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No. People in the Bitcoin community would not in a million years want governments be involved in Bitcoin, regulating things. Exchanges need independent audit an

by snitko 13y ago

No. People in the Bitcoin community would not in a million years want governments be involved in Bitcoin, regulating things. Exchanges need independent audit and insurance, but not greedy government bureaucrats waiting to be bribed. We want information and independent audit, not regulation.

pessimizer 13y ago
Does using Bitcoin require one to join the libertarian hivemind?
- snitko 13y ago
  No, but you have to be kidding yourself if you believe that Bitcoin will not make governments weaker and libertarian-minded people stronger. Satoshi, who one can argue, is a libertarian/crypto-anarchist allegedly holds 10% of all Bitcoins. You think if Bitcoin takes off that's going to mean nothing? If not, you better start fighting Bitcoin now.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- ninjac0der 13y ago
  No, but becoming aware of the immense problems with our current financial system helps.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Dogecoin has a much lighter outlook on the whole cryptocurrency. I suggest playing with Dogecoins. It is beginning to become serious, and their community prefers to stay out of this political nonsense. Dogecoins took some practical things and made them better. No ASICs exist yet for Dogecoin, so its still possible to mine them on normal computers. 1-minute block times means they're much faster than Bitcoins, and its refreshingly silly that people are sending each other thousands of DOGE at a time. (current exchange: $10 == 5,680 DOGE) So it is ridiculously easy to get yourself thousands of DOGEs to play with.
  - celticninja 13y ago
    No asic exist for any crypto currency other than bitcoin that is because it is not economically viable to develop them for currency with so little Value. quick transactions are no substitute for secured transactions so that you get 1 minute box is not really relevant Q
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      ASICs for the SCRYPT algorithm are much harder to make, and when they come out, they will be slower than BTC's SHA algorithm. Remember, SHA256 was designed for speed... and easily made into a hardware implementation. SCRYPT however, was designed to be slow and explicitly designed to be difficult to implement on ASICs (its possible of course, just harder). ------------- As for the 1 minute box, if you want security, just wait for 10 confirmations in DOGE. If you want speed, you can wait for 1 confirmation. Faster confirmations are strictly more flexible than slower confirmations.
      - baddox 13y ago
        The speed of an SCRYPT ASIC versus a SHA ASIC isn't really relevant. What's relevant is the speed increase that ASICs enjoy over CPU/GPU mining. Surely the relatively few people able to produce/afford ASICs for Dogecoin would be able to comprise a large portion of the Dogecoin network, just like Bitcoin ASIC miners comprise a large portion of the Bitcoin network.
        dragontamer 13y ago
        Compare current Scrypt ASICs. The best you can get today is 1350 GBP for a 5MH/s Litecoin ASIC that uses 70 Watts. https://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/ https://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/ In comparison, your typical R9 290X is hitting 0.8 Litecoin MH/s in 300 Watts. Your typical Litecoin ASIC Miner is ~26x more power efficient than a GPU. The 290x hits ~850 MH/s with Bitcoin at 300 Watts. But ASICs will soon hit 600,000 MH/s at 300 Watts. http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/ http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/ Basically, BTC ASICs are 700x more efficient than GPUs. LTC (and other SCrypt ASICs) are expected to only be ~20x more efficient. By making ASICs less efficient, it keeps more of the control of network in the hands of the individuals. SCrypt is the better hashing algorithm for ANY self-proclaimed libertarian, who wishes to remove power from the ASICs that have taken over the BTC network.
