Bitcoin marketing lies

[molecular]

I just heard Jeff Berwick or someone similar say: "with Bitcoin, you can send money totally anonymously from anywhere to anywhere for no fee and the currency is fungible down to 8 decimal places."

That quote cointains 3 lies.

I don't like lying and I think we should offensively discuss the issues that are fundamental to these lies and the fact these lies are being made (which is being done, don't get me wrong).

• Bitcoin is not anonymous... why is that not a problem?
• Bitcoin transactions are not free... why is that not a problem?
• Bitcoin doesn't scale easily... why is that not a problem?

Now I know these issues are being discussed at length and widely on this forum and this thread is not for doing that.

This thread is for asking: What's the easiest to understand story that isn't fundamentally misleading we can give to alleviate these (perceived) problems in the eye of the journalist and the general public?

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[niko]

Depends whom you are talking to. An economist, a merchant, a nerd, an anarchist, a socialist, a cop, a farmer, a teenager, a grandmother, a gangster, a monk, or any combination of the above will obviously have their own unique perspective and interests.

I like what Paysius did, for example - they have a pitch for merchants, and a pitch for "customers." Go check it out.

[molecular]

Depends whom you are talking to. An economist, a merchant, a nerd, an anarchist, a socialist, a cop, a farmer, a teenager, a grandmother, a gangster, a monk, or any combination of the above will obviously have their own unique perspective and interests.

I like what Paysius did, for example - they have a pitch for merchants, and a pitch for "customers." Go check it out.

ok, question answered.

next question: why are these things really not a problem?

[Littleshop]

Depends whom you are talking to. An economist, a merchant, a nerd, an anarchist, a socialist, a cop, a farmer, a teenager, a grandmother, a gangster, a monk, or any combination of the above will obviously have their own unique perspective and interests.

I like what Paysius did, for example - they have a pitch for merchants, and a pitch for "customers." Go check it out.

ok, question answered.

next question: why are these things really not a problem?

Well each could be a whole thread in itself but..

Bitcoin CAN be anonymous, it just is hard to do.  So it really is not a lie.  Just like saying 'this car can move a mattress safely on the highway' but knowing that you need skill and an understanding of aerodynamics to make it work.  It is not a lie, even if 75% of people can't figure out how to prevent the mattress from flying off.  Done properly Bitcoin is anonymous. 

I gather that most people don't NEED Bitcoin to be anonymous so of course that is the other angle.

[molecular]

I gather that most people don't NEED Bitcoin to be anonymous so of course that is the other angle.

But this is where it gets interesting.

Why isn't everybody encrypting his email? Because it's not the default setting.

What are the implications?

[lophie]

I just heard Jeff Berwick or someone similar say: "with Bitcoin, you can send money totally anonymously from anywhere to anywhere for no fee and the currency is fungible down to 8 decimal places."

That quote cointains 3 lies.

I don't like lying and I think we should offensively discuss the issues that are fundamental to these lies and the fact these lies are being made (which is being done, don't get me wrong).

• Bitcoin is not anonymous... why is that not a problem?
• Bitcoin transactions are not free... why is that not a problem?
• Bitcoin doesn't scale easily... why is that not a problem?

Now I know these issues are being discussed at length and widely on this forum and this thread is not for doing that.

This thread is for asking: What's the easiest to understand story that isn't fundamentally misleading we can give to alleviate these (perceived) problems in the eye of the journalist and the general public?

• Yes it is. With Credit cards extends you make to be relatively anonymous is called fraud and identity theft. With Bitcoin you can be known, psuedo-anonymous, anonymous (Good luck tracking coins to me when I donate from my mining pool directly and mine over tor), And with
  zerocoin project, Even more anonymous
• Bitcoin transactions are not free... why is that not a problem?

Who claimed them all to be "free" is misinformed. But it goes as well for who claims that none of them are because myself and several others DID make free transactions successfully. The ones who know what they are talking about say "The fees are much much much lower".

• Bitcoin doesn't scale easily... why is that not a problem?

If you hanged around enough around #bitcoin-dev and the technical and development forum you would know that it is indeed a problem (A foreseen future problem, Gavin estimation is 8 months to hit 1 MB blocks regularly)

[wopwop]

The transaction fee will increase as time goes on forever as it is inevitable considering that mining reward goes down and to keep bitcoin healthy miners must exist. Problem is this decision is centralized.

[lophie]

The transaction fee will increase as time goes on forever as it is inevitable considering that mining reward goes down and to keep bitcoin healthy miners must exist. Problem is this decision is centralized.

