6 ms·

Well, I _might've_ used it for a few illegal transactions. Like purchases of prohibited substances. (also some legal ones, tho) It's a feature, obviously. Why

by sinity 4y ago

Well, I _might've_ used it for a few illegal transactions. Like purchases of prohibited substances. (also some legal ones, tho) It's a feature, obviously. Why is "useful for illegal transactions" supposed to be a bad thing, when these illegal transactions are illegal for extremely dubious reasons? Ofc it's bad from the perspective of the people who want control over you. Good.

lisper 4y ago
> Why is "useful for illegal transactions" supposed to be a bad thing, when these illegal transactions are illegal for extremely dubious reasons? Because some illegal transactions are illegal for very non-dubious reasons, but crypto doesn't make this distinction. (Crypto made ransomware a profitable endeavor.)
- sinity 4y ago
  Sure, but crypto allows these because it's not as easily controlled by the governments as other things. Same with cash. Which governments increasingly constrain, for this reason. Yet there are not as many people commenting enthusiastically about wanting cash to disappear / fail, or suggesting similar measures against it. (KYC, AML...) Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? When physical transactions are less and less relevant? Why make the decision to basically leave these advantages in the past? I don't think preventing ransomware attacks or financing terrorism is worth losing the capability to transact freely online. Potential totalitarianism is way more scary than 9/11. Quote from a book, "Manna": > With the arrival of robots, tens of millions of people lost their minimum wage jobs and the wealth concentrated so quickly. The rich controlled America’s bureaucracy, military, businesses and natural resources, and the unemployed masses lived in terrafoam, cut off from any opportunity to change their situation. There was the facade of “free elections,” but only candidates supported by the rich could ever get on the ballot. The government was completely controlled by the rich, as were the robotic security forces, the military and the intelligence organizations. American democracy had morphed into a third world dictatorship ruled by the wealthy elite. > Ultimately, you would expect that there would be riots across America. But the people could not riot. The terrorist scares at the beginning of the century had caused a number of important changes. Eventually, there were video security cameras and microphones covering and recording nearly every square inch of public space in America. There were taps on all phone conversations and Internet messages sniffing for terrorist clues. If anyone thought about starting a protest rally or a riot, or discussed any form of civil disobedience with anyone else, he was branded a terrorist and preemptively put in jail. Combine that with robotic security forces, and riots are impossible.
  - lisper 4y ago
    > Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? Because exchanging cash requires physical presence. The introduces friction and requires putative criminals to take risks that they don't have to take with crypto, which makes crime less lucrative.
    - cozzyd 4y ago
      It's also grandfathered in, independent of the many other ways in which it's not equivalent.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    >Same with cash. Which governments increasingly constrain, for this reason. Yet there are not as many people commenting enthusiastically about wanting cash to disappear / fail, or suggesting similar measures against it. (KYC, AML...) Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? Crypto is not a digital equivalent to cash no matter how much you say it. I can pay my tax organisation with cash. They explicitly list the acceptable forms of payment. I cannot send them any sort of crypto currency. Cash is also legal tender. There are times where not accepting cash could have legal consequences. I can reject crypto as much as I want. I can't help but think these lines of argument are intentionally deceptive. If you just repeat it enough times, other people will as well.
coffeebeqn 4y ago
Some are dubious, some aren’t. Drugs are one thing but that’s by far not the only thing on sale. There are things that harm other people as well
simplotek 4y ago
> Why is "useful for illegal transactions" supposed to be a bad thing, when these illegal transactions are illegal for extremely dubious reasons? Straw man based on a made-up quote. The article does not mention "useful for illegal transactions" anywhere. The article mentions legal transactions in only two occasions: - "Bitcoin is rarely used for legal transactions" - "Bitcoin has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions." If you feel the need to refute what the ECB claimed, show where bitcoing is used in any significant extent for legal real-world transactions. Not even El Salvador, with their push to adopt Bitcoin as the nation's official currency, Bitcoin transactions saw any significant uptake.
cweagans 4y ago
Buying drugs is not the only illegal thing you can do with Bitcoin though. People who do not understand what bitcoin even is, for instance, are frequently talked into using bitcoin "atms" to send money to scammers. It happens all the time. Those are not legal transactions. Not being allowed to buy/possess drugs is a stupid law, but preventing illegal transactions in the public financial system is a feature, not a bug. If you want to buy drugs, do it the old fashioned way - you know, the way society did it for thousands of years prior to bitcoin.
- chii 4y ago
  i would not call a scam using the word "illegal", even tho it does describe it. A scam transaction is one where one party would not have committed said transaction had they known the truth. It is an unwilling transaction (aka, scam). An illegal transaction is one where both parties are willing, but the state deems said transaction is illegal under their purview. I argue that there should be no such a type of transaction - the state should allow _all_ transactions from _all_ parties that are willing. The illegal part should only apply to an action resulting from the transaction, such as hitman for hire. e.g, The act of paying someone to kill someone else is legal, but the act of killing is illegal. The act of paying someone for an illicit drug is legal, but possession is illegal.
  - cweagans 4y ago
    Why move the goal posts? An “unwilling transaction” is either theft, fraud, or coercion, pure and simple. Why should it be legal to pay somebody to kill? That seems insane to me. Especially since the laws in many countries could/would hold financial institutions liable for any murder they inadvertently facilitated by processing that transaction. If it wasn’t disallowed by the state, the private institutions would prohibit it of their own accord. What’s the difference? There are also many laws regarding incitement to violence and the like. Paying a hit man would be that, no? “I don’t want the government to tell me what to do” is childish. Tell me why a society should tolerate the ability to pay for a hitman if we’ve already agreed that murder is wrong?
    - 4y ago

by sinity 4y ago

lisper 4y ago

> Why is "useful for illegal transactions" supposed to be a bad thing, when these illegal transactions are illegal for extremely dubious reasons? Because some illegal transactions are illegal for very non-dubious reasons, but crypto doesn't make this distinction. (Crypto made ransomware a profitable endeavor.)

