Bitcoin Forum

I love the idea of anti-statism however there is a problem with anti-statism that i have for years been unable to solve. free markets are the only presently understood method for overcoming the economic calculation problem. Free markets depend upon individual property rights to function. With out some form of presumably representative collectivist entity there is no method i have previously been able to imagine for differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate claims on property. Any form of collectivist entity with the authority to pick winners and losers certainly must be called a "state", for this reason i have not been able to imagine stateless capitalism.

I posit that maybe a system similar to bitcoin could be used to solve the for-mentioned problem and allow a realistic method for the implementation of anarcho-capitalism. For now, try not to think of this question in terms of legality because until we determine weather it is technically feasible, there would be no point. The following is my best guess about how such a system may be implemented.

I imagine breaking the planet into billions or maybe even trillions of little units. Each unit could be readable by anyone and would contain latitude and longitude data about the exact geographical position of said unit. Each unit would be registered with a corresponding public/private key pair. A person would prove ownership of the unit by demonstrating their ability to sign it over to a new public key which has a corresponding private key owned by themselves. If they wanted to transfer ownership they could sign the unit over to a public key which has a corresponding private key owned by someone else. Any unit which has had a single key pair for more than a given amount of time, for the sake of conversation lets say one year, would be considered stale and could be used to incentivize miners who would gain ownership of the unit when they solves the mathematical puzzle which grants them the right to add a new block to the block chain. Unfortunately, this would mean that property owners would need to update their keys annually but this really isn't a big deal because it solves another entirely separate problem at the same time, when bitcoins are lost its no big deal because they are infinitely divisible, but if to much property was lost over time eventually people would begin to starve to death. In order to combat trolls or destructive agents who would attempt to harm the network by spamming transfer requests, coins similar to bitcoins could be created with each new block and some token amount of these coins could be requested by miners in-order to write transfer requests into the block-chain.  Finally, a large "monument" could be built on each tectonic plate, changes in the position of the monument could be used to cancel out the effects of shifts in the tectonic plates.

well i think that's about it. On a final note, i don't want the readers to only attempt to pick apart the specifics of my assessment of how i think this could be done, because ill be the first to admit that i don't fully understand the technicalities behind how the bitcoin network functions. Im more looking for a dialogue on weather the general idea is possible, and how you think it could be achieved.

That idea is sound but unlike virtual world and mathematics (which are enough to allow bitcoin to function) claims on real property may need to be enforced well... physically. For that you will need some kind of authority (like police) but then we're back to statism.

Basically what is needed is a decentralized state...

people can enforce the law themselves or they can hire agents (private police) to do it for them. You dont need public police but you do need law. You dont need judges but you do need courts. I envision the minimalist state as a set of protocols clarifying what set of circumstances demonstrates private ownership of a given piece of property and what actions demonstrate common-law transgressions. Disputes could be settled by a group of volunteers, preferably that majority of the country/world, who could be selected for jury duty with a lottery like system. But like i said i dont want to get into the legal aspects of the idea. Even if some form of state is necessary this technology could remove the need for the state to claim dominion over another sector of our lives. also lets be clear, im not claiming the situation above is preferable to decentralized statism, im just trying to explore feasibility.

If enforcement is private then it essentially is whoever has the most (hired) might is right.
I say your property is mine and my quasi-military Police force agrees.  I take it.

A block chain would be a useful mechanism in an EXISTING state to allow p2p transfer of property (which currently can't be done) and eliminate a lot of buerecratic nonsense which slows down trade but ultimately:

law = backed by people willing to do violence on those who disagree

we really haven't evolved much as a species from caveman mentality we now just like to obfuscate it.

If I don't like you selling certain plants then I don't come over and disrupt your activity with bodily harm instead I hide behind the state who passes laws and those laws are enforced by "enforcer units" (sometimes called Police) who come over and disrupt your activity with bodily harm or threats of bodily harm.

on some abstract level i dont disagree with anything you said. its like the paradox that the legitimate role for the state would be the protection of an individuals right to not be harmed, this could only be done by threatening transgressors with harm, meaning the logical course for the state would be to declare war on its self.

However if the majority supported the protocols and the protocols said that exchanges of property must be made voluntarily, the only force that could take your property from you would be the majority. of course the majority is a special interest group and who may do exactly what you said, but no law is required for them to be able to do this its a fundamental characteristic of our universe that the majority can get away with anything they damn well please. we have to try as individuals to steer their will in the direction we perceive to be most productive, i.e. from my perspective into acceptance of a set of minimalist protocols for ensuring property rights and protections against needless harm.

Anyway, the important point is that this is possible to make a block-chain that would allow for the keeping of a record of ownership and easy transfer of ownership of little blocks of data that contained latitude and longitude information.

Not necessarily if we could make hypothetical selfdestructible property. Then any effective robbing would be only possible by forcing original owner to release private keys... Plausible denial could be used as defense with keys which prolonged property's existence for limited time only.


Signing property with visible keys seems to be pretty good deterrent. It will lower worth of stolen things considerably.

im pretty excited to find that the general consensus is that this is a feasible idea. I am slowly working on learning computer programing but im no where near the level necessary to implement this system, so for those of you who read this try to get this meme out there, plant the seed so that it so that it may one day grow into something wonderful.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property)

THANKYOU! that reply is VERY much appreciated =)

You're welcome. You may find this interesting as well:

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Smart-contracts (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Smart-contracts)

thanks ill check it out, i have been thinking about using a blockchain for contracts for probably a year now but i could never imagine a way for party a to prove that party b had signed a given contract with out both parties registering keys with some central authority, and if a central authority is necessary than why even have the system. i had assumed it was imposable but i am excited about the prospect of being proven wrong.

Look at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6428.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6428.0) for the signmessage and verifymessage bitcoin rpc commands for signing a message with the public key of a bitcoin address you own.

I dont see how this explains the following problem. so say we have party a, which is myself, party b who is the other participant in the contract and party c who is law enforcement. I can see how this technology could be used for party a or b to prove to party c that each of us signed the contract, but if b claims that he did not sign the contract and a knows for a fact that he did, how could party a prove to party c that party b did infact sign? obviously a mutually trusted party d could be used but this is precisely what i am trying to avoid.

I apologize if im being dumb but public key cryptography is so hard for me to wrap my mind around. im currently attempting to gain an understanding however progress is slow, every article i read about it is either vague and doesnt explain the mathematics behind it and so is totally useless for attempting to truly understand it or it is INSANELY technical and i have no idea what the hell any of it means so its hard to bridge that gap.

Actually, if a bitcoin-like system is used to manage property rights, the problem you describe doesn't arise. There is no need to prove that Party B owns the private key used to sign the contract because the property in question "belongs" to the private key, not to Party B.

To make an analogy with bitcoin, when you transfer it, there is no need for any party to prove that you are really the owner of the private key, because it doesn't matter. Even if you later claim that someone stole your private key, you won't be able to reverse the transaction.