2 ms·

It’s not immunity, it is irrelevancy.

Imnimo 5y ago
Somehow I'm not convinced that a technology that makes the global transaction log public and immutable for eternity makes government oversight "irrelevant".
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Ok, let me explain my position. This is not about making laws or government irrelevant. Of course a global transparent ledger of all transactions is beneficial to enforce sanctions, track criminals, etc. it is for this reason alone that playing with ideas like “we going to make it illegal to use Bitcoin unless you use this special module that enforces rule xyz” is just absurd. Senator Warren can no more make it illegal to run Bitcoin Core then force you to run BitcoinEW with new denylists daily. It is irrelevant that any politician or government doesn’t want bad guys to use it. They will. Of course the politicians and government will use this evidence trail to bring the bad guys to Justice. What is irrelevant is the wishes of one politician, one government. The software is. They can ignore it, they can use it for investigations, they can use it. The idea of rounding people up for using one version of software in a democracy is tyrannical! What this entire thread mess of madness was about was the idea that it would be illegal — if you touch 8333 or run the naughty international version that Senator Warren does not approve of, or run an unregistered node, or any other such insane fantasies is just dreams cos you don’t get what Satoshi was all about yet.
  - Imnimo 5y ago
    >if you touch 8333 or run the naughty international version that Senator Warren does not approve of, or run an unregistered node, or any other such insane fantasies is just dreams cos you don’t get what Satoshi was all about yet. I would say this is the wrong framing. If the law forbids transacting with Russia, it doesn't matter if you do those transactions by meeting up with a Russian agent in a dark alley, or by running a complex computer algorithm. If you choose to execute an algorithm which makes it difficult or impossible for you to tell if you are in violation of the law, you had better be certain that it also makes it impossible for the government to tell. If it does not, you're going to find yourself in trouble. It doesn't matter if you frame your activity as merely running open source code.
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      This was about running nodes. Or just interacting with a peer-to-peer network. Getting blocks. Maybe receiving and paying legitimate other users of that network in non sanction places. Not actively transacting with Russia. There are real parallels here with the crypto wars of the 90s. Or Tor. Or BitTorrent. Why suddenly we have folks wanting to go back to the 90s is quite troubling.

Somehow I'm not convinced that a technology that makes the global transaction log public and immutable for eternity makes government oversight "irrelevant".

randomhodler84 5y ago
Ok, let me explain my position. This is not about making laws or government irrelevant. Of course a global transparent ledger of all transactions is beneficial to enforce sanctions, track criminals, etc. it is for this reason alone that playing with ideas like “we going to make it illegal to use Bitcoin unless you use this special module that enforces rule xyz” is just absurd. Senator Warren can no more make it illegal to run Bitcoin Core then force you to run BitcoinEW with new denylists daily. It is irrelevant that any politician or government doesn’t want bad guys to use it. They will. Of course the politicians and government will use this evidence trail to bring the bad guys to Justice. What is irrelevant is the wishes of one politician, one government. The software is. They can ignore it, they can use it for investigations, they can use it. The idea of rounding people up for using one version of software in a democracy is tyrannical! What this entire thread mess of madness was about was the idea that it would be illegal — if you touch 8333 or run the naughty international version that Senator Warren does not approve of, or run an unregistered node, or any other such insane fantasies is just dreams cos you don’t get what Satoshi was all about yet.
- Imnimo 5y ago
  >if you touch 8333 or run the naughty international version that Senator Warren does not approve of, or run an unregistered node, or any other such insane fantasies is just dreams cos you don’t get what Satoshi was all about yet. I would say this is the wrong framing. If the law forbids transacting with Russia, it doesn't matter if you do those transactions by meeting up with a Russian agent in a dark alley, or by running a complex computer algorithm. If you choose to execute an algorithm which makes it difficult or impossible for you to tell if you are in violation of the law, you had better be certain that it also makes it impossible for the government to tell. If it does not, you're going to find yourself in trouble. It doesn't matter if you frame your activity as merely running open source code.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    This was about running nodes. Or just interacting with a peer-to-peer network. Getting blocks. Maybe receiving and paying legitimate other users of that network in non sanction places. Not actively transacting with Russia. There are real parallels here with the crypto wars of the 90s. Or Tor. Or BitTorrent. Why suddenly we have folks wanting to go back to the 90s is quite troubling.