Cryptocurrencies

[rkbabang]

8 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

This feels to me like the part of the BTC narrative where to move to the next catalyst it involves  'jumping the shark' like states seceding from the Union or BTC through gov legislation being given a deeply privileged position in the tax code such that it isn't a capital asset so that it might be seamlessly used for transactions & compete head on with the dollar issued by the same legislature.

 

What came before was improbable but plausible (adoption,commodification via CFTC, etf-ization via SEC) it's been fantastic run and hats off to those who stuck with it.........but what's required to come next to maintain say BTC's 10yr cagr rate, ubiquitous btc payments, is improbable because its implausible....and that is a very different risk/reward IMO.

 

 

BTC doesn’t rely on the U.S. breaking up, BTC doesn’t need the U.S. at all. I was simply stating a fact that there is not a snowball’s chance in Hell that the U.S. both still exists and has 50 states 15-20 years from now. I keep a close eye on the NHexit movement and it is growing year by year. Even non-political people I talk to often don’t say it’s crazy anymore. Bills are introduced every year now and get more support and less fierce opposition every year. Don’t get me wrong it isn’t going to pass this year, but eventually it will and eventually it will be put on the ballot state wide. Here’s the testimony from a few weeks ago at the committee hearing for this year’s bill.  A bunch of people testified for it, one against. The Texit movement has some momentum too and there are rumblings in other states as well.

 

 

 

[Sweet]

2 hours ago, rkbabang said:

I was simply stating a fact that there is not a snowball’s chance in Hell that the U.S. both still exists and has 50 states 15-20 years from now.

That’s not a fact, that’s a prediction.  I’d take the opposite side of that bet.  
 

 

Edited January 20 by Sweet

[rkbabang]

1 minute ago, Sweet said:

That’s not a fact, that’s a prediction.  I’d take the under of that.

I’d bet you, but I’ll be in my 70s 20 years from now, that’s too long a time frame for a bet.  I just think you underestimate how quickly change can happen.

[james22]

How a 27-year-old busted the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity

 

https://arstechnica.com/features/2024/01/how-a-27-year-old-busted-the-myth-of-bitcoins-anonymity/

[Sweet]

12 hours ago, james22 said:

How a 27-year-old busted the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity

 

https://arstechnica.com/features/2024/01/how-a-27-year-old-busted-the-myth-of-bitcoins-anonymity/

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Bitcoin was created by a government to ensnare criminals paedos etc.

[rkbabang]

10 hours ago, Sweet said:

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Bitcoin was created by a government to ensnare criminals paedos etc.

satashi/bitcoin being a project of the CIA has always been a theory right from the beginning.  I don’t think so, Satashi’s writings were way too libertarian-like/cryptopunk, but that could certainly be faked.  The Onion Router/deepweb was created by US intelligence so it is certainly possible Bitcoin was too. The government can be short sighted and do things against its long term interests for short term goals.

[changegonnacome]

4 hours ago, rkbabang said:

satashi/bitcoin being a project of the CIA

Taught the more likely explanation was BTC was a project to allow the continuation of online poker after the various crackdowns in late 2000's had led to their banning & regulation….I say this because the original source code for BTC written by Satoshi himself (see github below) included GUI elements for a poker lobby

 

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28830211

 

https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/master/src/uibase.cpp#L1573-L1731

 

It's also notable that many in the online poker world of this period - found themselves later involved with the crypto industry most notably Dan Friedberg FTX's Chief Regulatory Officer who's previous claim to fame was being involved in the UltimateBet "god mode' poker scandal where they cheated players funds -

https://nypost.com/2022/11/20/ftxs-ex-chief-regulatory-officer-tied-to-online-poker-scandal/

 

Feels like the lofty libertarian stuff seemed to come later to backfill the narrative for BTC - at its core the origin of BTC was likely a protocol designed to allow anonymous online poker players interact in a decentralized unsurveilled manner outside the new poker bans of the late 2000's that had taken down the main sites......the MOST important thing in poker off course is 'the pot'....& BTC provided an elegant way that a winning poker player could be certain that his spoils were safely and securely in his wallet (in a irrevocable way) before the virtual table went their separate ways.

