This Might Sounds Strange: Bitcoin Violates the Principle of Money Fungibility

[elrippo]

When the price of bitcoin is stable, there will be such issue.

Please define stable in a volatile system....

[binaryFate]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

Nothing new...
This is intimitely tied to the lack of privacy. The actual fungibility and privacy to expect from Bitcoin is wrongly grasped by most people, due to the technicity of the topic I suppose. Without a deep understanding of how Bitcoin works, you simply can't grasp it yourself and have to rely on other's claims. Those claims were wrongly of the kind "anonymous internet money!" for years. People did not take the same amount of precautions on silk road back then in 2012 than they do now. The perception is slowly changing, in that it is getting closer to reality. The reality did not change, and it comes to no surprise to those who could see it in the first place.

An interesting evolution to observe is the different answers given by people over time, to support their view/claim that Bitcoin is fungible.
Nowadays we're at "joinmarket does the trick!". Funnily enough this is the most trivial breach of fungibility we ever had (together with the premium for newly mined coins).

Premium for newly mined coins is a matter of one individual's arbitrary preference and has no incidence on Bitcoin's fungibility.

To the risk of repeating myself: send these coins to an exchange and see what the market thinks of your premium.

The market will be happy not to give a shit about those clean coins. But try to send stolen coins to see what happens.
Hint: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2zrkg6/withdrawals_halted_as_stolen_evolution_coins_make/

About the bolded part: it is a recurrent flawed argument. You're applying a view from the legacy decentralized world to a decentralized system. In a decentralized system such as Bitcoin, everything is about arbitrary preference. This results in social pressure that impedes your ability to use your coins freely (and for a constant price), since this will be all based on the other party arbitrary preference.

Fungibility is not an attribute you can achieve voluntarily. As soon as individuals can based their preference on enough factual hindsights (such as history of outputs), fungibility is broken. The only way to achieve it is by technically not giving anyone any hindsight; that is, through privacy. See this presentation (the first part is about Bitcoin).

It also seems to me you are applying concepts of the legacy system to Bitcoin. One being that there is a third party involved in transactions.

In the presentation you've linked you refer to coin "taints". If Bitcoin, as it was designed, is used in a purely peer-to-peer manner how do you propose this "taint" is advertised to the participants?

Well this is not an absolute measure. The point is that each participant will have its own definition/perception. Probably some individuals won't care, others will be a bit more paranoid and ask/check the origin. Some businesses will definitely apply checks, exchanges such as coinbase already do. (they close accounts of people who gamble for instance, because this is visible on the blockchain, see the tag on explorers). So when you get coins, you are left wondering if you'll be able to transfer them for their real value to 100% of users, or only to 99%, or for which price, etc.

If we assume that in the future every one will use Bitcoin in such a peer-to-peer way than I find it unlikely that people would be bothered by this "social pressure" you speak of.

Do you propose that every user will dutifully proceed with an output analysis of every coin they interact with and transaction they are involved in? At what cost?

I don't propose anything.
Startups are doing this specifically, there are APIs already. It is so easy to use or integrate to other services, that it will be easy for everyone to complain if a service doesn't do it. I'm not talking necessarily about legal complaints, a reddit mob pointing fingers at you is bad enough as well. I agree we're not there yet for individuals, but this might come very soon for them too, probably first from tax authorities in several countries.

[brg444]

Bitcoin is perfectly fungible, this dude is clueless.

You people really need to dig into your economics book and stop conflating privacy with fungibility.

I get his point and i watched until the end, but i think he is wrong. Buying btc/blocks from 0x address is like buying non sequential bills at a premium. Or collection piece coins. They are all perfectly fungible. What a weird word.

Regardless if you do a purchase online and you need to pay 0.69BTC' it doesn't matter if it come from coins with no previous history or if its the most used, whore-y coin ever.

*ding ding ding*

we have a winner.

Nope, this is not true.
In a common sense of money the argument from VirosaGITS is true, in a sense that BTC can be used to transport information the argument is untrue.
Why? Well if you hide a formula for a process to create endless energy in a satoshi, this satoshi will be far more "worth" than the satoshi created and traded next to it.
That´s where the argument for the violation of the fungibility chips in guys 

Try sending this satoshi to an exchange and see what they think of your "endless energy" formula.

