Bitcoin Forum

Every day, we are using Bitcoin to buy goods and services, and also to receive money in return for goods and services from others.

We can send money anywhere around the world, without having to pay expensive fees* which have been set by a money transmitter.

But what if it wasn't like this?

What if we were no longer allowed to store bitcoin ourselves, and be forced to leave them on an approved exchange or bank?

What if we needed to submit identify verification every time we wanted to create an address?

What if lobbyists successfully split Bitcoin into two partitions - the restricted walled garden, and the rest of the world?

What if people in charge could set an arbitrarily high fee for anyone who wanted to make a transaction?

It's not so much about killing bitcoin, than it is controlling it. We are sleepwalking our way into a dystopia where Bitcoin is no longer "A Peer-To-Peer Digital Currency". Banks want their share of the pie, and with Bitcoin inevitably becoming a large force to reckon with, they will seek any way to get a share of it. So they will pay lobbyists to advocate rules that make it difficult for the normal person to use Bitcoin, while making even stricter tax reporting requirements when selling bitcoin. Sure, one may say it's the IRS collecting taxes, but then again, the government bails the banks out, time and time again. So what we have is "bitcoiners funding banks" indirectly.

Never allow this to happen, and you can do it by supporting privacy, wherever it exists.

Crypto privacy is the last weapon you have against financial corruption.

*If not mainnet, then Lightning Network.

It is becoming clear every day that the government through institutional investors wants to control the Bitcoin space. These investors are making Bitcoin more popular and accepted but it is gradually moving the sector towards centralisation. Some mining pools are even asking for KYC which is a clear indication that they want to kill privacy. I am afraid that most of us here don't have the financial or political power to stop these moves but at least we could do our little bit by sticking with decentralised platforms. We have to enjoy privacy as long as it lasts by avoiding all platforms that ask for KYC.   

I mean, it's been discussed time and time again that attempts to attain such a level of control are to be expected, right? It's the reason why the main recommendation is no-kyc exchange, non-custodial wallets, and maybe mix/coinjoin your coins.

And if a certain government goes too hard on bitcoin, some of them will simply go silent for a while, or move to greener pastures.

there have been conspiracy theories about it. and although it seems quite possible such as BlackRock buying the shares of the BTC mining farms, it looks like there is no reaction to it since we are trusting so much of the network that they will not be able to control it since there are other countries who are also mining BTC.

but it must be kept in mind that all governments whether communist governments or not, they want to control the people which means they all can communicate like how they do these days. China and US and Russia communicate with each other and look at the bank records and blockchain data to see who's naughty or nice.

"In summary, what if Bitcoin goes against the intention of Satoshi?"

I suppose this is the nightmare of bitcoiners, that we all pray it never happens, and we keep trying our best to put more people in the crypto spaces into this knowledge never to support CEX or anything that has to do with aiding governments have control over Bitcoin.

We have been under the control of a few people who call themselves governments because of the monopoly of power they have (we gave them), and now we have the opportunity to be free from central control. We all have to do our best to make sure this opportunity never leaves our custody by supporting privacy with all we have.

But that's literally not how Bitcoin works. I mean sure a govt could technically make it illegal to own bitcoin yourself, though that would be preposterous. But that isn't how bitcoin works so it would be unenforceable. You'd just have people migrating away from centralized crypto exchanges to decentralized exchanges or other ways to buy bitcoin.

And identity verification to create an address?? what?? You can literally create an address on your own. You don't need anyone's approval or verification to create an address, so again, unenforceable.

Let's not worry about loony conspiracy theories alright. Let's focus on making Bitcoin better and growing adoption rather than talking about dystopian conspiracy theories. Just sayin. Don't worry so much dude hahaha. Enjoy the fact that you happen to be living during Bitcoin's birth and growth.

I tell you this we are almost there. The sudden change of SEC policy just to allow the approval of ETF which has long been rejected by them seems like a way out for them right now. If people could hold spot in institutions like Blackrock then they don’t have anything to hide as I believe the benefits the government is getting from this ETF saga is that they can Atleast kill the focal point of privacy and properly manipulate the market too. After this ETF I see them coming hard for non-KYC platforms or decentralized ones. Sadly most investors are not aware of this or maybe they don’t care, all they are after is it’s price pumping because this new scheme will bring adoption

I don't think this is possible as we all know they don't really know who are those people holding Bitcoins.

And this won't happen either as enthusiasts prefer to have privacy on every holdings. People will always find a way to stay decentralized as possible.

Of course I will choose the one that keep it as is. No centralization no problem, we want privacy, our keys our coins.

Then hodl and let them realize that what they did does not makes any sense.

