5 ms·

Well, that and cash. Btw, crypto (like bitcoin) is only an alternative because of convention. The complete history of bitcoins is globally trackable, and peop

by eru 2y ago

Well, that and cash. Btw, crypto (like bitcoin) is only an alternative because of convention. The complete history of bitcoins is globally trackable, and people could all decide that they'll pay more for bitcoins that came from Satoshi's initial hoard, or that they'll refuse to accept bitcoins that were ever seized by the FBI. (Yes, there are mixers. But you'd just refuse to accept any bitcoin that took part in the mixer transaction, if any FBI coins were in there.)

jack_pp 2y ago
How would you even price it? Have special markets based on coin origin?
- eru 1y ago
  That's already the case. Some collectors already pay more for specific coins. While some other people buy their coins for investment only directly from miners, so they don't have to worry about who else might have held a coin.
lawn 2y ago
You can't send cash digitally, hence crypto. I'd like to introduce you to Monero, which isn't globally trackable and also properly fungible so you can't refuse mixed transactions (since all transactions are protected).
- immibis 2y ago
  Apparently "Liberty Reserve" was a (now defunct) digital cash service. As in you'd mail them cash and they'd add it to your account, and you could withdraw and they'd mail it back, minus a fee. And you could log in and transfer it. Apparently it powered online drug marketplaces before Bitcoin existed.
  - Ozarkian 2y ago
    You're not wrong. But Liberty Reserve was able to be shut down because it was centralized. Banking regulators in various western countries leaned on the Costa Rican authorities to shut it down. Try doing that with crypto. Who are you going to arrest?
    - tpxl 2y ago
      > Who are you going to arrest? Every on- and off-ramp provider. EU legislation has basically created a database of real person to wallet mappings (for some subset of wallets). You can't take money from a wallet if you don't know who it belongs to (if you're an exchange anyways). The checks are a bit soft (ie. self attestation and stuff), but the public ledger part of crypto makes tracking far-far easier than with traditional banks. The end game for this is that people in the West (and whoever they can pressure) won't be able to buy crypto to buy drugs or sell it when selling drugs, making it useless on a big scale.
      - DaSHacka 2y ago
        > Every on- and off-ramp provider. This is essentially the purpose of localmonero and similar offerings. Trading cash for Monero in a p2p manner is going to be extraordinarily difficult to halt.
        bluGill 2y ago
        The transaction is traced and and eventualy it goes to someone with a real bank accont and the tainted money is refused.
        immibis 2y ago
        First, the chain only sees the monero side of the transaction, not the fiat side, of which it's likely that no records exist at all after a short while. It looks identical to a payment for a good or service and it also looks identical to a transfer between two of the same person's wallets. Second, Monero is still thought to be untraceable. In fact regulated entities are banned from exchanging it in the EU precisely because they can't trace it. (Zcash is also banned under the same law, but is considered technically inferior because not all transactions are private.) Third, what do you even mean? Do you mean they'll go back to the last time those coins passed through a regulated on-ramp, and prosecute that person? For what? Buying cryptocurrency, then buying a legal product with cryptocurrency, is not illegal, and even if the product was illegal, the government most likely couldn't prove that. Also, the on-ramp was probably in a different jurisdiction. Perhaps for something like "acting as an unlicensed money transmitter" which is a thing they have done against users of cryptocurrencies. If they prosecute that in large quantities, will it fly? Or do you mean they'll wait until someone takes the crypto to a regulated off-ramp, and then prosecute that person? For what - undeclared income? As far as I know, trading one cryptocurrency for another is a non-taxable currency exchange, at least in some EU countries, so they can't get you for that. And what if they declared it? Again, they might try "acting as an unlicensed money transmitter" of course. What if it never gets to a regulated off-ramp and just circulates peer-to-peer forever? It's more likely tyou think, since remember, regulated off-ramps are strictly banned.
