Begining of the END for BTC. Bitcoin is becoming ultra regulated currency

[Yakamoto]

The government no longer trusts its own people to hold money. You can't buy $1 of bitcoin without them knowing who you are and where you live. Dark times. There's a light at the end of this tunnel though.

It is a train.
Believing victory will just arrive if we wait it out is a good way to get your ass flattened

Then what do you recommend we do?

We won't go to arms over a crypto currency, it's not worth it. So far waiting it out hasn't been bad for the community, in fact, it's been more successful than most people would have thought. With Dell, Overstock, TigerDirect, and other large companies already accepting, without a ton of requests, it's been really good to us.

This "train" is set to derail. It will be getting through the wreckage that will be the hard part.

[RepublicSpace]

The government no longer trusts its own people to hold money. You can't buy $1 of bitcoin without them knowing who you are and where you live. Dark times. There's a light at the end of this tunnel though.

It is a train.
Believing victory will just arrive if we wait it out is a good way to get your ass flattened

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

[Erdogan]

The Vinklevoss twins like the regulation, but that could just be the beginning of regulative capture http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp. The effects are creating a barrier to entry, and a tendency to vertical integration, both a detriment to newcomers and to the public.

[annoyingorange]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

"China can't blockade the internet, it'll flourish elsewhere and they'll have no choice but to be more accommodating". That'll be why the UK got its own firewall? Negative ideas can spread just as easily as positive ones and you have enough money, enough press and enough bullets you can put any cat back into the bag. THINK OF THE KIDS. Job done.

The average person dies less than 30 miles from where they are born.

[annoyingorange]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

The idea that people will move if the place gets shitty, especially in some particularly minor way like this(relatively speaking) is baseless crap. While the idea may exist elsewhere it can die out in places and given Bitcoin has the advantage of being global without the bullshit of banking that hurts the cause.

I'm sorry but if this experiment is to win out action is ABSOLUTELY required.

[annoyingorange]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

There are countless ways to derail Bitcoin - you can make it hard to spend - ID laws for money you hand over or make it too expensive too early so its mostly owned and controlled by a tiny few just like every other currency, hard to obtain - ID laws et all for money you receive.

They can leave the Bitcoin protocol running and cripple it so much in the execution that all the freedoms are lost. If you know where enough of the money is it becomes useless as an anonymous currency too.
Bitcoin stays worth money as long as more and more large companies keep accepting it; that can all go away with a few laws, a few regulations...

[Erdogan]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

"China can't blockade the internet, it'll flourish elsewhere and they'll have no choice but to be more accommodating". That'll be why the UK got its own firewall? Negative ideas can spread just as easily as positive ones and you have enough money, enough press and enough bullets you can put any cat back into the bag. THINK OF THE KIDS. Job done.

The average person dies less than 30 miles from where they are born.

There is no more effective way to spy on the subjects than the internet, so it will persevere.

[annoyingorange]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

When you look at the entire landscape, when you acknowledge the NSA's evil, the technology they have and how it could be used combined with the other areas of the government and how little they've acted to curtail the NSA in any reasonable manner, this is not a won war - the other side has been building tanks while we've been making bunting. If you think everyone can wait it out you're going to be disappointed.

Hell, if I was the government's advisor on defeating Bitcoin, I'd hire people to spread the message the government is losing and the storm can be weathered without further effort. This could easily be dollar 2.0 with all of the disadvantages and then some.
Bitcoin can succeed as money and yet the revolution it promised could still fail - the value of Bitcoin is our biggest blackeye. We let greed take over.

[RepublicSpace]

Victory absolutely will arrive if we just wait it out. The cat is out of the bag. They can regulate it here but it will just flourish somewhere else until they have no choice but to be more accommodating. This is evolution and it is inevitable

When you look at the entire landscape, when you acknowledge the NSA's evil, the technology they have and how it could be used combined with the other areas of the government and how little they've acted to curtail the NSA in any reasonable manner, this is not a won war - the other side has been building tanks while we've been making bunting. If you think everyone can wait it out you're going to be disappointed.

Hell, if I was the government's advisor on defeating Bitcoin, I'd hire people to spread the message the government is losing and the storm can be weathered without further effort. This could easily be dollar 2.0 with all of the disadvantages and then some.
Bitcoin can succeed as money and yet the revolution it promised could still fail - the value of Bitcoin is our biggest blackeye. We let greed take over.

