Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

Thankfully my coins are clean so whitelisting for me would only be a disaster insofar as it would destroy any reason whatsoever for anyone to used Bitcoin and thus the solution (and my stash) would eventually die.  I'd either cash out before it dawned on people that Bitcoin was useless, or hope that a following system would start out where Bitcoin left off vis-a-vis a value base.  Probably some combination of both.

i'd bet you have a few of MyBitcoins theft in your stash:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=548508.0

Most people likely have MyBitcoin stuff (I've not read the link yet.)  I personally probably have a fair number of BTC which are closely linked to the allinvain (purported) heist.  Word is that these were up for sale on Tradehill-I at the time that I was doing some significant acquisition.  But I also have the records of my interactions with Tradehill, and the records of my interactions with the IRS when I paid my taxes.

When tainting pops up it will probably be in the form of white-listing and will probably afford the benefit of the doubt to hodlers.  Especially old-timers.  As long as Gavin does his job and Bitcoin can be controlled, there will be no reason to destroy Bitcoin and many reasons not to since it is actually quite useful to people from all over the spectrum.  And if the (false) idea that Bitcoin has any particular value when it has become a less convenient PayPal can be preserved it could also serve to detract from interest in real solutions which do have value.

[1714052095]

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[cypherdoc]

Thankfully my coins are clean so whitelisting for me would only be a disaster insofar as it would destroy any reason whatsoever for anyone to used Bitcoin and thus the solution (and my stash) would eventually die.  I'd either cash out before it dawned on people that Bitcoin was useless, or hope that a following system would start out where Bitcoin left off vis-a-vis a value base.  Probably some combination of both.

i'd bet you have a few of MyBitcoins theft in your stash:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=548508.0

Most people likely have MyBitcoin stuff (I've not read the link yet.)  I personally probably have a fair number of BTC which are closely linked to the allinvain (purported) heist.  Word is that these were up for sale on Tradehill-I at the time that I was doing some significant acquisition.  But I also have the records of my interactions with Tradehill, and the records of my interactions with the IRS when I paid my taxes.

When tainting pops up it will probably be in the form of white-listing and will probably afford the benefit of the doubt to hodlers.  Especially old-timers.  As long as Gavin does his job and Bitcoin can be controlled, there will be no reason to destroy Bitcoin and many reasons not to since it is actually quite useful to people from all over the spectrum.  And if the (false) idea that Bitcoin has any particular value when it has become a less convenient PayPal can be preserved it could also serve to detract from interest in real solutions which do have value.

the thing is, the gvt is not going to get involved in a situation where drug dealers steal coin from other drug dealers and then try to sell them off on an anonymous exchange in Bulgaria.  they only care if they themselves can get their hands on the BTC which in this Evo case, they cannot.  so they'll just let the community shoot it out and the final result will be just like every other theft in Bitcoinland since Day 1; nothing.

[justusranvier]

JR,

what's up with Odom leaving Monetas?

I only know one side of the story right now, so I can't really say.

Why aren't more people talking about this? OT was supposed to be huge for Bitcoin, it was Chris' baby for a long time now...

well i tried

https://github.com/FellowTraveler?tab=activity

[Ivanhoe]

Looks a lot like the psychology changed from "sell the tops" to "buy the dips".

[cypherdoc]

Looks a lot like the psychology changed from "sell the tops" to "buy the dips".

Yes, ignore all news good or bad. The trend has changed.

[tvbcof]

the thing is, the gvt is not going to get involved in a situation where drug dealers steal coin from other drug dealers and then try to sell them off on an anonymous exchange in Bulgaria.  they only care if they themselves can get their hands on the BTC which in this Evo case, they cannot.  so they'll just let the community shoot it out and the final result will be just like every other theft in Bitcoinland since Day 1; nothing.

The govt's role is super simple:

 - Mandate a license and enforce it on key retailers and service providers of the on-line wallet type (e.g., Coinbase...who probably won't take much convincing...)

 - Charter a service (e.g., CoinValidation) or two which do validation.

The licensee just uses a simple API from the validator.

When this occurs I will require that if you want to send me BTC, you do it through my Coinbase account.  Yes, I'm vehemently opposed to the whole system, but I'm not going to take a bullet by absorbing your unvalidated BTC which I may not be able to spend and have to trade to someone else who will also will value unvalidated BTC at a lower rate.

To make matters worse, anyone who is enough of a chump to accept unvalidated BTC will find people wishing to dump them beating a path to one's door.

I would also caution against assuming that a validation solution cannot work because of the difficulty of the task.  Validation need not be anything remotely precise or even accurate.  I think we'll find that the amount of liability protection afforded to a validating service in association with their charter would make the vaccine manufactures blush.