- celticninja 13y ago
  Not at all. The person you replied to should have said many or early adopters. The thing with bitcoin is that it is a software protocol, you don't have to apply politics to it. That is like saying TCP/I has a leftwing bias.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    BTC is designed to cap off at 21 Million BTC, a concept that revolves around deflation... and other concepts that are libertarian leaning. Anyone who has studied ethics understands that technology can have political leanings. Robert Moses's Bridges for example, were designed so that African American's would be unlikely to enter certain parts of New York City. A Bridge in of itself is not pro-segregation or anti-segregation. But when Robert Moses used bridges to block bus traffic to certain areas of New York City, they were being used as pro-segregationist tools. Technology is NOT politically agnostic. Only the naive or uneducated can believe that. ------------- DOGECOIN's politics have been explicitly stated. It wants to be a fun and easy coin for people to get into. It is unlikely to last very long (the 100 Billion DOGE soft-cap will be hit rather quickly), but they hope to learn a lot about coins in the meantime. Bitcoin's politics have been decided as well. Libertarians are beginning to wield BTC as a way to push their values. I'm simply stating that one of these communities is much funner to work with. Keeping coins "fun" and "easy" resonates with me a lot more than the typical libertarian I hear about BTC.
  - edj 13y ago
    That is like saying TCP/I has a leftwing bias. I agree that would certainly be nonsense. But any technology project most definitely can implement the ideological beliefs of its creators, if it's designed to do so and succeeds in achieving that design objective. For example, the World Wide Web was developed to facilitate sharing, exchange and collaboration.[1]. You might say Tim Berners-Lee did have certain belief system and that he did implement those in his design. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#1980.E2.80.931991:_Development_of_the_World_Wide_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#...
    - msutherl 13y ago
- michaelt 13y ago
  Here's the nonlibetarian pitch for bitcoin: Fuck bankers. Who would disdain to subscribe under this flowing banner?
d23 13y ago
> not greedy government bureaucrats waiting to be bribed Instead of greedy speculators who are willing to pump and dump or crash the economy to make money off of the ignorant?
- ninjac0der 13y ago
  I prefer that to a system which props itself up as protecting ignorance (it doesn't). It only promotes ignorance in things like the belief that our government and corporations get together and draft new laws to protect the ignorant masses. I'm sure you just need /more/ regulation, that way we can finally pin down the corps that keep bobbing and weaving through the existing regulation like the judges are looking for any excuse to make it easier on them.
- boon 13y ago
  That only works so long. Eventually the actors in the economy figure out how to route around the damage being done.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure Sometimes, the market does not figure it out... especially with a populace that is imperfectly educated (and not "perfectly logical, perfectly rational" beings in most theoretical economics) But even with perfectly logical and perfectly rational beings however, there still are market failures. And it is up to the population to create Governments to deal with these market failures. (Usually through deregulation or regulation) Case in point: LEXG, a 2010 stock that is widely considered "pump and dump". Despite all the regulations, and centuries of knowledge of pump and dump... it still happened. BTC itself has a growing volume of trade... but a lot of smaller cryptocurrenies are simply pump-and-dump schemes.
    - boon 13y ago
      It's a good thing we're really good at electing people that do a good job of watching out for our well-being! Do you think we'll always have an "imperfectly educated" populace? Do you consider yourself part of that sector of society?

