MINERS UNITE! Block the FBI coins. Do not fund violent underground organizations

[QuestionAuthority]

Beating dead horses and pulling the wings off flies are big hobbies for OP.

[niniyo]

OP likes authority and censorship.  OP wants to centralize bitcoin and have man-made decisions to control bitcoin's store of value and ability to transact.

OP, get the fuck out of bitcoin and go back to federal reserve notes.  Sounds like a perfect currency for you.  Maybe you should join the government too and try to assert more control over other people's lives.

[BITCOIN-PIZZA-DAY]

Sad that more than 17% of people don't understand that the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is fungible and DOES NOT GET BLOCKED.

This is a terrible precedent.

This would be a horrible idea.

First of all the FBI had put out a public notice allowing for anyone to claim ownership in the coins to do so and no one came forward.

Next, the concept of Bitcoin is that whoever controls the private key is the person who controls the subject coins. Since the FBI (I think it is actually the US Marshall service now, but this really does not matter) controls the private key to the subject BTC address, they are the ones that control the coins. To blacklist certain coins just because you think/feel they were "stolen" would create huge problems with bitcoin. Anyone could claim and present some kind of evidence that their coins were taken unjustly regardless of if the coins were stolen or not.

Third, once the coins are sold and disbursed to the buyers of the coins, the buyers will do their thing with the cons. They may keep some of them, they may use a mixing service to transfer some to another address, they may use some to buy goods/services, they may transfer some to an exchange to sell some. Assuming the transactions get confirmed then the majority (if not all) of the coins would be in the hands of someone who have nothing to do with the FBI nor had anything to do with the sale of the coins. It would be unjust to punish people just because they received coins from some unknown party (and would likely not have known prior to the transaction).

Wrong.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/01/31/silk-road-vendor-filing-claim-for-seized-bitcoins-argues-he-sold-only-legal-items/

[Stephen Gornick]

The Bitcoin protocol remains unchanged

Not true.  This change to the client that blacklists those coins does not follow the Bitcoin protocol.  It rejects blocks that are valid using the client prior to the change, therefore this client is imposing a change to the protocol that is not backward-compatible.  (It is still forward-compatible though, meaning clients that don't implement the blacklist will still validate and accept blocks solved by this "blacklisting client").

Miners will be taking a risk by adopting a client that uses the blacklist.  They risk that there truly won't be enough miners using the blacklist.   If this happens, there will be a blockchain fork and those miners using the blacklist will be working on blocks that may not ever become part of the longest chain.   Miners are not gamblers -- they will not switch to a client that is not backward-compatible without first being really confident there is almost no chance the changes will cause a blockchain fork.

Even if there were something like 80% of the miners onboard, however, that doesn't guarantee success.

See, the buyer of these disputed coins has an economic incentive for them to be fungible.   So all this party would need to do is to spend some of the coins and include significant fees on those transactions such that miners are leaving a significant amount of money on the table by implementing the blacklist.   So if the block reward paid to miners is 25 XBT, then maybe adding a transaction fee of just a few bitcoin would be enough to sway over some miners such that the longest chain continues to extend off a block which includes the blacklisted coins.  That action requires no change to the protocol and no change to the client.  And once these transactions start to circulate, a blacklist on taint starts to harm others who are innocent and thus there's more "backing" available to ensure that the blacklist fails.

[QuestionAuthority]

The Bitcoin protocol remains unchanged

Not true.  This change to the client that blacklists those coins does not follow the Bitcoin protocol.  It rejects blocks that are valid using the client prior to the change, therefore this client is imposing a change to the protocol that is not backward-compatible.  (It is still forward-compatible though, meaning clients that don't implement the blacklist will still validate and accept blocks solved by this "blacklisting client").

Miners will be taking a risk by adopting a client that uses the blacklist.  They risk that there truly won't be enough miners using the blacklist.   If this happens, there will be a blockchain fork and those miners using the blacklist will be working on blocks that may not ever become part of the longest chain.   Miners are not gamblers -- they will not switch to a client that is not backward-compatible without first being really confident there is almost no chance the changes will cause a blockchain fork.

Even if there were something like 80% of the miners onboard, however, that doesn't guarantee success.

See, the buyer of these disputed coins has an economic incentive for them to be fungible.   So all this party would need to do is to spend some of the coins and include significant fees on those transactions such that miners are leaving a significant amount of money on the table by implementing the blacklist.   So if the block reward paid to miners is 25 XBT, then maybe adding a transaction fee of just a few bitcoin would be enough to sway over some miners such that the longest chain continues to extend off a block which includes the blacklisted coins.  That action requires no change to the protocol and no change to the client.  And once these transactions start to circulate, a blacklist on taint starts to harm others who are innocent and thus there's more "backing" available to ensure that the blacklist fails.

You're always so rational, concise and correct. I love reading your posts.

[LostDutchman]

Beating dead horses and pulling the wings off flies are big hobbies for OP.

Those and wasting bandwidth.

[Beliathon]

As much as I hate the US government for their mistreatment, deception, and coercion of We the People, I'd be perfectly alright with them getting Bitcoin rich, as Bitcoin taking over world currency would ultimately make this planet a less violent, more honest place.

That's called the greater good.

[Velkro]

simply, do not do such things, if you do it one time, it will happen more and more
dont want bitcoin like this

[BurtW]

As much as I hate the US government for their mistreatment, deception, and coercion of We the People, I'd be perfectly alright with them getting Bitcoin rich, as Bitcoin taking over world currency would ultimately make this planet a less violent, more honest place.

That's called the greater good.

The US government can, just like anyone else, buy BTC, hold BTC, and use BTC - their choice.

