I'm quite sure there are way less Bitcoin criminals than you imagine. Just think of how hard it is first of all to learn how Bitcoin works, how to keep your own identity as anonymous/private as possible etc. Most "crimes" here are probably scams, but if you were to compare that to the amount of scams happening in USD every day you'd be surprised. I honestly don't think there are many criminals that'd say "hey, let's to this but for Bitcoin".

Having to accept and regulate Bitcoin is imo part of their way of hiding the fact that they would've rather kicked BTC out of the economical system. Banning BTC would've been seen by all of us as banning our rights to economical freedom. They basically had no choice but to accept the idea that cryptocurrencies exist. However, if we go the privacy/anonymity way, I am afraid they may reconsider.

I hate how the vast majority of people talk about Bitcoin crimes as if they even occupy a significant percentage of the money used/stolen in crimes. Before they fix up Bitcoin's criminal activity, they should first and foremost fix the fiat one that's been going on for centuries.

If a degree where a little privacy can be breached exists, we're talking about the exact same thing as US Government enforcing WhatsApp and other platforms and services to introduce backdoors in their software/hardware. A backdoor just for the government is impossible to create. Once there's a backdoor, it's available for everyone. Once there's a possible privacy breach in Bitcoin, it's available to all of us.

The thing is, about everything the government creates "as an effort to fight against criminal activity" can be used against us but the part I put in brackets is their perfect excuse to shut our mouths up. However, they're starting to exceed the limits..

I'm now going to push this a bit further than I should - so excuse one off-topic line - but even a brain microchip implant in the future for everyone seems amazing if you tell me it's going to be the perfect way to solve the many millions of annual cases of disappearances or lots of neurological disorders that currently cannot be solved, but that could be just one excuse for actual population control as o_e_l_e_o said above.

Does anyone really trust their own government? I can personally confirm the answer is negative for at least 90% of the people I know.

If you need to use the specific private keys, hardware wallets aren't the best solution. I'd clean an old laptop/PC, remove all the wireless modules and keep it permanently offline instead with Electrum on it as a cold storage. Hardware wallets are there to be used with the seed your HW generates, not with extetnal ones. That's exactly the point of using it: not having direct access to the privkey as it sits inside the HW.

I would say this is another potential issue. If privacy is a choice, it's even worse as they're going to consider anyone who wants privacy a suspect. The Tor comparison you made actually helps my point: as far as I know, FBI labels you as a possible criminal as soon as you begin anonymizing your Internet history. By using Bitcoin with additional privacy added to the default, they know you're looking for it.

The community will most likely not fight against KYC and invasive regulations. It's a thought I have already been accustomed to, unfortunately.

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It becomes more and more painful to nagivate anonymously through BTC though. As I said in the OP, mixer users are starting to get their balances frozen for using coin mixing services. This means that, while Bitcoin isn't anonymous itself, trying to go off the radar leads to quite brutal repercussions.

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I agree that we need to find a way somewhere in the middle, but both have large disadvantages: privacy equals hostility and transparency equals surveillance. If we have the option to be anonymous, it leads to those specific users having to confront the suspicions of authorities. It's bad no matter how you take it.

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@Lordhermes

The rejection is there because Monero lets you sit in the dark without having to worry about leaking any information about yourself. There obviously are some bad ways to use XMR as well - although it's private, little mistakes may cost one person all the struggle they've previously had to cover their real information up. However, default privacy does eliminate some of the concerns. Had XMR been the exact way it currently is but without being focused on privacy, it would've been easily adopted anywhere.

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@Darker45

I understand your opinion and agree with most of it, but fairness should exist. Is it fair for us to have to compromise anything the state wants just for the sake of "adoption"? Why should there be understanding coming just from one of the two sides instead of both?

The more they'll block our access to privacy, the more "rebels" there will be.

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@Yogee

I have never studied Dash but as far as I know, it's centralized and you have to basically pay in order to access the privacy features. The privacy meter Blockchair has published seems nice at a first look, but I wouldn't use it honestly. By looking your own txs up through them, you're giving them hints about who you are. Check @tranthidung's reply for a proper answer to this concern.

