The pirate-based shitstorm was and is a necessary regulator

[molecular]

Dollars are like toy money given to us by our parent governments. They tell us how to use it and watch carefully and they try to get it back if you did something stupid with it.

Bitcoins are like adult money, you control it and nobody can tell you what to do with it. And nobody can help you if you you do something stupid with it.

I _love_ this analogy. Will use it.

[Cluster2k]

Bitcoins are like adult money, you control it and nobody can tell you what to do with it. And nobody can help you if you you do something stupid with it.

If the government controlled bitcoin I would have been prevented from losing 10BTC to satoshi dice, but freedom must include the freedom to do something stupid.

I look forward to the day the first criminal demands a large ransom paid in bitcoins.  Not because I support the criminal or the crime, but because I want to see what the reaction from various governments/Mastercard/Visa/banks will be.

We all know bitcoin is pseudo anonymous with every participant holding a copy of all transactions (bad for the criminal), and that eventually to cash out bitcoins the criminal must hit the established banking system (yikes), but it will be a good test to see just how Free bitcoins are.

[BurtW]

Bitcoins are like adult money, you control it and nobody can tell you what to do with it. And nobody can help you if you you do something stupid with it.

If the government controlled bitcoin I would have been prevented from losing 10BTC to satoshi dice, but freedom must include the freedom to do something stupid.

I look forward to the day the first criminal demands a large ransom paid in bitcoins.  Not because I support the criminal or the crime, but because I want to see what the reaction from various governments/Mastercard/Visa/banks will be.

We all know bitcoin is pseudo anonymous with every participant holding a copy of all transactions (bad for the criminal), and that eventually to cash out bitcoins the criminal must hit the established banking system (yikes), but it will be a good test to see just how Free bitcoins are.

Didn't this already happen in the Romney tax returns extortion case?  And the result was that the guy was caught and arrested.

Interestingly he was caught in a way similar to the molecular/joe incident mentioned above:  he delivered a flash drive that contained a picture of a cat on it and the picuture of the cat was used against him.