4 ms·

tl;dr: Nothing. But there are some big caveats to that. Sure, we already have tons of currency transactions going on digitally and on-line, but Bitcoin offers

by kebman 4y ago

tl;dr: Nothing. But there are some big caveats to that. Sure, we already have tons of currency transactions going on digitally and on-line, but Bitcoin offers something that the centralized entities cannot, and these are (in no particular order): Unconfiscatable: Because nobody can take your bitcoins away from you unless you give away your keys. Regulation resistant: Because nobody can stop you from trading or transacting with your bitcoins at any point if you own the keys. Bitcoin does not care about which borders it goes over, or the regulation therein. (But if you break the laws of your country by making illegal transactions, then you're of course taking a huge risk.) Crime resistance: Granted, you can be coerced into giving up your keys, but then you have the option to flag your own account for all other parties. Since all transactions are public on the ledger, it will prevent criminal parties from using your funds with full anonymity, thus making them a lot easier to catch. Relative privacy (but not 100% anonymity): Because nobody can really know who owns an address or a transaction unless they have access to special intel that they usually will only be privy to if they own a ton of third party hardware, software and skill (i.e. if they're operating for a totalitarian surveillance state). Or if you willingly give it up your anonymity to some central authority that promises to safekeep that information, which most buyers do, btw, which decreases regulation resistance while it increases crime resistance. Corruption resistance: Honestly, if you want to commit crimes or corruption, then cash is a way better vessel for value, since all transactions with cash are near 100% anonymous (barring widespread bank note ID code control which is also limited), and there are several superior ways in which cash may be whitewashed if you have the infrastructure for it. Meanwhile it's surprisingly hard to whitewash Bitcoin given that all transactions are public. I might even have missed a few value propositions, but those are the most important. > and even today, actually using BTC for non-investment purposes is a tiny minority This is increasingly untrue. Take the countries now adopting Bitcoin as legal tender (with the Lightning Network), for example, and the many stories of people using it to make bigger purchases.

