Is this the kind of world you want to live in? [read]

[criptoevangelista]

This is a very interesting question.

I see that many consider bitcoin to be a volatile asset, completely dismissing all the fundamentals behind it all.

It's a shame that the vast majority still haven't truly understood the power of bitcoin and the liberating power it can bring to you and your family, goes far beyond purchasing power...

It's about freedom: one of the most valuable things a human being can have.

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[cryptosize]

Are people willing to fight the Great Reset?

And I mean all aspects of it, not just point A or B...

[jennykim512]

Every day, we are using Bitcoin to buy goods and services, and also to receive money in return for goods and services from others.

We can send money anywhere around the world, without having to pay expensive fees* which have been set by a money transmitter.

But what if it wasn't like this?

What if we were no longer allowed to store bitcoin ourselves, and be forced to leave them on an approved exchange or bank our-services/bathroom-fitting-bathroom-renovation/)?

What if we needed to submit identify verification every time we wanted to create an address?

What if lobbyists successfully split Bitcoin into two partitions - the restricted walled garden, and the rest of the world?

What if people in charge could set an arbitrarily high fee for anyone who wanted to make a transaction?

It's not so much about killing bitcoin, than it is controlling it. We are sleepwalking our way into a dystopia where Bitcoin is no longer "A Peer-To-Peer Digital Currency". Banks want their share of the pie, and with Bitcoin inevitably becoming a large force to reckon with, they will seek any way to get a share of it. So they will pay lobbyists to advocate rules that make it difficult for the normal person to use Bitcoin, while making even stricter tax reporting requirements when selling bitcoin. Sure, one may say it's the IRS collecting taxes, but then again, the government bails the banks out, time and time again. So what we have is "bitcoiners funding banks" indirectly.

Never allow this to happen, and you can do it by supporting privacy, wherever it exists.

Crypto privacy is the last weapon you have against financial corruption.

*If not mainnet, then Lightning Network.

This cautionary scenario vividly underscores the importance of preserving the core principles of Bitcoin - decentralization and privacy. The prospect of centralized control, mandatory identification, and exorbitant fees threatens the essence of a peer-to-peer digital currency. It is crucial for the community to stand vigilant against any attempts to compromise these principles. Supporting privacy features in cryptocurrencies becomes not just a matter of personal preference, but a defense mechanism against potential financial dystopia and undue influence from traditional institutions. Let's ensure that the promise of a decentralized and accessible financial system remains intact for the benefit of all.

[legiteum]

This cautionary scenario vividly underscores the importance of preserving the core principles of Bitcoin - decentralization and privacy. [...]

Privacy? Bitcoin puts every transaction on a public ledger. That's about as [n]un[/b]private as you can get, IMHO.

For me, there are two ways people use the word, "private". One is "private" from companies, marketers, criminals, and maybe your own family .

The other definition is "private" from your government, e.g. for criminal activity.

GMail is the first kind of "private", because it's absolutely private unless there is a court order. In practical terms, most people probably consider their GMail messages as private as they need it to be.

Peer-to-peer networks attempt to accomplish the second kind of "private", but again I'm not sure Bitcoin in particular really does.

***

As for "decentralized", that's a technical implementation detail, not a feature...

[Orpichukwu]

Every country's government tries to collect taxes from all kinds of transactions. As we use Bitcoin for various services, the government will try to tax it. In that case, the government can take some steps in this regard. As a result, the use of Bitcoin will be threatened.

The country government you are talking about can't come into your private wallet, which you have full control over, and start taxing them unless you give them the chance to do that. How do you give them the chance to tax you and control your coins? It's by taking your holdings into centralised exchanges or platforms that are being regulated by the government, which wants to tax you, and when you make any trade, they have to send your financial record to your government, which means your government knows how much you hold and how much you are expected to pay as tax when it's due.
 
You can prevent all of this and control it if you don't link your holdings to your name and to any regulatory body. Always try as much as you can to protect your privacy, as you can use a private wallet you have full control of, and stop selling out your control to third parties. The safety and survival of bitcoin will start with us, the holders.

[Cryptomultiplier]

I would like to firstly point us to countries that have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender and thoroughly scrutinize why and how the government gains from its implementation.
England is one clear country that has accepted Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a means of payment for transactions. Of course the network is being regulated and controlled to a minimum as you can imagine.

Still, I think the concept of Bitcoin as a currency of privacy is recently being tweaked to be in favor of mostly the government and elite wealth class.
If they fail to acknowledge the least owners or traders of Satoshis, find a way to tax the system and hike fees to extremities, they would have only failed to make it an optional asset to own or invest in, because to us who have seen the light, we would find a way to make it work in our favor, even if it means that developers would fork the system or initiatives would be implemented to ensure that the original idea of privacy and to some degree, anonymity is guaranteed.