You didn´t get the point. It is not important what an exchange thinks your satoshis are in value, it´s important what this specific satoshi is in your value, since we are talking about the fungibility of your personal value to that satoshi. Keep in mind that this satoshi is yours in a common sense!

Can you make it clear through what method you would entrust the formula to this particular satoshi

[Amph]

When the price of bitcoin is stable, there will be such issue.

Please define stable in a volatile system....

i would say +- 5%/10% at best, especially for something like bitcoin, i doubt we can ask any better even with global adoption

[elrippo]

Bitcoin is perfectly fungible, this dude is clueless.

You people really need to dig into your economics book and stop conflating privacy with fungibility.

I get his point and i watched until the end, but i think he is wrong. Buying btc/blocks from 0x address is like buying non sequential bills at a premium. Or collection piece coins. They are all perfectly fungible. What a weird word.

Regardless if you do a purchase online and you need to pay 0.69BTC' it doesn't matter if it come from coins with no previous history or if its the most used, whore-y coin ever.

*ding ding ding*

we have a winner.

Nope, this is not true.
In a common sense of money the argument from VirosaGITS is true, in a sense that BTC can be used to transport information the argument is untrue.
Why? Well if you hide a formula for a process to create endless energy in a satoshi, this satoshi will be far more "worth" than the satoshi created and traded next to it.
That´s where the argument for the violation of the fungibility chips in guys  

Try sending this satoshi to an exchange and see what they think of your "endless energy" formula.

You didn´t get the point. It is not important what an exchange thinks your satoshis are in value, it´s important what this specific satoshi is in your value, since we are talking about the fungibility of your personal value to that satoshi. Keep in mind that this satoshi is yours in a common sense!

Can you make it clear through what method you would entrust the formula to this particular satoshi

By signing a specific wallet now, in future send a message with that specific satoshi.

[binaryFate]

When the price of bitcoin is stable, there will be such issue.

It has absolutely nothing to do with fungibility...

[brg444]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

Nothing new...
This is intimitely tied to the lack of privacy. The actual fungibility and privacy to expect from Bitcoin is wrongly grasped by most people, due to the technicity of the topic I suppose. Without a deep understanding of how Bitcoin works, you simply can't grasp it yourself and have to rely on other's claims. Those claims were wrongly of the kind "anonymous internet money!" for years. People did not take the same amount of precautions on silk road back then in 2012 than they do now. The perception is slowly changing, in that it is getting closer to reality. The reality did not change, and it comes to no surprise to those who could see it in the first place.

An interesting evolution to observe is the different answers given by people over time, to support their view/claim that Bitcoin is fungible.
Nowadays we're at "joinmarket does the trick!". Funnily enough this is the most trivial breach of fungibility we ever had (together with the premium for newly mined coins).

Premium for newly mined coins is a matter of one individual's arbitrary preference and has no incidence on Bitcoin's fungibility.

To the risk of repeating myself: send these coins to an exchange and see what the market thinks of your premium.

The market will be happy not to give a shit about those clean coins. But try to send stolen coins to see what happens.
Hint: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2zrkg6/withdrawals_halted_as_stolen_evolution_coins_make/

About the bolded part: it is a recurrent flawed argument. You're applying a view from the legacy decentralized world to a decentralized system. In a decentralized system such as Bitcoin, everything is about arbitrary preference. This results in social pressure that impedes your ability to use your coins freely (and for a constant price), since this will be all based on the other party arbitrary preference.

Fungibility is not an attribute you can achieve voluntarily. As soon as individuals can based their preference on enough factual hindsights (such as history of outputs), fungibility is broken. The only way to achieve it is by technically not giving anyone any hindsight; that is, through privacy. See this presentation (the first part is about Bitcoin).

It also seems to me you are applying concepts of the legacy system to Bitcoin. One being that there is a third party involved in transactions.

In the presentation you've linked you refer to coin "taints". If Bitcoin, as it was designed, is used in a purely peer-to-peer manner how do you propose this "taint" is advertised to the participants?

