Bitcoin Forum

On the 18th November, which is a bit over a week from now, members of the Bitcoin community will be testifying in front of the US Senate in two committee hearings:

1) Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) committee

2) Senate Banking committee

The hearings have been called so US representatives can learn about Bitcoin and in particular, about its impact on law enforcement and banking. The HSGAC hearing will have two panels. The first one consists of members of US LE agencies. The second is the industry panel and will have, amongst other people, Patrick Murck of the Bitcoin Foundation on it.

For those who don't know Patrick, he is pretty much "the Bitcoin lawyer" and is one of us - he has been involved behind the scenes with Bitcoin for a long time now, I talk with him frequently and I know he will do a great job. That said, Patrick was not our first choice. Actually the Senate invitation was for Jon Matonis, who was our first choice. Unfortunately Jon couldn't make it on such short notice. Gavin would have been our second choice, but he is in Australia visiting family at the moment and also was not available.

The selection of the other panelists are also, I think, good news for us - they're people with a strong understanding of the Bitcoin space, people who have got credibility and achievements under their belt. Unfortunately my understanding is that it would be a faux pas to reveal their names here for some reason, but you'll find out who they are in a week.

edit: the names of the people appearing in front of the Senate Banking committee have now been published (http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4cad)

Preparatory work has already begun and Foundation staff are working on some written testimony that will be submitted along with the oral testimony. Patrick will be heading to DC soon in order to start rehearsing and preparing. As executive director, Jon is of course going to be instrumental in figuring out what we're going to say, although he's being helped by other members as well of course. If you want to suggest ideas and contribute, go join the Foundation and post to the forum.

In recent times I've occasionally seen people sometimes question what the purpose of the Foundation is. Well, this is one of the reasons it was created. There are many powerful institutions in our world run by people that simply don't or won't take part in forums like bitcointalk, mailing lists and so on. The way they operate is by holding meetings, conferences and hearings like this one. The Foundation not only funds development but acts as a bridge between these two very different worlds.

Thanks,

Mike Hearn
Chair, Law & Policy committee
Bitcoin Foundation

Hope everything will go smooth and they can understand how big it is.
Keep doing great job!
Thanks!

video's of patrick so people know his 'style' and get to know him more then just a name

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMC-oSoaOcY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWLgSHHFaI0 - one minute - 05 seconds into video

Waste of time. A decentralized currency doesn't need that.

Obviously there isn't a need. But trying to spread understanding and such can't be seen as a bad thing, right?

thanks mike for that info and the professionalism of the foundation. good luck!

bitcoin doesnt need it. but if your wanting to swap FIAT for bitcoin at any point then it does need some government approval.

if you dont want this then stop working for a business that pays salary in FIAT, stop going to FIAT acceptig shops/stores to buy food/clothes and dont fill your car up at FIAT priced gas stations. instead find the bitcoin alternatives and you will never need to worry about government regulations affecting you directly.. even though regulations will still affect the merchants you deal with, if they have to convert to FIAT, so theres no way to prevent regulations, there is only ways to limit how much it extends to you and affects you directly

Good luck guys!

It's great to know it's going to be approached with level-headedness.

Shouldn't we first extend 10 tx/sec limit before trying to bring millions ppl to Bitcoin?

We should send Richard G. Brown (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDO7TDMlxsY) from IBM.

Failing that, short notice and all, send his arguments.

Tell them they (the governments) made a huge mistake when they decoupled fiat from gold, and that bitcoin fixes that problem so that they can't do the same "mistake" again

Yes that is what I thought. Patrick can explain Bitcoin well without sounding evangelical.

Senate don't give a damn, they just wanna destroy BTC ;D

You can also post ideas here, of course. Although I think Patrick prefers to use the Foundation forum, I read both.

Dunno, especially since it involve that "foundation"...

They don't even care about foundation members. The Foundation is a way to make rich its "founders". That was obvious from the day 1 when they violated their own by-laws.

Nobody, not paying members of the Foundation nor anyone else, has the power to force Patrick to say anything in particular in front of the committee hearing. It will be him taking the oath and giving the testimony, not "the Bitcoin community".

However, Patrick is a reasonable man who listens to input and advice. Unsurprisingly given that Foundation members pay his salary, he primarily listens to them. I've also been giving him input and ideas, and I read this forum. So if someone comes up with some good ideas or talking points I would try and ensure that gets his attention.

To put it bluntly, I think all the above is obvious and common sense. If you would like to contribute, start thinking of intelligent things that could be said instead of flaming people and picking fights.

You are talking bullshit (as usual I guess - hence the high ignore ratio ?).
As of today, world is **not** decentralized or distributed like Bitcoin. So it is obvious that a bridge between the two worlds is necessary.

If the bridge we have is a good bridge is a matter for another discussion. But I myself am satisfied with it. For now.

Bitcoin exists exactly to solve the problem they created. Going to speak with them is useless, if it would be useful then we would not need bitcoin, we would just go there and tell them "ehi what about stop printing money like there is no tomorrow, what about the current financial system being totally fucked, what about frozen money, what about trillions and trillions of debts, what about bailing out banks with people money etcetc"

Wrong guess.



U r wrong again.

+21000000

The complete title of this thread should be "Bitcoin at the US Senate tries to lick some arses".

Cooperating with the state.
Giving them useful information when you aren't forced to?

It amazes me the bitcoin community isn't unequivocally against this, bitcoins ability to get around the draconian rules states enforce is the entire reason it has potential. Why help the enemy? Because you believe doing so helps bitcoin appear more "legitimate" in your eyes? The currency stands on it's own, it doesn't need a stamp from the state of legitimacy or regulation.

Not that I think the states attempts to regulate it will be successful, never the less I give my sincere "fuck you guys" to everyone attending.

that's the point

I would make it clear that it is very possible that Bitcoin represents a paradigm shift in how people will understand and use money.
People will eventually value it because of its underlying characteristics which are superior to fiat currencies.
It is global in nature and therefore it will be very difficult or even impossible for any single government to control.
Capital will flee to those jurisdictions who are most Bitcoin friendly.
Governments will likely have to shift from income to sales taxes for their revenue.
I may suggest that if the US Treasury/ Federal Reserve has fewer gold reserves than suspected then it may be wise and more cost effective for them to buy "a few" bitcoins as opposed to gold to back their Federal Reserve Notes.

I would also stress the Honey Badger aspect of Bitcoin in a non-threatening way. It is what it is and ultimately will evolve in a truly free market manner.

TBF reps... please keep in your minds the following:




Represent well, TBF.

I would like to attend this meeting, even if I have to sit quietly in the back. Is there information on how I might be able to do that? I,d also like to help any way I can (I'm near DC)

I would be prepared to dismantle absurd accusations, or beliefs, that bitcoin is involved in criminal activity, or that bitcoin is maintained by so called dangerous hackers.

Its not going to be easy to get that across, and I personally believe we would be better off saying as little as possible at this point.

They can't understand it themselves like the member here did?

A significant percentage of Bitcoin users don't understand Bitcoin, let alone the masses who haven't even tried.

Aren't these arguments for the nationalization of currency issuance?

Yet I do. This means that I'm smarter than the members of the US Senate, correct?

Aren't congressional hearings publicly accessible in the US. In the Netherlands everyone can attend hearings by parliament (as long as there is enough room).

Yes.

I believe privatization/partnership is how we got where we are to begin with.  I believe in governments and national currencies, just not our current left-right paradigm of boxed choices and representation that's highly corruptible, most policy nor 3rd party interest/debt-based fiat through a private cabal of international bankers.

I do not believe Bitcoin will replace national currencies, but may move governments to reform, or at least compete. Naturally, competition should either reform current banking ways and means or destroy it, but the governments may have to reform as well, then possibly coin their own money for the benefit of The People. I believe Bitcoin can teach many good lessons to governments and peoples from information not previously as easily-available nor openly visible as it is today. That trust should not necessarily be at issue. That systems can and are being designed and implemented to minimize or remove risk and corruption.

We need a world currency where no one nation, nor group of nations are at an advantage over any others.

That said, those quotes were posted to remind TBF representatives of the core of who and what they are going up against...

People who lie, cheat, steal and kill to get their way.

Assume the presumed is true: "China is increasing their BTC holdings and they intend to eventually use this position to help destabilize USD as the world's reserve currency", the goal of this hearing is a forgone conclusion: they will (*one could argue, try to) take Bitcoin out, much like they took Gaddafi out.

*While they might not be able to take Bitcoin out completely, they can surely reduce its usefulness, hamper widespread adoption and drive its value down.

Thoughts?

I'm afraid so...

The senate will be making a choice:

• Try to profit from it
• Try to ban it

And this hearing might have some influence on which path they will walk.
We as a community should think hard about which we want them to try first.
In the long term we all hope that, if Bitcoin works as we hope it does, governments will lose power either way...
But which scenario gives Bitcoin a higher probability of creating value (either for you personally or for society) sooner rather than later?

Bitcoin Foundation shouldn't even exist..

You forgot one other choice:

- Go home thinking that bitcoin is a computer amateurs toy that will go away in a year or two

Impossible.

Their money changer, money trust and robber baron controllers know better.

They see exponentially-increasing numbers of normal people converting wealth from traditional securities/paper to Bitcoin, away from their cabal.

They see the peasants learning... and stirring restlessly.

Hi Mike,

Well, here is my suggestions...

I think one of the biggest issue at the moment is a wide spread misconception about what exactly is Bitcoin. As evidenced by this forum, there is a mass of people which are not aware that Bitcoin is just a software which allows people to use a medium of exchange defined as BTC. There are many people projecting their expectation and insecurities over the concept of the Bitcoin software.

If I was called to testify, I would ensure to be prepared to explain how exactly the Bitcoin software works in every detail, but with simple explanations. In other words, I would really teach the enquirers as best I could about the Bitcoin software. I would even do live demonstrations to let the audience to understand better what exactly the Bitcoin software can do.

I believe that providing the most accurate information to people in position of power always results in good outcomes. Misinformation can lead to wrong decisions and serious failures. It is important to ensure the enquirers understand that:

- BTC is NOT a currency (the enquirers need to be assured that BTC is a digital medium of exchange which is evaluated against national currencies, mainly the USD. This is very important because it will shape the future decisions to create laws regarding the utilization of BTC in the financial market. So they have to learn that BTC has to be regulated as medium of exchange, not as currency.)

- Bitcoin was NOT developed to undermine the utilization of fiat currencies or replace money transmission business (this is one of the more common misconceptions about the Bitcoin software. People believe that Bitcoin was made to replace business like Visa, Paypal, Western Union, etc. This is, of course, a delusional belief. The Bitcoin software could never replace such business because it not offer the necessary structure required to operate such business. So it is important the enquirers understand that the Bitcoin software was initially developed to offer an alternative way to transmit money. I would tell the enquirers that any financial institution today could use the Bitcoin software to transmit money, including any departments of the federal government such as the IRS.)

- Bitcoin do NOT facilitate criminal activities (this must be explained in very precise details because is directed correlated to national security. The enquirers must to know that transactions generated by the Bitcoin network are not under control of one single entity, but it is recorded in a single virtual ledger which is quite difficult to tamper. So there is a way to keep track of how much money is transmitted in the Bitcoin network.)

Good... good.  Judging by the meeting title they will be focusing on a small and trivial application of the technology.  By the time they fully grasp the implications of of the more profound applications of cryptocurrency, it will be far to late to be able to take any action to prevent its growth (if its not too late already).

I don't agree with this but making them believe so is the right thing to do

This is also correct.

Why the Bitcoin foundation should not exist?

Why should it exist?

Bankers funnel millions into the coffers of lawmakers and lobbyists to do their bidding and get laws written that are favorable to them. There are many companies that use Bitcoin as a foundation of their business, and consumers that do not want to have banking extract wealth from them by inserting itself into their money storage and payments, and it is reasonable for a lobbying group to exist that can collectively represent their interests too.

You make some good points here. Still, I have to say that fiat based businesses is doing just fine replacing them self these days. While that is not a good argument at the Senate, I hope bitcoin has what it takes to replace them if the time comes.

It's Foundation and Empire!  Azimov was right!

I like many think that attendance of such hearings is a big mistake.

But if you are going to go and talk to the US government about Bitcoin, please reassure us that you don't intend to get involved in discussions about tainting coins or tying coins to government sanctioned identities.

If the "core" team goes anywhere near that I'm sure I will not be the only one abandoning Bitcoin, or doing everything in my power to support a fork which removes anything of that kind.

Honestly, it is much better not to engage with the government about these things - not necessarily because government is evil and we must all be anarchist, but because the whole point of Bitcoin is to have no centre, and therefore no spokespeople.

Bitcoin speaks for itself.

To the people bashing this you are either just mindless anarchists or just flat out dumb.

What the Bitcoin Foundation is trying to do is get the US powers that be to understand bitcoin and not stiffen bitcoin businesses in the US.

Unfortunately the US is a land of laws, and bitcoin can attempt to explain laws that should be put in to place that won't stop adaptation.

Bitcoin can go on without the US saying so, but it can also become successful quickly if the US adapts sensible laws.

Regardless, bitcoin will live whether the US attempts to thwart it or not.

Excellent, THANK YOU! (sent a tip for your help with this 0.003)

+1

Centralized Regulation is the antithesis of Decentralized.   

You accuse us of being dumb, but actually I think that is a naive position. Yes, you can enter into a dialogue with state power to negotiate a set of rules for Bitcoin. What happens when they say that (a) all ownership of bitcoin must be registered with a government department (b) all buying and selling must be through regulated exchanges - thus exchanging in a localbitcoins style transaction is illegal, (c) such buying and selling through regulated exchanges is subject to KYC, AML and all stolen bitcoins will be illegal to transact with (and confiscated by the government, no doubt).

