[Arm-netbook] Urgent statement on Cryptocurrency ethics

[Jean Flamelle]

This is difficult to express so please bear patience. Able
manipulators of money do exploit the interest in cryptocurrency to
affect the prices thereof, purchase and sell cryptocurrency increasing
their stockpile of national and international currencies while
sustaining their supply of cryptocurrency. The practice of buying low
and selling high, is generally accepted, but I refute it. Not only
does no way of proving if they manipulated the price practical, but
buying low and selling high can only be possible if someone somewhere
tries to change the price of whatever their trade includes. This means
the price of bitcoin should be decided by netizens across internet
forums and some powerful actor is ensuring that can't happen.
As a store of economic influence, I fully agree and support
the decision to hold donated bitcoin. However to convert it by means
of trade into any other currency, while what is happening is
happening, I can't stomach this morally. Individuals who are getting
tricked into purchasing cryptocurrency at exactly the wrong moments
are losing all the have. This is not simply gambling with high-stakes,
there is a concerted effort to deceive people into purchasing bitcoin
and other currencies. If anyone sells cryptocurrency now, they very
likely risk funding these scams.
Please do not sell donated bitcoin or any other donated
cryptocurrency for the foresee-able future.
This is not a permanent problem, but one we can't know when
will be resolved.

Thank you.
-J. L.

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Jean Flamelle
This is difficult to express so please bear patience. Able
manipulators of money do exploit the interest in cryptocurrency to
affect the prices thereof,

yep, i know. there's no way to regulate or prevent the blatant
insider trading and pump-and-dump scams. interestingly, mining is
inviolate.

l.

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[Philip Hands]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Jean Flamelle
This is difficult to express so please bear patience. Able
manipulators of money do exploit the interest in cryptocurrency to
affect the prices thereof,

yep, i know. there's no way to regulate or prevent the blatant
insider trading and pump-and-dump scams. interestingly, mining is
inviolate.

I've no idea why you think that -- it seems to me rather like saying
that farming poppies is automatically ethical, regardless of whether you
expect anyone to harvest the crop and perhaps sell it to people who
then profit and spend the resulting income on weapons, say.

Anyway, never mind that -- this seems timely:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

erm, oops!

Cheers, Phil.

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Philip Hands

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Jean Flamelle
This is difficult to express so please bear patience. Able
manipulators of money do exploit the interest in cryptocurrency to
affect the prices thereof,

yep, i know. there's no way to regulate or prevent the blatant
insider trading and pump-and-dump scams. interestingly, mining is
inviolate.

I've no idea why you think that -- it seems to me rather like saying
that farming poppies is automatically ethical, regardless of whether you
expect anyone to harvest the crop and perhaps sell it to people who
then profit and spend the resulting income on weapons, say.

there's a key difference [or there was until those abuse-links were
noted...] which is that the transactions are [or were] "neutral".
the "money" (the mining reward) was literally created out of thin air,
i.e. was not being received as part of a transaction from criminals,
not being received as part of drug-dealing, or in exchange for a
contract on someone's life or anything else clearly unethical...

*and* in addition [up until those abuse-links were noted] there was
no way to know if the transaction(s) were quotes good quotes or quotes
bad quotes.

even _with_ such links (which people will now have to add filters
into crypto-mining algorithms in order to discard them), you can
clearly see that anyone putting such links is "bad" (and choose not to
include them in a block being mined) however for everything else not
so identified they *are* unidentifiable.

that lack of identifiability makes mining "neutral" rather than
"specifically good" or "specifically bad".

Post by Philip Hands
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content
erm, oops!

sigh yehhh... and they paid transaction fees to put them there. main
problem is, distribution of or ownership of bitcoin has now become
illegal in many countries... whoops...

l.

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[Jean Flamelle]

That link goes back to the fundamental concept of illegal numbers.

Anywhere a number can be written, illegal data may be written.
Anywhere a number can be written immutably, illegal data may be
written immutably.

