Bitcoin Forum

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504943_162-20069780-10391715.html?tag=strip

At about seven minutes into this interview, Jeff Garzik makes the following statement:

We’re working with the government to register bitcoin exchanges as MSBs (Money Service Businesses) to make sure that the long arm of the government can indeed reach bitcoin. A lot of bitcoiners are diehard Ron Paul libertarians, who might not necessarily agree with me but the only way bitcoins are going to be successful is working with regulation and with the government. And that’s what we’ve been doing specifically with the bitcoin exchanges, that’s where you exchange your US dollars or Euros to Bitcoins and back again, is that all of these are fully regulated with the government, fully complying with all the anti-money laundering and know-your-client laws.


Earlier in the interview he dismisses organizations like Silk Road as being “pretty bleeping dumb”.

One of the things that attracted me to Bitcoin in the first place was its potential for circumventing all of these oppressive and totalitarian laws. It was a real pleasure registering with Mt Gox as compared to opening a new brokerage account. As is usually the case, when a new industry takes hold and is threatened by government, they partner with government in a well-known phenomenon known as regulatory capture [think pharmaceuticals]. They raise costs and conspire to legislate advantages for themselves to keep out upstart competitors. So it seems likely to me that regulation of the bitcoin exchanges will take place. While I’m disappointed that one of the most prominent bitcoiners has this pro-regulation attitude, there are still a number of other advantages to bitcoin, even if the exchanges become regulated. I have two questions:

1) Will cooperating with government make bitcoins go up in value because it may result in their adoption by the mainstream, or will it make bitcoins less valuable because it diminishes financial privacy which is a very important motivation for a lot of people.

2) Assuming that companies like Mt Gox become registered MSBs, what are the prospects for outlaw exchanges and a successful black market in bitcoins where you don’t have to present your papers in order to transact business?

The cool thing about bitcoin is it doesn't matter if exchangers follow know your customer rules, you can cash in with your real ID and then mix your bitcoins to get unlinkability of your coins and your real ID. Then you have anonymized bitcoins and it doesn't matter that you needed to show ID to get them. Let them follow know your customer it makes no difference at all to the anonymity of the system if mixes are also used.

So let's sum up. Garzik is paid by the US government, Gavin Andresen is on CIA's paycheck. And they are two people that effectively have control over the Bitcoin network, because they develop the client used by majority of Bitcoin users. They can add to the client whatever they want, and clueless users will update to the newest versions. They can add to the client, let's say, blocking certain Bitcoin Exchange websites, and no one can stop them.
To secure the Bitcoin network, users should push to have a more decentralized development of client software.

Time for a code review.

You clearly don't know how bitcoin works if you think they can block exchanges.

You all realize that exchanges become obsolete once enough merchants switch over, right? They are just a step on this long journey to replace abused and flawed currency systems world-wide.

You'll see.

I'll posit an alternative theory. Some of the most visible Bitcoin devs will endeavor to appear as pro-gov, and make friends where friends need be made. This takes pressure of the anti-Bitcoin regulators, and gives Bitcoin time to become ever-more established, and hopefully unstopable.

If I were Gavin, or Garzik, I would shake hands with government officials and assure them that they had nothing to worry about. I would emphasize things that a Gov. official would like, and de-emphasize things which are libertarian, free-market, and anonymity related.

Put simply, I would publicly distance myself and Bitcoin from services like Silk Road, privately knowing that by so doing I'm making both Bitcoin and Silk Road more viable.

Going on a tv news interview and standing up for liberty and the right of individuals to purchase what they so please so long as they're not harming others... well, it may be the valid position morally, but it will not engender a favorable reaction from that hideous government which we are so eager to cast off, nor from the public opinion mobs to which we are unfortunately subjected.

In my view the eventual consequences of bitcoin (or it's replacement) are not possible to stop in the long term without drastic supression methods (literally monitoring everyone's PC). So any attempt at regulation might actually be a good thing, just so people (including governments) accept it in the short term.

While I was typing this, evoorhees summed that up even better.

I can not agree with regulation idea more.

Are you saying that Garzik is slick enough to have said what he said but have a different agenda in reality? That would be impressive if true. I actually think he believes what he said and is apparently naive to the sheer evil epicness of the power centers run by dynastic, multi-generational banking elites.  Some of the comments Gavin made make me think the same of him.  I remain very wary of these so-called "leaders".

I would hope that when they sell out their own customers some enterprising and more realistic and better-informed developers create anonymous ways to exchange bitcoin.

Well I have no idea. But I'm not sure it matters. Bitcoin, after all, is allegedly not subject to the agenda of anyone.

Don't worry people, the official Bitcoin client will be obsolete soon enough, just like with BitTorrent. Gavin and Garzik are figure heads. If they came out with an official client that enabled government regulation, everyone would just switch to a 3rd party client that didn't have it. So party on!

No, that is decidedly not true.  I'm guessing you did not watch the video at all.

The regulations mentioned were clearly related to bitcoin exchanges.

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Oh!  :o

I think some people are under the impression that Bitcoin exchanges equal Bitcoin network.

It doesn't matter. It's people trading their property at their leisure. Nobody is entitled to a single drop of it. To regulate it in the name of safety, is to claim people do not know what is best for themselves. Bitcoin is supposed to only further rectify man's own right to his own life and its fruits.

God damn every parasite out there who claims Bitcoin in any of its forms should be subject to regulation! Subject to the thieving regimes: even a single drop of the Bitcoin economy! Bitcoin will destroy these structures all in good time and there is nothing you can do about it! All you do is hinder our revolution and its scope when you ask for the state's approval of how we use our property and labor! I hope all of you apologists suffer when the time comes!