Maybe you understand and accept all that, and you just don't see its awful implications. This will just be the beginning. Given the chance, they will cripple bitcoin any way they can to try to remove its obvious superiorities over their fiat currencies. This is not about individuals being evil or in conspiracies, it's the inevitability of incentives.

I'm going to (indulgently) quote something I myself wrote on another thread:

And how is entering a discussion going to make this happen faster?  They will do this whether they (the powers that be) want to or not.  By offering dialogue at least it leaves open discussion to not let this happen.  Just sitting back and not being proactive and pretending the government is not interested is not going to achieve anything.

And again, even if they did deem something like localbitcoins illegal, it is not enforceable.  


+1 
This is exactly what I am talking about. 

The only real post of substance here other than people who really seem to have no idea how the world works and are stuck inside their little bitcoin bubble.

My point exactly. Don't really need the foundation either.

By entering into a dialogue with the US govt. about it, you are tacitly accepting that they have any authority to make such rules. They don't. Bitcoin is not American, for a start. As much as I'm concerned about what governments think and do (I believe they can create huge problems for Bitcoin adoption), I'm even more concerned about the extent to which the general population will be swayed by their governments' propaganda. As you say, many possible rules they could make up are theoretically unenforceable. I mostly worry that people will fall into line though, especially with concepts like coin tainting, as apparently the masses have already been thoroughly and effectively brainwashed into believing that there is such a crime as "money laundering".

They do, like it or not.  If you fail to understand this you are living in a bubble.

And I disagree that by accepting to communicate is any indication of accepting they have authority - not sure why you think this.

If anything, they can explain how they DON'T have the authority to stop bitcoin (see localbitcoins) and why it would be in their best interest to not stifle and come up with sensible legislation.

Definitely, but they can control Bitcoin in America to a limited extent.

Yet another reason why entering into a dialogue is essential.  If we (the bitcoin foundation) is able to adequately debunk the often touted myths then job well done.  If not, then nothing lossed and they will do what they have set out to do.

If nobody steps up to the plate they will continue regardless.

Discussion can only help - I do not see how it can hurt.

So what authority do you think they have? They shouldn't have authority over me at all (in theory) since I neither live nor have citizenship of the US - and nevertheless their laws impact on my freedom to transfer my money between different countries and bank accounts, which is already abhorrent.
But that aside, do you really think they have ethical authority over private transfers of wealth between individuals?

Be aware I'm not making the argument that all taxation is unethical (I'm not taking a position on that, don't want to go down that road).

And leave out these ad-hominems "dumb", "living in bubble" etc. Argue the point.

You make a good point, I concur. They should not have any authority over it. It's technically never going to be a bitcoin in america, rather on the internet  ::)

How did they do that?

Please explain the functional difference between "currency" and "medium of exchange".


If you think that Bitcoin was not meant to replace the functioning of businesses like Western Union, perhaps you could explain the very first sentence of the very first thing ever written about Bitcoin by Sastoshi Nakamoto (the whitepaper):

I would like to hear these "very precise details". If like me, you consider that the transfer of cash is itself not a criminal act, so that money laundering is not a real crime, that's one thing; but to say that cash does not "facilitate" criminal activities is a bit of a stretch... There is no difference with Bitcoin, since it functions (at least for now) just like cash, except on the internet. My point is that trying to argue with the US govt. that "Bitcoin does not facilitate criminal activities" will be a completely losing proposition, since they do believe that there is such a crime as "money laundering", and to the extent that one does believe in such a thing, Bitcoin is an excellent way to do it, obviously.

The subtext of all your comments is that you (and many others here) think that the US government can be persuaded to look at Bitcoin in a friendly way. Indeed they can, but only if it is bent to their will.

It's up for debate what authority they should have.  But they can thwart businesses from accepting it if Bitcon remains symbolic to pedo/terrorist/drug users.  

A few examples, they can shut down BitPayCoinbase (which have been instrumental to bitcoins recent success), and every other company residing in the US.  This will only force businesses to move outside of America.  I don't think the Senate is naieve enough to think they can completely control bitcoin if/when they understand it.

But I regress, why do you think it is bad for communication with the Senate?  What harm can be done in reality, and how would you argue against my statement that only good can become of this - with the stipulation that if no communication was made they would already do what they are set out to do?

Things that will likely happen and become legislation specifically for Bitcoin (and already has in the bitcoin-sphere) is the continuance of AML/KYC laws.

We're rehashing old ground now. What you say in the first sentence, I already said in post 58. And my answer to your question "what harm can be done" is in post 61: "By entering into a dialogue with the US govt. about it, you are tacitly accepting that they have any authority to make such rules."

And I have already stated that I do not think that is a logical assumption.  

Let me put it in a different context:  How will doing nothing i.e. not communicating with them help Bitcoin in any way?  Don't you think communication will at least give us a chance to "argue" our POV?  If they listen/agree or not what difference does it make?

All in all, they will do whatever they want, because they can.  Attempting to educate them is a step towards steering them in the right direction.

The USA federal government have the authority to make whatever rules is necessary to regulate whatever happens inside their political borders. Whatever a person accept or not, the USA federal government can and will rule over a software being used by USA citizens, mainly when this software use an algorithm which was developed by themselves.

Call your congressman's office and ask. The congress reps are really approachable.

Edit: Rassah -- glad to see you are on the right track.

A currency can be literally converted to another currency, while a medium of exchange cannot be converted to a currency. This happened many times during periods of fast inflation in the Brazilian economy. The Brazilian central bank had to convert the currency in circulation for another, otherwise there would not be enough currency in circulation to keep the Brazilian economy stable. Thus, BTC cannot be converted to another currency because it supply and circulation are not under the control of a central authority.

Moreover, BTC cannot be literally hold by an individual, while a currency can be hold in form of banknotes and coins. No person hold any BTC, but only a private password which allows them transfer some digits from one imaginary point to another. Without a computer with access to the Internet, that process is impossible to be reproduced.


The first sentence is describing the Bitcoin software allows payments being made using the Internet without the need of a financial institution to validate the transactions.

Which part you did not comprehend?


If you think that conceal or disguise money obtained from illicit trade is not a crime, then I am sure you are not properly informed about the current legislation of many countries.

I don't know how these Senate hearings go down, but I would be very conservative about what I would be willing to talk about.
If a discussion starts to stray into issues like crime, money laundering, hacking and the like, I would constantly refuse to have an opinion about it as I can not not talk on behalf of others.
This is not something bitcoin can or should answer for.

That might be something worth preparing for.

Maybe it's nice to point out that bitcoin is independent from any sovereign states that the governments do clearly understand that they should not attempt any take over.

Take over means, influence the code and the institutions bridging fiat and bitcoin.

That said it is wise to lay open the issue of privacy and also the surveillance.

I knew some of the bitcoin crowd were rather extreme in their views but the niavity shown by posts in this thread defies belief. Bitcoin wasn't created to take down fiat currencies or visa or paypal. They are all different things with different pros and cons. Bitcoin has nothing whatsoever to do with the rights and wrongs of the current financial system other than giving power back to individuals over their own money. Which is an awesome thing to do.

It's a financial instrument, an awesome technology, that's completely new and hence existing regulations don't cover it.

These kinds of meetings are required to ensure that when regulations and laws are updated, they are updated with an understanding of bitcoin and not without.

So do you want a bitcoin where it's entirely black market, (more) rife with scammers, and usable only by the technical elite and criminals, or do you want it to give power to real people, people who want to send money to their friends or relatives, who want to accept payment without hassles and political interference, who can't access bank accounts or credit cards, and so on?

If you want it to be black market and exclusive, tell the 'Feds' where to go, but that makes no sense at all. They aren't all against you and they aren't all out to kill bitcoin. It's the attitudes like some of you have demonstrated here that do give bitcoin a bad name, that do make people want to throw it back at you. You sound like petulant teenagers telling mum and dad you hate them before running up to your room.

Bitcoin isn't yours. It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to everyone. So don't spoil it for the rest of us. Whoever is speaking on behalf of bitcoin needs your support, not your petulant rants.

TL;DR - grow up, man up, look around and smell the coffee. Bitcoin needs to fit into the regulatory climate so it can become mainstream. Only then can it truly throw the financial shackles off much of the world. And lord help us it bloody needs it.

Will this be broadcast anywhere such as CSPAN? 

Man, if simply meeting with the government regulators is going to totally kill bitcoin, I'm out. Anyone want my 10BTC? It obviously has no chance to stand up to any government, and will be worthless in... What, one or two weeks?

Sure, I'll have it. Address in my sig. Cheers.

Three points:

• Governments can change in the manner that businesses threatened by the open source software development model adapted. The long-term benefits far outweigh immediate negative reactions.
• Dollar supremacy is waning. Should other nations (Europe, China, Russia, etc.) mark their assets (esp. gold) to unleveraged markets, US debt would implode virtually overnight. Bitcoin stands to be a beneficiary of that event, as it has no debt foundation and does not recognize borders; likewise, it allows access to an international market simply by holding.
  
  Having XBT on the books would offset declining assets, particularly those held by the Federal Reserve and numerous other governmental agencies. While Bitcoin may be a risky asset, there is a certain catastrophe looming - any option to mediate that should be pursued.
• The nascent Bitcoin economy has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of full-time jobs and independent contractors that do not require relocation outside of the US. This could also attract and renew international interest in American investment.

The fact that Bitcoin will thrive with or without the USG may be too confrontational, but it is a relevant item as well.

Every time an inch of liberty is ceded, the totalitarians take googolplex light years. It will take illegal acts such as perjury and bribery to determine whether the exercises of economic liberty using bitcoin are eventually made multiple felonies (despite having no victims but we the future defendants), or not.

The Foundation vs The Establishment (which could very easily turn bitcoin against itself by paying untraceable BTC bribes and kickbacks to lawmakers to make BTC entirely "black market" i.e. eliminate their legal competition): which do you think has deeper pockets?

1. Bitcoin is a unique asset class that allows Americans to diversify investments and therefore may allow America to better weather financial storms.  The 2008 financial crisis showed how the banking industry companies are tightly coupled and have a poorly understood interactive complexity.  These are the exact attributes identified by Charles Perrow in his seminal work "Normal Accidents" as creating a system that is prone to significant negative events.  Bitcoin's worldwide scope and weak connections to the traditional financial industry make it an independent system that is likely to remain unaffected by systemic financial industry crises.

1a. Banks today make most of their money in fees.  They are profiting from the financial difficulties or careless mistakes make by working Americans.  Bitcoin does not levy these fees.


2. Bitcoin is a worldwide phenomenon and so government intervention is limited in its possible scope.  Excessive regulation will simply drive companies elsewhere.  Excessive paperwork and registration fees (for MSB certification) is ALREADY driving legitimate bitcoin companies out of the USA (Tangible Cryptography, etc).  Regulation is difficult and possibly unconstitutional due to the unique digital nature of the system -- given that a Bitcoin has no intrinsic value is transferring one simply "speech"? (etc)  I'm sure Patrick knows these details much better than I, but the point is to throw out some FUD about the efficacy and value of any bill passed -- because nobody wants to author a stupid bill -- not to make an authoritative determination.

2a.  The MSB framework may make sense for a billion dollar company handling a trust-and-debt-based currency, but does not make sense for a cryptographically secure asset based system capable of micro-payment transfers.  To remain competitive in this critical emerging industry, a bill should be passed in the same philosophy as the one legalizing "kickstarter" projects.  This bill should create a single federal MSB registration system covering companies that wish to handle digital currencies below a certain value threshold.


3. The silk road headlines giving a USD value on the bust tremendously exaggerate the quantity of drugs because many of the coins were earned when Bitcoin was 1/50 or less of its current value ($300 vs $5).

3a. Arm yourself with lots of statistics about USD drug trade.

Just make sure the Senators understand that possibilities for untraceable bribes and kickbacks exist with Bitcoin, and we'll never have any more problems from Washington again.

::le sigh:: Categorically false. The USA federal government has only the authority granted to it by the Constitution. Sadly, very few Americans understand this any longer. Even so, you will find very few elected officials that actually claim that they are not bound by the limits of the Constitution - no matter how tyrannical they act in fact.

Might makes right.

Surely a currency IS a medium of exchange, thats its very definition.  Given that one can exchange Bitcoins for an increasingly wide range of items from electronics to holidays to ordering a pizza, or simply exchanging to other currencies of course via the many exchanges all over the world, it would be hard to convince the Senate that Bitcoin wasn't becoming a currency.

Maybe in manner to which the Senate is accustomed you could obfuscate, stall and at eleventh hour produce a fait accomplit.

Produce an impenetrable 3000 page document on the night before the discussion, thump it on the desk when you arrive and say "What didn't you know, all the rules are in the book? So sorry, that's just the way it is now. Get back to us when you understand Bitcoin Law. (bring coders)."

This thread revealed one thing Silly Bitcoin dislikes more than bitcointalk.org - the Bitcoin Foundation.

From https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114911.0:


They were unable to prove they paid for the membership.

Guys, do u remember the native Americans? They did have agreements with US govt. How many of them really worked? None.

U r going to repeat the history mistake.

It doesn't really matter.
We already have government controlled digital currencies. Allowing government control of bitcoin would be unacceptable and lead to several forks.
There is no point going down that road. There is no need for it.

This is why there should be no damn foundation.

