Bitcoin Forum

Private digital currencies have no national endorsement, and central bank digital currencies have the state as a credit guarantee.

If Bitcoin is a private digital currency. Then, the issuer is personal. Is this person Satoshi Nakamoto? Is he the owner of Bitcoin? However, Bitcoin is "decentralized." There is no issuer.

edit：In order to get a better understanding of my topic, I edited it a bit more deeply, thank you.

That is not why bitcoin comes to be decentralized, it's because it's the p2p. Although there is a creator satoshi, he already disappears and he didn't touch his coins too. Don't think about CSW. Why it's decentralized is that no one controls it because it's the network. Its not private but Public.

The best term to describe bitcoin is as its paper calls it: a peer to peer electronic cash system.
It is decentralized meaning there is no "owner" or an "issuer" in the traditional sense of the word. There is a protocol that is enforced by the nodes (peers on the network) and in this protocol when you perform "work" you can be rewarded for that "work" with "new coins". The work is mining and the new coins are the block rewards that enter circulation.

Bitcoin is not private digital currency. It is a public blockchain. The main difference in a private and public blockchain is when there is admin who manages as to who can access a blockchain or not. Bitcoin on the other hand does not have admins. It is decentralized and autonomous. Even the verification of transactions (mining) happens on the basis of an autonomous consensus mechanism.

Satoshi Nakamoto only set up Bitcoin public blockchain and thereafter he didn't have any other rights or admin powers over Bitcoin. (However, it is speculated that Satoshi had mined a large amount of Bitcoin in the initial days of Bitcoin).

If anything, wouldn't we rather call Bitcoin a public digital currency? Private implies specific ownership and control, which is not the case for Bitcoin but for any other currency or CBDC. Even a CBDC is private in a sense. Not quite sure what the goal was with this statement by that central bank.

Even without Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is decentralized. He opened a genesis block and published the news two months before the block opened.

It's clearly a public network/currency and not owned by a single person just as natural resources like Gold and other precious metals is owned by all rather than being privately owned.
It definitely doesn't make sense to ban Earth's resources like Gold just as it does not make to ban Bitcoin. You could probably only ban it if it's privately owned

See how the Chinese government "twist" everything to fit their narratives? How can you call bitcoin private digital currency? Lol, I just shake my head here, this is just their justification to put a ban on everything related to bitcoin. It is obvious that even an average joe or newbie investors knows a thing or two about bitcoin and nothing is close to being describe as "Private".

Example of private digital currency - Ripple (XRP)

Bitcoin is never a private digital currency. It is true that bitcoin was created by a person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto but they don't control its mining network. Anyone with sufficient computing power can connect to the network and mine bitcoin. So that's not the characteristic of a private digital currency.

Digital Yuan is yet another example of private digital currency which is backed by PBoC.

Bitcoin had a fair launch as a cryptocurrency and with the original creator(s) now out of the picture, it's as public a currency as it gets --it's not tied to any backing body, whether individuals or organizations or country.

if we think about it from the perspective of private property, then i think bitcoin is a private currency. the bitcoin you own (or have to key to unlock the utxos) are private in a sense no one other than you owns them. on the other hand ripple or cbdcs (actually any other currency other than bitcoin) are not private, you don't own them (you could make the case that someone else owns it). what these are is more like closed and not open, that would be better words to describe bitcoin and all the other currencies open vs closed. just my 2 sats.

i just realised, if we go this way, we even might ask ourselves if we own the property we are living on (if we are not renting)...  :-\

There's one dirty rule I've heard about in many cases and it works in logic too. It's: garbage in - garbage out.
If you go by some arbitrary rules made by somebody who doesn't know nor care (especially politician or similar), it doesn't matter how good your logic is, the output will still be garbage. Sorry.

So you have to find out (or ask Fan Yifei) to express his statement in more clear terms, all well defined. (Not gonna happen, I know.) All I can say that his classification is incomplete at best.
So I'd simply ignore that... mumbling... and remain to the proper definition Satoshi himself gave: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

hmm. maybe bitcoin the network is public and bitcoin the currency private?  8)

The People's Bank of China, after the latest attack on bitcoin and its mining, continues to clear the way and place for the activities of its digitized yuan. Even earlier, they prepared regulations in which they declared the digitized yuan to be the property of the state of China and prohibited anyone from using it as a justification for other stablecoins.
Now the Chinese government will try to regulate, or more correctly to put it, restrict or even prohibit the circulation of stablecoins, primarily those that were not issued by the central banks of states.

