Bitcoin Forum

I'm giving an introductory presentation to a group of judges, lawyers, and political leaders next week. Although my presentation will give them all the necessary information to have a discussion, my plan is to open the floor to discussion.

During the discussion, I want to pose provocative questions.

"Should you accept bitcoin as a form of payment? If not, why?"
"How do think bitcoin should be regulated?"
"Will regulating bitcoin in the short-term, reduce innovation in the long run?'

I was hoping you guys could help me get a list of provocative questions that could be tailored to lawyers, judges, and government officials.

Any help is deeply appreciated.

Ask them if they want to be able to afford food & shelter in five years.
Ask them how they feel about hyper-inflation.
Ask them if they'd like to see World War III end the world as we know it.

Hope those aren't too provocative for you, but they're the only questions that matter.

Check out a few legal reports like the

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Cause and Effect: Bitcoin a first assessment 2013 December Digital.
http://cryptome.org/2013/12/boa-bitcoin.pdf

European Central Bank, “Virtual Currency Schemes,” (October 2012). http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf. From http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf

Or

PriceWaterHouseCoopers. Consumer Intelligence Series Digital Disruptor How Bitcoin is Driving Digital Innovation in Entertainment, Media and Communications. 2014 February Digital.
http://www.pwc.com/en_SG/sg/tmt/assets/tmtnews201402/digital_disruptor.pdf

what country are we in?

my questions for this group would be geared towards fostering competition in the marketplace.

anti-trust, big banks.


should competing technologies for banks, credit card companies be encouraged.  what laws exist to protect them within the context of  anti-trust and consumer interest.  what laws would protect them, if none exist.  what mechanisms would enact such laws.  what existing laws would potentially hamper these efforts.

Ask them how much they know about bitcoin ? and how much fate they have in it ?
Are they in contact with some specialists (in economic or software engineers) who know more about the gearing of bitcoin ? how are those ?
Is bitcoin a game changer for them (like the wheel and E=mc² ) or just another great idea that might work or might not ?
Ask if they are working or worked in cases that involve bitcoin ?
What they think about the IRS ruling "bitcoin as propriety" ?
Why not rule it as currency ?

I wasn't expecting to see something that radical right at the start.
Watching their reaction when the OP asks these questions = Priceless.

That would be but quite amusing do it not on Bitcoins time hehe would be pretty bad to see the regulators reaction to a WWIII bitcoin buff XD

They would probably ignore too radical questions.

who are these people and what sort of influence do they have?

it might be possible to get similar presentations from people that have already given them or run around doing some of this for themselves.  Some of the core devs, Silbert @ Second Market, Andreas, Garzik, etc.  Someone at the BTC Foundation may also be able to help, or the legal counsel for the BTC Foundation could shoot you some pointers.  I've got most of those people followed on Twitter, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll pop over the links to their pages.

maybe some of the transcripts from the recent conferences are available and those could be picked through for good information also.

The word radical literally means "to get to the root of", usually a problem.

Bitcoin is radical by definition, as it gets to the root of the problem of exchanging money (trust). Rest assured, the advent of cryptocurrency will change our world in radical ways.

If they'll ignore questions as "too radical", you're wasting your time. That should come as no surprise, given that you're talking to lawyers and judges.

Sorry about the spelling grammar in advance...don't have a lot of time.

A rather interesting outcome of BTC, Legaly speaking is that it will arbitrage jurisdictions by according capital and business/entrepreneurs to the most favorable jurisdictions.

While this is done for Tax and Company purposes already, the scale and speed at which BTC can do this is unmatched, as the funds can simply flow, regardless of the counter jurisdictions requirement for BTC not flow. I.e. there is no capital out flow control for BTC.

A second point is BTC tech offers a new form of corporate entity, the DAC (google it) this it doesn't rely on state sanction, nor the usual formal office holders being appointed. The common goal is bound by the tech eg block chain. Eg many of us are marketing dept, educational, manufacture, supply chain, regunaltions, Dev, graphics, art, apologetics, etc etc. The reason people are bound in is becuase BTC offers a better return to a certin sgment of holders than competing activities. This DAC is very powerful, because it
[1] is amorphous, very hard to attack or stop
[2] very adaptable, because only open source is fully trustable, the diametric opposite of copyright and trade secrets. This fact make the development go ahead at light spee versus may other techs. Advances can be adopted quickly in BTC or by other chains/coins
[3] Engages alot of people. The number of people DEV ing part time / full time etc could be or the order that a largeish software house could not afford to employ
[4] The "wallet/tech/BTC is unsiezable, immune to court or state intervention. Eg firstly you have to prove a person has BTC, they may not, then you have to get the private keys out of them, and even if you could they can set up a coin eater or some other such service. Even if you can find flaws in BTC tech, there are man other coins, eg anoncoin that are set up to be much harder to track down. Eg the destruction of BTC would only lead to better coins just waiting for the opportunity. Take a look at the rate of evolution in alts if you don't believe.
it.

In legal speak, BTC is immune, to writ, seizure, bankrupty, liens, court orders in general. In fact it is the first time in history that an individual can hold wealth and not have it taken from him by force. Eg before no matter what form of wealth you had others could always force it from you. The exception being perhaps buried gold/treasure but that's really hard to use.

Conversely BTC make some forms of crime uneconomic. Eg robbing people for their money isn't economically  viable with BTC anymore, for the same reason the state faces.

To encapsulate BTC, it could be said it is about elision of sovereignty from the state to the individual, and BTC is the first viable model to do that in a complex society, the DAC aspect of BTC which is perhaps its most powerful is a means to regorganise the allocation of capital and production, why? because it makes is near impossible for people to cheat each other while unifying them in a common [self] interest. The contact and register nature of BTC is also there, eg, it can function as an absolute record of tittle eg land titles, without  central or state organization. Etherium, NXT, master-coin and others are starting to make headway in using this type of feature.

Churchill's famous dictum: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947) , has been answered.

We now have a less worse form of organization. The DAC/Blockchain. This coupled with the fact people have see $>10 Billion of buying power on the table so far (the market cap of BTC) and this could easily go to $100B, they are not about to forget. And remember this is buying power. Its not like Apple, who hold say $400B but then can actually spend it all. The BTC can not be "all spent" the power just sits there, in alienable [from itself, tautology].

The Judges won't like a lot of this or will find it confronting, because you saying they are more or less out of a job and powerless

Great stuff. I really appreciate the guidance! Keep them coming.