There's a massive opportunity cost to not adopting bitcoin / cryptocurrencies. It seems like the US is aware of this. They could pass a couple laws and cripple it here but it's going to keep proliferating elsewhere and we would ultimately just fall behind, so it's looking like they're not going to do that. They're just going to try to keep tabs on every transaction in order to "protect us."

[annoyingorange]

There's a massive opportunity cost to not adopting bitcoin / cryptocurrencies. It seems like the US is aware of this. They could pass a couple laws and cripple it here but it's going to keep proliferating elsewhere and we would ultimately just fall behind, so it's looking like they're not going to do that. They're just going to try to keep tabs on every transaction in order to "protect us."

Ultimately your post revolves around a single premise - that the USA will stand alone with these measures and they won't spread. When the home of the NSYE becomes the largest home of Bitcoin financial services other people will follow those rules for their own convenience.

The people opening these large companies by definition will be the super rich; the things that put you off don't even make their radar and they will use that money and power to leverage INFLUENCE, especially when they stand to make a profit.

The KYC stuff is a ball ache in normal currencies, they deal with it by having roughly similar rules everywhere.

You think the American government can bug the German Chancellor's phone but can't get some "me too's" on some laws that will be good for the governments of lots of countries? You think there are many countries that want to lose control over inflation and the creation of currency?

You kill something and people turn up to the funeral asking about the cause of death - they will Weekend At Bernies this thing.
There will be a currency, it will be called Bitcoin, it will be completely incompatible with the founding principles of what you call Bitcoin today - it'll just be another currency under someone's control that isn't yours.

This is it - The Governments VS the Governed.

Not a specific government versus their own people, but all governments and all people - they aren't going to create competitive advantages in other countries except in instances where it won't cause a really significant mass exodus. Token differences.
They are going to cooperate with each other because Bitcoin is the start of the end for them; as soon as we do one thing well without them we'll start trying to do more and more until we don't need them. If they haven't acted to corrupt the ideals of Bitcoin yet it is because they have not fully understood it, once they do they will not play nicely.

[RepublicSpace]

There's a massive opportunity cost to not adopting bitcoin / cryptocurrencies. It seems like the US is aware of this. They could pass a couple laws and cripple it here but it's going to keep proliferating elsewhere and we would ultimately just fall behind, so it's looking like they're not going to do that. They're just going to try to keep tabs on every transaction in order to "protect us."

Ultimately your post revolves around a single premise - that the USA will stand alone with these measures and they won't spread. When the home of the NSYE becomes the largest home of Bitcoin financial services other people will follow those rules for their own convenience.

The people opening these large companies by definition will be the super rich; the things that put you off don't even make their radar and they will use that money and power to leverage INFLUENCE, especially when they stand to make a profit.

The KYC stuff is a ball ache in normal currencies, they deal with it by having roughly similar rules everywhere.

You think the American government can bug the German Chancellor's phone but can't get some "me too's" on some laws that will be good for the governments of lots of countries? You think there are many countries that want to lose control over inflation and the creation of currency?

You kill something and people turn up to the funeral asking about the cause of death - they will Weekend At Bernies this thing.
There will be a currency, it will be called Bitcoin, it will be completely incompatible with the founding principles of what you call Bitcoin today - it'll just be another currency under someone's control that isn't yours.

This is it - The Governments VS the Governed.

Not a specific government versus their own people, but all governments and all people - they aren't going to create competitive advantages in other countries except in instances where it won't cause a really significant mass exodus. Token differences.
They are going to cooperate with each other because Bitcoin is the start of the end for them; as soon as we do one thing well without them we'll start trying to do more and more until we don't need them. If they haven't acted to corrupt the ideals of Bitcoin yet it is because they have not fully understood it, once they do they will not play nicely.

I guess we just fundamentally disagree. Bitcoin will always exist no matter how anybody tries to stomp it out. It's a revolution, but it's an organically occurring economic revolution. No pitchforks necessary.

All they can do is slow down the inevitable. They can make laws but they can't spread them to every single country with internet. They can launch their own version but it won't be able to compete.

[annoyingorange]

I guess we just fundamentally disagree. Bitcoin will always exist no matter how anybody tries to stomp it out. It's a revolution, but it's an organically occurring economic revolution. No pitchforks necessary.

