Bitcoin Forum

EDIT: I'm not saying I'm against it, I am simply raising a few concerns.
EDIT: Here is my NPOV (neutral point of view) article on Bitcoin-Square: http://bitcoin-square.com/data-digital-asset-transfer-authority/ (http://bitcoin-square.com/data-digital-asset-transfer-authority/)

According to an article (http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-industry-leaders-launch-data-a-self-regulatory-body/) on Coindesk, "luminaries in the bitcoin community have launched a self-regulatory body in an apparent attempt to gain a cohesive voice in the ongoing tussle with financial regulators." The body will be called DATA (http://datauthority.org/), or the Digital Asset Transfer Authority.

I take minor issue with the name, however: Any "authority" they might have will be resultant of a consensus in the community. Additionally, I think we have enough "authority" to deal with just accounting for the hundreds of government agencies, banks, and other self-regulatory bodies around the world.

For those reasons, I would suggest that DATA stand for Digital Asset Transfer Association instead of Digital Asset Transfer Authority.

Of course, I am also concerned about the real purpose of DATA. While the organization's stated intentions, and no doubt the intentions of it's founders are positive, history has shown that self-regulatory bodies can become quite powerful. For example PCI has the authority to fine violators thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per month even without any government affiliation. Not only that, but DATA seems to have hinted that it plans a more regulatory role than "gaining a cohesive voice would suggest." The following quotation alone makes me nervous: “We expect that DATA will require its members to obtain all required licenses and registrations, and that its oversight will supplement, not replace, the oversight of statutory regulators."

Sure, membership is voluntary now, but could DATA become Bitcoin's version of PCI?

Things can go 4 ways:

1- Bitcoin becomes very regulated. DATA is great because it helps lawmakers make more beneficial and informed choices than a government agency would if acting alone.

2- Bitcoin becomes illegal. If nothing else, DATA will be a beacon for whatever virtual currencies are still legal/unregulated.

3- Bitcoin fails/becomes very unpopular. Other virtual currencies will still exist, and point #1 remains valid in relation to these.

4- The world becomes a crypto-anarchy. Bitcoin is used by everyone and everything is completely unregulated.

I think most of us know that #1 is the most likely outcome. I welcome DATA. In the long run #4 might be a better outcome, but we certainly won't turn a corner like that overnight.

PCI membership isn't mandatory as far as I can tell.
PCI compliance is. That just follows from the fact that all credit card companies require you to agree to their common rules before you can use their products (IIRC agreeing to the fines is part of the fine print).

Obviously, DATA can't exclude others from using Bitcoin for not wanting to play by their rules. So it's much harder for them to twist your arm into becoming a member/following their rules.

Tinfoil Hat on: They could in theory exclude others from using Bitcoin legally in the US. Regulatory capture is always possible.


I suspect it's mostly meant as a way to keep most big players in the US space from doing things that lead to regulatory crackdowns. Kind of like video game companies control their own ratings agency, to forestall government censorship. This may mean places like Bitpay may be required to verify all merchants on their platform are 'legit', for some definition of that word.

But yes, I understand your worries. The good news is that regulatory control always has to be tacked on, and so is more easily avoided, regardless of how many others want to comply.

Here is my NPOV (neutral point of view) article on Bitcoin-Square: http://bitcoin-square.com/data-digital-asset-transfer-authority/

Lol at giving self-entitled names to their entities

We have the bitcoin FOUNDATION. Ye well, no, it is just your private group and forum, it is not a "foundation"

Now suddenly we even have an AUTHORITY. Ye well, again, just no, it is still your private group and nothing more.

Clearly, the only thing this AUTHORITY can do is regulate themselves and nothing more. They don't make rules, laws or anything else. They can't "regulate" anything.

Mandatory membership and having to pay to join? Ehy wait a moment, let me create the Gabi Foundation, let's make membership to it mandatory so i become RICH!!!  :D

GLWT  :D

I just need a word to make it looks important. Foundation and Authority are already taken.  :D

The Gabi Association (GAS) | Est. 2013

Providing the crucial service to all BTCitcoiners of making them chuckle while they think critically.

Become a MEMBER - Have a GAS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-regulatory_organization

This is normal development of any industry...

" --- Transfer Authority" ... sounds like some kind of metro service.

I do not recognise whatever authority they might think they have over me .. or anyone else for that matter. People granting themselves 'authority' seems to be a particular egotistical penchant of our time.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but keep in mind that all they've done so far is setup a committee. They have yet to select who should have any theoretical 'authority' and why, and how far this 'authority' will extend.