You define a currency as something that can be converted into another currency, and claim that a medium of exchange cannot be converted into a currency. Well, Bitcoin clearly can be converted into various currencies and are being converted every second.
The idea that Bitcoin "cannot be held" is nonsensical. Of course it can be held, either by taking control of a private key, or it can also be held in the form of a physical coin if you have some fetish for physical representation.
Let's ignore the fact that, say, Wikipedia defines currency as a medium of exchange, because I was interested in the functional difference you were trying to make (endless arguments about definitions being uninteresting).
If you're arguing that Bitcoin cannot be a currency because it's not physical, that's not going to convince anybody.


You stated that Bitcoin was not meant to replace businesses like Western Union. That sentence describes precisely that. Have you really failed so completely to understand the most elementary point of Bitcoin?

I don't blame you for not completely understanding my point here (I also take it that you are not a native speaker of English, and these are very dense arguments, so my hat off to you for keeping up at all). My point, summarised: (1) money laundering is not a real crime, it's a made-up crime invented by governments to keep control over people. (2) You claimed that Bitcoin does not facilitate crime, but if we are talking about money laundering, Bitcoin obviously does facilitate it, so you are flat out wrong in this point as you were in all the other points.

Sorry but I have to call you out on it, what you wrote was basically nonsense from start to finish.

Here is a recap of a few things you said:

Bitcoin is not a currency. - not so much nonsense, just meaningless sophistry.

Bitcoin will not replace companies like Western Union. - nonsense. Once a bitcoin economy exists in sending and receiving country's economy, WU becomes obsolete.

Bitcoin does not facilitate crime. - Nonsense, of course it facilitates crime just as it facilitates productive enterprise. Just as cash does both of those things.

Why is a foundation representing something that cannot be represented? Seriously, what makes you guys speak for the rest of us?

You should present a chart with a giant middle finger and say nothing.

Nope. When a currency is converted to another, the previous currency is eliminated. What you describe is not defined as conversion, but as exchange. A conversion of BTC to any currency would imply the BTC had to be eliminated. This, of course, is not what happens.


Nope. No one holds any BTC. The encrypted digits which are the BTC never leave the block chain. The private key only allows a person to transfer the BTC from a certain address to another. There is no way to any person hold any BTC outside the block chain.

Nope. Physical coins only carry a private key which is not BTC, it is just a password which allows someone to transfer BTC from one address to another.


I am not arguing that a currency is not a medium of exchange, I am arguing that BTC is ONLY a medium of exchange.


Nope. That is not my argument. As I already said, BTC is not a currency because it cannot be converted into another currency.


Nope. The sentence do not describe that the Bitcoin software was developed to replace any business like Western Union. If you think that is what the sentence means, you are certainly projecting a delusional expectation over the meaning of words which are very easy to understand.


(1) Money laundering is not a crime. (2) Money laundering is a crime.

You are contradicting yourself with confusing statements.

So, money laundering is a crime or not?


Nope. I already explained why is not a currency. I could provide more examples if necessary.


Nope. There is no such thing as "Bitcoin economy" and the Bitcoin software was not designed to replace business like Western Union.


I do not think so. However, it is useless explain to you why do not facilitate crime since you cannot even understand why money laundering is considerate a criminal activity by many legislations.

They are not speaking for the rest of us, they are speaking for themselves, which includes the main developer of the Bitcoin software. They are, however, offering the opportunity to anyone provide suggestions to improve the debate they will have with USA federal government. By the way, they can and they will represent the Bitcoin software, whatever you like or not.

Foundation mission...

I dislike the concept of the foundation as ulimiately they are promoting their own views and not that of the entire community. In my view they are essentially functioning as politicians and when was the last time you heard of a politician who actually looked out for those they supposedly represent. So much for the principles of "non-political economy, openness and independence".

They are functioning as a lobby and/or advisory group. I'm not sure you have much understanding of how governments work. You have to engage in politics to get things done when it comes to the law or regulation, by definition.

So how do you want to do it?

You have an incredibly diverse set of people interesting in Bitcoin and covering pretty much all extremes. So the Foundation is doing what it can to ensure Bitcoin itself is accepted by the world at large and not stopped in its tracks. Yes it can go on without the US, but that's not exactly helpful to Bitcoin or to anyone in the US>

You may not like politics or politicians (few do), or the various lobby groups (few do), but this how things are done.

Independence does not mean you stick you head in the sand and go la-la-la to the real world. That's stupidity and arrogance, not independence. What you want is light touch regulation only where it's required. We may all disagree over what that means but some regulation is unavoidable - not of Bitcoin itself but of areas such as KYC of exchanges.

So what the foundation need to do is show the potential for Bitcoin to expand the wider economy, to benefit US businesses, that it is a technology. Conversely, that making it difficult to use could push it more towards the black market, other countries may massively benefit to the US' cost, and so on.

I don't understand where some of you guys are coming from. If bitcoin can be regulated or controlled, bitcoin is literally a failure.
The combination of encryption, distributed networking and mathematical truths is supposed to make this impossible.

Pathetic.
Isn't that the one thing we're trying to change, here, by letting people have some serious and real voting power through bitcoins?

Reading stuff like this http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg12325.html (http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg12325.html),
We can't expect the government to suggest any useful improvements to bitcoin.
Something to be prepared for?

That is correct. It doesn't matter if the Bitcoin foundation talks with the gov. or not. The network will remain the same.

I see no correlation in that post content with the subject being discussed here.

My issue is that the foundation, in my opinion, is just repeating the same system that I was hoping Bitcoin and other new innovations might eventually free us from. Advising is great, however I don't believe we should conform to a dated political system when the "authority" is not willing to inform themselves. Think about how long human civilization has appointed representatives to speak for the people, even in a supposed democratic system the results are always inevitable. Even if the foundation has Bitcoins best interests at heart today, tomorrow those interests will shift until eventually the core philosophies have been eroded. Sometimes new definitions need to be invented, thats how innovation works. Law, politics, education and economics should adapt to new advances.

Honestly though, I have not yet considered what I "want to do" on these matters, that is something the entire community would need to reflect upon. I do however feel with the advent of social media and so on, there is a far lesser need for advisers. The general public need to be informed, not the dinosaurs who will only care if they can somehow control and manipulate it.


That in my opinion touches at the root of my dislike for the foundation, I don't believe such an extreme set of views can ever be represented by a small group of people. Doing "what it can to be accepted" is not always a good idea, the US a doing what it can do prevent terrorism and look how that is turning out. This is one example of many.


Politics as a system is fine, it is the way we choose to go about conducting politics that I feel needs to change. We cannot keep looking to the same broken system hoping for acceptance and answers. I don't just see Bitcoin as a potential alternative to making transactions, but rather an opportunity to use our intelligence and creativity to reinvent how we live and our roles in society. My views are perhaps Utopian, I just look at the current political/financial systems as extra weight, while we are willing drag the excess behind us we are giving a select few a free ride at our expense.

Finally, I agree to below except one small correction:

So what the *community* need to do is show the potential for Bitcoin to expand the wider economy, to benefit US businesses, that it is a technology. Conversely, that making it difficult to use could push it more towards the black market, other countries may massively benefit to the US' cost, and so on.

How can a software "free us from" the current political system? 


They are willing to inform themselves, otherwise there would be no hearings.


What evidence you have which indicates this will happen?


How do you expect the "dinosaurs" inform the "general public" if there is less and less "advisers" from "Law, politics, education and economics" providing the necessary information?

When they say "Bitcoin", they mean the software, not the people using the software. The main developer of the Bitcoin software is paid by the foundation. I do not think they try to represent all the people which uses the "Bitcoin" software.

So, FWIW, I think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDO7TDMlxsY) guy (http://www.linkedin.com/in/gendal) should say something there.

The word software is misleading.
Its not the software, its the combination of encryption, distributed networking and mathematical truths that makes the protocol useful.
The software is just a manifistation of the protocol, which is just a manifistation of those elements.

The same way that cars allowed us a move on from the horse and cart, or how telephones enabled us to move on from posting letters.  

You missed out a lot of the meat from that paragraph so I will assume you agreed with those sentiments ;). True they are willing to have the hearing though, I would hope that their idea of informing themselves goes beyond talking to a select group of people however.


Consider for a moment the United States Constitution and how it has changed since its conception. The banking system once had a useful function of value which has eventually eroded into the corruption that we have today. If you put any idea into the wrong hands then don't expect a positive result. I cannot forecast into the future obviously, but history I feel offers a good indication to where the foundation could potentially lead.

So the idea is for the advisers(The Foundation in this instance) to inform government who will then in turn inform the general public? So we expect no misinformation or propaganda in this chain of events? Anyway I did not say that advising is bad, or that lesser of them is a good idea, in fact here is a direct quote ("Advising is great"). Obviously sharing information is always a good idea, the Foundation however act as more than mere advisers by not just acting as facilitators of knowledge, but as the voice itself. Big difference.

I guess an important question to ask before arguing my point any further would be...
Do you feel that the foundation have, or intend to establish themselves as an authority on behalf of Bitcoin?
If so do you not see any potential for that authority to lead to negative outcomes?

If you say no to either of those then that is just a difference of opinion and time will tell.

How about we vote to shut down the foundation ---> profit.

If they don't shut down even though the majority of the community voted for that, they aren't really doing anything for the community, but rather for themselves.

Whatever...

Governments will exist, money will circulate, people will have debates, binary codes will be improved.

I haven't been around here long enough to say for sure but I wouldn't criticise the foundation without a good reason.
The way I see it, the only way the foundation or the developers can make any harm to the currency is to make a change to the protocol that is not backwards compatible.
Like changing the encryption scheme from binary field curves to something more mainstream

I keep hearing this from people who then have no counterpoint. What is your alternative? You want to go underground? And you're completely misrepresenting the quote as well.

If you want it underground then I'm not going to argue that point. As a technologist and an entrepreneur I think it's a poor idea and politically lead, and I think it's bad for Bitcoin and for the masses.

If you want to use Bitcoin as your tool to try and change the way we're governed then go right ahead, but you do not represent Bitcoin - you represent an ideological point of view and I'm good with that. The Foundation, and I'm not saying they are the best thing ever so don't get me wrong, are there to represent Bitcoin. They are not there to take on the government and nor is Bitcoin.

I'd also like to add that this whole anti-government/libertarianism is a very American thing. There'll be some non US citizens in this thread who think the same (since this is Bitcoin) but across the rest of the world it's really seen as quite an odd thing. Yeah democracy has faults and looking from the outside America seems particularly weird, but Bitcoin isn't the fix you're looking for.

I don't think you'll find for one second anyone here wants the US, or any country, interfering with the Bitcoin protocol or development. However, here's the thing. They already do. The way mining is currently seen, AML, KYC, exchanges, future coloured coin issues - they already interfere. So the key is trying to limit that interference to something which doesn't get in the way, so business can operate, so miners can mine without wondering about the feds knocking on the door, so people can be compliant with tax law, so more places can accept Bitcoin, so people can buy it safely, and so on.

So, stick your head in the sand or finger up at the world and carry on regardless or try and carve a path which works for everyone?

I see...

I don't think acceptance would make Bitcoin independent or non-political, that suggests government would approve and keep their hand out of the pot?
Do you think this will be the case? I have to say though, perhaps the result either way would lead to the same potential results.



My statements (I am assuming I am one of the "people") are directed towards the foundation. I would like Bitcoin to be accepted, just not compromised or handed over to any central authority in any way, shape or form. Acceptance would mean greater value and far less risk involved, although lets not discount the possibility of the Foundation doing a bad job and swaying Bitcoin in the wrong direction. I dislike the potential outcomes that might result if the foundation become THE authority, so that is my main gripe personally.


I live in the UK, and if I am not mistaken most of the World has been rioting and trying to speak out against their government.


The current system does not seem to be working very well, the economic collapse, war, poverty and so on are shining examples of this. I would argue ignoring these points equates to a head in the sand, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results  ::). I will however reserve my right to put my finger up at anyone who wants to express my views for me, Bitcoin doesn't need a savior and will get on fine without the Foundation. :)

This won't end in a good way.
They might even corrupt our so called "foundation".

If this does end in a bad way, just remember which group it was that thought is was a good idea to get involved with the US government; The Foundation.

Also remember that we don't need a foundation and that I was right.

I would suspect that by-n-large, the interest of the members of the foundation and those of the US govt align.  Most of the former would like to become the size of players who dominate the economy, or a footprint within it.  The latter would be happy to see that happen as it is relatively more straightforward to control such a construct.

In the 90's there was considerable consternation about the possibility for the unwashed masses to communicate with one another freely due to developments in cryptography.  As we can see now, using strong cryptography for communications did indeed become widespread, but channeled through organizations who were pliable.  I suspect that the best outcome which could be hoped for from the perspective of our leaderships would be that crypto-currency evolution follows this same basic pattern.

Link please.  There were very few people who expressed some reservations when the discussion about the possibility of a foundation was first floated.  You can go back and look at the thread to discover who they were if you are interested.

Care enough to link the thread?
Would be much appreciated.

Took a little while for me to find it, but here you go:

  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49841.0

It'll probably make for some interesting reading now that we have some hind-sight, but I've not bothered yet.

Let them know that the USD is no longer the primary currency exchanged for BTC.

Good luck to Patrick and other representatives.

Thank you for your share.
The ANN thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.0

Hopefully we won't regret the opinions of those members, too much. At least now we have somewhere to point our fingers at, once this goes wrong.

Wow... The responses in that topic are completely the opposite of few responses in this topic. It was a refreshing reading.