by snitko 13y ago

pessimizer 13y ago

Does using Bitcoin require one to join the libertarian hivemind?

snitko 13y ago
No, but you have to be kidding yourself if you believe that Bitcoin will not make governments weaker and libertarian-minded people stronger. Satoshi, who one can argue, is a libertarian/crypto-anarchist allegedly holds 10% of all Bitcoins. You think if Bitcoin takes off that's going to mean nothing? If not, you better start fighting Bitcoin now.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
ninjac0der 13y ago
No, but becoming aware of the immense problems with our current financial system helps.
dragontamer 13y ago
Dogecoin has a much lighter outlook on the whole cryptocurrency. I suggest playing with Dogecoins. It is beginning to become serious, and their community prefers to stay out of this political nonsense. Dogecoins took some practical things and made them better. No ASICs exist yet for Dogecoin, so its still possible to mine them on normal computers. 1-minute block times means they're much faster than Bitcoins, and its refreshingly silly that people are sending each other thousands of DOGE at a time. (current exchange: $10 == 5,680 DOGE) So it is ridiculously easy to get yourself thousands of DOGEs to play with.
- celticninja 13y ago
  No asic exist for any crypto currency other than bitcoin that is because it is not economically viable to develop them for currency with so little Value. quick transactions are no substitute for secured transactions so that you get 1 minute box is not really relevant Q
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    ASICs for the SCRYPT algorithm are much harder to make, and when they come out, they will be slower than BTC's SHA algorithm. Remember, SHA256 was designed for speed... and easily made into a hardware implementation. SCRYPT however, was designed to be slow and explicitly designed to be difficult to implement on ASICs (its possible of course, just harder). ------------- As for the 1 minute box, if you want security, just wait for 10 confirmations in DOGE. If you want speed, you can wait for 1 confirmation. Faster confirmations are strictly more flexible than slower confirmations.
    - baddox 13y ago
      The speed of an SCRYPT ASIC versus a SHA ASIC isn't really relevant. What's relevant is the speed increase that ASICs enjoy over CPU/GPU mining. Surely the relatively few people able to produce/afford ASICs for Dogecoin would be able to comprise a large portion of the Dogecoin network, just like Bitcoin ASIC miners comprise a large portion of the Bitcoin network.
      - dragontamer 13y ago
        Compare current Scrypt ASICs. The best you can get today is 1350 GBP for a 5MH/s Litecoin ASIC that uses 70 Watts. https://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/ https://alpha-t.net/product/scrypt-asic-miner/ In comparison, your typical R9 290X is hitting 0.8 Litecoin MH/s in 300 Watts. Your typical Litecoin ASIC Miner is ~26x more power efficient than a GPU. The 290x hits ~850 MH/s with Bitcoin at 300 Watts. But ASICs will soon hit 600,000 MH/s at 300 Watts. http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/ http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/ Basically, BTC ASICs are 700x more efficient than GPUs. LTC (and other SCrypt ASICs) are expected to only be ~20x more efficient. By making ASICs less efficient, it keeps more of the control of network in the hands of the individuals. SCrypt is the better hashing algorithm for ANY self-proclaimed libertarian, who wishes to remove power from the ASICs that have taken over the BTC network.
celticninja 13y ago
Not at all. The person you replied to should have said many or early adopters. The thing with bitcoin is that it is a software protocol, you don't have to apply politics to it. That is like saying TCP/I has a leftwing bias.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  BTC is designed to cap off at 21 Million BTC, a concept that revolves around deflation... and other concepts that are libertarian leaning. Anyone who has studied ethics understands that technology can have political leanings. Robert Moses's Bridges for example, were designed so that African American's would be unlikely to enter certain parts of New York City. A Bridge in of itself is not pro-segregation or anti-segregation. But when Robert Moses used bridges to block bus traffic to certain areas of New York City, they were being used as pro-segregationist tools. Technology is NOT politically agnostic. Only the naive or uneducated can believe that. ------------- DOGECOIN's politics have been explicitly stated. It wants to be a fun and easy coin for people to get into. It is unlikely to last very long (the 100 Billion DOGE soft-cap will be hit rather quickly), but they hope to learn a lot about coins in the meantime. Bitcoin's politics have been decided as well. Libertarians are beginning to wield BTC as a way to push their values. I'm simply stating that one of these communities is much funner to work with. Keeping coins "fun" and "easy" resonates with me a lot more than the typical libertarian I hear about BTC.
- edj 13y ago
  That is like saying TCP/I has a leftwing bias. I agree that would certainly be nonsense. But any technology project most definitely can implement the ideological beliefs of its creators, if it's designed to do so and succeeds in achieving that design objective. For example, the World Wide Web was developed to facilitate sharing, exchange and collaboration.[1]. You might say Tim Berners-Lee did have certain belief system and that he did implement those in his design. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#1980.E2.80.931991:_Development_of_the_World_Wide_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#...
  - msutherl 13y ago
michaelt 13y ago
Here's the nonlibetarian pitch for bitcoin: Fuck bankers. Who would disdain to subscribe under this flowing banner?

d23 13y ago

> not greedy government bureaucrats waiting to be bribed Instead of greedy speculators who are willing to pump and dump or crash the economy to make money off of the ignorant?

ninjac0der 13y ago
I prefer that to a system which props itself up as protecting ignorance (it doesn't). It only promotes ignorance in things like the belief that our government and corporations get together and draft new laws to protect the ignorant masses. I'm sure you just need /more/ regulation, that way we can finally pin down the corps that keep bobbing and weaving through the existing regulation like the judges are looking for any excuse to make it easier on them.
boon 13y ago
That only works so long. Eventually the actors in the economy figure out how to route around the damage being done.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure Sometimes, the market does not figure it out... especially with a populace that is imperfectly educated (and not "perfectly logical, perfectly rational" beings in most theoretical economics) But even with perfectly logical and perfectly rational beings however, there still are market failures. And it is up to the population to create Governments to deal with these market failures. (Usually through deregulation or regulation) Case in point: LEXG, a 2010 stock that is widely considered "pump and dump". Despite all the regulations, and centuries of knowledge of pump and dump... it still happened. BTC itself has a growing volume of trade... but a lot of smaller cryptocurrenies are simply pump-and-dump schemes.
  - boon 13y ago
    It's a good thing we're really good at electing people that do a good job of watching out for our well-being! Do you think we'll always have an "imperfectly educated" populace? Do you consider yourself part of that sector of society?