For most (almost all?) holders of Bitcoin and other cryptos, the net-effect of their holding isn't peer-to-peer anyhow since they keep their account on some brokerage like CoinBase or Binance. Privacy-wise this is not that different than having money in a bank account and spending it. You can make anonymous payments, but I can't see a lot of people doing that since it's so slow/expensive.

And things like buying a car is pretty much free of any earthly advantage since you need to... register the car in your own name, etc.

And then there are rumors (or are they actually rumors anymore?) that the FBI is able to effectively trace bitcoin transactions.

Net-net, just like cash, if you try to cheat the government out of relative pennies e.g. food servers not reporting all of their cash tips, most likely the government won't go after you (I am in no way endorsing tax evasion here!).

But if you try to cheat the government out of a "lot" of money, you'll probably make it worth their while to catch you, and... using cryptocurrency probably isn't going to help you escape.

Cryptocurrencies are a speculation instrument and nothing else, and there's nothing wrong with that. If people could just get used to that idea, they would stop worrying about all of these non-issues that cryptos keep having e.g. their lack of adoption as a mainstream means of payment.



Short answer: it probably wouldn't make much difference to Bitcoin's price since the percentage of people using cryptos to evade detection by their government is probably very low (not saying it's "zero" or anything of the sort, but percentage-wise, I suspect it's very low).

I must say reading this sent some cold to my belly because of the possibility that this is happening already, like there is already a siege ongoing against bitcoins to reduce its uniqueness, and we know nothing about it.

how can we support privacy where it exists? I will like to know how exactly so I know my exact actions.

No way there will ever be regulations like that, it's too unrealistic to enforce. Bitcoin is mostly used as an investment, so governments will focus on regulating just that - having exchanges do KYC/AML. They are not even worried about people using it as a currency and not paying taxes, because people don't want to use it as a currency for many reasons like fees, volatility, deflation.

now for step one
what if i told you a decade ago SEC declared bitcoin as currency to start adding in legislation and regulation for businesses that use bitcoin to control the gateways in and out of bitcoin.

now for step 2
what if businesses cant make middlemen fees from bitcoin transactions so they sponsor devs to make bitcoin annoying to use where the options are CEX accounts to hoard, or locking coins into hubs to then use balance on subnetworks so middlemen can make fees on each payment

step 3
what if i told you the SEC started by getting CEX's to start reporting tax and gathering KYC.. and then...
.. now allowing ETF's that are if using a pension funds for tax free trading.. meaning holding actual coin will charge you tax per CEX trade but trading via pension fund ETF has no cap gains tax per trade..

step 4
what if i told you that using mixers actually get you watched more nd everyone conned into promoting mixers are actually making bitcoin get flagged as bad, thus the only "clean" coin is that held by regulated custodians. so each time you see mixer promoters shout "everyone should use a mixer" they are actually saying lets make bitcoin more annoying and troublesome for users

..
end result is
people avoid CEX to avoid KYC and IRS and if using mixers, definitely avoid CEX's.. so knowing cash-out options dry out and onchain is annoying. they end up locking value into subnetworks and then buy silly avatars of marvel characters or colourful hats and other silly things to spend down their coin giving middle men fees until their balance is gone. all due to the annoyances and fears pushed on them which they then trap themselves in by using the promoted services that pretend to free them but just end up giving them more traps to fall into

in the end users walk away with no balance left leaving the businesses hoarding the coin

..
its the old game
"holding real metal gold is cumbersome, expensive and security risk of theft.. invest in gold shares, they are easy, come with tax incentives, and dont require paperwork jsut to buy or sell $1k"

This is a very nice thread in this month. But not many countries have started using most of the things you mentioned, like my country, and mostly in my locality I have not seen someone bought something or services with Bitcoin. But as for the boarderless transaction, I have done it. I have sent Bitcoin to someone at abroad and the transaction fee was very small compared to the traditional high fee I paid in 2009. And really if Bitcoin is controlled by the authorities then the ordinary people will suffer again. So as Bitcoin is like this let us work together to protect the decentralized nature of Bitcoin.  Thanks you for this thread.

The question I have is that, can sec bridge any anonymity or uniqueness of Bitcoin put down by Satoshi?

If no, then I thin just as you said, we should take our privacy serious by avoiding exchanges since SEC and other government agencies are trying to set some regulations to CEX in order to be controlling our Bitcoins we left in their custody.

It is time we stand against all the effort government is making to control the only financial freedom we have. Bitcoin is the only financial freedom we have, and we must stand against corruption.

If wallet address is demanding a identity verification before it can be able to generate a wallet many people will feel very bad of it and I believe that people will dislike bitcoin, as I can see the major reasons while people invest in bitcoin confidently is because of privacy, and when you give people tax for generating address in bitcoin I think that will scare people away and not as many as will like to review their identity

This is mainly a problem in the US and I see that bitcoin users who live there treat their legislation like it should concern the whole world, but it doesn't.
I live in the EU where we still have bitcoin tax havens. Even in countries that want people to pay tax on their bitcoin it's always a tax on profits, not on holding bitcoin. We don't have to report holding bitcoin and we don't have to report selling it for other cryptocurrencies.

