[Cryptography] What has Bitcoin achieved?

[Bear]

On Sun, 2014-06-15 at 18:36 +0200, tpb-crypto at laposte.net wrote:
> > Message du 14/06/14 19:50
> > De : "Bear" 
> > 
> > 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.
> > 

> After Bitcoin is put under governmental control, they can do anything
> they want without ever being limited or curtailed by us. An example of
> that is FISA courts and special congressional commissions, that do
> their jobs without any scrutiny at all.

A.  You are ranting.  Most of the things you are reacting to 
are not things I said.  Please calm yourself and consider 
what has actually been said instead of jumping nine squares 
ahead to the worst of what you fear it might possibly mean.

B.  I am not talking about taking things people have and handing
them over to governments.  I am talking about a blockchain protocol
that allows people to voluntarily create and use subordinate 
claims on assets.  I expect that a lot of people will voluntarily
use this capability to create things that comply with existing
regulations in whatever jurisdictions they require - things with 
value, which could not otherwise exist.

C.  I was not talking about Bitcoin.  Bitcoin is controlled by the 
very community that I expect to most emphatically reject the idea 
of allowing identities, authentication, and the capacity to work 
within regulatory structures.  I think that they are fools in 
this rejection, and I think that they are limiting the prospects 
of Bitcoin to actually be adopted and used, but that is the 
behavior I expect of them.  The "Cryptocurrency anarchist" community 
will be displaced over the next few years by a "Cryptocurrency  
plutocrat" community that better understands the opportunities 
to create value, so the foot-dragging is at most temporary.  Still,
it'll last far longer than I intend to wait, and if it goes on 
long enough, it will cause Bitcoin to fail because the plutocrats
will be adopting something else that better suits their purposes.

D. Therefore, I'll be looking at an altcoin implementation.  It 
is the market, and not any discussion between you and I, that 
will decide which is eventually dominant.  Perhaps both will be.

E. If an altcoin allowing authentication, identity, and working 
with regulatory structures is adopted by the plutocratic crew, then
the crypto anarchist crew will remain in control of Bitcoin - but 
will recede into economic insignificance.  If Bitcoin is adopted 
by the plutocrats instead, then Bitcoin will acquire these features
because the plutocrats need them and will get them built immediately
once they are in control - but the crypto anarchists will be 
displaced from control and will hate what Bitcoin has become.  
Either way I expect that the crypto anarchists will be gnashing 
their teeth over their "loss" because what they want is, simply
speaking, destined to lose, one way or another.


> There is no way the ledger will be kept public if the government puts
> their paws into it, it will be visible to them but not to anybody else,
> that's the first thing government will do, to cloak it to the best
> extent possible and force everyone to accept it. 

A.  Comma splices are a sign of ranting.  Learn to control them.

B.  None of this follows from the idea of subordinate claims.  No
mechanism for keeping blockchain transactions secret has been 
introduced.  

> At that point we don't have cryptocurrencies anymore, but only a credit
> card replacement and nothing great has happened and nothing better has
> come out of it.

Not quite.  At that point we have a system that cuts a whole ecology
of rent seekers and parasites out of the money transfer business, and 
a way to do international and intranational business more efficiently.  

			Bear