  - lawn 2y ago
    The difference is that with actual cash you give cash directly to someone. With "Liberty Reserve" you introduced a third-party that did this for you. These things aren't the same. With crypto you don't hand over your coins to a third-party for safe keeping, you instead send coins directly to one another, just like with cash.
- eru 1y ago
  > I'd like to introduce you to Monero, [...] Hence my restriction to crypto that is 'like bitcoin'. Yes, you can use some tricks like zero knowledge proofs to make untrackable crypto-currencies. But as far as I can tell, they aren't all that popular. For currencies that offer both stealthy and 'regular' transactions (I think like zcash), the vast majority of transactions are of the latter kind.
em500 2y ago
Europe is clamping down on cash, with in some countries placing caps on cash transactions as low as €1000. https://en.econostrum.info/europe-restricts-cash-paymentss-new-amounts/ https://en.econostrum.info/europe-restricts-cash-paymentss-n... https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cash-payment-limitations.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cas...
- jeffhuys 2y ago
  We also can't have >500EUR in our homes
  - pastage 2y ago
    You are allowed to travel abroad with under 10 000 euros without declaring it. As far as I know we do not have the same problem with asset forfeit laws like the US. There are no laws limiting how much cash you can have at home and while travelling. Though if you hoard millions in gold that is discovered in a police raid I think your main concern will be why the raid happend.
    - em500 2y ago
      In the EU, laws differ by country, so I wouldn't categorically declare that it's legal everywhere to have any amount of cash at home or traveling. From incidental local news reports here in the Netherlands, I suspect that if I were found during routine checks to be traveling with multiple-10k cash in my backpack or in my car, it would be seized and be treated as illicit until I prove otherwise.
  - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
    Source?
  - ru552 2y ago
    say what?
- frollogaston 1y ago
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Yes, there are mixers. But you'd just refuse to accept any bitcoin that took part in the mixer transaction, if any FBI coins were in there. Intentional mixers aren't even the half of it. You have large exchange operators that use a single wallet. They file KYC paperwork with governments, but that's not in the blockchain. From the perspective of the blockchain their whole exchange is one big mixer. A billion dollars goes in, a hundred was tainted, a billion dollars comes back out. The only information to trace which $100 that went in is the $100 that came back out isn't in the blockchain, it's in the exchange's private accounting database. But if you propose to taint every coin that has ever passed through a major exchange, that's pretty much all of them.
- eru 1y ago
  > But if you propose to taint every coin that has ever passed through a major exchange, that's pretty much all of them. All new ones. You can buy 'fresh coins' from miners directly. You could also exempt some 'honourable' miners (ie a whitelist) from the taint. All kinds of conventions are possible, depending on what people want to value. The convention that all bitcoins are equally valuable is just that: a convention. And it's not even strictly adhered to, because some bitcoins are already more valuable than others.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > All new ones. You can buy 'fresh coins' from miners directly. Putting aside that there are a finite number of Bitcoins that will ever be mined, what good is that? You'd have "untainted" coins that you could hardly even spend without immediately tainting them because six degrees of Kevin Bacon means that everybody else's wallet has already interacted with the unclean. > And it's not even strictly adhered to, because some bitcoins are already more valuable than others. Is it the tainted ones that are the more valuable ones because you can still exchange them for the same number of dollars but they also have additional value for trolling people by sending trivial amounts of them to their untainted wallets without their permission?
    - eru 1y ago
phendrenad2 1y ago
Basically any physical object with resilient demand is an alternative. Gold coins. Pokemon cards. Rich people stockpile art and classic cars.
- eru 1y ago
  Art and classic cars aren't very fungible, alas.

