OFAC-Sanctioned Transactions Being Censored

[titular]

Recently I was scrolling on Twitter(X) and I came across something rather interesting..

A bitcoin developer that I follow on there (@0xB10C) posted this on his page. [1]

Given the community's commitment to upholding the censorship resistance of our network, I deemed it appropriate to conduct a thorough reading.


Here's what I found:

Firstly, the developers project aims to detect instances where Bitcoin mining pools fail to mine transactions they could have included. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a bureau in the U.S. Treasury Department, is responsible for enforcing economic and trade sanctions aligning with U.S. foreign policy, targeting countries, terrorists, and threats to national security. Over the past weeks, the project identified six missing transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses, prompting an investigation into whether these omissions were intentional or had alternative explanations.

The RSS feed reported missing transactions from ViaBTC, Foundry USA, and F2Pool, involving OFAC-sanctioned addresses.The analysis explores various reasons for transactions being absent from blocks, such as network propagation, individual node differences, and pool transaction prioritization. The primary goal is to determine whether mining pools intentionally filter OFAC-sanctioned transactions and assess the impact on Bitcoin's censorship-resistant properties.

One missing transaction from ViaBTC's block 808660 was due to the prioritization of other transactions by ViaBTC's Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator, indicating it was not intentionally filtered. Foundry USA's block 813231 did not include a sanctioned transaction due to potential delays in transaction propagation. Again, unintentional.
According to the report, the analysis suggests that F2Pool omitted transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses in blocks 810727, 811791, 811920, and 813357. The reasons for the omission vary for each block, but the common thread is the likelihood of intentional filtering by F2Pool. Here's a breakdown of the reasons for the omission in each block:

Block 810727:

F2Pool did not include this transaction, and instead, another transaction was included. The report suggests that the missing transaction had a slightly higher fee rate but was 3 vBytes smaller than the included transaction. Despite the fee rate advantage, the larger transaction was chosen.

Block 811791:

The report indicates that F2Pool omitted this transaction, and despite having enough space in the block, it was likely intentionally filtered. The presence of extra transactions in the block did not affect the inclusion of the sanctioned transaction, making intentional filtering more plausible.

Block 811920:

F2Pool did not include this large consolidation transaction in the block, and the report suggests that the transaction might not have propagated to F2Pool in time, but it's also likely that it was intentionally filtered. The transaction was marked as "recently broadcast" on mempool.space.

Block 813357:

F2Pool excluded this consolidation transaction from the block, and the report indicates that, similar to the case in block 811791, it's likely intentionally filtered. The transaction had been in the node’s mempool for more than 25 minutes, making it less likely that it wasn't known to F2Pool when building the block.


In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included in the blocks.

The original report can be found here. I highly encourage giving it a read. [2]

----------

I find myself uncertain about how to interpret all of this information. Despite the seemingly small number of just six transactions, the fact that such situations are possible raises concerns. I'm grappling with whether this should be a cause for worry in the future or if it's perhaps an overblown issue. The writer of the report leaves us with this:

The Bitcoin network, however, continues to work as normal. A single pool filtering transactions does not affect the censorship resistance of the Bitcoin network as a whole. Further monitoring of the transaction selection of mining pools allows identifying when more pools start to filter transactions based on, for example, OFAC sanctions. It also allows miners pointing their hashrate to these pools to make an informed decision on switching to a different pool if they don’t agree with a pool’s (unannounced) filtering policies.

[1] https://x.com/0xB10C/status/1726964430460588201?s=20
[2] https://b10c.me/observations/08-missing-sanctioned-transactions/

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[Ambatman]

It would be really bad if this is true.
Which would mean they might have likely found a loophole.
Always been paranoid towards the growing hash of top mining pools.
Let's see their reply
Hopefully it can circumvent our worries.
If they really good in business they wouldn't try to beat the Blockchain protocol
Long term benefit is better than short terms.
More diversification of mining pools still needed.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Here is the now-deleted tweet from the founder of F2Pool confirming they are blacklisting transactions:



Let's not pretend this has anything to do with him caring about whose transactions his pool is confirming. This has everything to do with complying with regulations to protect themselves at the expense of the community and the network. Anyone who is mining on F2Pool should be urgently moving to another pool which is not actively attacking bitcoin. Only a drop in hashrate and therefore a drop in their profits will stop F2Pool continuing down this road.

[Ambatman]

@Satofishi is the founder?
No wonder he was tagged a lot in the post.
So they couldn't even bring a concrete reason.

Let's not pretend this has anything to do with him caring about whose transactions his pool is confirming.

I'm curious how could he tell they are terrorist
Is it written in their wallet address?

I saw his tweet but thought it was a reply against CZ's action
Turns out he is trying to reduce his crime
By comparing it with another criminal
IMO, his action is way worse than CZ.
With percentage like that he's like this
How would he act if it was 45%.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

This looks bad. If certain bitcoin transactions start to be censored on the basis of suspicions, we are in trouble.

I find myself uncertain about how to interpret all of this information. Despite the seemingly small number of just six transactions, the fact that such situations are possible raises concerns. I'm grappling with whether this should be a cause for worry in the future or if it's perhaps an overblown issue. The writer of the report leaves us with this:

The Bitcoin network, however, continues to work as normal. A single pool filtering transactions does not affect the censorship resistance of the Bitcoin network as a whole. <...>

This is the best part of the news. As long as there are no pools that mimic this, as long as there is a large majority that resists, bitcoin transactions will remain uncensorable, because transactions that a censor miner decides not to mine will end up being mined by others.

[NotATether]

When you have miners censoring addresses, it is like wallets [backends] (eg. Wasabi) censoring addresses - there is certainly no rule that requires miners to censor addresses, and there is enough competition that anyone who engages in this silly blacklisting is going to miss out on fees.

It is being altruist, in a greedy environment. From a game theory perspective, it is not sustainable.

*Also, fuck F2Pool. I could at least understand why a wallet would do it, but for a bitcoin miner to violate the decentralization of the network they directly profit from is a mortal sin.

[Lucius]

~snip~
In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included in the blocks.

I believe that the reason for this is that the US obviously has a much greater influence in that part of the world, whether it is pressure coming from politics, or they have something with which they hold that pool in their hands. In addition, it is much smarter to start experimenting in someone else's backyard and see how things will develop, and only then implement such measures in US mining based pools.

However, I remembered that we already had a similar discussion, only that time it was MARATHON pool, which was actually the first to mine something they called "clean block". Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.



MARA Pool mined its first 'clean' block today

[stompix]

Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.

But there is also Foundry with 27% and that one is a closed pool with only big guys in the US mining, mainly companies listed on the stock exchange, and those will need just a hint or an email from the ones overseeing these and they will start censoring too, the percentage of those transactions is so small it won't even make a tiny dent in their revenue.
What I'm grabbing my popcorn for is the moment they stop with the backlisting and start with the reverse thing, whitelisted addresses only in their blocks, so unless you do KYC with every single one of them wit all your addresses you might have to think of solo mining  . And it's going to happen, I'm 99% sure they are already thinking of it but are just testing the waters for a while with smaller measure for a while, then, some will have a shock realizing how little decentralization we have in this aspect.

[o_e_l_e_o]

As long as there are no pools that mimic this, as long as there is a large majority that resists, bitcoin transactions will remain uncensorable, because transactions that a censor miner decides not to mine will end up being mined by others.

There is a significant difference between "uncensorable" and "not currently being censored". One of the main tenets of bitcoin is that it is supposed to be uncensorable. If 51% of the hashrate goes the same way as F2Pool and refuses to mine any transactions the US government tells them not to, then that is very much not "uncensorable". That is the death of bitcoin as at that point only government approved transactions are allowed to be mined.

This is the ultimate result of people not caring about their privacy, of most addresses on the network being linked to someone's KYC, of everyone using centralized exchanges and giving them all the control, and of people believing that blockchain analysis is anything other than complete bullshit. People like me have gone on and on about privacy, about censorship resistance, about self custody, about not using centralized exchanges for years, but the fact is that most people in this space care more about fiat profits than they care about what bitcoin was designed to be. This is the result. A government permissioned network.

[alani123]

I've gotta say, this is kinda worrying. Miners go against their interest in receiving fees from transactions by censoring certain transactions.
Maybe it was to be expected that a few pools would start doing this, but finding out that most of the big pools have started doing this around the same time? That's even more worrying.

I'm starting a thread to showcase which pools are NOT censoring transactions anymore. Feel free to drop by:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5475228.0

[so98nn]

I don't know what you guys are thinking but as a general user of Bitcoin, I am shocked that this can be done. How is it possible that they can hide the transaction or not show it on a chain? Or does this post mean that a specific pool did not pick it but was processed via another pool? I am just trying to understand the significance here. Anything that is broadcasted on the blockchain has to get included in a block so that it can be confirmed and then the whole process completes with a seed. Right?

I've gotta say, this is kinda worrying. Miners go against their interest in receiving fees from transactions by censoring certain transactions.
Maybe it was to be expected that a few pools would start doing this, but finding out that most of the big pools have started doing this around the same time? That's even more worrying.

I'm starting a thread to showcase which pools are NOT censoring transactions anymore. Feel free to drop by:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5475228.0

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already?  I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

[DooMAD]

Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.

But there is also Foundry with 27% and that one is a closed pool with only big guys in the US mining, mainly companies listed on the stock exchange

Yeah, as soon as I saw the list of ViaBTC, Foundry USA, and F2Pool and the topic heading regarding censoring transactions, I naturally jumped to the conclusion that Foundry was likely to be the guilty party.  Simply because "America doing insular America-type-stuff" seemed to make sense to me.  Really surprised (and disappointed) to see it's actually F2Pool.  It seems they're now an insult to their own legacy.  What a spectacular fall from grace.

Echoing calls for independent miners to consider migrating to other, more ethical, pools (profitability margins permitting). 

[o_e_l_e_o]

How is it possible that they can hide the transaction or not show it on a chain? Or does this post mean that a specific pool did not pick it but was processed via another pool?

They simply choose not to include the transaction in any of their blocks, so it remains unconfirmed until another non-censoring pool (hopefully) includes it in one of their blocks.

What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so?

The US government publish a list of addresses they want to censor. The mining pool refuses to include any transaction with pays bitcoin to or from any of these address.

[alani123]

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already?  I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

Miners host their own full nodes and chose which transactions to include or exclude from the blocks they mine based on their own arbitrary criteria. This time around certain miners chose to exclude certain transactions because they're associated with addresses on the OFAC list.

[Yamane_Keto]

Is this the second mining pool or the third that add OFAC list filter? It is unfortunate that these pools respond to pressure from the United States, but this will not change the nature of the decentralization of the network. If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block, but this means that transactions transmitted from addresses in OFAC blacklist will take longer on average than all transactions from other addresses.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

[coolcoinz]

Ultimately it will come down to how different people understand the words freedom and decentralization. Did you notice how in his tweet he defends his freedom of choice, as the right to filter transactions and choose to exclude Xi and Putin. This means that if his pool ever has the majority of hash power, he'll be able to stop you and me from transacting because he's now the king of bitcoin. He'll say for instance that if people from Russia want to transact they have to pay a ransom of whatever billions of dollars or he'll keep blocking them because that's his right given by "freedom." If he doesn't want you to transact, you won't.

We don't need someone to tell us who can ad who cannot send their bitcoin through the network. I may not like Puting, but if he bought bitcoin, mined it, or received as a gift, he should be able to use it.
It's not up to us to decide whose coins get tainted and who gets to transact. I guess people will once again have to vote with their mining power and make sure pools run by self-proclaimed dictators never get enough power to threaten the network.

[Z-tight]

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

That's a '51% attack' isn't it, could it be that easy for the BTC network to move from censorship resistant to censorship, because that's what it means if what you said above happens. I don't know the total hashrate controlled by censoring mining pools, but i think individual miners would withdraw from censoring mining pools if it ever gets to this point, that would surely reduce the hashrate they control.

[alani123]

If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

Well, they can. OFAC compliant pools seem to control the vast majority of the hashrate right now^*. If they want, they could fork the network and maintain the longest chain even now. But will they?

They're already losing out on fee revenue by excluding otherwise perfectly valid transactions from their blocks just because of OFAC. Hard forking by completely ignoring perfectly valid blocks just because they include transactions by BTC addresses in the OFAC list would likely create a very big debate.

Core developers would have to decide which chain to support, big services would have to announce their recognition to what they see as the main BTC etc. It would be wild to see. Miners stand to lose a lot of revenue.
I think big pools will just chose to filter transactions without forking. This status quo maintains their revenue and they can also claim non-participation in BTC "money laundering".

* Please read the source article more carefully and get confused like I was.
The only pool we can say with some certainty that is currently filtering BTC transactions is F2POOL. The others mentioned are false positives. F2POOL control maybe 12% of the network hashrate at the moment. Together with MARA pool which in 2021 had openly stated to be mining OFAC compliant blocks, although we're not sure if they still do, would make up around 16% in bitcoin's hashrate.

[Zaguru12]

That's a '51% attack' isn't it, could it be that easy for the BTC network to move from censorship resistant to censorship, because that's what it means if what you said above happens. I don't know the total hashrate controlled by censoring mining pools, but i think individual miners would withdraw from censoring mining pools if it ever gets to this point, that would surely reduce the hashrate they control.

Yes that’s purely a 51% attack (something we thought could take ages or high computational power to make it happen  ). The two mining pools which are been linked to be censoring transactions is the F2Pool (11.6%) and Mara (3.8%) with both having a combined hash rate of 15%, so just as you said if the individual miners actually leave either of the pools and join the other pools that do not censor transactions then it will weaken thr hashrate of the pools and could take them out of the market. But the question remains will they leave and join others? Then the concern again is what if the government is able to get other big pools like Foundry ( which is US based mining pool ) and Antpool into their side, then the whole decentralization advantage that bitcoin possess will be gone. Something we have all thought will never happen, but due to maybe greed of some pools it almost right before us

[titular]

*Also, fuck F2Pool. I could at least understand why a wallet would do it, but for a bitcoin miner to violate the decentralization of the network they directly profit from is a mortal sin.

This is what I struggled with the most..the fact that one of the largest pools is openly violating one of the core principles of the network is just shocking.

I really want to understand their motivation for censoring the transactions in the first place. Would they even face any legal issues if they simply included the transaction? How does F2Pool benefit from the censorship? Political ass-kissing?

[titular]

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already?  I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

If you give the article a read, you will see they explain it in pretty decent detail.

Bitcoin miners have a significant influence on which transactions get included in a block when they successfully mine one. While Bitcoin is designed to be a decentralized and censorship-resistant system, miners, especially those in mining pools, have some degree of discretion in selecting transactions for inclusion.

Miners choose which transactions to include in a block based on various factors. These factors commonly include the transaction fee attached to the transaction, the size of the transaction in terms of block space, the priority of the transaction, and network latency.

Based off what the writer says, these factors aren't always intentional or malicious. But in certain cases, there has been evidence showing that certain pools (F2Pool) may be censoring intentionally.

[Poker Player]

What I'm grabbing my popcorn for is the moment they stop with the backlisting and start with the reverse thing, whitelisted addresses only in their blocks, so unless you do KYC with every single one of them wit all your addresses you might have to think of solo mining  . And it's going to happen, I'm 99% sure they are already thinking of it but are just testing the waters for a while with smaller measure for a while, then, some will have a shock realizing how little decentralization we have in this aspect.

I see that this comment has been overlooked because no one has said anything about it. In my case I hope you are wrong, what I am afraid of is that it sounds quite plausible to me. I have long said that governments when they realized they couldn't stop Bitcoin focused on trying to control it and this would be an ultimate form of control. It goes along the lines of the legislations in progress to treat Bitcoin transactions as if they were banking transactions, so yes, unfortunately I see your vision possible, although I hope it doesn't end up being realized.

[HmmMAA]

Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth . I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" . There is a war incoming , and maxis haven't realise that yet . Their myths are falling one after the other apart .

[Z-tight]

Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth

Not your keys, not your coins isn't a myth, if you don't control the keys to your funds, then they are probably not yours, and the service that controls it can do what they want with your funds. This case is more about censorship and BTC's nature as being censorship resistant, and for this to escalate into major problem, then most mining pools will have to encourage censorship, put their resources together, and if they have 51% of the hashrate, then they can 'control' the network.

I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" . There is a war incoming , and maxis haven't realise that yet . Their myths are falling one after the other apart .

Nodes reject blocks and tx's that do not follow the rules of the network and as such are invalid, that is what they have been doing since the inception of the network. There is no rule that forbids miners from 'selecting' the tx's they can add into a block, but it goes against the principles and ethics of the network as being censorship resistant.

[alani123]

It's funny, P2POOL's admin seems to be very eccentric.


He was essentially forced to disable the OFAC compliancy filtering after his shenanigans went viral and miners would likely start fleeing the pool. This tweet is now deleted.



He went on to post that Bitcoin should be censorship resistant on the protocol level instead on relying on incentives by miners. 
Ummm, excuse me, what the fuck? Are we supposed to believe he genuinely believes this for Bitcoin? So he would not censor BTC transactions only if his hand was forced to? Ok... Still good enough reason to abandon this pool.

[DooMAD]

He went on to post that Bitcoin should be censorship resistant on the protocol level instead on relying on incentives by miners.  
Ummm, excuse me, what the fuck? Are we supposed to believe he genuinely believes this for Bitcoin? So he would not censor BTC transactions only if his hand was forced to? Ok... Still good enough reason to abandon this pool.

Likely just an attempt to save face.  He clearly realises he fucked up.

All due concerns aside, though, I'm proud of the community for their vigilance.  Full praise for how they picked up on this right away and acted so swiftly and decisively in their condemnation of this act.

[Lucius]

Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.

But there is also Foundry with 27% and that one is a closed pool with only big guys in the US mining, mainly companies listed on the stock exchange, and those will need just a hint or an email from the ones overseeing these and they will start censoring too, the percentage of those transactions is so small it won't even make a tiny dent in their revenue.
What I'm grabbing my popcorn for is the moment they stop with the backlisting and start with the reverse thing, whitelisted addresses only in their blocks, so unless you do KYC with every single one of them wit all your addresses you might have to think of solo mining  . And it's going to happen, I'm 99% sure they are already thinking of it but are just testing the waters for a while with smaller measure for a while, then, some will have a shock realizing how little decentralization we have in this aspect.