TPTB have a good friend in Mr. Andresen and thus a very strong hand.  I won't go into the game theory, but there are still a bunch of ways to overplay the hand that they have here.  A person who is on the ball, and who has a bit of luck, may be able to come out of this thing fairly well.

[cypherdoc]

the thing is, the gvt is not going to get involved in a situation where drug dealers steal coin from other drug dealers and then try to sell them off on an anonymous exchange in Bulgaria.  they only care if they themselves can get their hands on the BTC which in this Evo case, they cannot.  so they'll just let the community shoot it out and the final result will be just like every other theft in Bitcoinland since Day 1; nothing.

The govt's role is super simple:

 - Mandate a license and enforce it on key retailers and service providers of the on-line wallet type (e.g., Coinbase...who probably won't take much convincing...)

 - Charter a service (e.g., CoinValidation) or two which do validation.

The licensee just uses a simple API from the validator.

When this occurs I will require that if you want to send me BTC, you do it through my Coinbase account.  Yes, I'm vehemently opposed to the whole system, but I'm not going to take a bullet by absorbing your unvalidated BTC which I may not be able to spend and have to trade to someone else who will also will value unvalidated BTC at a lower rate.

To make matters worse, anyone who is enough of a chump to accept unvalidated BTC will find people wishing to dump them beating a path to one's door.

I would also caution against assuming that a validation solution cannot work because of the difficulty of the task.  Validation need not be anything remotely precise or even accurate.  I think we'll find that the amount of liability protection afforded to a validating service in association with their charter would make the vaccine manufactures blush.

TPTB have a good friend in Mr. Andresen and thus a very strong hand.  I won't go into the game theory, but there are still a bunch of ways to overplay the hand that they have here.  A person who is on the ball, and who has a bit of luck, may be able to come out of this thing fairly well.

the problem is this; you don't understand the game theory.

the cat is out of the bag on this one.  Bitcoin is global and growing rapidly overseas.  take the worse case scenario; the US turns off its internet to short circuit Bitcoin.  ok, big whoop.  the rest of the world continues on.  and given their clear tendencies, China and Russia may even embrace Bitcoin once they figure out they can't stop it and embracing could mean the end of the USD hegemony.  many of us would route around or tunnel thru via VPN's.  first off, turning off the internet will never happen.  second, if it did, it would last probably <24 hrs as the banks themselves cry Uncle from the immediate destruction of their daily business and confidence.  stock, bond, and USD markets would plummet.

there is something called accountability and credibility that the US gvt must adhere to to a degree despite what you might think.  they just got done auctioning off the 3rd tranche of BTC for cold, hard cash that they gladly accepted with open hands.  they just got done making it legal via Fincen, the IRS via tax law, the NYDFS via BitLicense, the Senate Banking Hearings, the FEC donations, and various other state laws.  

the good news is that the technology is good enough fundamentally to actually make the US eventually want to use it to maintain an upper hand in world finance.  perhaps as backing for the USD.

[molecular]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

[tvbcof]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

We should talk!

Seriously, there was a time when I would have sacrificed a lot for native Bitcoin.  At this point, given the makeup of the ecosystem, hodler community, existence of the Bitcoin Foundation and it's minions (including the 'chief scientist' who they pay) and so forth it would be damn difficult for me to justify taking a BB, much less a bullet.  I mean, what would one be sacrificing for?

I actually might take the same tact as you (or at least what you say/believe will be your possition will be.)  The only reason I would do this would be if a replacement for a demonstrably corrupt and useless native Bitcoin was likely, and likely to obtain it's value from a blockchain fork.  Thus, if I could pick up some discounted BTC which have a reasonable chance of being re-valued higher I might be inclined to play that angle.  To help support the current bunch of whales and a system which TPTB from mainstream-land have managed to subvert?  Fuck no!

[cypherdoc]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

Looks like Alex Waters has capitulated on this. In one of the comments on reddit he flat out said that fungibility of Bitcoin was paramount to success. No white listing.

[cypherdoc]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

We should talk!

Seriously, there was a time when I would have sacrificed a lot for native Bitcoin.  At this point, given the makeup of the ecosystem, hodler community, existence of the Bitcoin Foundation and it's minions (including the 'chief scientist' who they pay) and so forth it would be damn difficult for me to justify taking a BB, much less a bullet.  I mean, what would one be sacrificing for?

I actually might take the same tact as you (or at least what you say/believe will be your possition will be.)  The only reason I would do this would be if a replacement for a demonstrably corrupt and useless native Bitcoin was likely, and likely to obtain it's value from a blockchain fork.  Thus, if I could pick up some discounted BTC which have a reasonable chance of being re-valued higher I might be inclined to play that angle.  To help support the current bunch of whales and a system which TPTB from mainstream-land have managed to subvert?  Fuck no!

