Is Bitcoin really censorship-resistent if they can't reach Canadian truckers

[brainactive]

The canadian truckers are unable to get a hold of the 21 bitcoin that have been donated to them recently because the wallets associated with the fundraising have been tracked and banned from all regulated financial institutions (including banks and exchanges). Two questions for discussion:
1. Is bitcoin really censorship resistent if the government can track and ban addresses? Bitfinex hackers being tracked and caught is another example (though most people would argue that this is an example of "positive" censorship resistence, unlike the canadian truckers example).
2. Can bitcoin be both censorship resistent and transparent at the same time?

[stompix]

The canadian truckers are unable to get a hold of the 21 bitcoin that have been donated to them recently because the wallets associated with the fundraising have been tracked and banned from all regulated financial institutions (including banks and exchanges).

...in Canada. They don't have complete jurisdiction all over the world.
Edit:
Here is the news source before anybody asks:
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/02/16/canada-sanctions-34-crypto-wallets-tied-to-trucker-freedom-convoy/

Bitcoin is censorship resistance, nobody can stop the transfer of Bitcoins, so if the crowdfunding platform would choose to donate bitcoins directly to the truckers no ban could ever stop this from happening. What FINTRAC can do in this situation is try to stop any exchange from BTC to CAD with coins coming from a backlist of addresses, and that's a thing bitcoin was never designed to bypass nor could it ever do.
But for that we have mixers.  

1. Is bitcoin really censorship resistent if the government can track and ban addresses?

Banning bitcoin addresses is almsot as futile as banning spammers on this forum.

[mk4]

They're only banned from selling the coins on centralized platforms like Kraken and Coinbase, but they're still totally free to move the funds around. Heck, then can even still sell the funds in a peer-to-peer manner if they chose to.

As for the tracking, there's a reason why CoinJoins and mixers exist, and why developers are still trying to work on making Bitcoin more private.

[Darker45]

Strictly speaking, can a government ban an address? No, I don't think so. What the government can do is to ban banks and regulated exchanges from getting involved with a certain address. Could they impose anything on an address? No, not at all. Their imposition could only affect the regulated entities. What if the address were to send Bitcoin to other destinations outside these highly regulated entities? Could it be done? Yes, of course. However, the condition is that the address is actually owned by the one who uses it. If it belongs to a custodial wallet or to a centralized crowdfunding platform like GiveSendGo, then it could be frozen or censored and the funds be stopped from going out or even seized. But that's not Bitcoin's fault.

As to question number 2, yes, I think so.

[franky1]

the fundraiders.. oops i mean fundraisers.. (now passed to 'unknown key holders' in a multisig) can still pass bitcoins direct to truckers who give the keyholders bitcoin addresses. . then the truckers can find their own methods of converting.

supposedly the fundrai?ers say '20% of funds will be put onto a hardware wallet for immediate needs' which translates to.. 'we wont hand out 80% of funds immediately'. yet even the 20% has not been distributed out immediately..

all of this stems not from the convoy itself. but mainly the original fundrai?ers had ties to political ideologies of wanting to separate from the french controlled eastern canada to want nationalisation by the british colonial western canada.

the original fundrai?ers know the identities of the new key holders. so government can court order the original fundrai?ers to disclose the new keyholder identities.. should the government decide to take that course of action

in short..
fundrai?ers and new key holders:
if you were at the convoy talking to truckers you must know how they want to get contacted/paid. as part of your job was to finance the truckers.
.. that was the whole point of your role!..SO PAY THEM. you should have already known how to communicate with the truckers already to get their payment method and/or bitcoin address. contact them now to get a bitcoin address.. to PAY THEM.. so no excuses. PAY THEM.

absolve your responsibilities of the funds by paying the the truckers. not hiding behind anonymity and excuses of inability to exchange. just pay the truckers, and be done with it

keyholders, you are only at risk of court orders to hand funds to government. if you continue to hold the funds. so pay the truckers. absolve yourself. then let the government run around trying to find all the truckers(if government should choose to).