Those who want to centralize Bitcoin will always look for a way to do it in some way, and it is obvious that large mining pools will be their main target through which they will be able to control transactions to some extent. What is definitely worrying is that more than 50% of all these mining pools are located in the US and China, and both countries actually have the same goal, only with the difference that the Chinese authorities do it without asking anyone for their opinion, while the authorities in the US still have to be much more careful if they don't want someone to accuse them of using communist methods.

We definitely need more decentralization when it comes to mining, but unfortunately it's just a good deal for most (right now), and if a better opportunity came along, they'd all dump Bitcoin overnight. Most miners do it only for profit, not because they support Bitcoin as a decentralized currency.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Hard forking by completely ignoring perfectly valid blocks just because they include transactions by BTC addresses in the OFAC list would likely create a very big debate.

I don't want a debate. I don't want it to be up for argument, and whichever side shouts loudest wins. I want a permissionless, uncensorable, network.

so yes, unfortunately I see your vision possible, although I hope it doesn't end up being realized.

Hoping is insufficient. Governments around the world will continue to push ahead with more and more invasive control if we don't stop them. I've said for a long time we need more on-chain privacy as a default, but no one cares about privacy anymore. They only care about making more fiat profit. And so bitcoin is headed for government control, and the masses will be happy because they made a few bucks along the way.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Hoping is insufficient. Governments around the world will continue to push ahead with more and more invasive control if we don't stop them. I've said for a long time we need more on-chain privacy as a default, but no one cares about privacy anymore. They only care about making more fiat profit. And so bitcoin is headed for government control, and the masses will be happy because they made a few bucks along the way.

The problem is that although we may be more privacy conscious in this forum, people who are starting to invest in bitcoin are mostly doing so because of the possibility of a big profit in fiat. Then maybe when they invest some people start to inform themselves and may change, which implies a long way: if they have bought bitcoin in a CEX they should return it to the CEX (assuming it is in their custody), sell it, pay the corresponding taxes and from there if they get bitcoin with DEX or in other ways with privacy they hope that a long time passes without anyone thinking of investigating them because they once bought and sold it in a CEX.

It is easier to fuck up privacy than the other way around.

[alani123]

Hard forking by completely ignoring perfectly valid blocks just because they include transactions by BTC addresses in the OFAC list would likely create a very big debate.

I don't want a debate. I don't want it to be up for argument, and whichever side shouts loudest wins. I want a permissionless, uncensorable, network.

That sounds ideal but by how bitcoin is currently structured, miners hold a lot of power over users that seek to make transactions.
So the debate would be around what avenues users have against miners that are actually enforcing censorship.

An outside party could argue that since miners know what transactions they are confirming, they are in a way contributing to "financial crime".
A tweet I shared above shows Adam Back has proposed a potential solution to this, but I haven't seen its potential drawbacks discussed anywhere to know if it's any good. Maybe now is the time to accelerate developing something like this.

[Zaguru12]

Hoping is insufficient. Governments around the world will continue to push ahead with more and more invasive control if we don't stop them. I've said for a long time we need more on-chain privacy as a default, but no one cares about privacy anymore. They only care about making more fiat profit. And so bitcoin is headed for government control, and the masses will be happy because they made a few bucks along the way.

I can’t agree less with you that the volatility of bitcoin which makes it profitable when you invest in it has actually made people to forget about the main aim which is privacy. We can see how people easily trade on centralized exchanges just to make the money without caring too much about the privacy. This has even made some people feel that with government control or KYC exchanges the bitcoin network is safer than how decentralized or privacy oriented it is now, and I tell you this exactly where the government want us to be.

Take for example the hype around the bitcoin ETF, at first I thought it should be a thing of concern because AFAIK those institutions opting for ETF are worse than CEXs in terms of privacy (as I believe the government will easily have more control over them than the latter) but most people are happy it is happen because according to them it will drive in more people and make bitcoin price skyrocket.

[el kaka22]

I mean everyone can make mistakes, I believe that everyone deserves a second chance, this isn't really as big of a deal as people think. I get that if it was something huge then we would have something that would be quite difficult to handle, but when we are in a situation like this, it is not going to be all that crazy to be fair and we should see it change one way or another.

I believe that the best thing to do right now would be making sure that you could end up with a profit if you know what you are doing with mining, and this company does know what they are doing and they are a strong one and preferred one by many miners, so there shouldn't be really an issue with it and we should keep it going as strong as ever.

[DaveF]

Going to be an unpopular opinion but.

1) Pools are a BUSINESS.
2) Businesses are run by people with different views some of which you may agree with some of which you may not.
3) Businesses are profit driven and for the most part risk adverse. So they will give up some profit at times to mitigate risk.

Is mining a transaction on the OFAC sanctioned list worth it.

Well now you have to factor in a few things.
1) Do the operators agree with it? If yes then they will not mine it. It's their pool. If they don't want to mine TXs from certain people / addresses they are free not to. You are free to point your miners someplace else.

2) Even if they don't agree with it, is the risk worth it? This now gets trickier. Fees are high and the mempool is full. At worst they are giving up fractions of pennies to mine different transactions. If it's years in the future and we have gone through several more 1/2ings and most the the reward comes from fees and the mempool is empty, and they are paying a large fee you can have a different view. For now, no sane business would risk it

Does this go against the spirit of BTC? Perhaps, but with no pools because they are all under threat from various governments there would be no BTC as we know it. So they walk the line.

Also, and this is a big also. Don't forget this also helps smaller pools and greater distribution of mining since smaller pools will probably not enforce the ban, and this perhaps could get more people mining at them.

-Dave

[stompix]

Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth . I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" .

Miners and nodes can do whatever they want, nothing changes the ownership over your coins.
Somebody denying you a service is not out of the ordinary, Foundry could simply mine empty blocks, Binance could not let you open an account, the other people might choose not to sell your  single coin cause they don't like your eye color or your nickname, don't compare the protocol with personal business decision.

They're already losing out on fee revenue by excluding otherwise perfectly valid transactions from their blocks just because of OFAC.

ViaBTC loses one hundred times more money from running their accelerator, fees form some sanctioned address are not even rounding error  numbers.

I see that this comment has been overlooked because no one has said anything about it. In my case I hope you are wrong, what I am afraid of is that it sounds quite plausible to me. I have long said that governments when they realized they couldn't stop Bitcoin focused on trying to control it and this would be an ultimate form of control. It goes along the lines of the legislations in progress to treat Bitcoin transactions as if they were banking transactions, so yes, unfortunately I see your vision possible, although I hope it doesn't end up being realized.

I hope too I'm wrong but seeing how Korea forced their exchanges to make withdrawal only to other KYC addresses and this has been going for a while, what stops other countries doing so, and from exchanges to miners and pools it's just a step and a new signature on a law. Yeah, one can hope but the problem is that I don't see a way out of it if enforced.

We definitely need more decentralization when it comes to mining, but unfortunately it's just a good deal for most (right now), and if a better opportunity came along, they'd all dump Bitcoin overnight. Most miners do it only for profit, not because they support Bitcoin as a decentralized currency.

Well, running miners cost money, so , why should they do it for free?
Quite ironic, one one side we have small blocks cause it would be costly otherwise to run some 20 000 computers with 16GB of ram and a 8TB ssd, on the other hand we want decentralization and, let's see who will host 2 million 5Kw $10K machines.
Decentralization comes with a ....PRICE! 

[HmmMAA]

Miners and nodes can do whatever they want, nothing changes the ownership over your coins.
Somebody denying you a service is not out of the ordinary, Foundry could simply mine empty blocks, Binance could not let you open an account, the other people might choose not to sell your  single coin cause they don't like your eye color or your nickname, don't compare the protocol with personal business decision.

Well , i don't know if in a property that you don't have the right to use , move or sell you can be considered it's owner .

[cryptosize]

Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth . I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" . There is a war incoming , and maxis haven't realise that yet . Their myths are falling one after the other apart .

Your FUD is amazing...

Are you trying to justify BSV's confiscation mechanism?

@Everyone

HmmMAA is a BSV/CSW fanatic who loves spouting anti-BTC FUD.

[nelson4lov]

Well, running miners cost money, so , why should they do it for free?
Quite ironic, one one side we have small blocks cause it would be costly otherwise to run some 20 000 computers with 16GB of ram and a 8TB ssd, on the other hand we want decentralization and, let's see who will host 2 million 5Kw $10K machines.
Decentralization comes with a ....PRICE! 

I had a similar concern a few months back when I asked if fees will be enough to keep miners on the network when the main incentive (block rewards) are taken off the equation. It will be interesting to see how things play out when we get to that. Probably they'd have to increase fees in order to compensate for the lack of block rewards.

We'll find out when the time comes but from what I know, no one will burn those expenses to keep the network up and running out of the goodness of their hearts.

[hatshepsut93]

Until the miners start hard forking the chain to censor transactions, their refusal to include certain transactions only delays them for time on average proportional to their share of network hashpower. And when or if there will be such attempt, I'm sure the whole community will choose the censorship-free chain, just like it previously rejected SegWit2x fork attempt.

[stompix]

~

I had a similar concern a few months back when I asked if fees will be enough to keep miners on the network when the main incentive (block rewards) are taken off the equation. It will be interesting to see how things play out when we get to that.

Covered that also:
Angry at the high fees? That's what everyone predicted the future will be like!

Last block with min 44sat fee had ‎0.558 BTC fee, the default reward is 6.25  so...500sat/b to be on the same level.

Probably they'd have to increase fees in order to compensate for the lack of block rewards.

They can't increase the fee on their own, users will choose, they will either pay or not, the free market will decide what the fees are 100 years from now just as it decides now, last year there were 1 sat/b because there was no demand for space now it's 50sat/b because there is, tomorrow it might drop further or go back up, the users decide that.
Miners enforcing minimum transactions in their mined blocks will end up with nothing as this will just kill transactions on the chain completely.

Until the miners start hard forking the chain to censor transactions, their refusal to include certain transactions only delays them for time on average proportional to their share of network hashpower. And when or if there will be such attempt, I'm sure the whole community will choose the censorship-free chain....

One tiny detail, the hashrate is still there, users can choose this chain, but if those guys have more than enough hashrate (they do right now) they could simply make this chain inoperable, without "attacking" it, forking it or anything that would send them to court, all it takes it's for them to mine on this chain and at the difficulty adjustment reset to stop, if they have 66% of the hashpower for the next half and a half months you're going to see one back every 30 minutes. Imagine that happening now...

[Artemis3]

In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included

And in typical American fashion, American companies may be given a no-gag order, obey quietly or else...
So you can just choose what State will enforce their rules, depending on where the pool is.

Unless some pool starts operating in the "dark web" (tor hidden/i2p, etc) or such, with anonymous use like ckpool does for solo. But what if those operators do a rug pull? It happened in the past in the clear net...

Maybe a REAL pool operated in El Salvador or some country favorable to Bitcoin? (not a whitelabel from yet another American company).

[alani123]

In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included

And in typical American fashion, American companies may be given a no-gag order, obey quietly or else...
So you can just choose what State will enforce their rules, depending on where the pool is.

Unless some pool starts operating in the "dark web" (tor hidden/i2p, etc) or such, with anonymous use like ckpool does for solo. But what if those operators do a rug pull? It happened in the past in the clear net...

Maybe a REAL pool operated in El Salvador or some country favorable to Bitcoin? (not a whitelabel from yet another American company).

Funnily enough most OFAC sancitoned transactions that were dropped by F2POOl were mined by the Foundry Digital. The private close ended pool that runs exclusively for an alliance of north American miners that are to a large extent U.S. public companies. I guess this is just by chance mostly since these guys are the biggest pool lately, but it goes to show that at least for now, FEDs haven't cared to force any miner's hand at enforcing their censorship list on miners and mining pools for bitcoin.

Although it's a very real possibility, I don't think the laundering happening through bitcoin is significant enough to warrant the government's attention to that extent. They'd waste too many resources and anger a community that's quite big so they've probably purposely avoided this. Or they've just not gotten around this yet. Probably good idea to not have good faith towards FEDs.

[DaveF]

In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included

And in typical American fashion, American companies may be given a no-gag order, obey quietly or else...
So you can just choose what State will enforce their rules, depending on where the pool is.

Unless some pool starts operating in the "dark web" (tor hidden/i2p, etc) or such, with anonymous use like ckpool does for solo. But what if those operators do a rug pull? It happened in the past in the clear net...

Maybe a REAL pool operated in El Salvador or some country favorable to Bitcoin? (not a whitelabel from yet another American company).

Funnily enough most OFAC sancitoned transactions that were dropped by F2POOl were mined by the Foundry Digital. The private close ended pool that runs exclusively for an alliance of north American miners that are to a large extent U.S. public companies. I guess this is just by chance mostly since these guys are the biggest pool lately, but it goes to show that at least for now, FEDs haven't cared to force any miner's hand at enforcing their censorship list on miners and mining pools for bitcoin.

Although it's a very real possibility, I don't think the laundering happening through bitcoin is significant enough to warrant the government's attention to that extent. They'd waste too many resources and anger a community that's quite big so they've probably purposely avoided this. Or they've just not gotten around this yet. Probably good idea to not have good faith towards FEDs.

Which goes back to what I said that pools are business run by people. Their opinions of what to mine may or may not mesh up with yours.

Example, a lot of people here give Foundry a hard time, the operators get annoyed and start to not mine TXs form people whos addresses are public here. (sig campaigns, sales of things, and so on) It's their right, it's their pool. We have no say in it. No government, no OFAC, just FU to Bitcointalk users. The true free enterprise open market people would say 'good it's a private business they can do what they want' the true libertarians would say  'good it's a private business they can do what they want'.

But I have a strong suspicion that a lot of people would come here and cry 'wah wah wah the mean old pool operator is not mining our TXs'

-Dave

[stompix]

Example, a lot of people here give Foundry a hard time, the operators get annoyed and start to not mine TXs form people whos addresses are public here. (sig campaigns, sales of things, and so on) It's their right, it's their pool. We have no say in it. No government, no OFAC, just FU to Bitcointalk users. The true free enterprise open market people would say 'good it's a private business they can do what they want' the true libertarians would say  'good it's a private business they can do what they want'.

But I have a strong suspicion that a lot of people would come here and cry 'wah wah wah the mean old pool operator is not mining our TXs'

-Dave

There will be some users who are going to say the following:
-You don't like it, make your own coin!
And fully understandable, when some send other people to use altcoins because you believe in decentralization and you must keep nodes running on two decades old computers on dial-up, it's perfectly understandable to go and create your own coin that doesn't need 10billion and 10Gw of power for protection. 

And it doesn't stop here, how ironic, some talk about blacklisting ordinals, but are enraged by somebody else blacklisting their tx. Gold!
Or:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150405.0

Let's show them how the free market works and that not only miners have a say on this subject!

[DooMAD]

And it doesn't stop here, how ironic, some talk about blacklisting ordinals, but are enraged by somebody else blacklisting their tx. Gold!

It is a peculiar double standard, isn't it?  If someone is opposed to OFAC-sanctioned censorship and also opposed to Ordinals, how would they react if someone tried creating an Ordinal using an OFAC-sanctioned address and it was blocked?

Hell of a grey area such people could find themselves in, heh.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Example, a lot of people here give Foundry a hard time, the operators get annoyed and start to not mine TXs form people whos addresses are public here. (sig campaigns, sales of things, and so on) It's their right, it's their pool. We have no say in it. No government, no OFAC, just FU to Bitcointalk users. The true free enterprise open market people would say 'good it's a private business they can do what they want' the true libertarians would say  'good it's a private business they can do what they want'.

So, are we now agreeing that bitcoin is in fact not censorship resistant at all, and depends on trusted third parties (mining pools) in order for anyone to use it?

There will be some users who are going to say the following:
-You don't like it, make your own coin!

Don't need to make your own coin, just use Monero. It is impossible to perform this kind of attack on Monero.

Hell of a grey area such people could find themselves in, heh.

For what its worth, I don't think ordinals should be censored either, regardless of how stupid I think they are:

I have been one of the most vocal opponents of NFTs and other such worthless crap. However, who am I to say that someone else's use case of bitcoin is wrong, and preventing them from using bitcoin in this way? What's to stop someone else coming out and saying that my use case of bitcoin is wrong, and trying to do the same thing to me?

When did free speech and freedom from censorship become the fringe view among the bitcoin community? It's quite disturbing.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Governments want to censor bitcoin (alas), and there appears to be a mining pool which complies with that. While truly sad for the chairmen of that business, Bitcoin is censorship resistant. The game theory is still on run. They are only harming their pockets. Even in an extreme scenario where most of the hash rate is pro-censorship, there will still be a few pools which will not censor. Those will be enough for any transaction to be confirmed.

It wouldn't surprise me if this brilliant idea was proposed by an incompetent politician.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Even in an extreme scenario where most of the hash rate is pro-censorship, there will still be a few pools which will not censor.

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

As it turns out, bitcoin is not censorship resistant. It simply isn't being censored right now.

[BlackHatCoiner]

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

That'd be the time to abandon Bitcoin for good. The day mining pools reorg the chain is the day there is nothing valuable to secure. It'd be suicidal.

[SamReomo]

Even in an extreme scenario where most of the hash rate is pro-censorship, there will still be a few pools which will not censor.

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

As it turns out, bitcoin is not censorship resistant. It simply isn't being censored right now.

I have gone through each post of the thread and I agree with you that Bitcoin isn't censorship resistant and maybe in future those people who want to make Bitcoin centralized will be successful at doing that. The pools are backed by the miners who just want to earn money from mining and that's the unfortunate thing which no one can change. If pools allow  miners to pay low-fees then the miners will blindly join those pools that allow them to earn their mining profits without sharing much percentage with the pools, but they don't know that on the basis of their mining power the pools can do many things with the transactions.

I know that in present days Bitcoin is still not in their control fully but surely when they have a lot of hash power and with that 51% attack they may get the power to decide what to do with the transactions that they don't like. Even, in the current situation that pool blacklisted those transactions doesn't have that 51% hash power to control the whole network but still they can blacklist the transactions or addresses they don't want and that's a sign that they have control over the network to some extent already. I hope that they won't gain complete control over it as that would be a huge threat to privacy as that would impact the decentralized nature of Bitcoin.

[DaveF]

Even in an extreme scenario where most of the hash rate is pro-censorship, there will still be a few pools which will not censor.

