Bitcoin Forum

"Regulators Needs the Blockchain Master Key" — Morgan Stanley
http://internetmarketing.freedombucks.ws/morgan-stanley-regulators-need-the-blockchain-master-keys-3/

Insecured Elites are about to takeover the Blockchain. It's more like few people taking over the Internet.
For the first time in my life I am very terrified of our future. This people are not government, I know what they are capable of. They claim that regulating the New Internet (Blockchain) will increase the price of Bitcoin, this is a big lie.
 
Why are you not worried brothers? . How can you create a beautiful technology only for a few dangerous people to hijack it.
The people we are about to entrust the Blockchain network on are capable of wiping out a whole community. They are dangerous people.
Wake up everybody, we are about to be enslaved. Wake up.

They've been wanting to control it for years, that is nothing new. If you think they stand a chance of succeeding, watch what is going to happen with Jihan Wu's MASF for he's announcing for August in response to BIP148. If the dominant miner can't control Bitcoin (and I expect his effort to fail spectacularly), what chance to a clueless bunch of bankers with no miners have?

Permissioned blockchains would be completely separate from Bitcoin.  Banks can try to centralise Bitcoin and they might succeed, but they know perfectly well that there are an unlimited amount of potential altcoins and that at this point if people want decentralisation they will find it and they will use it.

---

Although regulation will increase the price, because the Bitcoin price is mostly speculation and people feel better buying it when exchanges are safer.

Please.  ::)

They may want a "master key" but it ain't gona happen.

EDIT: How is someone going to do this? wait for it.... wait for it... I have been waiting since 2010 for a logical answer to this concern. Just one.

I don't think there's concern here.

First, you have uniformed investors trying to get on the train so they call their Financial Advisor and get the standard comment about why the SEC blocked the BATS ETF request. This doesn't mean that these investors can't get on the train, they just need to be directed to Coinbase and some of the other mainstream bitcoin exchanges and online wallets.

Second, you have uniformed financial advisors / bankers. There was a comment about regulators wanting to get full visibility into the transactions. That visibility already exists...everyone can see every transaction that hits the blockchain. What regulators really want is to know the identity of who's making the transactions (which people and entities) and they likely want control of that data so they can police it. This can't happen. Not that it shouldn't happen (obviously it shouldn't), but it's not physically possible - is it?

In what way could regulators actually gain control of the Blockchain? Literally, how could it be done?

A way that this community can combat this investor-driven regulator interest is to introduce the uniformed investors you know to the most mainstream online wallet and exchange in your country. This introduction to how to invest in Bitcoin will stop the comments to the Investment Banks.

Meh, dumb banksters are dumb:


Unless they're talking about one of the privacy-oriented coins, all transactions on the blockchain are visible to them.  I think what they actually mean to say is they want to access the personal data of all the participants who are transacting on the blockchain so they can:

• store it insecurely
• do some analysis on it
• sell the analysis to highest bidders
• lose everyone's personal data to a hack (and not for the first time)
• pretend it's not their fault, learn nothing and repeat the whole process again later

If we're not worried about "being enslaved", the reason is two-fold.  Firstly, it's that we were already enslaved before crypto became a thing and now we are free.  And secondly, because we know what we have here is safe from the bankster assclowns, because they are too dense to understand the whole appeal of it to begin with, let alone understand it well enough to maintain even the slightest semblance of control over it.  The article even states as much:


It couldn't possibly be that maybe we don't want to sell?  That we realise fiat monopoly money is going to be printed into oblivion and the IOUs will approach near-worthless as time rolls on?  That we know they have a laughable security record and cost their customers time, money and effort with each and every fraud the banksters have enabled with their flawed and insecure system.  Speculation may well be largely responsible for the ballooning fiat price of crypto, but those who understand it best are accumulating and hodling.  

The only thing in the article is where they really hit the nail on the head is where they recognise what the banksters want:


Maybe they should call their controlled blockchain "Blockbuster", since that particular style of business model worked so well for them.   ::)  

Hasn't it been centralizing for a while now?

They will end up with a master key for nothing because for starters it's not possible, and second there won't be a Bitcoin to shut down as anyone with an operating mind will abandon it.

Funnily enough it's grown as far as it has without The Man having a kill switch and is growing ever faster. That won't change no matter what they squeal for.

Waste of time/effort; "Bad guys" will (if they haven't already) find a home on altcoins without a master key (if that's even possible).

On the other hand, I don't doubt for a second that eventually the authorities will begin knocking on doors.  Our hope is they run out of money (or political support) to pay for enforcement troops before they do.  Make friends with a cop and get him started on Bitcoin in order to educate them.

The USA is not likely to become the accepted regulators of bitcoin when Asia, Europe, etc are as invested in BTC.  I could see this one day becoming an issue of the UN.

Likely someone in the US will come up with an altcoin on a private blockchain that can be traded in the us exchanges. But its not likely to be. BTC.

And if they want to do that, let them. Blockchain is now a concept that surpasses Satoshi's vision.  I'm sure Napster never thought that their decentralized p2p music sharing model would end up as a commercial centralized p2p model in something like Uber.

Relax, they can want things but they won't be getting it. If they ever get it by threatening the devs, the word will be out instantly and bitcoin will evolve/fork and keep going. Gov guys can do anything they like with the remaining empty chain, just like Jihan is gonna after Aug1.

Bitcoin is invincible.

It has been fun to watch the banksters go from:
You can't just make money you fools, only we can do that.  :D
to:
It can't work! because... well... it's not allowed!!!  >:(
to:
Stop it! Just stop it now or give me a master key!!! It's not allowed!! Our monopoly is crumbling... Nooooo.  :'(

They are just wasting their time because no one will agree to use bitcoin under them. It is known to everyone that if Bitcoin became a centralized then people will search for another type of cryptocurrency and will adopted another type of currency for their use. The Bitcoin developer also known it better so they will not let bitcoin to become a centralized currency.

You can't contain the decentralized revolution </insert Trump's meme here> :D I'm already awake and I know Wu is too small to be considered a threat believe me I can tell what's going on down there just by looking at his face in a picture :D he is too small for bitcoin, the biggest mother fu*kers in the world tried and failed more than few times by now.
Or are you talking about Core and blockstream? if so then shut up.