The Linux project is already about to become the backyard project of a few multinational corporations.
Its a good model but at some point in the future the community might have to be prepared to fork.
What I'm trying to figure out is if there is any way to ruin the currency without breaking the current protocol. If it is, we have a problem. Even the developers knows that

One of the things that has been high on my mind since very soon after I studied Bitcoin was what happens in the case of a code fork?  That can actually be noted in my post on the aformentioned thread in fact.

Because I feel it likely that the existing blockchain will form a value core for whatever fork becomes dominant, I figure that I'll just wait it out.  Nobody can transfer value without a secret key, and a fork which makes that possible will probably not become the successful one.  (Though it is more possible that the successful fork will force a value transfer which would suck.)

The main problem is that sitting on BTC without spending it is quite inconsistent with an _exchange_ currency.  Bitcoin being couched as such will lose a lot of credibility and confidence in the case of an otherwise not terribly threatening event such as a code fork.

As of a day or two when I thought of it, I like to say "Bitcoin is in it's infancy...it hasn't even hit it's first code/core team fork yet."

Ok, in that case I am more understanding and I certainly agree with you in general. So if there isn't a Foundation, how do we do it? Or is it specifically 'this' foundation that's the problem? In which case I agree that it is imperfect, but I think it is a reasonable option.


Well, except they haven't. In a handful specific countries they had uprisings for all kinds of reasons. Money was only one of them. In the US they had the 1% stuff which I'd argue has been more successful than they get credit for. We all know about the 1% now, it's passed into common parlance.


Again, this is just cherry picking. Look at the history of man kind. In fact we live in one of, if not the most, stable and safe periods ever. Not everywhere, not everyone, and there are huge problems - but there always have been. It's the details that change, human beings are the constant. People fight wars over money, power, religion, land, food, water, nationalism, family disputes!

It's always been this way. People are corrupt. Money corrupts. Financial systems come and go. I'm not excusing any of it, and being in the UK I loath what our government are doing to everyone under 40/students, just saying that a lot of people sound very tin foil hat to me. Always strive to make things better, but you should also put the current situation into perspective. My parents lived under the genuine and real fear of a nuclear war. Before that WW2. Before that the even more deadly WW1. There was also the great depression. That's just the last 100 years. I'd much rather be living today, even with the economic problems that exist.

I can strongly recommend reading up on the Roman Republic and how it led to the Roman Empire. When you understand the politics and economics at the time, you do have this curious realisation that nothing really changes, except politicians aren't slaughtering each other in Washington and putting heads on sticks!

Bitcoin will change none of this, only shuffle the pack again. That's not to say it won't bring good to some societies but I hope you get my point.

I am quickly realizing just how many conspiracy nut jobs bitcointalk.org harbours. 

I've actually been surprised at the number of people who are interested in Bitcoin and yet have the standard level of horror at the thought of entertaining any non-mainstream hypotheses when it comes to analyzing our world.  I suspect that a fair number of the participants here did the standard collage thing, have a good 6-fig job, and don't have any interest in rocking the boat or being seen as 'unusual' by their friends and colleagues.  That was the environment I'd been in until I quit earlier this year.  Still, having even heard of Bitcoin is in and of itself enough to cause questions about one's normalcy, or at least that has been the case until fairly recently.

there are five items on the senates agenda which make the above a ridiculous statement.

1- how can we get revenue from this
2- how can we get revenue from this
3- how can we get revenue from this
4- how can we get revenue from this
5- how can we get revenue from this

we can only pray that they will be so shortsighted. let them try to benefit on net by taxing bitcoin while they are simultaneously losing their monopoly control over the issuance of currency, lets see who wins out on that exchange  ;D

They can't.

Like I said, they don't really give a damn about the people nor bitcoin. Only personal interest.

Agreed.

In the last fifty years i can't think of very many things that the us government hasn't made a total mess of. we put a man on the moon and that was pretty good.  Other than that im coming up short.  Maybe bitcoin will be different.  I figure it can't hurt to talk to the senate, its not like we have anything to hide.  Bitcoin does solve some serious problems with the us economy (quanitative easing) so maybe we'll get lucky.  Bitcoin has shine that i can only compare to gold fever right now so maybe the senate will be like "Omg we can all get rich!" Yes the united states senate collectively uses Omg in a sentance.

The senate is going to think about it, regardless of whether the foundation or the bitcoin community complies. They can, and unfortunately are backed by the world's largest military (yes, I'm using this to prove a point). They have the authority and power to regulate it in some manner. Do we want them to make stupid, uninformed decisions? NO. That could happen if we don't rock up there. Snubbing them, will make it worse. If you also think the Bitcoin Foundation will try and introduce measures into the Bitcoin protocol to give control the US, then you are naive. It undermines the neutrality of it, and will decrease the value of Bitcoin, and even worse, create a fork.

We should be there at the hearing, be level-headed and make sure stupid decisions are not being made. The Bitcoin Foundation is perfect for this, and Patrick Murck is a wonderful candidate.

I think we should get more businesses in this thread, people like Circle who just received $9 million in funding. Do you think they want to snub the senate? No way. They have large amounts of money on the table, and are the people that are actively developing services that makes everyones Bitcoin worth more.

Just to clearify...

What I meant is that changing the current protocol in a non compatible way will force a fork, and the fork will win no doubt.
If it is possible to make a change on top of the current protocol that say removes anonymity, a fork is needed, and should technically work side by side with the new version.
A fork that is not backward compatible will never work imo.

Ya, I am thinking more along the lines of a disagreement and fracture of the development team, or a new development team which the bulk of the users consider to represent their interests more.  Say, for instance, there was a dis-agreement about whether to change the proof-of-work algorithm or something like that.  Ultimately, a protocol change implies a codebase change though.  Being open-source the decision is really made mostly by the users, and the makeup of the userbase is subject to shift around over time for various reasons.

Interesting take. So maybe it is already baked in that the Senate just want to use the hearings as a stage for sound-bites to bash bitcoin, to strut and preen and whatever other secondary hidden agenda? Lawyer-like, the Senate already know the answers they want to hear to the questions they choose to ask.

In which case, the foundation maybe walking somewhat naively into a firestorm by their own choosing. A constant stream of negative soundbites for bitcoin beginning Monday might be exactly what the recent media propaganda pump is being primed for.

if BTC go up, then he kill all other legal currency, Gold, USD, RUR, Yuan, no government would not allow it,
because now is the price so high, compare it for gold, 1kg gold = 100 BTC,  realistic ?

To do that we need a bitcoin country. So why not build a country?

It could kill those governments too.
It is getting quite realistic since the fiat currencies are designed around growth and not balance. I think they will implode.

http://rocketdock.com/images/screenshots/transparentyingyang.png

Definitively possible, there are ways to make new country like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation

Called to ask to check if it's possible to attend a hearing on Monday. The guy on the other end said, "Oh, you mean the Crypto-currency hearing? Yeah, I think it's open to the public."

Apparently they got that question about that hearing from quite a few people already, if he could just guess like that, so hopefully it won't be too crowded.

what has theymos done?

Mike,

Thanks for the information and all the hard work.

It's understandable law makers will want to try to grasp how Bitcoin will impact law enforcement and banking, as it exists outside their familiar paradigm. I do have some suggestions to emphasize.

First, emphasize Bitcoin is a global technology, very much like email. Whatever they think of it, ultimately they can't completely control it, just as they can't control email, and attempting to do so might only hurt or limit the productivity of their constituents. The US tends to see itself as the center of the world, but that's a mistaken view when it comes to this. Other countries are rapidly picking up on Bitcoin.

Second, Bitcoin can be beneficial to law enforcement and the financial system. The public block chain records transactions forever enabling forensic analysis to aid detectives. Although gold isn't used now much as a currency, central banks worldwide do hold it as a financial backstop, so it continues to play a large role. Bitcoin, as a scarce commodity, could be used similarly.

So while it may be that Bitcoin changes how we do things with regard to law and banking, this may not need be seen as a negative. After all the current track record for banks and finance isn't much to boast about.

You may not be aware long before Silk Road was taken down operators of a copycat site not so buried within Tor were arrested. If I remember correctly they were identified via use of their Hushmail account, which agents also used to introduce a trojan on their machine to aid their investigation.

People, including law enforcement, will use technology differently and with various degrees of effectiveness. Very smart (or very large) law breakers will probably find a way to do what they want to do with or without Bitcoin. Using the block chain as a potential investigation aid is not rhetoric, because the degree of accuracy of computers is very high while the tendency of humans to never make mistakes is low.

Bitcoin has the potential to solve such issues to the benefit of the populace. However, the Bitcoin solution to such problems (e.g. by stopping QE Infinity) actually works against the interests of congress-critters. If QE is curbed, and sound money takes the place of the FRN, then the FED and Congress lose the power to levy the hidden tax that is inflation. No inflation masking their real costs, and the gravy train of candy handouts that seem to come at 'no' cost stops. No freebie handouts, the populace starts agitating to replace those in office.

Never confuse 'things which benefit the populace' with 'things which benefit those in the legislature'. The interests of these two classes are almost always in direct opposition.

It aids law enforcement in that the serial numbers on bitcoin are easier to track than the serial numbers on dollar bills, and they don't need to be marked, they come that way.  Further, no subpoena is needed to look at the block chain, as they would need to pull bank records.

It is not a BIG help, so don't oversell it.

=========
Reading this before the meeting will give a bit of the perspective of what FUD the audience have already heard.
http://dailyreckoning.com/a-currency-the-fed-cant-figure-out/

TradeFortress's #1 mistake was not using cold storage. Everyone will get hacked at some point in the future (or should at least assume they will) regardless of how awesome and official their security policies are. As for Theymos, you would have to assume that he knew how old TradeFortress was, or knew whether his service used cold storage or not. Far as I know, Theymos will run adds for everything (legal), since his job is to run the forum, not be the BBB and do security inspections for other businesses.
As for the foundation, Bitcoin Foundation and Bitcoin Police are two different entities. Plus the Foundation is trying hard to put on an image that they are not trying to control bitcoin or anyone in particular, and just want to educate people and promote bitcoin itself. Attacking TradeFortress would have hurt their image within the bitcoin community, even if it may have helped bitcoin itself in the long run.

Did you lose money with TradeFortress?

We should proceed this way.

Forgive me if this has been discussed (thread is too long to fully read now):

I'd be prepared to address consumer protection concerns. From the Chicago Fed's recent report (pdf (http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicago_fed_letter/2013/cfldecember2013_317.pdf)), it's clear that a big concern is consumer protection, probably in several areas:

1) The high exchange-rate volatility of an unbacked asset; eg, consumers who buy/hold bitcoin may not be aware of the risk. Gov thinks it needs to protect them.

2) Theft/Loss of bitcoin; again, how to ensure that consumers are either aware of the risks, or have recourse.

3) Legitimacy of bitcoin-related businesses. This is obviously being discussed to death, but the path is fairly obvious; obey money transmission regs, at both the federal and state level. Obviously most established and VC-backed businesses are (or are getting) aggressive about this.


Personally, I'd rather let the market sort out each of the above issues, ultimately resulting in more intelligent consumer demand and consequently better companies, but the reality is that gov has taken a primary consumer protection role in the economy, and they're going to want to know how they can maintain such a presence in the bitcoin ecosystem. I think making the point that bitcoin companies are doing everything they can to be compliant and to set customer expectations appropriately can help. Additionally, efforts such as DATA should indicate reasonable goodwill.

FWIW, to all the "don't even talk to the gov" folks, it's in bitcoin's best interest to get into the most hands possible, and developing a decent relationship with existing authorities is a practical way to accomplish this.

On another front, there are now a few new bitcoin startups choosing to domicile in Singapore due to a more favorable regulatory environment. The US still has much of bitcoin ecosystem, but it's worth observing that this may rapidly change if the US doesn't get more inline with Canada, Germany, Singapore, and others, with regard to a sensible regulatory approach (most obviously, eliminating or streamlining the onerous state-by-state money-transmission/surety-bond situation). It'd be a shame for the US to sit idlely by while legacy regulation caused the global bitcoin/crypto-currency/crypto-asset tech boom to be dominated by another jurisdiction.

That's why I didn't say they are traceable. I said they are recorded. Transaction information doesn't need to be directly traceable to a user to be useful.

These market places you are refering to where not using bitcon but rather paypal, moneygram, western union.

You may have already known that, just wanted to put that out there.

http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4cad

The list of people appearing at the Senate banking committee has been published. Tony Gallippi from BitPay will be there, as will Chris Larsen of Ripple and the president of BIPS.

What the hell? Did they move it from Monday the 18th to Tuesday the 19th? Or is this a follow-up meeting? (I'm going to have to change my schedule at work now)

Creator of Ripple to represent Bitcoin?
Makes perfect sense.

From the Forbes article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/13/sanitizing-bitcoin-coin-validation/):


This is the kind of disaster we're trying to warn you about. How long will it be before pressure is brought to bear on core developers to make coin tainting part of the core software?
In a global network, who gets to decide which coins are tainted?

Please do not cooperate with this, it will be the end of Bitcoin.

Possessing money and transferring money should never have been made a crime. That act was the beginning of limitless government power over free speech and free enterprise.

This just proves my point. A fair number of people on this forum are smarter than the members of the senate.

Everyone knows that Bitcoiners are smarter and more attractive than most people.
How many in the senate have bitcoin?

Most likely none.

Good thing we have CoinJoin, DarkWallet, and some future wallet integration to look forward to. Oh, and other bitcoin-using countries that don't give a crap about this. Yes, this is annoyinng and scary, but hopefully not bitcoin-threatening.