 

There's a kind of beatification about Satoshi that he was Moses that came down from the mountain- the reality is he or the group that 'he' was were very much of this earth - they were likely a bunch of programmer's & players who had ridden the online poker boom to wealth & riches and BTC was their response to the government coming in and ruining their heretofore lucrative niche in unregulated online poker gaming.

 

Edited January 22 by changegonnacome

[ValueArb]

19 hours ago, rkbabang said:

satashi/bitcoin being a project of the CIA has always been a theory right from the beginning.  I don’t think so, Satashi’s writings were way too libertarian-like/cryptopunk, but that could certainly be faked.  The Onion Router/deepweb was created by US intelligence so it is certainly possible Bitcoin was too. The government can be short sighted and do things against its long term interests for short term goals.

 

How to tell whether a conspiracy theory is likely false?

 

1) It depends on a government agency being competent and able to hide their activities with supernatural skill without a single actual participant telling anyone anything.

Edited January 22 by ValueArb

[rkbabang]

18 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

19 hours ago, rkbabang said:

satashi/bitcoin being a project of the CIA has always been a theory right from the beginning.  I don’t think so, Satashi’s writings were way too libertarian-like/cryptopunk, but that could certainly be faked.  The Onion Router/deepweb was created by US intelligence so it is certainly possible Bitcoin was too. The government can be short sighted and do things against its long term interests for short term goals.

 

How to tell whether a conspiracy theory is likely false?

 

1) It depends on a government agency being competent and able to hide their activities with supernatural skill without a single actual participant telling anyone anything.

 

 

Yes.  This is why this was a somewhat believable theory early on, but every year that has gone by makes it less and less likely to be true.  I personally think the story of Bitcoin is a simple one.  Hal Finney (or someone else) created it under a pseudonym for some reason and unfortunately died a few years later. 

[Castanza]

On 1/21/2024 at 5:08 AM, Sweet said:

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Bitcoin was created by a government to ensnare criminals paedos etc.

 

Nah, there has been so many former and current NSA members and security experts who comment on this question frequently. The NSA could and definitely has the talent to develop something like that, but really there is no reason to do so. They have a 1000 and one other techniques of acquiring the data. Project PRISM and Pegasus come to mind. They don't need to create a crypto currency to track down black market money flows. The NSA is extremely talented and tbh BTC is probably way below their capabilities. Plus you can read the code yourself. It's tantamount to saying Linux is a govt run OS with backdoors as well. A lot of terrorists use Monero and other crypto currencies as well cash.

 

BTC emerged just after the 2008 crash as an alternative to govt backed currencies. Do you really think the NSA development BTC with a plan to launch it after the  next financial crisis in the country with zero way of knowing whether it would be adopted or not? I'd say that's highly unlikely and not worth their time.

 

Also it's pretty damn difficult (probably impossible) to move large amounts of BTC anonymously. The NSA, CIA FBI, and Secret Service cyber departments don't need a backdoor to track down BTC transactions. There is no shortage of stories out there of them doing exactly that. 

[ValueArb]

In general most every agency in the government hates crypto and Bitcoin, so if the NSA had Satoshi's private key they'd probably dump his position to drive BTC below $1K to punish the "criminals" using it. 

 

Alternate theory: They are holding on their Satoshi stake until BTC reaches $1M because they will need to liquidate it then to avoid a federal debt default. 

 

Lets just hope the NSA doesn't figure out how to crack BTC keys using quantum computers. The f*ckery they would inflict on the market would be legendary.

[wachtwoord]

1 hour ago, rkbabang said:

 

 

Yes.  This is why this was a somewhat believable theory early on, but every year that has gone by makes it less and less likely to be true.  I personally think the story of Bitcoin is a simple one.  Hal Finney (or someone else) created it under a pseudonym for some reason and unfortunately died a few years later. 