Centralized like what? Regarding hash power mainly coming from China you are right, but this is not centralization.
Real centralization would be when we will have one person standing behind bitcoin, having ultimate power over it and influencing its evolution.

While some people can buy all the ASICs in the world, including the ASIC factories, and others can't buy a single one, Bitcoin will be centralized.

+1
I want Satoshi's private keys.

Bitcoin won't be centralized unless people decide they want it to be centralized and vote for a fork. There are some projects floating around but none of them is going to get enough support.

Why am I not worried? How about the fact that there is no such thing as Bitcoin blockchain master key? Duh.

They claim to seek the impossible. Not sure if they are stupid, or just engaged in some public misdirection. Probably the latter...

Whatever they feel is right for them to do, they should go ahead but what I am sure is that its part of the reasons like this that Satoshi had to leave the space individuals who will want to reap from where they don't sow. Anyway, in as much as the community is still there they won't succeed and I trust the man who gave us this liberation would not be to relaxed for it to be turn into a nightmare.

I will accept that some of the alts coins could be centralized and controlled by a single entity but not bitcoin,as you really cannot be controlled by a center figure and so i have nor worries about it when it comes to bitcoin,so these are just pep talk just to create chaos to the newbies coming into bitcoin.

many people have been pointing at Jihans 16% and saying here is the aggressor.... he owns the market... i laughed..
all this is to get people to not look at the BScartel who own things like BTCC and a few other pools.

many people have been pointing at xt, classic,bu and saying here are the aggressors....
all this is to get people to not look at the BScartel who own things like Blockstream which has the main puppet strings of core, knots, nbitcoin, rsk(lerner), bloq(gavin/garzic), bitgo and others

many people have been pointing at some exchanges and saying these are the aggressors....
all this is to get people to not look at the BScartel who own things like bitpay, bitpesa, coinbase, kraken, purse, shapeshift, xapo

many people have been pointing at a few blockexplorers and saying these are the aggressors...
all this is to get people to not look at the BScartel who own a few different explorers.

all in all when certain blockexplorers, merchant services, nodes, and pools are all going to only display blockchain X... you begin to realise it doesnt take 51% to do anything..

think you can get away from them by going for another implementation.. well Barry silbert cartel also puppet masters: knots, nbitcoin, rsk(lerner), bloq(gavin/garzic), bitgo

sooo....
want to know who controls the majority of the bitcoin DNS seeds.. yep blockstreamers

want to check the sats per byte of a tx.. guess who dangles the strings of 21.co...... yep the bs cartel

want to buy something using a merchant that uses bitpay or coinbase shopping carts.. then you better not be on any other fork, other than X
get peed off with not being able to spend Y funds via bitpay so want to grab a xapo debit card... tough luck X again

want to see if the transaction exists by double checking a blockexplorer.. well it better be on X..

Holy crap they are actually serious with this stuff:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-14/you-wont-believe-stupid-new-law-against-cash-and-bitcoin


The article on zerohedge didn't mention anything about the blockchain master keys but i suppose the news that op posted is probably true.

Shit getting serious. Btc/Usd is falling because of those recent news probably.  :-[

I am sure that nobody would even think to make bitcoin controlled if the price would stay as in the most begginning. All that is happening only because of bitcoin's huge price and the perspective of future growth. I am against this idea, it will change the whole idea of bitcoin as it was created. No doubt that Satoshi N. also disagrees.

I think people cannot take and make it centralized and it was been rumors for almost years and no prove it because fortunetly they cannot do that thing. No one will agree with this idea because the features of bitcoin will be fade out and change more like a bank. For sure that if this thing will gonna happen people will go away to the bitcoin and endulge in some alt coin that is decentralized. Because first of all people do not want centralized coin, never want to be controlled by other like what OP stated being slave by others

Well, they way ypu talk it seems that you really is only using a blockchain wallet. I think that there are a lot of wallwt  that is goong to be bukld a better one of blockchain so there is nothing to ne afraid of

I would be very wise if the person that was trading Bitcoins had a goal to try to get as much Bitcoin as possible. If the trader was only trading to get a daily/monthly income in some currency then they might as well trade Forex because they aren’t 100% in Bitcoin.

Yes they are. Too bad the genie's already out of the bottle.

OTOH, I don't know why you'd link some crappy news site, when the text of the actual bill submitted in congress for consideration is just one more link away:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1241/text?r=49 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1241/text?r=49)

they bought the core dev team through bankster connections -->Bilderberg -->axa --> blockstream --> core devs

its taken years to undo the propaganda.

aug 1 it will be over.

Lol the funny thing is they don't know that the master key was melted. Good luck trying to figure that one out bankers! Is the OP really this bad at trolling? Another eth shill?

Those quotes are from the first paragraph. These people clearly have no idea what they are talking about, and the mere suggestion of "regulating" Bitcoin shows that they have not done their research thoroughly. Maybe they can regulate Bitcoin merchant acceptance to be under the rules of KYC/AML, but to tell a person not to use Bitcoin is unenforceable.

Many people want to try to regulate bitcoin but it won't happened, most of the people don't want bitcoin to be regulated if that guys really able to make bitcoin centralised then a lot of people will rejected it and then the we will choose another coin to invest, so it is not a scary news

In my opinion the reason why bank wants to get a hold with bitcoin this year is because of the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin will fall if bank will succeed in doing this because lots of people will quit Bitcoin try to think with this, you'll pay for transaction fee at the same time you'll pay the bank. People will move to other alt coin and bank will find a way to control an alt coin that is good as Bitcoin again and again,

I don't understand. It runs in complete opposite direction from the bitcoin founder Nakamoto's original vision.

Bitcoin is revolutionary so to speak. Bitcoin was founded upon the idea of challenging the prevailing system in commerce. Bitcoin rejects third party system in purchasing. Bitcoin is a new technology promoting decentralization.

And now, all of a sudden, they want to impose the principle the creation of bitcoin originally intended to debunk?  ???


  

Even now all transactions are visible on the distributed ledger. Master key. Really?