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

As it turns out, bitcoin is not censorship resistant. It simply isn't being censored right now.

If that happened I could see 2 things happening.
1) A fork war.
2) BTC loosing all it's value and it not mattering who mined what anyway since nobody would be using it anymore.

No pool would really want to do that because they would probably see the same things and know that it would kill their business.

-Dave

[HmmMAA]

No pool would really want to do that because they would probably see the same things and know that it would kill their business.

-Dave

Don't forget that there are chains with a different mindset than the one of btc community that will welcome those pools and hashrate .

[PrivacyG]

If Bitcoin in fact does become censored then is it possible for us to return to CPU Mining?  Back when Bitcoin was created this was the norm.  Right?  1 CPU equals 1 vote.  It was supposed to be like this so every body has a right to vote.  Now we get warehouses of GPUs used for Mining.  There is no more such thing as 'every body gets a right to vote' because others have way too many votes.

If these warehouses start censoring.  How about we just go back to what Bitcoin was and return to CPU mining?  This renders ALL censoring warehouses useless for Bitcoin Mining and gives us all back the power.

Is there any danger I do not see?

[alani123]

Which goes back to what I said that pools are business run by people. Their opinions of what to mine may or may not mesh up with yours.

Example, a lot of people here give Foundry a hard time, the operators get annoyed and start to not mine TXs form people whos addresses are public here. (sig campaigns, sales of things, and so on) It's their right, it's their pool. We have no say in it. No government, no OFAC, just FU to Bitcointalk users. The true free enterprise open market people would say 'good it's a private business they can do what they want' the true libertarians would say  'good it's a private business they can do what they want'.

But I have a strong suspicion that a lot of people would come here and cry 'wah wah wah the mean old pool operator is not mining our TXs'

-Dave

I think that this we've gotten into actually identifying one of the weaknesses of libertarianism.
Libertarians don't particularly like organizations that exercise authority or hold power.
But what happens when someone hurts you in some manner? You could straight up ignore, but sometimes at risk of great losses.
Some libertarians might like to call this a violation of the Non Aggression Principle but... Who gets to enforce the repercussions and how?

In the scenario that miners chose to block certain addresses from ever confirming transactions, it might be their choice, but why should we simply respect it if it infringes upon us?
In that case, it would be better to have established some sort of organization to be able to in a way punish the bad faith miners by responding accordingly in a timely manner.
This organization would have to function under a certain framework in order to avoid having to much power over others, and would have to exist pro-actively, instead of being formed after issues arise.
The pro-active organization's mere existence could act as a deterrent to bad-faith actors, but it would surely be a good measure to have in place if anything bad actually happens.

So there we go. Authority and organization are sometimes meaningful. Likewise today, certain bitcoin Core developers are the absolute authority to how Bitcoin Improvement Proposals are passed into the discussion phase. But if it weren't for them, many more people would have to be dragged into bureaucratic procedures as to whether or not even we should open a discussion that the vast majority of the community would consider stupid anyway.

[In reality this time though, the miners this time saw the value in their brand image towards the public and just backed out of filtering transactions (for now at least). So there's also non-coercive means to work with at the first stages of trying to achieve something.]

But on that note, with the freedom of being able to exclude transactions, also comes some responsibility that bad faith authorities like the OFAC might want to impose on bitcoin miners. So the idea of cloaking transactions before confirmation just so miners can't see what they're confirming might be a good idea after all. No possibility to pick and choose means reduced liability also.

[Poker Player]

So, are we now agreeing that bitcoin is in fact not censorship resistant at all, and depends on trusted third parties (mining pools) in order for anyone to use it?

As it turns out, bitcoin is not censorship resistant. It simply isn't being censored right now.

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

That'd be the time to abandon Bitcoin for good. The day mining pools reorg the chain is the day there is nothing valuable to secure. It'd be suicidal.

What a bummer, I'm not optimistic about it, but seeing you say that, along with the stompix popcorn, makes me even more pessimistic.

If Bitcoin in fact does become censored then is it possible for us to return to CPU Mining?  Back when Bitcoin was created this was the norm.  Right?  1 CPU equals 1 vote.  It was supposed to be like this so every body has a right to vote.  Now we get warehouses of GPUs used for Mining.  There is no more such thing as 'every body gets a right to vote' because others have way too many votes.

If these warehouses start censoring.  How about we just go back to what Bitcoin was and return to CPU mining?  This renders ALL censoring warehouses useless for Bitcoin Mining and gives us all back the power.

Is there any danger I do not see?

With the current hashrate you can not, I think that could only be possible in the hypothetical scenario they are painting in which a majority of miners begin to censor transactions and a few others do not, so there would be a fork that would have much less hashrate and then maybe the scenario you speak about would happen but it does not seem a very rosy future, and I do not have much technical knowledge, someone correct me or clarify if it is not entirely correct what I say.

[o_e_l_e_o]

That'd be the time to abandon Bitcoin for good. The day mining pools reorg the chain is the day there is nothing valuable to secure. It'd be suicidal.

No pool would really want to do that because they would probably see the same things and know that it would kill their business.

Would it, though? That'll be the day the likes of us abandon bitcoin, but the masses don't care. They let centralized exchanges act as banks, surveil their every move, hold their coins, and dictate how they can spend them. They use custodial wallets which can stop serving them at any time, like Wallet of Satoshi just did. All they care about is "when moon", and not at all about the whole point of bitcoin in the first place. They cheer for more regulations since it means bitcoin "is going mainstream", and eagerly await institutional investors, ETFs, and the like. Are they going to care about a few transactions belonging to other people are being censored? The fact that this censorship is barely being discussed across this forum/Reddit/Twitter/etc. tells you all you need to know. People don't care.

In that case, it would be better to have established some sort of organization to be able to in a way punish the bad faith miners by responding accordingly in a timely manner.

So a centralized third party to police the other centralized third parties? No thanks. What we need is more privacy by default on the base layer to make this kind of censorship impossible to begin with.

[digaran]

Whether you exclude transactions or include dust spam over and over, both are considered attack on Bitcoin, the dude is too young to understand this is a game to him out of the competition. What can we do, survival of the fittest, right?

[cryptosize]

No pool would really want to do that because they would probably see the same things and know that it would kill their business.

-Dave

Don't forget that there are chains with a different mindset than the one of btc community that will welcome those pools and hashrate .

BSV is not censorship resistant:

https://twitter.com/BobSummerwill/status/1577714409618931713
https://github.com/bitcoin-sv/bitcoin-sv/releases/tag/v1.0.13

Who will migrate to a shitcoin under Faketoshi's leadership?

What we need is more privacy by default on the base layer to make this kind of censorship impossible to begin with.

You know that's impossible without a hard fork, right?

People might migrate to Monero, but it has totally different tokenomics (due to tail emission).

[Z-tight]

But on that note, with the freedom of being able to exclude transactions, also comes some responsibility that bad faith authorities like the OFAC might want to impose on bitcoin miners.

I expect mining pools to understand the ethics and principles of the BTC network, it is true that mining is a 'business' and miners want to make profit, but sanctioning tx's defeats the principles and ethics of the network and it also doesn't help them in the case of making profit, because they are rejecting the tx fees attached to those tx's. The authorities cannot 'impose' anything on miners, because pools have the 'right' to oppose any policy that affects the nature of the BTC network, and if the conditions because so unfavorable, it is better miners relocate or pack up their gears from such locations, than for them to directly 'attack' the BTC network.

So the idea of cloaking transactions before confirmation just so miners can't see what they're confirming might be a good idea after all. No possibility to pick and choose means reduced liability also.

That is not possible, the BTC blockchain is both a public and transparent ledger, everything is open to everyone and even if this was possible, i would not support it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You know that's impossible without a hard fork, right?

What's the alternative? We sit around, shake our fists, do nothing, wait for more mining pools to capitulate to government demands, and then lament that bitcoin is under government control?

[digaran]

You know that's impossible without a hard fork, right?

What's the alternative? We sit around, shake our fists, do nothing, wait for more mining pools to capitulate to government demands, and then lament that bitcoin is under government control?

Well, this is the problem of large scale networks, unless pools could operate in a country not influenced by US, or they could somehow anonymize themselves and their farms. This is obviously a takeover of big pools.
~D

[HmmMAA]

That'd be the time to abandon Bitcoin for good. The day mining pools reorg the chain is the day there is nothing valuable to secure. It'd be suicidal.

No pool would really want to do that because they would probably see the same things and know that it would kill their business.

Would it, though? That'll be the day the likes of us abandon bitcoin, but the masses don't care. They let centralized exchanges act as banks, surveil their every move, hold their coins, and dictate how they can spend them. They use custodial wallets which can stop serving them at any time, like Wallet of Satoshi just did. All they care about is "when moon", and not at all about the whole point of bitcoin in the first place. They cheer for more regulations since it means bitcoin "is going mainstream", and eagerly await institutional investors, ETFs, and the like. Are they going to care about a few transactions belonging to other people are being censored? The fact that this censorship is barely being discussed across this forum/Reddit/Twitter/etc. tells you all you need to know. People don't care.

Well, the problem with the price is that maxis are the ones who want it to only go up . If the price doesn't double as maxis desire in each cycle , then mining/securing the network becomes unprofitable . That's what the other chains saw during the hashwars and decided to split . So don't blame the "ignorant" masses . Just admit that you didn't foresee what was about to happen . Either bitcoin lives from fees and not subsidy , or it dies. Btc chose its path , the only way to survive is if the price goes up . Alternatively , stop running rasppis and decide to invest in mining gear , and run them altruistically to support your ideas . Just make sure to buy a lot of hashpower , as double-spending attacks might occur .

Also fixed a sentence to point things properly: "Are they going to care about a few transactions belonging to other people criminals that are being censored?"

[alani123]

In that case, it would be better to have established some sort of organization to be able to in a way punish the bad faith miners by responding accordingly in a timely manner.

So a centralized third party to police the other centralized third parties? No thanks. What we need is more privacy by default on the base layer to make this kind of censorship impossible to begin with.

No, see, bitcoin already has structures of (certain) authority that help govern it.
It's not complete unstructured anarchy that's going on with it's developments. Certain older core devs approve proposals for discussion for instance.
Others review code changes and push them to release.

Even the mailing list is Grey listed.

This process is neither democratic nor very free (as in freedom). But the community generally trusts these individuals as they have years of contributions to back their position.
But if an emergency event was to happen like an unintended fork or a sustained 51% attack, what were the users going to do?
Would we form a new organization to deal with these emergency issues?
Probably not. Most users would likely follow what the existing core developers proposed as a solution, trusting them in downloading their client update.
Unless of course they were deemed as bad faith actors.

But on that note, with the freedom of being able to exclude transactions, also comes some responsibility that bad faith authorities like the OFAC might want to impose on bitcoin miners.

I expect mining pools to understand the ethics and principles of the BTC network, it is true that mining is a 'business' and miners want to make profit, but sanctioning tx's defeats the principles and ethics of the network and it also doesn't help them in the case of making profit, because they are rejecting the tx fees attached to those tx's. The authorities cannot 'impose' anything on miners, because pools have the 'right' to oppose any policy that affects the nature of the BTC network, and if the conditions because so unfavorable, it is better miners relocate or pack up their gears from such locations, than for them to directly 'attack' the BTC network.

Leaving the window open for abuse means that it's bound to happen at one point or another.
Just as MARA pool was doing OFAC compliant blocks in 2021, same as F2POOL this year etc. Can't base this relationship completely on trust.

So the idea of cloaking transactions before confirmation just so miners can't see what they're confirming might be a good idea after all. No possibility to pick and choose means reduced liability also.

That is not possible, the BTC blockchain is both a public and transparent ledger, everything is open to everyone and even if this was possible, i would not support it.

There might be solutions without making  bitcoin transactions completely dark.
Adam Back called his proposal committed transactions, which was demonstrated 10 years ago. Maybe that idea could be picked up to be worked on again so we can see how feasible it is.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Would it, though? That'll be the day the likes of us abandon bitcoin, but the masses don't care.

I don't believe that the referred masses use bitcoin in the first place. To me, only someone who owns their keys can be said to truly use bitcoin.

I don't believe that the masses control the world. Maybe they did once, but not anymore. Democracy is a failure. It's just the least worse regime comparably to the rest. Or as someone had once put it, "Democracy is the worst regime, except all the others". For it to function properly, it requires strong citizen maturity and character, and that is almost never the case. Granted. It is the closest thing we have to harmoniously live alongside and, by compromises, to maintain a healthy community. But it's self-destructive, just as humans. It is inevitable at some point that social institutions will corrupt, and the people will not just turn against the corrupted institution, but to the democratic system itself.

And that is why I like Bitcoin. It is not a democracy. It requires little effort to work; and works good. It is not controlled by the masses, but by neither a tyrant. It inherits the good virtues of democracy without incorporating the extensive effort and conditions it entails. You need Internet connection and a computer. Boom, money sent overseas secured by a mechanism which converts human greed to collective benefit. The bet is that this beautiful combo can overcome human corruption, or at the very least, navigate around it.

To not talk at length, only a fraction of the userbase is the driving force of Bitcoin. Genuine users who endorse the views of state-less money, accept bitcoin and spread the word, miners who maintain the status quo, and technicians who write the code. Not weak hands. Neither regulators. It's just currently apparent that centralized entities like mining pools and exchanges are susceptible to censorship. We already acknowledge that since 2009. We move on.

[cryptosize]

If Bitcoin ever becomes centralized, it will no longer maintain its current purchasing value. That's for sure.

Bitcoin became so valuable because it's the first decentralized, censor-free, digital currency.

Big entities (such as pools) can always become corrupted, assuming they no longer care about making money/profit (ever heard of "go woke, go broke"?). The establishment can ruin everything you love, as long as it's centralized (Hollywood, Netflix, video game companies etc.)

People can always form new pools, or join smaller ones, especially those that don't steal transaction fees from miners (didn't know that was a thing, totally despicable). KYC demands are also unreasonable.

My personal bet is that the WEF elites (Bill Gates etc.) definitely want Bitcoin for themselves as a lifeboat to secure their wealth (convert fiat deposits & SP500 stocks to BTC ETF). They do NOT want it for the masses/plebs.

That's why BlackRock wants to enter the BTC realm. Billionaires want a valuable asset to secure their wealth right before they perform The Great -Currency/Debt- Reset (which I reckon will happen around 2026-2027 during Taiwan's invasion by China). Fiat currencies (USD, EUR etc.) will melt (Weimar-style) and this will be the perfect opportunity to shove CBDC down people's throats.

I know this sounds like a crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to some people around here, but what would you do if you were Bill Gates?

Would you trust CBDC? Especially considering the fact it will have a limit of €2000-3000 (as ECB officials have said)?

Do you wanna own nothing and be happy? Because with only 2-3k dollars/euros you will be forced to rent everything (your house, your car etc.)

This is another reason why NO ONE in their right mind should sell their BTC stash, especially before BlackRock's ETF approval (which will happen by mid-March 2024 at the latest).

I sure as hell wouldn't destroy Bitcoin if I were Bill Gates or Klaus Schwab, BUT I would badmouth it all the time in mainstream media to deter the plebs from buying even a single satoshi!

It makes sense if they want to buy BTC at a low price and even cause weak hands/panic sellers to sell some more to them...

[digaran]

Communism, marxism, and now western "democracy" all these regimes proven to be a failure, a new model is required to rule the world with, there is an infrastructure for such civilization but nobody has been able to present it to the world and demonstrate that it can work.
USD if sanctioned, US will lose it's only actual power, then you can start phase 2 of revolution, proof of work blockchain as a government, where there will be no cheating, no corruption and no rant. Sooner they dig their own grave by suppressing freedom, sooner people realize western democracy does not work.

Love how some people are unaware of their own surrounding but know a lot about the world at large. 😉

[PrivacyG]

Are they going to care about a few transactions belonging to other people are being censored? The fact that this censorship is barely being discussed across this forum/Reddit/Twitter/etc. tells you all you need to know. People don't care.

Of course not.  No body will care except a handful of people like us.  The rest will happily send pictures of their bum hole in macro to any Exchange just so they can have peace of mind and withdraw the 2 fucking Dollars they earned through a Bounty.

-----

And that is why I like Bitcoin. It is not a democracy. It requires little effort to work; and works good. It is not controlled by the masses, but by neither a tyrant. It inherits the good virtues of democracy without incorporating the extensive effort and conditions it entails. You need Internet connection and a computer. Boom, money sent overseas secured by a mechanism which converts human greed to collective benefit. The bet is that this beautiful combo can overcome human corruption, or at the very least, navigate around it.

To not talk at length, only a fraction of the userbase is the driving force of Bitcoin. Genuine users who endorse the views of state-less money, accept bitcoin and spread the word, miners who maintain the status quo, and technicians who write the code. Not weak hands. Neither regulators. It's just currently apparent that centralized entities like mining pools and exchanges are susceptible to censorship. We already acknowledge that since 2009. We move on.

I really wish you are right and this was just yet another bump we jump over.  Events are seemingly more rough and harsh every year however.  I wonder where all of this will lead to.  A single thing is certain.  If they take down Bitcoin then our future is fucked entirely.

After all.  If the day comes when Censorship is applied to Bitcoin by Miners directly.  I guess we will have to move on every now and then from one Fork to another like some weird nomads in order to keep our freedom.

[Poker Player]

I know this sounds like a crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to some people around here, but what would you do if you were Bill Gates?

Would you trust CBDC? Especially considering the fact it will have a limit of €2000-3000 (as ECB officials have said)?

Do you wanna own nothing and be happy? Because with only 2-3k dollars/euros you will be forced to rent everything (your house, your car etc.)

It sounds like a conspiracy theory because it is, like that thing that looks like a duck and turns out to be a duck. The €3,000 limit has been planned to protect banks. You can see it in the following document: Know your (holding) limits: CBDC, financial stability and central bank reliance. But if you find it too complicated, it is summarized in a newspaper article:

The European Central bank is toying with the idea of imposing a €3000 limit on consumer CBDC accounts to discourage users from transferring all their cash from commercial banks to the central bank.

So what the ECB is worried about is that citizens will embrace the Euro CBDC so enthusiastically that they will all want to switch to it, eliminating the need for commercial banks and suddenly all those banks will fail. That is why it is considering imposing an initial limit of €3,000, which will coexist with the existing cash and electronic payments (transfers, card payments, etc.).

