Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[bitsko]

I really dont understand why BU added checkpoint for SV, and just now read a report it causes a crash.

What the hey

 

[awemany]

@wrstuv31: Thanks for the genuine attempt to cross that bridge. The major problem with your approach is that chainanalysis is pretty much a thing and privacy in a sorry state - as other folks have noted herein.

So let's be blunt here: What you call 'privacy' isn't real privacy. It is going to be 100% transparent to the all-knowing state.

So am I correct in assuming that the folks who like to get rid of anonymity in here want to have this kind of 'light privacy' only?

If so, that would be an astonishing insight into some of you guys' worldview. I think this is 100% incompatible both with Satoshi's vision and also a world reserve currency (as this is not a fungible currency) but I am glad to have a clearer picture where the other BU folks stand on this issue.

 

[cypherdoc]

just a quick reminder of Greg's lies:

Blockstream has no intention of ever monetizing lightning on Bitcoin in any way (nor do I have any idea how we could do so); our interests for it in the case of Bitcoin are only to promote and expand the use of Bitcoin. (We also hope to use it to enable other kinds of asset systems).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12092335

yet here they are selling hats:

https://store.blockstream.com/

with their node:

https://1ml.com/node/02f6725f9c1c40333b67faea92fd211c183050f28df32cac3f9d69685fe9665432/statistics

 

[wrstuv31]

I agree that currently, on a tiny blockchain with bad practices, chainalysis can see through it all. I guess if every transaction in the world is taking place on a single blockchain with no address reuse and no UTXO consolidation, I can see the argument for privacy, but not complete anonymity, through obscurity, even from the state. I think this is a good argument against the multicoin approach, a divided blockchain community is easy to monitor and control.

I don't really follow your position on 'light privacy'. I've never heard that term before, and I don't know what the advocates (folks) you allude to think. Actually, I find that query and assertion you make to be disingenuous.

 

[cypherdoc]

People are private on Bitcoin because it is not economical to comb through and figure out who is who. It's simply not worth the cost.

this is a basic introductory observation i learned from Kristov Atlas's Anonymous Bitcoin security writings years ago and which i've mentioned hereabouts and elsewhere many times.

 

[freetrader]

and have no stake in their customers actions

This "having a stake in your customers actions" is a most peculiar idea to me.
I wish someone would explain this outside of existing regulations which criminalize parties for actions of their customers.

I wish for a from-first-principles explanation of why something like that would be needed, or useful.

 

[awemany]

This "having a stake in your customers actions" is a most peculiar idea to me.
I wish someone would explain this outside of existing regulations which criminalize parties for actions of their customers.

@freetrader: Same as with the barcode on your forehead. To prevent corruption, of course!

/s

 

[freetrader]

I just thought I'd drop this in here for the privacy discussion.

 

[wrstuv31]

This "having a stake in your customers actions" is a most peculiar idea to me.

Sure, store owners do not want their location to turn into a ghetto.

 

[awemany]

@wrstuv31: As in?

Where I live, almost all stores still accept cash. Still not a ghetto.

 

[wrstuv31]

I want to know that the people buying my service aren't using it to undermine my livelihood. Even your cash accepting corner store will resist enabling self destructive junkies that drive business away.

 

[awemany]

Even your cash accepting corner store will resist enabling self destructive junkies that drive business away.

Sure, but he doesn't need to know anything about the history of the destructive junkie's banknotes to do that.

 

[wrstuv31]

If he did, he could more effectively avoid serving junkies.

 

[awemany]

@wrstuv31: With a chip in your brain, you become a better slave as well.

 

[freetrader]

Sure, store owners do not want their location to turn into a ghetto.

Ghettos form as a result of social, legal and economic pressures.
I'm not sure I see how adding more pressures on oneself or others to discriminate against certain groups helps to avoid places turning into ghettos.

 

[wrstuv31]

@awemany

Right, so with the Bitcoin I described there is a cost function to investigating ones past. It is possible for the astute junky to bury their drug use so that people can't find it. This mimics the cost functions of privacy in real life with shell corporations and loopholes, showering after drug use etc.

@freetrader

Ghettos form for many reasons, if you can't see your community you will not know when or how to intervene. It's about adding more information to the interaction, not an obligation or pressure to discriminate. You cannot derive infinite value from spying on your customers tx history, so there is an equilibrium, and privacy without anonymity.

 

[cypherdoc]

this is a basic introductory observation i learned from Kristov Atlas's Anonymous Bitcoin security writings years ago and which i've mentioned hereabouts and elsewhere many times.

there's even a pwuille post i've referenced in the past where he flat out admits that the proliferation of custom scripts for various smart contract uses in BTC decreases fungibility as each new set creates custom tracking markers and dilutes the security by obscurity value of a more unified currency use.

 

[go1111111]

@go1111111
I'm not sure we are using the same definition of terms. Privacy and anonymity are different things. If all you want is to keep your other transactions unknown to someone then that is privacy. Anonymity would be that you couldn't prove your other transactions even if you wanted to. (There would be no way to trace back to you, by definition)

We're using different definitions it seems.I want the ability to keep my transactions unknown to *everyone* if I want, but also have the ability to selectively reveal them to specific people if I choose.

However even if a coin granted your version of anonymity, you could still establish that you sent a transaction. You and I open a secure communication channel. You generate a new BCH address and send it to me over the channel. I tell you how much I'm going to send, and when. You notice that amount of funds has been sent to that address when I said they would be. You're now pretty certain that it was me who paid you even if I can't give you some sort of cryptographic proof.

Now someone criminal deposits into this address but the person who has KYC linked to it, can in no way to prove it was them or not them. Who made the deposit? Illegal funds have now been accepted without our consent.

You can just use new addresses for each deposit, only tell the person who is paying you the address, and then refund or burn any other payment to that address that comes after the first.

With privacy we control who has access to our information, with anonymity we there is no connection.

An 'anonymous' coin as you describe it is impossible, because you can always establish the connection outside of the protocol.

 

[freetrader]

there's even a pwuille post i've referenced in the past where he flat out admits that the proliferation of custom scripts for various smart contract uses in BTC decreases fungibility as each new set creates custom tracking markers and dilutes the security by obscurity value of a more unified currency use.

Pieter Wuille makes an easy argument in favor of "doing nothing is safer" while looking out for Bitcoin as p2p cash, especially with that Segwit thing:

 

[cypherdoc]

nah, it was one of those rare moments when arguably one of the best Bitcoin devs on the planet (technical wise) admitted that maybe the strategy Bcore was following with bip 9 might not be the best one. bip 9 was eventually deprecated.