Topic: Do we want to work with money regulators, or keep Bitcoin unregulated? - page 14. (Read 19192 times)

Today I learned!

This thread is kinda weird— it seems to suggest that there is a OR here, but I don't see how any answer can be anything other than yes, both. Bitcoin is just another thing you can own, like coal or beanie babies— and it would be very unusual for it to be highly regulated itself at least according to the norms of the more free nations. ... but it interacts with the banking world, which is highly regulated.  Some people will see it in their interest to try to work with regulators to achieve good outcomes for themselves (and everyone else), other people will go off in a multitude of directions which are not regulatory centric (and which, as a result, don't interact much with traditional banking).  Both things will happen no matter what folks want overall.  This doesn't bother me: The fact that Bitcoin is diverse is part of what makes it strong.  Not only would "regulating bitcoin" (itself) be inconsistent with the expected freedoms in first world nations, it's not obviously viable so long as bitcoin is thoroughly decentralized.

The OP also brought up another question though... how do we fund useful developments which are highly decenteralized— and thus can't easily fund themselves— when they don't really mesh well with the banking/regulation universe that many of the big name business players that we'd hope to bankroll development?

I don't really have an answer— I think ultimately our inability to answer it might be our downfall. Eventually the people currently working on Bitcoin technology for the love and principle of it will wear out. Will we only be left with serious work being done by people deeply in bed with large regulatory-target businesses?

The first US coins were inscribed 'MIND YOUR BUSINESS'.  That was the belief upon which the United States was founded.  It wasn't until we got fraudulent fiat ponzi money that it was replaced with the phrase 'IN GOD WE TRUST'.

5 pages in and it's still a stupid path to go down.

Winks and grins aside .... the market decides which is the best money, not any arrogant, regulation-pusher on the Intertubes.

Now ask yourself this, would you rather hold a currency that allows for total privacy in transactions or one that does not?

This has been one of the most thoughtful threads on here for a while and we do have a dilemma, which can't really be fixed.

My opinion is that you don't want to put your head in the sand, because things will happen without us.

However, as the regulations on the Internet has shown, its a never ending battle of not having too many rules, as regulators love to create new ones, rather than use the ones they have more creatively!

In the long term, all the wonderful elements of bitcoin, the Rand ideal of total freedom, will disappear. It will be exactly how posting what you like on the Internet went from 'What copyright?' to 'Desist and remove notices' in only 10 years.

We are in a wonderful position at the moment to be able to guide the direction of regulations, and I would agree that Bitcoin the protocol, should be left alone.  If we help by creating a best practice approach to exchanges, and other areas where fiat and Bitcoin mix, then we will prevent a more hard nosed approach to the rest of what bitcoin is about for the forseeable future.

Maybe the answer is to use bitcoin as the public face of crypto currency, and as the whole idea matures, the freedom element is taken by some new altcoin, much like TOR is the internet for the minority who demand privacy.  But don't expect these coins to ever be worth a fraction of a bitcoin!

Thats just so immensely insane and wrong!  I mean... WTF!

This is a good question but a hard one to really answer.

I guess my answer would be "it depends".  Some regulations in certain areas could certainly help legitimize bitcoin and actually make it easier and more realistic to use.  While other regulations or too much regulations could pretty much mess up the way people use bitcoin pretty heavily.

The unintended consequences of attempting to regulate the mathematical protocols of p2p open source software are infinitely unpredictable ....

... hilarity, mayhem and ridicule will inevitably ensue if any idiotic regulator or legislator chooses to take that path. Power can only be commanded while respect remains.

My only advice to those pondering or advocating for such foolhardy actions .... "When you are in a hole, stop diggin'."

And to think some people thought too many altcoins were being spawned!

Ironic, since maybe we haven't spawned anywhere near enough of them yet.

If everyone has choices of several hundred altcoins, most of which are small-footprint enough not to need noticeable amounts of server infrastructure and bandwidth,  the real bitcoin, divided into however many individual chains it takes, under however many names / labels / brands it takes. to be small enough to survive, will hopefully survive, while selloutcoin or bigbrothercoin or whatever the goons get the Foundation goons to make plays token blockchain for the bankers and corps.

Though they'd prefer to launch their own, surely?

Even more proliferation, maybe?

How about we tell them hey this is free open source, each and every code change you want you can implement in your own fork, and any combinations of them to your heart's content, go crazy, have fun, roll your own...

..And democracy can come into play as each individual chooses which blockchains they choose to use for what, when, where and how...

-MarkM-

as nwbitcoin points out i also believe realty is not in our control,
as stated here there will be pressure by the greater market, organisations and governments  to regulate bitcoin and fork it to a modified more 'controllable' form.
i wish we could focus on what we can do to keep the spirit of bitcoin stronger.

here is what i posted: http://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/implementing-bitcoins-soul-into-the-blockchain-194853

same as the people who printed the first dollar bills and coins inscribed  'IN GOD WE TRUST' as a motto for the united states and it's beliefs at the time or casascuis physical bitcoins are inscribed with 'VIRES IN NUMERIS'  it is possible to imprint the blockchain itself with the BitCoin Concept.

as the blockchain can and does contain data that is not purely mathematical and is not only related to the transactions and the public ledger, how about trying to draft in a very minimallistic way the principal and goals of bitcoin [for ex. the way it is described in Satoshi's whitepaper http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf] so it will stay in the blockchain forever?

might be spitting at the rain, but why not?