[pooya87]

Whenever there is a door to be kicked down, the governments will kick it down.

That is why in Bitcoin we eliminated the "doors" to be kicked down through decentralization. However, centralization has a way of creeping back in somehow. Whether it is custodial wallets, centralized exchanges or the centralized mining pools.
Whet we need to do is to fight this centralization. We are lucky that the mining pools are slightly spread and they can not all be forced to perform such an "attack" on Bitcoin by censoring transactions, ... at this point. But we eventually have to address this vulnerability.

Even in an extreme scenario where most of the hash rate is pro-censorship, there will still be a few pools which will not censor.

And in such a scenario, the pro-censorship majority can simply ignore any blocks which include transactions they dislike. Any blocks mined by the non-censoring pools can just be re-orged out of the chain at will.

As it turns out, bitcoin is not censorship resistant. It simply isn't being censored right now.

This is not an issue with Bitcoin (the protocol) itself. It is an issue with how we use the protocol.
It's kind of like using CEX. If you store your coins there and the CEX owner freezes them, that doesn't mean Bitcoin is vulnerable. It means you used Bitcoin wrong.

It's the same with pools. If majority of them end up censoring transactions, that doesn't make Bitcoin not-censorship resisstant. It is our own fault for not creating more pools for miners to join that are located in jurisdictions that anti-privacy governments don't have authority in. It is our own fault for not finding an alternative to the existing mining pool protocols where the owner decides what to include in the block and what not. A protocol that the owner no longer decides what proposal to signal for and what not. Remember SegWit days that we had the same issue where miners wanted the change but pools refused to signal?

[cryptosize]

I know this sounds like a crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to some people around here, but what would you do if you were Bill Gates?

Would you trust CBDC? Especially considering the fact it will have a limit of €2000-3000 (as ECB officials have said)?

Do you wanna own nothing and be happy? Because with only 2-3k dollars/euros you will be forced to rent everything (your house, your car etc.)

It sounds like a conspiracy theory because it is, like that thing that looks like a duck and turns out to be a duck. The €3,000 limit has been planned to protect banks. You can see it in the following document: Know your (holding) limits: CBDC, financial stability and central bank reliance. But if you find it too complicated, it is summarized in a newspaper article:

The European Central bank is toying with the idea of imposing a €3000 limit on consumer CBDC accounts to discourage users from transferring all their cash from commercial banks to the central bank.

So what the ECB is worried about is that citizens will embrace the Euro CBDC so enthusiastically that they will all want to switch to it, eliminating the need for commercial banks and suddenly all those banks will fail. That is why it is considering imposing an initial limit of €3,000, which will coexist with the existing cash and electronic payments (transfers, card payments, etc.).

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?

Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

[DooMAD]

The European Central bank is toying with the idea of imposing a €3000 limit on consumer CBDC accounts to discourage users from transferring all their cash from commercial banks to the central bank.

So what the ECB is worried about is that citizens will embrace the Euro CBDC so enthusiastically that they will all want to switch to it, eliminating the need for commercial banks and suddenly all those banks will fail. That is why it is considering imposing an initial limit of €3,000, which will coexist with the existing cash and electronic payments (transfers, card payments, etc.).

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?

Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

I doubt anyone here is entertaining that notion, but it's the kind of thing the bureaucrats obsess over.  I suppose they are accountable if they do get it wrong, but yes, it's a pretty far-fetched scenario.  

Our goal presumably involves trying to highlight to the uninitiated masses what the consequences might be for them if they do adopt CBDCs.  The absolute death-knell of privacy being chief amongst them, but censorship a serious concern as well (and, unlike this current situation with a small percentage of pools censoring OFAC listed addresses, it's likely to be a more pervasive, inescapable and unyielding type of censorship with CBDCs, with little room for recourse).  Even if we can't necessarily persuade people about the advantages of using Bitcoin, it could be an "anything but CBDCs" kind of discussion.  

The masses have a distinct knack for acting against their own self-interests when given the opportunity, so it won't be as easy as it might sound to convince them that CBDCs are very bad for them.  You'd be surprised at how quickly some might embrace this mass-surveillance foolishness.

[Abiky]

This looks bad. If certain bitcoin transactions start to be censored on the basis of suspicions, we are in trouble.

The problem is mining hashrate is largely controlled by centralized mining pools. It's easy enough to censor transactions this way. Only solo miners have the true power to decide which transactions to approve or decline on the network. With how expensive PoW mining is becoming each day, things are going to get worse in the long run (more centralization). BTC needs to switch to an ASIC-resistant algorithm to strip away big mining companies and centralized mining pools from power.

This will be a subject of constant debate within the community. If centralized mining pools censored transactions (particularly F2Pool) tied to criminal activities, what makes you think they won't target the average person in the long run? Anything deemed suspicious could put your funds at risk (unable to move them on the Blockchain). It'll be just like what banks do today. The future is widely unpredictable, so we can only hope for the best.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The bet is that this beautiful combo can overcome human corruption, or at the very least, navigate around it.

Ok, that's the bet. But we need to actually do something about it when faced with pools like F2Pool which are enforcing said corruption. Simply expressing out displeasure will achieve nothing. So the question is - what are we going to do? I would favor more privacy on the base layer making this kind of censorship impossible. I am very clearly in the minority here and this is highly unlikely to ever happen. So what other options are there beyond doing nothing and waiting for the day the government controls bitcoin?

Whenever there is a door to be kicked down, the governments will kick it down.

This summarizes it perfectly.

The government want bitcoin to be under their control. There is currently a route which we can foresee to the government achieving this (get 51% of the hashrate to comply with their blacklists and censorship). The government are not going to stop kicking down doors until they achieve their goal, unless we do something to stop them. Shaking our fists and hoping for the best is insufficient.

It's kind of like using CEX. If you store your coins there and the CEX owner freezes them, that doesn't mean Bitcoin is vulnerable. It means you used Bitcoin wrong.

The difference is I can simply refuse to use any CEX as I always have done and there is nothing they can do to my coins or my transactions. I hold no such power when it comes to mining pools deciding to censor me.


When it comes to other options, I've spoken before about Stratum V2, and with perfect timing I see this news story pop up yesterday: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/demand-launches-worlds-first-stratum-v2-bitcoin-mining-pool

A key feature of Stratum V2 is its empowerment of individual miners to construct their own block templates. Traditionally, mining pool operators wielded control over transaction selection, posing centralization risks vulnerable to potential regulatory pressures for transaction censorship. Stratum V2 now grants mining pool users the autonomy to select transactions for block inclusion, fostering a more decentralized network resistant to censorship.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Ok, that's the bet. But we need to actually do something about it when faced with pools like F2Pool which are enforcing said corruption.

I say we do what we're already doing. Writing software. When exchanges started implementing KYC, and out of nowhere taint appeared, decentralized exchanges emerged as a need. And they did because centralized exchanges were central point of failures. Today there is a daily volume of more than 2 million dollars worth of bitcoin, with over 900 trades per day, proving that it works: https://bisq.markets/.

Now, mining in a decentralized manner but with attractive conditions is what's needed.

When it comes to other options, I've spoken before about Stratum V2, and with perfect timing I see this news story pop up yesterday: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/demand-launches-worlds-first-stratum-v2-bitcoin-mining-pool

Good news. Miners deciding the candidate block's transactions is step 1. Step 2 would be to decentralize their coordination altogether, because now the government will be hostile towards the mining pools that'll adopt this.

[Jon_Hodl]

Troubling for some but the incentives of bitcoin will render these attempts at censorship impotent.

If transactions continue to get censored, the natural outcome is that mempool fees will bloat and the market dynamic of on-chain fees and the fee rate come into play. The highest fees will be included in the next block. If your transactions are censored, then you will need to pay a greater fee rate to get included in a block in a reasonable amount of time. You can also CoinJoin to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the first place.

Additionally, we are seeing the beginning of the emergence of a pleb mining pool (https://web.public-pool.io) that is likely to continue to grow even if only as a hobby project.

The more transactions that are censored, the greater the incentive for fees to rise which incentivizes more miners to come online and add those transactions to the blockchain

IMHO, all this shows is that OFAC is scared of bitcoin but they can't really do anything to stop it.

[alani123]

Troubling for some but the incentives of bitcoin will render these attempts at censorship impotent.

If transactions continue to get censored, the natural outcome is that mempool fees will bloat and the market dynamic of on-chain fees and the fee rate come into play. The highest fees will be included in the next block. If your transactions are censored, then you will need to pay a greater fee rate to get included in a block in a reasonable amount of time. You can also CoinJoin to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the first place.

I think you're overestimating, and dare I say romanticizing, bitcoin's blockchain infrastructure.
If miners unilaterally decide to block certain addresses there's very little the users can do while staying on the same network.
Even if they actively blocked a significant portion of total transactions going on, a smart client could chose to also ignore these transactions and set its fees regardless of them, knowing that they will never get confirmed. So users not caring about censorship and only interested to transact cheaply would be incentivιsed to just filter transactions in the same way that miners do too.  
So no, censorship is not a problem that could solve itself. Some action and intervention would be needed if it became a large problem.

[BlackHatCoiner]

A smart client is not that smart if it endorses censorship that might turn up against them in the future.

Besides that. "Information is easy to spread but hard to stifle"-- Someone someone. You cannot prevent information from spreading across a peer-to-peer network. If a few pro-censorship nodes decide to blacklist addresses, the owners of the blacklisted coins can simply select to broadcast them elsewhere.

[HmmMAA]

Additionally, we are seeing the beginning of the emergence of a pleb mining pool (https://web.public-pool.io) that is likely to continue to grow even if only as a hobby project.

The more transactions that are censored, the greater the incentive for fees to rise which incentivizes more miners to come online and add those transactions to the blockchain

IMHO, all this shows is that OFAC is scared of bitcoin but they can't really do anything to stop it.

Good luck spending power if major pools decide to reject those blocks . And i really wonder , for how long will those miners are willing to burn money until they find out that they can't do anything ?
You should study how bitcoin works , and Antonopoulos isn't the best source . You are the only one that can question how the structure of the network is made , stop believing others .
As for stratum V2 that some like , you will find out that sooner or later it leads to the same model . There's no way way out , like in hotel California
"We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave!"

Edit : Oh , and good luck trusting a pool that takes advantage of what the btc community currently needs , hope . Another rug pull on the making . Good luck to those who chose it .

[cryptosize]

The European Central bank is toying with the idea of imposing a €3000 limit on consumer CBDC accounts to discourage users from transferring all their cash from commercial banks to the central bank.

So what the ECB is worried about is that citizens will embrace the Euro CBDC so enthusiastically that they will all want to switch to it, eliminating the need for commercial banks and suddenly all those banks will fail. That is why it is considering imposing an initial limit of €3,000, which will coexist with the existing cash and electronic payments (transfers, card payments, etc.).

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?

Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

I doubt anyone here is entertaining that notion, but it's the kind of thing the bureaucrats obsess over.  I suppose they are accountable if they do get it wrong, but yes, it's a pretty far-fetched scenario.  

Our goal presumably involves trying to highlight to the uninitiated masses what the consequences might be for them if they do adopt CBDCs.  The absolute death-knell of privacy being chief amongst them, but censorship a serious concern as well (and, unlike this current situation with a small percentage of pools censoring OFAC listed addresses, it's likely to be a more pervasive, inescapable and unyielding type of censorship with CBDCs, with little room for recourse).  Even if we can't necessarily persuade people about the advantages of using Bitcoin, it could be an "anything but CBDCs" kind of discussion.  

The masses have a distinct knack for acting against their own self-interests when given the opportunity, so it won't be as easy as it might sound to convince them that CBDCs are very bad for them.  You'd be surprised at how quickly some might embrace this mass-surveillance foolishness.

I already see some people around here embracing things such as Digital ID, carbon credits (because apparently human beings cause climate change) and yes, even mass surveillance with tons of cameras and suggesting that Bitcoin is the perfect "timestamp machine" to store video feeds from innocent citizens.

Trust me, sometimes I'm genuinely wondering if I'm talking to Bitcoiners or feds... people conceal their identity, so it's very easy to pretend and play some fictitious role.

Regarding OFAC, I remember back in 2020 during the 1st COVID lockdown some BTC pool trying to censor transactions, but it didn't last for too long.

F2pool only has 11.4% of the hashrate. Still a far cry from 51%. Chances are it will fizzle out again.

You should study how bitcoin works , and Antonopoulos isn't the best source .

Who is the best source? Craig Wright?

[Kavelj22]

This is one of the worst things I have ever read this year.

I am not only surprised by a mining pool's participation in distorting the decentralization on which they operate their services, but by their accepting involvement in this and depriving themselves of a measure of the profits that they receive in the form of fees, even if the transactions are few, but this is fundamentally against the principles of investment profit.

Now let us change the angle of analysis a little: You can imagine how what happened will raise waves of debate about the right of mining pools to do this for two main reasons: First, because there are no laws controlling their field, and any mining pool has the right to choose the transactions it includes without accountability from anyone. Secondly, how appropriate are these actions with reality, since it can be argued that these mining pools refuse to facilitate the transactions of those who are classified as terrorists or subject to sanctions by one of the most important international approval bodies.

The last point I would like to point out, which also surprised me, is that Binance, which seeks to curry favor with the American authorities, has not engaged in such actions, but we find F2Pool doing so even though it is an Asian company. I doubt that this was done at the request of the American authorities.

[alani123]

A smart client is not that smart if it endorses censorship that might turn up against them in the future.

Besides that. "Information is easy to spread but hard to stifle"-- Someone someone. You cannot prevent information from spreading across a peer-to-peer network. If a few pro-censorship nodes decide to blacklist addresses, the owners of the blacklisted coins can simply select to broadcast them elsewhere.

Yes, transaction data can be broadcasted to hell and back, perhaps even stored on a full node literally on the moon.
But if a miner doesn't include it in his blocks, what's the point?
That's the issue here. No matter how you broadcast transactions, miners wield more power over users.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But if a miner doesn't include it in his blocks, what's the point?

The point is that some other miner can do it, and take their profit. That's where censorship resistance originates from. A miner dislikes a transaction? Another will mine it. A mining pool operator dislikes a transaction? Another will mine it. All big mining pools' operators dislike a transaction? Then maybe miners have to migrate elsewhere, where they get to decide these crucial policies. If they don't, then the entire game theory starts falling apart, and that is nobody's benefit but the governments'.

[Poker Player]

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?

Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

So I have dismantled the garbage argument that was a pure conspiracy and you come back to me with the adjective "gullible". Read again and see to whom you have to apply the adjective.

I doubt anyone here is entertaining that notion, but it's the kind of thing the bureaucrats obsess over.  

Yes, well, the concern for privacy that I see on the forum I don't see on the street in my day to day life where almost nobody pays with cash anymore. From there to enthusiastically using CBDCs is a step.

Another curious thing is that CBDCs indeed eliminate the need for conventional banks in the same way that a combine harvester eliminates the need for human hand harvesters. But it seems the bureaucrats don't want that part of progress, or at least they don't want it to happen too fast.

The masses have a distinct knack for acting against their own self-interests when given the opportunity, so it won't be as easy as it might sound to convince them that CBDCs are very bad for them.  You'd be surprised at how quickly some might embrace this mass-surveillance foolishness.

I am starting to see some resistance to CBDCs from non-Bitcoin environments, but minimal. I'm pessimistic on the subject. There have been countries like Venezuela and Nigeria where the launch of CBDCs has been a failure but I think in other parts of the world is going to be different.

[pooya87]

The government are not going to stop kicking down doors until they achieve their goal, unless we do something to stop them. Shaking our fists and hoping for the best is insufficient.

It is a never ending war that we should continue fighting and defending Bitcoin. The Stratum V2 shows that there is still hope and we are on the correct path.

Yes, well, the concern for privacy that I see on the forum I don't see on the street in my day to day life where almost nobody pays with cash anymore. From there to enthusiastically using CBDCs is a step.

People usually don't become aware of something they've lost until it hits them in the face. And the way the governments invade privacy is slow and unnoticed so people don't panic! For example they knew NSA was monitoring their every move but they didn't go nuts until the intelligence leak went viral. Then again they forgot about it shortly after.

It's the same with banks and also CBDCs. Until it doesn't go down like 2008 and blow up in their faces, they won't realize what they don't already have.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It's the same with banks and also CBDCs. Until it doesn't go down like 2008 and blow up in their faces, they won't realize what they don't already have.

By which point it will be too late to change anything. We will never be able to go back to before mass surveillance. Once CBDCs are launched, we will never be able to go back to before they existed. And once the government have control of the bitcoin network and can censor at will, we will never be able to go back to it being free. Which is why we need to be discussing solutions now.

[cryptosize]

So I have dismantled the garbage argument that was a pure conspiracy and you come back to me with the adjective "gullible". Read again and see to whom you have to apply the adjective.

I'm sorry, but you're the one who has garbage counterarguments here. You insult my intelligence when you insinuate that people will be happy to accept CBDC (along with its consequences).

There is no conspiracy theory regarding CBDC (Digital ID, carbon credits, social credit score, 15-min cities).

It's already a reality in China and they're preparing to bring it in the West, only because there are gullible people like you who know nothing about WEF, Great Reset, Klaus Schwab.

ps: I know many non-BTC people (no-coiners) who resist against CBDC and want to retain cash at all costs.

Eventually they will be forced to shallow the orange pill, but at least they resist against this sci-fi dystopia...

[cryptosize]

People usually don't become aware of something they've lost until it hits them in the face. And the way the governments invade privacy is slow and unnoticed so people don't panic! For example they knew NSA was monitoring their every move but they didn't go nuts until the intelligence leak went viral. Then again they forgot about it shortly after.

It's the same with banks and also CBDCs. Until it doesn't go down like 2008 and blow up in their faces, they won't realize what they don't already have.

It's the same with banks and also CBDCs. Until it doesn't go down like 2008 and blow up in their faces, they won't realize what they don't already have.

By which point it will be too late to change anything. We will never be able to go back to before mass surveillance. Once CBDCs are launched, we will never be able to go back to before they existed. And once the government have control of the bitcoin network and can censor at will, we will never be able to go back to it being free. Which is why we need to be discussing solutions now.