Another misinformed person. No the decision is not centralized.

Consensus make it and the free market between miners and transactors determine it. The current numbers are not hard coded and there is real effort from the core developers to make the decision making smarter and more adapting to market variables.

The above are also arguments to the reference implementation only which is getting reimplemented by libbitcoin and other projects, This point also adds to the argument of the fees amount decision not being centralized.

[wopwop]

The transaction fee will increase as time goes on forever as it is inevitable considering that mining reward goes down and to keep bitcoin healthy miners must exist. Problem is this decision is centralized.

Another misinformed person. No the decision is not centralized.

Consensus make it and the free market between miners and transactors determine it. The current numbers are not hard coded and there is real effort from the core developers to make the decision making smarter and more adapting to market variables.

The above are also arguments to the reference implementation only which is getting reimplemented by libbitcoin and other projects, This point also adds to the argument of the fees amount decision not being centralized.

mining pool operators decide the transaction fees, which is a handful of people (the 'elite').
so yes, it's quite centralized. it has already happened before with the 0.0005 minimum fee and will happen again as miners lobby the developers to code in higher minimum fees for better profits for the miners

what's also notable is that mining pool operators are not voted for by the people for the people so it's not even close to democratic

huge flaw in bitcoin that can only be fixed with a new bitcoin protocol. I guess satoshi forgot about this

[lophie]

mining pool operators decide the transaction fees, which is a handful of people (the 'elite').

14% are not pools and most accept free transactions, 17% is ASICMINER which accepts free transactions as well. The rest "high" fees are a free market regulating itself and that is clear as the hashing power get redistributed between pools by simple guys like me and the typical Joesixgigashashminer.

if an "elite" like slush choose 1 BTC as fees he will not hinder the network more than his variance of finding a block which will delay your transaction mostly by nothing and in 6-7% of the transactions, by a couple of minutes, if ever. 

so yes, it's quite centralized. it has already happened before with the 0.0005 minimum fee and will happen again as miners lobby the developers to code in higher minimum fees for better profits for the miners

The reason was not for better profits for the miners and a quick calculation of mining fees against block reward will show how absurd that is when you compare to the reason we all know, Which is to stop spamming the network and inflating the block chain. As well as planting the seed for the fees free market mechanism.

what's also notable is that mining pool operators are not voted for by the people for the people so it's not even close to democratic

The voting is done with hashing power so when I move my mining operation from slush pool to deep bit that is considered voting for a different pool operator and that is exactly what happened when deepbit reached 51%+ of the network.

Further more on this subject I would also add that slush and others are working on extending the adding features to stratum to allow the pools miners to choose specific transactions to include.

huge flaw in bitcoin that can only be fixed with a new bitcoin protocol. I guess satoshi forgot about this

Then dig in by all means and help out. Go to extends of forking and creating an alt coin but please don't let all what I wrote to you go in vain. I am not trying to discourage you or plainly say you are wrong. I am trying to help you as much as I can to inform you of any information that I know regarding the subject. Now it is just your part of checking the validity or my responses and the rationale regarding the works-in-progress/done of the points you questioned of Bitcoin.

[wopwop]

mining pool operators decide the transaction fees, which is a handful of people (the 'elite').

14% are not pools and most accept free transactions, 17% is ASICMINER which accepts free transactions as well. The rest "high" fees are a free market regulating itself and that is clear as the hashing power get redistributed between pools by simple guys like me and the typical Joesixgigashashminer.

if an "elite" like slush choose 1 BTC as fees he will not hinder the network more than his variance of finding a block which will delay your transaction mostly by nothing and in 6-7% of the transactions, by a couple of minutes, if ever.  

so yes, it's quite centralized. it has already happened before with the 0.0005 minimum fee and will happen again as miners lobby the developers to code in higher minimum fees for better profits for the miners

The reason was not for better profits for the miners and a quick calculation of mining fees against block reward will show how absurd that is when you compare to the reason we all know, Which is to stop spamming the network and inflating the block chain. As well as planting the seed for the fees free market mechanism.

what's also notable is that mining pool operators are not voted for by the people for the people so it's not even close to democratic

The voting is done with hashing power so when I move my mining operation from slush pool to deep bit that is considered voting for a different pool operator and that is exactly what happened when deepbit reached 51%+ of the network.