The bottom line here is that this legislation is mainly the problem of the US where brainwashed democrats like Senator Warren are trying to turn people's lives into a red tape hell.
The silver lining is that from dozens of anti-crypto projects she submitted not a single one was approved by the Congress. I don't think that this one will, and if it does the States will be able to change their local laws to ignore it, like they did with the mining ban.

It seems like a lot of people on this thread are oblivious to the privacy threat which has been afoot for sometime now.
Exchanges and mining are the two major points where privacy and decentralization can be lost, and at the current direction both will be hugely centralized in the coming years.

We shouldn't trust. I believe there should be a protocol feature to prevent centralization.

There is a possibility for this, but of course, we bitcoin holders and investors will let it happen. No, of course, even though the government is still finding its way to crypto currency, they still can't take control of it. That's why, even today, they still haven't approved of bitcoin or crypto currency because they know they can't get anything from it.

I would rather bitcoin be still anonymous, wherein you are free to hide your identity in the network where your only identity is your wallet address. We need privacy, and Bitcoin is that one that gives that privacy. That's why even though the government is still in pursuit of Bitcoin, I'm against the fact that they want to control it, because if this happens, we will not have an asset that we can freely earn from. I don't want bitcoin to lose its value just because others want to make it public and controlled by anyone.

Back in the days, Moneygram and Western Union were the two most popular means of receiving money from relatives abroad. Sometimes, it could take close to a week for the bank to release the money to you after their routine checks and outrageous charges.

Since Bitcoin came into limelight, most of these services are beginning to disappear into thin air. Bitcoin has made transaction to be faster, cheaper and better. Bitcoin will always be a threat and since they cannot kill it with various sponsored propaganda, they've created their own Bitcoin (Bitcoin spot ETF). Who knows? Maybe in the future, they'll extinct DEXs and force the KYC CEXs on us because they want to exert control over us.

Even though I don't like it, I suspect that in the future when Bitcoin is legal to use everywhere it will happen that we need to do KYC and taxes everywhere, I am very sure of that because taxes are a source of state income and they will not release taxes from profitable commodities like Bitcoin .

This sounds very bad because as you said, peer to peer will lose its soul and it is no different from fiat because our identity can be tracked easily through kyc, one of the best things we can do is just store bitcoins in our own wallets. Currently, what we all feared has almost happened, where most exchanges, gambling sites and other platforms have already requested KYC, and countries require it, if exchanges do not want to comply then one day their business could be closed.

But on the other hand, I believe there are always parties who disagree and can be a way to hide our identity, such as mixers, darkweb, and/or P2P exchanges. maybe

---

In the end we can only wait, wait for the future to come and hope that what we fear does not happen but I lack confidence

I read it and I imagine it, it's a really superb and comfortable life we have right now with Bitcoin.
But I am really curious why there are still a lot of people who don't want it or don't believe how Bitcoin will do in our current day-to-day life.
In our world right now, technology is improving day by day, and with Bitcoin, I believe we will improve more.

Government agencies who draft these kinda things may be full of looneys, but all they'd have to do is 1) require all bitcoin to be held in an exchange 2) require identity verification for ALL exchanges (already done) and suddenly you'll have a section of the world where the only way to legally create an address is on an exchange, with ID verification.


Yes, EU has a good tax policy - for now.

It is still hawkish in banning privacy coins, banning mixers, etc. Basically taking the some of the more reasonable legislation proposals from the US (there are a lot of crazy laws over there like Section 174) and applying it region-wide before Congress has even finished squabbling about it.


Now you get it

Bitcoin isn't just a shiny new financial toy to play with, it breaks the system, the data model. That is why banks are so keen to control it through the lobbying they buy regularly.

The thing is many people are still get brainwashed by government.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin, but many people distinguish between dirty coins and clean coins (tainted).

Bitcoin has a high fee, instead of using L2, they choose centralized exchange to buy or hold their coins.

Gains is more important than privacy, they will cheers when a centralized entity want to adopt it.

