[XMR] Monero Speculation

[futureofbitcoin]

is fungibility of ALL bitcoins really important though?

Consider that you own 50,000 bitcoins. If 1,000,000 bitcoins were found to be in the hands of ISIS, and blacklisted, what would that do to your bitcoins? Well, how would that be different, from 1,000,000 bitcoins that are simply lost forever? That some bitcoins are no longer fungible/available doesn't harm your coins in any way. In fact, it would benefit you, since the less coins in existence, the more valuable your coins are.

The only thing would be if blacklisting of coins is backtracked (dunno the term so I invented one). What I mean is, say you did business with a company, and your coins are connected to their addresses. That company then proceeds to scam people and engage in terrorist activity say a year later.

In such cases, I think that there would be laws that would prevent your coins from being blacklisted. It shouldn't be difficult to see that your coins were obtained before the time they engaged in illegal activities, or at least before the public was aware that they were engaged in illegal activities. In such cases, I would think that there would be laws preventing those coins from being blacklisted.

So unless you are planning to do something illegal yourself, other people's coins being not fungible doesn't harm your coins. It makes yours more valuable.

[onemorexmr]

is fungibility of ALL bitcoins really important though?

Consider that you own 50,000 bitcoins. If 1,000,000 bitcoins were found to be in the hands of ISIS, and blacklisted, what would that do to your bitcoins? Well, how would that be different, from 1,000,000 bitcoins that are simply lost forever? That some bitcoins are no longer fungible/available doesn't harm your coins in any way. In fact, it would benefit you, since the less coins in existence, the more valuable your coins are.

The only thing would be if blacklisting of coins is backtracked (dunno the term so I invented one). What I mean is, say you did business with a company, and your coins are connected to their addresses. That company then proceeds to scam people and engage in terrorist activity say a year later.

In such cases, I think that there would be laws that would prevent your coins from being blacklisted. It shouldn't be difficult to see that your coins were obtained before the time they engaged in illegal activities, or at least before the public was aware that they were engaged in illegal activities. In such cases, I would think that there would be laws preventing those coins from being blacklisted.

So unless you are planning to do something illegal yourself, other people's coins being not fungible doesn't harm your coins. It makes yours more valuable.

if something is not fungible a shop cant accept it without extensive checking if its ok.
imagine eg a bitstamp hack. coins immediatly send to shapeshift and converted to xmr.

now shapeshift has a problem. shapeshift is a little bigger and can deal with this, but a small shop cant.

another point to consider: many jurisdication require to return stolen goods (eg when a car is stolen and sold by the thief the new owner must give it back). if lawyers come to the conclusion (and it seems they already thinking in that direction) that bitcoin is not fungible they might require shapeshif in the example above to return the "stolen" bitcoin - just leaving them with the option to sue the thief themselves (means: they are fucked).

so fungiblility is absolutely necessary for money.

[Anon136]

is fungibility of ALL bitcoins really important though?

Consider that you own 50,000 bitcoins. If 1,000,000 bitcoins were found to be in the hands of ISIS, and blacklisted, what would that do to your bitcoins? Well, how would that be different, from 1,000,000 bitcoins that are simply lost forever? That some bitcoins are no longer fungible/available doesn't harm your coins in any way. In fact, it would benefit you, since the less coins in existence, the more valuable your coins are.

The only thing would be if blacklisting of coins is backtracked (dunno the term so I invented one). What I mean is, say you did business with a company, and your coins are connected to their addresses. That company then proceeds to scam people and engage in terrorist activity say a year later.

In such cases, I think that there would be laws that would prevent your coins from being blacklisted. It shouldn't be difficult to see that your coins were obtained before the time they engaged in illegal activities, or at least before the public was aware that they were engaged in illegal activities. In such cases, I would think that there would be laws preventing those coins from being blacklisted.

So unless you are planning to do something illegal yourself, other people's coins being not fungible doesn't harm your coins. It makes yours more valuable.

if something is not fungible a shop cant accept it without extensive checking if its ok.
imagine eg a bitstamp hack. coins immediatly send to shapeshift and converted to xmr.

now shapeshift has a problem. shapeshift is a little bigger and can deal with this, but a small shop cant.

another point to consider: many jurisdication require to return stolen goods (eg when a car is stolen and sold by the thief the new owner must give it back). if lawyers come to the conclusion (and it seems they already thinking in that direction) that bitcoin is not fungible they might require shapeshif in the example above to return the "stolen" bitcoin - just leaving them with the option to sue the thief themselves (means: they are fucked).

so fungiblility is absolutely necessary for money.

