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Not really. If owning a coin becomes illegal it can fall below zero where you are paying someone to take your coins. Something similar to oil happened a while a

Not really. If owning a coin becomes illegal it can fall below zero where you are paying someone to take your coins. Something similar to oil happened a while ago when storage had become an issue so prices fell below 0$

derefr 5y ago
Oil is physical; it takes up space, and needs special protections to not pollute the container it's stored in. Digital goods, meanwhile, can just be transferred permanently "into the void" (i.e. to an account without an associated key.)
- tumblewit 5y ago
  Interesting didn’t know this. I always assumed it had to go to someone else. So digital currency can’t go below zero (or where you are paying someone to take it off you).
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    If you delete your wallet, nobody has the money any more. “Sending it into the void” only helps with proving that fact to someone else.
  - roywiggins 5y ago
    You can just send to an arbitrary public key whose private key is unknown and unknowable. Eg nobody knows the private key corresponding to "00000000000000000000000" or whatever. The chances of someone stumbling across the correct private key is ~zero, even if that address is otherwise valid. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has_got_cash_to_burn_40_btc_sent_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has...
- croes 5y ago
  There is no void for digital data, it's always some kind of data storage. RAM, HDD, SSD etc. If the data is send to void it's gone.
  - SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
    That is exactly the point of the comment you’re replying to.
- harikb 5y ago
  This implies there isn’t any contract obligations/fine print at the point of link to real world / real identity (exchange). In a hypothetical world, if coinbase made you sign things at signup and later demanded money for the upkeep of the network caused by your own transactions, I don’t think you can say no to that easily. Compare this to an HOA demanding a $100k payment from each condo owner in the Miami condo repair / collapse story. Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo. It is not about storage cost and transportation - it is whatever contract you agreed to when taking the investment or liability.
  - derefr 5y ago
    To be clear, we're talking about doing this in advance of something bad like that happening. Legal damages like that mostly attach to a sort of "snapshot state" — whoever held each thing at the time that the damages happened. So you can't get away from the debt by throwing away the condo. But if you already had thrown away the condo before the building collapsed, I don't think it'd be your responsibility. (Compare/contrast: what if, instead of burning the deed before the collapse, you instead transferred the deed to another condo owner? Or, say, to the HOA itself? Both of those are just as simple in the crypto case as "throwing away" the token is. In the real world, transfers like that need to be witnessed under contract law. But in the crypto world, most tokens don't have sophisticated logic for recipient-agreement-gating transfers like that. You can send most kinds of tokens to people whether they want them or not.)
  - analognoise 5y ago
    You can absolutely walk away and abandon your condo in that case.
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    > Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo. You can if you go bankrupt. It's not like condo ownership is non-dischargeable in the same sense that, say, Superfund site ownership is.
- tromp 5y ago
  In Mimblewimble blockchains you cannot "burn" coins, as the receiver output must come with a rangeproof that also proves the ability to spend it. Of course, you can still throw away the recipient keys after use; you just cannot prove that you did.
IncRnd 5y ago
Would you pay someone to take your $0 crypto coins away from you? That doesn't seem sustainable.

derefr 5y ago

Oil is physical; it takes up space, and needs special protections to not pollute the container it's stored in. Digital goods, meanwhile, can just be transferred permanently "into the void" (i.e. to an account without an associated key.)

tumblewit 5y ago
Interesting didn’t know this. I always assumed it had to go to someone else. So digital currency can’t go below zero (or where you are paying someone to take it off you).
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  If you delete your wallet, nobody has the money any more. “Sending it into the void” only helps with proving that fact to someone else.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  You can just send to an arbitrary public key whose private key is unknown and unknowable. Eg nobody knows the private key corresponding to "00000000000000000000000" or whatever. The chances of someone stumbling across the correct private key is ~zero, even if that address is otherwise valid. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has_got_cash_to_burn_40_btc_sent_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3k8dnq/someone_has...
croes 5y ago
There is no void for digital data, it's always some kind of data storage. RAM, HDD, SSD etc. If the data is send to void it's gone.
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  That is exactly the point of the comment you’re replying to.
harikb 5y ago
This implies there isn’t any contract obligations/fine print at the point of link to real world / real identity (exchange). In a hypothetical world, if coinbase made you sign things at signup and later demanded money for the upkeep of the network caused by your own transactions, I don’t think you can say no to that easily. Compare this to an HOA demanding a $100k payment from each condo owner in the Miami condo repair / collapse story. Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo. It is not about storage cost and transportation - it is whatever contract you agreed to when taking the investment or liability.
- derefr 5y ago
  To be clear, we're talking about doing this in advance of something bad like that happening. Legal damages like that mostly attach to a sort of "snapshot state" — whoever held each thing at the time that the damages happened. So you can't get away from the debt by throwing away the condo. But if you already had thrown away the condo before the building collapsed, I don't think it'd be your responsibility. (Compare/contrast: what if, instead of burning the deed before the collapse, you instead transferred the deed to another condo owner? Or, say, to the HOA itself? Both of those are just as simple in the crypto case as "throwing away" the token is. In the real world, transfers like that need to be witnessed under contract law. But in the crypto world, most tokens don't have sophisticated logic for recipient-agreement-gating transfers like that. You can send most kinds of tokens to people whether they want them or not.)
- analognoise 5y ago
  You can absolutely walk away and abandon your condo in that case.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  > Now let us assume that condo is worth less than $100k. I don’t think you can just walk away and abandon your condo. You can if you go bankrupt. It's not like condo ownership is non-dischargeable in the same sense that, say, Superfund site ownership is.
tromp 5y ago
In Mimblewimble blockchains you cannot "burn" coins, as the receiver output must come with a rangeproof that also proves the ability to spend it. Of course, you can still throw away the recipient keys after use; you just cannot prove that you did.

IncRnd 5y ago

Would you pay someone to take your $0 crypto coins away from you? That doesn't seem sustainable.