[legiteum]

[...]
Still, I think the concept of Bitcoin as a currency of privacy is recently being tweaked to be in favor of mostly the government and elite wealth class.
[...]

Bitcoin has a public ledger, so I really don't see how it could have ever really been conceived as a "currency of privacy". Physical cash is still way, way more private than Bitcoin etc.

[decodx]

Privacy? Bitcoin puts every transaction on a public ledger. That's about as [n]un[/b]private as you can get, IMHO.

Bitcoin's privacy features are often misunderstood. Sure, Bitcoin transactions go on some public ledger for the world to see.  But that don't automatically mean your identity is out there too.  Truth is, if you're careful and know how to use it, Bitcoin can still be pretty private.  The public ledger don't have anything that ties back to your real world identity.

GMail is the first kind of "private", because it's absolutely private unless there is a court order. In practical terms, most people probably consider their GMail messages as private as they need it to be.

Hahaha! Is that a joke? I would never use anything related to google and the word "private" in the same sentence.

Physical cash is still way, way more private than Bitcoin etc.

True, since Bitcoin is a digital currency that leaves a digital footprint after all.  But, by that logic, physical Bitcoin is way, way more private than physical cash.

[cryptosize]

[...]
Still, I think the concept of Bitcoin as a currency of privacy is recently being tweaked to be in favor of mostly the government and elite wealth class.
[...]

Bitcoin has a public ledger, so I really don't see how it could have ever really been conceived as a "currency of privacy". Physical cash is still way, way more private than Bitcoin etc.

Well, cash (banknotes, not metallic coins) is like BTC in a sense.

Why? Because banknotes have unique serial numbers and they can be deemed "tainted" (if their origins are from a bank robbery, or a VIP abduction etc.)

You won't have any issues exchanging tainted banknotes hand-to-hand, but if you try to deposit them in a bank, you're fucked.

It's the same with BTC: tainted coins are fine in p2p transactions, there's no mechanism to freeze them, unless you try to deposit them in a CEX with KYC/AML.

That's why BTC is called electronic cash in the whitepaper: it was modelled after the physical cash.

So yeah, I agree with you that BTC was never really private (anonymous) to begin with. Just like the internet with IP addresses doesn't offer full anonymity. It's pseudonymous.

I don't really understand people who set up BTC nodes to increase privacy, since every on-chain transaction will be settled in the blockchain. Tor & mixers are another thing (kinda like SELinux).

On the other hand, Monero is private by default (built-in mixing via ring signatures). Just like OpenBSD is security-enhanced by default, unlike vanilla Linux.

Both Bitcoin and Monero have a bright future ahead, but for different purposes/use cases.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The good news is that investors don't care about this, and invest in cryptos anyhow as a pure speculation instrument. It's not about "freedom", it's about buying low and selling high.

Yes, but we don't care about the profit as much as the crypto-anarchist virtues. Do we? 'Cause I thought this whole reinvention of money had to do with replacing the current fiat system with something superior, less prone to corruption.

Profit gains are without doubt good news, but if we don't think about these virtues and act accordingly, then we're no different from just another financial scheme.

GMail is the first kind of "private", because it's absolutely private unless there is a court order.

Google is literally the privacy nightmare of Web2. You can probably keep your documents private from a family member or a friend, but in general? Google lives off your data.

[Rengga Jati]

We can send money anywhere around the world, without having to pay expensive fees* which have been set by a money transmitter.

This is one of the reasons why we love Bitcoin so much.
its acceptance as the global currency to be used that sometimes eases us to do some certain transactions so much. But unfortunately, there are still many who think that Bitcoin transactions require very high fees due to price progress and the network's crowded level, or because of several other things. This means that sometimes some people prefer to use other coins for transactions.

But what if it wasn't like this?
........snip....

certainly very unfortunate. Yes, of course we will always hope that Bitcoin will become what it was originally created for and can actually progress like that, becoming a truly decentralized currency, free from the grasp of the rulers, and can be freely used. But in reality, it doesn't work exactly as it should. I don't know whether it is all over the world, or maybe only in certain countries. When our activities, businesses related to crypto, exchanges, and others have begun to be linked to the laws of a country, linked to government control, and required to be under the authority of a government, then of course it will no longer be 100% decentralization.

And in reality, many exchange platforms require KYC verification with ID documents and other equipment for certain policy reasons, related to government policy. and whether you like it or not, you have to follow it if you want one day to be able to cash out easily. Of course, this is certainly not in accordance with the heart of the city and the goals of Bitcoin. And it's definitely not that satisfying.