by eru 2y ago

jack_pp 2y ago

How would you even price it? Have special markets based on coin origin?

eru 1y ago
That's already the case. Some collectors already pay more for specific coins. While some other people buy their coins for investment only directly from miners, so they don't have to worry about who else might have held a coin.

lawn 2y ago

You can't send cash digitally, hence crypto. I'd like to introduce you to Monero, which isn't globally trackable and also properly fungible so you can't refuse mixed transactions (since all transactions are protected).

immibis 2y ago
Apparently "Liberty Reserve" was a (now defunct) digital cash service. As in you'd mail them cash and they'd add it to your account, and you could withdraw and they'd mail it back, minus a fee. And you could log in and transfer it. Apparently it powered online drug marketplaces before Bitcoin existed.
- Ozarkian 2y ago
  You're not wrong. But Liberty Reserve was able to be shut down because it was centralized. Banking regulators in various western countries leaned on the Costa Rican authorities to shut it down. Try doing that with crypto. Who are you going to arrest?
  - tpxl 2y ago
    > Who are you going to arrest? Every on- and off-ramp provider. EU legislation has basically created a database of real person to wallet mappings (for some subset of wallets). You can't take money from a wallet if you don't know who it belongs to (if you're an exchange anyways). The checks are a bit soft (ie. self attestation and stuff), but the public ledger part of crypto makes tracking far-far easier than with traditional banks. The end game for this is that people in the West (and whoever they can pressure) won't be able to buy crypto to buy drugs or sell it when selling drugs, making it useless on a big scale.
    - DaSHacka 2y ago
      > Every on- and off-ramp provider. This is essentially the purpose of localmonero and similar offerings. Trading cash for Monero in a p2p manner is going to be extraordinarily difficult to halt.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        The transaction is traced and and eventualy it goes to someone with a real bank accont and the tainted money is refused.
        immibis 2y ago
        First, the chain only sees the monero side of the transaction, not the fiat side, of which it's likely that no records exist at all after a short while. It looks identical to a payment for a good or service and it also looks identical to a transfer between two of the same person's wallets. Second, Monero is still thought to be untraceable. In fact regulated entities are banned from exchanging it in the EU precisely because they can't trace it. (Zcash is also banned under the same law, but is considered technically inferior because not all transactions are private.) Third, what do you even mean? Do you mean they'll go back to the last time those coins passed through a regulated on-ramp, and prosecute that person? For what? Buying cryptocurrency, then buying a legal product with cryptocurrency, is not illegal, and even if the product was illegal, the government most likely couldn't prove that. Also, the on-ramp was probably in a different jurisdiction. Perhaps for something like "acting as an unlicensed money transmitter" which is a thing they have done against users of cryptocurrencies. If they prosecute that in large quantities, will it fly? Or do you mean they'll wait until someone takes the crypto to a regulated off-ramp, and then prosecute that person? For what - undeclared income? As far as I know, trading one cryptocurrency for another is a non-taxable currency exchange, at least in some EU countries, so they can't get you for that. And what if they declared it? Again, they might try "acting as an unlicensed money transmitter" of course. What if it never gets to a regulated off-ramp and just circulates peer-to-peer forever? It's more likely tyou think, since remember, regulated off-ramps are strictly banned.
- lawn 2y ago
  The difference is that with actual cash you give cash directly to someone. With "Liberty Reserve" you introduced a third-party that did this for you. These things aren't the same. With crypto you don't hand over your coins to a third-party for safe keeping, you instead send coins directly to one another, just like with cash.
eru 1y ago
> I'd like to introduce you to Monero, [...] Hence my restriction to crypto that is 'like bitcoin'. Yes, you can use some tricks like zero knowledge proofs to make untrackable crypto-currencies. But as far as I can tell, they aren't all that popular. For currencies that offer both stealthy and 'regular' transactions (I think like zcash), the vast majority of transactions are of the latter kind.

em500 2y ago

Europe is clamping down on cash, with in some countries placing caps on cash transactions as low as €1000. https://en.econostrum.info/europe-restricts-cash-paymentss-new-amounts/ https://en.econostrum.info/europe-restricts-cash-paymentss-n... https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cash-payment-limitations.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cas...

jeffhuys 2y ago
We also can't have >500EUR in our homes
- pastage 2y ago
  You are allowed to travel abroad with under 10 000 euros without declaring it. As far as I know we do not have the same problem with asset forfeit laws like the US. There are no laws limiting how much cash you can have at home and while travelling. Though if you hoard millions in gold that is discovered in a police raid I think your main concern will be why the raid happend.
  - em500 2y ago
    In the EU, laws differ by country, so I wouldn't categorically declare that it's legal everywhere to have any amount of cash at home or traveling. From incidental local news reports here in the Netherlands, I suspect that if I were found during routine checks to be traveling with multiple-10k cash in my backpack or in my car, it would be seized and be treated as illicit until I prove otherwise.
- Tijdreiziger 2y ago
  Source?
- ru552 2y ago
  say what?
frollogaston 1y ago

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> Yes, there are mixers. But you'd just refuse to accept any bitcoin that took part in the mixer transaction, if any FBI coins were in there. Intentional mixers aren't even the half of it. You have large exchange operators that use a single wallet. They file KYC paperwork with governments, but that's not in the blockchain. From the perspective of the blockchain their whole exchange is one big mixer. A billion dollars goes in, a hundred was tainted, a billion dollars comes back out. The only information to trace which $100 that went in is the $100 that came back out isn't in the blockchain, it's in the exchange's private accounting database. But if you propose to taint every coin that has ever passed through a major exchange, that's pretty much all of them.

eru 1y ago
> But if you propose to taint every coin that has ever passed through a major exchange, that's pretty much all of them. All new ones. You can buy 'fresh coins' from miners directly. You could also exempt some 'honourable' miners (ie a whitelist) from the taint. All kinds of conventions are possible, depending on what people want to value. The convention that all bitcoins are equally valuable is just that: a convention. And it's not even strictly adhered to, because some bitcoins are already more valuable than others.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > All new ones. You can buy 'fresh coins' from miners directly. Putting aside that there are a finite number of Bitcoins that will ever be mined, what good is that? You'd have "untainted" coins that you could hardly even spend without immediately tainting them because six degrees of Kevin Bacon means that everybody else's wallet has already interacted with the unclean. > And it's not even strictly adhered to, because some bitcoins are already more valuable than others. Is it the tainted ones that are the more valuable ones because you can still exchange them for the same number of dollars but they also have additional value for trolling people by sending trivial amounts of them to their untainted wallets without their permission?
  - eru 1y ago

phendrenad2 1y ago

Basically any physical object with resilient demand is an alternative. Gold coins. Pokemon cards. Rich people stockpile art and classic cars.

eru 1y ago
Art and classic cars aren't very fungible, alas.