Senator Charles Schumer Pushes to Shut Down Online Drug Marketplace

[AtlasONo]

I agree. If bitcoins only purpose/advantage is as an inflation-hedge, there are numerous things that would serve that function. The major differentiator, in fact the only differentiator that will have a significant impact on economic growth and taxation policy, is bitcoin's potential for user-determined anonymity and untracability.

ie: mostly illegal activity

[matonis]

I agree. If bitcoins only purpose/advantage is as an inflation-hedge, there are numerous things that would serve that function. The major differentiator, in fact the only differentiator that will have a significant impact on economic growth and taxation policy, is bitcoin's potential for user-determined anonymity and untracability.

ie: mostly illegal activity

Not true...people use these all the time to buy groceries and to go on vacation, restaurants, etc.   http://bit.ly/k3rDSO

[mewantsbitcoins]

Ian:

Great letter! I agree that the "stop campaigning for bitcoin's destruction" message might backfire, and the message should be "we're an innocent bystander here." You might even offer to help law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.

If you're stance is seriously to encourage "help[ing] law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.", then you are a threat to the idea of bitcoin.  How can I have any confidence at all that you are not attempting to put some sort of backdoors into the client to monitor and track people who use bitcoin?

I don't think that is what Gavin meant, because education works both ways.  For instance, you can point out the ridiculousness of relying on the bitcoin block explorer because bitcoin (private keys) can be exchanged offline on USB sticks or BitBills. Also, education on 'remailer' and 'mixers' would demonstrate to law enforcement that it is impractical to rely on the block chain.

Furthermore, I don't think any of us would mind helping law enforcement or in fact anyone to help and find real criminals behind real crimes. Bitcoin is not anonymous - you have to go to great lengths to make it such. Now power to decide who gets caught and who doesn't is tilting to the rightful owner - honest and rational people. Not some bribed politicians or criminals on wallstreet.
Intel community is very good at catching real criminals and there are numerous examples of it

[Phenomenon]

ie: mostly illegal activity

The point of bitcoin is to have freedom from a central authority.  Regardless of how that is used, that is it's main advantage.  If you don't have that, then you might as well continue using government issued currencies or silver and gold, because BTC doesn't offer any other significant advantages that I am aware of.

[kokjo]

ie: mostly illegal activity

The point of bitcoin is to have freedom from a central authority.  Regardless of how that is used, that is it's main advantage.  If you don't have that, then you might as well continue using government issued currencies or silver and gold, because BTC doesn't offer any other significant advantages that I am aware of.

low fees for money transfering.

[AtlasONo]

Not true...people use these all the time to buy groceries and to go on vacation, restaurants, etc.   http://bit.ly/k3rDSO

ie:Bitcoin will succeed because it's just like cash

[AllYourBase]

Ian:

Great letter! I agree that the "stop campaigning for bitcoin's destruction" message might backfire, and the message should be "we're an innocent bystander here." You might even offer to help law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.

If you're stance is seriously to encourage "help[ing] law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.", then you are a threat to the idea of bitcoin.  How can I have any confidence at all that you are not attempting to put some sort of backdoors into the client to monitor and track people who use bitcoin?

I don't think that is what Gavin meant, because education works both ways.  For instance, you can point out the ridiculousness of relying on the bitcoin block explorer because bitcoin (private keys) can be exchanged offline on USB sticks or BitBills. Also, education on 'remailer' and 'mixers' would demonstrate to law enforcement that it is impractical to rely on the block chain.

That's a fair point.  If the intent is to stop the po po from picking up the wrong guy due to misunderstanding how bitcoin works, I could see that.  Perhaps it's just how I read it the first time, that it seemed a little too friendly to law enforcement. 

[Sawzall]

"They use names that you can't trace, they don't put their names on the site."
I lol'd.

[n0m4d]

Obviously with enough time, manpower, and resources, it is possible for a government to track down anyone doing anything.

Let's round up everyone thinking of the color blue.

[Gavin Andresen]

urthermore, I don't think any of us would mind helping law enforcement or in fact anyone to help and find real criminals behind real crimes. Bitcoin is not anonymous - you have to go to great lengths to make it such.

Exactly right. I will to do what I can to help the police catch scammers and crooks who want to steal from people.  The police might use those same tools and techniques to help catch people who use bitcoin to pay for drugs; I can't stop them from doing that.

I personally don't think drugs or gambling should be illegal, because I believe you should be free to do whatever you like with your own body and your own money. But I also believe those are separate issues from bitcoin, and if I felt really strongly about it (it isn't one of my own personal hot-button issues) I would be donating money to, or volunteering to work for LEAP and NORML, not mixing "bitcoin is a great new technology" with "drugs should be legal."

[n0m4d]

You might even offer to help law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.

Best rebuttal:

And when governments world-wide make bitcoin illegal because of the threat it represents to central banking, will your head explode from the irony?

[Phenomenon]

You might even offer to help law enforcement better understand bitcoin so they can develop tools and techniques to catch criminals who use it.

Best rebuttal:

And when governments world-wide make bitcoin illegal because of the threat it represents to central banking, will your head explode from the irony?

Exactly.

[Phenomenon]

urthermore, I don't think any of us would mind helping law enforcement or in fact anyone to help and find real criminals behind real crimes. Bitcoin is not anonymous - you have to go to great lengths to make it such.

