Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Bond market topping out? liquidity collapse imminent, seems the ultimate debt bubble is shimmering and quivering if you read between the lines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11487546/Liquidity-crisis-could-spark-the-next-financial-crash.html

[1714115243]

1714115243

[1714115243]

1714115243

[1714115243]

1714115243

[1714115243]

1714115243

[hdbuck]

Bond market topping out? liquidity collapse imminent, seems the ultimate debt bubble is shimmering and quivering if you read between the lines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11487546/Liquidity-crisis-could-spark-the-next-financial-crash.html

liquidity crisis will just set the fire on a major credit crisis. hence, adios the money. suck it up your useless plastic cards. ^^

[iCEBREAKER]

Bond market topping out? liquidity collapse imminent, seems the ultimate debt bubble is shimmering and quivering if you read between the lines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11487546/Liquidity-crisis-could-spark-the-next-financial-crash.html

[Wekkel]

A crash is never announced in MSM. I guess it will take a few more years until faith is lost.

[Zarathustra]

this is just you being a pessimist again.  you really do think the gvt is all powerful, don't you?

Yes, the collectivists think so. They believe in the New Idol:

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle507-20090222-04.html

[iCEBREAKER]

i think BTC-e is temporarily deluded at best.

first, they have no clear way of proving which coins were stolen.  it makes no sense that the thieves would send stolen coins directly to BTC-e for sale w/o a few intermediate hops at least.  similarly, "mule" activity can only be suspected, not proved.  secondly, while i agree BTC-e has the right to choose to behave as they wish (it being a free mkt), the consequences of such actions will be to destroy their own business as internet of money (Bitcoin) will choose to route around them if their behavior persists.  thirdly, i doubt they're acting out of pure ethics; the behavior is suspicious as the owners have been anonymous from the beginning making this freezing of coins highly suspicious.  my bet is that they had some of their own coins on Evo and they're just trying to retrieve them.  thirdly, do you really think they will just freeze the coins and then destroy them?  hell no, they'll eventually have to decide to return them to their rightful owners, destroy them, or turn them over to some law enforcement agency (think DOJ).  in the first instance, those owners will then merrily go off and spend those coins freely as if nothing happened and recipients of those coins will do likewise.  in the second instance, destroying them would be an untenable act as the rightful owners (if they can even be identified) would scream bloody foul again destroying their customer base.  if they try to hold them "forever", suspicions will arise that they might eventually spend them themselves (BTC-e).  in the third instance of turning them over to DOJ or some gvt (and here's the real zinger) what do you think they would do with them?  Voila!  we already have 3 instances of exactly what the feds would do:  auction them off.  and this is where the ultimate hypocrisy comes from all this moral and legal parsing going on about this tainting issue.  when gvts believe they have the moral authority to do what's right for them and them only (auctioning and running off with the proceeds from "illegal activity") they undermine confidence in themselves from the viewpoint of the people.  i know that when i see these auctions going off on SR coins or the auction the Aussie authorities are planning, i think hypocrisy, ie theft.  this is why the Bitcoin community will ultimately give those tainted coins a pass and accept them in everyday trade.  if the gvt can do it, so can they.  this "pass" just takes time.  in 2 wks, this Evo thing will have blown over.  furthermore, if the community refuses to do this, it means the end of Bitcoin as what is paramount is the principle of fungibility.

Doc, please.  Paragraphs.  Because my eyes!

I agree BTC-E has painted themselves into a no-win corner (*checks popcorn supplies*).  I share your suspicions w/r/t some 'self-help' going on.  I agree there is no way to prove technically the taint.

The problems arise because people nevertheless believe, and vehemently insist, some coins are less legitimate than others.  It's a social thing, the opposite of neatly provable/disprovable coin 'color.'  That's why it's such a sticky mess.

My model here is diamonds.  They are all made of blameless carbon.  But social, market, and media pressure (sorry for pun) has created ex nihilo a de novo problem and furor over 'blood diamonds.'