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@hatshepsut93

Agreed, and that's exactly the reason I have posted this thread as a concern.

Throughout this one decade since Bitcoin's genesis, cryptocurrencies have advanced to a point where we now have a general idea of what makes Bitcoin better than other cryptocurrencies, why we need certain functions to be added to Bitcoin and so on.

One particular concern I have been confronting for a while now is how improving privacy through Bitcoin may change the King of cryptocurrencies forever - and it may actually be for the worse.

To be fair, I am heavily obsessed with privacy and a lot of members out here probably already know it. I have a lot of respect for those who fight for their own right to be anonymous and to have the wanted level of anonymity without being considered a criminal by anyone else. So props to o_e_l_e_o, LoyceV and all the other users who've taught me a lot of stuff about this. You've helped me turn it into an obsession.

Today we are slowly disrupting the equilibrum between pseudonymity and anonymity to the point where anonymity takes the lead. With that being said, by taking a look over both what's getting ready for the next Bitcoin updates and what we already have, we can see that the list of things that give you more privacy through Bitcoin increased significantly throughout the years: mixers, Schnorr signatures, Bisq, atomic swaps etc. Someone who has the necessary knowledge could actually be almost entirely under the invisible cloak while using Bitcoin. In my opinion, at a first glance, it looks great.

Lately, we have seen so much support from so many governments it simply feels like they want Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to exist. At a first glance, once again, it looks great. But have you ever wondered why they are not so hostile anymore?

Could it be because they already have the necessary tools to properly analyze BTC's blockchain so well they aren't afraid of decentralization anymore? Maybe. Let's follow up this scenario.

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Monero is a cryptocurrency focused mostly on privacy. In my opinion, it is the perfect opportunity for us to see and find out what the future may hold for Bitcoin as soon as we start taking the privacy & anonymity road.

Firstly, the masses have been manipulated through mainstream media to believe that Monero represents the heaven for criminals - some kind of safehouse to protect themselves against authorities. This is what all of my friends who've ever heard of Monero thought it is.

Secondly, throughout the years, so many companies and authorities have turned hostile against Monero. In 2020, we have seen in my opinion the strongest push against it. Here are some of the delistings from this year:
     - Bithumb Under Pressure to Delist Monero as Nth Room Ire Continues
     - Monero (XMR), ZCash (ZEC), Bytecoin (BCN) to Be Delisted From Australian Exchanges: Analyzing Reasons Behind Delisting
     - Huobi Korea delists Monero, piling pressure on Bithumb

And there's more. Some people go through worse stuff than simple delistings, such as this Reddit user who's had his XMR seized. Only recently, the US authorities have begun to desperately look for a way to track Monero. An article talking about XMR being tracked by the US Homeland Security has mentioned one very important thing to take into account:

This is alarming in my opinion. I think I have enough brain to understand that they are basically saying Monero needs to not be Monero anymore in order to be accepted. The thing is, people do not understand that this is what is going on with Bitcoin right now. Through regulations, centralized parties, non-trustless transactions and tracing capabilities, we are using Bitcoin the way they want us to.

Now that we know how Monero is seen from the government's perspective, we have an idea about the way privacy is treated nowadays by them. Users of coin mixers, the tools that make blockchain analysis painful to whoever wants to try it, have also started to be considered as enemies to a growing number of exchanges.

In consequence, we have seen that attempts of improving Bitcoin's privacy are starting to turn some companies hostile against users who are trying to be more private. So now, let's take it the Monero way. The result is, by improving BTC's privacy aspects, we are going to likely turn hostility's power on.

Are the possible costs of inclining the equilibrum of pseudonymity and anonymity more towards the latter worth them? How do we value which is better between a more private Bitcoin that leads to hostility and a less private Bitcoin that is "adopted" more than ever before thanks to the government's abilities of analyzing the entire blockchain history?

New hypes = new scams. Besides some of the very first ICOs out there, most of them ended up as scams or abandoned projects. It's quite obvious especially now as people only desperately keep looking for other ICO-like shapes of offerings so that they can earn a bag of bucks out of them. It's just so sad to see how many newbies still fall for them. Bounties are most of the time just you wasting your time promoting scams that scam you in the end as well.