However, what to do? because that is the best way at the moment? At a time when Bitcoin cannot be used as a currency in our country, it can't be helped, while there are still many pros and cons going on here.

Hmmm, of course all of these situations are very unsatisfactory. and I'm also not sure that as time goes by, the government will relax this. or in the sense of not controlling cryptocurrency anymore, I think in the future, the government will increasingly try to get into it.

[sokani]

Who knows? Maybe in the future, they'll extinct DEXs and force the KYC CEXs on us because they want to exert control over us.

But if we continue to think about such pessimistic and negative things, only we are the ones who are going to suffer.

It is a human tendency to be pessimistic and see bad things happen while maybe in your lifetime you would never actually encounter these problems at all. Who knows we may not even live that long to see bitcoin become the natural means of transaction and we are already talking about governments and banks taking everything over.

Well I hope it doesn't come that. However, like I said the government has done all it could to kill Bitcoin but after realizing that its actions are actually futile, it has no other option than to create a replica (bitcoin spot ETF).

I don't know if you've been following the news lately, the government are beginning to crack down on privacy coins and the reason is because these coins are very difficult to trace. Four years ago, $625,000 bounty was offered by the Internal Revenue Service to anyone who could hack the Monero protocol. This is to tell you how much they want to get rid off what they cannot control.

[legiteum]

The good news is that investors don't care about this, and invest in cryptos anyhow as a pure speculation instrument. It's not about "freedom", it's about buying low and selling high.

Yes, but we don't care about the profit as much as the crypto-anarchist virtues. Do we? 'Cause I thought this whole reinvention of money had to do with replacing the current fiat system with something superior, less prone to corruption.

Profit gains are without doubt good news, but if we don't think about these virtues and act accordingly, then we're no different from just another financial scheme.

Well, in actual reality, crypto has failed to achieve anything besides being another financial instrument to invest in. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but that's the reality.

GMail is the first kind of "private", because it's absolutely private unless there is a court order.

Google is literally the privacy nightmare of Web2. You can probably keep your documents private from a family member or a friend, but in general? Google lives off your data.

Yes, absolutely Google itself lives off of your data in lots of ways, but they don't do anything with your actual emails. They work off of aggregated data. I don't discount the privacy concerns with them for a second (my company doesn't even use cookies at all for instance), but your actual emails aren't getting breached unless there's a court order.

[serjent05]

What if we were no longer allowed to store bitcoin ourselves, and be forced to leave them on an approved exchange or bank?

I do not see these happening anytime soon.  So I don't make myself worry about this kind of situation

What if we needed to submit identify verification every time we wanted to create an address?

A decentralized wallet will always be available, just like how the government forbids illegal file torrenting, and yet it still exists today, I believe the same thing will happen to the availability of non-custodial Bitcoin wallet.

What if people in charge could set an arbitrarily high fee for anyone who wanted to make a transaction?

Then hodl and let them realize that what they did does not makes any sense.

One cannot hodl for eternity, at some point in time we have to make a profit or make use of the Bitcoins we are holding.  If  the people in charge are those developers and miners and not the government that is setting the high fee, then we cannot do anything about this but setup our own mining pool to confirm a low tx fee transactions.  But if it is the government who is implementing it to centralized services then we can always opt in decentralized services that is not controlled by the government.  I believe there will always a service like decentralized exchanges

[BlackHatCoiner]

Well, in actual reality, crypto has failed to achieve anything besides being another financial instrument to invest in.

It hasn't failed being censorship resistant. It hasn't failed being permissionless. It remains denationalized, and resistant to arbitrary monetary policy from the state.

And frankly, that's all we have in our disposal. The moment Bitcoin stops being resistant and permissionless is the very moment it has turned into fiat. It probably will not, because it is designed to not require extensive effort to work. But that does not mean we should completely ignore every potential threat.

[BabyBandit]

Every day, we are using Bitcoin to buy goods and services, and also to receive money in return for goods and services from others.

We can send money anywhere around the world, without having to pay expensive fees* which have been set by a money transmitter.

I doubt people using BTC for buying goods and services everyday of course some do, but not many because of the fee's.
And yes we can send money around the world, but we have to pay expensive fees if we choose BTC. But other crypto's have good fee's.

What if we were no longer allowed to store bitcoin ourselves, and be forced to leave them on an approved exchange or bank?

Then I hope it would be a coup d'état. Governments are nothing then mafia and they should leave us crypto lovers alone, they are scumbags and the worst people and thing in the world IMO. They just steal from the citizen's and nothing else, they don't care about us, they care about our money.