There is no way to ask a diamond about its origin.  So a whitelist, in the form of Happy Diamond Certification, is now in place and presumption is of guilt.

I agree a BTC whitelist is problematic and unenforceable for all manner of good reasons.  But I also have full faith Statists and other do-gooders will ignore those fine reasons and proceed to blunder about with (un)pleasantly futile regulatory schemes.

"We have to make sure people don't use Conflict Coins from nasty dark markets; it's For The Children" they will undoubtedly say.

Today we have Know Your Custom, tomorrow it will mutate into Know Your Coinbase.  BTC-E vs Evo is only a first skirmish, among the first drops in an oncoming monsoon.

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"?

It's not a 'what does the code output say' technical point.  It's a subjective matter of he-said-she-said/who has the most juiced-up legal team.

IOW, nightmare stuff.  Best to sidestep the entire tar pit by making claims of taint nigh-impossible to prove, even for TLAs.

[cypherdoc]

i think BTC-e is temporarily deluded at best.

first, they have no clear way of proving which coins were stolen.  it makes no sense that the thieves would send stolen coins directly to BTC-e for sale w/o a few intermediate hops at least.  similarly, "mule" activity can only be suspected, not proved.  secondly, while i agree BTC-e has the right to choose to behave as they wish (it being a free mkt), the consequences of such actions will be to destroy their own business as internet of money (Bitcoin) will choose to route around them if their behavior persists.  thirdly, i doubt they're acting out of pure ethics; the behavior is suspicious as the owners have been anonymous from the beginning making this freezing of coins highly suspicious.  my bet is that they had some of their own coins on Evo and they're just trying to retrieve them.  thirdly, do you really think they will just freeze the coins and then destroy them?  hell no, they'll eventually have to decide to return them to their rightful owners, destroy them, or turn them over to some law enforcement agency (think DOJ).  in the first instance, those owners will then merrily go off and spend those coins freely as if nothing happened and recipients of those coins will do likewise.  in the second instance, destroying them would be an untenable act as the rightful owners (if they can even be identified) would scream bloody foul again destroying their customer base.  if they try to hold them "forever", suspicions will arise that they might eventually spend them themselves (BTC-e).  in the third instance of turning them over to DOJ or some gvt (and here's the real zinger) what do you think they would do with them?  Voila!  we already have 3 instances of exactly what the feds would do:  auction them off.  and this is where the ultimate hypocrisy comes from all this moral and legal parsing going on about this tainting issue.  when gvts believe they have the moral authority to do what's right for them and them only (auctioning and running off with the proceeds from "illegal activity") they undermine confidence in themselves from the viewpoint of the people.  i know that when i see these auctions going off on SR coins or the auction the Aussie authorities are planning, i think hypocrisy, ie theft.  this is why the Bitcoin community will ultimately give those tainted coins a pass and accept them in everyday trade.  if the gvt can do it, so can they.  this "pass" just takes time.  in 2 wks, this Evo thing will have blown over.  furthermore, if the community refuses to do this, it means the end of Bitcoin as what is paramount is the principle of fungibility.

Doc, please.  Paragraphs.  Because my eyes!

I agree BTC-E has painted themselves into a no-win corner (*checks popcorn supplies*).  I share your suspicions w/r/t some 'self-help' going on.  I agree there is no way to prove technically the taint.

The problems arise because people nevertheless believe, and vehemently insist, some coins are less legitimate than others.  It's a social thing, the opposite of neatly provable/disprovable coin 'color.'  That's why it's such a sticky mess.

My model here is diamonds.  They are all made of blameless carbon.  But social, market, and media pressure (sorry for pun) has created ex nihilo a de novo problem and furor over 'blood diamonds.'

There is no way to ask a diamond about its origin.  So a whitelist, in the form of Happy Diamond Certification, is now in place and presumption is of guilt.