The state along with your brown-nosing attitude will be buried! Long-live a new tomorrow!

well, they certainly enable price discovery which encourages more participation, more price discovery, which strengthens the network, etc.  their importance shouldn't be minimized either.

Atlas makes a good point.  just what is there to regulate?

I think there may have been a time and a place for it, but I think that time is passed.  Making statements like they are doing (even supposing they don't truly believe it), will tend to attract the kind of filth that will destroy the idea behind bitcoin.  It's not about tripling your money in a month, it's about decentralized control of money, aka not putting it all in the hands of the USG.

I saw the video and had similar concerns to the OP.

Okay, your answer clears that you are not paid by the government. So I understand you are cooperating with the government of your country, but not for a paycheck.
"We’re working with the government to register bitcoin exchanges as MSBs (Money Service Businesses) to make sure that the long arm of the government can indeed reach bitcoin."
Still it makes me wonder, which exchanges will be reached by "the long arm of the government", and if it does have anything in common with a certain Bitcoin Exchange site in Japan. I presume more can not be said because of professionality customs.

Look dude, you are preaching to the choir (after all you quoted me). I don't care about the exchanges because I don't use them or plan to ever use them. Regulate all day long, and people like me will avoid it like the plague. Try to regulate Bitcoin and expect forks. This is my point, regulators can regulate to their hearts content. It indeed doesn't matter.

If one trades Bitcoin for FRN or any other fiat, one would be mad to expect lack of regulation, after all, one would be trading for the currency of the regulators!

Indeed. I find them quite a useful tool. But they are not necessary for me to use Bitcoin.

You're right. Thank you.

People soon have to realize the following:

- BitCoin cannot be regulated
- BitCoin cannot be shutdown
- BitCoin cannot be represented by individuals

I am sick and tired of hearing statements of stopping it and blocking it and making it illegal. GET IT INTO YOUR MIND, THERE IS NO CENTRAL SYSTEM.

Branding the system illegal doesnt make sense either as the system can be replaced by a new "brand" anytime. Actually its only the client that has to change its name and then keep on going in the same block-chain. And once more, IT CANNOT BE SHUT DOWN!

what about the >50% network hashing rate argument?

Nowhere close to viable at this point.

why?

1) The network has too much vested-interested. If such an attack were suspected, many would be determined to prevent it.

2) The network being as vast as it is, such an attack would require an enormous investment.

well, clearly what we're talking about here is gov't intervention.  they have unlimited USD's to "invest" if they want to shut it down with this method or am i missing something?

I have a feeling before the US feels that threatened, we will be too large.

The US Government has easier, less expensive ways if they are so inclined. Control the major mining pool through undercover force (basically control 1 guy). DDOS the next top 5. Network is damaged before miners of said major pool are out of their pajamas. Public image is injured. Bitcoin takes ages to recover, if ever.

Tinfoil hat stuff of course.  ;D  We all know the US Government isn't coordinated enough to pull off such an attack.

http://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=350x200&chd=t:47.87,2.84,22.67,1.30,14.88,-1.09,2.90,7.60,1.02&cht=p&chf=bg,s,00000000&chl=deepbit|BitcoinPool|slush|bitcoins.lc|btcguild|other|Eligius|btcmine|swepool

In all seriousness, pools are becoming a centralized threat to a decentralized currency. What percentage of miners do you think have the knowledge to mine solo and are ready to do so at the drop of a hat?

Yeah I'm growing more wary of Jeff by the day, Gavin too. Really wishing I knew C++ so I could review the code and all future commits myself.

Btw, does anyone know if the sourceforge tarball is just a snapshot of the git tree or does it get some tweaks on the way there?

The network is not too large.

The network's hashing power could be duplicated with less than $10M.  The US government could absolutely break the 50% barrier.

You have to account for the inefficiency, excess employment, etc.

That $10M figure goes through the roof.

Well, the good news is that the recent price increase is going to bring a surge of new hashing power. Get ready for people crying about the difficulty doubling every 2016 blocks.  :D

I'm pretty sure I understand the way things work, but can someone please tell me how true these 2 statements are:

• No individual, not even Garzik or Gavin, can control/regulate the way the network and transactions actually function. Garzik and Gavin can only release a client with limited functionality.
• Any 3rd party could come along and make a less restricted client if this were to happen.

I was accounting for that...

Lets assume for a second that big bro actually does decide to attempt to regulate the entirety of bitcoins existence (if this is even possible).

Is it not the case that alternative yet still compatible clients could be created, that lack the 'regulation' bits?

I'm generally against gov meddling in my financial affairs, seeing how if they can't steal from me to my face, they still manage to steal from me behind my back (inflating the dollar for example). They do both if/when they can.

However, for sake of argument about the life and value of bitcoin :

Wouldn't it be a 'good' thing to have a client that is 'gov approved'?

Theres always going to be a handful of people who want nothing to do with gov, but theres an even larger population of brainwashed people who still (delusional) strongly strongly trust in that which backs the USD... the 'Full Faith and Credit of the United States'.

Granted, bitcoins will never be actually 'backed' by the US by design, a client that is 'backed' by it might encourage more people to use the currency.

Even if you choose to use a non 'us backed' client (because they will exist too).

Just my ฿.02 (which is apparently worth a lot more than a lot of your $.02's at the moment *snicker*)

Maybe this is a terrible example and I have no idea what I'm talking about, but to me, anything that encourages the use of or secures (in the minds of the masses) bitcoin to the extent that more people trust and begin to use it... is a good thing, or can be.

