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BitCoin, the Most Dangerous Project Ever?
Jamie found a followup to the bitcoin story we've been following awhile. The article talks about the untraceable, un-hackable nature of BitCoin. They can't be locked down like PayPal, and the article predicts that governments will start banning them in the next 18 months.
What a badly written sensationalist story. It's like something from the Daily Mail
TFA reads more like an advertisement for BitCoins than an news article.
"Bitcoin is a P2P currency that could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband."
I hate to tell you this, but this has already happened with regular-government issued legal tender.
Look at druglord Mexico, most 3rd-world countries, and the US with its billion-dollar Wall Street bailouts and ponzi schemes. Bitcoin would be a little late to the game.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I could only read that article with the late night salesguy's "These collector coins can only go up in value!" voice, but the content of the article was all about how it's clearly a scam and the author is obviously in on it.
I read the internet for the articles.
How does "cannot be tracked" come from something in which:
It's been a while since I did anything in crypto ... but if you can verify the signatures, and they're now attached to the coin ... can you just confirm the signatures without knowing who signed it? If it's been signed with my public key, don't you need my public key to verify it?
It seems like either it's traceable, because you can see everyone who has ever held a given set of coins ... or it's not trustworthy because all you have is a signature which you don't necessarily trust because you have no idea where it came from, but you trust the cyrpto.
This sounds like getting cash that has a record of everywhere it's ever been, but maybe I'm missing something here. Won't these 'coins' get large over time as they keep getting signed and passed on? (And the amount of verification needed would get quite long, no?)
I don't think I'm all that interested in a virtual currency whose major benefit is that I can buy escorts and drugs on-line without anybody being able to trace it ... it just seems like there's more motivation for fraud in a system like this. And, it seems like something which is going to start coming under a lot of scrutiny.
I'm just not getting what need this is intended to fill ... and I'm not sure I understand how it's simultaneously untraceable and secure.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I believe they mean it is peer-to-peer, so there is no middleman, unlike something like PayPal where PayPal is the middleman, so it can't be traced unless you are there. In addition, if it doesn't save the "from" source after the transaction, there is no way to tell where the money came from.
Seems like it would make money laundering and tax evasion easy. Of course, there is an easy way to fix that as far as drugs go - make all drugs legal and tax them, then spend the money that went into enforcement on education (like Portugal did).
The Bitcoin proponents seem to think this is some really amazing idea that is like Cryptonomicron come to life and think everyone else should get on board. The rest of the world thinks bitcoins are retarded and doesn't use them.
To me this seems like just more hype, but trying to go at it from a scare part: "Oh these things are so amazing and dangerous that the government will ban them!" Trying to play on people's love for things forbidden.
Of course it is also rife with problems, one of the biggest being the whole deflation thing. Deflation is something that strangles an economy badly. People want to spend as little as possible, since you get more for the same money in the future, which of course means there is little spending and little spending means little trade which means the economy goes to shit.
Anyone who is in love the idea of deflation because "My money will be worth more," need to go retake ECON 201 and learn what money really is and why we have it.
Any current that has built in deflation is a really. really, bad idea.
Why is it that every explanation of bit coin, including your attempt, is incoherent. Given it can't be explained I think it's a scam.
I have many questions in part because the basic schema is not clear. I've watched the videos and read the sites. But there just is no explanation that makes a whole coherent sum and there are contradictions when you piece the various explanations together.
1) On a torrent network, not every node knows where all the slices are. Not all nodes are in communication. Thus what happens if I sent 30 bit coins to Amy and then I sent the exact digital copy of those coins to Brad who is on a network remote from Amy. It sounds like Amy will query the local network to see if I own the coins and so will Brad. But because those queries never intersect on the same node both appear to be valid when in fact I just copied the money. Later on perhaps the system can't reconcile two people owning the same coins but by then I'm gone.
2) Suppose I send money to Alice. then a fraction of a second later Alice tries to send the same Money to Bob. How does Bob determine that Amy owns the coins? No node on BoB's network can validate my transfer to Alice.
3) the description has this trail of signed hashes being appended. Does this grow forever and can it be inverted to follow the money?
4) is each coin signed? or is it transactions?
5) if someone invents a way to make coins cheaply does this doom the system? What regulates the produciton rate? does this work if I have 1 million different user identities? if there is a central signing authority for this then what keeps this from getting cracked or printing their own money to flood the system?
6) what happens if botnets start mining?
how does this actually work, end to end, technically not operationally?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Alt Currency is just that. It may work for some people in a non formal agreement of value, but otherwise it is worthless. Unless there is a convent way to transfer it, it will remain worthless. Just like casino coins from Vegas would have little more then curio value in Malindi, Kenya (unlike the US dollar or Euro which you can buy food or lodging with) (bonus tip- go to the last resort North of town past the bend in the road, about 2 km, there are bungalows on the beach and a pool if you don't want to swim in shark infested waters). If you can't buy food or gas with it at the corner station it's not money.
They come in the dark, only in the darkest.
This is not to say that all Libertarians are ignorant, but that Bitcoin appeals to Libertarian ideals and requires ignorance of how money works to be sold. Bitcoin has no in-built velocity. Taxing authorities won't accept them and having a fixed amount of them means that they don't have a debt-based life-cycle as does the money most of us claim ownership to. Also, even if Bitcoin were to take off, as demand for it increased, it would create its own valuation bubble where it becomes more valuable to hold the money than it does to invest it. Nobody would be able to borrow in Bitcoins at a reasonable rate of interest, real demand drops, then speculators are left holding a bunch of worthless digital currency. If you think that Bitcoin is a good idea, you are likely in need of an education in economics and accounting and need to lay off of the conspiracy theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Bartering is still taxed the same as income in every state I know of, and still counts as income for federal income tax purposes. E.g., if you give me a sheep for fixing your PC, I just had a taxable event at the prevailing market rate for one sheep. This is true whether it's goods or services that are exchanged. It does allow for some wiggle room in your valuation perhaps, but everything's negotiable anyway, so there's not much advantage over bartering. OTOH, it may be a bit easier to get your money back than to get your sheep back when you find out that the grain I exchanged was spoiled. Additionally, being left with a pot full of BitCoins when the music stops is like having a jug full of babysitter tokens -- absolutely worthless if nobody else wants them. The same is true of any fiat currency of course, or even backed currency if the underlying asset becomes worthless. The difference is that the full faith and credit of the US government probably carries a bit more weight than the full faith and credit of an anonymous internet startup. For now, anyway.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Huh? We've had about a 21x multiple since 1913 and nothing like that since 2003.