 

Most likely it's Nick Szabo who isnt dead but very smart, wise and composed.

[ValueArb]

17 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

Most likely it's Nick Szabo who isnt dead but very smart, wise and composed.

 

It's impossible that Satoshi is alive or some of those BTCs would have been moved. 

[rkbabang]

17 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

Most likely it's Nick Szabo who isnt dead but very smart, wise and composed.

 

It could be.  I've always assumed Finney, because he is dead and that explains why Satashi disappeared so completely and has never touched his holdings.   I just can't imagine a living Satashi overcoming the temptation to access that wealth and take credit for his invention.   If it is Szabo he is an amazing human being.

[gfp]

I am far from knowledgable about this stuff, but how possible is it that the key to access the "satoshi nakamoto" coins has just been lost and nobody has access to the coins?  

[rkbabang]

2 minutes ago, gfp said:

I am far from knowledgable about this stuff, but how possible is it that the key to access the "satoshi nakamoto" coins has just been lost and nobody has access to the coins?  

 

Anything is possible, but if you look at the things Satashi was writing on Bitcoin-talk right from the beginning he knew what he had created and how valuable it was going to become.  To think that he'd be so careless to lose his private keys would be unimaginable.   Can you imagine discovering a trillion dollar gold deposit and in your attempt to keep it secret forget where it was?

 

[Sweet]

3 hours ago, Castanza said:

BTC emerged just after the 2008 crash as an alternative to govt backed currencies. Do you really think the NSA development BTC with a plan to launch it after the  next financial crisis in the country with zero way of knowing whether it would be adopted or not? I'd say that's highly unlikely and not worth their time.

 

Also it's pretty damn difficult (probably impossible) to move large amounts of BTC anonymously. The NSA, CIA FBI, and Secret Service cyber departments don't need a backdoor to track down BTC transactions. There is no shortage of stories out there of them doing exactly that. 

Why would they need to know in advance it could be adopted or not?  I’m sure these guys are trying new things all the time, some work and some do not.  
 

I never said they needed a back door.  In any case, there have been plenty who thought it was truly anonymous and got busted.

[ValueArb]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

I am far from knowledgable about this stuff, but how possible is it that the key to access the "satoshi nakamoto" coins has just been lost and nobody has access to the coins?  

 

IIRC Satoshi supposedly had hundreds of different wallets containing BTC and AFAIK none have ever been touched. If that is true, he would have had to lose all the keys to every wallet. 

[changegonnacome]

31 minutes ago, Sweet said:

who thought it was truly anonymous and got busted.

 

I think those with an agenda claim BTC is truly anonymous as they dislike it and would like to see it banned so they play up its anonymity......but I also think the delusional maxis can't bring themselves to admit that it provides additional & incremental anonymity relative to pretty much all other electronic forms of acquiring value remotely, digitally and at great distance (wire, ACH, venmo, paypal, swift etc.)).

 

This is the not the same thing as saying BTC is anonymous.

 

The evidence is clear.....when presented with various mechanisms by which one might collect a ransom remotely....overwhelmingly ransomware actors request their ranson is delivered via BTC.....not because it's perfectly anonymously (it isn't) but because it obviously represents the optimal combination of evading identification and getting paid.

[gfp]

1 minute ago, ValueArb said:

 

IIRC Satoshi supposedly had hundreds of different wallets containing BTC and AFAIK none have ever been touched. If that is true, he would have had to lose all the keys to every wallet. 

 

Thanks.  So very rich or very dead.  Reminds me of the gold bugs that bury the gold in the back 40 but don't trust anyone with the information and die.  

 

[SharperDingaan]

2 hours ago, rkbabang said:

 

Anything is possible, but if you look at the things Satashi was writing on Bitcoin-talk right from the beginning he knew what he had created and how valuable it was going to become.  To think that he'd be so careless to lose his private keys would be unimaginable.   Can you imagine discovering a trillion dollar gold deposit and in your attempt to keep it secret forget where it was?

