I find these discussions about anonymous vs transparent blockchains a bit superfluous.
Authorities aren't going to give 2 flying sods whether a particular blockchain is anonymous or not. They're not going to "love one and ban another". As soon as one is untraceable they all will be as far as regulations are concerned. There are going to be millions of "cryptos" out there in a few years of every conceivable singing and dancing technical description.
Anonymity is important in any financial system to protect commercial interests and competitiveness. Nothing to do with criminality. How would everybody feel if all their bank statements were available down at the public library ? Or if I was a clothing retailer and could check up on all my competitors cash sales movements ?
But threat to the mainstream financial system is nothing to do with transaction anonymity (although that does make it commercially attractive). It's the fact that cryptocurrencies are unlevered BASE MONEY.
Base money has been kept out of the hands of the public since the days of before the Federal Reserve, because the general public having access to base money of any type or value basically amounts a run on the banking system. Base money is a definition. It doesn't imply value - the market gives it value - it implies that it's the end of the line in a chain of trust managed by counter parties (in this case, central and commercial banks).
The anonymity thing is a total distraction as far as regulations go. If cryptocurrencies ever gain a substantial foothold in the mainstream economy they will melt the debt based banking sector like lava to a waxwork. It's just simple arithmetic because of the massive leverage that has built up over base money during the last 50 years. Why do you think the Chinese are so desperately trying to plug the holes in their system. They've not been able to touch cryptos - they have had to do it by regulating fiat. But if people actually start using cryptos for goods and services then they're screwed because you can't stop them passing strings of letters and numbers around or block every single Port 8333 on every PC in the world.
Regulators are basically clueless about cryptocurrencies and will probably never have a chance to catch up with them before it's too late. You only have to watch those videos on the New York hearing to see that.
The idea that they "like" cryptos because the blockchain's transparent is ridiculous. All you have to do to launder money is to pass it through an exchange and maybe through another crypto and back.
Darkcoin is getting valuable because it has the ONE thing that cryptos are missing which the fiat system does have - commercial privacy. That's why it's out-growing everything and IMO will probably end up as the first alt ever to rival Bitcoin's valuation. I know thare's other stuff out there that can do the technology - it doesn't matter. What matters is which one the market picks and that's where DRK now has a home straight in sight.
good read, and i see where you're coming from. I do believe in commercial privacy, but equating a non darksend crypto currency to "having my bank records available at the public library" is a tad hyperbolic.
and yes, the hearing was fucking looney tunes, and it's easy to see how ignorant many people are, alot of whom are in political power as to the true relevance of crypto in today's world. however just because they're big slow and dumb, doesn't mean that they aren't beginning to take an interest, that they aren't beginning the long road to understanding, and at the end, revelation as to the true significance, and in my mind, the true threat of things like %100 anonymous currencies.
china clamping down on bitcoin didn't kill it, but it did hurt it's value. DRK has the same potential to piss off other organizations worldwide, we'd have to be living in a dream world to believe otherwise. weather things like DRK become triumphant or not is for the fates to decide, but to think that it's a slam dunk one way or another is delusional. there's people on both sides that will want to see this either succeed or fail.
*edit and i still haven't seen a list of the other X11 currencies, anyone care to share? I mean i assume that you're all invested in DRK for posting here, so you probably don't want anyone to mention any other alt as a potential competitor. there is no competitor to DRK, you're the only one doing everything that you're doing. stop being so melodramatic. i just want to know of other X11 coins that i might not totally miss the train on
Quite late where I'm now and quite tired, so I'll just write a couple quick thoughts that came to my mind when reading your posts:
1. You keep saying that cash has serial numbers, but they don't get associated in every transaction they are used in. If they were so useful to trace back, cash would not be the number one illegal activities payment method.
2. Every day that passes the chance to regulate cryptos is further away for politicians.
3. Even if mayor exchanges delisted DRK (extremely unlikely in my opinion) there are so many ways to get it that I don't believe it would harm. As others have pointed, it could even be beneficial for the publicity. So many exchanges, so many cryptos... no way they can stop someone that wants to get DRK.
4. Money laundering was invented long before cryptos. There are many tools that can be used and cryptos is just one of them. As toknormal said, the value in Darksend is commercial privacy embedded in the coin without the need to do weird things to get it. A couple of weeks ago there was an article in The Economist that explained how trade is increasingly being used to launder money (
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21601537-trade-weakest-link-fight-against-dirty-money-uncontained). It may account up to 15-20% of Mexican exports to the US, so are you also worried about the US closing the border to trade?