Agreed. This "worrying about them getting regulation wrong" is ridiculous. Let's say the regulations are too broad - then they will be unenforceable. Or too narrow - then they won't be applicable.  Let's say the regulations are draconian - that will immediately bring about hundreds of forks and drive everyone underground. Or they're lax - well then everybody just LOLZ. How about if regulations are technically unsound? Everyone just adjusts their behavior such that they skirt around the language. What is the definition of "bad regulation"? Well, if you're opposed to regulation then the terms are redundant, and if you're in favor of regulation, well, let's just say that everyone will have different criteria to make that determination...

Look people, you're worrying about your master making a cage that is uncomfortable for you - so you're going to tell him how far you'd like your bars apart?!
Have you ever heard of "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"?

Also, stop with the blockchain limitation FUD - that's a sidetrack issue that is not relevant to the real issue:
 Are you going to man up or suck up?

The key is the following: Do not get regulation into the fucking protocol. The protocol should be completely void of this.

You cannot make worldwide differing regulations go into a protocol.

You can reulate exchanges. You can regulate people, you can regulate taxes, you can regulate whatever you want but DON'T. TOUCH. THE. PROTOCOL.


The key is not to be adressed in Bitcoin, but in exchanges. The exchanges are where the money goes. Anything else should be unregulated. If you regulate the coin itself, it means the same as watching and controlling cash exchanges.

The whole idea of Bitcoin would be void and useless. If I want to send someone money, i can use fucking paypal. If I want to use Bitcoins, I want them to work like they do, RIGHT NOW. I have no quarrels in paying taxes on speculation wins. I have no quarrels taxing miners with a tax when they sell their created assets, as long as they are legitimate businesses.

When someone touches the protocol and automatically taxes me for sending a transaction, im gonna hit them.

I would suggest the following: Some banks tend to take fees out once you take out money. If exchanges work in this way and your taxes are being paid through the exchange providers, alright. But only for citizens in country X where it is located. Since this can hardly be done, tax the exchanges a little harder and make them confirm AML laws.

Anything else will destroy the very idea of bitcoin. It will be useless.

Anti-money laundering laws are the new RICO after we tightened up the racketeering abuses.  After I defeated the Know Your Customer rule in 1997-98, AML came back with a vengence in Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act (though we got some of the worst of it taken out/watered down).  Search my name and KYC for more background there.

There are plenty of arrests and fines for AML vioations.  Being ignorant of them doesn't mean they aren't there.

Yes, this is the challenge right now: is the Bitcoin community going to just ignore the problem like the now defunct e-gold did, or are you going to learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes?

All that is needed is a way to agree on a price without depending on a single point of failure.  People that go into a panic because 1 website is down is the last thing we need.

i say that there is no 'we'

let each individual do what they believe is in their individual best interest.

this tends to be whats best for whoever remains standing anyway

just make sure you are still standing when the dust clears

Satoshi wanted sound money. Evidenced in the genesis block. The ZH article describes a lot of problems which are created and perpetuated by unsound (fiat) money.
Some of ideas in the OP make cryptocurrency unsound, like freezing and blacklisting addresses.

I glanced through the ZH thing and didn't see any evidence that 'Satoshi' did any particular thing for any particular reason.

You would not, by chance, be projecting your beliefs onto the actions of someone you don't know would you?  If so, it's probably not as helpful to your cause as you might think it is.  Lotsa people would probably think it makes you look like a jackass.

Do people remember the situation 25 years ago?  AML was unheard of except within law enforcement dealing with the mafia.

Today, every citizen and small company is plagued with providing AML documentation when doing business. Is there any less money-laundering done today than 25 years ago? Where are all the news articles about money-launderers arrested because their documentation was flawed? ML is a modern-day bogeyman like the witches and giants of Grimm's fairy tales. Similarly, all the KYC regulation is a non-productive red-tape burden (useful for denying banking services to Bitcoin exchanges though).

As governments continually expand in size they are suffocating ordinary people with excessive regulation and surveillance. IMHO, this is because fiat systems are failing, so ever more controls are needed to maintain the status-quo. The only regulation of Bitcoin that would satisfy fiat-issuing governments would be regulating Bitcoin into an emasculated Buttcoin, which is what the OP is describing.

Edit: A timely post in ZH which reminds us why Satoshi created Bitcoin:

Unfortunately, free enterprise is being strangled to death in the United States today.  Entrepreneurs and small business are being pounded into oblivion by rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation.  ...  Meanwhile, wealth and power continue to become even more heavily concentrated in the hands of big government and big corporations. ... We need to change the rules of the game so that entrepreneurs, small businesses and average workers can thrive in this country once again. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-02/22-facts-prove-bottom-90-america-systematically-getting-poorer

Buttcoin does not change the rules of the game.

No, they don't "wanna strangle BTC in it's crib" they just don't care if they do.

Fuck. That.