I don't see marketing and advertising as needs when launching a cryptocurrency. Satoshi did it without promoting it. The next coin creators after him did it as well. Why pay now for projects that almost always end up as scams if you never had to pay Satoshi for creating and advertising Bitcoin?

Projects that are good will pop to the surface easily in time, as soon as the list of shitcoins gets cleared up. So throwing your bucks at some random stranger for promising you wet dreams in exchange is nonsense.

Honestly, trading strategies rarely work with crypto trading. Been following many charts and predictions on TradingView on a weekly basis for years and, besides very very obvious patterns, most of them don't really follow up. Even top traders miss a lot of times. The immaturity of crypto markets makes trading a constant experience of unexpected events.

Yeah, cryptocurrency "reviews" are pretty worthless. It's money they're reviewing, which automatically attracts a lot of scammers with big bags of money available for possible offers and promotions. It's much better to check the project yourself if you really care about avoiding a loss. I remember there were a few review websites that talked positively about BitConnect. See how that ended up.

I'm unsure there is a way to make it all completely fair no matter how you take it.

Let's say something really bad happened. Say the US gov decides to purchase enough equipment to control >51% of the network and does something wrong. Is it fair if everyone else besides the gov does not agree with the change, yet the gov now just owns the majority of votes? No.

But let's take it one step further. After this event, a hashrate war between us and the government begins. Could be either all of us together or Gates deciding he wants to help us (so one node). Now is it advantageous to us if we were to gain the majority of votes again and not let one single entity (the gov) control >51%? Yes. But now, the government is in the situation we were in one paragraph above.

Who decides whether a 51% is beneficial or not and why would that be fair? You'd need votes, I guess? Or maybe a fork? Well, that leads once again to possible unfairness..

If only Bitcoin existed and there were no miners for alts, just imagine how friggin' impossible it would've been to gain 51% of the votes. It already is close to impossible - unless you're a billionaire or have a money printing machine. The hashrate is on an ATH anyway, so good luck to whoever tries it.

I do not think my country has been too different during lockdown, especially as a lot of ATMs were down. Most countries where hodling Bitcoin is a taboo subject probably experience these kind of growths though. Knowing your country has been hostile to crypto before makes you take maximum advantage of the opportunity you have whenever your gov turns from hostility into support.

Most of them won't resist throughout the years due to emotional rollercoasters. When you see a price dump similar to what we had in the beginning of the pandemic, it'd hard to take that drop in without considering to sell or even selling in rush and fear. The high percentage of longer term hodlers doesn't show much. I would've held for more than an year as well if I thought I could've had a profit but ended up being on a loss. We've only recently hit the extremely low percentage of addresses that are on a loss. Under 3 yrs of experience next to long term hodling equals in my mind a high number of people who've invested during bull runs and are still waiting to earn a profit.

How far fetched would then be to name any unknown Bitcoin address (unknown as in not linked to anyone's identity or fingerprints) dirty/suspect? It's been a while since Monero started getting a quite strong push backwards and I still haven't heard anything positive ever since. In fact, the most recent article I read regarding Monero is about the IRS willing to pay someone to crack XMR. To me it seems like this is likely to be the norm soon as well..

I'd rather push for a privacy and decentralization class than strictly Bitcoin. General education is more important imo. If people learn to appreciate the two, it gets much easier to have someone understand why BTC is important.

Classes about economics could implement at least a brief history of BTC though. Would probably be interesting for many to have a side-by-side comparison of BTC vs other assets and commodities.

The thing is, once Bitcoin rises or falls, ETH and LTC will not have much of a different price change in comparison with BTC. Over the long term, between the two, I personally think you're going to be better off with BTC only.

Altcoins are usually great to purchase and then wait for bullish Bitcoin seasons. When BTC's bullish, alts go absolutely nuts and, if you cash in at the right time, you'll end up with more BTC in the end. But all of my alt purchases, specifically the top few ones, usually turn into losses BTC-wise over the long term.

The thing is, the perfect scenario (purchase alts -> end up with more BTC) is usually wrecked by emotions for most.

