Vote No for Coin Validation!

[SgtSpike]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

[adamstgBit]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

the foundation is not representing us anymore.

no one wants to see coin validation or red-list ideas to be worked on, and look who's doing the deed!

WTF is going on !

[franky1]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

the redlisting - mike hearn idea.. will kill bitcoin, tainting coins and having people then required to publicise themselves to reclean the coin wont work. what makes me even more furious is bitcoin has no country. so why does mike hearn think US congress is the best government to seek legitimacy (word used VERY losely).. why not a country with less strict criteria. EG switzerland.. imagine it, businesses following switzerlands regulations. thus we still get the legitimacy that exchanges are being run correctly, but with the financial freedoms that USA would never have.

mike hearn should definetely not have been picked as a legal advocate.

[Technomage]

Registered Bitcoin addresses are not that bad. You can have a non-registered address and use CoinJoin to send bitcoins to the registered address. What IS a problem is tracking tainted coins and creating redlists for the transaction chains, which have nothing to do with address registration. Taint tracking is a serious issue.

Redlists can be perhaps acceptable if it's only for detecting very high taint. This is done already, we've seen hacked bitcoins tracked and blacklisted by exchanges - for a while at least. The problems arise when redlists are expanded to include more than just the "very hot" coins. That would be a disaster.

[El Extranjero]

That one vote is from Mike Hearn! LOL
 

[MonadTran]

This is done already, we've seen hacked bitcoins tracked and blacklisted by exchanges - for a while at least.

+1. I really don't see what all of the hype is about - unless the proposal is to remove some anonymity features from the blockchain itself. From what I have seen, seems like Mike's proposal was to integrate a Bitcoin wallet with a 3-party redlisting service. Which is a perfectly fine thing to do. Would be even better if multiple competing redlisting services were supported. If somebody dislikes the feature, they would be free to use or support another wallet. As long as the existing blockchain features are kept intact, people have the right to slap anything they like on top of that.

A list of "trusted" and "suspicious" addresses might be useful to maintain somewhere. A list of addresses which might have stolen bitcoins (including the bitcoins stolen by the government) might be useful to maintain somewhere.

[anarchy]

Keep voting guys, I made a topic on the bitcoin foundation forum with a link here:

Me, and many others in the bitcoin community are deeply concerned about Mike Hearn pushing for coin taint.  We feel that if the Bitcoin Foundation is even going to consider mentioning this in the upcoming government meeting, that we can no longer stand behind them.  This is serious.  Coin taint is even worse than increasing the 21 million limit.  Since the chairman of Law and Policy is involved here, I would like to call for a vote against this, and a clear stance from the Bitcoin Foundation.  I know many of the board members are supporters of mixing coins even more, so something like this can never happen again.  It would be a good message to the bitcoin community to confirm that the foundation supports keeping coins anonymous, instead of going in the opposite direction.

Ongoing VOTE on coin taint: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334051.0

[proudhon]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

I think coin/address tracking is inevitable.  It's the best way for governments to gain some control over bitcoin (I'm not saying it's a good thing). 

But here's what I think about it.  I think if governments are going to mandate that coins/addresses be tracked and attached to real-world identities, then the government should accept responsibility for when (not if) that data is leaked/stolen from the centralized servers that store it.

[anarchy]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

I think coin/address tracking is inevitable.  It's the best way for governments to gain some control over bitcoin (I'm not saying it's a good thing). 

But here's what I think about it.  I think if governments are going to mandate that coins/addresses be tracked and attached to real-world identities, then the government should accept responsibility for when (not if) that data is leaked/stolen from the centralized servers that store it.

Upcoming built-in mixing will prevent this

[Kouye]

Fuck these guys

please?

Not sure what to add. Maybe just another famous finger?

[Peter R]

Bitcoin is about freedom of financial transactions.  There are times when it is helpful to make financial transactions publicly-auditable (e.g., bitcoin donations to a politician) and there are times when privacy is preferred (tipping your favourite strip-for-bitcoin girl).  I don't think this freedom can ever be taken away.

There are cases where I as a business owner may appreciate having a government-identified bitcoin address. One idea I have is real-time tax remission for our future bitcoin-based economy.  Obviously taxes will not magically go away (but I do expect they will change) but at least we can make the process of paying them less painful.  

So Joe owns a coffee shop in this new bitcoin economy.  For a discount on his VAT, he agrees to accept all consumer payment to 1JoesCoffee987272389274237.  All his suppliers are also registered with the local tax authorities.  He runs a special version of a bitcoin client that auto-deducts the VAT from all purchases to 1JoesCoffee987272389274237 and sends, say 5%, to the tax authority.  When he makes a purchase from a supplier, the tax authority sees this and immediately sends Joe his input tax credit.  Man this would save a lot of headaches!!  

The only time Joe would have to do any VAT accounting at all is if he wanted to claim input tax credits from someone not on his list.  But this is no different than the way it is now, anyways.  

Now, when Joe's 70-year old mom comes in, Joe can still choose to give her a coffee on the house.  And if Joe's mom insists on paying, Joe can say, well just pay me half and send it here: 1JoesPrivateAddress098902834.  Of course Joe gives this back to his mom in some stealth way in the future, like all good sons would.  

So it seems you maintain privacy when you need to, but simplify accounting when you don't.  Seems win-win for both business owners and tax collectors.  

Fine print:
So that the competitors of Joe can't track his income statement, this addresses could be help privately between the tax authority and the businesses somehow.  Joe could have many government-registered addresses, or perhaps just some "key" shared between him and the tax authority that specifies the alorigithm for calculating each new address.

[Rupture]

Uhh no thanks

[bclcjunkie]

true, also i think it's all about taxes.. government isn't really scared of cryptos they are rather more concerned about bitcoin turning into a tax haven, remember how hard they went on UBS...?

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

I think coin/address tracking is inevitable.  It's the best way for governments to gain some control over bitcoin (I'm not saying it's a good thing). 

But here's what I think about it.  I think if governments are going to mandate that coins/addresses be tracked and attached to real-world identities, then the government should accept responsibility for when (not if) that data is leaked/stolen from the centralized servers that store it.

[Buffer Overflow]

I just accidentally clicked on the 'yes' option by mistake. Can't retract it.

Can mods retract it please?

[interlagos]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides...

Then it's "time to change your governments":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY4J_RvP8cY

EDIT:

Something like  http://openministry.info/  might be a good start

[ZephramC]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using and who has sent them money then businesses shall move to another country. (Of course, at least one country has to remain free.) If the businesses will enforce deanonymization then they will lose customers who value anonymity (and perhaps gain new ones who value bigger government control) in favor of those business that will not enforce it. The customers angry because of necessity of doing business with companies in some "foreign obscure" (but more liberal) country should push their governments to change things.
Seems quite fair to me.

[seafarer124]

Bitcoin was not meant to be like this.

Bitcoin is FREEDOM.

Getting into bed with the establishment will kill Bitcoin.  It will just be the same old same old, the majority getting screwed.

[seafarer124]

Have a read of the link below, Bitcoin will go the same way.

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303559504579198370113163530-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwNTExNDUyWj

[Walter Rothbard]

the foundation is not representing us anymore.

Well, they never represented me.  Just like the club in Washington that won all the popularity contests: I never voted for them, I didn't delegate any authority to them, I didn't engage in any activity authorizing them to represent me, and any statements to the contrary are simply lies.

[fligen]

Here's my question:  What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network.  Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public.  Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

HAHAHHA tell me when thepiratebay is shut down

governments CANNOT kill bitcoin

governments CANNOT regulate bitcoin unless we allow it