They intend for the majority of the members to be independent of the industry (I'm not 100% how to interpret that, and I have no idea if it's a good thing. The "technical experts" will surely be from the closely related fields of finance and web/tech).

I don't feel bad about any of this. I'd rather see the DATA set influencing orgs like FinCEN then just avoiding regulatory compliance issues and "hoping everything comes up roses" for Bitcoin et al.

Most of us aren't here to fight a war against the establishment. We want to be strategic, and make sure the vile aspects of our culture erode away slowly but surely.

This word usage can be:
a) an intended misnomer for lulz given the number of anarchists using Bitcoin or
b) an intended misnomer to prank the so called ''gov authorities'' (I almost sense the following Monty Python like situation: DATA guys meet statist bureaucrats in a room; both parties have ''authority'' word on their business cards; which party has more authority? I have more authority! No, I have more authority! - my ''authority' word has a bigger font, etc.) or
c) a sign the guys using DATA name to do business have no touch of the reality (they will be laughed at both by Bitcoiners and bureaucrats).

Time will tell  ;D

The D.A.T.A. founders chose not to use "Association" because they did not want to be seen as a "trade association", "Agency" was too formal and structured so they settled on "Authority" (with the Latin connotation not necessary the modern English connotation).  

See finra.org.

Too many conspiracy theorists around here.  This is a group of concerned businesses who are trying to make a difference with respect to the onerous regulation here in the US and elsewhere where short-sited government regulations impede innovative technology as it relate to virtual currency and emerging payments.

Hope that helps.

Also you should read this.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/july-2013/private-digital-economy

The first essay an excellent analysis of bitcoin as money.

I'm not sure if you were referring to me, but I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do have mixed feelings about DATA though, which is why I wrote this post.

I was not referring to you specifically but in this thread and others it seems the  M.O. is to shoot first then ask questions later.   

It is always good in anything bitcoin related to have a healthy skepticism.

I too have concerns about any central "authority" self-regulated a decentralized peer-to-peer technolocy in a way that all stake-holders are represented fairly, so I am interested in individuals real and specific concerns that are not just "FUCK the FED" and "FUCK authority" (which you have to admit there is a lot of in these parts).

Exactly.

SRO's are part and parcel of every industry. Think American Bar Association, American Board of Radiology, etc...most likely, these organizations (including DATA) will have only indirect influence in your life.

Most likely, but it is because of PCI's pain in the ass requirements that TxT Paintball does not accept credit cards.

Accept bitcoin!

I do!  ;) TxT is the first (and I think only) paintball store to accept Bitcoin.

Awesome. What percentage of your clients use it?  Do you offer a discount as an incentive?  Curious to know as ill be implement bitcoin payment options soon on a few website I administer.

Cheers. Thanks for posting. It's funny how no matter what they chose (assoc, agency, authority) they could've kept the same kickass acronym :)

Well, I just reopened after having some issue and spending some time getting making sure everything was legal, so I've only had one sale, but it was paid for with Bitcoin.

I don't offer any discounts over cash because I charge the MAP (minimum allowed price) on all items, so charging less would cause problems.

Even if I never get another BTC sale, it's worth it, it took 5 minutes to set up BitPay so who cares?

The Bitcoin Identity
The Bitcoin Supremacy
The Bitcoin Ultimatum
The Bitcoin Legacy
The Bitcoin Redundancy

It's a shame that they didn't go with Association. Sooo many lulzy DAT Ass jokes to be had.

The Bitcoin Ubiquity!

Agency would have been good, too.

Bitcoin ADvocay ASSociation ?

 ;D

Innovation does not happen by being compliant to corrupt and inefficient governmental structures.
Bitcoin is a worldwide currency and not an US company. Regulatory problems will be solved by mere competition between countries: Smart ones will be more liberal and in turn will attract more Bitcoin investments.

It is dumb to do ass-licking in support of unhealthy governmental structures. Better do nothing and watch the system break (which will happen in a few years given the present state of the world and esp. US economy). Only then people will be open to true innovation.


ya.ya.yo!

This has nothing to with whether people are open to "true" innovation.  Innovation is great but some of us would like to do business without having our bank accounts seized and end up doing federal prison time, all for the sake of "true" innovation.