My first thought, too, but there are no hearings scheduled for Monday in there.

Ah, found it!

Monday, Nov 18th, is the original hearing with Homeland Security guys
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies

Tuesday, Nov 19th, is a different hearing with Banking guys
http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4cad

At least they did not call in Inaba(Josh) from BFL lol.

They should have. It would have stalled any discussions, decisions, and legislation for at least "two weeks"^TM (i.e. a year)

It's going to be very interesting to see how the market reacts during this period.  One could argue they already are, it wouldn't surprise me if we see a sudden big movement in the price of Bitcoin up or down just before the hearings, and then shortly after.

It's something we see a lot in other markets like precious metals whenever there is going to be an announcement on employment figures or QE tapering, the market plays its little game around it with a sharp bounce.

I fervently hope you're right. The CoinJoin idea won't be helpful in the true nightmare scenario (which is pretty much described in the article): only greenlisted addresses can be used to buy goods and services in the USA (and in this scenario, also the EU, Russia, China and everywhere there's a decent sized economy). At this point Bitcoin would just die out as it would be offering little or nothing of interest (the greenlisting functioning as the third party, which collects fees etc, and who knows how long 'limited supply' would last). If people still saw the value in a blockchain they would just make government controlled ones.

On balance, my crystal ball says that outcome is very unlikely. But that's what the powers that be are going to be pressing for. The international part of the argument is the only thing keeping me optimistic. But think of it this way: such actions will not only dramatically suppress the growth of the Bitcoin economy, but also make all of us trying to keep using it feel like criminals.

Will look for it on C-SPAN

He would have probably said: You need to pre-call me 1 year earlier.  :D

I'll make sure to tweet something inoccuous while sitting in on the meeting, and make tons of profit on the resulting misdirected market move.

(I'm kidding. I don't tweet)

I'll blow you kisses if I see the camera pan around  ;D

This won't fly in EU, due to their already established and fervently (publicly) defended privacy laws. If all addresses must be greenlisted, and thus known, everyone paying everyone else will know where everyone else spent their received coins on. It would be a privacy nightmare that would mandate the use of coin mixers.

I don't see this happening.
Greenlisting billions of addresses is not worth it.

"Don't hash me, bro!"

Tony's in the hot seat! Tony's in the hot seat! Tony's in the hot seat! And we thought Gavin had it bad when he addressed the CIA, et al. a couple years back.

I wonder if it'll be filmed.

Actually, some people are going full steam ahead with constructing exactly that nightmare scenerio, and making a buck while doing it:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qk8yl/bitcoinism_is_it_time_to_boycott_all_us_bitcoin/

With this as a backdrop I can't say I expect much good to come out of such a meeting

http://rt.com/usa/wikileaks-tpp-ip-dotcom-670/

Word to the wise...once they put hands on you, they have to arrest you for something.  The paperwork and liability issues are easier for them, its their training.

See my topic, What if Gov puts the Dollar and Bitcoin on the Silver Standard, 1 to 1?, at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333424.0.

:)

That' can't happen,read the replies.

Are you being sarcastic?
Or are you no longer the Milly from 6 months ago who actually knew a lot of stuff?

I choose to interpret that comment, not as something that would be successful, but rather as a suggestion for something that would be hilarious to watch them attempt.

Indeed. But I can't see that being HELPful, which is the point of this thread.

Neither can I. Not sure why he said it.

You're right. If both the Bitcoin and the Dollar fluctuate wildly at the same time, no one will be able to tell that bitcoins are fluctuating in value, and everything will stabilize  ;D Maybe I should suggest that during Tuesday's Banking meting.

You are saying that they can manage to get everyone selling something online licensed?

Then their next step could be shutting down the internet.

US Senate needs to understand two important things.

1. Bitcoin is not American. This essentially means that the US can choose to welcome innovation and join the crypto-party. Silicon Valley will in this case probably replace Wall Street as the most influential industry in the world. Surely some members of the panel will not hate this idea. (Elizabeth Warren is in it, right?)

Or, alternatively, they can watch how the US becomes excluded from a brand new Eurasian centred digital economy.

2. Bitcoin can be forked. This essentially means that the US can either choose to welcome bitcoin as it is, and accept the a-political and neutral nature of it.

Or, alternatively, they can watch how they become excluded from a brand new Eurasian centred digital economy.

On the other hand, perhaps this epitomizes the Dunning-Krugerrand attitude of a significant percentage of Bitcoin users.  "I have spent  hundreds of hours learning about Bitcoin, so I'm smarter than anyone who hasn't".  No, you're not. 

The idea that you are smarter than anyone in the Senate will only lead you to underestimate them.   

One thing I think Patrick should say at the hearing, as brazenly as he can muster, is this:
Then, if he or the Foundation or both can find the wisdom in it, explain that such a plan is immoral and the Foundation has no interest in following it, and then leave.  A review of Voluntaryism (http://voluntaryist.com) might help.

The Economic Policy Journal mentioned this hearing, and I added a comment to the discussion there:

I read through this entire thread hoping to see some folks touch on this, and I think a few did, a little bit - waxwing and marcus_of_augustus - maybe a few others.  Well done, sirs.

On another issue, I think G Edward Griffin is onto something when he suggests that the most important thing for people to consider is whether the collective or the individual is more important.  For some people, because they are weak, stupid, evil, psychotic, or some combination of these things, the collective is more important.  As individuals, they would be quickly ostracized and abandoned by everyone else.  However, if they're smart enough, they will kick ass for good people until they get themselves into positions of "authority," at which point they will subtly, secretly, twist things around so that instead of helping others, they are cannibalizing them.  That's what government is.  Google "Stefan Molyneux" for more info on that.

The "foundation" is a step both toward cooperation which is excellent, and toward collectivism, which is horrible.  Some have "accused" the foundation of working for the interests of its members rather than the whole community, and this accusation embodies the evil of collectivism.  If they worked for the community rather than themselves, they would eventually lose interest and resent the community.  Bitcoin is great because it allows individuals to flourish on their own individual level or within whatever group they want to join.  Cooperation is nice, but when people start expecting a cooperative group to sacrifice, they are promoting evil.

So... is the senate paying the Bitcoin Foundation for the education, or have they (once again) bamboozled otherwise bright people into providing services for free based on the illusion that they provide some kind of value to society?

Has anyone heard of "The Bitcoin Council"?  How about "The Bitcoin Collective" or "The Bitcoin Society"?  I think we need to found those as well as several other groups.

I actually just learnt there were other "bitcoin foundations" in europe, for example.
http://www.danskbitcoinforening.dk/ is one of them.

How can there be more foundations?

Why do you believe that the USA is the centre of the universe?

Draw up a charter, gather the founders, pick a geography (if you like) and do it

What is wrong with you? What lead you to this conclusion?
Who said that I support the current foundation, it's location and existence?

One decent upside to these Senate hearings is that Sen. Rand Paul is on the Homeland Security Cmte and likely has some staffers that have better than average intelligence w/ a free market perspective. He's definitely the apex of the Liberty Crusaders in Washington DC. I'm supper happy that this issue is being brought to his attention if it hasn't already.

https://twitter.com/8Atlas2/status/401407337530798082 (https://twitter.com/8Atlas2/status/401407337530798082)
Wish we could post twitter content. Check it out, RT & follow me. I'll follow back.

Well, the date is coming. I hope these meetings result in good news for all of us! (The bitcoiners)

Your question 'How can there be more foundations?' indicates surprise that others could exist. It shows that you have not thought that there may be other areas of the world that would have their own version of the 'Foundation'

If you had stated something along the lines of 'I am glad that there are more as they may have a different view' then my response would have be different.

As to what is wrong with me then nothing, why should there be unless you think that having a different opinion than yours is somehow wrong.

We'll see. Im sure that if the decide something which is negative for the Bitcoin, you will see it quiet fast in the price of the Bitcoins. But, come on, we're all proud on the Bitcoin. They can't harm us :)

I still don't see the US relevance here.

Hello everybody,

this thread has grown quite a bit  : ( :

I found http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4cad (http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4cad) ,
but where exactly is the webcast going to be broadcasted?

I tried using the contact form on their website, but it is not available.

Thank you.

Really!


Let me guess. Some Canadian subcontractor is going to build the website for this beast.

The US relevance is implicit because this 'Foundation' that is the centre of the current problem is in the US.

~are you heading to D.C.?  ;D

Should be a grand old time!  ;D

i heard this would be streamed live, what time tho?

man i wish i was there!!! ~ i used to stay in Adams Morgan!  ;D

~has everyone watched this one already ? >>


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJldn_MmMY&list=PLNUNceNuoZNYyADYTADlYlXxG6_zaUMr5

Will be interesting, hopefully they don't make too many mistakes.

ripple labs? lol   :D

https://opencoin.com/

They have Proof of Stake.  By the senate metric, means potential taxpayer, donor or vote influence.

come on you turkey>> you know what i'm saying: everyone calls ripple a scam! LOL  ;D ~personally i have not DD'd them ..i just noticed they were on the list*fwiw*

I actually would argue it's good to have some rep's at these senate hearings.  I realize some of the rep's may not have the purest of intentions, but I worry about what would happen in a senate hearing with nobody there from the Bitcoin community.

A lot more damage could be done by SEVERE misunderstanding by government officials.  Having people who at least understand Bitcoins thoroughly could go a long way.

Maybe Mudge is Satoshi. BTW, do you know who the bearded guy on his left looks like? Hint: TBF.

XRP has far more to gain/lose from the hearings than BTC, and is better positioned to do so.  XRP is more Fed-friendly as a debt-trading instrument, even if it is designed to outlive and drain it of value.

https://twitter.com/maxkeiser/status/399313455309520897

ya these are the homies haha...TBF? sorry i'm an untrusted noob loll~who dat?  ;D

Already sold my BTC for LTC

better than have no LTC at all  ;)

Tomorrow it there is going to be some talk about Bitcoins we will know the future. Price might drop drastically or raise. What ever happens I still haven't my amount that i'm using to have fun on market :)

ok what's new? wattt organized crime in New Jersey?..no way i can't believe this!  ::)

What exactly are they going to talk about at the Senate meeting? I'm not from US so did not follow any of that news... tnx

This is my first time hearing about Bitcoin at the US Senate...I sure hope they see the big picture as it pertains to Bitcoin and the benefits it will bring to society. I will be sure to tune in and see how thing pan out!

It's just an investigation. A learning process for Senators about a new economic phenomenon.

A report of their findings is probably months away, legislation (which needs to be initiated in Congress) - a year or two after that. Other countries may follow this course independently or use anything coming out of the US to shape their own legislative response.

Meanwhile Bitcoin grows and the price fluctuates based upon market conditions and sentiment as usual.

yeah i remember reading about how they were trying out those new online slot machines in Atlantic City on some Aristocrat board about a year ago~imo the old reel machines are way better..fwiw  8)

I feel since there will be no decisions made during the hearing, btc prices will continue to rise as this will only be more free advertisement of btc.

The BTC devs will be told behind the curtains to make BTC more government friendly and more centralized, this going together with the recent leaks i would say more Bitcoiners lose trust and will be switching to an alt, LTC devs has been asked about this issue so lets see what they have to say

What the leaks?

i'm not sure how that solves anything.. LTC will then be regulated by government, and then we move on to the next cryptocurrency?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334520.0

WTF is Reagan doing over there on the left!?!

Price will drop probably. Peer to peer currency where US gov cannot control anything ? It will be their nightmare

I wouldn't be so sure: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/u-s-agencies-to-say-bitcoins-offer-legitimate-benefits.html

Today will be a volatile day... The US won't stop Bitcoin but they can make it very hard for it and other Crypto currencies such as Litecoin PPC and the likes. Just the mere act of shaking the tree will make a few dollars fall of it.... How many I have no idea. The price IMHO has climbed way too fast. Just don't "invest" you life savings. The Chinese and the rest of the world is too big a match for the US.... If the Chinese start to feel threatened... Then look out! I really hope we just carry on as we are. Digital currency in a form or another is a natural progress as salt was to coins.... Just don't forget the Tulip Mania..Long live BTC Crypto currencies it's fun!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

The government is all talking about "fraud prevention" and "consumer protection"

Thats a blatant lie and actually they do not give a rats ass about protecting consumers, otherwise all those late night infomercials telling you how to become a millionare, and websites promising to make you "$30K per month from your computer" simply would not exist. Butterfly Labs would not exist. For Christ sake, Citibank and half the other banks who sold us on bogus credit default swaps wouldnt exist, as they are all scammers, cons, and crooks. Cliff notes is this, is doesnt matter who you scam if you can pay your taxes and pay whatever "fines" they levy on you in court, which in the world of banking and pro scamming is just looked at as a cost of doing business.

They want to control it. First it starts with "monitoring" and "regulation," then it moves to "auditing" and "taxation" and "identity verification" and blacklisting coins, then eventually they use "eminent domain" on the bitcoin protocol and begin issuing coins themselves to "better protect the American public."

How people cant see that amazes me.

You are correct that this is the normal state of operation of the government.

This may not actually be how it plays out this time, however.

The behaviour you're describing is how governments behave during their ascendancy phase.

As the system approaches Peak Government, however, they start employing different strategies. If you want to know that looks phase looks like, play close attention to the behaviour of the high level bureaucrats and politicians in the former USSR during the time period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR.

It's possible the USA is on the cusp of the "rats fleeing from a sinking ship" portion of the cycle.

Ya know, that's actually quite observant.

The thesis also helps me get over the pain mis-estimating of the likely posture of various officials.  OTOH, it is normal practice to attempt to calm an animal before sticking the knife in it's jugular.  I guess we'll just have to see how things play out.

