You are right it isn't bitcoin's problem. It is the user's problem.

But isn't that a cop out?

If there was a system that removed this possibility of blacklisting then I think we would be on to something.  

Bitcoin is here to serve people. If there is a problem with it, I think it should be fixed.

Block size is not something super critical that it needs to be done now...but this fungibility problem I believe is something that should be taken more seriously by the core developers.

You're right, this flagging addresses and blacklisting transactions from addresses won't help, it will ultimately start getting abused, think about it. You sell coins to someone, a cash trade so no identities were involved and after that you go to a forum and start yelling my coins were hacked/stolen and ask Miners and others to flag that address. Now the person who bought those coins is fu**ed, he paid for them and didn't do anything wrong and he's the one who is now called a thief and can't spend his coins? I really hope no more sites start doing this and even bitpay should stop doing this, if they're really doing this i.e.

If they don't accept your bitcoin because it was linked to a scam, that's the way it is.

There is such thing a as bitcoin taint because what if I choose not to accept bitcoins coming from the bitcoinica theft? One example of showing how fungibility does not 100% exist is enough to break your "perfect fungibility" claim.

it's so non issue that bitpay is blacklisting certain bitcoins...yeah lol 

lol so it isn't perfectly fungible then right?

Of course nothing is impossible, but I would think that the unsettlement of the "block size" debate (pretty much one line of code) can't be decided upon. Yet you think the developers of bitcoin can add an entire set of code to allow UNLINKABILITY and UNTRACEABILITY?

Even bitcoin mixers leave someone with coins tracing back to its origin (assuming some stolen were mixed).

I beg to differ on that one.

Yet you think the developers of bitcoin can add an entire set of code to allow UNLINKABILITY and UNTRACEABILITY?

Yeah sure THAT definition of "Fungibility" of Bitcoin is not dependent upon human preferences. But who cares?

Bitcoin does not use itself. Humans do. That's what matters and that's what gives bitcoin VALUE,.....HUMANS.

If people don't accept your BTC because they have come from a path that leads back to an address of coins that were illegally taken from someone else, then fungibility in terms of its use with HUMANS is broken and not perfect. This is assuming that the receiving party of your tainted bitcoins is not accepting them.

You are basically arguing a definition that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand of why I started this thread.

imbécilités

I use Bitcoin for remmittance paying overseas developers. I usually pay into localbitcoins, find somebody local and then enter the worker's details so they are paid directly without ever knowing anything about Bitcoin (because too confusing to explain it to them). This works well for Kenya and other African countries because can just enter their phone number and they are paid directly without needing any other information.

The key is abstracting all the complexity of bitcoin away for people. Trying to explain to grandma back in the home country how to log in somewhere and trade coins with her phone isn't going to happen.

Here's an economic concept: the market places a 10% premium on freshly minted zero-taint BTC over 'gently used' coins.  Good luck with your stolen Evolution coins!

Bitcoin doesn't meet the highest 'can't be evil' / 'can't be non-fungible' technical standard because the code may be modified with black/white/grey/red lists of forbidden/allowed coins/taints.

So no need to even get into the more significant (but more general issue) of socioeconomic interchangeability.

yes I am very sure. The old S-1A has nothing in it about Gemini. They have to file a new S-1A. The reason their last S-1A was so long ago is because they are waiting to get all their ducks lined up, then submit one final S-1A with everything in it.

If I had to take a guess, it's 6-12 months away after/if their Gemini charter gets approved

note: I am not a legal expert, not giving legal advice, and I am not dealing with this ETF in any way. I am just giving my opinions.

While the blocks aren't being filled to 1MB (https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size) there are still usually a lot of unconfirmed transactions.

We maxed out both the current 1MB block size limit and the average home internet connections at the same time.

well we need to agree to disagree then.
i want to use money without thinking about thefts or checking its history.
it doesnt help me if is "technically fungible" when i cant use it that way.

BS the FBI stole hundreds of thousands of poeple coins, and had no problem selling it on the open market.