Mixers only make it harder for your mixed coins to be traced. It's highly probable that, if I ever commit a mistake and somehow link my coins to my identity, I will mix them afterwards for no illegal reasons. Wanting to have privacy is not illegal activity. This applies to everything: using cash instead of card, old Nokia phones instead of Google-infected "smartphones", Signal instead of WhatsApp etc. Pedophiles using Signal is not and will never be a reason to enforce me to use Zucc's data-collecting falsely-encrypted WhatsApp.

Some people use burner phones to avoid having their main phone number found out. I do this as well. The fact that drug dealers also use burner phones doesn't mean I should not have access to purchasing them.

Saying that cash is helping the society more legally than illegally makes me smile. I can't even imagine how much cash is used every single hour in tax evasions alone. Romanian bars do this on a regular basis: take the customer's cash but keep it in your pocket and don't print the paycheck so that, as a business owner, you don't pay taxes for your earnings. There are probably so many billions of money in cash all around the world that are cashed in on a monthly basis without taxes being paid.

Everything is going to have an illegal use case as long as criminals find a way to do it. Probably even soap or rubber ducks. Even after we get CBDCs and cash goes out, there will be other ways to do illegal stuff without being on the radar. We simply cannot have the perfect thing. You can't have freedom but not have it. You have to choose between the two.

Remember, mixers are only there for improving your privacy. They do not support illicit activity, as far as I am aware. And my personal opinion is... even if mixers were used in a significant percentage for illegal activity, banning them means taking away my right to privacy. This is what people don't get: we're literally setting our own right to privacy on fire by wrongfully placing privacy and crimes in the same pot.

Nice try, hacker! (jk)

This probably goes as bad as receiving a paycheck from someone right after they've finished a murder goes. Both the issue and the way it could go depends solely on the other parties. In your case, depends on the way the exchange sees it. If the coins were received by the exchange from an address that received the said BTC straight from a hack/crime, the coins will automatically be considered suspicious and, in consequence, will probably be seized until authorities decide whether you are innocent or not.

Guess they could prove that it's the same guy if the guy didn't protect his identity in the process (and by identity, I am talking about IPs as well). And honestly, I personally think that intel agencies are sometimes going a bit deeper into the line than the laws allow them to..

But why send money to another address you own directly when you can just take a few more minutes of your time and lower the chances of getting caught?


Oh man, give me 1400BTC and I will happily split them into even 20k addresses! i'd actually love to do so!

You can't have them all. Research obviously takes time. If you're willing to look for a reputable project, using your time to research is a must and surely will more often than not turn into a waste of time.

How do I tackle the overload? Well, don't rush investing in a project. The only one who's going to lose in this situation is you. Take a few days or even weeks, research the coin properly, stay up to date with the news and ANNs (if there are any) on BTCTalk and there'll be no more overload. In time, you'll have enough knowledge to notice when something seems to be wrong.

Not sure "deadliest" is the right way to call this, lol. It's more like one of the very few unsuccessfully exploited flaws at the time.

If the exploit hadn't been discovered or something like that, it's highly possible that a fork would have taken place with the fixed bug. In my opinion, that flaw actually helped Bitcoin in a way: it showed us all that Bitcoin's strength only improves over time.

Whoever thinks it's a scam just shows how hypocrite they really are. To me, the ideas of those who have no idea about Bitcoin yet comment about it don't really mean anything.

The main goal of this "Bitcoin society" has changed though, and that's a bit sad. From cypherpunks and rebels we've turned into a mass of people who only have a dream of seeing Bitcoin massively adopted by any means so that we can profit off an insane price increase.

Too many are completely forgetting what Bitcoin should have really been and, instead of supporting decentralization and rejecting attempts to artificially centralize the network through stupid regulations, we're just digesting every rule we receive as is and we're getting excited over news that are actually going against Satoshi's ideas. So yeah, while I'm happy to be part of the community, it's sad to see how things change  negatively in such a slow manner you mostly don't even notice it.

Hi zasad@, it's my pleasure to take part of this interview. Thank you so much for giving me the chance.

1. When and why did you become interested in cryptocurrencies?
Late 2013, when Bitcoin hit the ATH at the time of over $1k. It seemed insane to know that a digital currency could be worth that much, so I started digging up as much information as I could and almost instantly started looking for ways to earn my first satoshis on my own.