All they can do is slow down the inevitable. They can make laws but they can't spread them to every single country with internet. They can launch their own version but it won't be able to compete.

Who cares about pitchforks? I think you fundamentally understand the weapons with which this war will be fought and what the sides are - Bitcoin won't flourish outside of America because America won't be acting alone. The KYC laws are similar in many countries for the exact same reason Bitcoin's regulations will be similar everywhere. Watch the legal fluff accumulate, watch the barriers to entry rise, watch the laws be applied to the Bitcoin Foundation's members and used to influence who gets control of the reference client. This is a war of ideals, information(fought against an enemy that records our every email, every call and every forum post no less) and sustained effort - as soon as you stop correcting the lies people start believing them.

If the truth is inconvenient you just need to repeat a story long enough to get people to believe it - have you seen Fox News?

If you think continued existence is okay - Bitcoin will be a corpse on life support so people can say "it exists".

Just because there will always be something called "Bitcoin", doesn't mean they can't kill the revolution separately.

There are so many people that haven't heard of Bitcoin or that barely understand it that it or frankly care about the money and not the ideals(and if the money stays and the ideals go, they won't give a fuck) that you could pervert it into something unrecognisable, still call it "Bitcoin" and still satisfy enough people that any complainers will be dealt with like conspiracy theorists.

The people involved in Bitcoin for the ideals are but a rounding error of the overall user base, especially since as it spreads people will pick it up because it is money, not because it once stood for something.

All we do is plug it based on the value, how much it has gone up, how much it is going to go up... so we've attracted people who care about the value and that's it. We created an army of people who only want to succeed as individuals and are more than happy to do it at the expense of everyone else on their side. They may as well be the other side.

Last years userbase will be next years fundamentalists, you'll be like the Christians who don't eat fish on Fridays except you'll spend Friday harking back to when the limit was 21 million Bitcoin...

[sugarfree]

Ultimately your post revolves around a single premise - that the USA will stand alone with these measures and they won't spread. When the home of the NSYE becomes the largest home of Bitcoin financial services other people will follow those rules for their own convenience.

The people opening these large companies by definition will be the super rich; the things that put you off don't even make their radar and they will use that money and power to leverage INFLUENCE, especially when they stand to make a profit.

The KYC stuff is a ball ache in normal currencies, they deal with it by having roughly similar rules everywhere.

You think the American government can bug the German Chancellor's phone but can't get some "me too's" on some laws that will be good for the governments of lots of countries? You think there are many countries that want to lose control over inflation and the creation of currency?

You kill something and people turn up to the funeral asking about the cause of death - they will Weekend At Bernies this thing.
There will be a currency, it will be called Bitcoin, it will be completely incompatible with the founding principles of what you call Bitcoin today - it'll just be another currency under someone's control that isn't yours.

This is it - The Governments VS the Governed.

Not a specific government versus their own people, but all governments and all people - they aren't going to create competitive advantages in other countries except in instances where it won't cause a really significant mass exodus. Token differences.
They are going to cooperate with each other because Bitcoin is the start of the end for them; as soon as we do one thing well without them we'll start trying to do more and more until we don't need them. If they haven't acted to corrupt the ideals of Bitcoin yet it is because they have not fully understood it, once they do they will not play nicely.

I think you're overestimating American influence. Yes, America is a powerful country and the regulations it makes are going to have a profound impact, that does not, however, mean that other countries will follow suit.

A perfect example of this is Singapore, America tells every country that it has ties with to release the tax records(income, how much money they have in the bank, share holdings etc) of US citizens in their countries. America asks Singapore to do this and they say "go fuck yourself" and that's pretty much the end of that. And Singapore will be the financial center of the world in the future. Businesses will move away from America if it's regulations kill their business. The power is moving away from America.

[ipnone5only]

Who cares about pitchforks? I think you fundamentally understand the weapons with which this war will be fought and what the sides are - Bitcoin won't flourish outside of America because America won't be acting alone. The KYC laws are similar in many countries for the exact same reason Bitcoin's regulations will be similar everywhere. Watch the legal fluff accumulate, watch the barriers to entry rise, watch the laws be applied to the Bitcoin Foundation's members and used to influence who gets control of the reference client. This is a war of ideals, information(fought against an enemy that records our every email, every call and every forum post no less) and sustained effort - as soon as you stop correcting the lies people start believing them.