[pooya87]

The canadian truckers are unable to get a hold of the 21 bitcoin that have been donated to them recently

The real distinction is whether the donation went to the miners or did it go to some third party centralized fundraising platform that could be attacked by the government.
The way I understood is that there was a donation platform (similar to GoFundMe) and the donations were sent there so you can't really say the "truckers received bitcoin" because they didn't.

Besides the Canadian government didn't "ban" addresses, they banned "bank accounts" of those who sold bitcoin for fiat and the authoritarian government thought were linked to the protests.

1. Is bitcoin really censorship resistent if the government can track and ban addresses? Bitfinex hackers being tracked and caught is another example (though most people would argue that this is an example of "positive" censorship resistence, unlike the canadian truckers example).
2. Can bitcoin be both censorship resistent and transparent at the same time?

Bitcoin is censorship resistant and transparent at the same time and nobody can ban your address. They can put pressure on their own centralized places like a centralized exchange or their banks but they can't prevent you from spending bitcoin or others from receiving it.

[franky1]

The way I understood is that there was a donation platform (similar to GoFundMe) and the donations were sent there so you can't really say the "truckers received bitcoin" because they didn't.

Besides the Canadian government didn't "ban" addresses, they banned "bank accounts" of those who sold bitcoin for fiat and the authoritarian government thought were linked to the protests.

'tallycoin' didnt manage a privkey. they are just a website where people type in a public address. a target to achieve. and a title for the campaign.

tallycoin just block 'explores' the public address and tally's the total transactions put into the address as a display on the website. without actually having to know the privkey.

the fundraisers (actual privkey owners) had the keys to ~20.6 btc upto valentines day. and they moved the coin to ~3dozen other keys presumed to now be owned by 'unknown people in a group of multisigs'

where these new 'unknown people' have the keys to move the coins split over 3dozen addresses.

..
as for the government.. much like publicising a FBI 'most wanted' watch list of terrorist suspects. the government also now has a bitcoin address suspect watch list. which all exchanges that are (regulated) money service businesses have to not only KYC their customers but also..  to watch any donations coming into those exchanges and if its one of these "watchlist" suspect taints, report details of what account is associated with such suspect deposit.

its then up to the report to describe events, also note value deposited, value already in account, trade history, ip, email and ofcourse the KYC ID. and send this report to the government. there is no government, not even in china, that spies on every account(they dont have the ability nor manpower to do so). they rely on regulated businesses reporting SUSPECT customers or be punished if found to have failed to report on something that should have been reported. not every account is sent to government. just suspect accounts

its then upto the government to read the suspect report and to decide what actions need to be taken. such as to order the exchange:
to freeze the account completely
not offer any service to the account user apart from withdrawal of same format currency via same method as deposit
restrict some services/features of the exchange
allow transactions/trade/exchange/withdrawal by other means to continue.

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin is "Censorship resistant" IF you only transfer bitcoins outside of third party Fiat linked services. These FIAT services are not part of the Bitcoin technology, but services that were created to strip anonymity and censorship resistance and to cash in on profits on top of this technology.

Exchanges and wallet providers are not part of the Bitcoin protocol, they simply receive bitcoins and they link those bitcoins to people that are identified within their own database. (that data is not on the Blockchain)

So, once you use those services, you opt out on the benefits and the protection that this technology provides for you.    

[Poker Player]

I asked about this question in another thread on the subject. Not being able to spend the Bitcoin directly, but exchanging it in exchanges, I doubted if the government would not order them to freeze those accounts as well. I simply see that it will cost them more work, but they will be able to make use of the money eventually:

...in Canada. They don't have complete jurisdiction all over the world.

They're only banned from selling the coins on centralized platforms like Kraken and Coinbase, but they're still totally free to move the funds around. Heck, then can even still sell the funds in a peer-to-peer manner if they chose to.

As for the tracking, there's a reason why CoinJoins and mixers exist, and why developers are still trying to work on making Bitcoin more private.

Even if it takes time and work, at least with Bitcoin there are ways to escape the clutches of the state.

[witcher_sense]

the wallets associated with the fundraising have been tracked and banned from all regulated financial institutions (including banks and exchanges).

