Sorry guys I'm still a bit confused as to how fake tokens were floating on the exchange, can someone clarify? Do we need to be concerned about stakes we bought (do I need to validate the account I bought from?), or is this just going to get eaten by the dev war chest fund?
You can't do anything about fake tokens on a decentralized exchange, all orders are matched automatically. Decentralized exchange is not controlled by anyone, that's how it's designed to be. They are not even fake tokens, they are same good tokens, just given to someone a few times.
Ah I see, gotcha. Thanks.
On anonymity, consider this:
1) Drug dealers, pedophiles, _and_ Libertarians. Not everyone wants their financial transactions to be an open book for the government or the private industry (or the public either) regardless of their nature. The unfortunate side effect is the folks who do unsavory things. The question becomes do you sacrifice the individual liberties of the majority to hold the wrong doers accountable? The founding fathers of America would certainly say no (think Patriot Act and the like).
2) Related to point #1, I think the point with more gravity is what governments will do. Currently they treat cryptos (specifically bitcoin) as an asset right? Buying and selling cryptos is like buying and selling expensive collectibles or something. When you buy them or sell them the same rules apply (I wonder are there luxury taxes on Bitcoin purchases?) The key thing here is if this movement gets enough gravity, how will governments approach it then? Threatening the tax base is the largest threat.
One could argue the most successful crypto will be one that allows government controls to function with ease. Consider income tax as an example. Most entities you interact with will supply some form of reporting to the IRS to validate the claims you make on your tax return. If a lot of this hidden from auditing they won't like that. So you can consider two reactions to that. "The finger" to "the man". Hey government eat it... but if we take that to the extreme, kind of hard to keep a standing army that protects the infrastructure that supports the currency without tax revenue. On the other hand, allowing controls that give the government the ability to easily do analysis means they are more likely to work with it which could lead to broader adoption. It is pretty obvious from the news they understand this is something they can't directly squash.
Personally I'm not over the moon about the idea that my transactions with others is easily open to public curiosity, and data mining by corporate and government entities. I support the idea that to some very limited extent the government needs a way to tax an economic system as it becomes independent of fiat for the functions of fire, police, military, infrastructure, etc is reasonable. But I also like the idea that we can insulate ourselves from what I consider to be corrupt and awful policy practices by using a currency that isn't subject to total control by a corrupt entity whose actions are in the interest of self preservation.
I think my point here is we want to do _just enough_ to allow for integration in to the current government controls in so far as taxation, otherwise none of these bits are worth anything if the currency of the land is bullets and water and food. I'm not sure how you enforce something like a "sales tax" with everything at the discretion of each transacting party, as that would be the simplest mechanism (yay abolishment of stupid tax code). But I also think we want to do things to protect our privacy and hold government officials accountable to their actions with transparency in the currency and insight in to spending. Some of these things are diametrically opposed.
In the end anonymity is a different animal than privacy.
There are two realities if we succeed in a NEM. Anarchy when the governments fall while the rich factions of crypto form militias to protect data centers and electrical plants, spend a few hundred years living with feudal realms, and eventually consolidate in to hopefully a new democratic government or despotism. The alternative is streamlining and altering the existing government which surely would be the less costly in terms of lives and harmony. Those bits won't be worth much without the infrastructure (I'm picturing a bunch of Mad Max style citizens with laptops and solar panels and inverters taped to their vehicles).