2. When and why did you buy your first bitcoin?
My first coins weren't bought but earned through faucets and gambling. It was in either Dec 2013 or Jan 2014. To be honest, with every single satoshi I earned I was more and more excited to be part of this journey.

3. How did you get on the forum?
Sincerely, I have absolutely no idea how I found out about the forum. The closest thing I can remember is that PrimeDice usually hosted giveaways and you had to own a Bitcointalk account. This might be it.

4.1. What prevents mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?
Mass adoption will never happen due to the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies. Unless there is at least some level of control authorities could earn, it'll be pushed back as much as possible while the governments are looking for ways to somehow add an artificial trusted third party into the game. That is regulations and, most of all, KYC.

4.2. How do you think mass advertising of gambling projects has a positive effect on the development of the forum or harms the community?
I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing. The answer to this is on a case-by-case basis. I have been there and, honestly, gambling is one of the ways I've been "abducted" by this community. As I answered to the third question, it's probably gambling who I should thank for bringing me onto this forum.

On the other hand, we have addiction which certainly is a bad thing that could turn your life upside down in no time. However, let's face the truth: those who are going to be baited by crypto gambling would've probably been baited at one point in their lives by gambling anyway.

4.3. How do you consider whether 2-3 years of experience in cryptocurrency is enough to successfully invest or does an investor need to receive special education?
I personally have almost 7 years of experience right now and I still don't think I have the necessary education to be a great investor. The volatility of crypto markets are way too high not to be tempted to take actions you otherwise wouldn't have taken. Now that we're in the middle of the DeFi hype, I don't even want to imagine how many people who've been hodling solely Bitcoin until few months ago have turned to DeFi and screwed up completely.

Besides the above statement, I believe there's more to it than just experience. Some people simply can't abstain from selling during large drops or purchasing during booms. While some people do get rid of this bad habit through experience, there are others who simply aren't fit enough to be investors and unfortunately lose a large part of their money.

5. What do you think of the current Merit system and signature campaigns?  Do they harm the forum?
The current Merit system is fair enough in my opinion. It certainly did slow down all shitposters significantly and makes them understand Bitcointalk isn't all about signature campaigns and bounties. I've been there myself and I know how tempting it is to create an account to just post crap and expect to earn from it, and I honestly wish there was a Merit system at the time. It makes you look for the answers yourself to questions such as: "Why am I not ranking up?".

Signature campaigns are double-edged swords. On one hand, I personally believe they are more than welcome especially for members such as LoyceV who truly deserve to be rewarded for all the time they've spent on here. I think of these campaigns as some kind of rewards for the work you've done on the forum. On the other hand, they surely do bring waves of soon-to-be shitposters and spammers. But going back to the "reward" part of this paragraph, I am not very sure top-tier members would spend as much time on the forum as they spend today if sig campaigns were not to exist. They may not afford to spend as much on the forum and the reason is very simple: time is money.

6. The most useful forum topic? Most helpful users?
I do not think there is a specific topic I consider to be the most helpful. There are so many it's hard to pick. If there was a board I'd choose, however, it'd be Beginners & Help and Scam Accusations. Beginners & Help for so much useful information and Scam Accusations for whenever you're looking whether a service is a scam or not. For the most helpful users.. I guess this is represented quite accurately by the list of top Bitcointalk Merit earners.

7. 3 things you would implement on the forum?
All the current things I'd like to be implemented are being worked on already and will be pushed to the new forum system.

8. Do you trade on exchanges or invest in projects?
Not really. Sometimes I do, whenever I feel like it represents a good opportunity. However, after many years of trading shitcoins, I came to the conclusion that I would have been much better off if I had held everything I ever owned solely in BTC. With shitcoins, you mostly only get a false feeling of profit while forgetting about Bitcoin, the king itself.

9. Tell a story about your big profit or big loss?
My only very large sudden portfolio changes have been during 2017, and they are all mostly paper losses/profits. That was when I learned what hype means and why it's so financially damaging. Otherwise, my largest actual loss was through an infected PrimeDice bot which stole 0.001BTC from me.