Why haven't you sold  all your coins then?

Answer: because Bitcoin just might turn out better than you think.

[tvbcof]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

Looks like Alex Waters has capitulated on this. In one of the comments on reddit he flat out said that fungibility of Bitcoin was paramount to success. No white listing.

I guess that settles it.  The guy who joined with Mellon and formed a company writes on reddit that he changed his mind.  I'm glad that danger passed.

Frankly, the fact that Waters and Mellon even talked about their effort in public at all sort of indicates that they are world-class idiots who probably don't have much of a chance for that reason alone.  On the other hand, the idea of whitelisting was so obvious and acceptable to so many of the main Bitcoin players at the 2013 SJ conference that I suppose it's possible that they really didn't see the brick wall of community reaction coming.  It's also the case that the only real criteria for getting a successful validation service going is to play well with the government.  The govt is the one key element that makes such a service economically viable (and probably wildly so!) and it doesn't take a lot of brain power to pull that off.

People in the community need to recognize that the movers and shakers in Bitcoin land who have the connections and resources to get things done on an industrial level are a whole different class of animal than the run-of-the-mill libertarian who populate troll-talk and the dopey little neighborhood meet-ups.  Usually not even the same species with a few exceptions for some amount of hybridization.

[tvbcof]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

We should talk!

Seriously, there was a time when I would have sacrificed a lot for native Bitcoin.  At this point, given the makeup of the ecosystem, hodler community, existence of the Bitcoin Foundation and it's minions (including the 'chief scientist' who they pay) and so forth it would be damn difficult for me to justify taking a BB, much less a bullet.  I mean, what would one be sacrificing for?

I actually might take the same tact as you (or at least what you say/believe will be your possition will be.)  The only reason I would do this would be if a replacement for a demonstrably corrupt and useless native Bitcoin was likely, and likely to obtain it's value from a blockchain fork.  Thus, if I could pick up some discounted BTC which have a reasonable chance of being re-valued higher I might be inclined to play that angle.  To help support the current bunch of whales and a system which TPTB from mainstream-land have managed to subvert?  Fuck no!

Why haven't you sold  all your coins then?

Answer: because Bitcoin just might turn out better than you think.

Sidechains could address all of these recently mentioned problems and many more.  I'm holding out to see if people come to their senses in time. 

Besides, as I've mentioned already, I don't see this as a good selling point.  You remember my strategy of buying low and selling high, right?

[cypherdoc]

tv,

Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?

Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?

[ssmc2]

If whitelisting becomes a thing, I will make a point by only accepting black (non-whitelisted) coins.

We should talk!

Seriously, there was a time when I would have sacrificed a lot for native Bitcoin.  At this point, given the makeup of the ecosystem, hodler community, existence of the Bitcoin Foundation and it's minions (including the 'chief scientist' who they pay) and so forth it would be damn difficult for me to justify taking a BB, much less a bullet.  I mean, what would one be sacrificing for?

I actually might take the same tact as you (or at least what you say/believe will be your possition will be.)  The only reason I would do this would be if a replacement for a demonstrably corrupt and useless native Bitcoin was likely, and likely to obtain it's value from a blockchain fork.  Thus, if I could pick up some discounted BTC which have a reasonable chance of being re-valued higher I might be inclined to play that angle.  To help support the current bunch of whales and a system which TPTB from mainstream-land have managed to subvert?  Fuck no!

Why haven't you sold  all your coins then?

Answer: because Bitcoin just might turn out better than you think.

Sidechains could address all of these recently mentioned problems and many more.  I'm holding out to see if people come to their senses in time. 

Besides, as I've mentioned already, I don't see this as a good selling point.  You remember my strategy of buying low and selling high, right?

Speaking of, any recent news from Blockstream?

[_mr_e]

Decentralized exchanges will destroy any fungability worries because there will be no way to choose what kind of coins get traded to you or that you can trade to someone else.

[tvbcof]

tv,

Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?

Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?

Just make people register.  That was Yifu's angle as a principle at CoinValidation.  UTXO's which are not registered to a known user or entity (e.g., Coinbase or blockchain.info) would halt a transaction from being valid.  Very easy to justify in the name of 'fighting terrorism and child exploitation' and whatever.  You can go before congress and argue all kinds of economic mumbo-jumbo about fungibility and freedom and what-not if you like.  Good luck with that.

Sharp eyed viewers might notice that if one does not register, one cannot pay one's taxes.  And there are well established ways to make people pay their taxes in almost all but the most failed of states.  I'll register my stash the day I'm mandated to do so (which is why my conception of the best strategy is to avoid a mandate ever being practical rather than to resist compliance after it is been mandated.)