Judging by this thread, there is some denial that CBDCs aren't necessarily a bad thing, in fact it's such a "good" thing that people will be "enthusiastic" to abandon physical cash in favor of CBDC!

My disappointment arises from the fact that I have high expectations from Bitcoiners (unless they pretend to be Bitcoiners and in reality they're undercover feds)... they should not be so gullible.

CBDC is like a digital jail. Once you enter it, there is no going back to normal (as Klaus Schwab has said).

[stompix]

I don't believe that the masses control the world. Maybe they did once, but not anymore. Democracy is a failure. It's just the least worse regime comparably to the rest. Or as someone had once put it, "Democracy is the worst regime, except all the others". For it to function properly, it requires strong citizen maturity and character, and that is almost never the case. Granted. It is the closest thing we have to harmoniously live alongside and, by compromises, to maintain a healthy community. But it's self-destructive, just as humans. It is inevitable at some point that social institutions will corrupt, and the people will not just turn against the corrupted institution, but to the democratic system itself.

And that is why I like Bitcoin. It is not a democracy. It requires little effort to work; and works good. It is not controlled by the masses, but by neither a tyrant. It inherits the good virtues of democracy without incorporating the extensive effort and conditions it entails. You need Internet connection and a computer. Boom, money sent overseas secured by a mechanism which converts human greed to collective benefit. The bet is that this beautiful combo can overcome human corruption, or at the very least, navigate around it.

Hihihi, you forgot one thing, the one that makes the world spin, MONEY!

Every system will work, even democracy or communism will do perfectly until you hit the money thing, and that's when the problems come, based on the scale of money involved, the ability of an individual to seize it all and the price everyone puts on their beliefs, so if they sell that for 10 cents a day, there you go NK failure.

And that will come to Bitcoin, Bitcoin itself is just a  protocol, it can't become corrupted on his own, but as any protocol it relies on humans, humans update its features, humans host nodes, humans host miners, humans make transactions, and so on, but most importantly!!!
Humans make MONEY out of this, and this feature is the point of failure if it's impossible to find a mechanism to prevent is, which is not that easy.

But you know what's the currents stop? Also money!
So miners won't do something stupid because they will lose money on it, now offer them twice as much and you'll see how frail the protocol is against greed, but right now it's money that's guarding the network.

With how expensive PoW mining is becoming each day, things are going to get worse in the long run (more centralization). BTC needs to switch to an ASIC-resistant algorithm to strip away big mining companies and centralized mining pools from power.

There is no such thing!
No matter what protocol you choose you can design an ASIC that will outperform your average Joe computer by an order of magnitude.
What's preventing some coins for being mined by ASICs is their daily reward, if that is worth a few thousand dollars a day nobody will invest in building an ASIC for that, but with BTC we talk about 30-40 million a day.

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?
Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

You really think people would abandon cash for credit cards, hard cash in hand for 401k, your free spending for FICO ? Oh wait...
We're talking about 8 billion people, and 14 years in which way less than 40 million (and these are addresses not wallets) have chosen to be their own bank, probably the right numbers being lower than even 5 million.

[cryptosize]

With how expensive PoW mining is becoming each day, things are going to get worse in the long run (more centralization). BTC needs to switch to an ASIC-resistant algorithm to strip away big mining companies and centralized mining pools from power.

There is no such thing!
No matter what protocol you choose you can design an ASIC that will outperform your average Joe computer by an order of magnitude.
What's preventing some coins for being mined by ASICs is their daily reward, if that is worth a few thousand dollars a day nobody will invest in building an ASIC for that, but with BTC we talk about 30-40 million a day.

Not true.

Have you studied Monero's RandomX algorithm?

It's designed in a specific way that favors CPUs (especially Ryzen ones), so that if someone wanted to design an equivalent ASIC chip, it would be as complex/expensive as a Ryzen processor.

So why not buy Ryzen in the first place?

SHA-256 is a very simple algorithm compared to RandomX, that's why it's possible to outperform regular PCs. Apples to oranges comparison.

Btw, I'm not saying that BTC should do a hard fork (like XMR does from time to time). The SHA-256 ASIC investment is too high to ignore/abandon it.

You really think people will be so enthusiastic to abandon cash in favor of CBDC, social credit score, carbon credits, 15-min cities?
Only a gullible person would believe that... I think Bitcoiners can do better than that.

You really think people would abandon cash for credit cards, hard cash in hand for 401k, your free spending for FICO ? Oh wait...
We're talking about 8 billion people, and 14 years in which way less than 40 million (and these are addresses not wallets) have chosen to be their own bank, probably the right numbers being lower than even 5 million.

Care to explain why the "uneducated" Nigerians didn't accept CBDC?

What makes you think that Americans/Europeans are "inferior"? Even though they started famous revolutions in the past?

Give me some compelling arguments.

The only way they can possibly lure people into CBDC is by providing a generous UBI (Varoufakis had proposed €2000/month during the COVID plandemic). Andrew Yang had proposed $1000/month in 2013 (more like $2000 with today's inflation taken into account).

Sure, that's a way, but you risk crazy high inflation (although there are ways to mitigate it, such as smart contracts limiting the amount of products you can buy -> i.e. less red meat, more insects).

Still though, people are not that dumb to ditch red meat in favor of insects. China has a different culture, they also have overpopulation, which means they're forced to eat literally everything that walks and flies.

Do you guys seriously envision the West becoming like China? Is that what you want for your children?

[BlackHatCoiner]

And that will come to Bitcoin, Bitcoin itself is just a  protocol, it can't become corrupted on his own, but as any protocol it rilies on humans

But not in the same sense as with democracy. Sure, it is a human fabrication, but with as much little human presence required as possible. The reliance on the people in charge is minimum. There is an absence of bribery, lobbying, and bailouts, not because those in charge adhere to absolute moral standards; no one does. Everyone has their weaknesses. The chemical reactions occurring in your brain when you wield significant power are simply too powerful to overlook.

The reason there is absence of these things, is because there is nothing to be bribed. There is nothing to be lobbied. Nothing to be bailed out. There is virtually nothing corruptible in this ecosystem as long as the incentive to secure the network surpasses the potential incentive to overthrow it -- that's the entire gamble. If we fail in that gamble, we're fucked. I cannot fathom designing a system more insusceptible to corruption than this.

[stompix]

Have you studied Monero's RandomX algorithm?

It's designed in a specific way that favors CPUs (especially Ryzen ones), so that if someone wanted to design an equivalent ASIC chip, it would be as complex/expensive as a Ryzen processor.

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020231023114009392Wa6C3QuD0658
Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 12 kh/s, 120 W, $350 you get 1kh/s for 10W and 1 kh/s for $20
X5, 212 kh/S, 1350W, at $3000, you get 1 kh/s for 6W and 1kh/s for $14
And in one scenario you got a ready to mine machine in the other you don't even get a fan....

Care to explain why the "uneducated" Nigerians didn't accept CBDC?
What makes you think that Americans/Europeans are "inferior"? Even though they started famous revolutions in the past?
Give me some compelling arguments.

The same way they haven't embraced credit cards either, it's not a matter of choice it's a matter of using what available and more convenient. Just because a CDBC failed in country that struggles to keep power on it doesn't mean it will fail in others.
Most will not care, CDBC or a credit/debit card, what would be the difference for your average Joe consumer? None!Some of you really need to understand that things you talk on this forum are just gibberish boring thing for the majority of the world who doesn't really care.

The reason there is absence of these things, is because there is nothing to be bribed. There is nothing to be lobbied. Nothing to be bailed out. There is virtually nothing corruptible in this ecosystem as long as the incentive to secure the network surpasses the potential incentive to overthrow it -- that's the entire gamble. If we fail in that gamble, we're fucked. I cannot fathom designing a system more insusceptible to corruption than this.

Still it's all about the money, money is also guarding it but it's also the root of the problem, if Bitcoin would be worth a few thousands nobody would spend billions on attacking it and nobody would spend billions to protect it, there is no difference between Bitcoin and another structure as long as they both follow the rules.

Politicians weren't supposed to take bribes, they weren't supposed to change laws, they were supposed to only change the constitution on a 51% majority or 2/3, guess what, so do miners, they could act lawfully or they could say screw that if they are PAID more.
A politician paid $5000 will fall for a 2million bribe, Mara will sell everything for 1 billion, it's just a matter of percentages.

As for lobby, cough cough...big blo..ikes!

[cryptosize]

Have you studied Monero's RandomX algorithm?

It's designed in a specific way that favors CPUs (especially Ryzen ones), so that if someone wanted to design an equivalent ASIC chip, it would be as complex/expensive as a Ryzen processor.

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020231023114009392Wa6C3QuD0658
Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 12 kh/s, 120 W, $350 you get 1kh/s for 10W and 1 kh/s for $20
X5, 212 kh/S, 1350W, at $3000, you get 1 kh/s for 6W and 1kh/s for $14
And in one scenario you got a ready to mine machine in the other you don't even get a fan....

1) Sold out (unlike Ryzen CPUs, even 7950X is readily available)
2) This doesn't use ASIC chips (unlike BTC or LTC), it uses RISC-V CPUs. Look it up.

RISC might be more efficient than CISC (x86), but it's still not an ASIC. You won't find a single RandomX ASIC.

You also won't see anyone using RISC-V CPUs for BTC or LTC mining.

[cryptosize]

Care to explain why the "uneducated" Nigerians didn't accept CBDC?
What makes you think that Americans/Europeans are "inferior"? Even though they started famous revolutions in the past?
Give me some compelling arguments.

The same way they haven't embraced credit cards either, it's not a matter of choice it's a matter of using what available and more convenient. Just because a CDBC failed in country that struggles to keep power on it doesn't mean it will fail in others.
Most will not care, CDBC or a credit/debit card, what would be the difference for your average Joe consumer? None!Some of you really need to understand that things you talk on this forum are just gibberish boring thing for the majority of the world who doesn't really care.

The difference is called social credit score and carbon credits.

The average Joe can buy as much red meat/gasoline as he likes with his credit/debit card.

Will he be able to do the same with CBDC?

Do you know anything about WEF's agenda?

[coolcoinz]

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

When it comes to CBDCs most people don't care because they don't have to deal with it right now, nobody forces them to use it, there's a chance it will not go live in their lifetimes, they don't know the details because governments sell it to them as a new, more digital fiat money, that can be assigned to a face ID. This doesn't sound bad if that's all you know.
Joe thinks about it and comes to a conclusion that if he loses his wallet abroad, he'll still be able to buy a ticket home by simply getting scanned at the airport. Pretty convenient if you ask me.
If they start blocking people for their social media activity, fining them for what they write online, there's going to be riots, unless they choose to deal with it like China  did and roll out the tanks.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Joe thinks about it and comes to a conclusion that if he loses his wallet abroad, he'll still be able to buy a ticket home by simply getting scanned at the airport. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

It has always been about convenience. Cash is more difficult to carry around, split in multiple amounts, there's no history of transactions recorded if you need it, easier to lose and get stolen, change discomforts etc. It appears to be the case that these inconveniences justify the spending of billions of dollars and euros in transaction fees annually.

If they start blocking people for their social media activity, fining them for what they write online, there's going to be riots, unless they choose to deal with it like China  did and roll out the tanks.

The West is not China. There may be similar treatment as to Chinese, but we fundamentally differ in culture.

CBDC is without doubt coming to Europe, though. This is not a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory is that it'll be used to pause the economic activity of people based on their social media, or political preferences, which again might be attempted to happen, but I struggle to imagine the Chinese model enforced to Europeans.

[cryptosize]

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

When it comes to CBDCs most people don't care because they don't have to deal with it right now, nobody forces them to use it, there's a chance it will not go live in their lifetimes, they don't know the details because governments sell it to them as a new, more digital fiat money, that can be assigned to a face ID. This doesn't sound bad if that's all you know.
Joe thinks about it and comes to a conclusion that if he loses his wallet abroad, he'll still be able to buy a ticket home by simply getting scanned at the airport. Pretty convenient if you ask me.
If they start blocking people for their social media activity, fining them for what they write online, there's going to be riots, unless they choose to deal with it like China  did and roll out the tanks.

I have no idea why people think carbon credits (which will restrict your red meat/gasoline consumption etc.) is a "conspiracy theory":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djpRUafjx7c

Yet again, most people don't even know what WEF is... or perhaps they think it's some "innocent" global forum.

And no, this won't be optional, it will be mandatory. Why? Because most people buy the "human-made" climate change BS. They've dug their own (Net Zero) grave.

Trust me, I would be very happy if I were Klaus Schwab or Bill Gates and you believed my pseudo-religious BS (repent your climate sins ), but I'm not!

I'm just a regular middle class person. Bill Gates will keep flying his private jet and eating juicy steaks, while we will be forced to eat ze bugs.

The more people think this is a conspiracy theory, the more happy papa Klaus and uncle Gates become. Because if the majority of people truly believed it and didn't dismiss it as a "conspiracy theory", they would revolt against their sinister techno-communism plans.

[Poker Player]

I'm sorry, but you're the one who has garbage counterarguments here. You insult my intelligence when you insinuate that people will be happy to accept CBDC (along with its consequences).

The bonobo intelligence you have, welcome to my ignore list you retard.

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

Another one who doesn't get something basic. The money shown as balance on the (debit) cards is not real money, they are accounting entries based on a ponzi scheme, and in the case of credit cards it is even worse, because they are accounting entries passed on as money that are created as debt with every payment you make. But if you don't understand this very basic thing don't expect me to waste much time arguing with you, eh?

 

[philipma1957]

But if a miner doesn't include it in his blocks, what's the point?

The point is that some other miner can do it, and take their profit. That's where censorship resistance originates from. A miner dislikes a transaction? Another will mine it. A mining pool operator dislikes a transaction? Another will mine it. All big mining pools' operators dislike a transaction? Then maybe miners have to migrate elsewhere, where they get to decide these crucial policies. If they don't, then the entire game theory starts falling apart, and that is nobody's benefit but the governments'.

Could become a good thing may mean more pools on the 1-5% size and less pools over 10% size.

[cryptosize]

I'm sorry, but you're the one who has garbage counterarguments here. You insult my intelligence when you insinuate that people will be happy to accept CBDC (along with its consequences).

The bonobo intelligence you have, welcome to my ignore list you retard.

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

Another one who doesn't get something basic. The money shown as balance on the (debit) cards is not real money, they are accounting entries based on a ponzi scheme, and in the case of credit cards it is even worse, because they are accounting entries passed on as money that are created as debt with every payment you make. But if you don't understand this very basic thing don't expect me to waste much time arguing with you, eh?

You are the one who has bonobo intelligence here, because you don't understand that even physical cash is not real money (backed by gold), it's debt issued by the Central Bank. That's how fiat money works.

Oh well, some Bitcoiners are gullible retards... I'll have to settle with that!

Good riddance

[stompix]

1) Sold out (unlike Ryzen CPUs, even 7950X is readily available)
2) This doesn't use ASIC chips (unlike BTC or LTC), it uses RISC-V CPUs. Look it up.

RISC might be more efficient than CISC (x86), but it's still not an ASIC. You won't find a single RandomX ASIC.

You also won't see anyone using RISC-V CPUs for BTC or LTC mining.

You're burying yourself in details overlooking the economical aspect.
There is a machine that mines randomx cheaper and with less power than a CPU excluding the later one additional demand for components and electricity cost, that's what matters.

You're ignoring the randomx daily reward that makes little sense in spending too much on gear, $73k last day, or 0.23% that of BTC. Do you see anyone pouring money in stuff that has than 0.1% of market share?
You're ignoring the security aspect, that thing does 212kh/s Monero hashrate is 2.5 gh/s, how much is that in $? 6 million! Six million in gear to reach half of the hashrate! The prefect chain to secure billions, right?

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

Sweden would love to have a word with you!

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Within the debate that is going on here about whether people do not care about their privacy, whether they will adopt CBDCs and whether we in this forum are an exception in caring about these issues, I wanted to ask: what do you think about the fact that in this forum there are people who work for a mixer, in the signature campaign, and deposit the funds they receive directly into Binance? (see an image in the link)

Some user included me, received message from Binance that we recieved fund from Sinbad signature Escrow address and we have to give cleanliness that from where we recieved fund and what is our relationship with address owner.

I don't find the idea of receiving the payment and directly depositing it in a CEX like Binance, where you will be fully KYC'd, despite the fact that you are advertising a privacy tool, very coherent to say the least.

[philipma1957]

Within the debate that is going on here about whether people do not care about their privacy, whether they will adopt CBDCs and whether we in this forum are an exception in caring about these issues, I wanted to ask: what do you think about the fact that in this forum there are people who work for a mixer, in the signature campaign, and deposit the funds they receive directly into Binance? (see an image in the link)

Some user included me, received message from Binance that we recieved fund from Sinbad signature Escrow address and we have to give cleanliness that from where we recieved fund and what is our relationship with address owner.

I don't find the idea of receiving the payment and directly depositing it in a CEX like Binance, where you will be fully KYC'd, despite the fact that you are advertising a privacy tool, very coherent to say the least.

Well many will not use a mixer but advertise it.

Much like my late father-in-law he owned a bar and bartended 6 days/night a week.

Yet he did not drink.

 I personally advertise a mixer as I no longer trust the USA government.
 I believe they have drifted far off track in the last 30 years.
 A constant failure of leadership and budgets year after year.
 But I am Locked into the system my wife and I get 3 federal pensions so I personally do endless KYC.
 Younger people can look at me and realize if privacy works for them they may want to try it out.

So much like my late father-in-law I do not 'drink'

[Abiky]

Yes, transaction data can be broadcasted to hell and back, perhaps even stored on a full node literally on the moon.
But if a miner doesn't include it in his blocks, what's the point?
That's the issue here. No matter how you broadcast transactions, miners wield more power over users.

Not all miners agree with censoring transactions. Those that are greedy will accept them, even if the government is against such a decision. That's the beauty of Bitcoin's decentralized design. At this point, we can say sanctions can't be enforced on Bitcoin at the protocol level. Only through centralized exchanges, services, and wallet providers.

If things get "tough" for the government, it will make Bitcoin "illegal' for mainstream use. But I doubt it, especially when Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) brings huge taxation benefits to the government. As long as the government gets its "piece of the pie", nothing else matters. Hopefully, Bitcoin will remain censorship-resistant forever.

[DooMAD]

If things get "tough" for the government, it will make Bitcoin "illegal' for mainstream use. But I doubt it, especially when Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) brings huge taxation benefits to the government.