10. What do you think about the DEFI ecosystem?
I haven't studied it in-depth and I will probably not do so anytime soon. I am mostly waiting for the hype to cool down, after which I might be interested in DeFi unless it dies out like ICOs. Unfortunately, my gut feeling says studying DeFi would turn out to be a big waste of time considering how hyped up it is.

11. Is your anonymity a vital necessity or precaution?
I'm not hiding from anyone or anything, but I believe it's important to both us as a society and Bitcoin.

People are starting to neglect their privacy way too much, and that is very concerning. If many years ago many used fake usernames for their e-mail addresses or forum usernames in order not to give up their personal information, nowadays we have Facebook accounts containing so many people's entire history of everything you will, from friendships to stuff they like, from their hometown and family members et cetera. Bitcoin solves this problem, partially. If these institutions and corporations collect your data, why not at least cut the ties with your bank and start having more financial freedom and privacy?

And then, privacy and anonymity is vital to Bitcoin's existence. If we neglect privacy, we don't need Bitcoin as we're going to soon have CBDCs - and trust me, they're going to be fast, easy to learn & use with close to zero fees and so convenient the society will love them. Bitcoin will not be Bitcoin anymore if we give up our privacy. It doesn't bring me any kind of advantage to own some coins if the government will consider me a suspect for not having my coins linked to my personal identity.

12. The last cryptocurrency book you read?
Unfortunately, I never took part of my free time to start reading cryptocurrency books. I do have to do this at one point in the future for sure though.

13. Advise 3 cryptocurrencies/tokens for investment in the next 1-2 years?
Bitcoin and Monero are the ones I trust the most and I'd advise anyone to purchase as soon as they acknowledge the risks. Bitcoin because it's the King and will likely not be rejected by the society thanks to its pseudonymous nature, while Monero is amazing for the anonymity it offers. The main drawback of Monero is exactly the most fascinating thing about it: anonymity will always be the government's enemy.

14. How much will Bitcoin cost at the end of 2020?
Haha, this is going to be fun for sure. Last time I have publicly predicted Bitcoin's price, it turned out to be a massive success as my prediction was that it'd hit $20k by the end of the year - the price being around $700 at the time IIRC.

I personally believe Bitcoin will be relatively "stable" until the end of the year. By stable, I mean it will not move past $15k for a long time. If there's a prediction I'd make, it's that by the end of 2021 it'll be worth between $80,000 and $120,000. But I will not promise I'd eat my sexual organ otherwise.

15. P.S. (Optional)
I'll give here a little advice to the newer members of the community: follow the simplest rules you always hear. Buy low & sell high, never invest more than you can afford to lose, not your keys - not your Bitcoins etc. These are simply golden rules of cryptocurrencies and, as long as you follow them, you should be doing more than fine. I know that Bitcoin's rise from genesis 'till today seems impossible and you wish you knew about it back in 2009, but back then nobody even knew whether it's going to be more than just a tech geek's hobby the same way you have no idea right now what Bitcoin will turn into within a decade.

Read, read, read. Learn as much as you can about everything crypto-related, because the more knowledge you have.. the better choices you make. And last but not least, don't rush any profits no matter how tempted you are. Slower sometimes means better and healthier. Happy hodling!

There definitely are a lot of changes you have to make.

Bold: You've contradicted yourself here. It cannot be known but non-popular.
Underline: When was it approximately $0.28? Bitcoin launched as a completely free coin; exchanges paired it against fiat and other cryptos and that's how it started gaining actual value.
Italic: 50 percent win/loss chance? What exactly is this about? To me it sounds like either a Ponzi scheme or gambling.

There's no need for teams or anything for BTC advertising to be done. In fact, a lot of us are advertising it one way or another every day and for free. We don't have or need "marketing teams" of any sort. We're decentralized, and marketing requires money that can be used for development instead. Whoever is interested in BTC doesn't need to see Bitcoin advertisements constantly.

Partnership? Are you trying to say that larger companies should adopt BTC? That comes naturally. They'll go for it whenever they feel they should do so. Trying to convince a company to adopt BTC could go wrong if they don't meet expected results and decide to remove BTC later on.

I agree with @mk4. Feels like you've made the article in a rush.