If we get into this debate of whether it is moral and right or not to join a signature campaign that does not support your principles, we get into a really long one. That is because I think all sides can have both good and bad points to score. Joining Wasabi's signature campaign is perfectly fine if you support them, since that would be the ideal case anyway, but it is also perfectly fine if you do not because after all your mindset might be 'why would I miss this opportunity?', and it is OK to think that way as well. To some here, it is probably extremely immoral to join a signature campaign that is against your principles, to others it may be perfectly fine. This is fine as well to me.
~snip~
I do think this is an interesting topic that deserves its own topic. My personal opinion is that for myself, I never wanted to promote something that is against my values; at the same time I don't condemn people promoting something they don't 100% believe in.
I am very confident someone would rather click the signature link under one of n0nce's posts over the signature link under one of a shit poster's reply.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. An opinion from a signature campaign manager (like icopress
) on this would be interesting; to me signature advertising seems to be a mix of getting as many of your company's banners on the forum in general and having users with a certain reputation promoting you. The former refers to the psychological
'Mere Exposure Effect' ('as seen on TV'...) ; the latter steers towards an
'argumentum ab auctoritate', wherein people assume a certain legitimacy of a business if esteemed community members advertise for it.
To put it more concrete terms: First, a user is 'bombarded' by ChipMixer banners, which sparks interest, then they see that high-ranked users wear that signature which gives it legitimacy and ultimately leads them to try it out.
This is my impression, but I'm glad about more insights (preferably in a new thread).
Would the world be better off with purely P2P transactions as Satoshi devised? Surely, but the price would not have gone over $1k. I highly doubt it would have gone over $100. Just seeing that Coinbase is on this list:
[Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchangesWithout Coinbase and traitorous institutions like it, the price would be much lower.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I see a future with Bitcoin much more controlled by governments, where there is a reduced space for privacy or P2P transactions, but governments were not going to let what reached 1T market cap, 2T if we count shitcoins, to remain uncontrolled.
Let's assume your statement regarding Bitcoin price was valid; what does it matter?
If it is higher or lower, in the end what ultimately counts in my opinion, is if Bitcoin is good money. This can be achieved at a price of $100,000 or $1,000 per coin; doesn't matter since we have enough decimal places.
I'd much rather have no centralized exchanges and services, lower Bitcoin price but higher privacy and thus higher utility and usage.
But the Wasabi case isn't about government regulations, and not even about a government enforced blacklisting. They're voluntarily blacklisting addresses based on some third party's list.
This has to really be emphasized in this whole story. It's easy to assume there was a legal reason, since it's what we're used to. That makes it even more important to keep in mind that
here it was a deliberate business decision.