies of the USA?

jbverschoor 6y ago

Same with a bas of cash, or just a transfer to your account.

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Cash is private so it doesn't matter Bank transfers are not a peer-to-peer system and there are processes in place for anti-moneylaundering

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dieortin 6y ago

You could also receive funds linked to terrorism if you’re using any other form of currency.

thatguy0900 6y ago
Those funds won't have an immutable public record anyone can study and observe in 5 years with other forms of currency

bdamm 6y ago

One should always be aware of where one's money is coming from, otherwise one doesn't know who holds leverage over one's future cash flow. Bitcoin is not special in that regard, it's just another instrument for transmitting value.

rvz 6y ago

> Just so more people will realise that bitcoin is dangerous to use and accept because it is not private. So cash is just as dangerous then as it is also used by criminals?

wavefunction 6y ago
There are a lot of people who assume that cryptocurrency is an anonymous way to transmit value and while it's somewhat possible for the technically capable, it's good to educate people about the reality. Cash is often more anonymous than a publicly distributed ledger especially when the recipient and sender addresses are known. I of course do not support terrorism or funding terrorism, but I do support educating people so they don't take a risk they shouldn't have in the first place. Better to donate those funds to a local charity in your community that will provide constructive use for your immediate area.
ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Cash is private so it doesn't matter

scintill76 6y ago

I suggest the problem is more about you knowing, or the public knowing, that the funds are linked to it. After all, some dollars you receive might have a sordid past, but there's not such an easy way for anyone to publicly demonstrate exactly what it was.

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
That is what I intended to imply

SimonPStevens 6y ago

I'm not sure of the point here, this seems a bit nonsensical. Do you avoid using cash too because criminals use it? Using or accepting Bitcoin is not dangerous because of this. And you have no more chance of unintentionally recieving funds linked to this than you have of unintentionally recieving cash used for criminal purposes. (Not intending to start an argument for or against Bitcoin, and there are other pros and cons of it I'm sure, but this particular one is not really valid)

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Cash is private so it doesn't matter. When you pay with it, nobody knows where it came from. You can have extreme inconvenience for being linked to illegal bitcoin transactions.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  Eh, I usually don't like comparing bitcoin to cash, but you can be inconvenienced with cash as well. I had a roommate who had >$100K tied up into an online poker platform, which was frozen for months because the platform was doing some illegal activity.
  - smcl 6y ago
    That's not quite "cash"
- SimonPStevens 6y ago
  Cash is only private if you never put it in a bank. But if the reason for taking the payment is legitimate you're going to have no more problems with Bitcoin than you will with cash in this regard. If your reason for taking the payment is illegal then I agree, Bitcoin puts you at some greater risk. But if that's you're point then perhaps you should be clearer. Bitcoin can be dangerous to use for criminals because it's more traceable. If your use is legal, it's no more or less dangerous than cash.
  - 6y ago

stickfigure 6y ago

> would you want to unintentionally receive funds linked to this? Unequivocally, yes. Just don't expect to get them back.

technonerd 6y ago

Dangerous to use if you're not careful. I guess that is one of the many downfalls of not having secure defaults. Taproot and Schnorr are slowly coming to bitcoin. But would this blog post even exist if they had used a coinjoin/payjoin or lightning?

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
It is essentially certain that strong privacy will never come to bitcoin. Taproot and schnorr will make no meaningful difference, unless you mean it will assist people in doing atomic swaps to a private currency like Monero. Average people will never make the effort to do expensive (or cheap) coinjoins that will make them look suspicious. Lightning network does not have strong privacy guarantees and it continues to struggle to gain adoption, safety and usability.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  I may, perhaps, lack imagination, but I really can't fathom how privacy comes to a system where the fundamental artifact of creation is an ever-growing record of every transaction. It seems like the kernel of Bitcoin is maximally open information, not secrecy. Obfuscation of transaction is possible, but any solution that could actually hide transaction information would be incompatible with the trust model that Bitcoin is based on.
- ampdepolymerase 6y ago
  Monero can be traced with CipherTrace.
  - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
    There is no evidence of this at all. In fact the US government put out a bounty to trace monero transactions just after Ciphertrace made such claim, and ciphertrace failed to win the bounty, so it appears to be ineffective

parliament32 6y ago

You do understand that I can go to your bank and make a deposit into your account with just your name and DOB, right?

tanseydavid 6y ago
You cannot do this in the US without presenting your own ID and electronic fingerprinting.
- parliament32 6y ago
  Well.. exactly. Just like with bitcoin, there's a record of who gave money to who, but there's no need to "accept" or authorize the deposit. You have no way to refusing a donation from some fringe group into your account.

spurdoman77 6y ago

Depends what you are selling. It is not illegal to sell bread to criminals. Or cars. Maybe if done knowingly? I dont see big risks in accepting bitcoin as a payment method for legal goods and services.

hwillis 6y ago

gotta say, people sending me money is probably my very last concern about bitcoin

csomar 6y ago

Same thing could be said about the Internet. You are leaving digital traces and fingerprints all the time. Are you going to stop using the Word Wide Web?

sprash 6y ago

The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future. However right now the technology to properly anonymize bitcoin already exists via coinjoin wallets. The most mature implementation so far is the Samourai Wallet using Whirlpool. If you are doing it right there is no danger using Bitcoin at all. In fact it might even less dangerous than any other method of anonymous transactions including physical delivery of Gold.

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
All BTC privacy technologies will be opt-in, and all empirical evidence shows this doesnt work - both from a technical and sociological perspective. On the technical side, analysis is always much more difficult to stop than people think. In terms of people's behaviour, adoption is nearly impossible and services will ban or flag such transactions, if mining pools even mine the transaction. Sure grandma can just practice output control (that I still struggle with after using BTC for 8+ years) and pay hundreds in fees for coinjoins with every transaction, problem solved /s > The Lightning network in conjunction with Tor will make tracing of transactions nearly impossible in the future. I only see papers finding flaws that prevent it from being private, and that people are struggling to get it to work even without thinking about privacy. Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now, lets not make absurd privacy claims alongside it. Relying on Tor is an issue in itself.
- sprash 6y ago
  The problem is not that the technologies are opt-in. The problem is that there is no simple UI implementation at this point in time. In the end any anonymized Lightning Wallet transaction will be just as simple as scanning a QR code with a simple slider that lets you choose the level of anonymity. And the ability to "opt-in" will give the market the opportunity to properly price anonymity. This is a feature not a bug. > Scaling is still a difficult and unsolved problem for now Scaling is essentially a solved problem thanks to Lightning. Adoption is currently a problem but will become a non-problem as soon as transaction fees rise so much that it is worth the effort for everyone to get Lightning Network running. Right now this is not the case.

rootsudo 6y ago

People use cash all the time to fund terrorism. There is no difference. What about the US government using cash to fund future enemies of the USA?