Neither could I. My disgust at the idea has my agreement stuck permanently at negative infinity.

You sound like you need a visit from one of those lovely Silk Road escorts.

If any back-doors are ever put into the client, that version will be removed from bitcoin.org. Bitcoin.org is independent from the developers.

The beauty of open source is that you don't have to trust me, or Gavin, or Satoshi, or anyone.  The code is there, and anyone is free to make their own client with their own rules.  Any backdoors or similarly malicious code would be spotted instantly.  The SHA-1 commit ids in git make sure of that.  git provides a hash chain, just like bitcoin's block chain.

Clients can and do upgrade slowly -- we support ancient bitcoin clients released in the early days of bitcoin, also.

What does Satoshi think about regulation?

US govt. definitely has the ability to trace every bitcoin transaction already, that is what Garzik was saying. Linking btc addresses to IP's and names is not difficult with the internet traffic analysis tools they have. Eventually, they could even adopt bitcoin and MAKE everyone use. Sure it screws the bankers, but then the power shifts completely to the spooks, the watchers, those who like to be hidden but to know everybody else's secrets.

Satoshi = Uncle Sam?

What does Hal Finney think?

It is not the back doors that are the worry, it is the public record at the core and that will never be changed. It is flawed as a monetary technology.

Correct (added my own emphasis).


Correct.


It is a tool, with limits.  All bitcoin has ever tried to be is a working decentralized currency.  It is up to you to add your own layers of strong anonymity on top of bitcoin.

I'm as libertarian as the next guy, and I don't think JG implied all that some of you think he did. There were two main points he made (if I remember correctly):

1) All bitcoin transactions are public and will always be, far from a scheme designed for untraceable money laundering.
2) Bitcoin exchanges should be legal Money Service Businesses.

Regarding #1: [stuff deleted; mother_of_another covered it before I could post]

Regarding #2: you shouldn't have to be an outlaw and an enemy of the state to be a bitcoin user. Some of us want to continue living lawfully in society, however flawed it may be. If you want Bitcoin to gain wide acceptance, you can't make being an outlaw the price of admission because it will drive almost everyone away. So of course currency<->BTC exchanges will have to be statute-abiding, legal enterprises. As was well pointed out earlier, this only has any effect to the extent bitcoin is exchanged for legal tender. If what you envision ultimately is an all-bitcoin world, then exchanges will tend to have less and less significance. Of course "They" can't imagine such a world, smug in their knowledge that dollars et al are real money. They're hardly Austrian-school economists, and don't understand what happens When Money Dies (http://university.unitedstatesliberty.org/654/textbooks/adam-fergusson-when-money-dies-nightmare-of-the-weimar-collapse/), or that such a thing could happen to here. In the meantime we need to keep bitcoin alive so it's there to pick up the pieces of the wreckage of the failed monetary system. To do otherwise is just painting a big target on bitcoin's forehead.

I thought JG did a good job of exploding the smears and FUD that the hostiles are trying to whip up.

The state doesn't have to legally recognize and regulate bitcoin in order to keep it in the province of "law-abiding citizens". All it has to do is not make it illegal. Only in totalitarian societies are activities considered to be forbidden until the state decides otherwise. And regulating it will have the same effect as outlawing it in the long run, as regulation is nothing more than a slow constriction of the ability of people to act while remaining within the law. The only difference is that more people will be fooled along the way.

Gubbamint can't regulate open source projects.

Quick, the owners of mtgox and other BTC exchanges, please open source your server code!

Also, what about regular people like myself who have never used mtgox and never have exchanced a single bitcoin for USD?  How are you going to regulate me?

How can they do this?

I still think it's suicide for anybody to consider exchanging bitcoin in the US, or Liberty Reserve, Pecunix ect.
Russia doesn't give a fuck. They have fleets of LR exchangers that will cash you out $50k at a time without asking for ID. Same with Vietnam

Doesn't really matter like that other guy said, since names can't really be tied to transactions, and since there is no central authority you can split up your gagillions in bitcoins into multiple exchangers and cash out under the radar an epic amount legally

A lot of what people are saying in this topic is just ridiculous. I'm sure Bitcoin is dominated by Techies and Libertarians and that's all well and good. But what some people are posting is straight regressive towards the future of Bitcoin.

Simply put:
Early on start ups shouldn't and especially the people who dominate this forum shouldn't intentionally antagonize governments. Competition doesn't exist until you are competitive. Co-existence is best for now and if BitCoin ever gets comparable enough then people can decide how to iron out the issues. If you push away potential partners for growth you end up stuck defending your asses from retarded politicians Senator Schumer with no voice and no one to back you up.

precisely.  this whole thread is BS.

garzik didn't have anything to say about regulating Bitcoin - only that the public, bank-tied exchanges adhere to the regulatory confines of the countries they exist in.

and he's absolutely correct.

what does that have to do with Bitcoin?  are the Linden people, or the WoW people yelling about this?  i doubt it.

none of what garzik said has anything to do with the anti-regulatory possibilities of Bitcoin - by itself - that we all love.  not anything at all.

+1

I already sent an email to garzik, but does anyone know more details about how Bitcoins will be regulated?  Is it for sure that bitcoin exchangers will be considered msb's?  Please post any developments along these lines, thanks.

The idea of working with government on regulating Bitcoins repulses me. The fact that government is contacting main developers is worrying. Bitcoin exchanges work very well without government sticky hands involved. After what Garzik said, I consider him the enemy of free market and the whole idea of cryptocurrency. Now I will definitely look more careful at what changes in the client are made with each update.