I've recently stated that I think it's too early and there is not enough information yet available to make a determination as to whether this organization will be part of the solution or part of the problem.  That said, ignoring US regulatory requirements is a nonstarter for anyone serious about the future of Bitcoin and crypto as a whole.

yayayo,

Ask Doug Jackson an early innovator in gold-backed digital currency how ignoring existing regulation worked out for him.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11528
E-Gold pleads guilty to money laundering

Ask Aurther Budovsky of Liberty Reserve how ignoring government laws and regulations worked out for him
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/28/liberty-reserve-arthur-budovsky-arrested-spain
Liberty Reserve founder arrested in Spain
Arthur Budovsky, who set up digital currency business, is held as part of money-laundering investigation involving US

You clearly have an opinion of US law and regulation and that's fine.  So maybe it's time you renounce your citizenship and stop availing yourself of all the government subsidies you are unknowingly taking advantage of as a US citizen.

Then you can go to the country of your choice and choose whether or not to obey those laws.

Makes sense to me.

You can sit back and post complaints on an internet message board.

Fortunately there are groups of individual who are making an attempt to solve these problems.

Now ask Satoshi Nakamoto how much he cares.


Unfortunately for these groups you cannot solve the problems we created by having everything regulated by our elites by trying to regulate the unregulatable solution.

Bitcoin and the fact that it is unregulated _is_ the solution to our regulated problems. To want to have Bitcoin regulated as a society is like asking the doctor what one can do to keep that tumor in one's brain as an individual. Or how one could alter the chemo therapy so it doesn't work.

With all due respect, I find this approach absurd.

Joe

If you can find Satoshi and get a comment I'd love to hear it.

I'm sure the respect is appreciated even though you find the effort absurd.

Carry on!

 ;D. I didn't know there were people who still believed in this fantasy.  You must have been gone awhile.  It is a good dream but like most dreams, does not line up with reality.

The only thing they can try to regulate and regiment is human behavior, which has been wildly successful given the control over culture that they have enjoyed for decades. Now, not so much.

I'm announcing a new organizational effort to combat this latest tyrannical regime threatening the bitcoin revolution.

Transactions Against Despotic Authority

To participate, simply send bitcoins to one of my wallet addresses. The overwhelming number of transactions will indicate such widespread dissent that DATA will have no choice but to concede defeat.

It will be like magic.

TADA!

This dream is true for Bitcoin.

It is not true for the centralized closed-source currency-scheme called "Ripple" that you are supporting. Ripple has to face the harsh reality of US regulatory overkill, so it's quite understandable that they do ass-licking and propagate "self-regulation". That's why they joined the D.A.T.A. as the jester-in-chief.


ya.ya.yo!

I don't understand. ?

About the PCI Security Standards Council

The PCI Security Standards Council is an open global forum, launched in 2006, that is responsible for the
-development,
-management,
-education, and
-awareness
of the PCI Security Standards, including the

-Data Security Standard (PCI DSS),
-Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), and
-PIN Transaction Security (PTS) requirements.

The Council's five founding global payment brands --
*American Express,
*Discover Financial Services,
*JCB International,
*MasterCard Worldwide, and
*Visa Inc.
-- have agreed to incorporate the PCI DSS as the technical requirements of each of their data security compliance programs.

Each founding member also recognizes the
-QSAs,
-PA-QSAs and
-ASVs

certified by the PCI Security Standards Council.

All five payment brands, along with Strategic Members, share equally in the Council's governance, have equal input into the PCI Security Standards Council and share responsibility for carrying out the work of the organization. Other industry stakeholders are encouraged to join the Council as Strategic or Affiliate members and Participating Organizations to review proposed additions or modifications to the standards.

On this website you'll find useful information about the
-PCI Security Standards Council,
-the PCI DSS requirements for merchants,
-vendors and security consulting companies, and
-the Council's certification and merchant support services,
all created to mitigate data breaches and prevent payment cardholder data fraud.

**Note that enforcement of compliance with the PCI DSS and determination of any non-compliance penalties are carried out by the individual payment brands and not by the Council.

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/organization_info/index.php (https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/organization_info/index.php)

An interesting discussion could be had about the structure and organization of this group.

An even larger discussion could be had about it's efficacy.

Again this was an industry reaction to systemic problem within an industry.

I only hope any bitcoin effort can me more meaningful and effective then just a bunch of additional hoops for adherents to jump through as PCI has proven to become.