 

 

The story goes that some folks went for an evening cruise on the Baltic. Supposedly the very early stage miners, BTC mining for them had just been the cool 'new' thing at the time; but they were now all moving on, and their wallets contained thousands of BTC. The US was closing down the silk road, was one of the largest holders of BTC, and there was a need for a graceful way 'out'. The various digital keys got put on USB sticks, and to the clink of champagne glasses, all the sticks were dropped into the sea; salt water ensuring non recovery of the keys, no matter the temptation.

 

SD

[gfp]

4 minutes ago, SharperDingaan said:

 

The story goes that some folks went for an evening cruise on the Baltic. Supposedly the very early stage miners, BTC mining for them had just been the cool 'new' thing at the time; but they were now all moving on, and their wallets contained thousands of BTC. The US was closing down the silk road, was one of the largest holders of BTC, and there was a need for a graceful way 'out'. The various digital keys got put on USB sticks, and to the clink of champagne glasses, all the sticks were dropped into the sea; salt water ensuring non recovery of the keys, no matter the temptation.

 

SD

 

And then many years later the corroding usb sticks finally rusted through the Nord Stream pipeline and she blew?

[SharperDingaan]

23 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

I think those with an agenda claim BTC is truly anonymous as they dislike it and would like to see it banned so they play up its anonymity......but I also think the delusional maxis can't bring themselves to admit that it provides additional & incremental anonymity relative to pretty much all other electronic forms of acquiring value remotely, digitally and at great distance (wire, ACH, venmo, paypal, swift etc.)).

 

This is the not the same thing as saying BTC is anonymous.

 

The evidence is clear.....when presented with various mechanisms by which one might collect a ransom remotely....overwhelmingly ransomware actors request their ranson is delivered via BTC.....not because it's perfectly anonymously (it isn't) but because it obviously represents the optimal combination of evading identification and getting paid.

 

Only two people know the keys to a wallet; the owner, and whoever issued them the keys. It's straightforward to trace money flow to a wallet; 100% identification of the user requires more work. Over time, either the issuer gives up the keys (BK, takeover, persuasion, etc.), or the owner (collateral on a derivative/loan, persuasion, etc.). If the wallet has a lot of flow in/out you can get a pretty good idea as to the owner, but if its essentially dormant .. not so much.

 

SD

 

[changegonnacome]

1 minute ago, SharperDingaan said:

100% identification of the user requires more work

 

Exactly - and certainly more work than a bank account somewhere inside the Swift payment network...that has some, even faked KYC data attached....

 

BTC isn't perfectly anonymous....far from it....but if your choosing a digital mechanism to extract value in a way that represents the best chance of collecting that value AND more importantly not getting caught collecting that value BTC is the best answer out there*.....as I said don't take my word for it.......the people for whom this matters alot have voted with their wallets and their freedom.......and overwhelmingly they choose BTC as their preferred payment method.

 

* for larger sums......some more esoteric shitcoins I'm sure work better for a few G's.....but if your shaking down someone for a few millis well btc is about the only coin with a large enough mkt cap do that in.

[rkbabang]

On 1/22/2024 at 3:51 PM, SharperDingaan said:

 

The story goes that some folks went for an evening cruise on the Baltic. Supposedly the very early stage miners, BTC mining for them had just been the cool 'new' thing at the time; but they were now all moving on, and their wallets contained thousands of BTC. The US was closing down the silk road, was one of the largest holders of BTC, and there was a need for a graceful way 'out'. The various digital keys got put on USB sticks, and to the clink of champagne glasses, all the sticks were dropped into the sea; salt water ensuring non recovery of the keys, no matter the temptation.

 

SD

 

 

That has the sound of an urban legend to it, but who knows? Anything's possible.  After all people send small amounts of bitcoin to the genesis address almost everyday. 

 

( https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa ) 

 

and about a month ago someone sent it more than $1M worth.

 

 ( https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/d7db4f96a4059c8906b953677ce533493d7b9da0f854a21b99f5772910dd0a31 ).

 

People do intentionally burn their bitcoin sometimes.