I was about to write a reply similar to this but i realized while writing it that it isnt actually correct. I was preparing this awsome analogy of needing to pull out a microscope at the 7-11 to make sure your change didnt have any cocaine residue on it. But I think it would actually be quite easy to check bitcoins against some government blacklisted database. So it wasnt really an apt analogy.

Of course there are other problems with this. The possibility for tyranny resulting from the governments ability to simply "turn off" your money. But i digress.

[futureofbitcoin]

is fungibility of ALL bitcoins really important though?

Consider that you own 50,000 bitcoins. If 1,000,000 bitcoins were found to be in the hands of ISIS, and blacklisted, what would that do to your bitcoins? Well, how would that be different, from 1,000,000 bitcoins that are simply lost forever? That some bitcoins are no longer fungible/available doesn't harm your coins in any way. In fact, it would benefit you, since the less coins in existence, the more valuable your coins are.

The only thing would be if blacklisting of coins is backtracked (dunno the term so I invented one). What I mean is, say you did business with a company, and your coins are connected to their addresses. That company then proceeds to scam people and engage in terrorist activity say a year later.

In such cases, I think that there would be laws that would prevent your coins from being blacklisted. It shouldn't be difficult to see that your coins were obtained before the time they engaged in illegal activities, or at least before the public was aware that they were engaged in illegal activities. In such cases, I would think that there would be laws preventing those coins from being blacklisted.

So unless you are planning to do something illegal yourself, other people's coins being not fungible doesn't harm your coins. It makes yours more valuable.

if something is not fungible a shop cant accept it without extensive checking if its ok.
imagine eg a bitstamp hack. coins immediatly send to shapeshift and converted to xmr.

now shapeshift has a problem. shapeshift is a little bigger and can deal with this, but a small shop cant.

another point to consider: many jurisdication require to return stolen goods (eg when a car is stolen and sold by the thief the new owner must give it back). if lawyers come to the conclusion (and it seems they already thinking in that direction) that bitcoin is not fungible they might require shapeshif in the example above to return the "stolen" bitcoin - just leaving them with the option to sue the thief themselves (means: they are fucked).

so fungiblility is absolutely necessary for money.

I see. Good points. That said, I think everything here is solvable, as access to information gets faster. For larger transactions, people also have the choice of waiting for more confirmations as well, and with multi-sig technology, I can see this pretty much solved even without waiting for future technology.

However, it will still be a setback since it makes it more inconvenient and possibly more expensive to transact in bitcoin with protection.

[onemorexmr]

I was about to write a reply similar to this but i realized while writing it that it isnt actually correct. I was preparing this awsome analogy of needing to pull out a microscope at the 7-11 to make sure your change didnt have any cocaine residue on it. But I think it would actually be quite easy to check bitcoins against some government blacklisted database. So it wasnt really an apt analogy.

Of course there are other problems with this. The possibility for tyranny resulting from the governments ability to simply "turn off" your money. But i digress.

and which government blacklist you want to check?
americans: needed, because they think their law is global
your local one: needed, thats obvious

...and how fast is this check?
if i'd steal a huge amount and my exit-strategy includes something like shapeshift i would do it immediatly before the tx in question even could get blacklisted.

and blacklisting is another problem..
done on mining level: which jurisdication? all or we risk a network split.
at a user / shop level: how deep is this check? is it enough to just sent that tx to a new address or do i need to do it multiple times?

[Hunyadi]

Bitcoin and anoncoins are two different systems. Bitcoin is shared global ledger, and for example, Monero is anonymous paying mechanism.

[generalizethis]

If you don't mind the prospect of your coins being blacklisted (whatever the consequences may or may not be) use BTC--I'm gonna use Monero and not worry about it.

[opennux]

is fungibility of ALL bitcoins really important though?

Consider that you own 50,000 bitcoins. If 1,000,000 bitcoins were found to be in the hands of ISIS, and blacklisted, what would that do to your bitcoins? Well, how would that be different, from 1,000,000 bitcoins that are simply lost forever? That some bitcoins are no longer fungible/available doesn't harm your coins in any way. In fact, it would benefit you, since the less coins in existence, the more valuable your coins are.