Guess this is where they need the key to access centralized blockchain to grant permission to authorized users only to record, process, and verify transactions.


Bitcoin was created solely to get rid of the banking system. And now they expect it to team up with them. Ridiculous.

If the banks want to try, test, and implement centralized blockchain technology on their banking operations, it is good for them, but they would not be able to enforce it on bitcoins.

But you certainly should be

It is not that their claim is impossible to fulfill as such (that goes without saying), it is precisely because they can't have such a master key that they can demand Bitcoin to be banned. They can't simply ban Bitcoin after it has been around for so many years. They can't just ban it on the pretext of it being used for "terrorism financing" (since that would be outright bullshit), but it is another story if the authorities claim that they can't see who is behind a certain transaction. They don't even need to ban Bitcoin out of hand, they could just force the developers to change the code and community to accept these change under the threat of banning Bitcoin altogether

I quote :  "They would create controlled blockchains only authorized individuals could access. This would allow them to maintain the prominence of their banking industry and adopt streamlined regulations while leveraging blockchain technology." So, they cannot control Bitcoin and for this reason they would create permission Blockchains which they will be able to control. They control the code and the development and how much their BankCoin will be worth. 100% centralized control is the most dangerous technology that you can have.

This is just cash stripped of all anonymity and controlled by banks. ^scary^

Bitcoin removed centralized control and added pseudo-anonymity to protect you from evil people {masters} like this. We know how banks operate and how money supply are being manipulated to control your wealth and to protect the Masters. ^grrrrrrr^

Another stupid attempt to try and make Bitcoins centralized, they will fall flat to their face and nothing will come out of it. Look at the history every time they have just been trying only to fall flat on the face. This attempt shall also meet a dead end and I am sure of it, they can try as much as they want but they shall not succeed, why can't they leave Bitcoins alone, why mess up the only thing that is helping so many survive.

I ain't scared cause it will never work. Just some bunch of wannabe hypocrites. They can try all they want, but they can go screw themselves for all I care. They are just on the look out for what they can't find. Master key my foot.

I do not think Bitcoin can ever become a centralized entity. I do believe though that many Governments, Central Banks and Elite organizations will adopt Blockchain technology to streamline their operations. They are already doing it wiht RIPPLE and other tokens and platforms.

CORE = master key

its time we decentralise and distribute further by having MANY implementations of different programming languages to dilute CORE control
stop letting core make all the decisions.

if core wanted to do the right thing they would have

0.14.2A - segwit november 2017
0.14.2B - segwit november 2017+dynamic blocksize
0.14.2C - dynamic

and then let the whole community come to a consensus wher the other brands do something similar.
thus removing the brand drama and making the debate about which consensus is formed.

Obviously there will be no master key. So any system will rely on self reporting. I'm not sure I have met a bitcoin user who would do that. So that is the end of that idea. lol

We'll just have to agree to disagree with your assertion. To wit:

It is irrelevant what they want the real question is, if they are capable of it? The chances of it are very low but one of the things with cryptocurrencies is that, cryptos are like a hydra, if they take over bitcoin, what is stopping someone from creating a fork and create a FreeBTC or we could move to LTC.

Just disagreeing will certainly not suffice

Otherwise, we could just overrule your disagreement without much ado and get done with that. I can only add to what I said earlier that government people are very good at playing the good cop bad cop game. The community actually comes down to major exchanges, and if these are made an offer which they cannot refuse, we will essentially get a Bitcoin with a master key in the hands of some powerful entity. By the way, isn't that what we already have right now with Bitcoin mining been centralized beyond any hope?

monopoly of financial institutions are going to end this is why they are worried ......it show fear ....... 8)

Well, no. Do you speak for the entire governmental structure of all the nations of the world? Or are you just some low-level functionary?

I know you're smarter than your stupid statement - what gives? Bitcoin has no master key.

They miss the point of having a blockchain. Why don't they use a shared database and run that through regularly using Opentimestamps and then submit the hash as a message in the Bitcoin blockchain? At least with that they would have the best of both worlds.

Bitcoin getting a centralized functioning will affect the entire growth of bitcoin community and the same will help in the growth of altcoins that are in hard competence with bitcoin. Being centralized will make it function similar to the banking ystem and the corporate keep hold of the control and Profiting. So there won't be any added benefit on using bitcoin.

The quote in OP about acquiring bitcoin's "master key" reminds me of american politicians proposing a "kill switch" for the internet after globalists realized china had one. They also proposed a "great firewall" similar to the one china has.  ::)

They have no background in technology & have no clue what is or isn't possible.

Everything has a master key

It is more a question of finding one, not about its existence as such. Regarding "all the nations of the world", more specifically, these are irrelevant. Basically, only three countries can decide the fate of the entire world, these are China, Russia, and the US. Or do you really think that if they can decide the ultimate fate of the entire world, they won't be able to decide the fate of such a minute thing called Bitcoin? Bitcoin is just too small to make these giants bothered about its existence (and that's good for us, small players), but if it becomes a real pain in their ass, they will quickly find a dozen master keys (note that I'm not talking about banning Bitcoin)

 If China cannot completely censor the internet what makes you think less dictatorial countries can successfully control the Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies. I have strong feeling they will fail completely unless they rewire the Internet and install Spyware on every gadgets in the World. Censorship is totally unnatural. No concious being has the right to spy on your every moves. It extremely dangerous practice. Ideology Rogues can always use this datas to their advantage. Law abiding people should never be spied on. A country can be 100% secure and crime free without spying on Citizens.
BLOCKCHAIN CANNOT HARM PEOPLE. GOVERNMENT SHOULD INVESTIGATE AND GO AFTER ANYONE ABUSING THE BLOCKCHAIN NOT HIJACKING IT. IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PRACTICE

“Regulators are looking to have a master key so all transactions are visible to them,” the bank noted.

It's already visible... however it is a pity that nosey buggers can not connect the person with the address unless the person reveal the address belongs to them. However who is The One? You don't know.. bye bye nosey buggers.

To think the Americans celebrate Independence Day, a joke event, think their President is the "Leader of the Free World", another joke that foreign people don't give a toss, banging on about the so-called "American Dream", most laughable as it is more like "American Nightmare", waving "Make America Great" placards, oh ha ha ha.

