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Yeah, it's entirely built on the idea that every transaction is known by everyone. I think Lance is a bit confused. Maybe he should look into Monero. The point

Yeah, it's entirely built on the idea that every transaction is known by everyone. I think Lance is a bit confused. Maybe he should look into Monero. The point of Bitcoin is to enable anyone to exchange value with anyone. And it does that very well. When the US justice department declared that credit card companies had to stop processing donations to wikileaks I could still donate through bitcoin.

insanitybit 4y ago
I don't think they're confused, I think the vast majority of people involved in crypto or who are spectators of crypto are confused. I have repeatedly heard that crypto enables "anonymous" transactions for years. Also he literally links the original paper, quoting the part where it talks about transactions being harder to trace. "without telling who the parties are".
- convery 4y ago
  The "without telling who the parties are" is more about non-personal identifiers. Similar to how knowing your IP address doesn't really identify you by itself, you need to go through (often several levels of) other parties to get that info. Which in addition is ephemeral, others will be assigned your IP and tracing which requests were made by you vs. someone else is a lot harder than tracing a credit-card.
  - z3c0 4y ago
    This seems to be lost on a lot of folks, which I find strange in a tech-centric forum. Bitcoin is perfectly pseudonymous, as it strives to be, and not anonymous, which it has never attempted to be.
    - insanitybit 4y ago
      My recollection is that Satoshi wanted people to rotate public keys after every use exactly to have anonymity.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        That's still not anonymity; it's just pseudonymity with more masks.
      - throwup 4y ago
        And some wallets do this automatically. But if you send a transaction and the change flows directly from your previous wallet to your next wallet, you're not accomplishing much.
    - acdha 4y ago
      The Bitcoin designers did not pretend it was anonymous – it’s obviously not to anyone who looks at the architecture! - but the people selling Bitcoin have loudly lied about this since the beginning, however. If you search here you’ll find like 14 years of people pointing out that it’s easily traced and getting a bunch of word salad from the sales guys in response.
- saurik 4y ago
  Well, "crypto" does allow that--and has for years!--using zero-knowledge proofs (as in Zcash), at least within some bounds (that I would say are quite reasonable for conversational purposes... hell: someone in the government seems to think this stuff works, hence the sanctions on Tornado Cash); Bitcoin, one very specific technology from crypto, however, does not.
  - insanitybit 4y ago
    Of course, all of that is true. I'm only saying that people seem to believe it is inherent to crypto.
  - willmadden 4y ago
    This is the only informed comment in the entire thread. I came here hoping for an interesting discussion about Monero, ZCash, Tornado Cash on Ethereum, and Halo/ZK proofs. Disappointing!
RektBoy 4y ago
Don't tell him about Monero bruuuh :D
- noloblo 4y ago
  What about zec beam grin
- simonh 4y ago
  Don't tell the crypto Bruhs about the several vulnerabilities already found in the Monero anonnymisation system. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04299/ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04299/ The problem is also one of credibility, Bitcoin was supposed to be private and breaching privacy has proved to be pretty trivial. Encryption is hard, but maintaining anonymity is much harder.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - epsteinisntdead 4y ago
    That paper is from 2018. I expect they've been remediated by now, though everything is going to be vulnerable at some point in some way. What matters is for how long.
  - gowings97 4y ago
    Theory vs. practice. When there's a DoJ case with a web that's all unified through Monero, then you have proof Monero has been busted. Monero hasn't been busted. From the paper - "Our techniques show that Monero is not necessarily a dead end for investigators." And then offers zero evidence to demonstrate that investigators were able to use anything from the seizures. This is not evidence - "They (mistakenly?) advised their hopeful subscribers to publish their email addresses (hexencoded, but publicly visible) in the Monero blockchain, leading to these transactions being identified" [31] [31] - https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@wh1sks/ https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@wh1sks/ theshadowbrokers-may-have-received-up-to-1500-monerousd66-000-from-their-june-monthly-dump-service Link is broken - where is the evidence that 1500 XMR was transacted?
  - 4y ago
Spivak 4y ago
> When the US justice department declared that credit card companies had to stop processing donations to wikileaks I could still donate through bitcoin. If any appreciable amount of money was sent this way you would see blacklisting of bitcoin addresses where sending / receiving money from that address would get you in legal trouble. Bitcoin creates a situation where you cannot be physically prevented from sending the money but everyone including the gov’t will know you did it so it’s so it’s not censorship resistant to any gov’t that cares to get a wrench.
- superkuh 4y ago
  Right. It calls their bluff and makes them actually present a case in a court of law. There are no regulations or laws involved when the DOJ tells payment processors to blacklist journalists they don't like and the payment processors are happy to comply without it.
alar44 4y ago
Ask anyone outside your tech circle to explain Bitcoin and it will be something like "It's an anonymous digital currency that can't be traced, unlike bank accounts."

