Centralization Will Bring Down Bitcoin

[pwi]

I love the idea of a totally decentralized exchange like this.  But I see one legal problem with it: if the government sees this going on and realizes what is happening, it's likely going to treat it as money laundering.  I don't see any way this can happen and actually be thought of as legal by the US government.  Would it be harder to target than an exchange?  Absolutely, but by no means impossible.

Insert your favorite talking head's voice here:

"Breaking news people. You don't want to miss this....A large group of 'crypto-currency' fanatics have had billions of dollars seized by authorities. Experts say these individual's facilitated transactions between criminals dealing in child pornography, identity theft, illegal narcotics, counterfeit money, money laundering, and may have played a role in the terrorist attacks of (insert date here). It took 18 months and almost 1 billion dollars in tax payers' money to catch these cagey cyber-crooks, but the effort has paid off in a big way! (cuts to many guys being arrested for doing nothing more than being the 'b' - see below. The spin makes them look like KPers or meth dealers.)  This was the largest money seizure of it's kind anywhere in the world. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting report by Trisha Takanowa."

I like the idea of the circle of trust. I don't like the idea of spending time in Gitmo for doing nothing more than being the the 'b' in a->b->c. When will we realize, as a society, that 'b' has NOTHING to do with the ultimate outcome? It's going to happen either way.

[Chaoskampf]

I love the idea of a totally decentralized exchange like this.  But I see one legal problem with it: if the government sees this going on and realizes what is happening, it's likely going to treat it as money laundering.  I don't see any way this can happen and actually be thought of as legal by the US government.  Would it be harder to target than an exchange?  Absolutely, but by no means impossible.

Insert your favorite talking head's voice here:

"Breaking news people. You don't want to miss this....A large group of 'crypto-currency' fanatics have had billions of dollars seized by authorities. Experts say these individual's facilitated transactions between criminals dealing in child pornography, identity theft, illegal narcotics, counterfeit money, money laundering, and may have played a role in the terrorist attacks of (insert date here). It took 18 months and almost 1 billion dollars in tax payers' money to catch these cagey cyber-crooks, but the effort has paid off in a big way! (cuts to many guys being arrested for doing nothing more than being the 'b' - see below. The spin makes them look like KPers or meth dealers.)  This was the largest money seizure of it's kind anywhere in the world. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting report by Trisha Takanowa."

I like the idea of the circle of trust. I don't like the idea of spending time in Gitmo for doing nothing more than being the the 'b' in a->b->c. When will we realize, as a society, that 'b' has NOTHING to do with the ultimate outcome? It's going to happen either way.

These must be stepping stones toward a world where we don't have to worry about Fiat at all. The only reason this is necessary is because not everyone has Bitcoins. Not everyone has a business accepting Bitcoins. Not everyone has friends they can buy Bitcoins from. To truly establish the crypto-economy (it's already happening, just slower than it needs to), we need to first extract as much capital out of the old economy as possible.

[Hippie Tech]

Has anyone thought of creating a universal crypto wallet client that does the exchange rate for you ?.

Yup Chaoskampf. Its time for the dragon to eat it's tail.

pEACe

[BitPirate]

The point is, any "elaborate tree house" is just money laundering, plain and simple.

I agree the solution is to have more exit nodes... Yes. But why focus on BTC-> fiat conversion? It's the fiat that is the problem.  We need more grass roots buyers and sellers of physical goods accepting Bitcoin. Focus on that. There is no need to hide it, and it is not illegal.

[Chaoskampf]

The point is, any "elaborate tree house" is just money laundering, plain and simple.

I agree the solution is to have more exit nodes... Yes. But why focus on BTC-> fiat conversion? It's the fiat that is the problem.  We need more grass roots buyers and sellers of physical goods accepting Bitcoin. Focus on that. There is no need to hide it, and it is not illegal.

In the eyes of the law, Bitcoin itself is already money laundering...plain and simple.

The main point here is that we can't move fiat around as easily as Bitcoin. This is where services like Dwolla come in. If you're proposing we build the Bitcoin economy solely on the backs of merchants, you're ignoring the fact that there are billions of people who don't have Bitcoins. Where would they get it from? Mining? You can't expect everyone who wants to get involved in Bitcoin to become a merchant in order to do so. The reason we've had such a huge explosion in the value of this currency is because massive amounts of Fiat have been taken out of the old economy in exchange for Bitcoin. As this becomes more and more difficult because of government intervention, we'll have to start considering ideas like this, however inconceivable they may seem at first.

[BitPirate]

In the eyes of the law, Bitcoin itself is already money laundering...plain and simple.

Except that's not true. It can be used for money laundering once the fiat is in the equation.