Americans have the cheek to label other countries dictatorships, communists, etc... what is America these days = totalitarian union of 50 countries.

If that is your position, then yes, simply disagreeing will more than suffice. For you do not understand basic mathematics.

i didnt know that there is master key to blockchain.,

aren't all transactions to visible to everybody ? thats how bitcoin works, ledger on every computer where bitcoind is running.,

maybe they want to know who is doing which transaction., anyhow , i dont think its going to happen, any time soon.

There's obviously no master key so these idiots should spend their time on something more worthwhile. If they rely on self reporting then I don't own any bitcoins. If I don't know the private key and/or I lost it, do I really own bitcoins? Nope.

Thank God no one knows where is Satoshi now, so they could not do anything with this future asset. I think people are smart enough to believe that lie about increasing price. If we can't deal with the government, why we have to deal with people who don't have any earlier contributions.

By the way bitcoin is visible and trackable for anyone from the first time.

This can't be happen bitcoin is identified as decentralized if we just change them into centralized or change it into centralized by their,,well it'll be cause a massive decreasing of bitcoin also the government will just corrupt it for sure because you know bitcoin is the most valuable coin in the crypto currencies right now.

Bitcoin will not become centralized because it is not that necessary and bitcoin is created as a decentralized currency and government doesn't have rights to control bitcoin in fact they are just accepting and adopting bitcoin because they think and believe that they can take advantage of growing price of it because they can tax transactions and also get some bitcoins for their own plans but they will never control bitcoin or any cryptocurrency unless they make their own cryptocurrency.

This is probably not going to happen but the fact that they are even trying to do this is pretty horrific. They definitely are very insecure about their position right now, and they want to stop this rise in bitcoin adoption as well as price before it goes to the moon. The fact that they are even attempting to do this, no matter possible or not, means that they are evil, evil human beings. Not even exaggerating/joking here. They have no respect for privacy and anonymity, obviously.

But don't worry, there is no magical key that will let them be able to control the whole bitcoin network. Closest they are going to get to controlling bitcoin is taking full control of bitcoin exchanges, in which case bitcoin trading will just go to p2p mode. It won't affect us that much because a lot of exchanges are already under heavy governmental influence anyways.

This article just goes to show how little bankers know about cryptocurrency. There is really no way to privatize a public ledger, which is essentially what they want to do, according to my understanding of the article. Impossible.

Think about it for a moment. This would mean that anyone, no, everyone that owns any amount of Bitcoin have to give up their information to keep the private ledgers balanced. Simply impossible. I don't know about you, but there is no way I'm giving up any information regarding my personal information or public addresses.

Besides, don't these twats know that there is no such thing as a "master key"? ???

Idiots.

Agreed. I swear these people just quickly skimmed through the wikipedia page for bitcoin and went onto youtube and searched for "what is bitcoin" and clicked on the first link that popped up. They probably saw something related to private keys and public keys and said to themselves, if there is a private key and there is a public key... Then why not a master key that opens up the whole network?? :D

These idiots want us to hand over bitcoin. That's very abstract. How exactly should we do so? Even if the consensus were to hand our blockchain to the central bankers(which will never happen), there will no way for us to do that  :'( Do we hand them the code that btc runs on? Oh wait, it's already open source. Or do we hand him the "master key"? Oh wait, nobody knows what the hell a master key is!

Your title is too alarmist, no one is going to hijack Bitcoin, because it's inherently impossible. There are no "master keys" to Bitcoin, and in order to create them, the hardfork would be required, but obviously no one is going to support it. It also would be extremely hard to gain 50% of hashing power, and even if they can, Bitcoin devs can propose fork of their own and change algo. No government or bank can win a war against Bitcoin.

They don't need to fail completely

They will just have not to fail in sufficient degree.  I basically agree that no conscious being has the right to spy on their neighbor but that's what they love to do most of all. So it is deep inside human nature. Regarding law abiding citizens, this just doesn't sound quite right. Whenever there are laws involved, there will always be someone more equal than others. In essence, laws are created specifically with that aim in mind, i.e. to make people equal and some of them more equal


This has nothing to do with mathematics. It is more about making an offer which you can't refuse. And no, I don't mean every Bitcoin holder out there

They will miserably fail if they have the ambition to control the main driving part of Bitcoin. What they can control are service providers working with Bitcoin like exchanges and sellers...they can require so many regulatory documents and screening for their users. But as to the whole of Bitcoin they can not control it entirely.

I don't know what is the real meaning of this post because i don't think that bitcoin will be centralized because there is a lot of users that are used to feature of being decentralized currency of bitcoin which it doesn't have any kind of controllers or dictators that control the movement and the possible things that might happen in bitcoin. I don't believe in this and i think it is impossible for bitcoin to be centralized.

No need to panic, my understanding of the article is that they need blockchains that they control and can fork whenever it pleases them. This already exists with coins like eth and ripple. There will be many centralised blockchains in the future, this is only the beginning, it is up to the user to decide if they want a centralised or decentralised version.

When discussing a master key for Bitcoin, it has everything to do with mathematics. If you want to discuss some other weakness you perceive in the overarching bitcoin sphere, then speak plainly about it. If you can't even label the weakness you think exists, it is likely you don't really understand what you're talking about.

This isn't going to happen in the least when it comes to Bitcoin becoming centralized, because just if some regulators want something to happen it doesn't mean it's going to happen in the least. They may want it to, they may make our lives a living hell for using BTC and supporting it but they're not going to be able to take over the network UNLESS they pump a ton of money into BTC and try to takeover the network. Which probably wouldn't happen because all they're going to want is to pull as much tax from BTC as humanly possible without killing the entire thing.

So, Bitcoin isn't going to be centralized don't fright. This is simply a marketing site link, nice job OP on hiding it so well though.

Some form of regulation of Bitcoin doesn't necessary mean centralization. But on the other hand aren't exchangers some way of centralization and control of Bitcoin? And every news like this that appears always causes panic with users before even they checked if it's true. Be rational.

