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Sorry, blockchains don’t work that way. We ain’t forking for senator Karen. She can fork off. It does not seem reasonable in the slightest. There is no way to

Sorry, blockchains don’t work that way. We ain’t forking for senator Karen. She can fork off. It does not seem reasonable in the slightest. There is no way to know a transaction is forbidden. Anyway, this technology was invented so tyrants have no power here. You will take my node from my cold dead hands!

lern_too_spel 5y ago
You can believe they don't, but the fact is that they do, and if this law passes, you will suffer the consequences of breaking the law if you run a noncompliant node, just as you would suffer the consequences of running a noncompliant bank. Blockchains don't magically make you above the law.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    There is a difference between being ahead of the law and being above the law. The former just means the law hasn't caught up to regulating a scammer. The latter means the law is incapable of regulating a scammer. The people duped into the decentralized cryptocurrency scam have mistakenly believed that cryptocurrencies fall into the latter category. First China and now the US are correcting that misconception.
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      I get it, you think it’s all a scam. You are free to believe that. The thousands of BTC nodes running in china right now beg to differ. I actually expect china to do a 180 degree policy shift mid year 2022. The law is incapable of regulating a system like Bitcoin. This is by design. I know you don’t like that, but the cypherpunks know their enemy. The only misconception is thinking anyone can law this technology away. Only math and physics matters. The law is just human noise.
      - lern_too_spel 5y ago
        Centralized banks also run on math and physics, yet the law regulates them. This bill clearly explains how it will work, and you have provided no reason for why it wouldn't. China used to run more than half of all Bitcoin nodes. Now it's already less than 1% and dropping. The only reason it is still that high is that they haven't bothered to start enforcement yet. China has to deal with financial fraud just as much as any other large country, so there is no reason to expect they will deregulate cryptocurrencies or any other financial instruments.
        randomhodler84 5y ago
        Centralized banks… Literally designed against such things. Nodes are not mining nodes. The entirety of the miners could leave the US (this would not be a good thing for the US economy in the future), and the system would still work. You think I am crazy. Crazy is not understand the largest separation between money and state in human history. This bill is fantasy. A) Nobody is going to accept changes to the codebase to enforce any of this. It is an attack and will be routed around. B) You cannot tell apriori a tx is from a sanctioned party, and after the fact it’s way too late. C) you cannot undo transactions D) blocks and rewards can be mined so that they are unattributable. We are 13 years in here. We never would have gotten past year 2 if States could do anything about this. Anyway. We both know each other’s opinions. I like mine because “honey badger does not give a shit”.
        lern_too_spel 5y ago
        > The entirety of the miners could leave the US (this would not be a good thing for the US economy in the future) This is the outcome I expect, and the US will have less energy waste, which is a nice benefit. > Crazy is not understand the largest separation between money and state in human history. Bitcoin is not more separate from the state than gold and silver, and it suffers many of the same problems. > You cannot tell apriori a tx is from a sanctioned party As soon as a wallet is identified as belonging to a sanctioned individual, no further transactions from that wallet will be accepted. > and after the fact it’s way too late... you cannot undo transactions This is not necessary. The value of the transferred coins drops because all downstream UTXOs are blacklisted from regulated exchanges. Nobody in the US or any other country that regulates cryptocurrencies will accept the tainted coins. > blocks and rewards can be mined so that they are unattributable. This has the same problem as currently unknown wallets that I listed above. As soon as the owner of a wallet is identified, all its contents become tainted. In practice, this means that people will be less likely to accept payment from unknown wallets, which results in market forces that will push for every transacting wallet to be identified. > We are 13 years in here. Because the state has ignored the harms of decentralized cryptocurrencies until this point. This is simply about being ahead of the law instead of being above the law.
  - viro 5y ago
    Violating sanctions is a 30 year jail sentence.
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      I bet the CEO of Bitcoin would be real scared if they existed. It’s not about violating sanctions, it’s about a system being incompatible with enforcement. Of course authorities will try to go after those that attempt to violate sanctions - they should. This is not a call to violate sanctions. It is a cold reality about the nature of enforcement. But the system itself, the local laws are irrelevant to the software implementation.
      - viro 5y ago
        Oh, you seem to be missing that right now those laws are up to the banks. When you remove the banks that makes every node liable for those laws. You having bad tech that makes it hard for you to follow the law isn't the laws problem.
humanwhosits 5y ago
> There is no way to know a transaction is forbidden Then you can't do it without having a law enforcement issue coming your way. It'll be like distributing copyrighted content but worse
Imnimo 5y ago
Imagine this defense to other crimes. It's illegal to run over pedestrians, but I built my car without any windows, so there's no way for me to know who or what I might be running over! Good luck with that!
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Imagine thinking a car, a physical object that exists in a single space under one legal jurisdiction compares to a free and open source software protocol that has been running for 13 years in 100 countries.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    That protocol runs on computers owned by people who live in a legal jurisdiction. The protocol doesn't run in some parallel dimension. The people who run nodes are subject to laws, and the people who interact with nodes are subject to laws. You've been confused into thinking that laws can't apply to them merely because laws haven't yet been written to apply to them. Now that governments feel they have a reason to write these laws, the laws are being written. In the early years of the Internet, purchases on the Internet were not taxed. That does not mean they couldn't be taxed, despite what many people thought.
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      This meme forever: https://i.redd.it/ca4fwtln57h81.png https://i.redd.it/ca4fwtln57h81.png We live on different planets. I don’t think you even understand where I am coming from.
      - lern_too_spel 5y ago
        I don't think you understand how the law works ir how Bitcoin works. I clearly understand how Bitcoin works, having studied the protocol 10 years ago. Warren also clearly understands how Bitcoin works, having written the bill with Levien's help.