I agree a BTC whitelist is problematic and unenforceable for all manner of good reasons.  But I also have full faith Statists and other do-gooders will ignore those fine reasons and proceed to blunder about with (un)pleasantly futile regulatory schemes.

"We have to make sure people don't use Conflict Coins from nasty dark markets; it's For The Children" they will undoubtedly say.

Today we have Know Your Custom, tomorrow it will mutate into Know Your Coinbase.  BTC-E vs Evo is only a first skirmish, among the first drops in an oncoming monsoon.

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"?

It's not a 'what does the code output say' technical point.  It's a subjective matter of he-said-she-said/who has the most juiced-up legal team.

IOW, nightmare stuff.  Best to sidestep the entire tar pit by making claims of taint nigh-impossible to prove, even for TLAs.

except that blood diamonds are NOT critical for world trade as a form of money.  Bitcoin, otoh, has the distinct possibility to enable frictionless payments across all borders with a strictly known and fixed supply.  yes, a gvt can perform irrational tainting acts but they risk isolating themselves and cutting themselves off from what has the potential to fundamentally change commerce.  which nation wants to risk that?

sure, i agree that anonymity could be better provided in the code.  but is it good enough?  maybe.

[iCEBREAKER]

except that blood diamonds are NOT critical for world trade as a form of money.  Bitcoin, otoh, has the distinct possibility to enable frictionless payments across all borders with a strictly known and fixed supply.  yes, a gvt can perform irrational tainting acts but they risk isolating themselves and cutting themselves off from what has the potential to fundamentally change commerce.  which nation wants to risk that?

Oh, I'm not disputing the triviality of diamonds, nor the ability of Bitcoin's anti-fragility to obsolete, ultimately prevail over, and finally replace TPTB.

My point is it will not be a painless nor victimless process, and we should watch our eggs to ensure they are not the ones broken for the sake of making the cryptopian omelet.

[hdbuck]

except that blood diamonds are NOT critical for world trade as a form of money.  Bitcoin, otoh, has the distinct possibility to enable frictionless payments across all borders with a strictly known and fixed supply.  yes, a gvt can perform irrational tainting acts but they risk isolating themselves and cutting themselves off from what has the potential to fundamentally change commerce.  which nation wants to risk that?

Oh, I'm not disputing the triviality of diamonds, nor the ability of Bitcoin's anti-fragility to obsolete, ultimately prevail over, and finally replace TPTB.

My point is it will not be a painless nor victimless process, and we should watch our eggs to ensure they are not the ones broken for the sake of making the cryptopian omelet Hamlet.

ftfy

[iCEBREAKER]

Hamlet.

ftfy

ROFL.  Well played!

[uki]

Gold up, Bitcoin down in the last few days, folks.
Although in the grand scheme of things it is all versus the US dollar (the king). I don't think Bitcoin and gold are correlated in any direct way.

weren't you the one with the great log chart of BTC/XAU showing a clear uptrend?

trends are not given forever.
if we lack more fundamental developments for Bitcoin, we may as well have the correction on that chart.

[rocks]

This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal.  It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time.  This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.

Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary). 

Catching up after a week's absence.

So fully agree with this sentiment. The change locks bitcoin onto an automatic 20 year ramp to essentially zero limit. None of us know for sure how this will play out.

The only reason I can think Gavin would want to do this is maybe a fear that after the next jump in price and usage, bitcoin might start to become too large to effectively fork/change, and so it is best to make a change today that locks in future changes to remove the limit as a minimum bitcoin needs.

Gavin's view seems to be that the market will figure it out. I agree it will, but believe it will figure itself out by becoming more centralized with a majority of nodes running in cloud datacenters (I already only run my full node in AWS). So I don't worry that bitcoin will technically break, but worry that the immediate solutions the market finds will make bitcoin less decentralized and easier for centralized governments to attack through regulation. I'd prefer bitcoin stay smaller if that is what it needs to do to remain more decentralized.