Negative news always appears when the price of bitcoin goes up. I have already learned not to pay attention to them. Personally, it seems to me that bitcoin can not be centralized. This system was created in such a way that no one could become the "master" of bitcoin

You must be kidding, dude

In fact, I somehow expected that I wouldn't have to explain my point. Obviously, I refer to human factor here, but if you feel that you can't fully grasp my point, I can reiterate it for you:


It should be obvious that coins that are circulating today (i.e. coins that are not hoarded or stashed away) are mostly accumulated in Bitcoin exchanges, so the latter (essentially, a few major ones) represent Bitcoin community. Indeed, there are Bitcoin holders who keep their coins in their personal wallets, but since they are just idly sitting on them, we can safely discard them altogether. Exchanges are a weak link, and they will remain that until decentralized blockchain based exchanges kick off for real. Those who control exchanges essentially control Bitcoin. In this way, the control over exchanges could be interpreted as a master key to Bitcoin. More generally, human factor is a universal master key, that's why I said that everything which involves human activity in some way has it

Indeed. What they can control is merely a very small part of what bitcoin is. Exchanges and stuff like that. They can tighten their laws around exchanges all they want but they can do nothing to change the code that bitcoin runs on.

They can even invent their own version of bitcoin, but nobody will use it anyways, making it a redundant effort.

Point being that bitcoin is p2p, meaning that it simply can't be shut down. Trading activities will go p2p mode as well as soon as exchanges are down. Take a look at China, which is a prime example. Localbitcoins trading is exploding after central bank implemented new rules with exchanges.

There are too many games in town to deal with a group like that and they will never get anywhere.  A store can always open in town and charge outrageous prices, offer low quality items and/or make impossible transaction issues for each customer.  As long as there are others that offer like services, then those places will die quick.  Same thing here, why deal with that when ten other sites/services demand less.

Yes, they will be able to control in part through the exchanges and other bureaucratic processes BU not the entire blockchain. Administratively they've managed to develop some biting tooth but it's even going to be extremely difficult for them to control that little part. Decentralization has come to stay.

Hhahahhaaha this post made me laugh hard . that is exactly what is happening but them asking for the master key ( possible or not ) that

does  not means they will get it .

OMG if that happens I'm going on altcoins only... :/
but really, is that even possible? I don't think they could get control over bitcoin so eazy...

Quoting the article:
Adequately controlled means probably what you think it does when it comes from a banker or anyone who is involved in any government body, so basically a bad thing if you ever follow what the government does at basically any point in time. They also have a "master key" available to them, it is any blockchain explorer they want to use. It's not like that's something not possible for them.

This article makes me want to bash my head in. The autism is astounding.

If bitcoin gets centralized, I will forget about my future dreams. Honestly, I will not expect anything from bitcoin if this happens.

The bitcoin itself is a decentralized structure. This is against its natüre.

this will never happen, this is pure FUD
i hope ideas like that will pop more in heads of politics because they are impossible to introduce

Sure, sure I'd have to agree with most of that BUT only if you add ... "in that particular country"  to the end. Oh no, the USA bans bitcoins!? ... and the world keeps on turning.

It has been already tried by many before but they could not succeed.Roger ver and Jihan wu also tried a lot.We could see clearly that some of them would fail after August 1st.But such rumours would only make new investors get panic and we shall face small price drops in bitcoin temporarily.

Don't believe everything people say, especially on the internet. Just because the regulators want a master key to bitcoin, doesn't mean they will succeed. There is no risk here, although the banks may eventually centralise Bitcoin but the thing is: even if Bitcoin gets centralised, there will be more and more decentralised alt coins, so there is no point of doing that.

People have tried to find the master key to bitcoin but they have all failed. It's just rumours and you have nothing to fear.

Is this news even true?
And is that even possible?

I guess this is not the first time that these kind of news appeared.

If that's really true, and the regulator really did will make it happen,
Is t really going to work? Is it really that easy to make it happen?

Agreed, bitcoin might be functional in the banking network in a centralised manner, but the entire bitcoin network always stay decentralized. As mentioned when the competitors stay as decentralized bitcoin too will stay long in the track as it is, corporates create such rumours just to take bitcoin under their control as the growth of digital currency were booming big.

This looks like a lot of conspiracy bs. You can say bitcoin is already centralize from the mining point of view but the whole governments/regulators want to take over the blockchain thing is a load of crap. They may like the tech though and create their own altcoins which is only a good thing to give more competition to the crypto sector.

I find the article quite reassuring, clearly they don't understand the first thing about Bitcoin and blockchain technology !

Controlling BTC might be possible but it would need something extremely clever, and extremely coordinated. Not really government like.

NSA and CIA probably know everything there is to know about BTC, but usually these entities like "cover money" to do their stuff, so I'm sure they're BTC users.

Utilizing the power of fear and lies, uncertainties and panic can easily spread online which can affect Bitcoin's value and can push for more volatility. This is quite normal in our interconnected world -- are we not living in a global village? This is one of the many disadvantages of being online and in riding the Bitcoin bandwagon. But then despite all of these things, we all know that Bitcoin is the future of money and we will not let this opportunity go by  for whatever reasons others are concocting in their minds. Human nature remains the same through the ages and the tools and toys are just the different. We are still greedy and we only think primarily of our own interest and not that of the community as a whole. However, I have a firm belief that soon things can get changed. I am looking forward for that day. :)

If we were to take reassurance from guys like you we won;t be able to sleep too well
So for you there is no risk, but banks may eventually centralize bitcoin...
Where is the no risk there?
If they do this with bitcoin the whole altcoin backup plans fails. They are altcoins, 99% same code as bitcoin , one copy paste and they are the same to the last bit.

And nobody has tried to find a master key.
It's just a damn expression they have used in the article and it is common used when assuming control but with so many people with poor English skills no wonder this whole thread has gone nuts.

I dont think this is ever going to happen. It will kill the main reason behind the blockchain and Bitcoin. If we want a centralized currency then we already have the country's currencies run by banks and governments. Its a shitty idea and no one will agree to it.