One optimistic interpretation of the surveillance and anti-insurgency machinery being put into place right now is that it's not aimed at the productive portion of the population but rather is being constructed in anticipation of the apparatchik and welfare hordes going apeshit when the checks stop flowing.

Anyone who's been paying attention realizes those two groups (especially the apparatchik) are insane.

Look at what happened a few years back when a couple state governors suggested that public sector unions take the slightest bit of future concessions with regards to collective bargaining: death threats, strikes, and near riots.

Imagine what they'll do when the "out of business" sign goes up for real.

Incidentally this theory also explains why zombie movies got popular all of a sudden: it's our collective unconscious awareness of this impending scenario.

I think I mentioned it here somewhere not long ago, but...

I think it a pretty decent hypothesis that our leadership will try to play the so-called 'welfare hordes' against the middle class.  The riot gear and such will provide a credible deterrent against violent mass movements which will almost certainly crop up when the austerity card is played, and the middle class will be very glad to have the protection.  Glad enough to tolerate the raiding of their entitlements and probably even their personal savings.

The welfare hoard class is very little threat, but the middle class has clout and capabilities.  The best reason I can see for the extreme interest in 'total information awareness' (populating dossiers on every living being, drawing up social relationship graphs, etc) is that these are the tools needed to nip any resistance from the middle class in the bud.

That only happens if the leadership believes their interests are best served by keeping the game going.

They could just be like Gorbachev: loot what they can and then retire in style somewhere else.

I disagree.  It would be a vastly different game at that point.  Namely a totalitarian police state.  The USSR was crumbling militarily and there was basically no hope.  The U.S. is at a high point and I don't think the leadership, or at least certain of it, has any intention of giving up the goal of dominating the current century since there is a reasonable possibility that it could be pulled off.

Put another way, we are due for a re-boot in our monetary system, but that does not necessarily mean that we have to give up our project of global hegemony.  In fact a shift away from or our current mock-democracy and legacy principles could be helpful here.

what if they kidnap Patrick and make a cyborg clone doppleganger of him and send him back to the foundation to infect the blockchain with a hi-tech Area-51 alien programmed block destroyer?  :o :o :o

Why is the BTC hero in the painting holding a potato chip?

Did it get moved to tomorrow? or is this a different hearing?
http://www.banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=955322cc-d648-4a00-a41f-c23be8ff4ca

Barcode format:   QR_CODE

Raw text: http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Raw bytes:
42 86 87 47 47 03 a2 f2   f6 26 97 46 36 f6 96 e2
e6 f7 26 72 f6 56 e2 f6   36 86 f6 f7 36 52 d7 96
f7 57 22 d7 76 16 c6 c6   57 40 ec 11 ec 11 ec 11
ec 11 ec 11 ec 11 ec

not sure i think its going to be on C-SPAN tomorrow at noon EST.

wrong time,we'll see ::)

I'll be more amazed if something actually happens after this.

best way to keep these people supporting BTC is to.. get them into their own pockets. then they'll have every incentive to keep the training going. with all the under the table deals that politicians do, i wouldnt' be surprised if many of them have BTC.. but then again they are old, square-ish white dudes..

Your description about the current state of the US is exactly what everybody was saying about the USSR near the end too.

It seems to me that "crumbling" is an apt description of a military that loses more soldiers to suicide than enemy action.

"Crumbling" also describes the morale of government employees and public confidence in general. I mean, they can't even get a simple website right.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/u-s-agencies-to-say-bitcoins-offer-legitimate-benefits.html

~yes bitcoin looks legit ! + we are still very early in the game as it moves from a geek hobby to a full blown currency!!!  ;)

*wow look*-> even the FED doesn't seem shaken!!!--vvv--

"
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is also weighing in on the hearing, saying that it has no plans to regulate the currency.
“Although the Federal Reserve generally monitors developments in virtual currencies and other payments system innovations, it does not necessarily have authority to directly supervise or regulate these innovations or the entities that provide them to the market,” Bernanke wrote in a letter to the committee. "


= imo = >> *this is huge!!!  _ _=//^   8)

http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/helicopter-ben-bernanke.jpg

"...does not necessarily have authority to...regulate these innovations..."

Nice one, Bernanke.  Try, doesn't have the ability.

you are joking right? lol  ;D


https://i.imgur.com/yuoTV5D.jpg

Level-headedness?  In the US Senate?  C'mon!

But yes, good luck!

The guy with the potato chip is

http://missiongalacticfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/ben_fulford.png?w=540

Right?

3:00pm (ET) LIVE: DIGITAL CURRENCIES @ http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

or better givethem each a "USB blockerupter" as gift :D

The technology to clone people was located in DUMBs (deep underground military bases) which were fortunately destroyed by benevolent ETs during 2011-2012.
So they can't do that anymore.

why does U.S have to put there nose in everything,

does anyone remember this?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

What's the white got to do with it. I guess there are also old square-ish black dudes in the room. And young forward-looking white dudes. And young-squarish dudes and old forward-looking dudes of all racial backgrounds. Not to mention dudettes. Stop thinking in boxes! ;)

 8)

(Chinese Armys' favorite band!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFSSqCxXpGg

Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.
There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Now watch as the ball revolves
And the nighttime falls.
Again the hunt begins,
Again the bloodwind calls.
By and by, the morning sun will rise,
But the darkness never goes
From some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets,
Staking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat,
It's you and me.
You and me.
Click flash blade in ghetto night,
Rudies looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley, roll them bones.
Need that cash to feed that jones.
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
[Bridge:]
Commissars and pin-stripe bosses
Roll the dice.
Any way they fall,
Guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray,
Selling guns 'stead of food today.
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Heartless powers try to tell us
What to think.
If the spirit's sleeping,
Then the flesh is ink
History's page will thus be carved in stone.
And we are here, and we are on our own
On our own.
On our own.
On our own.
[Instrumental]

If the game is lost,
Then we're all the same.
No one left to place or take the blame.
We can leave this place and empty stone
Or that shinin' ball we used to call our home.
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
[Bridge two:] Shipping powders back and forth
Singing black goes south and white comes north.
In a whole world full of petty wars
Singing I got mine and you got yours.
And the current fashion sets the pace,
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical, he rant and rage,
Singing someone's got to turn the page.
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing just leave well enough alone.
But his pants are down, his cover's blown...
And the politicians throwin' stones,
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And it's all too clear we're on our own.
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Picture a bright blue ball,
Just spinnin', spinnin, free.
Dizzy with the possibilities.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

it's an inaccurate, but easy-to-implement victim narrative they have been conditioned to feel and use.

this is about class, not race.

It will be on CSPAN3 at 3pm eastern.

After it airs it will be online here:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Currenci

Live video feed is here: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

There are two hearings.  One on Monday, one on Tuesday.

oh dear, that will test my heart... :) thanks for clarifying (but they have removed it from their schedule now  - adding stop loss @ 500$ :p)

1 hour to go!!

Do people see a bunch of sell orders ready?  Not sure where Bitstamp level 2 is.

panic selling on gox alrdy

It's pretty clear their intentions are to mention legitimate use in a nanosecond, and devote the other 99% of their time talking about how Bitcoins are evil and used for money laundering, drugs and terrorism.

Thank the lord the US Dollar is immune from such activities....   oh wait....

Did someone miss the memo that bitcoin is not a "company". Jesus.

Oh, and "child pornography". Gotta make sure to mention that. At least 20 times. Definitely need to protect the children.

15 minutes of lag reported on bitcoinity. Clark Moody was about 1 minute for a while.

Edit: seems to be back to normal

Could someone of you native English speakers sum up the speech for the ones not able to understand any word they say as he/she is not _that_ good at English at that level? Thank you sooo much!

The result of all of these law enforcement groups testifying shows the effectiveness and success of the current regulatory environment in managing the criminal activity.

They cite their 4500 cybercriminal arrests, eGold, Liberty Reserve, Silk Road, all the child porn cases that they have solved based on digital currency traces.

They are so effective, under the CURRENT regulations.  What more could be needed?  Looks like they have all the authority and regulatory framework they need.

Jennifer Shasky Calvery, to her credit acknowledges that they have sufficient regulatory authority and scope already.

There should be a text transcript of the hearing available after...  Will look for a link for that for you.

Great! Thanks in advance!

What a waste of time. Talking heads reading storybook time testimony for congressmen, because senators are apparently illiterate(?). Just submit your pre-composed "speech".

(PS: Mozilla, why is pre-composed a misspelling, but "pee-composed" is your suggestion??)

(PS: Secret service: obsolete when currency can't be counterfeited.)

(Sen. Tom Carper now telling a story about seeing the movie "Dillinger" as informing him about financial crime. "We figured out how to deal with that" - he thinks the US government is a movie character?)

this edward lowry fellow hasn't answered a single one of the questions he has been asked.

Looking somewhat good so far IMHO.

They do talk a lot about the illegal uses of Bitcoin.
 
They also acknowledge though that there are legal uses and that an appropriate comparison is with the early Internet.

Namely that similar concerns were raised then but of course the benefits - as it has turned out - far outweigh those.

They want to keep the "burden" to the digital currencies as low as possible.

The witnesses say they can "deal" with the changing situation.

Do you wan't to know what I as a foreign 'hear' a lot?

"criminals"
"terorrists"
"money laundry"
"computer crime"

and once even

"child pornography"

To me it seems the undertone of that conversation is to associate 'bad things' with 'digital currencies'.

How far is this TV program spread accross the US? Do many people tend to watch this?

agree, the legit users and investers should be happy, this is as good as it gets from these departments

this

Each department wants to show off how good they are  :D

99.9999% of Americans do not watch the channel this is being broadcasted on. However, the news will probably do soundbits focusing on child porn, money laundering, terrorists/

These are the branches of law enforcement talking to the law authors.  All they will talk about are the criminals and their ability to catch them.  This testimony will not be watched by anyone unless they are VERY interested in bitcoin.

So far it has been VERY good for bitcoin.  All these folks are bragging about how great they are at getting the bad guys.  The folks holding the hearing are the ones that author the laws.  The main issue is whether they need to write new laws to help the law enforcers stop bad things from happening... so far the law enforcers are NOT asking for new laws or more power, with the exception of maybe more funding for their current programs (but those should be well funded already by the seizures made this year), the lawmakers also get to decide on spending.

This is 100% positive for bitcoin so far in that there is no new damaging output requested.  
There may even be some positive effect if there is a more structured refinement of the FINcen pieces which are currently overreaching depending on how they get interpreted.

its funny, i learned a lot about government today. there is little to no organization, no cooperation, definitely no interest in "bringing down bitcoin" the only thing these department heads are interested in is panhandling. They seriously couldn't care less about digital currencies, they are just trying to use this as an opportunity to say "look we have done such a great job, look how many bad guys we caught, please either A) give us more money or B) increase the scope of our bailiwick.

The guy cop just said:
we all know digital currencies are not illegal.


haha nice.

NICE? It's AWESOME! It's LEGAL, they want to help protect it, and they want the US to keep Bitcoin innovation in the USA! AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME!

The witnesses are saying they do not need any new laws and they want to "keep the burden as low as possible".

This means they will only continue to do as they have done so far, such as requiring the "providers" (exchanges) to register with FinCen and comply with KYC/AML laws.

To sum it up, Bitcoin is LEGAL and no new laws are needed.

So a relatively good result, I would say!
 :)

Carper can be something of an idiot - I met him in Delaware in law school - but he isn't showing a lot of idiocy here and not as much as Biden showed at the same time.  He seems somewhat positive, his last quote was something like: "it is possible to have the benefits of a virtual currency and facilitate the kind of criminal activity we've talked about today."  Certainly a positive for Bitcoin (and all the alt-coins).

Perhaps he has become more informed and intelligent over the years, but so far I'm not seeing any huge red flags (although I did miss a little bit part way through).

They will try to regulate it for the good of the children. But their tools are fine tuned for centralized targets, so...

Except FinCEN has stated all miners who exchange virtual currency for real currency are exchangers.

anyone notice how the market reacted/is reacting to this? wow

Thanks you all for the sum up of this show and your nice replies. Good news anyways.

First very nervous. Than the news "it is legal" and back to the formel level. Beginning with the end statements -> to the moon.

$750 high on Mtgox... I guess over $1000 by the end of today.

This is very interesting to follow the development of this situation at the moment.

I hope and believe that this is only good for bitcoin.

This is pretty apt.

Consider the "silk road takedown".  DPR can do anything he wants so long as he is increasing his bitcoin hoard on USA ground, he even allegedly hires a hitman, the government doesn't stop it even though they are on the Silk Road server and can see everything happening.

When do they step in?  When he orders forged travel documents that might jeopardize their ability to seize the 170K bitcoins by being outside their jurisdiction.  Someone more cynical might have some questions about that.

When do they step in? When they can grab his laptop while he is logged in using a public wifi. After they have created some evidence of him "hiring a hitman" so they can say "look, a criminal" instead of "look, ebay without draconian rules".

Foundations turn

Whose turn is next?

No, you missed the point.  He was doing those things all along, public wifi, allegedly hiring a hitman was long before.
They didn't nab him until he had bought documents that would let him travel.  They even waited until just the moment he received them... That was the line they couldn't let him cross.
Its about the money.
They let him generate more income long after the hit was ordered (whether or not he actually ordered any hit or not, they didn't intervene in that).

The Asian lady behind Murck is pretty hot.

Jeremy Allaire
Circle Internet Financial CEO now

Who was that? She seemed very excited by what we was saying.