Bitcoin wasn't failed, but the human is.

i always got it.. it was not me defending/idolising certain groups. it was not me promoting middlemen subnetwork options. i was the one highlighting the risks, flaws, legal issues and centralisations of certain groups

The government has always become a threat to our privacy and freedom as they do everything possible to see that they control everything about human. From the look of things the government is trying to control bitcoin and make it frustrating for people who will not give them the opportunity for them to take control of bitcoin. This is why the government have asked SEC to approve bitcoin ETF so that most people can buy and keep their bitcoin with third parties that requires KYC, and they will soon start deceiving the public that keeping bitcoin with a third party is the safest, so that they can be able to control bitcoin. Anything the government controls becomes shit, p2p bitcoin transaction is now becoming a problem due to high transaction fee. I will not be surprised is government buys over all the mining pool and ask for KYC before your transaction will be added to the blockchain, who knows if they government is even behind BRC2p token that has congested the mempool and making it difficult bitcoiners to enjoy cheap transaction fee. Together we can make their plans not possible by staying away from CEX.

we all want bitcoin to be something that is free to use without any intervention from the government or other institutions, but what is happening now is that the government has started to regulate the use of bitcoin and only allows it to be traded on regulated exchanges which force users to undergo kyc.

banks have also lobbied the government to provide regulations allowing them to invest in bitcoin and altcoins for reasons of diversification, even though their aim is more than that.

we all hate it, but it's hard to fight against it because most governments and institutions are made up of boomers who hate the privacy and decentralization offered by bitcoin. when we are not happy with them, they will say that we are dissidents, so most of us can only remain silent and accept the regulations.

A lot of centralized exchanges such as binance seems to be making a lot of changes in accordance to riles and regulations set by the government itself and i do understand that they are doing this as so they can keep on operating and for now there really has been not much changes that could endanger their users’ privacy but this is just simply an implication of what is bound to happen next

The government can and will do more than a few tweaks here and there if they can not abolish bitcoin or cryptocurrency as a whole might as well accept and join it and try to control it from the inside

I have said this too many times before that Bitcoin adopters are using Bitcoin wrong, we can see how many times Bitcoin investors have surrendered their BTC into the hands of centralized exchange, I have never liked this idea in the first place and sometime I have thoughts about what could have been better.

I once thought about what would have happen if Satoshi created a means of exchange for Bitcoin that's not in control of anyone, and also fully decentralized? Maybe this would have control people for the better? Yeah nothing is perfect and we learn as time goes on.

I believe that the problem of Bitcoin is the adopters, they are the ones giving the centralized entities power of them and Bitcoin, if you are using something that's decentralized in a centralized way it's no more decentralized.

The fact that every "What if" you mentioned is completely true about fiat money proves that you are absolutely correct about Protecting our privacy and freedom of using Bitcoin at any cost.
Govt and banks are already controlling every aspect of Fiat money. you literally can't freely use that at this point making it even more necessary that we keep Bitcoin as it is supposed to be.
But their influence is increasing day by day. they are taking over privacy of bitcoin everyday in name of regulation.

The question I ask myself is how could something like that happen? Who would force all those rules upon us, and who would make sure that all those rules are enforced? I definitely wouldn't want to live in a world like that and would probably stop using my bitcoins very quickly. In case I don't have any influence in stopping bitcoin becoming only used by approved exchanges or banks, then my only alternative would be to not use them at all. The coins I already have I would keep spending, because I don't want to lose any money. But I just wouldn't start acquiring any new coins. Only if large number of consumers retreat from from the market we could push for the changes to be reverted.

Every country's government tries to collect taxes from all kinds of transactions. As we use Bitcoin for various services, the government will try to tax it. In that case, the government can take some steps in this regard. As a result, the use of Bitcoin will be threatened.

Oh yeah, just by reading the entire post I started feeling anxious. Lolz. Nah, I do not want anyone else to control my Bitcoins. Honestly not at this point when I have created such an extensive portfolio by working hard for it. Whether it is simple signature campaigns selling my Pencil artwork or getting paid in BTC from my mod job on other forums, I have managed to create multiple streams of BTC income. I like it, I like it when I see a pop-up from my wallet, there is an incoming transaction or broadcast.

That is a crazy feeling I do not want to lose for some shitty centralization. If we wanted to live like that then, we already have the fiat system to give a feel for it. So no thank you. Bitcoin should prosper in terms of its technology and I hope most of the population understand how holding it on an individual level can help maintain its integrity and decentralization.

As a bitcoiner for which privacy is the bedrock of bitcoin at times when you sit down to meditate on the sudden chilly reactions of the SEC to the approval of the bitcoin ETF you just stand in utmost confusion either to be happy or sad at the same time. The institutional take over is alarming and suspicious and truly the only weapon to the distabilisation to this underground centralized crusade of taker-over against decentralisation is the use of decentralized platforms by bitcoiners. kyc is a bastard and an enemy of financial freedom and privacy.   

Some countries choose to be strict toward Bitcoin, and it's up to people in those countries to change that if they care enough to do that. Overall, I think we're still far from the world the op is describing as a dystopian future. Centralized entities like exchanges demand KYC, but there are other options. And non-custodial wallets are perfectly legal, as they should be. I don't think there are strong arguments for outlawing them, and I couldn't find articles that would support the idea that such a ban is something that can actually happen in major Western economies.