That, and driving usage underground means they'd lose what tiny shred of control they do have over the on-ramps and off-ramps into fiat.  You could imagine that no one is going to volunteer for KYC if they know what they're doing is illegal anyway.  As such, most sensible governments are largely compelled to take the 'nudge theory' approach. 

[coolcoinz]

I'm just a regular middle class person. Bill Gates will keep flying his private jet and eating juicy steaks, while we will be forced to eat ze bugs.

Private jets. He owns at least 5. The brands are even listed if you google it. It's public knowledge. The boss himself has a carbon footprint of a small town, yet he wants to stop you and me from having our own.

IMO people aren't the sheep some posters here think they are. Yes, they chose credit cards over cash, but that's because most of them were certain that the money on their card is real cash converted to ones and zeros. The risk of using a card over cash wasn't really that big for your average joe, but the convenience was greatly increased.

Another one who doesn't get something basic. The money shown as balance on the (debit) cards is not real money, they are accounting entries based on a ponzi scheme, and in the case of credit cards it is even worse, because they are accounting entries passed on as money that are created as debt with every payment you make. But if you don't understand this very basic thing don't expect me to waste much time arguing with you, eh?

 

Then don't argue with me, since you read my sentence the wrong way, so I'll rephrase it for you.
I said that most of them (meaning creadit card users) think the money on a bank card are real cash converted to bank balance. I never said that I'm one of these people.

It looks like your whole post was based on a wrong assumption.

Sweden would love to have a word with you!

Sweden is an experiment on so many levels. Migration, money... I'd say the country is not doing so well because of that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

My disappointment arises from the fact that I have high expectations from Bitcoiners (unless they pretend to be Bitcoiners and in reality they're undercover feds)... they should not be so gullible.

There are plenty of people on this forum who cheer regulation since it means bitcoin "is going mainstream", who cheer KYC since it means bitcoin "will be safer to use", and who cheer governmental control because "institutions will make the price moon". Those same people will be quite happy with CBDCs. After all, the government only want to protect the children, right!?

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020231023114009392Wa6C3QuD0658
Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 12 kh/s, 120 W, $350 you get 1kh/s for 10W and 1 kh/s for $20
X5, 212 kh/S, 1350W, at $3000, you get 1 kh/s for 6W and 1kh/s for $14

Exactly. So this Monero "ASIC" is barely better than a CPU, which is exactly what is supposed to happen. ASICs on bitcoin are many orders of magnitude more efficient than CPU/GPU mining.

I said that most of them (meaning creadit card users) think the money on a bank card are real cash converted to bank balance. I never said that I'm one of these people.

You also said people aren't the sheep we think they are. But then you said they all use credit cards not understanding the money is not real (which I agree with), and they will all use CBDCs because they are convenient (which I also agree with). But surely just going along with what the banks tell you to do (use credit cards, use CBDCs) is exactly what the sheep would do?

[pooya87]

Judging by this thread, there is some denial that CBDCs aren't necessarily a bad thing, in fact it's such a "good" thing that people will be "enthusiastic" to abandon physical cash in favor of CBDC!

My disappointment arises from the fact that I have high expectations from Bitcoiners (unless they pretend to be Bitcoiners and in reality they're undercover feds)... they should not be so gullible.

CBDC is like a digital jail. Once you enter it, there is no going back to normal (as Klaus Schwab has said).

I wouldn't call CBDCs good or bad. They are what they are and that's not a new thing. People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name. They entered that jail the day centralized banking was introduced and they went deeper into it as it grew specially with digital banking.

The centralized authority will hunger for more control and surveillance. The only thing that should matter to us is to preserve Bitcoin's principles so that we can keep it as that "exit option", not try to change the centralized world.

[serveria.com]

Recently I was scrolling on Twitter(X) and I came across something rather interesting..

A bitcoin developer that I follow on there (@0xB10C) posted this on his page. [1]

Given the community's commitment to upholding the censorship resistance of our network, I deemed it appropriate to conduct a thorough reading.


Here's what I found:

Firstly, the developers project aims to detect instances where Bitcoin mining pools fail to mine transactions they could have included. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a bureau in the U.S. Treasury Department, is responsible for enforcing economic and trade sanctions aligning with U.S. foreign policy, targeting countries, terrorists, and threats to national security. Over the past weeks, the project identified six missing transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses, prompting an investigation into whether these omissions were intentional or had alternative explanations.

The RSS feed reported missing transactions from ViaBTC, Foundry USA, and F2Pool, involving OFAC-sanctioned addresses.The analysis explores various reasons for transactions being absent from blocks, such as network propagation, individual node differences, and pool transaction prioritization. The primary goal is to determine whether mining pools intentionally filter OFAC-sanctioned transactions and assess the impact on Bitcoin's censorship-resistant properties.

One missing transaction from ViaBTC's block 808660 was due to the prioritization of other transactions by ViaBTC's Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator, indicating it was not intentionally filtered. Foundry USA's block 813231 did not include a sanctioned transaction due to potential delays in transaction propagation. Again, unintentional.
According to the report, the analysis suggests that F2Pool omitted transactions from OFAC-sanctioned addresses in blocks 810727, 811791, 811920, and 813357. The reasons for the omission vary for each block, but the common thread is the likelihood of intentional filtering by F2Pool. Here's a breakdown of the reasons for the omission in each block:

Block 810727:

F2Pool did not include this transaction, and instead, another transaction was included. The report suggests that the missing transaction had a slightly higher fee rate but was 3 vBytes smaller than the included transaction. Despite the fee rate advantage, the larger transaction was chosen.

Block 811791:

The report indicates that F2Pool omitted this transaction, and despite having enough space in the block, it was likely intentionally filtered. The presence of extra transactions in the block did not affect the inclusion of the sanctioned transaction, making intentional filtering more plausible.

Block 811920:

F2Pool did not include this large consolidation transaction in the block, and the report suggests that the transaction might not have propagated to F2Pool in time, but it's also likely that it was intentionally filtered. The transaction was marked as "recently broadcast" on mempool.space.

Block 813357:

F2Pool excluded this consolidation transaction from the block, and the report indicates that, similar to the case in block 811791, it's likely intentionally filtered. The transaction had been in the node’s mempool for more than 25 minutes, making it less likely that it wasn't known to F2Pool when building the block.


In summary, the report concludes that these transactions were likely intentionally filtered by F2Pool, This raises the question of why F2Pool, a pool with origins in Asia, is the first pool to filter transactions based on US OFAC sanctions, especially considering that other transactions with similar or lower fee rates were included in the blocks.

The original report can be found here. I highly encourage giving it a read. [2]

----------

I find myself uncertain about how to interpret all of this information. Despite the seemingly small number of just six transactions, the fact that such situations are possible raises concerns. I'm grappling with whether this should be a cause for worry in the future or if it's perhaps an overblown issue. The writer of the report leaves us with this:

The Bitcoin network, however, continues to work as normal. A single pool filtering transactions does not affect the censorship resistance of the Bitcoin network as a whole. Further monitoring of the transaction selection of mining pools allows identifying when more pools start to filter transactions based on, for example, OFAC sanctions. It also allows miners pointing their hashrate to these pools to make an informed decision on switching to a different pool if they don’t agree with a pool’s (unannounced) filtering policies.

[1] https://x.com/0xB10C/status/1726964430460588201?s=20
[2] https://b10c.me/observations/08-missing-sanctioned-transactions/

Well this is big if true. I wonder what all those monkey pic fans are going to say now? We can't filter spam ddos monkey pic transactions but uncle Sam can filter whatever seems unacceptable for them? Right? I'm ready to hear your whining... gotta stock up on popcorn and enjoy the comments... 

[o_e_l_e_o]

People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name.

The goal of CBDCs is to eliminate cash and have everything electronic, and therefore have everything 100% traceable and 100% censorable. This is definitely worse than the current system, where you can at least escape some surveillance and retain some control by using cash.

[cryptosize]

People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name.

The goal of CBDCs is to eliminate cash and have everything electronic, and therefore have everything 100% traceable and 100% censorable. This is definitely worse than the current system, where you can at least escape some surveillance and retain some control by using cash.

Exactly!

I know no-coiners who understand this, so I'm surprised Bitcoiners don't get it.

Judging by this thread, there is some denial that CBDCs aren't necessarily a bad thing, in fact it's such a "good" thing that people will be "enthusiastic" to abandon physical cash in favor of CBDC!

My disappointment arises from the fact that I have high expectations from Bitcoiners (unless they pretend to be Bitcoiners and in reality they're undercover feds)... they should not be so gullible.

CBDC is like a digital jail. Once you enter it, there is no going back to normal (as Klaus Schwab has said).

I wouldn't call CBDCs good or bad. They are what they are and that's not a new thing. People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name. They entered that jail the day centralized banking was introduced and they went deeper into it as it grew specially with digital banking.

The centralized authority will hunger for more control and surveillance. The only thing that should matter to us is to preserve Bitcoin's principles so that we can keep it as that "exit option", not try to change the centralized world.

Not true.

The current banking system doesn't have: 1) carbon credits, 2) social credit score.

Look it up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djpRUafjx7c

MasterCard has already implemented it:

https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/vision/corp-responsibility/priceless-planet/carbon-calculator.html
https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2021/april/mastercard-unveils-new-carbon-calculator-tool/

And no, this won't be optional with CBDC + Digital ID... I remember people thinking COVID mRNA vaccines would be "optional".

They're "optional" only if you don't mind losing access to workplaces, universities, hospitals, cafes/restaurants (remember the QR/Green Pass?) etc.

The danger is real and the more people dismiss it, the more it creeps up into our lives.

[pooya87]

People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name.

The goal of CBDCs is to eliminate cash and have everything electronic, and therefore have everything 100% traceable and 100% censorable. This is definitely worse than the current system, where you can at least escape some surveillance and retain some control by using cash.

That's true but my point is that we have been on this path of digitalization and full monitoring for a long time, even before the concept of CBDC was introduced. They are just trying to centralize it more and force it on the population under a fancy name. Otherwise in this day and age people aren't using cash that much already and majority of their transactions are already easily surveilled.

The current banking system doesn't have: 1) carbon credits, 2) social credit score.

Current banking system already has a record of all your financial activity that goes through them without having a fancy disguise for it and on top of that there is a massive database in NSA with your every move inside of it, your financial activity is the least of it. After all they have to use their tens of billions of dollars budget for something!

They're "optional" only if you don't mind losing access to workplaces, universities, hospitals, cafes/restaurants (remember the QR/Green Pass?) etc.

THEY aren't optional, Bitcoin is. You have the option to choose bitcoin to exit that corrupt system and cut the hands that are in your pocket.

[cryptosize]

The current banking system doesn't have: 1) carbon credits, 2) social credit score.

Current banking system already has a record of all your financial activity that goes through them without having a fancy disguise for it and on top of that there is a massive database in NSA with your every move inside of it, your financial activity is the least of it. After all they have to use their tens of billions of dollars budget for something!

You still don't get it... my point wasn't the record of financial history.

Currently I'm able to buy as much red meat/gasoline as I like with fiat money (either cash or credit/debit card). Right?

Will you be able to do the same with CBDC? Or will they restrict your red meat/gasoline consumption to "mitigate" climate change? Answer this question please.

THEY aren't optional, Bitcoin is. You have the option to choose bitcoin to exit that corrupt system and cut the hands that are in your pocket.

Sure, BTC is an option (as long as it doesn't become centralized/censor-friendly).

XMR is potentially another...

You will be forced to use the black/grey market to buy red meat or gasoline in the future. They will be like drugs (cocaine, heroin). People don't use banks/cards to buy drugs, they use cash for a reason.

[cryptosize]

If you guys still believe this is a "conspiracy theory", then I don't know what else to tell you:

It’s time to limit how often we can travel abroad – ‘carbon passports’ may be the answer

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/carbon-passports-explainer/index.html

This is only possible with CBDC + carbon credits.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Otherwise in this day and age people aren't using cash that much already and majority of their transactions are already easily surveilled.

Most people still use cash a bit, and some people (like me) still use cash a lot. Just because a majority of sheep won't notice any difference doesn't mean we should roll over and accept CBDCs. And just because a majority of people won't be affected by OFAC censorship in bitcoin doesn't mean we should just roll over and accept that either.

What the majority are doing is a very bad metric when it comes to privacy, as most people simply don't care until it affects them personally.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Where I live, even in small shops you go to pay for a coffee and they bring out the POS as if they assume you are going to pay by card or mobile phone. Sometimes I feel weird taking out the cash, but I still pay with cash as much as possible for ideological reasons, activism if you want to call it that. Although it seems to me to be swimming against the tide and news like the banning of mixers on the forum, the possibility of censoring transactions becoming more and more real and the legislations that are being prepared make me see the future quite dark.

If we add to that the number of people who worked for a mixer and received payments directly in their Binance accounts, at least seven, I see it as even darker.

[coolcoinz]

I said that most of them (meaning creadit card users) think the money on a bank card are real cash converted to bank balance. I never said that I'm one of these people.

You also said people aren't the sheep we think they are. But then you said they all use credit cards not understanding the money is not real (which I agree with), and they will all use CBDCs because they are convenient (which I also agree with). But surely just going along with what the banks tell you to do (use credit cards, use CBDCs) is exactly what the sheep would do?

What I meant by "they're not the sheep" is that there's a boundary that when crossed causes people to rise up and riot. You could for instance see it when the governments enforced covid lockdowns.

Yes, people like convenience and usually don't care where the money comes from, which is why they use credit cards and will probably use CBDC money, but it will all stop when the government forbids them to use any other form of payment (cash, crypto) and when they get to feel the impact of social credit scores and carbon footprint taxation. IMO people who are for CBDCs and might use them don't realize yet what they'll bring to the table along with the so called convenience.

I wouldn't call CBDCs good or bad. They are what they are and that's not a new thing. People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name. They entered that jail the day centralized banking was introduced and they went deeper into it as it grew specially with digital banking.

Using your analogy, you're being moved from a normal prison to maximum security, but you're still in jail. If that isn't a bad thing then what is?
I'd call them bad because they bring along complete elimination of other forms of payment once enough people use them along fiat money.

They will first invite you to use CBDC, by lowering taxes, giving people free money if they register and download wallets, (which is the carrot) and once there's enough market penetration they'll start using the stick and increasing fees when you use other money, impose additional taxes on merchants who continue to use fiat, decrease the number of available ATMs, increase limits on cash payments and finally remove cash completely. They'll stop printing it and the bills that are in exchange will become scarcer. Also, in countries with high inflation it will take maybe 10 years before there's a need for larger bills and the gov. will not print them, to make it inconvenient for people to carry bags of cash around. The problem will solve itself.

[apogio]

People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name.

The goal of CBDCs is to eliminate cash and have everything electronic, and therefore have everything 100% traceable and 100% censorable. This is definitely worse than the current system, where you can at least escape some surveillance and retain some control by using cash.

The question is: is it better to use card payments with the current system? Or CBDCs? To me they are the same. I see no difference at all.

I hate both, but I admit I use card payments a lot. Some entity is behind the transaction anyway, so...

[cryptosize]

People aren't entering a new jail, it is the same jail as they were in before with a new name.

The goal of CBDCs is to eliminate cash and have everything electronic, and therefore have everything 100% traceable and 100% censorable. This is definitely worse than the current system, where you can at least escape some surveillance and retain some control by using cash.

The question is: is it better to use card payments with the current system? Or CBDCs? To me they are the same. I see no difference at all.

I hate both, but I admit I use card payments a lot. Some entity is behind the transaction anyway, so...

They are NOT the same.

Have you read the entire discussion?

CBDC introduces new variables (carbon credits, social credit score). Cards are different.

[apogio]

CBDC introduces new variables (carbon credits, social credit score). Cards are different.

But credit cards are linked with banks. This means Visa, MasterCard etc all implement a credit score system for banks.

Btw yeah I have read the entire discussion.

[darkangel11]

But credit cards are linked with banks. This means Visa, MasterCard etc all implement a credit score system for banks.

Wait, are you saying that bank credit core system is similar to social credit score? You must be joking. These are not the same, not even close.
When bank loans you money it wants to know how if you have a stable job, if you have other existing loans and such.
A social credit score is when they check your recent posts on social platforms to see if you support the government and decide if they should loan you money based on that.

[cryptosize]

CBDC introduces new variables (carbon credits, social credit score). Cards are different.

But credit cards are linked with banks. This means Visa, MasterCard etc all implement a credit score system for banks.

Btw yeah I have read the entire discussion.

No, they don't implement a mandatory carbon credit/social credit score system.

When was the last time you saw VISA/MasterCard reject your red meat/gasoline purchases?

ps: I'm not talking about taking loans. You're confused.

I'm talking about regular debit cards.

[cryptosize]

Very interesting video, check it out:

JUST IN 🇩🇪 - German member of Parliament
@JoanaCotar
 bashes CBCDs in the Bundestag WHILE WEARING a #Bitcoin T-shirt.

(English 🔊via AI translation)

https://twitter.com/Swan/status/1722717878003364137

German parliament member ’staunch opponent’ of digital euro, all in on Bitcoin

https://cointelegraph.com/news/german-parliament-member-staunch-opponent-of-digital-euro-all-in-on-bitcoin

[apogio]

ps: I'm not talking about taking loans. You're confused.

I'm talking about regular debit cards.

Ok this is what I thought. Sorry.

Wait, are you saying that bank credit core system is similar to social credit score? You must be joking. These are not the same, not even close.
When bank loans you money it wants to know how if you have a stable job, if you have other existing loans and such.
A social credit score is when they check your recent posts on social platforms to see if you support the government and decide if they should loan you money based on that.

The only thing I am saying mate is that they both suck. Between the bad, the worst option may be CBDC but I want to clarify that the current economic system which is bank based, has already huge flaws.

No bank credit system is not similar to social credit score. In fact I don't even want to know what the latter is.

But when the bank adds 17% on top of your expenses because you were one month late and then VISA gets 3% of that, I am sorry, I hate this equally.

If you talk about Debit payments then essentially VISA will get 3% of every payment you make, which is a service fee and it's not that bad. But again the bank owns the money you think you own, so...

I mean don't get me wrong, the only thing I am saying is we choose the bad from the worse.

