VeeMiner, obvious we are in the same emotion here. And now I started the war with Nefario, however, I still remembered the first PM we exchanged in the past. He was nice. But it is not relevant at all if you default in the business, and ruining all the contractual relationships of those securities. It is not number, it is the wealth of the users. And again, Nefario refuse to prove he is not scamming by refuse giving user access to the trading history and just let people guess whether the number should be "trust" or not.
However, after the pain, we have to fight. The efficient market is not come out of thin air. It is built by the people. Several little thoughts:
1. Credit agency of our own. At the same time, it should work with traditional personal credit recording and reporting institution. Our goal should be that a crime in bitcoin community will have the same bad influence for the man in real world. America has very good credit record system, you U.S bitcoiners should learn to leverage these resource.
2. Rethink about the anonymity culture. buying weed unanimously is absolutely fine, but doing business anonymously should be treated as "impolite", especially if you're the one who get the money first in a transaction. We should see anonymous as a red flag in a normal business relationship, except the Silk Road market. Anonymousness is good for speaking freely, but also good for scamming freely. If you are a polite business man, you should let your business parter know exactly who you are, which means, how to let the courts find you, so deliver the signal that you're not scamming.
3. Business contract is very important. For large amount of money, either for purchasing, depositing or investment, we should sign a serious paper contract with the help of lawyer. It does not cost very much. The please "Send bitcoin to adress 1xxx" or "wire money to bank account XXX" are only good for small money, if you spent, invest or deposit a big money, the paper contract should be put in place before you pay. Blind trust is not a way to promote the efficiency. The bitcoin is only a kind of value storage and payment system. In a business, we need signing contract and define the legal jurisdiction.
For example, if you all had asked Pirate40 to sign a contract before investing in, it would have be much much easier to put that guy into jail nwo. As these kind of "serious paper contract culture" evolved, the scams will be much more difficult to grow, or they even reluctant to try.
4. For mtgox and other exchange, please open a separate bank account for large deposits, so called "third-party custody" bank account. I have not met with any money wiring problem myself. But mtgox should make an example for the community as a leading exchange, and any exchange that make such solution will be a leading exchange. (it is standard operation in the security exchange nowadays world wide).
For the clients fund, they must be deposit in separate bank accounts for each users, or at least large users. The stock brokers in Hong Kong and China will open a separate bank account for each investors, and the broker cannot move the money, only the users have rights to withdraw the money. I am not sure about what this arrangement cost, but I think for the large deposit of mtgox, they should demand such arrangement. And Mtgox should research and find such arrangements seriously as so much disputation have sounds in this community.
For the exchange, especially the ones with the KYC demand, sending a paper contract after the digital registration process, I think it is a must. Or at least, a digitally signed contract should be sent to every user. The exchange is where users depositing money and wealth, it should be a politeness for the exchange to make users easy to show the courts evidence, such as contract and trading history, to claim rights.
Mtgox and other leading exchange should prepare similar system. You should assume yourself can be cheating them, and then people how can prevent that, but not ask users to "trust" you.
I don't appreciate the "trust" idea anymore. 2012 may not be the end of the world, but it will definitely the end of my over "trusting" .
5. For the security exchanges: in a real security trading service system, the history are not only held by the brokers, but both a central recording system and the bank (as mentioned before, investors' money are deposited in separate bank account : the bank should be notified what stock are bought or sold. So even if China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited were burnt down and lost all the transaction record, investors can still have the trading history and balance and then get back the shares.
Sending shareholder list to only the issuers is a bad idea. The exchange must provide the evidence in such situation: if the issuers default, the security holder have some solid evidence to sue the issuer to claim his rights. In the old times, the stock issuers will print the paper stock beautifully and try to sell them, and the paper stock is kind of evidence of rights. We are in a community of cryptocurrency, it should be very easy for us to find some digital solution for the security evidence.
This community, please don't get used to scam. The Open Transaction is good idea for small financing project, but not a good idea for large money. We should not say that "we have to always trust the issuer" for large amount of investment. We should say, we should be able to easily show the evidence to court and claim our rights.
6. Punish. Bitcoin Foundation now starts with a positive thinking, such as PR, develop the codes and so on. The Bitcoin Foundation or any other non-profit organization should help the bitcoin community to use the real world law, to punish the liar and scammers, such as Pirate40. From Pirate, we may not get back a single coin in the future, but we still can get back the justice. I know Gavin and other core members of Bitcoin Foundation have warned more than enough that people should not fall into the scam, however, working against pirate is still good for the community.
The ppdai.com in China show us a good example. For everyone who like to borrow money, the identity must be verified, and friends' contact information must be provided. If a man default longer than 120 days, all the information will be public. :
http://www.ppdai.com/blacklist/And ppdai.com will try their best to make this records in the credit reporting system.
There is a great opportunity for someone start a similar platform in the bitcoin economy.
Do you have any other ideas?