Further more on this subject I would also add that slush and others are working on extending the adding features to stratum to allow the pools miners to choose specific transactions to include.

huge flaw in bitcoin that can only be fixed with a new bitcoin protocol. I guess satoshi forgot about this

Then dig in by all means and help out. Go to extends of forking and creating an alt coin but please don't let all what I wrote to you go in vain. I am not trying to discourage you or plainly say you are wrong. I am trying to help you as much as I can to inform you of any information that I know regarding the subject. Now it is just your part of checking the validity or my responses and the rationale regarding the works-in-progress/done of the points you questioned of Bitcoin.

nothing prevents mining pool operators from making a joint operation and decide to increase fees. there is just a current 'trust' by the bitcioners that mining pool operators won't form a group 'elite'.

Once they do form a group (they will, because absolute power corrupts absolutely), they can drip by drip increase the fees as they see fit. ofcourse they won't do it in any big amounts (maybe 2% increase a year), just enough so it doesn't cause a riot amongst the peasants of bitcoin. they could also decrease fees and this way control the money supply by deflation and inflation to their private agenda.

the people's of bitcoin cannot do anything about it. don't come up with stupid shit like 'oh just built an alt coin' or 'dont use bitcoin if you dont like it'. that's really a weak argument. bitcoin is established and people use it for their personal reasons. ofcourse eventually the people's of bitcoin will eventually revolt against this centralized power but that will not happen until many years of being raped by the bitcoin elite.

the problem is that bitcoin has a premise that such a centralization does not exist, but there is and it's very obviously there for everyone to see. and it's extremely dangerous. the centralized power is at the mining operators and they are just a very select few people that were NOT even voted for power. it will be a funny day when people's of bitcoin can vote for who will be the mining operators because that assumes central power like it is in the current world already.

if you can't understand this then that's ok, I don't expect someone to be rational when they are emotionally attached to something.

[Littleshop]

mining pool operators decide the transaction fees, which is a handful of people (the 'elite').

14% are not pools and most accept free transactions, 17% is ASICMINER which accepts free transactions as well. The rest "high" fees are a free market regulating itself and that is clear as the hashing power get redistributed between pools by simple guys like me and the typical Joesixgigashashminer.

if an "elite" like slush choose 1 BTC as fees he will not hinder the network more than his variance of finding a block which will delay your transaction mostly by nothing and in 6-7% of the transactions, by a couple of minutes, if ever.  

so yes, it's quite centralized. it has already happened before with the 0.0005 minimum fee and will happen again as miners lobby the developers to code in higher minimum fees for better profits for the miners

The reason was not for better profits for the miners and a quick calculation of mining fees against block reward will show how absurd that is when you compare to the reason we all know, Which is to stop spamming the network and inflating the block chain. As well as planting the seed for the fees free market mechanism.

what's also notable is that mining pool operators are not voted for by the people for the people so it's not even close to democratic

The voting is done with hashing power so when I move my mining operation from slush pool to deep bit that is considered voting for a different pool operator and that is exactly what happened when deepbit reached 51%+ of the network.

Further more on this subject I would also add that slush and others are working on extending the adding features to stratum to allow the pools miners to choose specific transactions to include.

huge flaw in bitcoin that can only be fixed with a new bitcoin protocol. I guess satoshi forgot about this

Then dig in by all means and help out. Go to extends of forking and creating an alt coin but please don't let all what I wrote to you go in vain. I am not trying to discourage you or plainly say you are wrong. I am trying to help you as much as I can to inform you of any information that I know regarding the subject. Now it is just your part of checking the validity or my responses and the rationale regarding the works-in-progress/done of the points you questioned of Bitcoin.

nothing prevents mining pool operators from making a joint operation and decide to increase fees. there is just a current 'trust' by the bitcioners that mining pool operators won't form a group 'elite'.

Once they do form a group (they will, because absolute power corrupts absolutely), they can drip by drip increase the fees as they see fit. ofcourse they won't do it in any big amounts (maybe 2% increase a year), just enough so it doesn't cause a riot amongst the peasants of bitcoin. they could also decrease fees and this way control the money supply by deflation and inflation to their private agenda.

As long as true barriers to entry are not formed (like only people with x amount of hashing or license) there will be people able to do free transactions. One could form a public group that was a p2p pool that would take free transactions.  It is quite hard to completly lock out free transactions though you certainly can slow them down.

[lophie]

if you can't understand this then that's ok, I don't expect someone to be rational when they are emotionally attached to something.

  0.0005 * (1.02^100) = 0.003622323, assuming stable prices for Bitcoin. What a fail conspiracy the pool operators are orchestrating.