Make sure to let tech retards like me know what you find.

Agreed. Garzik didn't make friends here when he criticized "ron paul libertarians" (which I thought was kind of strange), when he characterized users of silk road as stupid, and that he needs to help the long arm of government reach bitcoin. He came off as a righteous toadie for the State.

Who is this Garzik person.  I nevaheordofem.

Time to create a anarcho-bitcoin that doesnt touch government money or need to be regulated.

One of the core developers, posts as xf2_org.

Shh. The regulations are just a ruse we all know are way around  it ;)

Ohhh seriously?  I remmmber him posting to the forums.  Sad to hear him dissin folks.

I think most of you need to stop posting now, and go read Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Once you have done so, consider Jeff Garzik's statements in that light.

So our guy gets called up to do an interview on a segment that looks like it was totally geared up to tear him a new asshole and declare to the world at large that BTC = Drugs.

He manages to divert 95% of the content away from that point, while slipping in the buzzwords to make Joe Public feel warm and fuzzy and all "Hey these BTC things don't sound so shifty at all", at the same time as explaining things in something other than a way that only a nerd would love, and you guys are complaining about it?

Really?

Really?





edit: This commentary brought to you by Tradehill referral code TH-R1507

^

+1

I think Jeff did a fabulous interview, pure genius.  Those who don't get it probably never will and should just go play monopoly or something.

If Bitcoin can be regulated and governments have the will to do so, it will be regulated. If it cannot be regulated, it won't be regulated. What anyone here says or thinks about it has little bearing on the matter.

I think it's a good strategy to be open with Bitcoin regulation when on a mainstream news broadcast. The average American has the attitude that trade should be illegal unless the government explicitly allows it.

I fully agree with Jeff Garzik: bitcoin exchanges, and mostly the biggest one, must do steps to following government rules to survive. Central Bitcoin exchanges are very weak point of whole infrastructure, so when they will do something illegal, they can be shut down pretty easily.

Don't forget that bitcoin != exchanges (and mainly bitcoin != mtgox). So regulating exchanges isn't the same as regulating Bitcoin. Also don't forget that mtgox is already doing steps to follow USA regulations (those 1000$ daily limit of withdrawal etc).

I really don't understand people who want to keep bitcoin illegal. Following laws is key point to have bitcoin economy running. If you don't like government, you don't need to use regulated services and buy bitcoins from some random guy on the street. That's completely your choice.

I think that people writing "FUCK" to Jeff's statement are simply dumb. Or childish.

Bitcoin is illegal? Since when?

How does bitcoin diminish financial privacy?

You picked the least important thing from my post, congratz.

Maybe we have come to the fork in the Bitcoin road - where Bitcoin client forks and splits up between legal users and illegal users and each network only recognizes the Bitcoin keys following its rules?  Issues talked about here:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8530.0

or concerns raised here:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=13694.0

I hope not. Bitcoin client is quite difficult piece of software, by using 3rd party clients which does not implement important pieces as official client, you are risking your money and problems transfers pretty easily.


No, they are not only spokesmen. They are core developers, who understand very well what's going in the bitcoin sources.


If... but nobody is saying that they are going to add anything for 'government regulation' into the client. Read carefully - Jeff is talking just about exchanges.

If Jeff Garzik owns an exchange, I think he can regulate it however he wants to. But I think he should stay away from other people businesses. Exchange owners will know what's best for them.

personal opinion: best PR i've ever seen. tip of the hat to jgarzik!

In my post above I was actually going to add that an effective attack vector for Government against Bitcoin might be to convince some of the main devs to include features into the "official" client that make it easier to regulate Bitcoin. I left that out, though, since I couldn't come up with anything that would do the trick.

I'm assuming any government-instigated changes would have to not break backward compatibility or they would have a hard time getting people to use new versions with such additions. So what could actually be done to the mainstream client to make it more regulation-friendly? One thing I can think of is the option to use central servers for some functions of Bitcoin to, say, remove or reduce the need to wait for confirmations (effectively an third-party wallet hosting service). As we go more and more mainstream, more and more of the  userbase is unlikely to care much about anonymity and decentralized transfers, but still I don't see any way to actually make it mandatory to use any hypothetical centralized features in future versions. If a release with regulation-friendly features immediately breaks compatibility with other clients, I don't see it gaining much traction.

So, my question is, is there anything that could realistically be done to significantly change the way Bitcoin works to make it more palatable to would-be regulators, or are we just frothing at the mouth about nothing here?

Some more fiction:

Swimmer:  "But its anonymous!"  ???
Anders:  "No it is not!"  ::)

Swimmer:  "But its untraceable!"  ???
Anders:  "No it is not!"  :D

Swimmer:  "But its illegal!"  ???
Anders:  "No it is not!"  :)

Swimmer:  "But you can launder it!"  :o
Anders:  "Yes you can! Like most assets!"   :(

Swimmer:  "But if you LAUNDER it, THEN it will become maybe untraceable or even anonymous!"  >:(
Anders:  "Yes."  :(

Swimmer:  "But laundering is illegal!"  >:(
Anders:  "Yes it is."  :(

Swimmer:  "Oh I get it!, Ghostbusters go after those LAUNDERERS and DRUG PEDDLERS at least we can LITIGATE .... THEM!"  :)

All legal Bitcoin crypto-commodity users:  Cheer!!  :D

Yes, that indeed makes sense. Sometimes that isn't how it works though.

People use guns to murder others. Government outlaws guns.  ???