If the truth is inconvenient you just need to repeat a story long enough to get people to believe it - have you seen Fox News?

If you think continued existence is okay - Bitcoin will be a corpse on life support so people can say "it exists".

Just because there will always be something called "Bitcoin", doesn't mean they can't kill the revolution separately.

There are so many people that haven't heard of Bitcoin or that barely understand it that it or frankly care about the money and not the ideals(and if the money stays and the ideals go, they won't give a fuck) that you could pervert it into something unrecognisable, still call it "Bitcoin" and still satisfy enough people that any complainers will be dealt with like conspiracy theorists.

The people involved in Bitcoin for the ideals are but a rounding error of the overall user base, especially since as it spreads people will pick it up because it is money, not because it once stood for something.

All we do is plug it based on the value, how much it has gone up, how much it is going to go up... so we've attracted people who care about the value and that's it. We created an army of people who only want to succeed as individuals and are more than happy to do it at the expense of everyone else on their side. They may as well be the other side.

Last years userbase will be next years fundamentalists, you'll be like the Christians who don't eat fish on Fridays except you'll spend Friday harking back to when the limit was 21 million Bitcoin...

you make some good points and I too have been under the impression that the system is just waiting for the right moment to let their true presence be known. but I'm not so sure about the rest of the world following in Americas footsteps when it comes to regulating. in the last 2 days, we've seen the US impose tighter sanctions against Russia, and now France, Germany, Italy, and 6 other EU countries have said they won't participate. then there's the new BRICS bank being established.

[annoyingorange]

you make some good points and I too have been under the impression that the system is just waiting for the right moment to let their true presence be known. but I'm not so sure about the rest of the world following in Americas footsteps when it comes to regulating. in the last 2 days, we've seen the US impose tighter sanctions against Russia, and now France, Germany, Italy, and 6 other EU countries have said they won't participate. then there's the new BRICS bank being established.

Exactly "in the last two days" - you think they won't converge over decades because they made a token gesture of disagrement on a separate issue on Tuesday?

This is money and control over the creation of money, they'll put aside their differences there because if they don't they'll lose their power to give themselves money by diluting money they already promised you the value of.

It doesn't need to be the WHOLE rest of the world, just a good number of places. Laws don't need to be identical, just similar.

They don't even need to be the exact same laws to be compatible - there just needs to be legal islands that inhibit the completely free transfer of money. Since they don't need to be exactly the same laws it won't even look like countries are cooperating with each other, it'll look like they are independently trying to protect their own interests.

"Oh, we're regulating this because of Mt Gox, we'll save you losing millions, promise..."
You have to remember - you kill the IDEALS of Bitcoin, you leave Bitcoin standing and no one knows anything happened - we aren't talking about ending Bitcoin and leaving a void, we are talking about perverting it, stringing it up and showing people it's still "fine". You have to leave people something to point at so they won't be suspicious.
It won't even look like violence.

They'll just make the laws so strict that only the existing rich (so, we're talking like 10 people from our community + everyone who got rich under the existing system) are able to achieve compliance and we'll end up with gateways run, monitored and controlled by the status quo.

It'll have all the faces of Bitcoin, we'll just be priced out of using it to influence significant change because all your Bitcoin will be tied to you and you won't be able to spend it to influence change the government isn't happy with without them knowing.
It'll be just enough there are people still happy with Bitcoin. If it happens slowly enough people won't care because Bitcoin will still be worth money. Ideals will be bought and compromised in that manner. You'll never feel like you've lost freedom, there will just be one company changing their rules here, a country changing a small law there... and it'll add up.

[ipnone5only]

Exactly "in the last two days" - you think they won't converge over decades because they made a token gesture of disagrement on a separate issue on Tuesday?

This is money and control over the creation of money, they'll put aside their differences there because if they don't they'll lose their power to give themselves money by diluting money they already promised you the value of.

It doesn't need to be the WHOLE rest of the world, just a good number of places. Laws don't need to be identical, just similar.

They don't even need to be the exact same laws to be compatible - there just needs to be legal islands that inhibit the completely free transfer of money. Since they don't need to be exactly the same laws it won't even look like countries are cooperating with each other, it'll look like they are independently trying to protect their own interests.