Well this is not an absolute measure. The point is that each participant will have its own definition/perception. Probably some individuals won't care, others will be a bit more paranoid and ask/check the origin. Some businesses will definitely apply checks, exchanges such as coinbase already do. (they close accounts of people who gamble for instance, because this is visible on the blockchain, see the tag on explorers). So when you get coins, you are left wondering if you'll be able to transfer them for their real value to 100% of users, or only to 99%, or for which price, etc.

If we assume that in the future every one will use Bitcoin in such a peer-to-peer way than I find it unlikely that people would be bothered by this "social pressure" you speak of.

Do you propose that every user will dutifully proceed with an output analysis of every coin they interact with and transaction they are involved in? At what cost?

I don't propose anything.
Startups are doing this specifically, there are APIs already. It is so easy to use or integrate to other services, that it will be easy for everyone to complain if a service doesn't do it. I'm not talking necessarily about legal complaints, a reddit mob pointing fingers at you is bad enough as well. I agree we're not there yet for individuals, but this might come very soon for them too, probably first from tax authorities in several countries.

I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

The future is in the informal, black market economy. I don't suppose any participant who willingly involves himself in such shenanigan will be well regarded or trusted to transact with. That also goes for businesses who stand to lose market shares to competitors who will be wise enough not to discriminate customers based on the origin of their coins.

[Wapinter]

Say for example, I bought a sibglw US dollar for around 2 euros when the exchange rate is around 0.80 euros, would that be considered as a breach in the principles of money fungibility? If I want to pay more, I'll pay more as long as it satisfies me; that's freedom on spending regardless of some principles of money.

But the question is why would someone want to pay more for same thing which others are buying at less price?
Now lets remind ourselves what fungibility is
"Fungibility is the property of a good
or a commodity whose individual
units are capable of mutual
substitution. That is, it is the
property of essences or goods
which are "capable of being
substituted in place of one
another." Given this definition,can we say that all bitcoins are same in value at any given point of time?The answer to this simple question will explain if bitcoin is against any established principles or not

[Kprawn]

For me there are no difference between a coin freshly mined and one send through a mixer service. I have bought freshly minted fiat coins and I paid premium for them for their future collectors value, if it's still in

a uncirculated mint condition. This is just another attention seeker, looking for flaws in Bitcoin that does not exist and has nothing to do with the fungibility of the currency.

Try again, we see no problem with this or in the future. A Bitcoin is a Bitcoin... 

[binaryFate]

For me there are no difference between a coin freshly mined and one send through a mixer service. I have bought freshly minted fiat coins and I paid premium for them for their future collectors value, if it's still in

a uncirculated mint condition. This is just another attention seeker, looking for flaws in Bitcoin that does not exist and has nothing to do with the fungibility of the currency.

Try again, we see no problem with this or in the future. A Bitcoin is a Bitcoin... 

Thanks for bringing so much to the conversation.
Fungibility issues have been acknowledged (and fixes being worked on) by many prominent Bitcoin experts. But if you say there is no problem, we're good.

[binaryFate]

[...]
I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

I agree that this is exacerbated by "fiat parasites", but I disagree it comes only from this.

Even in a fully Bitcoin-based economy, I don't see why it would disappear. You could still refuse to deal with coins out of belief or social pressure. Think of the US dentist who went to kill this lion and was everywhere in the news: imagine if he had paid for the "right to kill" with bitcoins, that the entire world would know at a given instant would be on an address X. Don't you think some people out there would refuse them for a payment?
I believe it will always happen, if you can attach history to coins (in practice outputs).

You could also refuse to deal with coins out of legal fear. If you own anything (money or objets) that you know is coming from a theft, you're legally liable as well (fence in English?). If you don't know but didn't take sufficient precautions, and the circonstances should have raised suspicions from you, you're liable as well; at least where I live. Why would the legal system be any different with coins? In fact it's worse: it is much easier to do your due diligence with bitcoins than with real world items, so you can be also accused more easily.


EDIT: I forgot about sidechains. A sidechain implementing "confidential transactions" would help with privacy (despite not providing untraceability - that is not hiding the origin of the funds). But they don't solve fungibility: they could be seen like a mixer, and with limited liquidity. Coins seen entering in to be made more private, then seen going out. It is easy to be "hey why did you sent coins to this sidechain?", or "I don't want coins that visibly were mixed on the sidechain!".

