Bitcoin Forum

Before blockchain technology, there was no real decentralized secure money. There were centralized sources such as eGold, and Liberty Reserve which were shut down over time. When Bitcoin was introduced in 2008, nobody knew how big of a impact it would have on society. It was the first time where people could participate in private transactions, with were outside of the reach of third parties. The history of cryptocurrency shows that technology is always one step ahead of government. For government to hold its power, it has to enact new laws to scare people into following them or face the consequences.

The majority of the cryptocurrency community has a deep bond with Bitcoin. It is our first, it introduced us to the crypto world, and it is the gold standard in the cryptocurrency community. We hold Bitcoins, and we want it to succeed because it will drive the price higher and make us rich. This is not going to change anytime soon. The fact of the matter is, Bitcoin is becoming less and less private. While the years of 2009-2013 were the years of the wild west, starting 2014, is when privacy of Bitcoin users started getting strangled. The regulators are clenching their fists at the entrances and exits of the coin. From cashing in, to cashing out, there is no way to keep your privacy anymore. The only legitimate places to buy and sell Bitcoin are requiring KYC and AML procedures where you must give all information related to your identity. This will immediately tie your identity to the first or last address which the coins are used. And forget about buying Bitcoins via cash on LocalBitcoins.com, because more than likely you will have issues with your bank and you will be targetted by law enforcement for money laundering operations.

Many users are not doing anything illegal, but simply want financial privacy. The demand for a private currency is there. Not to facilitate in illegal transactions, but to have the freedom and privacy of controlling our own money. And not have anyone control us of what we can, and can't do with our money.

We have all heard the analogy that Bitcoin is digital cash. In essence, Bitcoin is more like digital traceable gold. In all cases where parties want to remain anonymous, cash is the only option because of three characteristics.

1. Cash is fungible
2. Cash is untraceable, and can be hidden.
3. Cash is widely accepted.

Currently, in the cryptocurrency community, the most hyped anonymous currency is Zerocash (formerly Zerocoin). In its current, unreleased state, it has many flaws. It relies on a single entity, to create a starting point of anonymity. If this single point of failure gets compromised, so does the privacy of every user. There is Darkcoin, which is a Bitcoin fork which uses CoinJoin similar to SharedCoin, but has decentralized mixers. Darkcoin is not introducing any ideas that Bitcoin doesn't already have. Albeit, centralized sources.

The Cryptonote platform has birthed a whole new standard of privacy. The Cryptonote protocol is not a coin, it is a open source platform to create private digital currencies, and it is growing fast. Think of it as, Cryptonote is to decentralized private currencies, as Ethereum is to decentralized applications. It is different from the Bitcoin protocol. There have been many coins born out of the Cryptonote protocol, notable ones include: Bytecoin, Monero, Boolberry, and many more. A list can be found here: https://cryptonote.org/coins.php Out of all the cryptonote coins, Monero stands out the brightest. It has the largest community, highest volume and liquidity, and it had a fair launch. Monero can be considered true internet cash. It is 100% fungible, untraceable, and private. And most importantly, it is working.

Whichever coin it is, digital currencies which are 100% private have vast implications if society starts using them as defense from invasive actors. With Bitcoin, the government has lots of transparency, and the blockchain is open to surveillance. You can bet there are agencies which already compiled lists of indentities tied to addresses.

Think of all the events happening around the world, you can see that the elite is losing its power against the people. With new technologies like 100% private currencies, we are currently witnessing the birth of the elite losing its power over currency. These anonymous cryptocurrencies are part of the cryptoanarchy revolution. People are creating new forms of privacy, and the governments are running after them trying to stop it. How long can this game of whack-a-mole go on?

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptonote, and this decentralized cryptoanarchy movement is fueling this financial revolution which is happening. Financial power is about to be redistributed, and it's going to be messy for the people who havn't prepared themselves for it.

Bitcoin – Decentralized digital, traceable, gold
Cryptonote – Decentralized untraceable cash
Ethereum – Decentralized applications, law
Open Transactions – Decentralized trading
Counterparty/Mastercoin/Colored Coins – Decentralized stock markets
Storj/Maidsafe – Decentralized storage

The revolution and the transfer of wealth and power is happening right now. Johnston's law says anything that can be decentralized, will be decentralized. And I don't doubt it.

How strong are the technologies doing this at the moment?

Great post.

Very interesting post, this is the first time I've thought about it this way, that with the rise of Bitcoin, there have been large innovations in fields such as anonymous transactions/privacy, "decentralized trading", "decentralized applications" and more.

Heck, everything will become decentralized, even nation states will become obsolete ... it's called P2P with its globally scaled small group dynamics.

This ^^ + openbazaar! oh yeah, look out, it's gonna be cool down the road. digital currency is the future. and i'm banking on it. :)

Not before our culture makes violence obsolete by beginning to govern the world with reason instead.

At the rate we're going, that could take quite a while.

Taking the history of human kind into consideration , lets say 100.000 years, reason is (maybe arguably) the winning meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) and once it reaches a certain point, there's accelerated or exponential growth in adoption. Quite a while is a relative notion.

Great post, really got me thinking!

Nice post thanks!  I am hoping that the silence from bitcoin core devs on cryptonote will end soon.  I hope they are all trying to break it right now.

Don't forget also that there has been decentralized money for thousands of years in the form of precious metals.  Whats new is the ease of assay and public triple entry accounting system.   

I wonder how long we'll have to wait and see the post-industrial capitalist plutocrats make their last stand.

I think they will keep on fighting, but its a losing battle.