I agree. I also think that creating such topics do create FUD. Everyone is not as much educated about bitcoin as few others might be. Bitcoin is what it is today because of the huge number of people supporting it and this huge number of people support it because of among other things bitcoin's being decentralized so if anybody by any means becomes able to make it centralized I think a lots of people will stop using it and bitcoin will no longer be what it is today. Bitcoin has been a decentralized currency and it should remain so for the wider acceptance.

I agree with everything you've said, these rumors and negative propaganda against Bitcoin are just meant to scare the newcomers away and so it's about time people understand the dynamics and know that not everyone wants the best for our beloved Bitcoin and these guys will do anything to run it down so don't just panic over a small tumble and sell.

If the US outright bans Bitcoin, it will be an end of the game for it

Indeed, it won't die, but the life which it will drag from then on will likely be worse than being dead. Obviously, if the US should ban Bitcoin, it won't ban it in the US territory alone. It will likely raise the issue at the UN Security Council, and how many countries do you think will reject this proposal given that Bitcoin is hated by almost every government out there (deep inside). Maybe, Japan will stand for Bitcoin? But Japan is basically a country with limited sovereignty. And who do you think its sovereign is? Right, the US, so there is no way that the world will keep on turning as before

We are aware of that but I doubt that bitcoin can go fully centralized as there are some rooms that allow people to use bitcoin with some privacy!

But if bitcoin gets fully centralized then there are some other coins that allow you to have more privacy.

Some companies that offer bitcoin service such as exchanges and bitcoin debit cards issuers they have lots of info and they have to report to government about their clients.

It is really difficult to see a dumb decision being taken from a country like US as it gives the opportunity for technology and innovation to grow rather than shutting it down,bitcoin wont die unless the network shows some serious bugs and i am sure even that will be solved by the developers pretty soon as some brilliant brains are behind it.

not gonna happen. chillax fellow bitcoiners.

While this is newsworthy and all I really don't see something like this coming to light yet, we're not that much of an issue upon the governments and the big banks for them to want to be able to shut us down in an instant. I know at some point this is all going to come crashing down when the banks, politicians, bureaucrats, and so on join together in a way to be able to fuck us all up for a good amount of time but that time isn't going to be now. Once we really start getting more and more adopters to the point where they have to shut us down, they will.

I feel BTC is already centralized when we're looking at the issues of mining and such, as that's an insanely centralized thing when it comes to the manufacture of the miners themselves.

THis can't happen to ethereum can it?

Yeah I see they would try make it better in terms of laws but then the general consensus is that decentralized should not be in anyone hands, but free to go whenever the security can lead to and the adoption, the simplicity.

I really agree with you no matter what happens I still support bitcoin program and will always follow its development.

I basically agree that it would be a dumb decision

I was just replying to a post which questioned whether a certain government banning Bitcoin would have devastating consequences for Bitcoin (or any at all). If such inconsequential countries like Zimbabwe or Venezuela banned Bitcoin (in the latter case we are already effectively there), that would be ridiculous (though that wouldn't be ridiculous for the population of these countries), but if the US specifically banned Bitcoin that would most certainly have a catastrophic impact on Bitcoin (for the reasons mentioned above)

Maybe the fight within core team and miners will bring to some crazy decision supported by bank/governs. However, despite the Bitcoin brand is rather strong, people will not be so stupid and if Bitcoin will loose its basic ideas and priciples, another blockchain with more privacy will take the place...

 

"While some people can buy all the ASICS in the world and others can't Bitcoin will be centralized".

This idea of decentralization is getting close to resembling communism.

If ever Bitcoin's efficiency gets pegged to the least efficient participant in order not to leave him behind, he will just be holding it back. Welcome to the Free Market. Please don't turn Bitcoin into Welfare State.

Set up a fund for small time miners and finance them yourself if you wish. But make it a personal choice. Do not apply some broad tax so that others can pursue their inefficient endeavors.

There is no incentive for Centralization. There is just playing with power where no power can be had. Users can choose to value what they will, unlike the banking system, your are not forced through any inefficient hoops here. 

Do not worry about these end of the world scenarios.

If your end goal is to get value in USD, which is pretty shortsighted, then by all means subsidize inefficient miners at the cost of everyone. You will get your value in Dollars for sure with all the excitement, but you will cutoff Bitcoin for what it could truly represent.

I hope bitcoiner ignores the idea ???

No one should bother their pretty head's about the so-called bank or trap investment because bitcoin was created with vision of an uncentralized/uncentralizable currency in mind !!


Anywhere, Thanks for pointing out such articles

Actually, even in the worst-case scenario where the world's (current) strongest economy bans Bitcoin, it will do little to affect the network - at least not beyond an inconsequential blip of time. The US knows its economy will soon be displaced by that of China anyway and lagging behind in crypto is just another nail in their coffin.

I severely disagree with this approach

Basically, you are extending the idea of communism (universal equality) to spheres where it is not applicable and then proceeding to conclude that this is not good just because communism itself was a bad idea. The falseness of such approach is very easy to show. You might know that one of the money qualities (which any money token should possess by definition to be called money) is fungibility, i.e. an interchangeability of one money token (let's say, 1 bitcoin) with all other such money tokens. In other words, all money tokens are born equal. But this is an example of most intrepid communism out there (according to your reasoning), so why should we turn the money tokens into a "Welfare State"? This is the same with miners, their mission is purely utilitarian, and so anything which helps fulfill it should be considered as good. Therefore if making all miners equal contributes to this mission, it should get done. Miners are there not to earn profits, they are to confirm transactions. And if earning profits gets in the way of their job (as it does nowadays), the system should be revamped to make it actually serve its purpose

I’m not worried, even if they were successful in their attempts to control bitcoin, we can move to another cryptocurrency in the instant they become the owners of bitcoin, at the moment most of the people in bitcoin are enthusiast, the average person has not adopted bitcoin, so I think it is too soon for them to make a move since they run the risk of losing their grip by people deciding to move to another blockchain.

I agree with you but when there are new coins with more privacy, are the coins accepted by exchanger to change with fiat?. Recently, most exchanger that accept exchanging to fiat only accept bitcoin. Fews exchanger accept eth. When bitcoin communities turn to altcoins , will the altcoins will be as big as bitcoin? I think when bitcoin is being centralized , it is a big problem for bitcoin communities.