sinity 4y ago
Sure, but crypto allows these because it's not as easily controlled by the governments as other things. Same with cash. Which governments increasingly constrain, for this reason. Yet there are not as many people commenting enthusiastically about wanting cash to disappear / fail, or suggesting similar measures against it. (KYC, AML...) Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? When physical transactions are less and less relevant? Why make the decision to basically leave these advantages in the past? I don't think preventing ransomware attacks or financing terrorism is worth losing the capability to transact freely online. Potential totalitarianism is way more scary than 9/11. Quote from a book, "Manna": > With the arrival of robots, tens of millions of people lost their minimum wage jobs and the wealth concentrated so quickly. The rich controlled America’s bureaucracy, military, businesses and natural resources, and the unemployed masses lived in terrafoam, cut off from any opportunity to change their situation. There was the facade of “free elections,” but only candidates supported by the rich could ever get on the ballot. The government was completely controlled by the rich, as were the robotic security forces, the military and the intelligence organizations. American democracy had morphed into a third world dictatorship ruled by the wealthy elite. > Ultimately, you would expect that there would be riots across America. But the people could not riot. The terrorist scares at the beginning of the century had caused a number of important changes. Eventually, there were video security cameras and microphones covering and recording nearly every square inch of public space in America. There were taps on all phone conversations and Internet messages sniffing for terrorist clues. If anyone thought about starting a protest rally or a riot, or discussed any form of civil disobedience with anyone else, he was branded a terrorist and preemptively put in jail. Combine that with robotic security forces, and riots are impossible.
- lisper 4y ago
  > Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? Because exchanging cash requires physical presence. The introduces friction and requires putative criminals to take risks that they don't have to take with crypto, which makes crime less lucrative.
  - cozzyd 4y ago
    It's also grandfathered in, independent of the many other ways in which it's not equivalent.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  >Same with cash. Which governments increasingly constrain, for this reason. Yet there are not as many people commenting enthusiastically about wanting cash to disappear / fail, or suggesting similar measures against it. (KYC, AML...) Why is cash okay, but _digital equivalent_ is not? Crypto is not a digital equivalent to cash no matter how much you say it. I can pay my tax organisation with cash. They explicitly list the acceptable forms of payment. I cannot send them any sort of crypto currency. Cash is also legal tender. There are times where not accepting cash could have legal consequences. I can reject crypto as much as I want. I can't help but think these lines of argument are intentionally deceptive. If you just repeat it enough times, other people will as well.

coffeebeqn 4y ago

Some are dubious, some aren’t. Drugs are one thing but that’s by far not the only thing on sale. There are things that harm other people as well

simplotek 4y ago

> Why is "useful for illegal transactions" supposed to be a bad thing, when these illegal transactions are illegal for extremely dubious reasons? Straw man based on a made-up quote. The article does not mention "useful for illegal transactions" anywhere. The article mentions legal transactions in only two occasions: - "Bitcoin is rarely used for legal transactions" - "Bitcoin has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions." If you feel the need to refute what the ECB claimed, show where bitcoing is used in any significant extent for legal real-world transactions. Not even El Salvador, with their push to adopt Bitcoin as the nation's official currency, Bitcoin transactions saw any significant uptake.

cweagans 4y ago

Buying drugs is not the only illegal thing you can do with Bitcoin though. People who do not understand what bitcoin even is, for instance, are frequently talked into using bitcoin "atms" to send money to scammers. It happens all the time. Those are not legal transactions. Not being allowed to buy/possess drugs is a stupid law, but preventing illegal transactions in the public financial system is a feature, not a bug. If you want to buy drugs, do it the old fashioned way - you know, the way society did it for thousands of years prior to bitcoin.

chii 4y ago
i would not call a scam using the word "illegal", even tho it does describe it. A scam transaction is one where one party would not have committed said transaction had they known the truth. It is an unwilling transaction (aka, scam). An illegal transaction is one where both parties are willing, but the state deems said transaction is illegal under their purview. I argue that there should be no such a type of transaction - the state should allow _all_ transactions from _all_ parties that are willing. The illegal part should only apply to an action resulting from the transaction, such as hitman for hire. e.g, The act of paying someone to kill someone else is legal, but the act of killing is illegal. The act of paying someone for an illicit drug is legal, but possession is illegal.
- cweagans 4y ago
  Why move the goal posts? An “unwilling transaction” is either theft, fraud, or coercion, pure and simple. Why should it be legal to pay somebody to kill? That seems insane to me. Especially since the laws in many countries could/would hold financial institutions liable for any murder they inadvertently facilitated by processing that transaction. If it wasn’t disallowed by the state, the private institutions would prohibit it of their own accord. What’s the difference? There are also many laws regarding incitement to violence and the like. Paying a hit man would be that, no? “I don’t want the government to tell me what to do” is childish. Tell me why a society should tolerate the ability to pay for a hitman if we’ve already agreed that murder is wrong?
  - 4y ago