lern_too_spel 5y ago

You can believe they don't, but the fact is that they do, and if this law passes, you will suffer the consequences of breaking the law if you run a noncompliant node, just as you would suffer the consequences of running a noncompliant bank. Blockchains don't magically make you above the law.

randomhodler84 5y ago
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  There is a difference between being ahead of the law and being above the law. The former just means the law hasn't caught up to regulating a scammer. The latter means the law is incapable of regulating a scammer. The people duped into the decentralized cryptocurrency scam have mistakenly believed that cryptocurrencies fall into the latter category. First China and now the US are correcting that misconception.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    I get it, you think it’s all a scam. You are free to believe that. The thousands of BTC nodes running in china right now beg to differ. I actually expect china to do a 180 degree policy shift mid year 2022. The law is incapable of regulating a system like Bitcoin. This is by design. I know you don’t like that, but the cypherpunks know their enemy. The only misconception is thinking anyone can law this technology away. Only math and physics matters. The law is just human noise.
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      Centralized banks also run on math and physics, yet the law regulates them. This bill clearly explains how it will work, and you have provided no reason for why it wouldn't. China used to run more than half of all Bitcoin nodes. Now it's already less than 1% and dropping. The only reason it is still that high is that they haven't bothered to start enforcement yet. China has to deal with financial fraud just as much as any other large country, so there is no reason to expect they will deregulate cryptocurrencies or any other financial instruments.
      - randomhodler84 5y ago
        Centralized banks… Literally designed against such things. Nodes are not mining nodes. The entirety of the miners could leave the US (this would not be a good thing for the US economy in the future), and the system would still work. You think I am crazy. Crazy is not understand the largest separation between money and state in human history. This bill is fantasy. A) Nobody is going to accept changes to the codebase to enforce any of this. It is an attack and will be routed around. B) You cannot tell apriori a tx is from a sanctioned party, and after the fact it’s way too late. C) you cannot undo transactions D) blocks and rewards can be mined so that they are unattributable. We are 13 years in here. We never would have gotten past year 2 if States could do anything about this. Anyway. We both know each other’s opinions. I like mine because “honey badger does not give a shit”.
        lern_too_spel 5y ago
        > The entirety of the miners could leave the US (this would not be a good thing for the US economy in the future) This is the outcome I expect, and the US will have less energy waste, which is a nice benefit. > Crazy is not understand the largest separation between money and state in human history. Bitcoin is not more separate from the state than gold and silver, and it suffers many of the same problems. > You cannot tell apriori a tx is from a sanctioned party As soon as a wallet is identified as belonging to a sanctioned individual, no further transactions from that wallet will be accepted. > and after the fact it’s way too late... you cannot undo transactions This is not necessary. The value of the transferred coins drops because all downstream UTXOs are blacklisted from regulated exchanges. Nobody in the US or any other country that regulates cryptocurrencies will accept the tainted coins. > blocks and rewards can be mined so that they are unattributable. This has the same problem as currently unknown wallets that I listed above. As soon as the owner of a wallet is identified, all its contents become tainted. In practice, this means that people will be less likely to accept payment from unknown wallets, which results in market forces that will push for every transacting wallet to be identified. > We are 13 years in here. Because the state has ignored the harms of decentralized cryptocurrencies until this point. This is simply about being ahead of the law instead of being above the law.
- viro 5y ago
  Violating sanctions is a 30 year jail sentence.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    I bet the CEO of Bitcoin would be real scared if they existed. It’s not about violating sanctions, it’s about a system being incompatible with enforcement. Of course authorities will try to go after those that attempt to violate sanctions - they should. This is not a call to violate sanctions. It is a cold reality about the nature of enforcement. But the system itself, the local laws are irrelevant to the software implementation.
    - viro 5y ago
      Oh, you seem to be missing that right now those laws are up to the banks. When you remove the banks that makes every node liable for those laws. You having bad tech that makes it hard for you to follow the law isn't the laws problem.

humanwhosits 5y ago

> There is no way to know a transaction is forbidden Then you can't do it without having a law enforcement issue coming your way. It'll be like distributing copyrighted content but worse

Imnimo 5y ago

Imagine this defense to other crimes. It's illegal to run over pedestrians, but I built my car without any windows, so there's no way for me to know who or what I might be running over! Good luck with that!

randomhodler84 5y ago
Imagine thinking a car, a physical object that exists in a single space under one legal jurisdiction compares to a free and open source software protocol that has been running for 13 years in 100 countries.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  That protocol runs on computers owned by people who live in a legal jurisdiction. The protocol doesn't run in some parallel dimension. The people who run nodes are subject to laws, and the people who interact with nodes are subject to laws. You've been confused into thinking that laws can't apply to them merely because laws haven't yet been written to apply to them. Now that governments feel they have a reason to write these laws, the laws are being written. In the early years of the Internet, purchases on the Internet were not taxed. That does not mean they couldn't be taxed, despite what many people thought.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    This meme forever: https://i.redd.it/ca4fwtln57h81.png https://i.redd.it/ca4fwtln57h81.png We live on different planets. I don’t think you even understand where I am coming from.
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      I don't think you understand how the law works ir how Bitcoin works. I clearly understand how Bitcoin works, having studied the protocol 10 years ago. Warren also clearly understands how Bitcoin works, having written the bill with Levien's help.