3 ms·

The bitcoin community needs to come together and prove that legitimate self-regulation and sufficient transparency can work. We need to shed the Mt. Gox's by ch

by boon 13y ago

The bitcoin community needs to come together and prove that legitimate self-regulation and sufficient transparency can work. We need to shed the Mt. Gox's by choice, and choose firms that are willing to undergo third party audits (like Coinbase did recently). I'm a firm believer that there are better avenues than regulation-at-gunpoint, and cryptocurrencies are looking like a big part of that, but the community needs to prove this.

sp332 13y ago
To self-regulate, we need to convince people not to keep balances in third-party wallets. This was one of the main features of bitcoin, and people are just ignoring it. I don't hold out much hope for other reforms like "don't trust faceless websites with your money".
gutnor 13y ago
Money and self-regulation is never a good mix and it has not even been 10 years since the last time we have all suffered the result. Of course, the point is not doing it too early to avoid chocking the potential of bitcoin, but eventually, as bitcoin grows, after the power has shifted from the original believer to greed-driven finance professional, you will need regulation to rein them in. Of course, we can dream that communities will be strong enough. But let's be realistic - financial world has the money and it is their job to play with it, it would make no sense for them to ignore something as important as bitcoin is becoming.
- wyager 13y ago
  >Money and self-regulation is never a good mix and it has not even been 10 years since the last time we have all suffered the result. Unless you have unyielding cryptographic primitives to help. I'm at the Austin Bitcoin conference right now listening to a talk about Open Transactions and cryptographic exchange auditing. It sounds like exchange theft is pretty much a solved problem. Using crypto, we now have ways to make theft or coin loss pretty much a problem of the past, because we can make operating a fractional reserve exchange impossible and make stealing coins very, very hard. It seems like cryptographic regulation is drastically more effective than government regulation.
  - czr80 13y ago
    So, a prediction - stealing coins will always happen. Maybe no one will break your cryptography, but you will never close off all side channel attacks.
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      So should we give up now?
      - czr80 13y ago
        Of course not - but don't expect to be able to throw away lines of defense, like regulation and state enforcement.

by boon 13y ago

sp332 13y ago

To self-regulate, we need to convince people not to keep balances in third-party wallets. This was one of the main features of bitcoin, and people are just ignoring it. I don't hold out much hope for other reforms like "don't trust faceless websites with your money".

gutnor 13y ago

Money and self-regulation is never a good mix and it has not even been 10 years since the last time we have all suffered the result. Of course, the point is not doing it too early to avoid chocking the potential of bitcoin, but eventually, as bitcoin grows, after the power has shifted from the original believer to greed-driven finance professional, you will need regulation to rein them in. Of course, we can dream that communities will be strong enough. But let's be realistic - financial world has the money and it is their job to play with it, it would make no sense for them to ignore something as important as bitcoin is becoming.

wyager 13y ago
>Money and self-regulation is never a good mix and it has not even been 10 years since the last time we have all suffered the result. Unless you have unyielding cryptographic primitives to help. I'm at the Austin Bitcoin conference right now listening to a talk about Open Transactions and cryptographic exchange auditing. It sounds like exchange theft is pretty much a solved problem. Using crypto, we now have ways to make theft or coin loss pretty much a problem of the past, because we can make operating a fractional reserve exchange impossible and make stealing coins very, very hard. It seems like cryptographic regulation is drastically more effective than government regulation.
- czr80 13y ago
  So, a prediction - stealing coins will always happen. Maybe no one will break your cryptography, but you will never close off all side channel attacks.
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    So should we give up now?
    - czr80 13y ago
      Of course not - but don't expect to be able to throw away lines of defense, like regulation and state enforcement.