The trader problem is a chicken and egg problem. Ultimately the more people who accept BTC as payment, the more the problem goes away. Until then we still need exchanges. But to get to this ideal point in the future, we need to focus on the traders, and keep the exchanges from being shut down.

On the contrary, proposing an overt money laundering scheme strikes me as bait for the authorities. and could bring more harm than good. For all intents and purposes, it moves your aim from "Want to buy and use digital currency" to "Want to launder money". And if that's your aim, a public forum is probably not the wisest place to set that kind of thing up.

[Chaoskampf]

In the eyes of the law, Bitcoin itself is already money laundering...plain and simple.

Except that's not true. It can be used for money laundering once the fiat is in the equation.

The trader problem is a chicken and egg problem. Ultimately the more people who accept BTC as payment, the more the problem goes away. Until then we still need exchanges. But to get to this ideal point in the future, we need to focus on the traders, and keep the exchanges from being shut down.

On the contrary, proposing an overt money laundering scheme strikes me as bait for the authorities. and could bring more harm than good. For all intents and purposes, it moves your aim from "Want to buy and use digital currency" to "Want to launder money". And if that's your aim, a public forum is probably not the wisest place to set that kind of thing up.

And this is why it is a de facto money laundering tool as far as the government is concerned. The key word is "can". Think of these scenarios:


Me and you meet in some dark alleyway. I have 10 million dollars I need "laundering". You have the equivalent in Bitcoin. Commodities exchange hands

-or-

Me and you meet on some public internet marketplace for the world to see. I just spent 10 million dollars on some classic work of art (you could say I "laundered" my fiat with it). You have the equivalent value in Bitcoin. Commodities exchange hands.


Is there a substantive difference between these two scenarios? In my eyes, no, and neither to the eyes of the US government. There's no need for wishful thinking. Bitcoin will never be accepted by the status quo (at least in its present state. They could always co-opt it and produce some bastardization, e.g. Ripple).

[cryptoanarchist]

The point is, any "elaborate tree house" is just money laundering, plain and simple.

Your mother should be ashamed of what a weak coward you are.

The idea of p2p exchange has been discussed on here for years, but hasn't materialized. My guess is that the people with the skills to do it are already too busy and there is not a lot (if any) money to be made doing it. Also, it would take time for nodes to build a trusted reputation for paying out the fiat - during which a lot of people will get scammed.

I would like to see a whole bunch more localbitcoin sites that are hosted all over the world and on TOR. Its a great way to build reputations and the more trusted, LOCAL exchangers, the better. I'm in LA and already have a book of contacts to buy from and sell to.

[Hippie Tech]

Double speak is the status quo's greatest past time.

What was that I heard.. something about how the clamp down on money laundering put the banks into a cash shortage because nearly all fiat is in the hands of people who are involved in various illegal activities.

The return of the Greenback and/or the gold/silver standard is more vital now than it ever was.

[cryptoanarchist]

The return of the Greenback and/or the gold/silver standard is more vital now than it ever was.

Really? You must be listening to Bill 'the Mason shill' Still and his Money Masters disinfo movie. Do I really need to explain why greenbacks are a total non-solution in THIS forum?

[Chaoskampf]

The point is, any "elaborate tree house" is just money laundering, plain and simple.

Your mother should be ashamed of what a weak coward you are.

The idea of p2p exchange has been discussed on here for years, but hasn't materialized. My guess is that the people with the skills to do it are already too busy and there is not a lot (if any) money to be made doing it. Also, it would take time for nodes to build a trusted reputation for paying out the fiat - during which a lot of people will get scammed.

I would like to see a whole bunch more localbitcoin sites that are hosted all over the world and on TOR. Its a great way to build reputations and the more trusted, LOCAL exchangers, the better. I'm in LA and already have a book of contacts to buy from and sell to.

The problem is that most developers don't want to spend time and effort developing something that is in a shady legal realm. You could code a framework that would minimize the instances of scamming considerably, but the bigger problem must be where do you go once everything is complete? How many developers are willing to dedicate themselves to this underground project after it's up and running? Most like certainty (who doesn't), and the amount of work required to establish and orchestrate something like the idea I proposed would be well outside the comfort zone of most of our coding brethren. Obviously my proposal is somewhat extreme (though I consider it to be a very serious option), but even a simple p2p fiat exchange outside of the banking system would be inviting legal scrutiny.

[Hippie Tech]

The return of the Greenback and/or the gold/silver standard is more vital now than it ever was.

Really? You must be listening to Bill 'the Mason shill' Still and his Money Masters disinfo movie. Do I really need to explain why greenbacks are a total non-solution in THIS forum?

I do not know who this Bill is. At least you do. :p

Is there anything else you would like to assume about me ?