[Mickeyb]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

I find this as a complete BS. You can start selling US dollars that were never used as well at a premium.

I blame greed for these and these crazy business that never had enough and are just trying to find a way how to make another dollar more! That's their fault really, for starting this nonsense.

[smoothie]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

Nothing new...
This is intimitely tied to the lack of privacy. The actual fungibility and privacy to expect from Bitcoin is wrongly grasped by most people, due to the technicity of the topic I suppose. Without a deep understanding of how Bitcoin works, you simply can't grasp it yourself and have to rely on other's claims. Those claims were wrongly of the kind "anonymous internet money!" for years. People did not take the same amount of precautions on silk road back then in 2012 than they do now. The perception is slowly changing, in that it is getting closer to reality. The reality did not change, and it comes to no surprise to those who could see it in the first place.

An interesting evolution to observe is the different answers given by people over time, to support their view/claim that Bitcoin is fungible.
Nowadays we're at "joinmarket does the trick!". Funnily enough this is the most trivial breach of fungibility we ever had (together with the premium for newly mined coins).

Premium for newly mined coins is a matter of one individual's arbitrary preference and has no incidence on Bitcoin's fungibility.

To the risk of repeating myself: send these coins to an exchange and see what the market thinks of your premium.

Didn't you already advocate not to use centralized service providers that could possibly be "back doored" into black listing bitcoins from certain addresses?

But now you use an example of sending coins to an exchange to see what the market thinks of this "premium".

[smoothie]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

Nothing new...
This is intimitely tied to the lack of privacy. The actual fungibility and privacy to expect from Bitcoin is wrongly grasped by most people, due to the technicity of the topic I suppose. Without a deep understanding of how Bitcoin works, you simply can't grasp it yourself and have to rely on other's claims. Those claims were wrongly of the kind "anonymous internet money!" for years. People did not take the same amount of precautions on silk road back then in 2012 than they do now. The perception is slowly changing, in that it is getting closer to reality. The reality did not change, and it comes to no surprise to those who could see it in the first place.

An interesting evolution to observe is the different answers given by people over time, to support their view/claim that Bitcoin is fungible.
Nowadays we're at "joinmarket does the trick!". Funnily enough this is the most trivial breach of fungibility we ever had (together with the premium for newly mined coins).

Premium for newly mined coins is a matter of one individual's arbitrary preference and has no incidence on Bitcoin's fungibility.

To the risk of repeating myself: send these coins to an exchange and see what the market thinks of your premium.

The market will be happy not to give a shit about those clean coins. But try to send stolen coins to see what happens.
Hint: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2zrkg6/withdrawals_halted_as_stolen_evolution_coins_make/

About the bolded part: it is a recurrent flawed argument. You're applying a view from the legacy decentralized world to a decentralized system. In a decentralized system such as Bitcoin, everything is about arbitrary preference. This results in social pressure that impedes your ability to use your coins freely (and for a constant price), since this will be all based on the other party arbitrary preference.

Fungibility is not an attribute you can achieve voluntarily. As soon as individuals can based their preference on enough factual hindsights (such as history of outputs), fungibility is broken. The only way to achieve it is by technically not giving anyone any hindsight; that is, through privacy. See this presentation (the first part is about Bitcoin).

It also seems to me you are applying concepts of the legacy system to Bitcoin. One being that there is a third party involved in transactions.

In the presentation you've linked you refer to coin "taints". If Bitcoin, as it was designed, is used in a purely peer-to-peer manner how do you propose this "taint" is advertised to the participants? If we assume that in the future every one will use Bitcoin in such a peer-to-peer way than I find it unlikely that people would be bothered by this "social pressure" you speak of. Are we expecting users to transact using wallets that support black/redlists?

Do you propose that every user will dutifully proceed with an output analysis of every coin they interact with and transaction they are involved in? At what cost?

Seems like you are applying concepts of a legacy system to bitcoin.

[smoothie]

[...]
I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

I agree that this is exacerbated by "fiat parasites", but I disagree it comes only from this.