The tool is often demonized and banned because of how evil people use it. In the process a lot of lawful citizens become outlaws, or abandon the tool (loss for society).

EDIT: This really has nothing to do with the thread, and I think the interview was fine. Again, people are confusing Bitcoin exchanges with the Bitcoin network.

Please elaborate...I don't understand the (positive?) strategic implications of Garzik's statements.


+1.

Pity!

I would however view bitcoin as an internet good/commodity (intellectual property right held by the cryptographic key holder) regulated by the information industry and not a money/currency regulated by the financial industry.  A P2P crypto-commodity.  Luckily the legal mine field is less strenuous than fincen.org of the financial industry.  How can they call it a currency anyway on bitcoin.org?  MtGox calls it commodity, the UK tax office will tax it only when its turned into currency, and the Australian tax office will tax it like barter transactions - according to an online news report. ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/bitcoin_under_attack/ )

Disclaimer:  This is the views of Cloud9, you should derive your own opinions.

Garzik did a great job on the interview.

Not one person posting in this thread seems to know what a Money Service Business is, which is what Garzik was talking about in the OP's quote.  MSBs are governed by the BSA.  What about SAR's and CTR's.  Here, I will just post a link so you guys can be educated on some of the legal requirements a US-based exchange has to meet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act
 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act)

People also use knives to murder others. Knives aren't outlawed (at least not that I'm aware of it). So, what's the difference between knives and guns?

Guns are primarily used to severely injure or kill people.
Knives are used for all kinds of things, including injury, in some cases murder.

Some people believe that regulating things that can do more harm than good (guns are specifically designed to create severe harm) will reduce harm overall. While that premise may be questionable, it's currently widely accepted as a motivation for decisions affecting large populations (lots of mistakes are being made there, but that's another story).

So ... if it turns out that Bitcoins are primarily used to do things considered "illegal" by the majority of people, they will be outlawed in many countries. Saying that's not possible or wouldn't matter is quite naive because even some herbs have been made illegal. Think about that: Something that grows very well naturally can be effectively be prohibited. If you have one of those in your garden - and you might not even know what you have there in your garden - you might go to jail for it. That's a fact in many countries, even though whether you want to consume that herb or not is just a thing between you and the herb. If that's possible, why shouldn't it be possible to make Bitcoins illegal of which each and every transaction is stored in each and every client? Which are designed to be used to "connect with other people" (talk "social graph"). You can hide - just like you could grow those herbs in the basement. And many people will get through with it. Others will fall victims to the authorities ... or terrocrats (whatever you want to call them and from whichever angle you want to perceive them).

So, if you are interested in Bitcoins - for whatever reason - you should also be interested in Bitcoins being "legal", simply because it makes your life much simpler. You can be open about you using Bitcoins, promote Bitcoins, do any legal kind of business with Bitcoins out in the public, you can reveal your identity - and if you want your transactions to be transparent (which some people want because they believe in transparency as the most effective antidote to corruption), you can even reveal your Bitcoin addresses, so everyone can follow exactly how many Bitcoins go in and out of your wallet.

If you want to be as anonymous as possible ... for whatever reasons (privacy comes to mind immediately) ... that's also fine with me ... but then it would be wise for you to stay as silent as possible: While security by obscurity is weak, it's one first step that's comparatively easy to implement. You need to understand the technology (it seems to me a lot of people don't - even though it's easy to read up (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Tracing_a_coin_s_history)), and then you can use the technology in ways that will hopefully give you what you want (anonymity, privacy, a certain amount of security from certain kinds of attacks).

That way, everyone can be happy and Bitcoins can take over the world!

People who use Bitcoins because they feel they have many advantages in all kinds of payment situations can do so in a larger and larger market. And people that want to use Bitcoins for the same reasons criminals are already using cash instead of credit card payments, wire transfer and the like, can do so as well when they put in the major effort of making their actions as hard to trace as possible. There's no point in judging anyone - it's just choices one has to make, with sets of consequences one has to take. And it's up to every individual to decide which level of anonymity/privacy/security they want, and how much convenience they are willing to give up for that. Or: How much convenience they want and how much privacy they are willing to give up for that.

Crying "but we wantz Bitcoins to be intransparent and anonymous" doesn't serve anyone. Seriously.

Because that has nothing to do with Bitcoins but with you putting a lot of effort into it and understanding exactly what you do. That's fully up to you - not up to Bitcoins. If you can't even read the source-code ... well ... you better look for someone you trust that can. And the more silent you are about it - the better for you. Get together with people you fully trust, communicate in ways that are private (I still think there's quite a bit of use for GPG-based mailing-lists and maybe even forums or maybe newsgroups where "subscription" basically means adding your public key).

And do whatever you feel you want to do.

But whatever you do - be aware of the consequences of your actions, including potential consequences! Again: Crying "but I wantz Bitcoin to be useful for my illegal actions" on a public forum ... doesn't help anybody for anything. Well, almost ... it does "help" with one objective: It helps those who want to destroy Bitcoin.

I really liked the Interview, Jeff Garzik's perspective on things and how he answered the questions; and it felt sincere to me. IMHO, that's the way to support Bitcoin in becoming a viable payment method. IMHO, that's the way to support the community that's forming around Bitcoin. So: Thank you!

"BT - CLAWER" you may want to insert a strategically placed hyphen in your domain name...

Yes, we are aware of this type of stuff.  We are just questioning Garzik's rational for using up precious media time to associate bitcoin with drugs and money laundering, when he could have used the opportunity to point out bitcoin's benefits to society.

