Bitcoin is under attack - here's how to fight it

[cdnbcguy]

Flood the world with Bitcoin-ish currencies.

Not Bitcoins themselves - that can't be done - but other crypto currencies. The way to do that is to make it as easy as possible for people to start their own currency with it's own genesis block, that will play nicely with others and, of course, Bitcoin itself.

Yes, I know Multicoin has taken a few steps in that direction, but what we really need is a turn key solution so anybody can do it.

The utopian solution would be for the Bitcoin client itself to have an option 'Start your own currency' that will accept a currency name, a starting statement, a time-between-blocks argument, a blocks-per-difficulty argument, etc.

When done, it would automatically create the genesis block and wallet in a new directory and start mining.

Also, there will be a way to let others just get the particulars and begin using the new currency, if they so choose.

This will cause a new problem, a million little idiot currencies, but it will swamp the people trying to destroy Bitcoin, so we will have traded a potentially fatal problem for an annoyance.

[e521]

This will cause a new problem, a million little idiot currencies, but it will swamp the people trying to destroy Bitcoin, so we will have traded a potentially fatal problem for an annoyance.

nobody is trying to destroy bitcoin and if you think it's a "potentially fatal problem" then you should start to buy/mine them

[dree12]

Flood the world with Bitcoin-ish currencies.

Not Bitcoins themselves - that can't be done - but other crypto currencies. The way to do that is to make it as easy as possible for people to start their own currency with it's own genesis block, that will play nicely with others and, of course, Bitcoin itself.

Yes, I know Multicoin has taken a few steps in that direction, but what we really need is a turn key solution so anybody can do it.

The utopian solution would be for the Bitcoin client itself to have an option 'Start your own currency' that will accept a currency name, a starting statement, a time-between-blocks argument, a blocks-per-difficulty argument, etc.

When done, it would automatically create the genesis block and wallet in a new directory and start mining.

Also, there will be a way to let others just get the particulars and begin using the new currency, if they so choose.

This will cause a new problem, a million little idiot currencies, but it will swamp the people trying to destroy Bitcoin, so we will have traded a potentially fatal problem for an annoyance.

NO.

The way to fight it is to stop using alternate currencies. Use Bitcoin instead. Spend it, accept it, etc. Unite all currencies together, show governments that Bitcoin can't be stopped, and we can restore alternative cryptocurrencies once the crisis is over.

United we stand, divided we fall.

[ixne]

Not sure how creating a bunch of useless currencies helps Bitcoin at all. Of all the hypothetical attack vectors people have proposed on Bitcoin, the least worrisome is the idea that Bitcoin will be somehow swept offline.

Making a cryptocurrency is already super easy, as evidenced by the number of useless copycat currencies - how would making it even easier fix anything?  The hard part is adoption, which increases the utility and therefore the value of the currency, as well as infrastructure (e.g., markets, hardware, client software, marketing) which takes time and investment and therefore depends on utility. Increasing the number of currencies in fact dilutes utility from Bitcoin if it subtracts from the user base.  A currency with no utility (which is essentially what you propose manufacturing) is utterly useless to everyone.

Maybe you could describe this "fatal problem"/attack you see before proposing solutions.

[empoweoqwj]

Flood the world with Bitcoin-ish currencies.

Not Bitcoins themselves - that can't be done - but other crypto currencies. The way to do that is to make it as easy as possible for people to start their own currency with it's own genesis block, that will play nicely with others and, of course, Bitcoin itself.

Yes, I know Multicoin has taken a few steps in that direction, but what we really need is a turn key solution so anybody can do it.

The utopian solution would be for the Bitcoin client itself to have an option 'Start your own currency' that will accept a currency name, a starting statement, a time-between-blocks argument, a blocks-per-difficulty argument, etc.

When done, it would automatically create the genesis block and wallet in a new directory and start mining.

Also, there will be a way to let others just get the particulars and begin using the new currency, if they so choose.

This will cause a new problem, a million little idiot currencies, but it will swamp the people trying to destroy Bitcoin, so we will have traded a potentially fatal problem for an annoyance.

Just ideas are great, most are average, some are just plain dumb.

[bitbitcoins]

how to destroy ? bitcoin is self sustainable ...

[ViolentDelights]

Idiot currencies die rather quickly when they're scarecely adopted because, well, they're idiot currencies.

[cdnbcguy]

This will cause a new problem, a million little idiot currencies, but it will swamp the people trying to destroy Bitcoin, so we will have traded a potentially fatal problem for an annoyance.

nobody is trying to destroy bitcoin and if you think it's a "potentially fatal problem" then you should start to buy/mine them

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/06/23/bitcoin-foundation-receives-cease-and-desist-order-from-california/

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/53700133097/users-bitcoins-seized-by-dea

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/federal-agents-seize-a-portion-of-mtgox-bitcoin-exchange-funds-116572

http://gigaom.com/2013/05/15/bitcoin-price-holds-up-as-details-emerge-about-mt-gox-seizure/

This will do for a start.

[ixne]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/06/23/bitcoin-foundation-receives-cease-and-desist-order-from-california/

In other words, ignorant bureaucrats misunderstand how Bitcoin works and what the Bitcoin Foundation is. No bitcoins harmed in the making of this joke.

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/53700133097/users-bitcoins-seized-by-dea

In other words, drug dealer has funds confiscated as part of bust. Happens every day to USD. If anything, this gives BTC more legitimacy than it used to have.

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/federal-agents-seize-a-portion-of-mtgox-bitcoin-exchange-funds-116572

Money services business doesn't register as money services business despite 2 month head-start with FinCEN regulations. Also, these were USD seized, not bitcoins.


All of this has been discussed ad nauseum. Shit happens, just because it involves bitcoin doesn't mean the sky is falling.

[justusranvier]

The way you fight regulation is to form P2P networks which are unfeasible to attack. We already learned this lesson with file sharing technology, which is why Napster got shut down and Bittorrent is still going strong.

http://spelunk.in/2013/06/21/using-localbitcoins-com-to-help-grow-bitcoin-adoption/

[AliceWonder]

NO.

The way to fight it is to stop using alternate currencies. Use Bitcoin instead. Spend it, accept it, etc. Unite all currencies together, show governments that Bitcoin can't be stopped, and we can restore alternative cryptocurrencies once the crisis is over.

United we stand, divided we fall.

I agree with this.
The alternate currencies just seem like, well, printing money. They devalue crypto-currencies.

I think sometimes they can be used as test cases but for the most part, they really should just be ignored.
I've not seen them solve any problems, they just exist because they can and serve no purpose other than to confuse.

I have seen them cause problems, Ripple looks to me like it is really sinister and takes everything evil about 1%er big bank economics and packages it in a crypto-currency. Ripple needs to be squashed.

Mostly though, I just ignore the alt-coins. They will go away whether I ignore them or not, so might as well ignore them.

[AliceWonder]

The way you fight regulation is to form P2P networks which are unfeasible to attack. We already learned this lesson with file sharing technology, which is why Napster got shut down and Bittorrent is still going strong.

http://spelunk.in/2013/06/21/using-localbitcoins-com-to-help-grow-bitcoin-adoption/

Napster was for lossy small files which don't really work well with bittorrent.
I'm tired of people comparing them, they aren't even remotely comparable.

How many linux distributions could you grab via napster? How many software updates?

None. Naptster was a P2P database designed for the purpose of stealing music.

bittorrent is a P2P protocol for sharing large files. Sometimes it is used for piracy, sometimes not.

They are completely different.

[ViolentDelights]

Oh noes, some bloggers said bad things!!1