"Oh, we're regulating this because of Mt Gox, we'll save you losing millions, promise..."
You have to remember - you kill the IDEALS of Bitcoin, you leave Bitcoin standing and no one knows anything happened - we aren't talking about ending Bitcoin and leaving a void, we are talking about perverting it, stringing it up and showing people it's still "fine". You have to leave people something to point at so they won't be suspicious.
It won't even look like violence.

They'll just make the laws so strict that only the existing rich (so, we're talking like 10 people from our community + everyone who got rich under the existing system) are able to achieve compliance and we'll end up with gateways run, monitored and controlled by the status quo.

It'll have all the faces of Bitcoin, we'll just be priced out of using it to influence significant change because all your Bitcoin will be tied to you and you won't be able to spend it to influence change the government isn't happy with without them knowing.
It'll be just enough there are people still happy with Bitcoin. If it happens slowly enough people won't care because Bitcoin will still be worth money. Ideals will be bought and compromised in that manner. You'll never feel like you've lost freedom, there will just be one company changing their rules here, a country changing a small law there... and it'll add up.

but there are still many uncertainties. you have to admit that Germany is a pretty big wild card. aside from the merkel wiretaps, there's the gold repatriation issue. there's the issue regarding Russian and EU oil contracts. there's countries like Singapore and Switzerland that just do their own thing.

I agree the US probably has not one ace but a whole deck of them up their sleeve, but one thing we have to acknowledge is we don't know shit about what's really going on. everything is so compartmentalized and classified, not even congress and high-ranking generals or bureaucrats like eric holder know half of the story, imo. I think it could go many different ways.

I also know it's been said tons of times around here, but if bitcoin goes too mainstream and becomes tainted, something like zerocoin is bound to pop up eventually. and if/when it fizzles out, along comes subzerocoin. and so on.

[annoyingorange]

but there are still many uncertainties. you have to admit that Germany is a pretty big wild card. aside from the merkel wiretaps, there's the gold repatriation issue. there's the issue regarding Russian and EU oil contracts. there's countries like Singapore and Switzerland that just do their own thing.

I agree the US probably has not one ace but a whole deck of them up their sleeve, but one thing we have to acknowledge is we don't know shit about what's really going on. everything is so compartmentalized and classified, not even congress and high-ranking generals or bureaucrats like eric holder know half of the story, imo. I think it could go many different ways.

I also know it's been said tons of times around here, but if bitcoin goes too mainstream and becomes tainted, something like zerocoin is bound to pop up eventually. and if/when it fizzles out, along comes subzerocoin. and so on.

Those won't take off.
Bitcoin had people accepting it because there was no law against it and fuck it let's experiment.

Once the laws come into effect they will cover alt coins and they will make using untraceable alt coins illegal and while people may try and rebel companies will not so the places to spend it and infrastructure won't even get to where Bitcoin is now, never mind rising to where it could compete with the Bitcoin 10 years from now.

The short term politics could go anywhere - long term everyone has to leash the beast and tame it before it grows big enough to eat them.

[FUR11]

Regulation is no bad thing or risk for bitcoin. Companies need to know the legal frameworks and rules before they want to get involved with bitcoin. At least the 'regular' companies who don't necessarily like to be some kind of early adopter and only bet on the outcome of bitcoin being a universally successful currency! Thus they wait until regulations are in place. Regulations also pose as a certain acceptance issued by the state!

Well, it's not preferred that it is regulated in this manner, but your point is correct. Companies want a legal guide, as they aren't interested in destroying their business over a digital currency.

I don't want a bunch of licenses being required for BTC. Addresses also change so frequently that it is not even worth having to write down every address you own.

If there are stricter regulations put in place, I'll hold some of my BTC but use other cryptos for other transactions.

Yeah, you're right that the regular consumer or user of bitcoin woudn't want to register his/her addresses with some entity. Too complicated and too much of a hassle. That will really hinder mainstream adoption if this becomes the law. We'll have to see how laws, regulations and guidelines adopt to be compatible with a rather new technology like bitcoin. Those laws have to consider the unique aspects of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

[celestio]

This is why Privacy is Needed for cryptocurrencies.

[ipnone5only]

These licences are total bullshit.

The purpose of Bitcoin is to free ourselves from this kind of tedious red tape and state involvement in personal finance.

Fuck the bureaucrats. This adds NOTHING to Bitcoin or its economy. Its just another source of drag that would seek to make Bitcoin no better than fiat currency after burying it in red tape.