I haven't updated my client in a while.  I would be very hesitnat from now on when bitcoin.org says "Time for an important security update...please download latest client"  :-\ until there is a proper code review of all recent changes.

It's quite evident that the dev team has some spineless individuals, but it doesn't change the fact that his influence is immaterial. I will say that the little that Garzik has said, has made me dislike him; he has the typical puppet mentality. I find it laughable that people would think his interview was some ingenious PR campaign. I find it equally laughable that some members of this community would imply that the current set of developers have some unparalleled knowledge of the protocol and software development, and discourage the development of other clients on such a baseless assertion.

Maybe it's time to throw some financial incentive behind the development of a new client that doesn't have idiots jumping on TV insulting it's userbase. What will Garzik speak about when Silk Road quadruples in popularity? Or when a few other sites show up? Is he going to announce how bitcoin.org is working to help track down their users by implementing changes within the client? Surely that would fall within the confines of what some users are suggesting. How far will you take such an "ingenious" PR campaign?

Phenomenal!  They went at Bitcoins with the worst kind of slant possible, given the current circumstances, and Garzik actually pushed them back.  This is exactly the kind of coverage Bitcoin needs.  Well done, Garzik!

I agree wholeheartedly that Bitcoins must become regulated.  It's a compromise that individuals who want to make black market purchases will dislike, but Bitcoin is more important than that.

Can the government regulate an open-source project?

The government can regulate the Bitcoin itself, as it would any other currency or commodity, without regulating the software.  But I wouldn't know to what extent the regulation in mind is, being just some guy, y'know?

I recognize that no one likes the idea of further government regulation.  The sad truth is that it's either regulation, or illegality.  They won't let it be anything else.  What are you going to do when Bitcoin possession and exchange is illegal?  We all know that they aren't at all anonymous.  Furthermore, without transactions in broad daylight by the common public, Bitcoin can't sustain the value it's at.  If forced completely underground, who's going to pump USD into the Bitcoin?  No one is going to want to sell their weed for a currency that has no exchangeability for currency that can buy things other than black market goods.

I respect your contempt for the corruption in government.  You're guys are right when you think to yourselves, our government has too much control over what we do and how we live.  Bitcoin is a step in the right direction, but you must understand that is just a foot in the door of meaningful social change.  We can't tear down the walls of the castle quite yet.  We don't have the numbers.  Bitcoin can represent personal freedom from the ruthless banking economies, even with government regulation.  You'll still have to pay cash for your weed, but at least your Bitcoins will have value.  

Hell.  You could always trade in your Bitcoins for USD to buy illegal goods.  That currency works just fine for everybody else who wants a bag to share among friends.

But let me say it again - if the government decides to smash Bitcoin, they will succeed.  They have absurd resources at their disposal for the subjugation of offenders both grand and petty.  Bitcoin raids could become the new child pornography raid.  Door kicked in, hard drives seized at gunpoint.  That's a game over scenario for Bitcoin, and because of that, it needs some form of regulation, like it or not.

Who cares if he works with US or whatever government to register exchanges. It wont stop "unregistered" exchanges (and other subjects of bitcoin economy for that matter) from existing. They can't "register" or "own" the whole bitcoin network :)

Governments successfully "regulate" certain herbs. You know, stuff that grows naturally. Stuff that's actually a part of nature (see also posting above). It doesn't get any more "open source" than that ;-)

So when they can do that - what should prevent them from regulating open source projects?

Just like with those herbs, it will be difficult to completely wipe Bitcoin out of existence. But they have their ways of making life difficult for people. They certainly have ways of preventing Bitcoin becoming mainstream. And mainstream is where Bitcoin eventually needs to go.

The less governments (and people believing in governments - which become less but are still many) consider Bitcoin threatening, the better it is. And truthfully, while I consider Bitcoin highly disruptive technology I don't see why it should be threatening to most people unless some few make it so (e.g. by promoting it as great way to sell and buy regulated substances, tax evasion and the like ... all stuff that can already be conveniently be done with cash, completely not something anyone really needs Bitcoin for).

Well spoken, Jashan.

A regulated Bitcoin, is not Bitcoin anymore. Those who defends regulation, please go with Paypal and the likes.
You do not deserve to be part of this new paradigm.

You won't have a new paradigm without us, who you call the unworthy.  Reality necessitates compromise.

THANK YOU!!!  ^^ This is the most succinct and spot on post in this whole thread.  Again, if you are in favor of regulated currencies, then you are at the wrong spot, fellows.  Stick with your PayPals and your Visas and your USDs.  And pay your hefty transactions fees/taxes as you please.  Just leave bitcoin alone.

You are very wrong, the genius is out of the bottle, your consent is not needed.

Okay.  Let's try a different approach - if Bitcoin is declared illegal goes completely underground, how will I use it without great risk to my personal safety?  If Bitcoin users could actually pull that off, then we have a real fight on our hands, instead of a series of brutal raids on our homes.

Reality is, whether you'd like to believe it or not, and whether it's a morally sound argument or not...  Bitcoin will flourish with or without law-abiding and/or "willingly regulated" users. Pandora's box and all that. Once the right individuals get involved, the underworld will maintain the value of the currency among themselves alone. Anyone else that wants to get involved in Bitcoin sans the illegal activity... it'll be there for them, too. If you doubt the illicit materials market can't sustain their own economy once the infrastructure is put in place, I'm not sure I can convince you of anything. Anyone, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Remember there is a world outside there. If I were you, I would consider moving abroad.
I would be very scared of living in such a police state you are describing.

Anyway, Bitcoin should live on it's premises, or die with them.