What if we needed to submit identify verification every time we wanted to create an address?

What if What if.. It would suck but I really doubt it would happen.

What if people in charge could set an arbitrarily high fee for anyone who wanted to make a transaction?

What if.. What if... It would be a sad day, but it will never happen.

Never allow this to happen, and you can do it by supporting privacy, wherever it exists.

Agree. I am always for freedom of speech and decentralized places, the most danger for that is probably the middle east where you cant say or do anything without getting killed.



Conclusion, stop think so much about "What if" and Negativity it's only a waste of your time and you should respect your time more bro and focus on things you actually can improve and change instead and positivity mate.


Best regards
/ BabyBandit.

[legiteum]

Well, in actual reality, crypto has failed to achieve anything besides being another financial instrument to invest in.

It hasn't failed being censorship resistant. It hasn't failed being permissionless. It remains denationalized, and resistant to arbitrary monetary policy from the state.

And frankly, that's all we have in our disposal. The moment Bitcoin stops being resistant and permissionless is the very moment it has turned into fiat. It probably will not, because it is designed to not require extensive effort to work. But that does not mean we should completely ignore every potential threat.

What is mean for a currency to be "censorship resistant"? In what way are, say, US Dollars not "censorship resistant" for instance? What does "permissionless" mean? Again, in what way are US Dollars not "permissionless"?

I certainly get that it's denationalized. That's not a very strong benefit to the consumer though per se. Most credit cards these days allow you to pay in whatever currency that is required at the point of purchase and the bank does the forex for you behind the scenes.

It is definitely not subject to currency manipulation by governments, but on the other hand the price of Bitcoin has been extremely volatile, so there's certainly no materialized benefit there.

And all of these benefits, I assume, are only realized in the context of somebody transacting with Bitcoin without the assistance of any financial institution which is, I suspect, not the way most consumers use Bitcoin these days, e.g. with some kind of app and a company like Coinbase...

[BlackHatCoiner]

What is mean for a currency to be "censorship resistant"?

Not the currency. The network in general. Nobody can censor me from sending and receiving bitcoin.

In what way are, say, US Dollars not "censorship resistant" for instance?

In cash? None. Via the Internet? They have to pass through a financial institution which imposes their own rules, all of which can censor transactions.

What does "permissionless" mean?

Nobody can prohibit you from setting up a Bitcoin wallet. Nobody grants you permission to access Bitcoin.

I certainly get that it's denationalized. That's not a very strong benefit to the consumer though per se.

But, again. I'm not arguing for the benefit of the consumer. I'm arguing for the fundamentals that maintain this network's integrity. A Bitcoin standard would promote reduced state intervention and cater to individual preferences. It essentially embodies the ideal vision of every libertarian intellectual from the 20th century.

[Adbitco]

Never allow this to happen, and you can do it by supporting privacy, wherever it exists.

Crypto privacy is the last weapon you have against financial corruption.

*If not mainnet, then Lightning Network.

I am afraid that most of us here don't have the financial or political power to stop these moves but at least we could do our little bit by sticking with decentralised platforms. We have to enjoy privacy as long as it lasts by avoiding all platforms that ask for KYC.   

Do you think this is possible?
Almost everything we do currently requires to pass through kyc, exchange and gambling site. This is most common place that asked for our kyc details and for that whomever that doesn't pass through kyc might not be allowed to either withdraw his coin in both platform. Apart from this common place where else do we need to spend bitcoin except doing p2p among ourselves here or other than those platform that doesn't seek for personal documents, also, know there are restricted countries that might not be allowed to use those platform due to sets of restriction.

Lightning networks the solution as op said.

[Hyphen(-)]

I see that many consider bitcoin to be a volatile asset, completely dismissing all the fundamentals behind it all.

Bitcoin is actually a volatile asset we can't tempered with because we can lose our money anytime if we make mistakes while doing any transactions, we can lose our money and it is not reversible.

It's a shame that the vast majority still haven't truly understood the power of bitcoin and the liberating power it can bring to you and your family, goes far beyond purchasing power...

It's about freedom: one of the most valuable things a human being can have.

The majority of people these days are just jumping into Bitcoin investment without knowing the primary goal behind the creation of Bitcoin. Some of them feel that it is just by investing in Bitcoin and waiting for your profit after some time. We need to know that Bitcoin is created to give us financial freedom, that is what the government is trying to fight so that they will have some control over our Bitcoin transactions with exchanges.
Let us avoid Centralized exchanges to avoid all these dramas of SEC, and other regulatory bodies trying to distract bitcoin adoption globally.