And of course this: A social credit score is when they check your recent posts on social platforms to see if you support the government and decide if they should loan you money based on that is the most unethical thing I have ever seen, but it's not the only one.

[o_e_l_e_o]

IMO people who are for CBDCs and might use them don't realize yet what they'll bring to the table along with the so called convenience.

Exactly, which goes back to my previous point that, just like when people throw their KYC around everywhere and then end up with their details being stolen, by the time they realize how terrible CBDCs are it will be too late to do anything about it.

The question is: is it better to use card payments with the current system? Or CBDCs? To me they are the same. I see no difference at all.

Card payments are definitely less bad than CBDCs. Your credit card provider refuses to let you make a payment? You can at least try another provider, or a bank transfer, or some other option. A government refuses to let you make a payment with their CBDC? Nothing you can do about it.

[apogio]

The question is: is it better to use card payments with the current system? Or CBDCs? To me they are the same. I see no difference at all.

Card payments are definitely less bad than CBDCs. Your credit card provider refuses to let you make a payment? You can at least try another provider, or a bank transfer, or some other option. A government refuses to let you make a payment with their CBDC? Nothing you can do about it.

As I said, I don't claim to be the ultra revolutionary, but I hate both. I realise that CBDCs are far worse but in my opinion card payments are also bad, because they ar connected to the banking system. The latter is a system I have learnt to live with, but it doesn't mean I like it. Finally, banks try to make money in every possible way, getting absurd money if people fail to pay their credit balance. So, my point is we should not have CBDCs , nor banks. That's why I call them equally bad. The card provider companies get money as a fee for their services, so perhaps my initial accusations are not very fair. But, nevertheless, they are linked with the current financial system, aren't they?

[cryptosize]

The question is: is it better to use card payments with the current system? Or CBDCs? To me they are the same. I see no difference at all.

Card payments are definitely less bad than CBDCs. Your credit card provider refuses to let you make a payment? You can at least try another provider, or a bank transfer, or some other option. A government refuses to let you make a payment with their CBDC? Nothing you can do about it.

As I said, I don't claim to be the ultra revolutionary, but I hate both. I realise that CBDCs are far worse but in my opinion card payments are also bad, because they ar connected to the banking system. The latter is a system I have learnt to live with, but it doesn't mean I like it. Finally, banks try to make money in every possible way, getting absurd money if people fail to pay their credit balance. So, my point is we should not have CBDCs , nor banks. That's why I call them equally bad. The card provider companies get money as a fee for their services, so perhaps my initial accusations are not very fair. But, nevertheless, they are linked with the current financial system, aren't they?

I still think you're a bit confused.

CBDCs aren't about making money (VISA/MasterCard already do that as you said).

They're about total control/enslavement.

The government/EU Commission will legislate a daily/monthly/yearly quota of how much red meat you're allowed to consume.

Don't believe me? Check it out yourself:

https://en.topwar.ru/218234-nemeckie-chinovniki-predlagajut-ogranichit-potreblenie-mjasa-v-strane-do-10-grammov-v-den-na-cheloveka.html

Please don't dismiss this if you're vegan, because they also plan to limit other things too... your gasoline consumption, how often you'll be able to use airplanes etc.

Bitcoiners are staunch defenders of freedom, right?

That's why NO ONE should accept the Digital ID (CBDC wallet):

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en

ps: I'm not talking about taking loans. You're confused.

I'm talking about regular debit cards.

Ok this is what I thought. Sorry.

Wait, are you saying that bank credit core system is similar to social credit score? You must be joking. These are not the same, not even close.
When bank loans you money it wants to know how if you have a stable job, if you have other existing loans and such.
A social credit score is when they check your recent posts on social platforms to see if you support the government and decide if they should loan you money based on that.

The only thing I am saying mate is that they both suck. Between the bad, the worst option may be CBDC but I want to clarify that the current economic system which is bank based, has already huge flaws.

No bank credit system is not similar to social credit score. In fact I don't even want to know what the latter is.

But when the bank adds 17% on top of your expenses because you were one month late and then VISA gets 3% of that, I am sorry, I hate this equally.

If you talk about Debit payments then essentially VISA will get 3% of every payment you make, which is a service fee and it's not that bad. But again the bank owns the money you think you own, so...

I mean don't get me wrong, the only thing I am saying is we choose the bad from the worse.

And of course this: A social credit score is when they check your recent posts on social platforms to see if you support the government and decide if they should loan you money based on that is the most unethical thing I have ever seen, but it's not the only one.

I've posted this video before, check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5uqMmAGk8c

Also this one:

https://blog.independent.org/2022/12/01/klaus-schwab-china/

You guys still think the West won't become like China?

Bonus video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxJ1wPnkk4

I guess that's enough red pilling for today.

[btcinfo891]

It's the same with banks and also CBDCs. Until it doesn't go down like 2008 and blow up in their faces, they won't realize what they don't already have.

By which point it will be too late to change anything. We will never be able to go back to before mass surveillance. Once CBDCs are launched, we will never be able to go back to before they existed. And once the government have control of the bitcoin network and can censor at will, we will never be able to go back to it being free. Which is why we need to be discussing solutions now.

It is relatively easy to stay anonymous while working with crypto alone without converting to/from fiat. The governments will probably require everyone to register their self-hosted wallets, but they cannot really enforce it, at least not at the moment.

However the weak point of crypto is conversion from/to cash/CBDC. The governments know that and they are heavily regulating that conversion, essentially enforcing KYC on any such operation.

So as long as we find a way to convert crypto to/from fiat without going through KYC, then we should be fine.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The governments will probably require everyone to register their self-hosted wallets, but they cannot really enforce it, at least not at the moment.

This kind of thing is already well underway. There are protocols such as AOPP to support people KYCing their own wallets. This travesty even gained widespread support from entities which should really know better, like Trezor.

So as long as we find a way to convert crypto to/from fiat without going through KYC, then we should be fine.

How do you propose we do this once the government succeeds in getting rid of cash and forcing everyone to move to a CBDC, where they have complete surveillance over every transaction?

[btcinfo891]

The governments will probably require everyone to register their self-hosted wallets, but they cannot really enforce it, at least not at the moment.

This kind of thing is already well underway. There are protocols such as AOPP to support people KYCing their own wallets. This travesty even gained widespread support from entities which should really know better, like Trezor.

The governments will probably force most centralized web-based wallets and most hardware wallets to perform KYC. But it is difficult to enforce something like that for purely software wallets running on users' computers (i.e. self-hosted wallets). They will probably try to outlaw and/or block the self-hosted wallets, but I don't think they will succeed. At best they can succeed in splitting crypto into a government-controlled, fake crypto and uncontrolled, real crypto. There might be a another problem with the real crypto if its development becomes outlawed, e.g. it may become illegal to develop something like Monero.

So as long as we find a way to convert crypto to/from fiat without going through KYC, then we should be fine.

How do you propose we do this once the government succeeds in getting rid of cash and forcing everyone to move to a CBDC, where they have complete surveillance over every transaction?

For cash it is easy to convert it to/from real crypto, so the question is converting between real crypto and the totalitarian CBDC. Of course I am not suggesting anything illegal, but I can imagine how trade may happen in the future between no too law abiding people.

I can imagine that there is user A who has real crypto and user B who has some CBDC. Then I can imagine that user A creates some random image, that user B likes and buys it from user A, paying user A some CBDC. At the same time some crypto is moved from a crypto wallet owned by A to a crypto wallet owned by B. The random image may contain the actual crypto transaction data but it is not mandatory if both parties trust each other to perform the two transactions (CBDC and crypto) independently.

Obviously this approach has the disadvantage that the government will try to tax the purchase of the random image and charge user A a sales/VAT tax , but there may be other types of transactions that are not taxed by the government, e.g. donations or something else. The tax code varies from country to country.

I can also think of other more complex ways to use real crypto in parallel with CBDC, but the above is probably the simplest to implement.

[Abiky]

This kind of thing is already well underway. There are protocols such as AOPP to support people KYCing their own wallets. This travesty even gained widespread support from entities which should really know better, like Trezor.

So this means non-custodial wallets will now be KYC-compliant via the use of the AOPP protocol? It doesn't make any sense. Especially if the wallet is open source. What's stopping someone from making a fork without the protocol? This will only work on closed-source wallets.

There's no way governments will be able to enforce regulations on truly-decentralized blockchain networks. It's technically impossible. The only thing they can do is regulate centralized exchanges, services, and wallet providers (custodial). They can also pressure developers to write code that's regulatory-compliant. But the community ultimately decides which changes to approve or reject on a Blockchain network. Lets hope decentralization wins in the long run. :/

[o_e_l_e_o]

What's stopping someone from making a fork without the protocol? This will only work on closed-source wallets.

Nothing, of course, except they might decide that doing so is illegal. The AOPP protocol wasn't designed to make every wallet undergo KYC at source though, but rather require that centralized exchanges attach your KYC to your withdrawal addresses by having you sign a message from it prior to withdrawal.

There's no way governments will be able to enforce regulations on truly-decentralized blockchain networks. It's technically impossible.

True, but as we've seen in this thread, bitcoin is not actually censorship resistant. If the government get 51% of mining power to comply with their blacklists, then they can simply censor any transaction paying to or from a non-KYCed address.

[cryptosize]

There's no way governments will be able to enforce regulations on truly-decentralized blockchain networks. It's technically impossible.

True, but as we've seen in this thread, bitcoin is not actually censorship resistant. If the government get 51% of mining power to comply with their blacklists, then they can simply censor any transaction paying to or from a non-KYCed address.

How likely is that to happen? Either from the US government or BlackRock.

It's a huge ASIC investment to acquire 51% of the hashpower. Billions of dollars are required, maybe trillions in the future.

Not to mention there's tons of competition:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/russian-government-subsidies-crypto-mining-facility-in-siberia

[DooMAD]

True, but as we've seen in this thread, bitcoin is not actually censorship resistant. If the government get 51% of mining power to comply with their blacklists, then they can simply censor any transaction paying to or from a non-KYCed address.

It's arguably still resistant, just not immune.  But yes, there's definitely a considerable amount of work to be done to prevent further erosion of privacy and freedom.  

So this means non-custodial wallets will now be KYC-compliant via the use of the AOPP protocol?

If users sleepwalk into subservience, then it's certainly possible.  Hopefully enough of them are alert and aware of how dangerous AOPP can potentially be.  For those that aren't, maybe we need to shout louder?  It seems like it should be blindingly obvious, but then I sometimes forget that not everyone places value in having full control of their funds.  

[cryptosize]

So this means non-custodial wallets will now be KYC-compliant via the use of the AOPP protocol?

If users sleepwalk into subservience, then it's certainly possible.  Hopefully enough of them are alert and aware of how dangerous AOPP can potentially be.  For those that aren't, maybe we need to shout louder?  It seems like it should be blindingly obvious, but then I sometimes forget that not everyone places value in having full control of their funds.  

Sheeple are sleeping, they just won't wake up and try to understand who wants to abolish privacy by 2030:

https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/welcome-to-2030-i-own-nothing-have-no-privacy-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710

Another "conspiracy theory" according to some "educated" folks...

Do you know how many people have been shouting since 2020 about the Great Reset agenda? And how many people dismissed it as a silly, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory?

Sheeple/useless eaters will get what they deserve, I have zero pity/sympathy for them.

[mindrust]

Just learned about this. Big if true and it looks like it is. If they can censor any tx they want, since there is no business which don't demand KYC, then bitcoin and the legacy banking are pretty much the same thing  now. That's what I was afraid of.

They are getting bitcoin ready for the ETF approval.

Bitcoin is getting "institutionalized".

They are kiling mixers, punishing CZ/Ronaldo, censoring transactions, letting no no-KYC business survive...

Not looking good.

Everybody who cheered for the Blackrock ETF should rethink their actions imo.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It's a huge ASIC investment to acquire 51% of the hashpower. Billions of dollars are required, maybe trillions in the future.

They don't have to acquire anything, though. Just force pool operators to obey their blacklists, and count on enough individual miners not caring enough to switch to a different pool. F2Pool started censoring transactions based on the US government OFAC blacklist, despite there being exactly zero laws requiring them to do so and despite them not even being based in the US.

Everybody who cheered for the Blackrock ETF should rethink their actions imo.

This forum is full of people who welcome ETFs, welcome institutions, and welcome more regulations, all because it will make the price go up. And if the bitcoin forum founded by Satoshi is largely happy to sacrifice everything bitcoin was designed for in order to chase some short term fiat gains, then you can be damn sure the average Joe isn't going care.

[cryptosize]

It's a huge ASIC investment to acquire 51% of the hashpower. Billions of dollars are required, maybe trillions in the future.

They don't have to acquire anything. Just force pool operators to obey their blacklists, and count on enough individual miners not caring enough to switch to a different pool. F2Pool started censoring transactions based on the US government OFAC blacklist, despite there being exactly zero laws requiring them to do so and despite them not even being based in the US.

Everybody who cheered for the Blackrock ETF should rethink their actions imo.

This forum is full of people who welcome ETFs, welcome institutions, and welcome more regulations, all because it will make the price go up. And if the bitcoin forum founded by Satoshi is largely happy to sacrifice everything bitcoin was designed for in order to chase some short term fiat gains, then you can damn sure the average Joe isn't going care.

I'm afraid you're right.

Most Bitcoiners are huge hypocrites, they give zero fucks about freedom, they only care about fiat gains...

Hell, I don't even pay attention to BTC/USD these days anymore (I no longer participate in price discussions). I know the price is rising, but what's the point?

[serveria.com]

Just learned about this. Big if true and it looks like it is. If they can censor any tx they want, since there is no business which don't demand KYC, then bitcoin and the legacy banking are pretty much the same thing  now. That's what I was afraid of.

They are getting bitcoin ready for the ETF approval.

Bitcoin is getting "institutionalized".

They are kiling mixers, punishing CZ/Ronaldo, censoring transactions, letting no no-KYC business survive...

Not looking good.

Everybody who cheered for the Blackrock ETF should rethink their actions imo.

Yeah, I agree. There will be some privacy penalty for huge fiat gains. It's inevitable. But I guess it's a reasonable trade-off and we're lucky they're not planning to ban Bitcoin. After so many years, staying poor but free doesn't seem enticing to me. 

If you're still unsure, just try creating a new account or order a debit card from some exchange (say Coinbase). It's mission impossible if you can't provide proof of employment and source of funds. Where are the good old days? 

[mindrust]

I'm afraid you're right.

Most Bitcoiners are huge hypocrites, they give zero fucks about freedom, they only care about fiat gains...

Hell, I don't even pay attention to BTC/USD these days anymore (I no longer participate in price discussions). I know the price is rising, but what's the point?

I don't understand why they trade bitcoin for pump and dump... there are many stocks which they can use only for this purpose alone. My guess is, It is probably crypto is the first asset they learned to trade and they think it is the only asset which can go moon.

On one hand, we will have bitcoin which will become ultra-institutionalized, fully KYC enabled, censored, high fees (thx to ordinals), good performer against FIAT, available on every exchange

On other hand, we will have XMR. Zero KYC, zero adoption, shit price performance (when this is over, will it even have a price i wonder), zero censorship, low fees. We won't even find a place to convert it to FIAT. No legit business will accept it too.

:/

*Also, fuck F2Pool. I could at least understand why a wallet would do it, but for a bitcoin miner to violate the decentralization of the network they directly profit from is a mortal sin.

This is what I struggled with the most..the fact that one of the largest pools is openly violating one of the core principles of the network is just shocking.

I really want to understand their motivation for censoring the transactions in the first place. Would they even face any legal issues if they simply included the transaction? How does F2Pool benefit from the censorship? Political ass-kissing?

Their motivation is simple. They are following the law. Either they censor the tx, or they will go to jail.

Is there a business which pay taxes to the gov can say no to "KYC"?

Miners pay taxes too. How are they gonna ignore the gov?

R.I.P.


We can only solve this problem if we bring home mining back and it ain't coming back.

[btcinfo891]

On one hand, we will have bitcoin which will become ultra-institutionalized, fully KYC enabled, censored, high fees (thx to ordinals), good performer against FIAT, available on every exchange

These KYCed cryptocurrencies will lose the "crypto" functionality (no more anonymity) and will essentially become very similar to the other digital government-controlled currencies. For practical reasons they will be just like the bank electronic money that people access through their debit/credit cards or the future CBDCs. However the CBDCs and the bank money will integrate better with the online/offline shops and the government institutions. So the KYCed crypto will not have any advantage over the government CBDC and I expect it to be used mostly for trading on the exchanges by people trying to make some profit from the volatility of the crypto. But no reason to use KYCed crypto in the everyday life if it is does not provide any benefit over the CBDCs.

So institutionalizing a cryptocurrency by enforcing KYC for its usage essentially means turning it into yet another stock symbol that is useless outside of the exchanges.

On other hand, we will have XMR. Zero KYC, zero adoption, shit price performance (when this is over, will it even have a price i wonder), zero censorship, low fees. We won't even find a place to convert it to FIAT. No legit business will accept it too.

If cash remains then most likely there will be people who will keep buying/selling real (anonymous) crypto trying it make profit from the volatility of the real crypto. This market will be much smaller by the current one but it will exist.

The major problem is converting between real crypto and CBDCs (and other government-controlled electronic money) at the same time preserving the anonymity of the real crypto wallets and the anonymity of the crypto transactions. I have been thinking about it and it seems that there are various ways to organize this conversion between real crypto and CBDCs as long as the users are allowed to transfer freely CBDCs (or other government-controlled money) from one government-controlled wallet to another without significant cost, i.e. minimal or no government taxes for such transfers. I think that if this problem is solved, then the remaining problems will be solved too.

[mrust_mobile]

The major problem is converting between real crypto and CBDCs (and other government-controlled electronic money) at the same time preserving the anonymity of the real crypto wallets and the anonymity of the crypto transactions. I have been thinking about it and it seems that there are various ways to organize this conversion between real crypto and CBDCs as long as the users are allowed to transfer freely CBDCs (or other government-controlled money) from one government-controlled wallet to another without significant cost, i.e. minimal or no government taxes for such transfers. I think that if this problem is solved, then the remaining problems will be solved too.

That too.

Everybody hates FIAT but physical FIAT is a wonderful thing. Only a few realize that. Once paper money is gone, we are fucked.