I do doubt it.  A currency is only as strong as its exchangeability.  Don't pretty much all underworld exchanges use either established currencies with obvious backing, or a barter system?  No one uses "black dollars" that I know of.  Perhaps bitcoin will be different, but only time will tell that.

I don't agree with that, but I certainly respect it.  And yeah, the raid thing is a real worry for me, should Bitcoins be declared illegal.

There is actually a whole body of thought on what is known as "Agorism" on how to provide law and security without government:

from http://agorism.info/ (http://agorism.info/)

Banditry, indeed!

You doubt it? What is maintaining the "exchangeability" of Bitcoins right now? The fact that you can do business with a few obscure businesses to get some some shirts, servers, VPNs, gift cards? The fact that there's a bunch of speculative trading? You think these two economies, if isolated, foster a stronger value among currency exchange than illicit drugs? I'm not sure why you would question the market more than the infrastructure. If trust and value are instilled within the system, the medium of exchange, then the materials in the exchange are insignificant (at least IMO). There are a ton of people that think Gold is useless, a fictional currency and useless commodity. While gold does have its pragmatic applications, it's the collective agreement that gold is valuable that makes it valuable.

It is my personal belief that the anticipation of widespread liquidity and exchangeability, coupled with obviously rising values due to that same speculation, are what is responsible for the current value of Bitcoins.  It is also my belief that were it to be announced that all of those Bitcoins were soon to be illegal, everyone who lived in the USA and who wished to remain on the safe side of her laws would sell off as quickly as possible, which would tremendously damage their value.

I will note that prior to the media exposure, Bitcoin was maintaining it's value very well. The spike was from media exposure and ensuing speculative trading. What will be interesting to watch is the trade volume of the market while Silk Road is closed for maintenance/upgrading/security evaluation. I know they said it was also to help shift the focus to the positive aspects of Bitcoin, but they very well may have the opposite effect: pegging the market to illegal activity. I hope that isn't the case, but I think it's a plausible scenario.

Don't worry, cryptocurrencies will survive despite being illegal or not, if people find a real benefit for using them.
Like illegal drugs market flourish everywhere (please don't ask me what are the benefits of illegal drugs)
Maybe we may have  "medical bitcoins" dispensaries, too.  ;)

Has anyone ever pointed out to you how spineless you are?

The real danger occurs at the exchange level.

If all you ever do is mine bitcoins, and then either hoard them or trade them directly for goods/services, you *should* be fine.

Once you start turning BTC into fiat, USD particularly.... Expect high levels of scrutiny, sooner rather than later.

King Whitehat is coming.

No.  They have disagreed in colorful ways with my appraisal of the situation, but you are the first to make this mistake in exactly this manner.  Since you're my number one customer on this front, I'll clarify my stance a bit:

A man holed up in his apartment against a police siege with a 9mm to protect his hard drives is not a revolution.  It is an obituary entry.  None of us have anything to gain by picking fights we can't possibly win.  The Give Me Bitcoins or Give Me Death is going to result in the death option until our little niche has the general public behind it.


I dunno'.  Miners send out some pretty damned predictable traffic.  I don't doubt it could be looked for specifically - and I sincerely doubt mining through multiple proxies is feasible for most people at this point, do to latency issues.  You'd need some damned good proxies.

Im sure the NSA has a couple of engis profiling BTC traffic as we speak. Its is certainly conceivable that they could go for the throat and cripple that traffic with trunk router level packet sniffing, but your risk personally if you have never converted fiat to BTC or vice versa is very low, only that you may have a couple of Linux boxes with a shit ton of GPU horsepower and lousy CPUs generating quite a bit of heat and noise curnching lots of numbers for no very good reason ;D

I reiterate, anyone currently cashing out should be doing it as quickly as possible from a non-extradition treaty country. EAs with multiple hundreds of thousands of BTC, I'm looking squarely in your direction..

Please enlighten me which hard drives do I need to defend with a gun. Are the ones with a 2048-bit encryption ? Or are the ones sitting on an offshore cloud-style facility ?

Anyway, I must tell you that your scene is very good for next Jason Bourne's movie.  ;)

You witty son of a gun.

Also, a little anecdotal story, for anyone doubting the Black Box's very real power:

In the mid 90s, during the fiber optic buildout boom, a close friend of mine worked on architecting an AT&T inter-continental fiber switching terminal in the Bay Area (west coast of the US for non Amercians :) ). Towards the end of the project, NSA came in and restricted access to the main switching room. He is almost certain that they mirrored the connection and pointed it directly at a huge datamining operation that was housed nearby in what amounted to a very large bunker.

Essentially the government is very likely archiving every packet of traffic sent by anyone at a few key junction points.  They have likely been doing this for 15+ years. They are likely getting close to having the computational power and algorithmic wherewithal to parse these many exabytes (zettabyte?) of data.

I know this may sound perilously close to tinfoil hat club territory to some of you, but again, if you think that the CIA/NSA/SS is going to simply allow BTC to threaten the primacy of the USD in this country completely unchallenged, I think you'll find you are sorely mistaken.

Oh, geez.  Where's J.C. Denton when we need him?

This is classic first mover advantage unfolding. Becoming safe through sanction, and then as competitors show up,  800 pound gorilla status secured....off to buy more BTC.....

Great game :)

But seriously, this is not far fetched. My friend doesn't know exactly what was done in that terminal, just that it was very very secretive, and verifiably NSA. He's much smarter than me and I'm inclined very much to trust his assesment of that situation..

Anyway.. none of this shit is particularly germane to this discussion, I apologize for the semi derail.