If I am not mistaken, the Canadian government banned bitcoin addresses (not wallets) that are associated with the fundraising in favor of those who so far have been peacefully protesting. They can't ban self-hosted bitcoin wallets because it would require seizing or destroying all the backups of seed phrases and private keys which are things with which you ensure control over a specific wallet. Since they haven't seized or destroyed anything, users, who were supposed to be affected by such a ban, can continue to use their wallets without any friction. The Canadian government can't ban specific bitcoin addresses either because users, who happen to have their addresses banned, can create as many additional addresses as they want because it costs nothing, and they can move banned coins to another address that is not yet banned. While it is costless to create another bitcoin address, the costs of enforcing such a ban, the costs of monitoring and updating a blacklist, and costs of other things that different platforms have to do to comply with regulations, are considerable and they can become an unbearable burden for taxpayers, which may result in social unrest and even more protests.

[TheNineClub]

This is not a Bitcoin or a Crypto issue. BTC was not developed with the intention of transferring those funds to regulated banking systems, converting them into FIAT, or even withdrawing. So, if their crypto assets (the truckers) have not been sized, then this is more of an issue where people are trying to bend crypto to fit their needs in ways in which it was not intended in the first place. And that brings us to another issue, and that is can BTC and crypto stay censorship-resistant and at the same time gain mass adoption and acceptance from governments? I don't think it can. Those are some of the things that will have to give for it to become more widespread and not frowned upon by governments.

[Obito]

Bitcoin doesn't have the full authority on the Internet, there's governments and other managing organizations on the Internet so I don't think that your definition of censorship resistant is a bit different. Also, it's the CEX that don't want those bitcoins, they can still use DEX to sell the bitcoins and give it to the truckers.

[Wexnident]

It's not like the Canadian government has gotten hold of the funds from the fundraising though. What the government did was something like block the most obvious path that the money could move, but it isn't necessarily the only path. There are a lot more methods the fundraisers could do to bring out the money and convert it to Canadian dollars, just that it's gonna take a bit more time and probably effort to do so. Plus, it was honestly expected that it'd receive some censorship if users were to actually use centralized exchanges to do their transactions, which is outside of what Bitcoin is. s

[franky1]

9 hours ago. the 'unknown multisig keyholders'
consolidated 14.679btc to this address:
bc1q42t9dhpgc6du9pjmdkvxvmke82fl34jadqaxtq

then 10 minutes later split it up into 101 addresses.. where
it moved
100 addresses of amounts of 0.004
            ~7 addresses of 0.004 were (since spent)
            93 addresses of amounts of 0.004(remain unspent at time of post)
14.279 remaining which which went to:
bc1qa04luw7uqfurrcu4qjsc8nvlg9eddu5ye4p447

it then 10 minutes later
bc1qa04luw7uqfurrcu4qjsc8nvlg9eddu5ye4p447
split up into 101 addresses.. where
1 address of 0.279
bc1qflmltfkkyjd07x6cjq7l62a3wc23z8nntav4zp
100 addresses of amounts of 0.14
where by
~7 of the 100 addresses of 0.14 and the ~7 of the previous splits of 0.004 in last paragraph consolidated into little groups
examples like:
3NNYf4XvBufLNrWMaA19V6pxG3WqSvP68K - 0.144
which appears to be coinbase deposit address

then half a dozen 0.144 - unspent(as time of posting)
bc1qjd9245dv0jzfqu0z9f2kxsltj5hjfzc3a7wwzc
bc1qmxpqdlfe4fmdge9yasxwt4ujuj288mnzwcp8rr
bc1qs63v2vznlx0fq9te2jq85ft0wrnx0hplluhmje
bc1qxagk2r5xzszz528e5l6dvmptca6c09pk6ckukq
bc1qjd9245dv0jzfqu0z9f2kxsltj5hjfzc3a7wwzc
bc1qfjns4tjz39leydh4urtlc8fx7z69mxumdmz9q7
bc1qqw8mvxncl7uhehfw97er93k4zchhkvd87swk97

leaving 13btc unspent in ~ in 93 addresses of 0.14 and 93 addresses of 0.004

[PrivacyG]

Bitcoin is censorship resistant and transparent simultaneously even now.  It is censorship resistant if you make transactions peer to peer.  Once you get your coins transferred to a third party, they are no longer under your control and depending on who the third party is, even an authority may have access or the right to seize them.

