[Cryptography] What has Bitcoin achieved?

[Bear]

On Fri, 2014-06-13 at 20:09 +0200, tpb-crypto at laposte.net wrote:

> Although I understand your point, we already have all that
> infrastructure arranged, it is called the banking system.

And every part of the banking system arose in response to 
needs that have not gone away.

> The idea of Bitcoin and other stuff like that is to escape the clutches
> of the surveillance state. If we do nothing, we will be slowly enslaved
> into it. So, that's why bringing big brother to watch Bitcoin
> transactions is an unwise tactic.

Maybe.  But even if that is the purpose of Bitcoin, it need not 
be the purpose of every implementation of a blockchain protocol.  
Nor will it continue to be the purpose of Bitcoin itself if 
Bitcoin ever spreads beyond the crypto anarchist contingent.  

Indeed, well over 90% of the trade that might ever be done in 
cryptocurrencies will not be done if they remain unregulatable.

So let the crypto anarchists continue to use Bitcoin as it is.  
Serving the people at large has a different set of requirements
because most people want the security of operating within the 
framework of laws and authorities that provides the context of 
their societies. 

> You know your idea will not be welcome and you know why, so avoid
> shaming yourself by trying to hijack the very system which could
> liberate the entire humanity from a post-information-age nightmare.

I know that it will not be welcomed by anarchists.  But that's a 
tiny, tiny bunch of people;  Most who are doing serious trade want
to be trading in assets that police can trace and courts can 
recover, because for most purposes and most people that's safer.  

A blockchain "Open ledger" guarantees that the powers we give 
our regulatory agencies cannot be exercised secretly, and that 
if exercised in violation of law or due process, no one will 
be able to pretend otherwise.

			Bear