Yes ok we are looking at two different things. From the perspective of rights in rem you are right, it is a private currency from the perspective of a person holding a private key to unspent transaction outputs. I was rather referring to Bitcoin as a whole, so to say as a public good in its truest sense. Fiat isn't an enduring public good because that good could be destroyed overnight (Venezuela).

So from your perspective, correct, Bitcoin is probably the best form of private property we could ever imagine exactly because its underlying architecture is a public good that is almost indestructible. Does that even make sense what I am saying? I know you understand me, but is it theoretically/philosophically correct?

yes i understand and agree, if it is theoretically/philosophically correct you have to ask other people, i don't know that

bitcoin the currency = best form of private property
bitcoin the network = public good that is almost indestructible

my 2 sats again  ;D

People tend to call it a store of value lately instead. It acts as a currency too but sometimes it is more practical to use a credit card instead because of its speed.

We currently do not know who created bitcoin. It is somebody who calls himself satoshi but this might be one person or a group. Nobody knows.

This definition or classification is coming from the bankers working for the China government and yes they have the freedom to classify Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency for that matter any way they like. Hell, they even have opposite opinions than us. it is obvious that any currency apart from those issued by the government or their foreign counterparts can be considered as private on the basis that it is not by the government. What is clear here is that for a long, long time we can never expect China to change its current stand on cryptocurrency...therefore we can say that the China case is now officially closed for good. Goodbye, China hello world.

Either this is a bad translation or the Chinese officials choose poor words to describe Bitcoin. Because "private" means something owned by one individual, and Bitcoin is not owned or issued by anyone. A private currency is a currency issued by company, like for example XRP. Bitcoin is decentralized currency. Maybe they didn't want to use the word decentralized when they compared it and CBDC, because they didn't want people to think that CBDC are not decentralized? That would explain their choice of words.
 

This is simply a misunderstanding of what's truly private and public. In essence, Bitcoin is the genuine public currency. It is public in the strictest sense of the word. It is owned and controlled by nobody but the general public. There is no central authority from which control is exclusively emanating.

Governments often have a distorted view of what's public. Anything beyond their control they consider private. Anything created and issued outside their authority and power is private. Public is everything they control. That which is beyond is private.

They probably meant or wanted to mean that there are two types of digital currencies: created by public institutions or by individuals. This is the only thing that's private with BTC: its creator. Except Satoshi, I don't think we can call anything else "private" when it comes to BTC.

Bitcoin is a private currency, for it to be private that's what made it decentralized, so no one can jumped into it for manipulation, so emphasising via Satoshi Nakamoto, asking if it's the owner of cryptocurrency, from my own experience i will say that Satoshi Nakamoto only induced or introduce the function or usefulness of cryptocurrency especially bitcoin to the world, so for he to bring up such ideas that is generally accepted by the people today, in think we can partially say that is owner of bitcoin with that fact he introduced it since 2009 with his colleagues that's unknown to everyone using bitcoin today, so in other hands bitcoin is not been regulate to anyone or control by anybody, i want us to understand such concept, it's decentralized right from the day one it was introduced.

With regards to Satoshi Nakamoto, his existence remains a mystery up until now. Bitcoin being considered as a digital currency can somehow be acceptable for some reasons. Just with the fact that it is not being used physically and is being transacted online makes it a digital currency already that can also be used to purchase stuffs that can be bought through through bitcoin. It has remained as a threat to the government and the economy of many country since it can disturb the current balance or system built by the government. Nevertheless, that system they built are mostly beneficial to them and crypto serves as a savior from the abuse they do to their citizens.

This pretty much reflects my thought process. Nevertheless it is an interesting discussion about what is truly private and what is truly public as Bitcoin puts this discussion to the test again. It is truly public because there can be nothing more public than a neutral network that grants everyone access in every single country around the world without interference from anyone.

Though I still think there is also a private perspective to be considered. I am not entirely sure how, but for the individual person... well, maybe I am wrong. The problem is that Bitcoin is still subject to superior power. Saying that Bitcoin is the best form of private property because it ensures you are entitled to your rights and claims in a superior way might not be correct. States could still do a lot of stuff to destroy the value of Bitcoin by force.