This makes an apt comparison. Remember 15 years ago when credit card identity theft bankrupted people?  I mean, it used to be the card holders fault that the credit card network was so insecure.  Now, most credit card companies eat the cost of this insecurity.

I guess you just ignored all those Bitcoiners on that list that completely disagree with you.  Including Charlie Shrem, Tony Gallippi, well....here's the list below.  Thank God Bitcoin isn't being led by such small minded ignorance as yours.  If you want to be global, you have to play by global rules.  If you don't like that, start your own fork and ignore all the regulations you want.  That's your right.

And yes, Ripple is awesome.  Bitcoin is awesome.  Everything about crypto currencies is awesome...well...except the handful of zealots that drive me crazy but hey...I'm getting better.   ;D

Let this not be a blind endorsement of what is to come from DATA.  As I've said, I don't currently have enough information to determine if this will produce positive or negative results.  I'm all for compliance and improving current and future regulatory requirements but I'm not interested in a new layer of regulation to add to the already near impossible task of US regulatory compliance.  Time will tell.

Here's that list:

Charlie Shrem, CEO, BitInstant and Vice Chairman, Bitcoin Foundation

Tony Gallippi, CEO, BitPay

Nejc Kodrič, CEO, Bitstamp

Jaron Lukasiewicz, CEO, Coinsetter

Megan Burton, CEO, CoinX

Edan Yago, CEO, Epiphyte

Yoni Assia, CEO, eToro

Stan Stalnaker, CEO, Hub Culture Group (Ven)

Jeremy Liew, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Patrick Murck

Chris Larsen, CEO, OpenCoin, Inc. (Ripple)

Jesse Powell, CEO, Payward, Inc. (Kraken)

Stephen Sunderlin, President, QikCoin, Inc.

Jered Kenna, CEO, Tradehill, Inc.

Sean Safahi, CEO, YoyoCard

Alan Safahi, CEO, ZipZap, Inc.

+1

Some people are so far into a "REVOLUTIONIZE EVERYTHING INSTANTLY!!!" mode that they don't really see how incredible it is that the community is taking real steps like DATA together.

I did not know that there were people who still believed in this government fairy tale of the past. You must have not been around long enough to understand what is going on.

You have not yet realised that it is not a dream that is happening here, but the new reality, even if it seems to be a nightmare for you. Better get used to it!

Joe

---

Thank you very much for your list of people in suits who run very profitable businesses which are relying on being accepted by the authorities of the most criminal government we have seen on this planet in decades to continue creating profits. Or any government at all, they would not care who they need a permit from and bend over anyways.


Thank you for making so clear how much you have misunderstood the concept of crypto currency. For your information: Bitcoin is not 'led' by anyone, it is an open source protocol deployed peer to peer.



For your understanding:

Bitcoin is not compliant to the current corrupt financial system as a matter of fact. In order to make it compliant we would in the end have to introduce reversable transactions and whitelisting, otherwise none of the governmental organisations ruling us will accept it.

You, your leaders, your list of suits and these authority-my-ass organisations may wish to introduce that and maybe you will succeed. You may even still call the perverted cool new law-abiding payment system 'Bitcoin' but it will by definition of the protocol be a bastard and the next successful chain will be much more resiliant to this kind of co-option.

You and the other 'lets-ask-the-government-what-it-wants-us-to-do'-folks are like Gutenberg turning around to the pope and saying 'look, I invented this printing-press-thing which will take your monopoly over the contents of books away from you. Now let's sit down and talk about what contents you would like people to print and what not!'.

But then, your need to offend people in this discussion by calling them dreamers and zealots and what not gives me the impression that you are not so far away from dissolving your obvious cognitive dissonances on this topic ;).

Joe

---

Please think about this for a minute!

No credit card company is 'eating up the cost of insecurity' ever. They merely redistribute the losses of their insecure system to the people who receive payments who then pass it on to the consumers.

I actually find it kind of funny that you picture credit card companies as someone who is kinda like 'eating up' costs to society, hence doing us some sort of good, while all they're eating is your and my money because they can do so because our leaders granted them monopoly to do so.

Ever heard about the Stockholm syndrome ;)?

Joe

Try to relax Joe.  Everything is going to be alright.  I certainly wasn't trying to directly offend you, but if you felt like I was talking to you, then I was.   :P

If there's one thing that the past has taught us, it's that when business leaders seize authority, they always do the right thing for everyone.

Gutenberg mostly printed bibles.