Personally, I'm going to continue happily mining, and hoarding, and exchanging BTC directly for goods/services.

 Currency exchangers are well cautioned to be extremely careful.

I know big brother is already between us, and with our own consent. But, on the other side, copyright piracy hurts US economy by the billions. So, why don't they enforce them all ?

I have a feeling Deus Ex 3 is going to be a big cinematic stinker.  Hopefully I'm wrong.

As for what we're doing now being used against us in the future, before any official legal status for this enterprise is established, that's a bit of a dick move even for the feds, don't ya' think?  I consider myself a law abiding citizen, and I intend to pay full taxes on any earnings that come about from this, and to use Bitcoins solely in legal exchanges.  The idea that I might be prosecuted anyway is kind of infuriating... Although not particularly realistic.  

That's an easy one.  If our entertainment industry fell through tomorrow, our federal government would survive.  If the dollar fell through tomorrow, the result would be pretty cataclysmic.  Damage control.

Right - its about resource allocation.. Personally, I think they are likely combing this data for domestic terrorism threats and testing out refinments to parsing algroithms.

I doubt really whether the NSA could give two flying fucks at a rolling donut about the RIAA.

It really is the reality of the situation - that they've got the motive and the power to crush Bitcoin in the USA, that has me so hopeful that a way can be found within the boundaries of our government to make use of Bitcoins.  It's an incredible system, and the country that embraces it first is going to get a hell of a lead on the world.  I hope China continues to dump money into this - you know they'll have to pony up if China gets on board.

Did you ever heard of a gazelle trying to convince a lion ? Bitcoin is the gazelle on steroids.

Yep.  It could work out.  Time will tell.

+1000 to both posts.

It's sad to see this thread... statists all over. People shamelessly demanding violence against others.

In the other topic I've opened, I manifested my disgust with Garzik talk on that CBS interview. Not only he threw inaccurate claims on the air, as he attacked people who are doing a great service to mankind, for no reason.

"A regulated Bitcoin is not Bitcoin anymore". Couldn't be said better. I hope the developers never forget that.

What people don't seem to understand is there is difference between "Regulating: Bitcoin" and "Regulating: Illegal Drugs". It's at the discretion of the government within their own borders to regulate the products that are available to buy with ANY currency. You might not be allowed to buy drugs in the US but in other countries its perfectly fine!

Ideological differences aside, who the hell is demanding violence towards anyone?  I haven't seen that.


This is an excellent point.  Bitcoin certainly needs to be considered on a country by country basis.

Sure it can be shuted down - just block the port. Or harvest. Or makie it illegal, put up traps, undercover cops as bitcoin users, trade with other users and then arrest them all.

You overestimate government. They can't even keep drugs out of their own prisons. There is no way they could shut down whole Bitcoin. They could try to hinder it a bit with many violent actions, but it would be a hopeless act. It would be like trying to stop tsunami. The Bitcoin tsunami is coming, and it will wash away all the corrupt, manipulative and violent gangs that rule this planet. Hold tight.

oh look bitcoin.org homepage client .22-beta no longer lets you generate coins. and all the generating software requires quite a bit of work and computer savvy.

central bankers already took over the network. my faith in this shit is lost. time for something fresh.

inb4 herp derp your shitty hardware makes no difference anyway.

I recommend you don't use the new client if you don't like it. I also recommend steering clear of faith, it normally turns out bad.

Anonymity is a "standard feature" of Federal Reserve Notes and bearer bonds.  This entire argument just reveals how little a lot of geeks truly know about the real world.

The juxtaposition of Jeff, on his webcam in his room surrounded by computers talking about the "good guys", and the dejected looks on the faces of the hipsters interviewing him, who only want to know whether they can use Bitcoin to buy drugs without going to prison, is precious.

No, it will make them go down in value. What advantage does an anonymous crypto e-currency not calculated in dollars have over a debit card for an average house wife trying to buy a shirt on Amazon.com? Absolutely none. The application is in people who are doing other things with their money. :) I would have no interest whatsoever with bitcoin if there was not this anonymity component. Without this, it is NOT better money/payment method, and HARDLY interesting.

The prospects are not good for outlaw exchanges in the USA. Look up "goldage" "arrested" "unlicensed" in google.

The prospects are very good for exchangers outside the USA who do not have to put up with the US government's unstoppable idiocy.

The people who are most interested in bitcoin are people looking for anonymous payment methods (don't believe it? just look at the rise in $ value since the Silk Road news hit). If they can't get it in the US, they will take their money to exchangers who respect their wishes. If the US government wants to drive out exchangers (and they do), so be it. Foreign exchangers will benefit.

For those worrying Bitcoin will become illegal, you can always use Tor.  If all exchanges become illegal, which is unlikely, you can trade on IRC or other chat mediums for cash or Paypal, etc.

The most important thing is that Bitcoin stays decentralized, including alternative clients, so people learn programming.

Im sure the NSA has a couple of engis profiling BTC traffic as we speak. Its is certainly conceivable that they could go for the throat and cripple that traffic with trunk router level packet sniffing, but your risk personally if you have never converted fiat to BTC or vice versa is very low, only that you may have a couple of Linux boxes with a shit ton of GPU horsepower and lousy CPUs generating quite a bit of heat and noise curnching lots of numbers for no very good reason Grin

I reiterate, anyone currently cashing out should be doing it as quickly as possible from a non-extradition treaty country. EAs with multiple hundreds of thousands of BTC, I'm looking squarely in your direction..

In the process a lot of lawful citizens become outlaws, or abandon the tool