In my opinion this is not true, BTC is a decentralized cryptocurrency and it is clearly not managed by any organization, individual or central bank, not even the founder of BTC.  shatoshi also has no control over BTC, shatoshi is an alias and no one knows about him nor BTC forever no one knows has control.

If "private" means "not issued by a government", then Bitcoin is "private". Either way, there is no "issuer" regardless of any definition.

Bitcoin, as a protocol, is public. Owning Bitcoin, the native currency of the network, is private ownership. Bitcoin as a private property is indeed superior than others. You may own a piece of land, a savings account in a bank, an apartment, and so on; the sense of ownership of all of this is inferior compared to owning Bitcoin.

However, as regards price value, it is beyond the control of any individual since the public aspect of Bitcoin comes in. The price value is always determined by the general public. No single entity like a central bank or a government determines or dictates its price. Since Bitcoin has no owner or issuer, its value under no one's control, everything depends on the public. As such, it is susceptible to the ills of the old system. But what else could we do? That's the price of freedom. That's the compromise Bitcoin has to take for being truly public.

I don't agree with this statement, personally I think bitcoin is not just freedom left over, meaning it's available to anyone who loves and believes in it.  Let's clearly realize what kind of "private" is, in legal terms, private is fully protected by legal-based regulation, if in the abstract, personal and private sense, I think it is still  not entirely accurate.  Bitcoin needs success, not for ETFs, but for practicality and performance value in practice

Is the statement that bitcoin is a digital currency true? I think it's definitely not true, because bitcoin is clearly a public currency, it can't be owned by one person, if it's true that bitcoin is a private currency, I think everyone on this forum will definitely never adopt bitcoin, bitcoin isn't it personal digital money, but digital currency, must be controlled by yourself...

although there are those who say bitcoin is a personal currency, I personally would never agree with their words, I am very sure if someone says bitcoin is a personal digital currency, I think they are people who are not happy with its appearance. bitcoin, because we all here believe bitcoin is a public digital currency, which we can control ourselves without any third party..

the statement is correct.
 btc is a private currency because it wasnt owned by banks but it was only created by a normal person .
 satoshi created btc but i think he isnt issuing it like what banks did to the fiat but we issued our own money when we mined our btc  .
or we can say that an exchange or the person that sells us his btc issues it if we are buying insead of mining.

I personally dare to say it's not true at all, as far as I know bitcoin is a public digital currency, which everyone has the right to control over their digital bitcoin currency, because it is very unlikely that bitcoin is a private digital currency..

Bitcoin is a decentralized crypto currency and doesn't have a proprietor. Yes, it was created by a person who called himself Santoshi Nakamoto but that doesn't make it a private currency because it works on a public block chain network and is used as a reward for someone who completes and adds a block to the blockchain .
So calling Bitcoin a private currency is incorrect as there is no organization or a particular person involved controlling it .

Have you confused it with the privacy that it may offer you? I don't know about other digital currencies, but I know that no one ever referred to Bitcoin as a “private digital currency”. The transactions are transparent to it probably isn't that private.

The task of issuing is being managed collectively by the network. So, the issuer is the network.

As said by ETFbitcoin, the way you use that term is ambiguous.

Ok I agree that in terms of private property, Bitcoin is probably the best form of private property we can have. I say probably because there are still ways to attack Bitcoin from a government point of view. You could make the tax requirements so unfavorable that it's totally impractical to hold, use or buy Bitcoin. I still think it is superior to other assets given its unlimited cross border mobility and immunity against confiscation (if you do it right).

Concerning the price, I think that applies to all assets. When you have real estate or gold you are also as much exposed to the opinion of the general public as you are with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is decentralized because it is not owned by any company or any individual it is a public network, therefore it is unable to be controlled or manipulated, it is a peer to peer method of doing transactions between two sides without having the need for any intermediate or any third party, all the transactions are visible and verified by all the users, so saying that is a private digital currency is a false statement

Bitcoin is not private please! It's decentralized without any third party involved. I think what you meant by Bitcoin is private is because transaction only constitutes two participants without any external force. Bitcoin is private in the area of KYC, no barrier for holding need. Nothing like  law or principle that determines the number of coins one can have. No age restriction or approval from the government to hold Bitcoin which is the reason why government are kicking against it.