The point of DATA is to be the 'lets-tell-the-government-what-to-do'-folks. It's not a super-easy thing to change the financial system of the entire world, actually. It takes a hard work, and yeah, you have to make some compromises.

Here's Joe:

https://lh3.ggpht.com/-0CmO4cSCqEg/UWF6zSSkMCI/AAAAAAAAqbw/Xl66PfMv_TY/s640/Never+compromise+not+even+in+face+of+Armageddon.jpg

Just heard this quoted on the latest Penn's Sunday School:


Galt’s Speech,
For the New Intellectual, 216
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/compromise.html

Somehow it reminds me of the Peace Authority - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War

Also of Eric Cartmen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVHNylH1Mk  ;D

I'm reading this thinking, "This is the dumbest ish ever."  Then I see Ayn Rand at the bottom and say, "Oh, well that figures."   Please join humanity.   ::)

Hey joe. Did you have a credit card 15 years ago? You are right to point out the trivial: they don't "eat it" they distribute it (again, a presumption...but it's not worth the time to discuss). The non-trivial point is that the individual card holder used to be on the hook for fraud.

I'm not ignoring them - I'm just stating they do ass-licking in fear of US government which will not help them, because government is drowning in debt. Look at Argentina now than you will know where the US and many western economies are heading. Only enforcement will be more efficient and harsh in the US.

Um... no. What's awesome about a closed-source centralized Paypal-clone?

Yes!


Contradiction within the very same sentence.


ya.ya.yo!

yayayo,

If you call following laws and regulations "ass-licking"  then I'm am an A1 ass-ass-licker.  I have to follow law and regulations in my daily life.  I have to follow law and regulations in my businesses.  And now the governments has said there are laws and regulations that certain bitcoin activity must follow.

While we may not like that it seems pretty simple to me.

One day you will notice that you can choose between following all laws and survival. Which choice do you make?
Something being legal does not automatically make it legitimate. Any dictatorship issues laws.


Bitcoin exchange businesses should be expected to be sufficiently intelligent to operate in countries with more liberal financial regulation.


ya.ya.yo!

Unfortunately the world is not so black and white my friend.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/3044794/How-we-all-break-the-law-every-day.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/3044794/How-we-all-break-the-law-every-day.html)

Is it just me, or is this quote meaningless rubbish providing no benefit because it cannot be applied to the conversation in any functional way.

Good and evil? Come on, what is this, the 15th century? We're talking about solutions to modern problems, not witches.

I think in a thread like this, it was expected to get some traditional "throw the baby out with the bath water" talk.  You know, government isn't perfect so let's get rid if all governments.  But for those of us that actually live in the real world and operate business', confronting the difficulties of regulations head on, is a good thing. 

Whether Bitcoin can be regulated is not worth arguing about.  The transmission of Bitcoin's is already under regulation.  Nobody likes it but it is what it is.  So moving forward, it would be helpful to have knowledgeable voices helping to guide regulatory policy in a sound and fair way.  Whether DATA is that group, remains to be seen but doing nothing but letting the fringe voices of "ignore the law" and "destroy the government" lead the charge, is certain disaster.

Yes, in the beginning, which was a waste of a great new technology just as a regulated Bitcoin would be waste of a great new technology.


Well, since I have already been called a dreamer in this thread I would now like to hear what one can call someone who believes he is going to tell the government what to do!? ;)



I believe it is actually the other way around. The financial system of the entire world will change due to the appearence of crypto currency (be it Bitcoin or whatever comes after it). What really takes hard work is to try to manage the transition to a new economic system so society has the least amount of collateral damage, of victims who will loose everything, like retired people who may loose everything they have because they will intellectually never be capable of understanding what is going on and will only realise that they cannot buy anything anymore with the fiat they are getting into their old fashioned bank accounts.



Thanks for the image I actually like it ;).

But I believe your guess is wrong. As someone who does not believe in laws and coercion I actually have learned to compromise with my fellow human beings very well. I believe in cooperation based on the free choice of everybody involved.

The only party involved here who will never compromise is precisely the government and that is my whole point. Government will never say 'OK, we grant you some anonymity here and lift some regulations there and in exchange you do some KYC and AML on certain platforms'. Government will allways want to be in control completely, 100%.

I have stated here before what government needs to put cryptocurrency into their regulatory cages (reversability of transactions, whitelisting, ...) and no government will ever be satisfied before total control is achieved. They never did in recorded history and they never will for obvious reasons.