Let's imagine I have some coins that I stole during Evolution's demise. Are you willing to swap all of your coins for mine?

Or put differently: if I borrow your car for a month, and at the end of that month I give you back the same make, same model, same year, same colour car, is that ok?

Bitcoin isn't fungible for the same reason that you won't appreciate me giving you some random car in exchange for yours, regardless of the properties of that car.

we already had this discussion.
maybe bitcoin is technically fungible (because any coin can always be send an mixed) but practically you have problems when using coins which where stolen (eg bitstamp hack) or why do you think new minted coins are sold with a premium?

Perfectly fungible is what you said. Your bolded example above proves my point that bitcoin is not perfectly fungible as in your example an exchange/site can refuse to exchange or accept a particular set of coins coming from certain addresses.


Just because you say something, doesn't make it true.  

The mere fact that you know stolen coins came from an address to another address...removes the fungibility portion. Who cares which coin was exactly the coin that was part of a scam? The point is that some of them (or all of them) are linked to a known crime/theft/scam.

NOT KNOWING which exact coin is related to a scam/crime/theft is not the way I would define bitcoin being "PERFECTLY FUNGIBLE".

I think you have your concepts/terminology mixed up.

wow really? lol

I'm sorry but it is increasingly apparent to me that you are making a tragic mistake of conflating very different economic concepts.

For one, individual perception of value is quite different from the market's perception of value.

Bitcoin's traceability might make it interesting for someone with a collector's mindset but it has no impact on its fungibility.

It would be one thing for the market to disagree on the value of individual satoshis but this is absolutely impossible as they are totally undistinguishable from one another. Let me use two different examples to show why your analysis fail:

- Certain gold artifacts are valued at way more important prices then the actual market worth of their weight in gold. Does that make gold a "collectible"?

- A lot of people enjoy collecting notes and coins from certain years. A bundle of cash stolen from a bank might be identified and refused in certain circumstances because of its serial number. Does that make cash a "collectible"?

These two examples, I believe, demonstrate that what you refer to as an absence of fungibility is simply a consequence of individual or authorities attaching subjective value to an item because of its history but this is not an indictment on the monetary system itself!

Imagine one individual in possession of one of these gold artifacts or a special 20$ note attempts, for some unknown reason, to either trade his gold item to a pawnshop or deposit the 20$ at the bank.

What do you guess happens? If we assume the guy running the pawnshop doesn't know or care about the "symbolic" value of the item and is only concerned with its weight in gold no amount of history is going to bring him to buy said item for more than its market worth. Same for his "special bill", the cashier at the bank could not careless if it was used by Al Capone to do lines of cocaine, to her it's worth 20$ and no more.

The same logic applies for Bitcoin. If I am in possession of one of Mt. Gox's stolen coin and send it to Bitstamp, the market is not going to offer me a premium or refuse to buy it. Sure some nerds might cry foul and alert the exchange. In that case I could still head to fucking China and sell the same coin for market price on whatever their equivalent of localbitcoin is and no one will ask me any question.

Let's pretend I have one of Satoshi's wallet address and decide to send him a bitcoin. How can you tell which one is mine from his stash?

In fact I do believe there is quite a lot of people that have sent him dust or coins over the years. If somehow he decides to move this lot of coins to an exchange are people somehow going to make a distinction between his original coins and whatever amount that was sent to him by these clowns? Of course no because they can't!

This effectively demonstrates that your logic does not hold. The market could careless whatever coin Satoshi decides to move, it is not the coins that matter because THEY ARE INDEED FUNGIBLE. It is their owner's decision that has a psychological impact on the market because they can identify ownership through the public ledger. Let's say we pretend that somehow someone is able to tie Satoshi's identity to a wallet/coins from...2013. Surely you would agree that the psychological impact on the market would be the same whether he decides to move these coins to BitStamp or the "original" ones.

All of this is to say you are confusing privacy and traceability and somehow making this aspect of Bitcoin an indictment on its fungibility. Again, this is a mistake.