The only thing would be if blacklisting of coins is backtracked (dunno the term so I invented one). What I mean is, say you did business with a company, and your coins are connected to their addresses. That company then proceeds to scam people and engage in terrorist activity say a year later.

In such cases, I think that there would be laws that would prevent your coins from being blacklisted. It shouldn't be difficult to see that your coins were obtained before the time they engaged in illegal activities, or at least before the public was aware that they were engaged in illegal activities. In such cases, I would think that there would be laws preventing those coins from being blacklisted.

So unless you are planning to do something illegal yourself, other people's coins being not fungible doesn't harm your coins. It makes yours more valuable.

Because it will be YOUR bitcoins one day that will be blacklisted. If you don't protect the fungibility of all coins - YOURS will eventually come under scrutiny.

Why? Because of "association", because who ever paid you had 'bad' coins, because you donated to some political cause, or because police required them to be under civil forfeiture, because someone challenged you (unrightfully) in court, because you are *insert whichever race randomly unpopular at the time*.  

Political persecution IS A REAL thing, even (and very much so) in the Land of the Free. (here's a contemporary example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)

Laws and societies change. Sometimes for worse, and it seems we are head-first into one of those worse periods these days and years.

[Anon136]

I was about to write a reply similar to this but i realized while writing it that it isnt actually correct. I was preparing this awsome analogy of needing to pull out a microscope at the 7-11 to make sure your change didnt have any cocaine residue on it. But I think it would actually be quite easy to check bitcoins against some government blacklisted database. So it wasnt really an apt analogy.

Of course there are other problems with this. The possibility for tyranny resulting from the governments ability to simply "turn off" your money. But i digress.

and which government blacklist you want to check?
americans: needed, because they think their law is global
your local one: needed, thats obvious

...and how fast is this check?
if i'd steal a huge amount and my exit-strategy includes something like shapeshift i would do it immediatly before the tx in question even could get blacklisted.

and blacklisting is another problem..
done on mining level: which jurisdication? all or we risk a network split.
at a user / shop level: how deep is this check? is it enough to just sent that tx to a new address or do i need to do it multiple times?

Yea i don't think all of your points are valid here but you do bring up at-least one really good and valid point.

What to do if you receive funds before they are blacks-listed and then they become blacklisted after you receive them. It wouldn't be right to punish someone who couldn't have known. So any criminal will take advantage of this and swap the bitcoins for clean ones instantly, the exact moment of the crime. His bitcoins will be clean, and so will be the ones that the recipient never could have known were involved in a crime.

On the other hand the government might decide that it wasn't particularly interested in being reasonable, which they rarely if ever are, than they might blacklist coins after people receive them. In which case the lack of fungibility would be a HUGE problem. It could destroy bitcoin.

[onemorexmr]

Yea i don't think all of your points are valid here but you do bring up at-least one really good and valid point.

you think blacklisting may work?
how do you imagine it?

What to do if you receive funds before they are blacks-listed and then they become blacklisted after you receive them. It wouldn't be right to punish someone who couldn't have known. So any criminal will take advantage of this and swap the bitcoins for clean ones instantly, the exact moment of the crime. His bitcoins will be clean, and so will be the ones that the recipient never could have known were involved in a crime.

On the other hand the government might decide that it wasn't particularly interested in being reasonable, which they rarely if ever are, than they might blacklist coins after people receive them. In which case the lack of fungibility would be a HUGE problem. It could destroy bitcoin.

i imagine it like an automated process. eg owner tells police someone stole my coins. and police setting them on their blacklist. they need to protect the money before they loose it completely.
so i think they will blacklist immediatly and come talking to you. depending on what you have to say they release the coins (not sure to whom.. thats up to lawyers)

but this is just a guess

[GingerAle]

yeah but with list blacklist we're forgetting the point ENTIRELY of cryptocurrencies - a trustless financial network. You introduce a blacklist and once again you're beholden to the whims and "wisdom" of some higher authority, and you must trust this authority to make these blacklists. The first blacklist is the death knell of bitcoin. "Oh, my money could all of a sudden become unusable? No thanks"

[medusa13]

yeah one of the big ideas behind p2p money in my eyes is that no trx can be blocked.
as long as this is technically possible it will be done, or dont you know our enemy? with btc this is not far away in my opinion. a little bit more mining centralization and boom. first only merchants will block. later miners will be forced to block too.