insanitybit 4y ago

I don't think they're confused, I think the vast majority of people involved in crypto or who are spectators of crypto are confused. I have repeatedly heard that crypto enables "anonymous" transactions for years. Also he literally links the original paper, quoting the part where it talks about transactions being harder to trace. "without telling who the parties are".

convery 4y ago
The "without telling who the parties are" is more about non-personal identifiers. Similar to how knowing your IP address doesn't really identify you by itself, you need to go through (often several levels of) other parties to get that info. Which in addition is ephemeral, others will be assigned your IP and tracing which requests were made by you vs. someone else is a lot harder than tracing a credit-card.
- z3c0 4y ago
  This seems to be lost on a lot of folks, which I find strange in a tech-centric forum. Bitcoin is perfectly pseudonymous, as it strives to be, and not anonymous, which it has never attempted to be.
  - insanitybit 4y ago
    My recollection is that Satoshi wanted people to rotate public keys after every use exactly to have anonymity.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      That's still not anonymity; it's just pseudonymity with more masks.
    - throwup 4y ago
      And some wallets do this automatically. But if you send a transaction and the change flows directly from your previous wallet to your next wallet, you're not accomplishing much.
  - acdha 4y ago
    The Bitcoin designers did not pretend it was anonymous – it’s obviously not to anyone who looks at the architecture! - but the people selling Bitcoin have loudly lied about this since the beginning, however. If you search here you’ll find like 14 years of people pointing out that it’s easily traced and getting a bunch of word salad from the sales guys in response.
saurik 4y ago
Well, "crypto" does allow that--and has for years!--using zero-knowledge proofs (as in Zcash), at least within some bounds (that I would say are quite reasonable for conversational purposes... hell: someone in the government seems to think this stuff works, hence the sanctions on Tornado Cash); Bitcoin, one very specific technology from crypto, however, does not.
- insanitybit 4y ago
  Of course, all of that is true. I'm only saying that people seem to believe it is inherent to crypto.
- willmadden 4y ago
  This is the only informed comment in the entire thread. I came here hoping for an interesting discussion about Monero, ZCash, Tornado Cash on Ethereum, and Halo/ZK proofs. Disappointing!

RektBoy 4y ago

Don't tell him about Monero bruuuh :D

noloblo 4y ago
What about zec beam grin
simonh 4y ago
Don't tell the crypto Bruhs about the several vulnerabilities already found in the Monero anonnymisation system. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04299/ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04299/ The problem is also one of credibility, Bitcoin was supposed to be private and breaching privacy has proved to be pretty trivial. Encryption is hard, but maintaining anonymity is much harder.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- epsteinisntdead 4y ago
  That paper is from 2018. I expect they've been remediated by now, though everything is going to be vulnerable at some point in some way. What matters is for how long.
- gowings97 4y ago
  Theory vs. practice. When there's a DoJ case with a web that's all unified through Monero, then you have proof Monero has been busted. Monero hasn't been busted. From the paper - "Our techniques show that Monero is not necessarily a dead end for investigators." And then offers zero evidence to demonstrate that investigators were able to use anything from the seizures. This is not evidence - "They (mistakenly?) advised their hopeful subscribers to publish their email addresses (hexencoded, but publicly visible) in the Monero blockchain, leading to these transactions being identified" [31] [31] - https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@wh1sks/ https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@wh1sks/ theshadowbrokers-may-have-received-up-to-1500-monerousd66-000-from-their-june-monthly-dump-service Link is broken - where is the evidence that 1500 XMR was transacted?
- 4y ago

Spivak 4y ago

> When the US justice department declared that credit card companies had to stop processing donations to wikileaks I could still donate through bitcoin. If any appreciable amount of money was sent this way you would see blacklisting of bitcoin addresses where sending / receiving money from that address would get you in legal trouble. Bitcoin creates a situation where you cannot be physically prevented from sending the money but everyone including the gov’t will know you did it so it’s so it’s not censorship resistant to any gov’t that cares to get a wrench.

superkuh 4y ago
Right. It calls their bluff and makes them actually present a case in a court of law. There are no regulations or laws involved when the DOJ tells payment processors to blacklist journalists they don't like and the payment processors are happy to comply without it.

alar44 4y ago

Ask anyone outside your tech circle to explain Bitcoin and it will be something like "It's an anonymous digital currency that can't be traced, unlike bank accounts."