I think it's Jinyoung Lee Englund... Director of Public Affairs BTCFoundation

I like what I hear from Murck and Allaire. Even what the Child porn guy said was reasonable. Now Brito is on...

Jerry Brito seems like an interesting speaker
I can see a real rally to 1K now
Bit technical but well its ok

Thank you!

Feeling a bit better about it all now, started off on the negative, but now it seems like most are in agreement that the existing systems in place are for the most part good enough as they already are.  So I'm less concerned about some extreme clamping down on Bitcoin now.

same, from what i heard today, btc is not going away, ever

Did Brito just call Spain 'the third world'?!  lol

They are referring to the application of the FINcen guidelines as applying only to the exchanges, rather than to the miners and exchanges.... interesting.
There hasn't been any application of that guidance yet to enforce.  It seems that now that the US DOJ has been able to nab almost 1% of all bitcoin into their coffers, they want to keep it in the US.
A historical footnote Silk road saves the USA by getting caught within it.

 ;D i was wondering if anyone else noticed that

I'd bang her.

Ya know, one thing people haven't talked about.  As Bitcoin increasingly becomes stronger and stronger competition, we might even see the added benefit of charges being made by Banks and credit card companies getting reduced!.  This would become a win-win situation for the everyday consumer.

"You don't think it was Al Gore do you?"    HAHAHA

Satoshi = Al Gore.   

It makes sense. :)

Child porn, child porn, child pron, chlid ponr! Think of the children, damnit!
Next i would like to hear something useful from the experts on transparent funding of Al-Qaeda.
So i hope Mr. Murck implements an useful escrow function on all government spendings.

I agree, now that the US has a vested interest in Bitcoin they might actually embrace it.

And she likes Bitcoin.  ;D

My favourite moment. I think Carper has a positive attitude towards Bitcoin, despite his age. I respect him very much for that.

My favorite moment was when this asian girl (aka Satoshi) exchanged a handshake with the chairman.  ;D

My sides after the senator asked if Al Gore was Satoshi  ;D

I quickly looked for her twitter account's main page. It says "happily married". Translation: "OK people? Back off I am taken already!" ;D

I thought this hearing was VERY positive. For people not into child porn or buying drugs like myself I am not sure what exactly I should worry about beside stuff like CoinValidation schemes in the future.

I enjoyed the hearing and nothing I got from it was a surprise. I actually heard believers involved with the fundation and found them very eloquent defending bitcoin.

Was thinking the same thing. Never seen this before in a Twitter description. There must be a lost of Bitcoin guys hiting on her.

I was wondering why no one mentioned Zerocoin or Coinjoin. Which would be a huge deal for all government agencies. Don't they know about that or what is the deal here?

What about Zerocoin or Coinjoin?

looks like it all went well!

Seriously!!!

I honestly can't believe how well that went either, the whole panel managing to keep their objectivity even when presenting issues that usually send the media types into a frenzy.

There's a good chance (imho) that this entire presentation will become historically significant. Or maybe I'm just getting caught up in the moment ;)

My brain is having a hard time keeping up haha.

YES! I believe the Chairman noticed her.

Seriously I am a caveman and I offer zero excuses for being one. But I would love more women to be involved in bitcoin to the highest representation levels. All women of ages and origin. When women embrace bitcoin, $1000 bitcoin will look like a bargain in the future.... It will really become mainstream.

Just now it was $1300 in China market. Now it is $1000. really crazy.

Nope this will be history and we will all remember that the Bitcoin Foundation member needed more lividness :D
Mean energy lol

Also MY favorite Pic of the Day

Doesn't help at all for several reasons. For one thing, you are only as anonymous as the others who use it with you, because once they reveal their identities, then you can be isolated. The probability of you being found increases over time, as more and more downstream trail on the public ledger reveals more and more identities.

BitCON just can't be made anonymous. The only way is to build in the anonymity into the protocol of the coin.

Seems most are breathing a sigh of relief thinking that the hearing added no push for new regulations or laws. What they said was the existing AML and KYC is sufficient for now.

Hello? KYC means what? Know Your Customer.

That means merchants required to know who you are. That means reporting to the government.

Electronic currency on a public ledger means they can ramp up these existing laws to require e-file reporting on smaller and smaller transactions.

The NSA is mopping everything. Soon the FinCEN or DHS or... will be mopping up all transaction identities.

If you aren't whitelisted, the merchant can't accept you.

666 anyone?

Don't be so naive. These transformations move slowly enough that you boil like a frog.

Apologies if its been asked already but is there anywhere to download the meeting to watch offline?

I have found a link (Tried to rip a copy for sharing but my stuff is way out of date so someone else will need to try :))

That said here you go
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/key-senate-committee-holds-first-congressional-hearing-on-virtual-currencies

http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/templates/watch.cfm?id=3221a852-5056-a032-5272-259defcfd3df (Video URL)
Isolated Full Screen :) http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?comm=govtaff&type=arch&stt=930&filename=govtaff111813

Crypto Currency QR codes, Mark of the beast anyone? Tattooed perfectly on your hand to send/accept payments.

take your tinfoil hat off and listen to the c-span again

the hearing said it will only affect the exchange level businesses.. meaning MTGOX,BITStamp BTC-E etc... not starbucks requesting 0.0001btc, not alpaca socks, and not your great aunt trudy who wants to convert the bitcoin you send her into fiat so she can buy some knitting needles and a cup of tea.

again only exchanges involved with converting bitcoin to fiat as part of their business.

secondly regulated businesses do not send reports daily of every transaction. they only send "suspicious" transactions to the serious crimes division of fincen, and only when there it is an absolute and categorically obvious link to serious crime.

AMLKYC is about the business doing most of the leg work of finding suspicious trades and people. leaving FINCEN to only deal with reports from businesses that are truly high risk.

EG bitstamp:
they ask for your ID, they check that your name given matches that of the bank you wish funds to go to. they then check if your on FBI most wanted list.
if all cleared they allow you to trade, classing you as low risk. bitstamp keep logs of your trades and as soon as you reach certain fiat value thresholds they may increase the risk level, EG bitstamp may look to see if any of your deposits are just 1 hop transaction from a known blackmarket. in which case they class you as high risk.

now if you dont do anything to class yourself as high risk. fincen will never know what transactions you have done, only bitstamp will.

What fantasy world do you live in? The same Fiat Rules apply to Bitcoin. As of right now "Individuals" are considered MSB's with Fincen's last guidance unless they offer new guidance.

Secondly, regular money rules apply to bitcoin, If you make any purchases of $3,000 or more guess what it's getting recorded and probably stored in a government database somewhere, exchanging bitcoin into fiat well then we have a $1,000 limit for you there.

It's foolish to think that when the NSA and government are recording your banking and credit card transactions legally and illegaly, you think that Bitcoin is different.

And the Foundation either doesn't have a clue where BitCON is headed, or is complicit:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/19/congressional-hearings-on-bitcoin/


And it is mathematically impossible for it to not be also a ponzi scheme given the distribution problem which I have outline.

So are all assets with enormous gains a ponzi?   In a classic ponzi new joiners are paying the old joiners for basically NOTHING.
If you contend that bitcoin is NOTHING then you are correct.   

I do agree with you that the world governments are pushing a cashless society and it won't take that long. Plenty of countries already have limits on cash deals and I hear of more attacks on cash all the time.

I'm too lazy to scan it, what does it say?

How did that work out for you?

Wait, are you Martin A. Armstrong???

It says stop being a lazy ass and scan me, or learn how to read QR code.

Actually it's a private key.

  Barcode format:   QR_CODE

Raw text: http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Raw bytes:
42 86 87 47 47 03 a2 f2   f6 26 97 46 36 f6 96 e2
e6 f7 26 72 f6 56 e2 f6   36 86 f6 f7 36 52 d7 96
f7 57 22 d7 76 16 c6 c6   57 40 ec 11 ec 11 ec 11
ec 11 ec 11 ec 11 ec

Thanks. I liked it before I knew what it said, and now knowing, like it that much more.

Don't have time for the 3hr hearing?  Here it is in 2 lines:

Senate to regulators:   What's up with digital currency, you guys need any laws?

Regulators and Law Enforcement reply:   Nah, we are good.  Didn't you hear about eGold, Liberty Reserve, Silk road and all our child porn busts?  We got this.

Exactly THIS. Oh, and Satoshi being Al Gore is a recurrent joke among the big guys in DC.

And "Cash [USD] is still the best way to launder money."

What is the source for this art?

The asian chick is back.

Link please.

http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/#

They changed the title from yesterday, which was "Digital currencies" to "Virtual currencies". >:(
That's a huge regression.

Nevermind her...

Who was that blonde chick that was to the left of Sen. Warner for a second? Damn!

oh god, is anyone watching this hearing today? its going to be a train wreck compared to yesterday... these ppl are ...simple in the head as my grammie says

it never seemed to be uphill... im embarrassed for these public 'leaders'

But the Treasury Department Women seems to have a pretty OK understanding about it.

That was an interesting comment. Yes they do, but I'm not allowed to discuss it.

Terrorists use USD too...

And they use the Casio F91W

They probably also eat M&M's   :o

You think so? I've got to stop buying M&M's now, how sad.

Only the red ones, so just throw those ones out and you are still a Super Patriot (TM).

Come on who the hell is this Sarah James Lady?  I mean she is talking without saying anything. 

I'm watching Sarah Jane Hughes and I have to say, when people starts to get cozy about something, I always get suspicious...

She has fancy degrees and has done a lot of these. Her father was a Super Patriot (TM) Be nice.

Mercedes Kelley Tunstall - We need more law, less anonymity, it is used for money laundering, etc.

Regulation and seizing assets without trial has already driven Bitcoin businesses out of the United States.

Yay bitpay up now.

EDIT : Barbecued by deepceleron

stop spamming! LOL  ;D

Hilarious!!!  She is totally clueless.  This is what congress bases its action upon.  Idiots.  lol
Taking stored value cards to Switzerland.   hahahahahaha.  Who does that?

You can see the senator's mind turning. "wow, you can get 0.1% transaction fees?" (in his mind)

red lady striking back. What an epic fail :D

did they mention 2nd life?! lol?! deary me

That was a very interesting speculation.

The appropriate answer was, with bitcoin, you don't have to move them physically because they aren't physical. End of story. Wow. They should read up on bitcoin before they go testify about it.

Yeah it was almost like he believed it but couldn't believe it can be that cheap.  Likely what he was really thinking was "WTF?  The banks & CC companies have been raping the businesses in my district for decades"

Oh my gosh! Who the fuck is Mercedes Kelley Tunstall and what is she doing in this hearing? Of all speakers I have seen now she is the person who dislikes the most.

Loved how the senator was fascinated by Bitpays fees.

Gallippi is doing a pretty good job. Luckily Roger Ver wasn't interviewed by Schumer. This would have been bad for Bitcoin.

"Maybe we should just leave it alone"

Senator Hietkamp FOR THE WIN.

https://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/health/news/images/fireworks.jpg

Bingo!

Bitcoin is basically transaction free, and they pay miners etc etc etc

Credit card companies make up their own proprietary networks, and approve all the transactions themselves, and 2% or so is a number they pull out of their ass because there is no alternative.

Visa and MC have to be scared to death of BTC going main stream.

What they aren't saying is that Bitcoin is completely different than any centrally-controlled money or anything else called "virtual currency". Fake points in games, Apple store or xbox points, gift cards, Google wallet and payment processors, and such, are centrally controlled by a company who can go out of business or print their own.

Bitcoin has no central bank or authority. It won't go out of business. It can't be counterfeited (like US dollars are counterfeited when the Fed adds another digit to their balance and sends it to banks). I can send directly to another user with no interference. It is too good to fail.

I can be defrauded by giving dollars to a guy selling speakers out of his truck, who doesn't pay sales tax. So laws?

Why is Tunstall even there, she is from a law firm, and says Bitcoin won't succeed because it can't be regulated, transactions need to be tagged and not anonymous, and other bizarre stuff. Thinly-veiled banker?

The only interesting question was from Heitkamp, who asked about taxes and such, but in an "I already have my mind made up" statement way.

And Jinyoung Lee Englund jumps on Mercedes... Hope she slaps her once the cam is off.  ;D

That is a "meta concept" that is going to take a while to sink it.  It is so far out of the box.  Tunstall by the wording of your statements, "Bitcoin will need to this" or "Bitcoin going gain traction unless they change it to do that" likely doesn't fully get the idea that there is no Bitcoin, Inc.  There is no central authority which runs the whole network.  Even if they have seen the word "decentralized" or "p2p" they dont' really understand it yet.

This is really a paradigm change thing and it will take some people years if not decades to fully grasp what it means.  I think many on the panel (both senators and witnesses) think of Bitcoin as PayPal 2.0 or Linden Dollars you can use in the real world.

This might have already been answered in one of the threads on this topic, and I apologize if so, but can anyone tell me how they selected the panels representants?

If anyone else was wondering about Tunstall:
https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/402918026968039425

That would explain a lot.  This is why she was saying Bitcoin needs to do things which are impossible.  It was simply a way to advocate for Ripple the centralized alternative.

Did she stand in for Ripple CEO Chris Larsen?

She at least did mention Ripple with sparkles in her eyes during the hearing.

EDIT : and her Linkedin + ballardspahr profiles are returning 404, hadn't checked before, but...
Was an issue on my end, apparently.

If so, we need to get the transcription, her credentials and association, and sticky the post "why Ripple is bad for Bitcoin and Bitcoin users".