Bitcoin has a great intangible strength in its community, which is trust, but it is not manifested in action to a united collective outside of individual interests.

The power is held by the governments, the establishment, but the force of change is in the unified thought of action, and more than 14 years have passed and it has not been achieved, everyone who gets to know bitcoin is only interested in one thing "to moon ", he doesn't care if the premises of bitcoin are lost.

no
bitcoin was not made to need trust. it was built to verify without the need to trust anyone

however it has become a system where we now need to trust the core devs, because they dont want to be scrutinised or veto'd
we have to trust that their sponsors are not doing deals for money in exchange for code edits. because these sponsors wont disclose their payments as its "commercially sensitive"
we have to trust exchanges/services that offer custodianships. they wont prove reserve holdings nor their source code because its "commercially sensitive"

we are not in the same era of bitcoin as 2009-2013, many things have changed

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but there is no official regulation that makes it blatantly clear the EU is hostile to Monero (AKA, the only truly private coin). It's just centralized exchanges voluntarily de-listing it, similar as to how theymos prohibited the promotion of mixers. But, again; I may be wrong.

Don't get me wrong. I very much believe the EU will try to hunt it down as much as possible (even if censorship in Monero isn't possible), but at the moment I just observe exchanges de-listing it as precaution.

I disagree. Legislation can bypass it. Currently, they're trying to control bitcoin via legislation (e.g., KYC). If it ever becomes illegal to transact peer-to-peer, and you need to hold everything on a fully regulated KYC-ed exchange, it won't matter if the cryptocurrency is private.

I hate to say this, but the only way to fight back legislation is by itself. That means, voting for politicians that are against this crypto dystopia.

But if we continue to think about such pessimistic and negative things, only we are the ones who are going to suffer.

It is a human tendency to be pessimistic and see bad things happen while maybe in your lifetime you would never actually encounter these problems at all. Who knows we may not even live that long to see bitcoin become the natural means of transaction and we are already talking about governments and banks taking everything over.

Instead my point remains same, collect bitcoin, use it if you wish, reap the profit and enjoy your lives instead of making up conspiracy theories or adding fuel to the same.

These things only lead to mental agony and the current average mental state of any person, we dont want that to worsen further.

I've been trying to say the same thing throughout this thread as well.

The good news is that investors don't care about this, and invest in cryptos anyhow as a pure speculation instrument. It's not about "freedom", it's about buying low and selling high.

go to mica link, use the [find in page] option of browser and type in "anonymisation"

mica
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R1114
chapter 3 - article 76 - 2&3

took me 30seconds to search that

they dont mention monero specifically but monero is put into a special category of crypto assets called privacy coins or more officially AEC
(anonymity enhanced currency)

This is a very interesting question.

I see that many consider bitcoin to be a volatile asset, completely dismissing all the fundamentals behind it all.

It's a shame that the vast majority still haven't truly understood the power of bitcoin and the liberating power it can bring to you and your family, goes far beyond purchasing power...

It's about freedom: one of the most valuable things a human being can have.

Are people willing to fight the Great Reset (https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/welcome-to-2030-i-own-nothing-have-no-privacy-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710)?

And I mean all aspects of it, not just point A or B...

This cautionary scenario vividly underscores the importance of preserving the core principles of Bitcoin - decentralization and privacy. The prospect of centralized control, mandatory identification, and exorbitant fees threatens the essence of a peer-to-peer digital currency. It is crucial for the community to stand vigilant against any attempts to compromise these principles. Supporting privacy features in cryptocurrencies becomes not just a matter of personal preference, but a defense mechanism against potential financial dystopia and undue influence from traditional institutions. Let's ensure that the promise of a decentralized and accessible financial system remains intact for the benefit of all.

Privacy? Bitcoin puts every transaction on a public ledger. That's about as [n]un[/b]private as you can get, IMHO.

For me, there are two ways people use the word, "private". One is "private" from companies, marketers, criminals, and maybe your own family :).

The other definition is "private" from your government, e.g. for criminal activity.

GMail is the first kind of "private", because it's absolutely private unless there is a court order. In practical terms, most people probably consider their GMail messages as private as they need it to be.

Peer-to-peer networks attempt to accomplish the second kind of "private", but again I'm not sure Bitcoin in particular really does.

***

As for "decentralized", that's a technical implementation detail, not a feature...

The country government you are talking about can't come into your private wallet, which you have full control over, and start taxing them unless you give them the chance to do that. How do you give them the chance to tax you and control your coins? It's by taking your holdings into centralised exchanges or platforms that are being regulated by the government, which wants to tax you, and when you make any trade, they have to send your financial record to your government, which means your government knows how much you hold and how much you are expected to pay as tax when it's due.
 