It is why China's and India's theoretical crackdown on Bitcoin is impossible to truly accomplish.  An user experienced enough can avoid the ban without a doubt.

Bitcoin is as resistant in the face of authorities as drugs are.  They can prohibit their use, but they can not truly stop it once and for all.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Keremgor]

Problem They taint the Bitcoins with chainanalysis tools,if they can track bitfinex hack,that means they can make it..Thats the truth
 

Solution is marriage

use Grin>Bitcoin>Fiat. They cant taint the Bitcoin this way.

[hatshepsut93]

No government can stop a Bitcoin transaction. They can only tell exchanges to not accept deposits from certain addresses, so the solution is to use mixing and use decentralized exchanges and p2p trading. It's bad that on practice you will want to exchange Bitcoin back to fiat, because it's hard to spend it directly, but Bitcoin is the only chance to avoid government control, everything else operates on KYC principle so accounts and funds can be instantly frozen.

[PrivacyG]

Problem They taint the Bitcoins with chainanalysis tools,if they can track bitfinex hack,that means they can make it..Thats the truth
 

Solution is marriage

use Grin>Bitcoin>Fiat. They cant taint the Bitcoin this way.

What if the Bitcoin I receive from Grin > Bitcoin are tainted as you say?  The 'tainting' strategy works similar to a Ponzi scheme: it works until it does not.  You can not taint addresses because it ultimately leads to all addresses having a tainted history.  The Bitcoin you hold may have been part of a drug deal before.  We probably all own a coin with tainted history.  If you want a Cryptocurrency that is truly fungible, it is Monero.  But you have to pay in Monero directly, if you do not want to spend possibly dirty coins.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[franky1]

No government can stop a Bitcoin transaction.

government cant stop a bitcoin transaction thats already sent. but if they know the identity of the current fund key holders. then governments can stop the key holders from making a transaction.. its called handcuffs.

the bitfinex thieves were not able to move their 90k stash when there was a knock at the door

if they can find where you put your key. they can come after the key. or handcuff the keyholder.

yes its possible to have a 3of4 multisig.. and hope you find out which 1 of the 4 key holders got arrested first when they get arrested. to have time for the other 3 keyholders to move the stash to new people.. before the other 3 get a 'knock and enter'
.. but you have to HOPE that S.W.A.T dont do a synchronised 'knock and enter' on all 4 people at same time. and you better have organised the next 4 people to be ready to take control before you hear a knock.

i personally am a bitcoin maximalist. but im not a wishful dreamer.
bitcoin is great. no one can touch your coins without the keys..  ..but be prepared and aware of the points of failure about how the keys can be found.
they cant brute force the blockchain for your coin. but they can bruteforce your front door, PC, devices, and interrogate you under punishment of prison for staying quiet

[PrivacyG]

government cant stop a bitcoin transaction thats already sent. but if they know the identity of the current fund key holders. then governments can stop the key holders from making a transaction.. its called handcuffs.

I suppose hatshepsut93 was referring about the government stopping a Bitcoin transaction the same way they can stop a bank transaction.  Obviously, they can force you to be physically incapable of broadcasting a transaction but even then, if the wallet is set up properly, they will not be able to stop the money flow.

Consider a multi-sig setup or someone close to you has the private key, the coins can be gone long before they get to brute force the devices.  Yes, you may now rot in prison for staying quiet but the point I am trying to make is that even for your example of handcuffing they still do not have the power to enforce a freeze of coins.  They have the same power over your coins that they have over your clothes.  In fact, if a multi-sig is set up, they have even less power over them.  It is like they seize a t-shirt from your wardrobe and suddenly it gets stolen.  They can do nothing about it except following its traces and looking for it again until they find the thief's identity.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG