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Senators seek crackdown on "Bitcoin" currency
- pavel_lishin 15y agoNext, WoW gold.
- junklight 15y agonext, money. "I heard that this guy went to his dealer with some cash and walked away with some drugs leaving no paper trail whatsoever."
- jonprins 15y agoIn The Sprawl trilogy, cash is almost never used for legitimate purchases. It's almost exclusively used for black/grey-market transactions.
- DrHankPym 15y agoYou might not be that far off. Electronic payments are becoming the standard. Banks love electronic payments.
- omouse 15y agoThey're already trying to limit how much cash you're legally allowed to carry without having to explain yourself to a police officer in some states. You don't need to make cash illegal though, you just have to make the alternatives really really attractive.
- Symmetry 15y agoI think you're joking, but in some jurisdictions having large amounts of cash may be considered grounds for seizing it by the police. Sometimes this leads to abuse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Police_seizures_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Police_seizures_s...
- jarek 15y agoI'm assuming they can quite easily subpoena Blizzard to find out details of transactions if they have reasonable cause.
- jarin 15y agoThat's it, I'm moving all my savings over to EVE timecards. They'll never go after that, CCP has an economist on staff.
- jaysonelliot 15y agoThere's nothing governments hate more than watching people get along fine without them.
- m104 15y agoJust as there's nothing that gives conspiracy theorists more reinforcement than a government crackdown.
- zcid 15y agoI fail to see any implication of conspiracy in his statement. It isn't even referencing a real human emotion or intentional malice but anthropomorphizing the institution of government. Growth of government jobs, department budgets, and votes for elected officials all require a constantly increasing scope. It's built in to the system. There is no (easy) mechanism for relinquishing control in an area. Unfortunately, the end result is accelerating government bloat and loss of freedoms. There is no need for conspiracy when human nature ensures the same result.
- gburt 15y agoWhat does this have to do with the parent post? He didn't imply a conspiracy. There's no conspiracy -- except that government officials don't like things that challenge their sources of power, which is what these two senators think Bitcoin is ("people can trade DRUGS in bitcoin, we don't like that and there's no one to phone up to ask who to arrest!"). The parent post isn't really right either -- Bitcoin will never replace a traditional fiat currency. You can't pay your taxes in it, so it has no intrinsic value at all, when the bubble ends, no one will accept it as payment for goods and services except to the extent that it is exchangable for USD.
- joshontheweb 15y agoyeah, this happens all the time everyday with cash. life goes on...
- verisimilitude 15y agoParent is wisdom disguised as snark. The reason given for outlawing bitcoin: drugs. I think the real reason is taxes.
- shareme 15y agohmm so how will they outlaw bartering? But than again the derivative traders, they are allowed to make free money and steal without any change..
- hugh3 15y agoSorry shareme, but this is pretty much a perfect example of a bad HN comment. hmm so how will they outlaw bartering? Unjustified logical leap. But than again the derivative traders Misspelling. they are allowed to make free money and steal Nonsensical accusation against a group of people engaged in an activity which I'm not sure you fully understand. without any change.. Incomprehensible. Please think before you type.
- bxr 15y ago>which I'm not sure you fully understand. Ah, condescension, now that is a perfect example of a typical HN comment.
- tptacek 15y agoIs he wrong? How is he wrong?
- cromulent 15y agoI don't think bxr is saying that hugh3 is wrong. He's saying that he is being condescending (although I'm not so sure this is typical). I guess hugh3 could have just said "Nonsensical accusation" and his point that it was "pretty much a perfect example of a bad HN comment" might have been even stronger without speculation on shareme's level of understanding of derivative trading.
- tptacek 15y agoSure, but 'hugh3 didn't write that comment to be mean. He's making an example out of something that really is an example of one of the archetypical thread-disrupting issue-forking politics-inducing conspiracy-theoretic superficial toxic comments. That's what I see there. You can obviously disagree.
- Bud 15y agoThis headline seems a bit hyperbolic; the article does not actually substantiate the part about Schumer going after Bitcoin. It does reiterate the news about Schumer wanting Silk Road shut down; that was reported yesterday on HN. But there's nothing new here that says that Senators are going after Bitcoin, specifically, except for the headline.
- zinkem 15y agoThe headline is accurate. They seek action, they are not acting yet. You're right that there is nothing new here, however.
- kilroy123 15y agoThere's always been an untraceable currency sold and traded globally. Gold. You can't trace it back to the origin, as long as it's been melted down. The only thing is, you can't easily transport it. And lets be honest, how many people are willing to accept gold? This is scary stuff for governments all over the world, not because you can buy drugs or use the currency for illicit reasons, it's because -- taxes and bypassing traditional financial institutions. (Just think paypal) If you can move money around the world securely and anonymously, you can hide your money from the tax man. At least in theory...
- d0ne 15y agoThe problem is not how many people are willing to accept gold it is there are not enough people willing to pay with it. Very large financial transactions on multi-currency, multi-nation, trading markets use Gold and Oil Futures as currency. There are storage facilities around the globe that will actually move physical gold from one private 'vault' to another and confirm the transactions. The end user has an interface similar to online banking and doesn't have to leave their desk.
- olefoo 15y ago"You can't trace it back to the origin, as long as it's been melted down." Allow me to introduce you to the concept of Isotope Fingerprinting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_fingerprinting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_fingerprinting So even melting doesn't necessarily prevent tracing.
- daniel-cussen 15y agoI'm not sure you can do that with gold because there's only one stable/naturally-occurring isotope, and the most stable other isotope has a short half-life of six months. Labeled gold's radioactivity may be a give-away.
- foob 15y agoWhat about trace element analysis?
- benihana 15y agoThis isn't about drugs. This about the coercive force of government wanting a cut of the profits. Think of it as a protection racket.
- tsotha 15y agoYep. Falls in the same category as money laundering.
- CoryMathews 15y ago"reports that they are used to buy illegal drugs anonymously." holy crap I can do the same thing with dollar bills! Shut down the monetary system also..
- wedesoft 15y agoShutting down Bitcoin because of illegal drug trade is like banning cryptography because of terrorism: It is not solving the problem and it is not a valid reason for stopping innovation.
- oakenshield 15y agoYet, it did not stop them from trying _really hard_, for example, with the Clipper chip and export restrictions on software that used crypto. Even now, foreigners who come to the US to work or study face extra scrutiny (whatever that means) if they work in crypto.
- kevinpet 15y agoYep, it's exactly like that: ban something with perfectly legitimate uses under the pretext of something criminal.
- extension 15y agoThe market doesn't seem to be worried http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10zvztgSzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10zvztgSzm1g10zm2...
- rexreed 15y agoIsn't the time and effort of the government better spent in legalizing the drug trade and earning revenue in the form of taxes rather than trying to fight a war that is obviously unwinnable?
- hugh3 15y agohttp://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
- lukeschlather 15y agoThat applies just as well to this whole thread, doesn't it? I have half a mind to flag the article except the article is actually important.
- Daniel_Newby 15y ago> earning revenue in the form of taxes What good are taxes for asset forfeiture beneficiaries and the prison guards' unions?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- gasull 15y agoDidn't some politicians try to shut down Paypal in its early days? I remember that from reading The Paypal Wars.
- edge17 15y agoCould you elaborate or provide some linkage? I'm curious what the perceived issues were back then.
- endian 15y agoTo paraphrase the Beastie Boys[1], "You gotta fight / for your right / to barrrTER!" [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk
- Joakal 15y agoIf DEA confiscates proceeds of a crime and it's all Bitcoins. Will they cash them and give further validity to the Bitcoins or is it effectively sent to /dev/null indirectly increasing the value and indirect lesson in drug economics? Interesting dilemma for them.
- natmaster 15y agoThe federal government raided the "Liberty Dollar" factory, which isn't even an actual currency (just a collector's item). Why are they being so cautious with something that's actually supposed to replace the dollar?
- jonknee 15y agoLiberty Dollar was absolutely meant as currency, not collector's items. What kind of collector collects certificates to the actual items and not the items themselves?
- miespanolesmalo 15y agoWait a sec. You can buy illegal drugs with Bitcoins?! Thanks senators!
- etherael 15y agoFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- click170 15y agoRead the article as s/bitcoin/cash/ and you see that all the things they hate about bitcoins exist with cash already, but they don't care about that.
- gburt 15y agoIn case anyone's interested, this is the Bitcoin "drugs" site in question, "Silk Road." http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginable http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-...
- ww520 15y agoCould this be the push Bitcoin need to go bigtime? Anytime the government banning something it would inadvertently make it more popular.