Even in a fully Bitcoin-based economy, I don't see why it would disappear. You could still refuse to deal with coins out of belief or social pressure. Think of the US dentist who went to kill this lion and was everywhere in the news: imagine if he had paid for the "right to kill" with bitcoins, that the entire world would know at a given instant would be on an address X. Don't you think some people out there would refuse them for a payment?
I believe it will always happen, if you can attach history to coins (in practice outputs).

You could also refuse to deal with coins out of legal fear. If you own anything (money or objets) that you know is coming from a theft, you're legally liable as well (fence in English?). If you don't know but didn't take sufficient precautions, and the circonstances should have raised suspicions from you, you're liable as well; at least where I live. Why would the legal system be any different with coins? In fact it's worse: it is much easier to do your due diligence with bitcoins than with real world items, so you can be also accused more easily.


EDIT: I forgot about sidechains. A sidechain implementing "confidential transactions" would help with privacy (despite not providing untraceability - that is not hiding the origin of the funds). But they don't solve fungibility: they could be seen like a mixer, and with limited liquidity. Coins seen entering in to be made more private, then seen going out. It is easy to be "hey why did you sent coins to this sidechain?", or "I don't want coins that visibly were mixed on the sidechain!".

Yes it will call into question why someone sent coins to a side chain which has "C.T."

It almost appears that there is infrastructure being built around bitcoin to attempt to fix the privacy issue that bitcoin currently has given likely there will be no successful implementation of any form of privacy features put into bitcoin from a untraceability and unlinkiability standpoint in the near future if ever.

The reason I believe no meaningful functionality to bring more privacy to the bitcoin protocol any time soon or ever is because it would violate the social contract bitcoin has in place with corporations and businesses that are attempting to be compliant with regulators in their respective countries of operation.

[brg444]

[...]
I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

I agree that this is exacerbated by "fiat parasites", but I disagree it comes only from this.

Even in a fully Bitcoin-based economy, I don't see why it would disappear. You could still refuse to deal with coins out of belief or social pressure. Think of the US dentist who went to kill this lion and was everywhere in the news: imagine if he had paid for the "right to kill" with bitcoins, that the entire world would know at a given instant would be on an address X. Don't you think some people out there would refuse them for a payment?
I believe it will always happen, if you can attach history to coins (in practice outputs).

You could also refuse to deal with coins out of legal fear. If you own anything (money or objets) that you know is coming from a theft, you're legally liable as well (fence in English?). If you don't know but didn't take sufficient precautions, and the circonstances should have raised suspicions from you, you're liable as well; at least where I live. Why would the legal system be any different with coins? In fact it's worse: it is much easier to do your due diligence with bitcoins than with real world items, so you can be also accused more easily.


EDIT: I forgot about sidechains. A sidechain implementing "confidential transactions" would help with privacy (despite not providing untraceability - that is not hiding the origin of the funds). But they don't solve fungibility: they could be seen like a mixer, and with limited liquidity. Coins seen entering in to be made more private, then seen going out. It is easy to be "hey why did you sent coins to this sidechain?", or "I don't want coins that visibly were mixed on the sidechain!".

Something like the example you describe might occur but I find it is simply not economically sustainable on the long term. You will soon find yourself "out of business" if you choose to persist in discriminating transaction partners based on the output history of their coins. This is even more true seeing as "in a fully Bitcoin-based economy" coins would increasingly cross paths with other "tainted" ones.

Moreover, such analysis or "tracking" of coins history necessarily implies reliance on a third party which kind of defeats the purpose of peer-to-peer transaction medium. What if it was found that you refused perfectly "clean" coins based on the arbitrary intervention of a third party.

[smoothie]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

I find this as a complete BS. You can start selling US dollars that were never used as well at a premium.

I blame greed for these and these crazy business that never had enough and are just trying to find a way how to make another dollar more! That's their fault really, for starting this nonsense.

Is it still BS principally when a customer gets coins that are not accepted by businesses because it was part of a theft in the past history of those particular coins?

It is BS from the User's perspective in that they are being denied usage of the coins they bought legitimately.

[brg444]

[...]
I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

EDIT: I forgot about sidechains. A sidechain implementing "confidential transactions" would help with privacy (despite not providing untraceability - that is not hiding the origin of the funds). But they don't solve fungibility: they could be seen like a mixer, and with limited liquidity. Coins seen entering in to be made more private, then seen going out. It is easy to be "hey why did you sent coins to this sidechain?", or "I don't want coins that visibly were mixed on the sidechain!".

