Bitcoin Forum

Look, how the would be National Processing System was lobbyed to the death in Russia.

First, thanks wikileaks, http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10MOSCOW228.html

The rest of the story is
English: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa-mastercard
or
Russian: http://www.gazeta.ru/financial/2010/12/09/3460325.shtml

Okay, Bitcoin is not going to be someone's National Card Processing System, but just read that:
And they did "press the GovernmentOfRussia to change the draft".
And there is not going to be such thing, like Russian NPCS.

Pushing everyone else to:

• not accept Bitcoin
  
• not transfer money to or from Bitcoin exchanges
  

would be no difference to "the system", like pushing the "GOR".
It would be easy to ask (push) PayPal or Webmoney or whoever big enough to add a statement about Bitcoin into their "rules of acceptable use" to make it unacceptable use.

And that will marginalize Bitcoin immediately.
So, you still asking "but why would 'the system' start doing that?"
You asking?..

I think this is a great example of why we shouldn't use Visa or Mastercard.  They are clearly well connected politically.  They have also shared data with the US federal government.

If only 1% of the public used Bitcoin, that would be quite a victory.  Think of all the merchants that would represent.  I think any time we buy something, we should let the merchant know that we would prefer to pay with Bitcoin.  Then explain to the merchant that it is in his/her best interests too (lower transaction costs, not reversible).

So, the US persuaded Russian not to establish its own National Processing System. Which government will the US persuade not to establish Bitcoin? None, because Bitcoin requires no government. What's the problem?

He he.

Russian banks and government is some power 'per se'.
It was pressed in favor of some US private business corps.

Should they decide to press against the Bitcoin, who will agree to accept Bitcoins, except those, who have nothing to loose - the marginals?
Merchants, exchanges - aren't they a real pressure target?
The news media could be pressed, directly or indirectly (from the information flows), to adjust Bitcoin's PR or just to hide it from the masses.
So, Bitcoin will have no government to press on, but also will stay a marginal system out there.

Experience of the past shows, that information war is easy, when you are government and have planned it well.

Just because they are powerful and well-connected doesn't mean we can't win.

Rather, it just require different strategy for our size.

That would just slow it down, not stop it.  Can't stop it, that is the point of it.

Part of the success of this lobbying pressure is due to the fact that it would have been of marginal advantage for the nation of Russia to have it's own payment processor anyway.  Bitcoin is a different animal.

I wouldn't trust Russia with processing my payment anyway. They will use gangster and other mean to impose a bureaucrat's personal taxation system.

If anything can kill bitcoins, is governments adopting it, embracing and extending, making everyone use their client version "because you can pay your taxes with it" and then legislating their implementation into total control, thus obfuscating bitcoins for the general public.

We just need to get wide acceptance before that :)

Well, they'd have to adopt the concept but with a different currency, perhaps called the bitfed or the fedcoin. Otherwise I'm not sure how they'd prevent folks from using their own clients.

The government would create a separate block chain where they are the only ones who can mine for coins and the fees/taxes would be 50% of every transaction you made. The problem is that no one would want to use it voluntarily ie the gun in the room  :)

What you are saying is either already irrelevant or is going to become irrelevant soon. The world is changing right now.

The Open source philosophy & full anonymity provided by the internet (actually TOR, Freenet, I2P subnets etc) started entirely new era in the development of the humankind. Wikileaks case has clearly shown that. From now on, governments will no longer be able to keep the truth from people. And once most of people get to know the truth, they will understand that "traditional" banks are just robbing them of their money working together with governments. Once they learn the truth, they will abolish their opressors.

This is already happening. There are massive demonstrations around the world agains the current system. People are tired with paying for banksters' mistakes and being enslaved by them. I'm completely convinced that current economy is going to totally fall within next 5-20 years.

This is where Bitcoin comes in. Once the traditional economy is destroyed, "hard money" such as gold, silver and Bitcoin will fill the hole left by it.

Right now people are clamouring for wikileaks to use bitcoin. Myself and others have been trying to hose down that fire because satoshi and many others think doing that will destroy bitcoin at this early stage by making it a target for government and banking wrath.

This idea is starting to go viral and it may already be too late to stop. We need to concentrate on making bitcoin strong before the tidal wave of interest starts. Once wikileaks turns to the only logical remaining source of funding after all the banks and payment systems drop them through governement pressure the cat will be out of the bag. Luckily the wikileaks people realise this...

Just today there was an article about bitcoin in pcworld talking about wikileaks and bitcoin , and tie-ing them together. If it happens it might draw in a lot of interested developers. The rage of impotence when the government realises they would have to shut down the internet before bitcoin could be shut down will be enormous. Even though they may try the loss of trust in the banking system means their normal tricks might not work.

When they cry "terrorism" people now  realise its a lie. Exactly zero people have been harmed by terrorists on US soil since 9/11. Your chances of getting shot by the police are 8 times as likely as being killed by a suicide bomber. People are starting to see the man behind the curtain and just how they've been tricked.

Yeah, satoshi's and mine efforts may be in vain, because people already catched the idea, and an idea may be extremely hard to stop.

I guess we should already prepare for the shitfight - Governments of the world vs Bitcoin & Internet.
Actually the Govt vs. Internet is already started, what Internet needs now to become financially independent from governments using a decentralized currency.... such as bitcoin ;)

From another point of view: when wikileaks adopts bitcoin, then we will see the true power of it - this will be the ultimate test. If Bitcoin passes this test, then there is no stopping it anymore...

The ongoing discussion  makes me remember the saying in the movie INCEPTION that, Idea is more dangerous than any virus once implanted in masses it will have its effect,no one can stop it.

Strange that does not mentioned about other important factors.

All that makes Russian state is obtained by expensive and inefficient.

When they create a payment system would be stolen by 2/3 of project budget and then they asked for more. The result would be like a "Sberbank" - branch of hell on earth.

I am very glad that they canceled the idea. However, now they want to make bank on the basis of Russian Post. This is even more expensive and stupid idea.

Why must always be contradictory positions?
Bitcoin will have his niche. That's for sure.

The less BTC is universally accepted, the better off we are but that is hard for many to understand.

My $.02.

;)

"We" being agents for the current corrupt fiat scam.  

Yep, everyone uses crypto currencies, realizing they don't have to bow to their masters any longer, then agents for that system like you, LostDutchman, are out of business.  And God forbid, then might actually have to engage in a business model that adds true value to the world.

It's perfectly easy to understand... when your comments are taken in context with what you do for a living LostDutchman.

Maybe bitcoin doesn't need to go mainstream to be a success 8)

What world are you living in ?
Bitcoin is currently approaching mainstream. We need a lot more work before it will be easy to use for average Joe Sixpack, but it is only a matter of time.

Also,
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v349/UnduTheGun/ThreadNecromancer.png