[Cryptography] Our leader opines on cryptocurrencies

[jamesd at echeque.com]

jamesd at echeque.com wrote:
 > > If you buy bitcoins for fiat money through coinbase and spend them
 > > on something illegal, then you are toast.  And if you acquire
 > > bitcoins from something illegal then turn them into fiat money
 > > through coinbase then you are toast.
 > >
 > > So, don't do that.  If you stay away from coinbase and similar, you
 > > will usually be fine.  It is the websites that are the problem.

On 2019-07-29 11:06 pm, Howard Chu wrote:
 > If you don't buy bitcoins from coinbase, you're likely to get coins
 > that are already tainted/blacklisted.

Fine.  All my coins are tainted/blacklisted, and I expect that all the 
coins of everyone I transact with are also tainted and blacklisted.

Indeed, why would anyone ever use a crypto coin that was not 
tainted/blacklisted?

Pretty sure that the entire real bitcoin economy, people using bitcoins 
to buy stuff and sell stuff, rather than investing in bitcoin as an 
alternative to gold, shares, and government bonds, is tainted/blacklisted.

This tainting/blacklisting seems to be having limited effectiveness.

And the solution is to not to improve the inherent privacy of the 
blockchain as Monaro is doing (though what Monaro is doing is great) but 
to do something about the problem of transacting through websites and 
the domain name system.

The traceability of bitcoin is a huge problem - but what makes it a 
problem is not the traceability, it is the way the web works.  Monaro 
alleviates, rather than fixes, the problem.

As the joke goes, you are using an armored car to transport a parcel 
between two people, one of whom is living on a park bench, and the other 
of whom is living in a cardboard box.

Better armored cars, and Monaro is a way better armored car, are more a 
distraction than a solution.

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