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Bitcoin is the polar opposite of an untraceable currency. This is a strangely repeated claim. The whole point of bitcoin is trustless action. I don't have to t

Bitcoin is the polar opposite of an untraceable currency. This is a strangely repeated claim. The whole point of bitcoin is trustless action. I don't have to trust you because I can verify the transaction. If anyone can verify a transaction, it's obviously traceable. I think the confusion seems from the fact that you do not need to issue a form of identity to use bitcoin. Which is how cash works too. If your intention is to turn bitcoin into fiat, you will be found out. Fiat is highly regulated, your identity is required. Unless you turned bitcoin into pure cash, which is unlikely at scale. "Ah but Monero" no. Monero requires you to trust the authors because you can't verify any of the transactions, especially the genesis blocks. Use at your own peril. Bitcoin does not in anyway attempt to mirror this. Half the value of a bank is that the bank authenticates transactions have actually happened. Bitcoin does too. Publicly. There's nothing "anonymous" about it. There's just no requirement to tie an address to a human identity, but that doesn't mean it can't be done (and you should always act like it has been done, lest the law come for you too). The idea that crytocurrencies empower criminals because they're anonymous is braindead. There's a lower barrier of entry but scams are older than Central economies are. Crypto is just the newest vehicle and getting rid of crypto will not get rid of scammers (or ransomware). For example: The Bangladeshi bank heist.

dav_Oz 5y ago
>The whole point of bitcoin is trustless action. I don't have to trust you because I can verify the transaction. If anyone can verify a transaction, it's obviously traceable. But you do not need everyone to verify but instead take a shortcut and just verify the proof. That's what zero knowledge proofs are all about [0]. Unfortunately a lot of people pass over these subtleties. So, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "verify". >"Ah but Monero" no. Monero requires you to trust the authors because you can't verify any of the transactions, especially the genesis blocks. Use at your own peril. Can you elaborate on this point? By "verify" again, you simply mean a transparent blockchain where every tx and address is unambiguously visible to all. E.g. Ring signatures aren't something you need to trust the authors.[1][2] But in general, yes, at some point without being able to "verify" the whole code I have to "trust". This is true for every sufficiently large enterprise. For example there are a lot of (complicated) mathematical proofs I didn't fully go through but nonetheless used shamelessly in my mathematical modeling because I "trusted" its applications (I have learned from). [0]https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/26/snarks.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/26/snarks.html [1]https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098 https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098 [2]https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/508 https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/508
jtsiskin 5y ago
This isn’t true. “If anyone can verify a transaction, it's obviously traceable.” is probably false. And you can verify all Monero transactions.
gotaquestion 5y ago
Zero-knowledge proofs are coming. Zcash and Monero do some on chain obfuscation with I believe an ECC based DH? But they point is, coinfolk are working on it.

dav_Oz 5y ago

>The whole point of bitcoin is trustless action. I don't have to trust you because I can verify the transaction. If anyone can verify a transaction, it's obviously traceable. But you do not need everyone to verify but instead take a shortcut and just verify the proof. That's what zero knowledge proofs are all about [0]. Unfortunately a lot of people pass over these subtleties. So, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "verify". >"Ah but Monero" no. Monero requires you to trust the authors because you can't verify any of the transactions, especially the genesis blocks. Use at your own peril. Can you elaborate on this point? By "verify" again, you simply mean a transparent blockchain where every tx and address is unambiguously visible to all. E.g. Ring signatures aren't something you need to trust the authors.[1][2] But in general, yes, at some point without being able to "verify" the whole code I have to "trust". This is true for every sufficiently large enterprise. For example there are a lot of (complicated) mathematical proofs I didn't fully go through but nonetheless used shamelessly in my mathematical modeling because I "trusted" its applications (I have learned from). [0]https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/26/snarks.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/26/snarks.html [1]https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098 https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098 [2]https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/508 https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/508

jtsiskin 5y ago

This isn’t true. “If anyone can verify a transaction, it's obviously traceable.” is probably false. And you can verify all Monero transactions.

gotaquestion 5y ago

Zero-knowledge proofs are coming. Zcash and Monero do some on chain obfuscation with I believe an ECC based DH? But they point is, coinfolk are working on it.