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Just say crypto. Stop being a sarcastic ass and just say crypto

krupan 3y ago
Bitcoin, not crypto. And poster has to be cryptic and/or sarcastic because even though it's a solution to this very problem staring us in the face, people here shut down any intelligent conversation about it both with down votes and tired, long winded, oft repeated, uninformed arguments against it. It's pretty discouraging, honestly
- astrange 3y ago
  Bitcoin absolutely does not have the privacy of cash! It is cash like in that if you typo the destination address you instantly lose all the money, which is sort of like how you can accidentally set cash on fire.
  - krupan 3y ago
    Serious question, what the are the privacy properties of cash that Bitcoin lacks? Who types destination addresses by hand? Probably the same people that expose a hoard of paper money to flames?
    - dale_glass 3y ago
      All Bitcoins are trackable on the blockchain, and these days you won't go far before transactions can be connected to an identifiable wallet. If you've ever said anything like "Donations accepted at $ADDRESS", then everyone can see if anyone ever sent anything, and from there it doesn't take much work to see if you ever spent that money on anything and what else you do with it. You can obscure things some, but the records are permanent and anything people can figure out stays known. If the authorities are after you, then they can get information from exchanges, which at this point require giving them personal information. Cash is much more private. It takes much more effort to figure out who you gave your cash to.
      - acdha 3y ago
        This is also transitive: if I get bitcoin from you and two weeks from now the cops show up at my door asking to know why I had a funds related to some crime, I have to convince them that I had no knowledge of the transaction a couple of steps back and even if I do I might find that vendors stop accepting anything in that chain or start buying insurance to protect them. That’s going to sour people on the experience real quickly. Variations of that show up everywhere: your employer can review your political donations or decide you spend too much money at the local bar, casino, or anywhere else they don’t approve of.
        krupan 3y ago
        It isn't hard to accept money on an address that is known to be associated with you and then transfer it to an address that is not known (cannot be proven) to be associated with you. An extreme form of this is called coin mixing or coin joining, but for most of us, I would think, that level of address obfuscation will not ever be necessary. Or if it is then you can imagine it will be automated.
        acdha 3y ago
        Think about what that means: people are expected to maintain multiple accounts, pay people to launder money between accounts, and never make a mistake, or fail to predict what financial activity today will become a problem later (did you donate to Planned Parenthood when Roe was the law of the land? Better figure out how to remove that from the blockchain before your employer transfers your job out of a free state. Oh, wait, it’s not possible - better just hope nobody ever thinks to look!). Major criminals get caught making mistakes on that kind of thing, there’s no way normal people aren’t going to make mistakes – and that’s before you think about what using a mixer actually means: lighting a neon sign saying “something about this transaction is dodgy, examine it!”
        krupan 3y ago
        You are overstating how easy it is to track and how hard it is manage multiple addresses. As more addresses are used it gets harder and harder to track. Your employer will not have the resources to do it. Hierarchical wallets make it really easy to use and keep track of multiple addresses today, and more privacy schemes are in progress, see: https://river.com/learn/what-are-schnorr-signatures/ https://river.com/learn/what-are-schnorr-signatures/ It's true that it is not completely anonymous, but it is a huge improvement over the current system we are discussing here. Add that to the other benefits Bitcoin has and I still feel like it's a huge win. Here's also a flip side benefit to the public ledger. Businesses can, if they choose, cryptographically prove that they have the funds they say they have. Think of the value of that
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Handing someone cash does not create a public ledger entry
      - krupan 3y ago
        True. But now hand someone that lives in a different state or country some cash. Oh wait, you can't easily do that. There are trade-offs in everything.
        kube-system 3y ago
        I can't easily give people bitcoin in my own country, because almost nobody I transact with accepts it.
        krupan 3y ago
        Yes, we are in the early stages of Bitcoin and not a lot of people are using it. But we are talking about the properties it has inherently and by design. It is designed to be permissionless, everyone is allowed and able to use it. The current situation with regards to use/adoption are not the end game
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    you kinda just proved his point about shutting down intelligent conversation
    - krupan 3y ago
      Did I? I think I'm actually having some intelligent conversation now following that. Yay!
    - astrange 3y ago
      You shouldn't have intelligent conversations with crypto people any more than any other kind of scammer. They're going to pickpocket you while you do it.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  Bitcoin is crypto. There's even a whole lot of cryptocurrencies based on Bitcoin with a variable or two changed somewhere.
  - krupan 3y ago
    Sorry for the confusion. The term Bitcoin can be used to refer to the code that runs the Bitcoin network upon which the Bitcoin currency/token moves around and is stored. The inventors could probably have come up with different names for each of those things, but what can you do? Cryptocurrency folks do sometimes take the open source Bitcoin code and make small (or large) changes to it in order to do their work. When they do this they create a separate codebase, separate network, and a separate currency. Almost inevitably they do so in such a way as to greatly benefit themselves and to fool you.
    - dale_glass 3y ago
      Yeah, I've messed with the stuff a bit in the past. I understand the technical details decently well. I don't see any significant difference between Bitcoin and the rest. Bitcoin was just the first thing that stuck but that doesn't grant it any special privileges.
      - krupan 3y ago
        If you can't figure out why Bitcoin stuck and the others didn't then maybe you should put a little more effort into understanding the differences. Or just respectfully stay out of these conversations maybe?
        dale_glass 3y ago
        > If you can't figure out why Bitcoin stuck and the others didn't then maybe you should put a little more effort into understanding the differences. Yeah, inertia, social pressure, and economic incentives. For instance miners are into it for the money, so to them technology doesn't matter. A technologically superior network is of no use to a miner if mining for it makes less money. > Or just respectfully stay out of these conversations maybe? Nope.