It was kind of funny when that opening senator guy ended with pondering on how to strike the right balance with this whole thing.
I was thinking "Welcome to the club, its open source you know"  ;D

what i dont get is the market reaction to today v yesterday. imo yesterday went a lot better than today and the markets seem to think the oposite. grr wheres my 1000$btc! :P

deepceleron: Your avatar is the stuff of my nightmares.

I sense a Ripple effect to BTC

Hearings are archived on c-span:

Senate Hearing:  http://c-spanvideo.org/program/DigitalCu

Joint House/Senate Hearing: http://www.c-span.org/flvPop.aspx?id=10737442693

Kudos to BitPay CEO. The rest didn't seem so knowledgeable. FinCEN representative did well and was honest. OMG that redhead was ----.

No one mentioned how the handle the taxation in Germany, which could have been interesting. I may be wrong, but I believe for private affairs it's considered like barter and companies must register to use it.

So you see what it looks like when you turn it right-side-up then; most don't:
http://we.lovebitco.in/img/maxrightside.png, not http://we.lovebitco.in/img/max.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcher_effect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnnOtdOcOFk

Hey listen I know you like the safety your overlords provide but how about staying out of our business?


You have to be a special kind of slow to think we need US powers to do anything. We can rule ourselves quite fine, thank you.


Oh, I didn't know bitcoin was part of the US. I can understand how people like you, yes people like you, think you rent the land and air and water ect. from the government and need their permission to use those things but some of us are quite sovereign.


Show me 1 (one) instance of anything that has ever become adopted quicker and more successfully than consumer want in exchange for regulation. This is the EXACT warning of every decent economist. You clearly think that a central planner saying "Shut up and do this it's in your best interest - take it from me I know what's best for you" is better than people deciding for themselves.


Despite your best efforts. But what do I know. I'm just a mindless anarchist.

Me too!  Except I think chsados is misusing the word "mindless."

These are my favorite clips from the hearing:

"so there's a centralized public ledger that's encrypted.... is that prime number trapdoor cryptology?"
http://c-spanvideo.org/clip/4474124&updatedclip

BitPay Tony gives a great example of how Bitcoin is a general purpose property rights system that could simplify the transactions involved in buying a house.
http://c-spanvideo.org/clip/4474122

No senator, there is no encryption or prime number-based cryptology used by Bitcoin to store or transfer value. However, please respond to this freedom of information act request, requesting transcripts of any testimony or council you may have received that may have informed you that the words "prime number" "encryption" and "trap door" go together...

'trapdoor' refers to a mathematical construct that's considered easy to do one way but hard to do the reverse way - e.g. factorisation of primes (used in RSA) or the discrete logarithm problem (used in EC and thus bitcoin).  The three words therefore do go together well, but bitcoin doesn't use any prime factorisation.

Will

I posted this in another thread.

Am I wrong to be so critical of Ripple? I really feel they are trying to privatize cryptocurrencies.

This is in response to the possibility that RippleLabs/Opencoin are going to position themselves as the better cryptocurrency.

The tragedy is that the panel let it float not to embarrass the senator, which is a mistake.  The senator was asking it as a question, and also to display some level of knowledge, though that knowledge didn't apply.

The ledger is "decentralized" and not encrypted to hide it but to secure it as unalterable.  Those points would have been useful for him (and more importantly the video audience) to understand.  It was an opportunity missed.  The notion that it is public, (thereby requiring no subpoenas), and forensically useful (as it is provably unaltered) are very important elements to diminish the need for any attempts at meddling with the protocol or making laws attacking it.

Opportunity missed.

Criticism, if effective, will improve it.  Be as critical as you like.
Personally I see nothing wrong with folks making private cryptocurrencies.  They can do anything they like in the walled gardens, and it doesn't damage or compete with Bitcoin.  Innovations developed independently may even ultimately be added into Bitcoin if they are acceptable and good for Bitcoin.  
Places where the marketing is false or misleading should be pointed out, and you are correct in doing so.  If they are wise, they will refine their messages.
I don't see the "greatest threat" of Ripple.  It would be like suggesting that Apple the greatest threat to Linux?

Unfortunately the average person walks past the Apple store everyday and knows nothing about Linux, even though Android is sort of closed Linux.

If Ripple becomes the cryptocurrency of the people by being marketed very well, it might take off and become mainstream and destroy Bitcoins value.

So , it all ended like.... nothing changed?

That risk seems extraordinarily unlikely.  I don't get why folks are worried about it.
1) Ripple is marketed very poorly, Bitcoin marketing is far superior and no one is even being paid to do that.
2) Ripple becoming "mainstream" would be like x400 "beating" SMTP in the marketplace, it isn't going to happen, they have different purposes.
3) They solve different problems, with different solutions, they don't even really compete.  Ripple is a debt conveyance system, Bitcoin is an asset class and a payment system.  They aren't much in the same game, even though they use some similar technologies.
4) Centralized and proprietary vs open, free, user supported.
5) Ripple is trust based and centralised, Bitcoin is trust free and distributed.

It is more likely that Bitcoin and Ripple will each do better because of each other.  Ripple certainly benefits from Bitcoin's leadership in the market place, and Bitcoin can benefit from a trust based system for those that want that.  For example if I have trusted business partners who can initiate exchanges.

Your example of the Apple store is an apt example of an innovation that is crossing-over.  There are now Android stores popping up.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/google-android-store-australia/
Android remains the globally dominant phone OS, and is only a fraction of Linux globally even without these stores, but they figured it is worth a try too.

People are more afraid than they need to be.  If Bitcoin's value were destroyed, that would hurt Ripple greatly, not help it.  Bitcoin is a main reason for Ripple to even exist.  

There won't even be any changes considered for many weeks.  This was a hearing for getting information and questions answered.

The main requests for changes were to simplify and clarify the "money service" registration craziness.

From my experiences with Prosper's horrible management for many years, I have learned to not support any venture of Chris Larsen.

Correction, the ledger is not encrypted.  Cryptography in the form of digital signatures and the proof of work hashing function authenticate transactions and make retroactive changes to the ledger difficulty to accomplish.  There is no encryption in the Bitcoin protocol but yes the larger context is right.  The question was in the right ballpark but all the details incorrect and nobody corrected it.  An opportunity lost.  If nothing else correcting DECENTRALIZED is kinda important.  It is the decentralized ledger which is the heart of what makes Bitcoin well Bitcoin.

Careful or you might confuse folks.  Hashing uses crypto, but the block-chain doesn't hide the result, rather it uses the cryptographic result as an indexable tx reference, so it is incorrect to say "there is no encryption in the Bitcoin protocol".
Encryption in the form of hashes, is frequently used in digital forensics to irrefutably verify a dataset as unchanged.  So the blockchain comes pre-subpoened, and pre-forensically useful.  It doesn't get any better than that for the LEOs.

Agreed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function for once explains it pretty well.

Thanks for that.  We agree on the definitions, and your point is well made here, and appreciated.  (I am getting frequently interrupted as I am typing and doing so sloppily.)  My intended point was not just that there encryption in Bitcoin, as well as hashing, but that the senator was left with the impression that the general ledger was encrypted (with a trapdoor prime number), and the good bits about it being already what the LEOs want was lost.

I thought it was very ironic when Mercedes mentioned SecondLife as example of virtual currency, in the context of more regulation = better, considering SecondLife econoomy was BOOMING for years with no stop in sight, until US told Linden Labs to regulate it, and forced them to ban all interest bearing accounts (banks, stocks, loans, financial services) and ban all games of chance (gambling). The economy absolutely tanked, and never recovered since, with SecoondLife becoming a glorified chat room. Yay regulations!

Wow. I never realized that. I just assumed SL had pretty much died a slow death through apathy, not through what amounts to financial terrorism.
It would be very interesting to see if LL could replace linden$ with Bitcoin.

they mentioned a video game? haha!
Pretty sure Bitcoin is being discussed by the senate and how to deal with it because it separates itself and goes far beyond video games and anything known as digital currency up until now.

Hashing isn't encryption.

Hashing, digital signatures, and encryption are all forms of cryptography.

All hashing involves cryptography.  Not all cryptography involves hashing.
All encryption involves cryptography.  Not all cryptography involves encryption.
All digital signatures involve cryptography.  Not all cryptography involves digital signatures.

Your correction of my correct seems to confusing cryptopgraphy with encryption. 

They "could" but LL method of profit is through the issuance of currency.  A new L$ cost them nothing yet they can exchange it with real currency.  I do expect virtual worlds to use Bitcoin eventually although I am not sure if LL will have the vision needed to break from their (until recently) highly profitable make money from nothing and profit business plan.

Apathy was part of it, but SL's peak was about where Bitcoin was a year ago. They were just starting up with new stock exchanges, investment services, and tons of new businesses in-game that were making real money. The regulation thing make the currency tank in value by something like 75% in a couple of weeks, and all the business types abandoned it. It's why I was so excited to see what will happen after Pirateat40 scheme last year: Every time something like that happened, be in it the real world with Ponzi, or videogames like SecondLife or others, someone would step in, say, "I'm taking control here!" and change things to the boring regulated stuff we're used to. Bitcoin was the first example of what would happen if no regulators stepped in to take charge and control things. Turns out the answer was, people will learn their lesson and avoid high interest yield accounts and ponzi schemes all on their own. Who knew.

That is why CC fraud is such a problem for merchants.  They are put in an impossible situation.  There is no consequence for CC users (oh I didn't make that chargeback) and the problem simply can't be solved by merchants.  Merchants can't force users to be more secure with their cards, not fall for phishing sites, and treat a CC number like cash.  At best merchants can hope to reduce the fraud losses below their profit margin and raise prices.  

I am not saying it is a good thing but if there was no fraud liability on CC, users would be a lot more careful.  It is just human nature.


This is one reason why I am long term bullish on the VALUE (not be confused with current price, speculators) of Bitcoin.   CC costs as much as 10% for certain types of businesses.   It isn't just the 3% (or whatever) discount rate, but also the gateway fees, the swipe fee ($0.30 adds up on $5 purchases), the legit CC fraud, the so called friendly fraud (I don't like want to pay for this so let me pretend I didn't purchase it), the chargeback fees from the bank, the capital cost of the reserves they need to maintain (you can't use money being held the CC companies), and the cost of the anti-fraud systems which both have significant cost and sometimes drive away legit business.

If merchants can see that Bitcoin improves their bottom line then they hopefully will offer discounts for Bitcoin.  If they offer discounts for Bitcoin then more users will be attracted to Bitcoin for everyday purchases which means more merchants interested ....

Interesting story, that I didn't know. Thank you for sharing.

yes, I wrote it properly in one sentence and improperly in another, and accepted Help's correction of this already as well.  ;)
I think we all understand the issue, and the definitions, and I thank you for your second correction.  I only wish our senate had the benefit of such honest critiques.  I like that no one here lets me get away with any sloppy language also.  It is the kind of protection that I most appreciate, the protection from being inadvertently confusing and being wrong (because together we find what is right).
We all understand that the only encryption in bitcoin is wallet side (and optional) and therefore that many folks are fond of saying that there isn't any encryption at all.

I hadn't see Help's correction, I wouldn't have corrected it except it was a correction of a correction.  Casual use is one thing but definition should be accurate in clarifications.   

I don't consider client side use of encryption in one or more clients to mean Bitcoin (which is a protocol) uses encryption.  The QT client certainly optionally supports encryption but I would be fine with stating on public record that Bitcoin does not use encryption. 

I do agree with you it was a wasted opportunity to correct the senate and get the proper definition on record.  More important than the misuse of word encryption is the longer context.  The senator said "hiding by encryption" which means it was more than just a wrong word.  The blockchain is the exact opposite of hiding.  It is a public record by definition.  It is closed private ledgers (like PayPal for example) that are hidden from public view.   A horrible waste of an opportunity to get a solid good high level view out in the open and on TV as well.

Yes, maybe a blunt and unqualified "there is no encryption in the Bitcoin protocol" possibly may have shocked him into asking the right questions and learning the legally important aspects, which he never received from his panel of experts.

Well the hearing is not "closed" for a couple weeks, so maybe they will read what you wrote up there and get it in the record yet...

That redhead was really annoying. I do think that someone could build a system on top of bitcoin that allowed people to register accounts and link them to there wallets That would open up a lot of possibilities for bitcoin and help with adoption. It needs to be done if we ever want to have a charge back option available for bitcoin transactions. Until it happens I don't see bitcoin gaining much traction with large companies. Paypal would be the perfect entity to do it but I doubt that will happen any time soon.

Any links to those projects would be cool for the curious.

Thanks for this, had missed that passport topic, til now.

There are many implications to attaching identity to the block chain.  Wealth based ID, Corporate identities, inheritance, bonded ID, multi-sig ID (partnership IDs / marriage or business), identity repudiation, and many other tangential identity management issues just to name a few.  There are broad ranging implications for this, both for its utility and its social impact.  It is a project that bears some review.

Spanish news articles about this topic in Bitcoin Noticias htttp://bitcoinnoticias.com (http://htttp://bitcoinnoticias.com)

Uhg, that's all I need.  To be outvoted by even more people. :(  People tend to vote away their liberty more often then they realize.

If only we all lived on small islands where the only people we could plunder by ballot box are the folks we see every day and can stare us in the face.  When you start talking about global decision-making the level of authorities required to enforce democratic decisions seem unconscionable, much less the decisions themselves.
Sometimes it seems we'd be better off if the most powerful political positions were the city mayor and anything decided above that was only advisory and dispute resolution.

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/committees/b_three_sections_with_teasers/committee_hearings.htm