You can prevent all of this and control it if you don't link your holdings to your name and to any regulatory body. Always try as much as you can to protect your privacy, as you can use a private wallet you have full control of, and stop selling out your control to third parties. The safety and survival of bitcoin will start with us, the holders.

I would like to firstly point us to countries that have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender and thoroughly scrutinize why and how the government gains from its implementation.
England is one clear country that has accepted Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a means of payment for transactions. Of course the network is being regulated and controlled to a minimum as you can imagine.

Still, I think the concept of Bitcoin as a currency of privacy is recently being tweaked to be in favor of mostly the government and elite wealth class.
If they fail to acknowledge the least owners or traders of Satoshis, find a way to tax the system and hike fees to extremities, they would have only failed to make it an optional asset to own or invest in, because to us who have seen the light, we would find a way to make it work in our favor, even if it means that developers would fork the system or initiatives would be implemented to ensure that the original idea of privacy and to some degree, anonymity is guaranteed.

Bitcoin has a public ledger, so I really don't see how it could have ever really been conceived as a "currency of privacy". Physical cash is still way, way more private than Bitcoin etc.

Bitcoin's privacy features are often misunderstood. Sure, Bitcoin transactions go on some public ledger for the world to see.  But that don't automatically mean your identity is out there too.  Truth is, if you're careful and know how to use it, Bitcoin can still be pretty private.  The public ledger don't have anything that ties back to your real world identity.



Hahaha! Is that a joke? I would never use anything related to google and the word "private" in the same sentence.



True, since Bitcoin is a digital currency that leaves a digital footprint after all.  But, by that logic, physical Bitcoin is way, way more private than physical cash.

Well, cash (banknotes, not metallic coins) is like BTC in a sense.

Why? Because banknotes have unique serial numbers and they can be deemed "tainted" (if their origins are from a bank robbery, or a VIP abduction etc.)

You won't have any issues exchanging tainted banknotes hand-to-hand, but if you try to deposit them in a bank, you're fucked.

It's the same with BTC: tainted coins are fine in p2p transactions, there's no mechanism to freeze them, unless you try to deposit them in a CEX with KYC/AML.

That's why BTC is called electronic cash in the whitepaper: it was modelled after the physical cash.

So yeah, I agree with you that BTC was never really private (anonymous) to begin with. Just like the internet with IP addresses doesn't offer full anonymity. It's pseudonymous.

I don't really understand people who set up BTC nodes to increase privacy, since every on-chain transaction will be settled in the blockchain. Tor & mixers are another thing (kinda like SELinux).

On the other hand, Monero is private by default (built-in mixing via ring signatures). Just like OpenBSD is security-enhanced by default, unlike vanilla Linux. ;)

Both Bitcoin and Monero have a bright future ahead, but for different purposes/use cases.

Yes, but we don't care about the profit as much as the crypto-anarchist virtues. Do we? 'Cause I thought this whole reinvention of money had to do with replacing the current fiat system with something superior, less prone to corruption.

Profit gains are without doubt good news, but if we don't think about these virtues and act accordingly, then we're no different from just another financial scheme.

Google is literally the privacy nightmare of Web2. You can probably keep your documents private from a family member or a friend, but in general? Google lives off your data.

This is one of the reasons why we love Bitcoin so much.
its acceptance as the global currency to be used that sometimes eases us to do some certain transactions so much. But unfortunately, there are still many who think that Bitcoin transactions require very high fees due to price progress and the network's crowded level, or because of several other things. This means that sometimes some people prefer to use other coins for transactions.

certainly very unfortunate. Yes, of course we will always hope that Bitcoin will become what it was originally created for and can actually progress like that, becoming a truly decentralized currency, free from the grasp of the rulers, and can be freely used. But in reality, it doesn't work exactly as it should. I don't know whether it is all over the world, or maybe only in certain countries. When our activities, businesses related to crypto, exchanges, and others have begun to be linked to the laws of a country, linked to government control, and required to be under the authority of a government, then of course it will no longer be 100% decentralization.

And in reality, many exchange platforms require KYC verification with ID documents and other equipment for certain policy reasons, related to government policy. and whether you like it or not, you have to follow it if you want one day to be able to cash out easily. Of course, this is certainly not in accordance with the heart of the city and the goals of Bitcoin. And it's definitely not that satisfying.

However, what to do? because that is the best way at the moment? At a time when Bitcoin cannot be used as a currency in our country, it can't be helped, while there are still many pros and cons going on here.

Hmmm, of course all of these situations are very unsatisfactory. and I'm also not sure that as time goes by, the government will relax this. or in the sense of not controlling cryptocurrency anymore, I think in the future, the government will increasingly try to get into it.

