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Why would a government create Bitcoin? Simple! To help them track money launderers and penetrate black marketplaces like Silk Road. Many assume that Bitcoin is

Why would a government create Bitcoin? Simple! To help them track money launderers and penetrate black marketplaces like Silk Road. Many assume that Bitcoin is anonymous. It's not. At best, it is pseudonymous because every transaction is published in the blockchain for all the world to see. That means that users can be identified by conducting network analysis on the blockchain - see http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bitcoin-i... - and matching the results up with data from other sources (e.g. credit card payments records, emails, intel from spyware, etc.). It doesn't actually matter whether Bitcoin was created by an agency like the NSA or not - there is no doubt that they (and probably at least two there intelligence and security agencies) are doing this.

gwern 14y ago
> To help them track money launderers and penetrate black marketplaces like Silk Road. Which explains why the Silk Road is still around...? Creating Bitcoin would be incredibly short-sighted if that was the goal: if you read indictments of other drug markets or illegal markets like the Farmer's Market or the carder.su busts, it's clear that the government gets all the financial info it wants.
- mikecane 14y ago
  Let me add to the complexity. What if Silk Road is also gov't? We have had proof of CIA drug-running. And the so-called Drug War is a failure. You don't get failure on that magnitude without gov't complicity, even if it's simple bribery. See: Alcohol Prohibition.
  - eurleif 14y ago
    I think the Armory (Silk Road's sister site for weapons) is evidence against that. It was shut down because it wasn't profitable for the owner(s). Funding obviously wouldn't be an issue if it were the government, so if the Armory were good for their strategic objectives, why would they have shut it down? And if it were bad for their objectives, why would they have created it to begin with?
  - gwern 14y ago
    > We have had proof of CIA drug-running. Absolutely, but that was usually part of proxy wars against China and Russia and drugs being the best source of funding in regions like Afghanistan or SE Asia. What proxy wars, where the US is on the side of the insurgents, are going on now?

gwern 14y ago

> To help them track money launderers and penetrate black marketplaces like Silk Road. Which explains why the Silk Road is still around...? Creating Bitcoin would be incredibly short-sighted if that was the goal: if you read indictments of other drug markets or illegal markets like the Farmer's Market or the carder.su busts, it's clear that the government gets all the financial info it wants.

mikecane 14y ago
Let me add to the complexity. What if Silk Road is also gov't? We have had proof of CIA drug-running. And the so-called Drug War is a failure. You don't get failure on that magnitude without gov't complicity, even if it's simple bribery. See: Alcohol Prohibition.
- eurleif 14y ago
  I think the Armory (Silk Road's sister site for weapons) is evidence against that. It was shut down because it wasn't profitable for the owner(s). Funding obviously wouldn't be an issue if it were the government, so if the Armory were good for their strategic objectives, why would they have shut it down? And if it were bad for their objectives, why would they have created it to begin with?
- gwern 14y ago
  > We have had proof of CIA drug-running. Absolutely, but that was usually part of proxy wars against China and Russia and drugs being the best source of funding in regions like Afghanistan or SE Asia. What proxy wars, where the US is on the side of the insurgents, are going on now?