tsimionescu 4y ago
None of your examples work as easily as you say. Unconfiscatable: a judge may order you to hand over your bitcoin, or face jail time for contempt of court etc. Regulation resistant: see above. Also, depends crucially on anonimity, which doesn't hold up either. Crime resitance: much worse than digital money, which is insured and much better protected by the state. Relative privacy: only works for btc-to-btc transactions, or if you spend significant effort. Otherwise, the moment you order somethibg at home using BTC, the entity that you ordered from knows exactly whose wallet this is, and everything else they do or have done with their money. Corruption resistance: maybe, since privacy is really bad. And the heyday of people using BTC for actual transactions I think has mostly gone. It used to be that you could buy games on Steam or a Tesla with BTC, but no more. Note as well that Lightning Network is not BTC - it rarely touches the BTC block chain and offers much weaker guarantees than BTC (in particular, it's easy to double spend on LN if your node is unreliable). And lots of people in El Salvador (the only country that has been crazy enough to do this) are not even using the LN, they are using an app which does most transfers on their own servers, and only used LN for interoperation with other apps.
- kebman 4y ago
  > a judge may order you to hand over your bitcoin, or face jail time for contempt of court etc. First the judge must establish that you indeed own the coins within reasonable doubt, which is hard enough on its own considering that Bitcoin doesn't store personal data. Then she must pry the keys from your brain, while proving within reasonable doubt that you haven't forgotten them. And if you have forgotten them, then she can't prove whether or not it's on purpose, so your sentence will likely be commuted. Because at that point there's a higher chance that it's the state committing a crime than you. Meanwhile if you had a bank account full of cash, all the bank would have to do is to freeze it, just like in Canada. You just can't do that with Bitcoin unless you keep the coins on a centralized exchange. And most smart owners don't. As for bandits and robbers, they exist everywhere, but most of them won't know that you have crypto in the first place, because it can't be readily seen. And so it would be unreasonable of them to risk life in prison just for the off chance that you might own it. Cash or gold, on the other hand... Either way, that's not a reasonable argument against the unconfiscatableness of Bitcoin. It's certainly far less confiscatable than cash, digital or otherwise, and its unconfiscatableness is far superior to that of physical valuables. That's the point, and not that it's stored in some fictional fortress or No-Room (see Dune lore if you don't know what the latter is). > Regulation resistant: see above. Also, depends crucially on anonimity, which doesn't hold up either. The argument holds up just fine, because giving up your anonymity is voluntary and not required for Bitcoin to work. Digital cash, on the other hand... And even if the state suspects you of crossing their regulations, they would #1. have to know about it, which isn't likely, #2. they'd have to have good reason to believe you broke their regulations intentionally, and #3. they'd have to spend an enormous amount of resources to get all the evidence, and push the case, which means they'd more likely focus on bigger fish. But if they do spend all those resources on you, it increases the chance that you're living in a horrible surveillance state, and so your best course of action is really to move to a better place, and countries like that do exist. And so the argument still holds perfectly, that Bitcoin is indeed regulation resistant. The reason for that is because state actors (or criminals) cannot in any meaningful way stop transactions that go in and out of different jurisdictions, even if those states are adversarial to Bitcoin or not. In order for them to do that, they'd basically have to shut down the Internet entirely, and not even China does that! Also please take note of the word resistant. As you may know that doesn't mean airtight or 100%. Most people willingly give up KYC information to central exchanges to trade it, for example. Well, then you voluntarily comply with regulation, so it still holds that it's coercion and crime resistant. And in giving up personal information, it can also be argued that you in fact increase crime resistance as a trade-off, so doing it isn't even a bad trade, say if you want to do it in order to trade on a centralized exchange! > Crime resitance: much worse than digital money, which is insured and much better protected by the state. Oh, so your state pays back money that has been robbed from you? Neat! :) Sorry for the sarcasm, but I really expected better from you... Where I'm from, state sanctioned insurance funds sadly only covers bankruptcy. With that said, insurance of self custodied coins is of course quite possible though completely voluntary. And as if that isn't enough, most exchanges also insure your crypto by default, thus voiding the latter half of your argument. Even so, insurance is a completely different matter to crime! Because when it comes to crime, police everywhere are obliged to investigate any criminal theft of value, no matter if it's cash or otherwise. So I don't see how somehow owning crypto suddenly makes you any less protected by the state. If not, the New York couple who stole billions in crypto this year would be set free. In fact, since the ledger is public and accessible to all, there is a really great argument for crypto owners being better protected than if they merely lost cash. Especially since you can stop criminals by publishing the ownership of your wallet to exchanges. The police are thus far more likely to catch crypto robbers than if you lost cash. > Relative privacy: only works for btc-to-btc transactions, or if you spend significant effort. The neat thing here is that you actually don't have to spend significant efforts to keep Bitcoin private, especially if you generate a new address for each new coin received or sent, which is pretty trivial within this technology. And it's only getting more secure with the Lightning Network. So in sum Bitcoin is moving towards becoming even more private and secure. Either way, nobody's forcing you to buy crypto on centralized exchanges. It's entirely possible to exchange it privately, and many do. > Corruption resistance: maybe, since privacy is really bad. Quite the opposite, privacy on Bitcoin is pretty good. Although central exchanges do store KYC data, they won't give it out nilly-willy. It's really up to you whether you want to sacrifice convenience for anonymity though. The same isn't true for most other payment methods, unless you are somehow able to get your hands on large amounts of cash without showing your ID at some point. Outside of that, there is of course a theoretical possibility of losing your privacy if you practise really poor operational security, such as transacting over unsecured channels on what you think is airport wifi. But even though you keep your anonymity air tight, Bitcoin is still corruption resistant. It stays corruption resistant because the ledger is public, and because bad transactions can be flagged. Thus even though the exchanges or institutions might not know your name, you'll still be prevented from using the coins in your wallet if it's found that they are from illicit activity, thus incentivizing good behaviour. And so even though privacy is really good, it's still corruption resistant. > the heyday of people using BTC for actual transactions I think has mostly gone. So entire countries using it as legal tender doesn't impress you? Man, you're hard to please! As for El Salvador, nobody's forcing them to use the Chiva wallet. And afaik you can also transact with it with both through the legacy system and with the Lightning Network.

by kebman 4y ago

tsimionescu 4y ago

None of your examples work as easily as you say. Unconfiscatable: a judge may order you to hand over your bitcoin, or face jail time for contempt of court etc. Regulation resistant: see above. Also, depends crucially on anonimity, which doesn't hold up either. Crime resitance: much worse than digital money, which is insured and much better protected by the state. Relative privacy: only works for btc-to-btc transactions, or if you spend significant effort. Otherwise, the moment you order somethibg at home using BTC, the entity that you ordered from knows exactly whose wallet this is, and everything else they do or have done with their money. Corruption resistance: maybe, since privacy is really bad. And the heyday of people using BTC for actual transactions I think has mostly gone. It used to be that you could buy games on Steam or a Tesla with BTC, but no more. Note as well that Lightning Network is not BTC - it rarely touches the BTC block chain and offers much weaker guarantees than BTC (in particular, it's easy to double spend on LN if your node is unreliable). And lots of people in El Salvador (the only country that has been crazy enough to do this) are not even using the LN, they are using an app which does most transfers on their own servers, and only used LN for interoperation with other apps.