So going down this road will never take you to any sort of compromise but always to total surrender.

Then the suits listed above can continue making their profits in a safe and government approved way but the whole idea of a crypto economy based on free market currencies will be thrown back a few years or a decade. It cannot be stopped but it can be delayed. And the only way to moderate the above mentioned transition for government would be to give up some of it'S power, which will never happen.

Thinks Joe

Agreed.

And it is my opinion that we currently find ourselves in the US in this onerous regulatory position for exactly this reason.  Groups like DATA and the Bitcoin Foundation are trying to do something about that.  It doesn't mean that others have to agree or join this effort.

Download your own client.

Fork the code.

The choices belong to you.

Joe,

FYI,

I've have met most of the people on that list at conferences or I've seen them giving talks on line and I've never seen any one of those people on that list wear a suit.

That is correct. And that means, that everyone who wants to use a paymnent system that offers reversability of transactions already has a list of options to choose from. Why then introduce something like that to a crypto currency (which, by the way, would make me as a retailer subject to the same chargeback frauds that I suffer from credit cards, which is why I don't accept them)?

Please clarify this for me: are you actually suggesting to implement reversability of transactions to the Bitcoin protocol in order to protect consumers from fraud?

Joe

---

Oh please don't be so picky and allow me some metaphorical and rhetorical fun, will you please!? ;)

Just imagine they are actually suits hiding in Bitcoin-t-shirts, like a wolf in a sheepskin, get me? :)

Joe

---

Thanks for clarifying this.

In a discussion I would only tell the other party to 'try to relax' if I wanted to implicate that he / she is to stressed out to make a valuable point. And 'everything is going to be allright' is something I only say to little children or to someone who just suffered heavy injury or if I had no other way to marginalise the other point of view with an argument.

But then that's only me ;).

Joe


PS: I am indeed perfectly relaxed, it is far too hot for any kind of stress around here this summer ...

  ;D. Oh good...a sense of humor.  I can dig it.   8)

+1  8) I think many of us here have a lot in common ideologically. It's the functional 'getting-shit-done' level that I'm trying to attain.

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is
that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary
man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse.” -Don Juan Matus

If you think quoting Ayn Rand makes someone inhuman, then try this Orwell quote:
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."

Our "compromise" on the make and model of the boot does not remove the boot from our faces. Orwell's future is now, as long as we allow it.


"Compromises" was the watch word in the post above mine. The modern problem, that if you give evil tyrants a fraction of an inch, they take googolplex light years away from every single liberty, has been proven ad nauseam et infinitum, beyond any reasonable doubt; in this case, it's economic liberty. Wasn't fucking the system back (with good) that constantly fucks all of us to death (with evil), the very reason bitcoin was created? (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block#cite_note-1) Compromise is not an option unless you plan to say "stick a fork in it, bitcoin's done", well before all 21 million exist. I certainly hope appeasers will not make this an inevitability.

But hey, pretend that Argentina, et al, don't exist, and drinking the poison-pilled kool-aid will make bitcoin immortal.

1. If someone dislikes the word ''authority'' used by people doing business as DATA, they can simply stop using Bitstamp as their exchange or they can stop using BitPay as their processor.

2. To my knowledge people doing business as DATA declared they only want to self-regulate (they may be anticipating a bureaucratic attack). No problem here. If however their future actions contradict their declarations (e.g. they will try to earn money by striking deals with the govs like guaranteeing monopolies or will co-operate with the govs in devising and / or enforcing regulations on other non-DATA businesses), anybody is free to apply ostracism to DATA businesses and boycott them, and anybody is welcome to create business with ''no talking to government'' sign imprinted in his business logo.

3. Assuming the very negative scenario in which people doing business as DATA lied about their intentions and will manage to fuck with the Bitcoin system (it's not their declared intention and I believe their declarations), simply a better currency with a government-proof protocol will be devised and Bitcoin will bite the dust.

4. Really there is nothing to get excited about.

Would it surprise you to learn that the same people behind pcisecuritystandards.org are about to open Bank of Guido Bitcoin in Switzerland and store YOUR bitcoins in some Swiss Alp mountain [cave]? Or, would you rather just have me back away from the keyboard since you know exactly what you're gettin' into?

http://www.vhs-mittelthurgau.ch/documents/veranstaltungen/gp1080811.JPG
"Give me sec, please. First, I need to find out who this Gleb dude is."