What then if 50% of the network decides to transact on this sidechain. Again, the "social pressure" are economically self-defeating and cannot be substained in an environment where a competitor or other participants are not as bent on discriminating based on coin history. If we are to believe that reputation systems and "Web of Trust" are going to become a mainstay of the future marketplace then these are behaviors which certainly will not be encouraged nor appreciated.

[brg444]

Click Here to Watch

Travis Patron argues that bitcoin violates the principles of money fungibility - that each individual unit of currency being of the same value does not hold true in bitcoin.

Already, businesses are springing up that are selling bitcoin with no previous transaction fee at a premium. This violates the principle of money fungibility.

In the video, the investment analysis of bitcoin vs. gold is also discussed in depth.

Nothing new...
This is intimitely tied to the lack of privacy. The actual fungibility and privacy to expect from Bitcoin is wrongly grasped by most people, due to the technicity of the topic I suppose. Without a deep understanding of how Bitcoin works, you simply can't grasp it yourself and have to rely on other's claims. Those claims were wrongly of the kind "anonymous internet money!" for years. People did not take the same amount of precautions on silk road back then in 2012 than they do now. The perception is slowly changing, in that it is getting closer to reality. The reality did not change, and it comes to no surprise to those who could see it in the first place.

An interesting evolution to observe is the different answers given by people over time, to support their view/claim that Bitcoin is fungible.
Nowadays we're at "joinmarket does the trick!". Funnily enough this is the most trivial breach of fungibility we ever had (together with the premium for newly mined coins).

Premium for newly mined coins is a matter of one individual's arbitrary preference and has no incidence on Bitcoin's fungibility.

To the risk of repeating myself: send these coins to an exchange and see what the market thinks of your premium.

Didn't you already advocate not to use centralized service providers that could possibly be "back doored" into black listing bitcoins from certain addresses?

But now you use an example of sending coins to an exchange to see what the market thinks of this "premium".

I did.

That was just an example. I could've referred to any physical p2p exchange as well.

[brg444]

[...]
I don't disagree that this happens or will happen but IMO the issue as you present it is a construction of fiat parasites especially interested in undermining the privacy and fungibility of Bitcoin.

As we slowly move away from this paradigm I believe it will eventually become a non-issue. Moreover I understand there is significant progress being made toward implementation of privacy related features in things such as sidechains which contribute to solve the related issues.

I agree that this is exacerbated by "fiat parasites", but I disagree it comes only from this.

Even in a fully Bitcoin-based economy, I don't see why it would disappear. You could still refuse to deal with coins out of belief or social pressure. Think of the US dentist who went to kill this lion and was everywhere in the news: imagine if he had paid for the "right to kill" with bitcoins, that the entire world would know at a given instant would be on an address X. Don't you think some people out there would refuse them for a payment?
I believe it will always happen, if you can attach history to coins (in practice outputs).

You could also refuse to deal with coins out of legal fear. If you own anything (money or objets) that you know is coming from a theft, you're legally liable as well (fence in English?). If you don't know but didn't take sufficient precautions, and the circonstances should have raised suspicions from you, you're liable as well; at least where I live. Why would the legal system be any different with coins? In fact it's worse: it is much easier to do your due diligence with bitcoins than with real world items, so you can be also accused more easily.


EDIT: I forgot about sidechains. A sidechain implementing "confidential transactions" would help with privacy (despite not providing untraceability - that is not hiding the origin of the funds). But they don't solve fungibility: they could be seen like a mixer, and with limited liquidity. Coins seen entering in to be made more private, then seen going out. It is easy to be "hey why did you sent coins to this sidechain?", or "I don't want coins that visibly were mixed on the sidechain!".

The reason I believe no meaningful functionality to bring more privacy to the bitcoin protocol any time soon or ever is because it would violate the social contract bitcoin has in place with corporations and businesses that are attempting to be compliant with regulators in their respective countries of operation.

 

Get outta here....

Bitcoin has no such "social contract" with fiat corporations and regulators. That is absolute nonsense.