Bitcoin, not crypto. And poster has to be cryptic and/or sarcastic because even though it's a solution to this very problem staring us in the face, people here shut down any intelligent conversation about it both with down votes and tired, long winded, oft repeated, uninformed arguments against it. It's pretty discouraging, honestly

astrange 3y ago
Bitcoin absolutely does not have the privacy of cash! It is cash like in that if you typo the destination address you instantly lose all the money, which is sort of like how you can accidentally set cash on fire.
- krupan 3y ago
  Serious question, what the are the privacy properties of cash that Bitcoin lacks? Who types destination addresses by hand? Probably the same people that expose a hoard of paper money to flames?
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    All Bitcoins are trackable on the blockchain, and these days you won't go far before transactions can be connected to an identifiable wallet. If you've ever said anything like "Donations accepted at $ADDRESS", then everyone can see if anyone ever sent anything, and from there it doesn't take much work to see if you ever spent that money on anything and what else you do with it. You can obscure things some, but the records are permanent and anything people can figure out stays known. If the authorities are after you, then they can get information from exchanges, which at this point require giving them personal information. Cash is much more private. It takes much more effort to figure out who you gave your cash to.
    - acdha 3y ago
      This is also transitive: if I get bitcoin from you and two weeks from now the cops show up at my door asking to know why I had a funds related to some crime, I have to convince them that I had no knowledge of the transaction a couple of steps back and even if I do I might find that vendors stop accepting anything in that chain or start buying insurance to protect them. That’s going to sour people on the experience real quickly. Variations of that show up everywhere: your employer can review your political donations or decide you spend too much money at the local bar, casino, or anywhere else they don’t approve of.
      - krupan 3y ago
        It isn't hard to accept money on an address that is known to be associated with you and then transfer it to an address that is not known (cannot be proven) to be associated with you. An extreme form of this is called coin mixing or coin joining, but for most of us, I would think, that level of address obfuscation will not ever be necessary. Or if it is then you can imagine it will be automated.
        acdha 3y ago
        Think about what that means: people are expected to maintain multiple accounts, pay people to launder money between accounts, and never make a mistake, or fail to predict what financial activity today will become a problem later (did you donate to Planned Parenthood when Roe was the law of the land? Better figure out how to remove that from the blockchain before your employer transfers your job out of a free state. Oh, wait, it’s not possible - better just hope nobody ever thinks to look!). Major criminals get caught making mistakes on that kind of thing, there’s no way normal people aren’t going to make mistakes – and that’s before you think about what using a mixer actually means: lighting a neon sign saying “something about this transaction is dodgy, examine it!”
        krupan 3y ago
        You are overstating how easy it is to track and how hard it is manage multiple addresses. As more addresses are used it gets harder and harder to track. Your employer will not have the resources to do it. Hierarchical wallets make it really easy to use and keep track of multiple addresses today, and more privacy schemes are in progress, see: https://river.com/learn/what-are-schnorr-signatures/ https://river.com/learn/what-are-schnorr-signatures/ It's true that it is not completely anonymous, but it is a huge improvement over the current system we are discussing here. Add that to the other benefits Bitcoin has and I still feel like it's a huge win. Here's also a flip side benefit to the public ledger. Businesses can, if they choose, cryptographically prove that they have the funds they say they have. Think of the value of that
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Handing someone cash does not create a public ledger entry
    - krupan 3y ago
      True. But now hand someone that lives in a different state or country some cash. Oh wait, you can't easily do that. There are trade-offs in everything.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        I can't easily give people bitcoin in my own country, because almost nobody I transact with accepts it.
        krupan 3y ago
        Yes, we are in the early stages of Bitcoin and not a lot of people are using it. But we are talking about the properties it has inherently and by design. It is designed to be permissionless, everyone is allowed and able to use it. The current situation with regards to use/adoption are not the end game
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  you kinda just proved his point about shutting down intelligent conversation
  - krupan 3y ago
    Did I? I think I'm actually having some intelligent conversation now following that. Yay!
  - astrange 3y ago
    You shouldn't have intelligent conversations with crypto people any more than any other kind of scammer. They're going to pickpocket you while you do it.
dale_glass 3y ago
Bitcoin is crypto. There's even a whole lot of cryptocurrencies based on Bitcoin with a variable or two changed somewhere.
- krupan 3y ago
  Sorry for the confusion. The term Bitcoin can be used to refer to the code that runs the Bitcoin network upon which the Bitcoin currency/token moves around and is stored. The inventors could probably have come up with different names for each of those things, but what can you do? Cryptocurrency folks do sometimes take the open source Bitcoin code and make small (or large) changes to it in order to do their work. When they do this they create a separate codebase, separate network, and a separate currency. Almost inevitably they do so in such a way as to greatly benefit themselves and to fool you.
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    Yeah, I've messed with the stuff a bit in the past. I understand the technical details decently well. I don't see any significant difference between Bitcoin and the rest. Bitcoin was just the first thing that stuck but that doesn't grant it any special privileges.
    - krupan 3y ago
      If you can't figure out why Bitcoin stuck and the others didn't then maybe you should put a little more effort into understanding the differences. Or just respectfully stay out of these conversations maybe?
      - dale_glass 3y ago
        > If you can't figure out why Bitcoin stuck and the others didn't then maybe you should put a little more effort into understanding the differences. Yeah, inertia, social pressure, and economic incentives. For instance miners are into it for the money, so to them technology doesn't matter. A technologically superior network is of no use to a miner if mining for it makes less money. > Or just respectfully stay out of these conversations maybe? Nope.