kebman 4y ago
> a judge may order you to hand over your bitcoin, or face jail time for contempt of court etc. First the judge must establish that you indeed own the coins within reasonable doubt, which is hard enough on its own considering that Bitcoin doesn't store personal data. Then she must pry the keys from your brain, while proving within reasonable doubt that you haven't forgotten them. And if you have forgotten them, then she can't prove whether or not it's on purpose, so your sentence will likely be commuted. Because at that point there's a higher chance that it's the state committing a crime than you. Meanwhile if you had a bank account full of cash, all the bank would have to do is to freeze it, just like in Canada. You just can't do that with Bitcoin unless you keep the coins on a centralized exchange. And most smart owners don't. As for bandits and robbers, they exist everywhere, but most of them won't know that you have crypto in the first place, because it can't be readily seen. And so it would be unreasonable of them to risk life in prison just for the off chance that you might own it. Cash or gold, on the other hand... Either way, that's not a reasonable argument against the unconfiscatableness of Bitcoin. It's certainly far less confiscatable than cash, digital or otherwise, and its unconfiscatableness is far superior to that of physical valuables. That's the point, and not that it's stored in some fictional fortress or No-Room (see Dune lore if you don't know what the latter is). > Regulation resistant: see above. Also, depends crucially on anonimity, which doesn't hold up either. The argument holds up just fine, because giving up your anonymity is voluntary and not required for Bitcoin to work. Digital cash, on the other hand... And even if the state suspects you of crossing their regulations, they would #1. have to know about it, which isn't likely, #2. they'd have to have good reason to believe you broke their regulations intentionally, and #3. they'd have to spend an enormous amount of resources to get all the evidence, and push the case, which means they'd more likely focus on bigger fish. But if they do spend all those resources on you, it increases the chance that you're living in a horrible surveillance state, and so your best course of action is really to move to a better place, and countries like that do exist. And so the argument still holds perfectly, that Bitcoin is indeed regulation resistant. The reason for that is because state actors (or criminals) cannot in any meaningful way stop transactions that go in and out of different jurisdictions, even if those states are adversarial to Bitcoin or not. In order for them to do that, they'd basically have to shut down the Internet entirely, and not even China does that! Also please take note of the word resistant. As you may know that doesn't mean airtight or 100%. Most people willingly give up KYC information to central exchanges to trade it, for example. Well, then you voluntarily comply with regulation, so it still holds that it's coercion and crime resistant. And in giving up personal information, it can also be argued that you in fact increase crime resistance as a trade-off, so doing it isn't even a bad trade, say if you want to do it in order to trade on a centralized exchange! > Crime resitance: much worse than digital money, which is insured and much better protected by the state. Oh, so your state pays back money that has been robbed from you? Neat! :) Sorry for the sarcasm, but I really expected better from you... Where I'm from, state sanctioned insurance funds sadly only covers bankruptcy. With that said, insurance of self custodied coins is of course quite possible though completely voluntary. And as if that isn't enough, most exchanges also insure your crypto by default, thus voiding the latter half of your argument. Even so, insurance is a completely different matter to crime! Because when it comes to crime, police everywhere are obliged to investigate any criminal theft of value, no matter if it's cash or otherwise. So I don't see how somehow owning crypto suddenly makes you any less protected by the state. If not, the New York couple who stole billions in crypto this year would be set free. In fact, since the ledger is public and accessible to all, there is a really great argument for crypto owners being better protected than if they merely lost cash. Especially since you can stop criminals by publishing the ownership of your wallet to exchanges. The police are thus far more likely to catch crypto robbers than if you lost cash. > Relative privacy: only works for btc-to-btc transactions, or if you spend significant effort. The neat thing here is that you actually don't have to spend significant efforts to keep Bitcoin private, especially if you generate a new address for each new coin received or sent, which is pretty trivial within this technology. And it's only getting more secure with the Lightning Network. So in sum Bitcoin is moving towards becoming even more private and secure. Either way, nobody's forcing you to buy crypto on centralized exchanges. It's entirely possible to exchange it privately, and many do. > Corruption resistance: maybe, since privacy is really bad. Quite the opposite, privacy on Bitcoin is pretty good. Although central exchanges do store KYC data, they won't give it out nilly-willy. It's really up to you whether you want to sacrifice convenience for anonymity though. The same isn't true for most other payment methods, unless you are somehow able to get your hands on large amounts of cash without showing your ID at some point. Outside of that, there is of course a theoretical possibility of losing your privacy if you practise really poor operational security, such as transacting over unsecured channels on what you think is airport wifi. But even though you keep your anonymity air tight, Bitcoin is still corruption resistant. It stays corruption resistant because the ledger is public, and because bad transactions can be flagged. Thus even though the exchanges or institutions might not know your name, you'll still be prevented from using the coins in your wallet if it's found that they are from illicit activity, thus incentivizing good behaviour. And so even though privacy is really good, it's still corruption resistant. > the heyday of people using BTC for actual transactions I think has mostly gone. So entire countries using it as legal tender doesn't impress you? Man, you're hard to please! As for El Salvador, nobody's forcing them to use the Chiva wallet. And afaik you can also transact with it with both through the legacy system and with the Lightning Network.