Well I hope it doesn't come that. However, like I said the government has done all it could to kill Bitcoin but after realizing that its actions are actually futile, it has no other option than to create a replica (bitcoin spot ETF).

I don't know if you've been following the news lately, the government are beginning to crack down on privacy coins and the reason is because these coins are very difficult to trace. Four years ago, $625,000 bounty was offered by the Internal Revenue Service to anyone who could hack the Monero protocol (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/09/14/irs-will-pay-up-to-625000-if-you-can-crack-monero-other-privacy-coins/amp/). This is to tell you how much they want to get rid off what they cannot control.

Well, in actual reality, crypto has failed to achieve anything besides being another financial instrument to invest in. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but that's the reality.


Yes, absolutely Google itself lives off of your data in lots of ways, but they don't do anything with your actual emails. They work off of aggregated data. I don't discount the privacy concerns with them for a second (my company doesn't even use cookies at all for instance), but your actual emails aren't getting breached unless there's a court order.

I do not see these happening anytime soon.  So I don't make myself worry about this kind of situation



A decentralized wallet will always be available, just like how the government forbids illegal file torrenting, and yet it still exists today, I believe the same thing will happen to the availability of non-custodial Bitcoin wallet.


One cannot hodl for eternity, at some point in time we have to make a profit or make use of the Bitcoins we are holding.  If  the people in charge are those developers and miners and not the government that is setting the high fee, then we cannot do anything about this but setup our own mining pool to confirm a low tx fee transactions.  But if it is the government who is implementing it to centralized services then we can always opt in decentralized services that is not controlled by the government.  I believe there will always a service like decentralized exchanges

It hasn't failed being censorship resistant. It hasn't failed being permissionless. It remains denationalized, and resistant to arbitrary monetary policy from the state.

And frankly, that's all we have in our disposal. The moment Bitcoin stops being resistant and permissionless is the very moment it has turned into fiat. It probably will not, because it is designed to not require extensive effort to work. But that does not mean we should completely ignore every potential threat.

I doubt people using BTC for buying goods and services everyday of course some do, but not many because of the fee's.
And yes we can send money around the world, but we have to pay expensive fees if we choose BTC. But other crypto's have good fee's.



Then I hope it would be a coup d'état. Governments are nothing then mafia and they should leave us crypto lovers alone, they are scumbags and the worst people and thing in the world IMO. They just steal from the citizen's and nothing else, they don't care about us, they care about our money.



What if What if.. It would suck but I really doubt it would happen.



What if.. What if... It would be a sad day, but it will never happen.



Agree. I am always for freedom of speech and decentralized places, the most danger for that is probably the middle east where you cant say or do anything without getting killed.

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Conclusion, stop think so much about "What if" and Negativity it's only a waste of your time and you should respect your time more bro and focus on things you actually can improve and change instead and positivity mate.


Best regards
/ BabyBandit.

What is mean for a currency to be "censorship resistant"? In what way are, say, US Dollars not "censorship resistant" for instance? What does "permissionless" mean? Again, in what way are US Dollars not "permissionless"?

I certainly get that it's denationalized. That's not a very strong benefit to the consumer though per se. Most credit cards these days allow you to pay in whatever currency that is required at the point of purchase and the bank does the forex for you behind the scenes.

It is definitely not subject to currency manipulation by governments, but on the other hand the price of Bitcoin has been extremely volatile, so there's certainly no materialized benefit there.

And all of these benefits, I assume, are only realized in the context of somebody transacting with Bitcoin without the assistance of any financial institution which is, I suspect, not the way most consumers use Bitcoin these days, e.g. with some kind of app and a company like Coinbase...

Not the currency. The network in general. Nobody can censor me from sending and receiving bitcoin.

In cash? None. Via the Internet? They have to pass through a financial institution which imposes their own rules, all of which can censor transactions.

Nobody can prohibit you from setting up a Bitcoin wallet. Nobody grants you permission to access Bitcoin.

But, again. I'm not arguing for the benefit of the consumer. I'm arguing for the fundamentals that maintain this network's integrity. A Bitcoin standard would promote reduced state intervention and cater to individual preferences. It essentially embodies the ideal vision of every libertarian intellectual from the 20th century.

Do you think this is possible?
Almost everything we do currently requires to pass through kyc, exchange and gambling site. This is most common place that asked for our kyc details and for that whomever that doesn't pass through kyc might not be allowed to either withdraw his coin in both platform. Apart from this common place where else do we need to spend bitcoin except doing p2p among ourselves here or other than those platform that doesn't seek for personal documents, also, know there are restricted countries that might not be allowed to use those platform due to sets of restriction.

Lightning networks the solution as op said.

Bitcoin is actually a volatile asset we can't tempered with because we can lose our money anytime if we make mistakes while doing any transactions, we can lose our money and it is not reversible.