[niothor]

Sad that more than 17% of people don't understand that the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is fungible and DOES NOT GET BLOCKED.

This is a terrible precedent.

Seems like the number of people who don't get it is growing :

Yes, block the coins!   - 27 (20.5%).
If they aren't trolling , It's not a good sign.

The last wave of adopters seems to have brought a few extremists with it.

[Honeypot]

OP is a fool and a delusional man child.

'violent underground organizations' LOL maybe you should follow anonymous and try to go toe to toe with mexican drug cartels instead.

No balls for that?

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Sad that more than 17% of people don't understand that the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is fungible and DOES NOT GET BLOCKED.

This is a terrible precedent.

Seems like the number of people who don't get it is growing :

Yes, block the coins!   - 27 (20.5%).
If they aren't trolling , It's not a good sign.

The last wave of adopters seems to have brought a few extremists with it.

You should note that this is only 27 people. The other choices are really not much better then "yes, block the coins"

This is certainly not a scientific poll.

[niothor]

Sad that more than 17% of people don't understand that the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is fungible and DOES NOT GET BLOCKED.

This is a terrible precedent.

Seems like the number of people who don't get it is growing :

Yes, block the coins!   - 27 (20.5%).
If they aren't trolling , It's not a good sign.

The last wave of adopters seems to have brought a few extremists with it.

You should note that this is only 27 people. The other choices are really not much better then "yes, block the coins"

This is certainly not a scientific poll.

We had the same kind of poll last time when the fbi seized the coins.
That time there were also a lot of people who asked for the pools to block the transactions from the fbi address and to make the coins un spendable.

I thought people have learned that time that it will hurt much more bitcoin than the government.
Seems like I was wrong.

27 votes again out of 130 it's a bit too much from my point o view.

[Harley997]

Sad that more than 17% of people don't understand that the whole point of Bitcoin is that it is fungible and DOES NOT GET BLOCKED.

This is a terrible precedent.

Seems like the number of people who don't get it is growing :

Yes, block the coins!   - 27 (20.5%).
If they aren't trolling , It's not a good sign.

The last wave of adopters seems to have brought a few extremists with it.

You should note that this is only 27 people. The other choices are really not much better then "yes, block the coins"

This is certainly not a scientific poll.

We had the same kind of poll last time when the fbi seized the coins.
That time there were also a lot of people who asked for the pools to block the transactions from the fbi address and to make the coins un spendable.

I thought people have learned that time that it will hurt much more bitcoin than the government.
Seems like I was wrong.

27 votes again out of 130 it's a bit too much from my point o view.

You don't know "who" is casing these votes. I would say that most of these people who are voting this way do not have a true understanding of Bitcoin

[BetMoose]

Jeez way too many votes on yes and not sure... tsk tsk these forums are clearly getting too accessible, let's ask a 0.0001 btc for an account and see if this gets fixed.

[beetcoin]

if we all block the FBI from making the transaction, wouldn't it make bitcoin more centralized that most people are wanting? doesn't that pose a dilemma then? while i don't like what the FBI has done, i think OP's proposal is a little extremist.

[LostDutchman]

Do those of you who wish to create "classes" of Bitcoins are going to ultimately be personally resonsible for the demise of that cryptocurrency?

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

if we all block the FBI from making the transaction, wouldn't it make bitcoin more centralized that most people are wanting? doesn't that pose a dilemma then? while i don't like what the FBI has done, i think OP's proposal is a little extremist.

It would not make the Bitcoin network more centralized.

It would make it so that bitcoin would not be fungible. How it is now if you were to go to the marketplace section of the forums and offer to buy a couch (or another good) from a user for 1 BTC, they would accept your offer, you would send the 1 BTC and they would send the couch. It would not matter "which" BTC you sent as the 1 BTC that was sent is exactly the same as any other 1 BTC that any other person/entity has.

If you were to "block" the FBI bitcoin from being transferred/sold then each bitcoin could potentially have a different value. Even if the FBI coins are never sold, your 1 BTC may have a lessor value because they are somehow tainted with an address that is believed to have stolen coins in the past. You would have had absolutely nothing to do with the subject theft but would still suffer.

[beetcoin]

if we all block the FBI from making the transaction, wouldn't it make bitcoin more centralized that most people are wanting? doesn't that pose a dilemma then? while i don't like what the FBI has done, i think OP's proposal is a little extremist.

It would not make the Bitcoin network more centralized.

It would make it so that bitcoin would not be fungible. How it is now if you were to go to the marketplace section of the forums and offer to buy a couch (or another good) from a user for 1 BTC, they would accept your offer, you would send the 1 BTC and they would send the couch. It would not matter "which" BTC you sent as the 1 BTC that was sent is exactly the same as any other 1 BTC that any other person/entity has.

If you were to "block" the FBI bitcoin from being transferred/sold then each bitcoin could potentially have a different value. Even if the FBI coins are never sold, your 1 BTC may have a lessor value because they are somehow tainted with an address that is believed to have stolen coins in the past. You would have had absolutely nothing to do with the subject theft but would still suffer.

i'm not sure how your point relates to centralization not being an issue. what i see is this: people who don't like what the FBI is doing (and i am one of them), so they decide to group up and prevent the FBI from doing whatever it wants to do.. this is kind of like a political move too. if bitcoin were truly decentralized, you wouldn't be able to force your will upon them.

[DooMAD]

Disappointing to see that over a quarter of the people in this forum still haven't got a clue about how decentralised currencies are supposed to work.  The two possible correct answers are either 'NO', or simply not bothering to vote for an option at all because stupid poll is stupid.

Go and start your own Tardcoin that isn't fungible if you want to be able to block transactions and balances.  You don't belong here.