Topic: Eventually the FUNGIBILITY issue of bitcoin will make headlines ... - page 3. (Read 10581 times)

"Bad Bitcoin"? Wtf... I know you have some Monero to sell but this is beyond ridiculous

I don't know, maybe someone can point to some, but I've seen various reports published once or twice a year for the past few years.

The way you differentiate is by identifying what you can, and it seems a lot can be identified with reasonable confidence (probably not perfectly). If there is a huge swath of unknown that can't be then you ask these questions, but that has really never been the case.

Even gross statistics like coin movement on the blockchain relative to reported exchange volume shows a reasonably tight relationship over time. If there were massive amounts of money fleeing capital controls and FATCA now, that relationship would be break down (unless you think this was going on three years ago when FATCA wasn't in force at all and Bitcoin was $20). Instead it hasn't really broken down.

Don't buy all the hype. Some of it might turn out to be true, but be skeptical.

It seems to me the predominant use of Bitcoin today is holding. Then I guess it's a toss up between general black market activities and speculative trading. If we're to believe Trace Mayer the notion that Bitcoin is already used worldwide to escape capital controls is understated. He himself suggests that a OTC trading desk in Switzerland trades more BTC on average than most major Bitcoin exchanges to help clients circumvent FATCA regulations.

All of this to illustrate that the amount of Bitcoin that moves through Coinbase/Circle/Bitpay/Bitstamp is, in fact, negligible if we are to account for the whole of Bitcoin's economy. At the very least we can be confident saying that was is publicized and readily available to the naked eye is not the "predominant" way Bitcoin is being used.

Therefore I'm very tentative in putting any value into the rest of your statement. Yes, I recognize that your average bitcointalk & reddit users might not be privy to actual legitimate use cases of Bitcoin at this stage of the game. That is where the figurative attempt to put round bitcoin pegs into fiat square holes creates such confusion and this illusion that Bitcoin's success is impeded by "blacklists" and "tainted coin". Of course this illusion did not spawn on its own and it is the careful fabrication of fiat institutions and banking parasites interested in either capturing Bitcoin and its users or straight out perpetuating FUD in an attempt to undermine the users faith.

It remains to be seen whether that ever actually happens. The way Bitcoin is used today it is predominantly nonsense, given that most usage is exchanges which are all regulated by fiat rules (except, somewhat, BTC-E which also seems to have issues with fungibility anyway), Coinbase/Circle, and Bitpay. The rest is negligible.

I agree with you about the original stated goals, but it hasn't worked out that way at all after 6 years. I don't rule out that it may still evolve in that direction but it seems a bit of a long shot given the high degree of influence that the pro-regulation crowd has in the ecosystem. It also seems plausible that the next adoption surge, if it happens, will be Wall Street money which will also be very pro-regulation.

But since when do governments obey their own laws?

It seems that bitcoin will be regulated similar to cash at first. ... {more stuff}

Right, this just might be the most stupid thing I've read all week.

If you enter a transaction that involves any type of blacklisting it is your own undoing and you deserve it.

Bitcoin exists precisely to enable monetary sovereignty & bypass any of these stupid fiat rules. Government doesn't have any right to know or be aware of the existence of any wallet in my possession therefore any coin I receive I'm free to spend at its current market value, no matter what its history is.

I mean who the hell are we kiding here!? We have the USG currently trying to get their hand on every chip of all DNM and either keep it for themselves or "sell it" to their friends possibly over market price.

You think they really give a damn where the coins are coming from?

If you wanna use Bitpay, Coinbase, Circle and all them USG exchanges then by all means no one is stopping you or your rapist's interests but Bitcoin don't play these batty-boys games.

But then don't you dare fancy you using Bitcoin.

Cause Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer market and what you're doing doesn't sound like bitcoinating to me.

Because the question was what happens when you receive Bitcoins from someone and when you try to spend them you find they are blacklisted and lose money. That's very much analogous to counterfeiting.

If I get Bitcoins privately from my friend Alice and her coins had some taint and I then used those Bitcoins to buy a T shirt on a web shop and then they tried to cash those Bitcoins out to their bank account with Bitpay and Bitpay told me I don't get my T shirt but if I send them a scan of my passport I can get half my money back, then either it would be the end of Bitcoin or it would be the end of people using payment services.

Just as there are oddballs out there willing to do stress tests for no particular reason, there'll be armies of people looking to taint as many coins as possible with little drops of evil. I really can't see how they'll be able to prevent endless dilution.

Here's another take on this from Mr. Popescu:

mircea_popescu:this actually works as an argument. bitcoin needs no assaying, which makes it more fungible than something that does.

Okay, let me try this way:

Monero is perfectly distinguishable from any other forms of money therefore if some social convention somewhere prescribes they will not accept it then it is non-fungible.

Do you understand then how subjective your definition of fungibility is?

From your POV any medium of exchange that is suspect to traceability by any means is non fungible.

About Bitpay blacklisting coins, what else can we add about the morons that just got hacked $2 million of their money via a simple email. No comment really!