wouldnt a blacklist make the currency completely unusable since the atomic units have allready been mixed so much? or would they just try to block "recent" crime coins so the currency still works?
i think there has been a bigger chain analysis of a bigger theft (sheep maybe) in the past but i can not find it. they found out an unexpected high % of all the wallets contain these kind of stolen coins. even the author had some of them in most of his wallets (if somone knows this thread please post here, thank you )

[papa_lazzarou]

wouldnt a blacklist make the currency completely unusable since the atomic units have allready been mixed so much? or would they just try to block "recent" crime coins so the currency still works?

Don't worry. The state will confiscate and clean them up for us. Then they'll give you the privilege of buying back those shiny white coins through any of the state approved outlets in your area of residence.

[Hueristic]

...
What to do if you receive funds before they are blacks-listed and then they become blacklisted after you receive them. It wouldn't be right to punish someone who couldn't have known. So any criminal will take advantage of this and swap the bitcoins for clean ones instantly, the exact moment of the crime. His bitcoins will be clean, and so will be the ones that the recipient never could have known were involved in a crime.

On the other hand the government might decide that it wasn't particularly interested in being reasonable, which they rarely if ever are, than they might blacklist coins after people receive them. In which case the lack of fungibility would be a HUGE problem. It could destroy bitcoin.

Yes, This is the crux. Those coins can be Seized as one of a list of definitions whether they be considered assets or any other medium.

And for those that say the US gov is not the world, wake up, they rule the world economy whether you I or anyone else likes it.

wouldnt a blacklist make the currency completely unusable since the atomic units have allready been mixed so much? or would they just try to block "recent" crime coins so the currency still works?

Don't worry. The state will confiscate and clean them up for us. Then they'll give you the privilege of buying back those shiny white coins through any of the state approved outlets in your area of residence.

After your BTC address has been properly registered, licensed, taxed and all "fees" paid up to date of course.

[opennux]

yeah but with list blacklist we're forgetting the point ENTIRELY of cryptocurrencies - a trustless financial network. You introduce a blacklist and once again you're beholden to the whims and "wisdom" of some higher authority, and you must trust this authority to make these blacklists. The first blacklist is the death knell of bitcoin. "Oh, my money could all of a sudden become unusable? No thanks"

Black lists could also be market driven.

[jehst]

Looking at the rise from .001x to .043 as a whole, a return to .0018 to .0022 would seem a likely retracement zone

[rpietila]

Looking at the rise from .001x to .043 as a whole, a return to .0018 to .0022 would seem a likely retracement zone

How likely? I possibly regard it as less likely than you, therefore making a +EV bet possible for both of us!

[jehst]

Looking at the rise from .001x to .043 as a whole, a return to .0018 to .0022 would seem a likely retracement zone

How likely? I possibly regard it as less likely than you, therefore making a +EV bet possible for both of us!

Fundamentally, I don't think there's any way to know what XMR will do. One player acting alone can totally change the game. It's just a guess based on a fibs.

[darlidada]

Looking at the rise from .001x to .043 as a whole, a return to .0018 to .0022 would seem a likely retracement zone

How likely? I possibly regard it as less likely than you, therefore making a +EV bet possible for both of us!

Fundamentally, I don't think there's any way to know what XMR will do. One player acting alone can totally change the game. It's just a guess based on a fibs.

risto seems the kind of guy who like to celebrate. On new year eve he was here smoking cigars, drinking moskito wine and pumping monero i think he'll do the same tomorrow for xmr first birthday!

[arnuschky]

yeah but with list blacklist we're forgetting the point ENTIRELY of cryptocurrencies - a trustless financial network. You introduce a blacklist and once again you're beholden to the whims and "wisdom" of some higher authority, and you must trust this authority to make these blacklists. The first blacklist is the death knell of bitcoin. "Oh, my money could all of a sudden become unusable? No thanks"

Black lists could also be market driven.

"Don't be evil" doesn't work (see google and Bitcoin), "can't be evil" works (blacklists are impossible with Monero).

Which makes a huge problem and point of contention in bitcoin just go away. Pooof.

I am worried, however, about the reaction of the regulators to cryptonode/monero, and, as a result, the adopting of a totally anonymous payment system by businesses.

Nice thread title, btw.