[rocks]

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.

this is exactly the sort of drivel i'd expect from your socialistic mindset.  "i'd just mandate it be so".

notice that there is no depth to your assertions as they just represent your lips flapping once again.  let me spell it out for you.  the working assumption here is that there will be mass disobedience of your pronouncements as most ppl who are even remotely familiar with how the protocol works understands that it is impossible to "taint coins" as there is no such concept in reality.  the trick for you is how to enforce your pronouncements.  there are just inputs and outputs which get split & joined constantly giving "coins" that are ever lessening shades of grey as time goes by.  and w/o a mechanism to identify owners of whatever unit you choose to monitor be it addresses or UTXO's, there is plausible deniability at every hop.  the only way to prove someone guilty of a theft is to catch them with the private keys on their computer used at the time of the theft.

I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.

There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.

Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.

Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.

It's not super simple. There is a reason why you do not pay tax when you buy firewood from your neigbor. He and you say no. There is a reason why they can not say: You to can not have sexual intercource, how could you think that, here it is WE who decide who is to have sex and not to have sex. But the people says no, no way. There is a reason they can not say that you have to go to church every sunday. Everybody say no, no way, basta! This is also what people will say to the blacklists or the whitelists. They will say, no, not a chance, basta, the coins are mine. Mine! Get out of my face. That is what everybody will say. Not super simple at all. Without support, they can do nothing. Whitout you giving them resources, they have no resources. Bitcoin will make that clear to a lot of people.

That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.

[sickpig]

This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal.  It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time.  This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.

Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary). 

Catching up after a week's absence.

So fully agree with this sentiment. The change locks bitcoin onto an automatic 20 year ramp to essentially zero limit. None of us know for sure how this will play out.

The only reason I can think Gavin would want to do this is maybe a fear that after the next jump in price and usage, bitcoin might start to become too large to effectively fork/change, and so it is best to make a change today that locks in future changes to remove the limit as a minimum bitcoin needs.

Gavin's view seems to be that the market will figure it out. I agree it will, but believe it will figure itself out by becoming more centralized with a majority of nodes running in cloud datacenters (I already only run my full node in AWS). So I don't worry that bitcoin will technically break, but worry that the immediate solutions the market finds will make bitcoin less decentralized and easier for centralized governments to attack through regulation. I'd prefer bitcoin stay smaller if that is what it needs to do to remain more decentralized.

If Gavin is worried about not being able to fork after the next potential burst why not apply Justus idea [1], too much coding with not enough time?

[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/

[cypherdoc]

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.

this is exactly the sort of drivel i'd expect from your socialistic mindset.  "i'd just mandate it be so".

notice that there is no depth to your assertions as they just represent your lips flapping once again.  let me spell it out for you.  the working assumption here is that there will be mass disobedience of your pronouncements as most ppl who are even remotely familiar with how the protocol works understands that it is impossible to "taint coins" as there is no such concept in reality.  the trick for you is how to enforce your pronouncements.  there are just inputs and outputs which get split & joined constantly giving "coins" that are ever lessening shades of grey as time goes by.  and w/o a mechanism to identify owners of whatever unit you choose to monitor be it addresses or UTXO's, there is plausible deniability at every hop.  the only way to prove someone guilty of a theft is to catch them with the private keys on their computer used at the time of the theft.

I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.

There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.

Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.

Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.

It's not super simple. There is a reason why you do not pay tax when you buy firewood from your neigbor. He and you say no. There is a reason why they can not say: You to can not have sexual intercource, how could you think that, here it is WE who decide who is to have sex and not to have sex. But the people says no, no way. There is a reason they can not say that you have to go to church every sunday. Everybody say no, no way, basta! This is also what people will say to the blacklists or the whitelists. They will say, no, not a chance, basta, the coins are mine. Mine! Get out of my face. That is what everybody will say. Not super simple at all. Without support, they can do nothing. Whitout you giving them resources, they have no resources. Bitcoin will make that clear to a lot of people.