[Abiky]

Nothing, of course, except they might decide that doing so is illegal. The AOPP protocol wasn't designed to make every wallet undergo KYC at source though, but rather require that centralized exchanges attach your KYC to your withdrawal addresses by having you sign a message from it prior to withdrawal.

Well that's a relief. If it's only enforcing KYC through centralized exchanges, then you can switch to a P2P or DEX exchange for true privacy. We should stick with open source wallets and decentralized exchanges to avoid failling into the hands of the government. Regulations are getting strict, especially when Bitcoin's popularity is increasing at a fast pace.

I've been doing a little research and found out a private alternative to the Lightning Network called "Ark". There isn't a working product (as far as I know), but the project is very promising. You might be able to "anonymize" your BTC with this off-chain scaling solution in a trustless manner. There are also trusless cross-chain atomic swaps that will eliminate the need for CEXs in the future. With development happening behind the scenes, it seems to me that not all hope is lost.

[serveria.com]

The major problem is converting between real crypto and CBDCs (and other government-controlled electronic money) at the same time preserving the anonymity of the real crypto wallets and the anonymity of the crypto transactions. I have been thinking about it and it seems that there are various ways to organize this conversion between real crypto and CBDCs as long as the users are allowed to transfer freely CBDCs (or other government-controlled money) from one government-controlled wallet to another without significant cost, i.e. minimal or no government taxes for such transfers. I think that if this problem is solved, then the remaining problems will be solved too.

That too.

Everybody hates FIAT but physical FIAT is a wonderful thing. Only a few realize that. Once paper money is gone, we are fucked.

Yeah, that is 100% so. Unfortunately, some countries, like EU member states for example are tightening the laws regarding cash. In some countries like Sweden, cash is almost not used at all.

I think that cash is one of the pillars of democracy, privacy and freedom. Any efforts to eliminate cash should be illegal. 

[btcinfo891]

Everybody hates FIAT but physical FIAT is a wonderful thing. Only a few realize that. Once paper money is gone, we are fucked.

Cash (i.e. physical FIAT) has two essential properties

- Anonymity. In the general case it is not possible to find out who owns a given coin/banknote at the moment. Nobody knows what transactions are performed except for their participants.
- Zero cost and unblockable transactions. It does not cost anything for user A to give any amount of cash to user B and it is very difficult for a third party to block a transaction between A and B.

Both properties are nice to have but one might argue that the second one is more important. When the CBDCs are introduced they will not have anonymity but if they allow (almost) zero-cost transactions between arbitrary users A and B, then it is possible to allow conversion between CBDCs are real crypto (e.g. Monero) at (almost) zero cost and still keep the pure crypto transactions anonymous.

CBDCs are a big problem and the crypto community better start thinking how to work around that problem, otherwise in 10 years we will live in a totalitarian world with CBDCs and non-anonymous, KYCed, government-controlled "crypto".

Well that's a relief. If it's only enforcing KYC through centralized exchanges, then you can switch to a P2P or DEX exchange for true privacy. We should stick with open source wallets and decentralized exchanges to avoid failling into the hands of the government. Regulations are getting strict, especially when Bitcoin's popularity is increasing at a fast pace.

The next logical step after enforcing KYC for all financial institutions (including CEXes) is to prohibit KYCed wallets from transacting with non-KYCed wallets. This will cause the KYC to spread like an infection over crypto wallets. It is an obvious step and sooner or later the governments will do that. This will effectively split the crypto wallets into two non-communicating groups of KYCed and non-KYCed wallets. That is why I said that we need to find a working solution to exchanging CBDCs/KYCed crypto with non-KYCed crypto. That's the main problem.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The next logical step after enforcing KYC for all financial institutions (including CEXes) is to prohibit KYCed wallets from transacting with non-KYCed wallets.

This is already happening. There have been a whole bunch of centralized exchanges saying they will only allow deposits or withdrawals to other TRUST entities. TRUST stands for the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology, and is essentially a list of fully centralized fully KYCed services which report everything to the US or other respective government. So not only can you not transact with non-KYCed services, but you can't even withdraw you coins to your own wallet.

Soon you will have government approved KYCed bitcoin which is bought, held, and sold only on centralized exchanges and used only to chase fiat gains, and then you will have all bitcoin which is held in your own wallets and not in the custody of a centralized exchange, which you can use for anything you like but which the government will treat as criminal and malicious. This split has already begun, and very few of us seem to care.

[apogio]

The next logical step after enforcing KYC for all financial institutions (including CEXes) is to prohibit KYCed wallets from transacting with non-KYCed wallets.

This is already happening. There have been a whole bunch of centralized exchanges saying they will only allow deposits or withdrawals to other TRUST entities. TRUST stands for the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology, and is essentially a list of fully centralized fully KYCed services which report everything to the US or other respective government. So not only can you not transact with non-KYCed services, but you can't even withdraw you coins to your own wallet.

Soon you will have government approved KYCed bitcoin which is bought, held, and sold only on centralized exchanges and used only to chase fiat gains, and then you will have all bitcoin which is held in your own wallets and not in the custody of a centralized exchange, which you can use for anything you like but which the government will treat as criminal and malicious. This split has already begun, and very few of us seem to care.

It is indeed happening. The question is, how will we be able to use our bitcoin if most of the people suddenly decide to use bitcoin in a government-approved manner. I mean we wanted bitcoin to be free for everyone, without any intermediaries. We wanted to get rid of all of this centralised manipulation.

Now, I am worried more than ever. If I want to buy something from an online store, will my bitcoin be rejected, just because I didn't buy it from a CEX?

[o_e_l_e_o]

The question is, how will we be able to use our bitcoin if most of the people suddenly decide to use bitcoin in a government-approved manner.

I always thought this scenario was an "if", and that more people would be disgusted by this behavior and do something about it. Given how little everyone seems to care, I worry this scenario is now a "when".

I've never had a problem yet with having bitcoin refused or seized, but I also don't use any centralized exchanges. However, to say I am not concerned about this kind of privacy invading behavior spreading to merchants and affecting me in the future would be a lie, especially with the news of mining pools now excluding so called "blacklisted" transactions. The day I can't spend my bitcoin without completing KYC is the day I trade all my bitcoin to monero, I'm afraid.

[Medusah]

Bad news.  Now Samourai's whirlpool is censored:  https://nitter.cz/SamouraiWallet/status/1732584009442443336.

[apogio]

Bad news.  Now Samourai's whirlpool is censored:  https://nitter.cz/SamouraiWallet/status/1732584009442443336.

F...

This is real? I mean did Jack Dorsey and Luke Dash really do that?

I am seriously sick of this action. What is their motive? Please enlighten me, what do they have to win taking this measure?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Knots sets the upper limit of OP_RETURN data to 42 bytes. Core sets it to 83 bytes.

Whirlpool Tx0s create an OP_RETURN output larger than 42 bytes (but less than 83 bytes), so Knots sees them as invalid. Since this Ocean mining pool is based on Knots, it will not mine these transactions as it sees them as invalid.

[NotATether]

Knots sets the upper limit of OP_RETURN data to 42 bytes. Core sets it to 83 bytes.

Whirlpool Tx0s create an OP_RETURN output larger than 42 bytes (but less than 83 bytes), so Knots sees them as invalid. Since this Ocean mining pool is based on Knots, it will not mine these transactions as it sees them as invalid.

So it's not really a censorship, it's just bad coding by Bitcoin Knots. It would've been a bit surprising if these high-profile people suddenly started going on a tirade against coordinators, after all the events that happened here.

But lets be realistic here - what percentage of network hashrate does Ocean pool have? I would be surprised if its even at 5%.

[Medusah]

I am seriously sick of this action. What is their motive? Please enlighten me, what do they have to win taking this measure?

Luke runs Bitcoin Knots, in which he has defined OP_RETURN limit to 42 bytes.  Why would he want to do that tho, the limit has been 80 bytes since 0.12:  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/2e8ec6b338a825a7155fff1be83993e3834ab655/src/policy/policy.h#L72.  Their mining pool will probably ignore lots of transactions.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So it's not really a censorship, it's just bad coding by Bitcoin Knots.

But it's a prime example of why trying to ban ordinals is a mistake. You will absolutely end up banning other legitimate use cases, while the ordinals can easily move their arbitrary data to elsewhere where it is impossible to ban.

But lets be realistic here - what percentage of network hashrate does Ocean pool have? I would be surprised if its even at 5%.

A tiny amount. This censorship from Ocean will be irrelevant to Whirlpool, but it's a terrible precedent to set and governments will absolutely latch on to this as more proof that mining pools can censor at will.

[cryptosize]

Cash (i.e. physical FIAT) has two essential properties

- Anonymity. In the general case it is not possible to find out who owns a given coin/banknote at the moment. Nobody knows what transactions are performed except for their participants.

This is partly true.

Banknotes (not coins) have serial numbers. Why? Because this allows them to have (limited) traceability.

If you ever get a banknote from a bank robbery, abduction etc and the serial number of it is marked as "tainted", then you will have a huge problem if you try to deposit it in a bank.

It's the same thing with tainted BTC (from MtGox, Silk Road etc.) and CEX (crypto banks).

Also, they may introduce additional tracing technology, in case the masses want to retain cash at all costs:

https://www.fleur-de-coin.com/eurocoins/banknote-rfid
https://www.eetimes.com/euro-bank-notes-to-embed-rfid-chips-by-2005/

[cryptosize]

But it's a prime example of why trying to ban ordinals is a mistake. You will absolutely end up banning other legitimate use cases, while the ordinals can easily move their arbitrary data to elsewhere where it is impossible to ban.

IMHO, it was a mistake on Satoshi's part designing Bitcoin is such a way to also include arbitrary data (i.e. the bank bailout message), not just financial transactions.

If I had it my way, BTC's blockchain would store ONLY financial transactions (this is possible with Mimblewimble which makes the blockchain very lightweight, i.e. BEAM, GRIN) and there would be a separate, optional blockchain (sidechain if you will) to store text messages, photos, audio files, videos (even DVD movies) etc.

Unfortunately it's too late to do that, nobody will accept a hard fork.

[serveria.com]

Bad news.  Now Samourai's whirlpool is censored:  https://nitter.cz/SamouraiWallet/status/1732584009442443336.

This is the direct continuation of the initial topic opened by the OP.

I bet Uncle Sam is holding Jack by the balls so he decided to make up some vague technical reason why they can't  process coinjoin transactions. Probably a call from some 3 letter agency saying "stop processing these transactions or we'll stop you". 

[apogio]

So it's not really a censorship, it's just bad coding by Bitcoin Knots. It would've been a bit surprising if these high-profile people suddenly started going on a tirade against coordinators, after all the events that happened here.

But lets be realistic here - what percentage of network hashrate does Ocean pool have? I would be surprised if its even at 5%.

The problem is how much influence this decision has on other mining pools and individuals. Let me explain... Jack Dorsey and Luke have always been very influential in the Bitcoin ecosystem. This move is definitely wrong if you consider the basic purpose of Bitcoin. It gives the impression that governments can apply their own rules if they have  the ability to infiltrate inside mining pools. I don't imply that this is what happened here, but I do think that governments will like it because they will see potential behind it. Potential to exploit hash power to achieve their goal. Which is to censor traffic on the Bitcoin network.

[btcinfo891]

Banknotes (not coins) have serial numbers. Why? Because this allows them to have (limited) traceability.

If you ever get a banknote from a bank robbery, abduction etc and the serial number of it is marked as "tainted", then you will have a huge problem if you try to deposit it in a bank.

Yes, it is possible to taint banknotes either by putting invisible ink on them or having their serial numbers treated specially when they are used at certain financial institutions.
It is easy for the government to check if a banknote is tainted but it is very difficult to get a list of people who own tainted banknotes. Tainted banknotes serve well when the police needs to catch someone taking bribes, but when they circulate in the society it is very difficult to find the path of a tainted banknote.

With government-controlled electronic money (bank money used in credit/debit cards and CBDCs)  they don't even need to specially taint anything. All transactions are visible to the government.

So we can say that the banknote anonymity is not perfect but it is quite good compared to that of the government-controlled electronic money.

It's the same thing with tainted BTC (from MtGox, Silk Road etc.) and CEX (crypto banks).

The tainting provided by the various "chainalysis" companies does not work perfectly because transactions have multiple inputs and outputs and that is why these companies return a probability score instead of a true/false flag. I am skeptic of their reliability, but putting aside that, the real problem is the KYC. It is similar to writing a report to the government each time when you buy something at the corner store or lend $100 to your friend.

Also, they may introduce additional tracing technology, in case the masses want to retain cash at all costs:

https://www.fleur-de-coin.com/eurocoins/banknote-rfid
https://www.eetimes.com/euro-bank-notes-to-embed-rfid-chips-by-2005/

The European Commission works relentlessly on turning the EU into a totalitarian state, so I wouldn't  be surprised if sooner or later they introduce banknotes with RFID chips. But this kind of "cash" will have very little in common with the real cash that we use now.

[DooMAD]

So it's not really a censorship, it's just bad coding by Bitcoin Knots.

Arguably, it's both.  It was done with the intent of censoring ordinals and it was poorly implemented.  Bad coding and bad principles in equal measure.

But in a way, this misstep is a natural part of progress and how we move forward.  This not only serves as a prime example of how not to do things, but also clearly illustrates how fine the line is and how easy it is to cross if we're not vigilant.  Hopefully people will realise the error of this approach and not make such mistakes again.  This is what happens when you try to meddle in the natural order of things. 

Those who try to act as arbiter and gatekeeper will, sooner or later, inevitably deny access to the wrong party by mistake.

I urge everyone to learn from this.

[Abiky]

IMHO, it was a mistake on Satoshi's part designing Bitcoin is such a way to also include arbitrary data (i.e. the bank bailout message), not just financial transactions.

If I had it my way, BTC's blockchain would store ONLY financial transactions (this is possible with Mimblewimble which makes the blockchain very lightweight, i.e. BEAM, GRIN) and there would be a separate, optional blockchain (sidechain if you will) to store text messages, photos, audio files, videos (even DVD movies) etc.

Unfortunately it's too late to do that, nobody will accept a hard fork.

Haven't you heard about UAHFs (User Activated Hard Forks)? Users & node operators can unanimously agree to censor Ordinals inscriptions even if miners don't like it. After all, they don't posess full control over the BTC blockchain. Once there's a supermajority of network nodes running software with the filter, Ordinals will be gone for good. I know this goes against Bitcoin's censorship-resistant principles, but it's for the best if we want low fees again.

OFAC-sanctioned transactions, on the other hand, are another story. Miners shouldn't censor these transactions just because the US government wants to. Isn't the whole idea to make Bitcoin an independent monetary system from banks and governments alike (no middlemen)? We've entered uncharted territory, so either BTC remains a censorship-resistant cryptocurrency or all the other way around. The future is widely unpredictable, so we can only hope for the best.

[HmmMAA]

IMHO, it was a mistake on Satoshi's part designing Bitcoin is such a way to also include arbitrary data (i.e. the bank bailout message), not just financial transactions.

If I had it my way, BTC's blockchain would store ONLY financial transactions (this is possible with Mimblewimble which makes the blockchain very lightweight, i.e. BEAM, GRIN) and there would be a separate, optional blockchain (sidechain if you will) to store text messages, photos, audio files, videos (even DVD movies) etc.

Unfortunately it's too late to do that, nobody will accept a hard fork.

Damn , that satoshi dude is such a braindead ignorant , he should have ask advise from cryptosize how network should be coded . If we consider that cryptosize knew about bitcoin since 2003 it was a great opportunity to have a network as the mastermind wants it to be .
What a clown .

[o_e_l_e_o]

I am skeptic of their reliability

You just need to look at the court case of Roman Sterlingov for proof of how completely unreliable they are. Chainalysis had to admit under oath that they have absolutely zero scientific process underlying any of their methods, that they have absolutely zero proof that any of their methods work as advertised, and they have no data at all on how many false positives they generate. In other words, the entire thing is little more than guesswork.

I know this goes against Bitcoin's censorship-resistant principles, but it's for the best if we want low fees again.

OFAC-sanctioned transactions, on the other hand, are another story. Miners shouldn't censor these transactions just because the US government wants to.

So in summary - censorship you agree with should be allowed, but censorship you don't agree with should be banned.

Can you not see how this is a problematic statement to make? Bitcoin is either censorship resistant, or it isn't. Allowing some censorship that some users think is ok opens the door to any and all censorship.

[franky1]

mining pools in early 2011+ were just brands of software services,

however recently. mining pools are registering as financial businesses, by which regulations then apply

developers are enhancing/upgrading "stratum" software to allow 'workers'(asic owners) to use their home bitcoind to make a full blocktemplate and transaction list separate from a mining pool so that it takes the requirement of transaction selection out of pool managers hands,

[cryptosize]

IMHO, it was a mistake on Satoshi's part designing Bitcoin is such a way to also include arbitrary data (i.e. the bank bailout message), not just financial transactions.

If I had it my way, BTC's blockchain would store ONLY financial transactions (this is possible with Mimblewimble which makes the blockchain very lightweight, i.e. BEAM, GRIN) and there would be a separate, optional blockchain (sidechain if you will) to store text messages, photos, audio files, videos (even DVD movies) etc.

Unfortunately it's too late to do that, nobody will accept a hard fork.

Damn , that satoshi dude is such a braindead ignorant , he should have ask advise from cryptosize how network should be coded . If we consider that cryptosize knew about bitcoin since 2003 it was a great opportunity to have a network as the mastermind wants it to be .
What a clown .

HmmMAA is a butthurt BSV fanatic/big blocker, don't mind him...

[Abiky]

So in summary - censorship you agree with should be allowed, but censorship you don't agree with should be banned.

Can you not see how this is a problematic statement to make? Bitcoin is either censorship resistant, or it isn't. Allowing some censorship that some users think is ok opens the door to any and all censorship.

Yes. That's why I've pointed out this would be a subject of constant debate within the community. Either allow Ordinals on-chain and OFAC-sanctioned transactions or all the other way around. As much as I hate high fees, there's nothing we can do other than wait until the hype is over. Rejecting Ordinals just because they increase network congestion, is not a good idea.

Ultimately, the community will decide what's best for Bitcoin in the long run. I only hope BTC stays decentralized and censorship-resistant to prove itself a viable alternative against Fiat. Otherwise, it would be the end of an era for financial freedom and privacy. The future is unpredictable, so lets hope for the best.