I don't totally follow your reasoning.

Anyhow, all tokens are created equal. This is not communism.

All effort is not created equal. Efficient effort is rewarded vs inefficient one. Communism equalizes it forcefully. It incentivizes you to spend the least effort possible to get the same rewards.

Everything is utilitarian, otherwise it would have no use or value. But everything costs resources. That is why if you need this work, it needs to be rewarded, if you don't, it needs to be punished.

Because I believe that utility and Hashrate are the real non speculative value behind Bitcoin, I do not wish that a subsidy be created to reward the effort of less efficient miners. This is like saying everyone should be able to run an electricity company and that everyone was by Law entitled to profit from it. What incentive is there for a better Utility?

People will always dream of receiving a share of the work of others. It never ends up well. But this is their choice. Just fork a Proof of Work change in those terms. I am pretty sure you would get a lot of followers. Not sure if the result would be better without efficient Miner backing though.

  

Infighting is really a serious threat to such a thing as bitcoin, considering that they are basically the ones controlling the system behind it. In this regard, fiat monetary system is basically more stable and has solid grounds as they are regulated by laws and not just several people.

But as a radical invention in response to the existing banking and financial principles, this will not easily crumble down. A certain crypto may do but others of essentially the same kind will be born.

This dumb bankers is just worried that there fiat currency might become obsolete by turning people away from it. They said they needs the master key for what? What do they mean that they need the visibility of transactions?
The transactions can be seen in the blockchain ledger, i guess what they need is more than that. What they need is personal information on who's sending the transaction to put them behind bars. They dont even know why the price is still rising. The answer is simple because bitcoin is freedom.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. - Wing Commander IV

You don't get it, absolutely

First, I'm not saying that all coins created equal is communism. This was only to show you how false your approach is. Further, you don't understand what the word utilitarian means in this context. In the given context it means serving for achieving particular end, so if something doesn't help in reaching it (or even gets in the way), it is either non-utilitarian or even anti-utilitarian (for this specific purpose). This is not about free market versus communism dichotomy at all. It is about whether something is utilitarian or more (less) utilitarian for a given purpose. Miners as such play only utilitarian function (whether you like it or not), that of confirming transactions (and generating new coins). The whole thing is certainly not about them earning profits, it is not the purpose of mining. Beyond that purpose they are useless. If you proceed with this understanding, you will likely see my point

Profit is the incentive to fulfill their purpose, or utility. You surely recognize this.

Unless you forcefully want all miners to behave as NGOs. I postulate this would devalue Bitcoin as well as taxing all miners.

On the other hand, if you want small miners to have a chance to profit, your argument is valid against said miners as well. This would imply a broad tax over all users on the value of Bitcoin because of less efficient mining.

The only other possibility is that you would like that everyone is an independent miner. This is forcefully making people invest in something for which they might not have the initial resources anyway, since if everyone mines individually, variance can make it that you actually don't see any profit for a long time. It's effectively a lottery you would be implementing.

This is not the way a sound economy works.

As for Proof of Stake. You would be diverting rewards from Energy into Capital. This is the way FIAT works.

i don't think they understand that soemthing like this would probably take an hard fork, which will never happen, because you can't access the data they want to access regularly, and there is no implementation of it in the code

therefore it's not feasible, another delusional dream from bankers and government, like the one of creating their own altcoin in the fiat-esque, with nothing more than added centralization, with the same purpose as the original fiat

I think not, bitcoin is decentralized because each user can control the bitcoin (not in monopoly). If centralized of course bitcoin can controlling by 1 person or institution.

Agreed on You sir Legendary, this not new for me also in fact, its been a years that there somebody announcing it were bitcoin will become
centralize. Which is not going to be happen and for sure many of the community of bitcoin will not agree on this matters.

Bitcoin would be easily killed off if they wanted it. But the idea of Bitcoin is forever here.

Banks could easily buy up Bitcoin's market cap and render it useless. This is not control. Only sabotage.

Governments could make it that only Bitcoin Chain mined by XYZ is legal tender and make it more usable than any fork. This is also not control.

But to fully control this idea, you would have to outlaw OPEN SOURCE software development all together. I wonder if they will go to this extreme.

As far as effective control of the system in the way they are used to, is next to impossible. Privacy should be high on everyone's list. This is the first measure to assert control.

I couldn't make out what you meant to say, apart from this part

Indeed, profits are the incentive for miners to do their jobs, up to a certain point. But there are a few things which I mentioned but you seem to have failed to notice. First, there is no reason to think that this is the only way to create a decentralized payment system (otherwise known as blockchain), so there is no reason to think either that those who are confirming transactions should (and would) do that for profits only (thus your whole point of communism versus free market becomes irrelevant). And, second, this idea (profit as an incentive to fulfill the purpose) ultimately gets severely in the way of fulfilling that very purpose since miners start to care for profits (in the form of fees) more than for making their job (i.e. confirming transactions)

Considering the long term, miners are incentivized to promote usability. Their income will be dependent on fees, thus, confirming transactions. It is of no interest to the miner not to confirm transactions. I do not understand this argument whatsoever.

I certainly understand your pains

Since what I say is counterintuitive, and thus many people have issues with grasping the whole point. But it is not rocket science either, provided you take into account the following. First, you should understand that the miners are interested in profits, and they confirm transactions only as long as that brings them money. That essentially means that their primary objective is earning money. The next step to grasp is to learn that confirming all incoming transactions may not be the optimal strategy to earn maximum amount of profits. In other words, if the miners don't confirm a certain ratio of transactions, their profits may actually rise (and not go down as what many people innocently assume). It is possible due to competition between transactors growing and fees escalating, and this strategy can be working pretty long (at least, as long as Bitcoin price is rising). As you can see, such approach has nothing to do with promoting usability. In fact, it is quite opposite to it, and given the miners' monopoly, it is diametrically opposite to it

I understand this is possible of course. But it is shortsighted also.

We are playing the long game here and Miners have more stake than anyone else in the success of this. I do not see a clear incentive there. Volume outperforms price manipulation.

There is one thing that outperforms volume though. Patents. I wonder if we will soon find out some inserted Patents in the BTC Protocol.