That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.

i'm not making the argument with tvbcof that gvt won't enforce unreasonable laws onto Bitcoin.  that probably is in Bitcoin's future.

what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's.   that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so.  thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.

[Erdogan]

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.

this is exactly the sort of drivel i'd expect from your socialistic mindset.  "i'd just mandate it be so".

notice that there is no depth to your assertions as they just represent your lips flapping once again.  let me spell it out for you.  the working assumption here is that there will be mass disobedience of your pronouncements as most ppl who are even remotely familiar with how the protocol works understands that it is impossible to "taint coins" as there is no such concept in reality.  the trick for you is how to enforce your pronouncements.  there are just inputs and outputs which get split & joined constantly giving "coins" that are ever lessening shades of grey as time goes by.  and w/o a mechanism to identify owners of whatever unit you choose to monitor be it addresses or UTXO's, there is plausible deniability at every hop.  the only way to prove someone guilty of a theft is to catch them with the private keys on their computer used at the time of the theft.

I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.

There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.

Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.

Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.

It's not super simple. There is a reason why you do not pay tax when you buy firewood from your neigbor. He and you say no. There is a reason why they can not say: You to can not have sexual intercource, how could you think that, here it is WE who decide who is to have sex and not to have sex. But the people says no, no way. There is a reason they can not say that you have to go to church every sunday. Everybody say no, no way, basta! This is also what people will say to the blacklists or the whitelists. They will say, no, not a chance, basta, the coins are mine. Mine! Get out of my face. That is what everybody will say. Not super simple at all. Without support, they can do nothing. Whitout you giving them resources, they have no resources. Bitcoin will make that clear to a lot of people.

That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.

No.

[marcus_of_augustus]

A crash is never announced in MSM. I guess it will take a few more years until faith is lost.

... you would be surprised about how many articles, like this telegraph one, I read in MSM before the 2007 seizure in the CDO, CDS markets in august that ultimately led to the 2008 stock crash. No one can say they "never saw it coming", BIS, IMF and others all were warning. I believe it depends totally on your filtering mechanism (read normalcy bias), now that there is so much information available.

It is snippets from the trade floor and signs that insiders are getting out, CEO early retirements, moving to other sectors, etc, that are most valuable. If a room of traders anywhere near the capital markets, i.e. money market funds, MUNIS, corporate paper, T-bonds, gilds, LIBOR, gold, etc is saying they sense something different, pay attention. This is by no means a MSM article anyway, it is a side note by a financial section read by very small percentage of overall population. I suggest you go ask the man-on-street what the mood in the corporate bond market is currently to test your stupid comment if you believe the MSM is spouting this stuff.

Basically, I think you wrong and you will lose money because of it.

[cypherdoc]

A crash is never announced in MSM. I guess it will take a few more years until faith is lost.

... you would be surprised about how many articles, like this telegraph one, I read in MSM before the 2007 seizure in the CDO, CDS markets in august that ultimately led to the 2008 stock crash. No one can say they "never saw it coming", BIS, IMF and others all were warning. I believe it depends totally on your filtering mechanism (read normalcy bias), now that there is so much information available.

It is snippets from the trade floor and signs that insiders are getting out, CEO early retirements, moving to other sectors, etc, that are most valuable. If a room of traders anywhere near the capital markets, i.e. money market funds, MUNIS, corporate paper, T-bonds, gilds, LIBOR, gold, etc is saying they sense something different, pay attention. This is by no means a MSM article anyway, it is a side note by a financial section read by very small percentage of overall population. I suggest you go ask the man-on-street what the mood in the corporate bond market is currently to test your stupid comment if you believe the MSM is spouting this stuff.

Basically, I think you wrong and you will lose money because of it.

this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock

[marcus_of_augustus]

this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
   

nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...

edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)

[bucktotal]

this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
   

nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...

edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)

bank of america acquired them before bankrupty/bailouts. (then BoA got ~ 50 billion in bailouts?)