4 ms·

Silk Road is a burden. Most serious Boitcoin discussion forums and chat channels will ban you for mentioning it. We're trying to change how cash transactions wo

by abrkn 14y ago

Silk Road is a burden. Most serious Boitcoin discussion forums and chat channels will ban you for mentioning it. We're trying to change how cash transactions work, not help teens go to rave parties.

Cushman 14y ago
That doesn't mean it's not true though, right? I mean, help me along with this. Bitcoin is like cash, but you need to use a computer. If I'm already using a computer, there are many reasons I might prefer to use another payment system: Traceability, reversibility, confirmability, et cetera. These are generally very useful features that translate directly into me paying less for stuff. It seems to me like for most people, the only real advantage to cash is that it is anonymous, and the only reason most people need anonymity is if what they're buying is actually illegal, and for most people that means drugs. So if I'm an average guy with a job, a mortgage, and a credit card, if I pay my taxes, and stop for pedestrians, and I like to drop acid occasionally, what am I going to use bitcoin for?
- analog 14y ago
  Some people don't like having everything they do tracked, just on principle. Also, drugs aren't the only black market trade.
  - Cushman 14y ago
    Sure, but when there's an economic incentive to having things tracked most people put up with it. I'm not saying drugs are the only thing anyone would use bitcoin for, just the most likely thing for the average person to.
    - analog 14y ago
      I think the cash economy is much larger than people just buying drugs. Estimates of the size of shadow economies are between 14% and 22% of GDP in the developed world. [1] I'm just guessing that's significantly larger than the drug trade. I disagree about the privacy issues as well, in some countries in Europe people still remember governments using records to round people up. [1] http://www.voxeu.org/article/shadow-economies-around-world-model-based-estimates http://www.voxeu.org/article/shadow-economies-around-world-m...

by abrkn 14y ago

Silk Road is a burden. Most serious Boitcoin discussion forums and chat channels will ban you for mentioning it. We're trying to change how cash transactions work, not help teens go to rave parties.

Cushman 14y ago

That doesn't mean it's not true though, right? I mean, help me along with this. Bitcoin is like cash, but you need to use a computer. If I'm already using a computer, there are many reasons I might prefer to use another payment system: Traceability, reversibility, confirmability, et cetera. These are generally very useful features that translate directly into me paying less for stuff. It seems to me like for most people, the only real advantage to cash is that it is anonymous, and the only reason most people need anonymity is if what they're buying is actually illegal, and for most people that means drugs. So if I'm an average guy with a job, a mortgage, and a credit card, if I pay my taxes, and stop for pedestrians, and I like to drop acid occasionally, what am I going to use bitcoin for?

analog 14y ago
Some people don't like having everything they do tracked, just on principle. Also, drugs aren't the only black market trade.
- Cushman 14y ago
  Sure, but when there's an economic incentive to having things tracked most people put up with it. I'm not saying drugs are the only thing anyone would use bitcoin for, just the most likely thing for the average person to.
  - analog 14y ago
    I think the cash economy is much larger than people just buying drugs. Estimates of the size of shadow economies are between 14% and 22% of GDP in the developed world. [1] I'm just guessing that's significantly larger than the drug trade. I disagree about the privacy issues as well, in some countries in Europe people still remember governments using records to round people up. [1] http://www.voxeu.org/article/shadow-economies-around-world-model-based-estimates http://www.voxeu.org/article/shadow-economies-around-world-m...