Obviously, that's not all there's to it

And this is not shortsighted by any means. You again miss a few important details here. The policy which miners have been following as of lately is quite rational from an economic point of view and may in fact be the most optimal one at that (in terms of maximizing profits). They were squeezing maximum profits from fees while Bitcoin had been rising (it made perfect sense) since in the future, with the introduction of SegWit and later Lightning Network, their influence will surely subside. No one will be paying such insane fees if they could transact off-chain. Anyway, shortsighted or not, this in no case can be interpreted as miners promoting Bitcoin usability (what your point is)

The fault of these fees doesn't lie only with the Miners. They were presented with a solution they did not like. They presented another one. Now it's up to stakeholders to vote on that. Seems fair to me.

Indeed, that was not their fault

Miners are not there to change the world, nor they are there to make Bitcoin more usable as many erroneously come to think (including you). They are there exclusively to earn profits, as simple as it ever gets. Whether that helps Bitcoin or not is not their business. In other words, if something doesn't work as intended (read the fees are too high), it is not their fault. If it does, it is. The issue is that they are given, or they have taken, too much power which doesn't match the role they (should) play in the grand scheme of things in the Bitcoin world in particular and money world in general. Instead of being purely utilitarian in their purpose, they somehow managed to become exceptionally elitarian in their existence. Now it's high time to put them where their place should be

Really important for bitcoin users and miners and bankers. If you get any link in the whole chain will collapse. That's good. Is a guarantee that all will always agree among themselves and choose the optimal solution. No permit of death or the collapse of bitcoin.

Kinda hard to patent widespread practice after the fact. Even if one is successful in that perversion of the patent system, it is hard to bring a meaningful patent case against an amorphous open source community.

New stuff (innovations that may become layered upon bitcoin), and stuff inherently centralized (implemented in hardware manufactured by a legal entity) may be a different story. But that ain't the protocol.


Should/Shmould. Who are you (that's the collective you - not you specifically) to tell the miners what their 'proper place' is? The rules is the rules, and they are embedded within the protocol. Bitcoin only works at all due to the clever aligning of miner incentives with 'what is good for Bitcoin'. We have a system heretofore considered impossible that is working splendidly due to this balance. Why would we want to force some change upon the miners? Even if we could, it would likely have unforeseeable side effects.

When you ransom the BTC Protocol to advantageously position patented products. This was what I meant and this is actually a risk that we face, because the expected value very much outweighs any cost.

As for the rest. I am in agreement. And even patents can be forked.

I don't think I understand. Can you give an example -- actual or hypothetical -- of such ransoming?

It is not me (and not us collectively)

Who is to tell the miners where their place should be and what the role they should play. It is the concept of money itself which dictates that. As I told already, miners' role is purely utilitarian, and this role is to allow hassle-free flow of money (in this case, Bitcoin). Obviously, the best case would be free-of-charge ping-time transactions, and if this is possible to implement (which seems to be the case) that should get implemented (since this is what the concept of money is about as such). What miners themselves think about this, whether they like it or not, is absolutely inconsequential. The same pertains to the rules which are embedded in the protocol. They are not something which we should think of as something sacred or untouchable

That which you describe is not Bitcoin.

Patenting hardware and make sure the Protocol is biased towards that hardware.

Patenting some 2nd layer solution and position the protocol to be biased towards that solution.

I suppose this is a normal economic game in open protocol development and there is no easy way to clear the fog on this. In the end, users will vote with their money anyway. But I expect these problems in the future. I have no idea if they are here yet.

I've been swimming on those waters since before the turn of the millennium. Other protocols deal with such issues just fine. As will this one.

This time will come once the small groups here start thinking big again as Satoshi wanted them to do.
The game has started, the rules are mostly clear. Every group wants most power and share. Only collusion of some and the latent repulsion forces will make it real big.

This repulsion power has done a great job already.
It has lead us from Singularity Satoshi , 3 people , hackers, libertarian, silk roaders, gamblers, currency looser,...to bankers, inverstors and big mearchants. Good, but not enough yet.
The original code was split into miners, validators, wallets,...?
The next level might split dev teams, implementations, ideas, layers - not enough yet.
As long as security and adoption stays up, we as single buddys can only try shortcutting time or drama inserting. It might be also fine sit back and relax. Our choice...

Then don't pretend that Bitcoin is money

Since with miners running amok, Bitcoin loses the features which should make it into money (easiness and cheapness of transacting, to name a few). Money should facilitate the exchange and transfer of value not obstruct them, but today we are going away from that farther and farther. As I said it a few times already, high fees and slow confirmations are mostly inconsequential to speculation and profiteering, but this is not what Bitcoin has been conceived for, right?

That’s pretty true. Incentives are essential for miners to carry on their jobs. I do not believe that bitcoin will get centralized. It’s popular and trusted worldwide because of its decentralization. Bitcoin is for sure the future currency of the world. Hence, they can’t take this stupid step.

Those are hypotheses about something hypothetical that might be be possible :).
Can you please give an example of how such thing might work?
What kind of both hardware and software you might be able to "patent" that could lead to the assumed situation?

Great explanation though. I support your point that money is something that should support the exchange of value rather creating hurdles for it. And bitcoins are greatly doing the job of money without high transaction fees. Bitcoins are attracting investors hugely because they are intrigued by its decentralization. It would be the biggest blunder in digital world to centralize it.

It couldn't possibly be that maybe we don't want to sell?  That we realise fiat monopoly money is going to be printed into oblivion and the IOUs will approach near-worthless as time rolls on?  That we know they have a laughable security record and cost their customers time, money and effort with each and every fraud the banksters have enabled with their flawed and insecure system.On the other hand, I don't doubt for a second that eventually the authorities will begin knocking on doors.  Our hope is they run out of money (or political support) to pay for enforcement troops before they do.  Make friends with a cop and get him started on Bitcoin in order to educate them.

We will see in the future Will there be an official currency, but it seems to me that it will be very difficult to do.

Obviously there will be no master key. So any system will rely on self reporting. I'm not sure I have met a bitcoin user who would do that. So that is the end of that idea.