The majority of people these days are just jumping into Bitcoin investment without knowing the primary goal behind the creation of Bitcoin. Some of them feel that it is just by investing in Bitcoin and waiting for your profit after some time. We need to know that Bitcoin is created to give us financial freedom, that is what the government is trying to fight so that they will have some control over our Bitcoin transactions with exchanges.
Let us avoid Centralized exchanges to avoid all these dramas of SEC, and other regulatory bodies trying to distract bitcoin adoption globally.

Only a few would be able to understand the deep meaning behind this question. There was a time when exchanges gave priority to privacy whereas now most of them have made KYC mandatory as per the government law. I still remember Binance allowing 2BTC worth transaction without passing KYC.

If you are referring to the Bitcoin wallet where we have control, then I do not think it is possible now. Maybe in the future, the government might come up with a law asking every wallet owner to pass KYC.

Why would they be interested in doing that, they have other important things to do.

That would be the end of Bitcoin as it not what Bitcoin was designed to do, become a centralized entity.

Agree! But, I am not someone in power or has the money to be part of that power.

people are not taking that seriously for now. but eventually, they'll have to fight for that if they want freedom and privacy for their selves and their upcoming generations. because govt and banks will keep oppressing them and they'll eventually take over Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency too. they are already getting into that slowly.
Most of the exchanges are in their control. and any exchange they can't control they try to shut that down. it is becoming harder and harder to use crypto freely nowadays. so people have to start fighting before situation gets even worse.

Among all those other What Ifs, this is the one that interest me, I don't think any government on entity can control the Bitcoin blockchain right? so there is no way to block or interfere with Bitcoin transaction to certain wallet, hypothetically the only way is to filter the Internet connection with mac address or IP address, because we need internet connection to do Bitcoin transaction. But I am not networking/internet expert so I don't know.

I mean if we are to do What If, it's good to get into the detail right.

What specific aspects do you think crypto failed to achieve? I use crypto payments on an almost daily basis. Wasn't that the primary purpose of Bitcoin? A global, decentralized payment network accessible to everyone. Why do you care if many people now view Bitcoin as a potential investment opportunity, if it still serves its primary purpose?


I feel sorry for you if you really think that. These are the facts, though:

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_litigation

You describe some points that totally stand against the Bitcoin decentralisation concept. Then it seems to look like an existing digital fiat currency concept. So if all of your "ifs" become reality, then the concept of decentralised p2p money won't be true. That means Bitcoin would just use the same fiat currency, which is pretty similar to PayPal. Then we can't see current Bitcoin that is focused worldwide. Otherwise, another Satoshi would discover the real concept of Bitcoin.

I don't doubt there are a small number of people in the world using cryptos to pay for things "on a daily basis" but the keyword here is small. There are something like 30 billion transactions a day worldwide using credit cards alone, and there's simply no chance, architecturally, that cryptocurrency could even achieve one thousandth of that.

And as I've said many, many (many!  :)) times here, I think it's great that people view Bitcoin as an investment opportunity. You have my viewpoint here exactly backwards. I think cryptos are a perfectly fine investment instrument and they've shown their popularity in being so in the last 10 years.

But as a worldwide payment system, crypto has failed. And you know what? Given the price of Bitcoin right now, nobody cares. How hard is it to believe that a technology that was created for one purpose was instead used for another purpose, the original one being a bust? That's happened a zillion times in the history of tech...




Sorry that I think what? I said I agree that Google has privacy issues, and they are well-documented. And my company doesn't even use cookies because we see them as evil.

I was only making a narrow point about the text and meaning of the emails themselves, for which there has never been any evidence that Google has every breached that without a specifically targeted court order, nor would there be any reason for them to. That doesn't mean I deny they have many privacy issues, many of which I've seen first hand in my IT career.

If there are regulations like that, it's scary, because our bitcoins are entrusted even to countries or institutions, only storing decimals but assets are managed and freely visited by state wallets, I can't imagine it. So the value of a new business that might be lucrative. Bitcoin is still new and not yet comprehensive proof that the country has only reached the stage of providing conversion to fiat from a local cex. they consider it easy but it could be that with the vision and mission of wanting to provide security for citizens and in the future will consider bitcoin as a currency for blatant payment in public :D, actually it doesn't matter but convenience will bring side effects, your thinking is right, it could be threatening and could be real.
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I didn't realize that sometimes I use P2P even on cex, do cex users have traffic as visitors because more and more cex are popping up, :D at the beginning I used cex maybe slowly wanted to highlight bitcoin and under the ownership of a clear institution (cex) add to altcoins, especially there are some that support P2P among cex, when I have cex indeed my privasy has been given to the financial service. less practicing P2P personally especially with new people.