Exactly right. I will to do what I can to help the police catch scammers and crooks who want to steal from people.  The police might use those same tools and techniques to help catch people who use bitcoin to pay for drugs; I can't stop them from doing that.

I personally don't think drugs or gambling should be illegal, because I believe you should be free to do whatever you like with your own body and your own money. But I also believe those are separate issues from bitcoin, and if I felt really strongly about it (it isn't one of my own personal hot-button issues) I would be donating money to, or volunteering to work for LEAP and NORML, not mixing "bitcoin is a great new technology" with "drugs should be legal."

And please do tell who gets to decide what a real crime is?  Murder? Drugs? Money laundering? Tax evasion? Using illegal currencies?

You should definitely help those police catch people using illegal currencies.  After all that is domestic terrorism: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/03/22/starting-a-new-currency-is-%E2%80%9Cdomestic-terrorism%E2%80%9D .

[gigitrix]

The next few months are going to be very interesting...

[mewantsbitcoins]

And please do tell who gets to decide what a real crime is?  Murder? Drugs? Money laundering? Tax evasion? Using illegal currencies?

You should definitely help those police catch people using illegal currencies.  After all that is domestic terrorism: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/03/22/starting-a-new-currency-is-%E2%80%9Cdomestic-terrorism%E2%80%9D .

It is very simple. Only one rule in life - don't to others what you don't want done to you, o be prepared to face the same.
Hurting another is a crime. Me doing drugs at the privacy of my own home is none of anybody's business

[xf2_org]

I've been thinking of how to react to this story, and am tempted to appeal to people's greed/fear with a message of "your country may miss out on a huge new opportunity and be left behind if you try to stamp out innovative new technologies like bitcoin."

That's what I've been thinking:  point out how crypto export was outlawed until the mid-1990s.  Then point out how, due to government regulations, American crypto was crippled (40 bit limit) while others had (a) better crypto and (b) crypto development moved outside the US.

This was sensibly fixed when Bill Clinton reclassified crypto software as something other than weapons grade munitions, triggering the dot-com boom.  Amazon.com, Mint.com, Paypal/ebay and other Internet notables might be outside America, had Clinton not made that change.

The message:  outlaw it, and everyone but you gets to play with a new, innovative technology.

[AbeSkray]

I don't know how much letters work.  Special interests own a huge stake in policy making.

Also...if they try to spin this money laundering idea, wouldn't they also have to go after paypal?  I've wondered in the past how many people use ebay/paypal to launder money.

Yeah, I don't think that illegal drug trade via mail is an incredibly new idea. I can't help but think of this one-liner by the late Mitch Hedberg:

I love my fed-ex guy cause he's a drug dealer and he doesn't even know it...and he's always on time.

Silk Road and Bitcoin just make it easier to do the things we already did. Just like Amazon and PayPal did for legal goods that we used to order via catalog.

[matonis]

Not true...people use these all the time to buy groceries and to go on vacation, restaurants, etc.   http://bit.ly/k3rDSO

ie:Bitcoin will succeed because it's just like cash

Exactly. And, no one gets to decide what is a 'moral transaction' and what is a 'real crime'. Transaction done.

[cloud9]

Maybe all of the estimated 600,000 average daily visitors to bitcoin.org ( http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12574.msg174344#msg174344 ) is " ... cool, webby, free, and niche ..." (May 18, 2011 http://www.slate.com/id/2294980 ), or " ... criminals, online poker players, tax-evaders, pornographers, drug dealers, and other unsavory types tired of carrying around a Vermeer ... " (May 18, 2011 http://www.slate.com/id/2294980 ) or now Silk Road customers (June 5, 2011 http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/technology/silk-road-the-ebay-for-narcotics-57274.html )?  Or maybe most of them just want a universal, user friendly, medium of exchange (June 6, 2011 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade ) for their goods/services/credits/contracts/other?  Doesn't the media just love sensation and shouldn't we just get over that?

Wouldn't it do Bitcoin very good if Silk Road can be sniffed out through the blockchain where just one misstep were taken by them or one of their customers?  Wouldn't the investigation surely be easier than an investigation where conventional cash transactions took place?

And really, isn't the Bitcoin market place distancing itself from all illegal trade (at least in the US and Japan https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade ), and don't you need to be actively laundering Bitcoins to launder Bitcoins as the bitcoin.org Bitcoin client / system doesn't do this for you?

So isn't Bitcoins a tool like anything else in life that can be used for good (very good - near instant, frictionless transfers, spanning the globe of a digital medium of exchange) or bad (very bad - in this instance distributing drugs that are destroying people's children's lives, etc., etc.)?

Doesn't Bitcoin in its standard form (you can prove with the blockchain where you got it from) provide no anonymity - and isn't it actually very, very transparent?  If you launder Bitcoins (you can not prove where you got it from) however - that's another story?

Doesn't cash in its standard form (you can prove with receipts where you got it from) provide no anonymity?  If you launder cash (you can not prove where you got it from) however - that's another story?

[Gavin Andresen]

I wrote a blog post about this:
  http://gavinthink.blogspot.com/2011/06/but-you-can-use-it-to-buy-drugs.html