As a function of my Coin Validation service, I'd also run a service for miners so that they can ensure that they don't waste their time mining unvalidated UTXO's as inputs and their transaction set thus remain clean.  If the choice is between taking this easy and popular step of using my government chartered service, and facing shutdown of their network support and confiscation of their gear, it will be a fairly easy decision in most cases.  It seems to me that the new inverted bloom filter thing it could be remarkably efficient for a miner to ensure that they are not wasting their time with transactions which are going to be legally invalid because they contain unvalidated inputs.  A side benefit of using a sorted transaction set.

I also find your suggestion that the likes of Russia and China are going to change their policies and welcome crypto-currencies with open arms to be laughable.  And in case you have not noticed, piss-ant countries without nukes pretty much do what they are told by whoever's sphere of influence they fall under.  Sure, there is a chance that your rosy dreams about totalitarian countries suddenly discovering the joys of individual freedom and geo-political power politics will come to pass, but I'm not betting a huge percentage of my financial statement on it.

[tvbcof]

Sidechains could address all of these recently mentioned problems and many more.  I'm holding out to see if people come to their senses in time. 
...

Speaking of, any recent news from Blockstream?

I just checked their blog and it hasn't changed from when Iast looked a some weeks ago.  That's a little disappointing.  I've not really even researched things enough to know if they have some public code repo.  That's often a way to tell something about the activity of a project.  Lastly, I don't really out very often on troll-talk these days and don't know of any active conversations like the enjoyable one we had with Adam a few months ago.   I should follow things more closely for personal financial reasons, but I've been more interested in other things lately.

[cypherdoc]

tv,

Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?

Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?

Just make people register.  That was Yifu's angle as a principle at CoinValidation.  UTXO's which are not registered to a known user or entity (e.g., Coinbase or blockchain.info) would halt a transaction from being valid.  Very easy to justify in the name of 'fighting terrorism and child exploitation' and whatever.  You can go before congress and argue all kinds of economic mumbo-jumbo about fungibility and freedom and what-not if you like.  Good luck with that.

Sharp eyed viewers might notice that if one does not register, one cannot pay one's taxes.  And there are well established ways to make people pay their taxes in almost all but the most failed of states.  I'll register my stash the day I'm mandated to do so (which is why my conception of the best strategy is to avoid a mandate ever being practical rather than to resist compliance after it is been mandated.)

As a function of my Coin Validation service, I'd also run a service for miners so that they can ensure that they don't waste their time mining unvalidated UTXO's as inputs and their transaction set thus remain clean.  If the choice is between taking this easy and popular step of using my government chartered service, and facing shutdown of their network support and confiscation of their gear, it will be a fairly easy decision in most cases.  It seems to me that the new inverted bloom filter thing it could be remarkably efficient for a miner to ensure that they are not wasting their time with transactions which are going to be legally invalid because they contain unvalidated inputs.  A side benefit of using a sorted transaction set.

I also find your suggestion that the likes of Russia and China are going to change their policies and welcome crypto-currencies with open arms to be laughable.  And in case you have not noticed, piss-ant countries without nukes pretty much do what they are told by whoever's sphere of influence they fall under.  Sure, there is a chance that your rosy dreams about totalitarian countries suddenly discovering the joys of individual freedom and geo-political power politics will come to pass, but I'm not betting a huge percentage of my financial statement on it.

Iirc, Yifu's idea was to white list addresses, not UTXO's. So your idea is to taint UTXO'?  How do you do that given they can be split, joined ad infinitum?

[tvbcof]

...

Iirc, Yifu's idea was to white list addresses, not UTXO's.

Yifu was specifically interested in identifying in pinning individual identification meta-data to that which exists in the blockchain as I recall things.

So your idea is to taint UTXO'?  How do you do that given they can be split, joined ad infinitum?

We've been through this years ago.  Of course you taint UTXO's and summate them to characterize a wallet (as if it matters.)  It's not only possible to have a percent taint, it's relatively trivial.  It's also fairly trivial to associate UTXO's to other metadata and flags.  That would be the heart of a validation service, and it is very far from rocket science.

You are trying to say that Bitcoin has no scaling problems and because there is no danger of to many UTXO's (which pretty much will always need to be in fast access (which is, parenthetically, a long ago solved problem for large players who operate football field sized datacenters)) and at the same time that the UTXO set is so complex that they could not be analyzed even though the entire system is highly deterministic.  Which is it, bro?

People who use multibit-type clients will probably not even know any difference.  Let the server to the heavy lifting.  Just push the 'upgrade' button and a nice little 'percent taint' is a new addition which rapidly becomes one more feature.  The handful of ancient dinosaurs who run a full node can easily check transactions against my government chartered service as needed.  In fact, for PR reasons, I'll even make this free.  This will allow folks to call Bitcoin a 'peer-2-peer' system if they can stifle a chuckle when doing so.