ANYTHING that causes the banksters to lose their grip on the world economy, is a gooood thing.

You'd think there would be a Greenback altcoin by now. lmao

[ecliptic]

I don't think it is possible, at a fundamental level, to have any sort of distributed, or P2P, or non-centralized method to go USD<->BTC


All you can do is local bitcoins.

Every way of moving USD into the digital internet realm is highly regulated

[Chaoskampf]

I don't think it is possible, at a fundamental level, to have any sort of distributed, or P2P, or non-centralized method to go USD<->BTC


All you can do is local bitcoins.

Every way of moving USD into the digital internet realm is highly regulated

The key is to use this regulation to your advantage. That was the whole point of my post. Instead of trying to pick away at the system from the outside, infiltrating from within (like my proposal, or something analogous) seems like the most "fundamental" way of going about this. Use the system to process it's own downfall. As far as local exchanges, I love the idea, but I don't expect that to be legal for very much longer...

[Chaoskampf]

With this reply, I reach 100 posts, finally becoming a full member. Just wanted this milestone post to be on one of my own threads. Can't believe I didn't join bitcointalk earlier. Also, watch out for the Chaoskampf proxy trading platform, coming to an internet near you:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221863.0

[cryptoanarchist]

These must be stepping stones toward a world where we don't have to worry about Fiat at all. The only reason this is necessary is because not everyone has Bitcoins. Not everyone has a business accepting Bitcoins. Not everyone has friends they can buy Bitcoins from. To truly establish the crypto-economy (it's already happening, just slower than it needs to), we need to first extract as much capital out of the old economy as possible.

this. +1

[Kouye]

Mt.Gox is dying.
This was part of the plan.

[Chaoskampf]

Since writing the original post, the Feds have just plowed through even more legally questionable (to put it lightly) regulation. If they don't mind breaking the law in order to enforce their law, then why should we get our panties all up in a bunch over fears of "money laundering" statutes? Stop depending on the Bitcoin Foundation to guide Bitcoin in its relations with governments. This community needs to learn to do its own PR.

Also, this....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/01/google-ordered-hand-over-data-fbi

And this.....(our system in a nutshell...#IllusionsOfProsperity)

http://www.theworld.org/2013/05/northern-ireland-town-fakes-prosperity-for-g8-summit/

[Chaoskampf]

      I just got back from a long discussion with one of the hot-shot econ professors at my university (Steven Landsburg, if anyone's interested), and he says that he would invest tens of thousands into Bitcoin if the exchange frameworks were more friendly/legal for doing so. We talked about p2p exchanges and the need for true decentralization in almost every regard in order to establish pure markets.

      There's clearly a tremendous amount of interest buzzing around concerning Bitcoin. Its power as a vehicle for transferring value is noticed by internet trolls, drug dealers, and prominent economists alike. Despite all the threads on here with plans for a p2p exchange, there doesn't seem to be a concerted effort to craft anything of the sort. Planning is clearly of fundamental importance, but there have already been a few protocols planned out that, to me, seem incredibly legitimate (The BitMessage thread being one of them). If nothing else, these should serve as blueprints for anyone to implement analogous or complementary frameworks. Who is doing this? If I had 6 months of uninterrupted development time, this is what I'd do 24/7 (maybe I'd sleep and poop from time to time as well). Do you guys know of any active development projects on this frontier? I read the Development board pretty regularly, but all the p2p projects there are very speculative rather than explicitly undertaken and being written up/designed. I truly hope that serious programmers are actually working on this, because there's only so much time left before the Internet is fully regulated and Bitcoin has another HUGE obstacle to traverse apart from the exchange legality issue and money laundering regulations.

      That brings me to another point. Do you guys know of any legitimate p2p internets? I'm familiar with mesh-net among a few others, but I'm curious to to see if the community knows of/is developing any alternatives. We need to appreciate the incredible importance that this factor will to play in the upcoming months and years. I'd argue that Bitcoin's future depends SOLELY on a free and open internet. No other issue is even close to being as important to the continued success and evolution of Bitcoin as this. What do you guys think?

[charleshoskinson]

That brings me to another point. Do you guys know of any legitimate p2p internets? I'm familiar with mesh-net among a few others, but I'm curious to to see if the community knows of/is developing any alternatives. We need to appreciate the incredible importance that this factor will to play in the upcoming months and years. I'd argue that Bitcoin's future depends SOLELY on a free and open internet. No other issue is even close to being as important to the continued success and evolution of Bitcoin as this. What do you guys think?

There is a lot of work right now being down on P2P exchanges and if you PM me, then I can make some introductions. This topic is very dear to me and vital to the long term success of Bitcoin.