This also gets at a fundamental issue of ethics of censorship, as
censorship was viewed a few centuries ago: pieces of communication
which enable wasted life being disabled & contained.

Do these images do that?
Can abuse be stopped without censoring images of abuse?

===

Phil raises an interesting suggestion that what-if blockchain miners
weren't neutral?

Miners aren't neutral, after all. They just enforce minimal rules.

Could technological means be given to enforce cultural rules including
with regards to reputation and past economic contributions?
What would happen, if so?

===

@Lasic -
There are many large corporations developing blockchain research
programs, including banks, microsoft, ibm, institutes funded by
grants, etc.

This is not a viable complete protocol, but regulators are much more
likely begin regulating claims. There is a saying that the code should
speak for itself. I think this applies.

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[Wookey]

Post by Philip Hands
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

There's always someone isn't there? This is why we can't have nice things.

I'm quite surprised that the format allows inclusion of random extra
files. Why isn't it just a list of transaction IDs (or however it
works), i.e. the data needed to make the blockchain work. Or are they
just abusing some 'Name' or 'Comment' type freeform field?

It seems to me that bitcoin needs to fail on energy terms alone - it's
mind-bogglingly inefficent (and, contrary to my initial understanding,
this problem doesn't get better over time as more coins are
mined). Plenty of other cryptocurrency algorithms exist, using much
more sensible amounts of energy (Wh/transaction: bitcoin: 634,000,
Ethereum: 43,000, (Visa: 1.69) Stellar: 0.03). The tricky bit is
making sure that remains true when the thing gets popular.

If those numbers are right bitcoin is generating the same emissions as
a flight to Spain from the UK (300kG) _per transaction_ which is
completely nuts. Buying a beer in the Haymakers really shouldn't have
that sort of footprint.

Wookey

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

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Post by Wookey

Post by Philip Hands
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

There's always someone isn't there? This is why we can't have nice things.

*sigh* i would be curious to know if monero (designed with privacy in
mind) suffers the same problem.
https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/3958/what-is-the-format-of-a-block-in-the-monero-blockchain
https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/5916/why-some-coinbase-transactions-have-very-long-extra-field-and-some-short
https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/3595/how-to-use-tx-extra
https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/2549/why-is-the-payment-id-specified-on-a-per-tx-basis

apparently the tx-extra field is used as a payment-id...
interestingly though it looks like it's down to the miners to decide
that field's contents... which would, if that's correct, take away the
problem.

Post by Wookey
I'm quite surprised that the format allows inclusion of random extra
files. Why isn't it just a list of transaction IDs (or however it
works), i.e. the data needed to make the blockchain work. Or are they
just abusing some 'Name' or 'Comment' type freeform field?

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/29592/can-you-put-additional-data-in-the-payload
https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=cscfaculty

ok so there's apparently about 8 separate and distinct methods, all
of them "abusing" various fields, some of them security violations /
exploiting flaws in the design. oops.

Post by Wookey
It seems to me that bitcoin needs to fail on energy terms alone - it's
mind-bogglingly inefficent (and, contrary to my initial understanding,
this problem doesn't get better over time as more coins are
mined).

arms / energy races don't get better without consensus, and this
one's an arms / energy race where (at the moment) individuals can
participate as opposed to businesses.

*if* people agree - world-wide - to slow down on the mining *then*
the hashrate - world-wide - will slow down. however the only way
that's actually realistically likely to happen is when the "reward"
drops sufficiently (halves every 18 months) for the financial
incentive to lower.

*then* when the financial incentive lowers, the number of people
mining will also lower (non-financially-viable equipment switched off)
and the hashrate will correspondingly drop.

the problem with that assumption is that the people mining will only
be motivated by profit. if they're genuinely interested in going over
the 50% share in order to corrupt / control the blocks then that
doesn't happen, and bitcoin goes to hell in a handbasket.

Post by Wookey
Plenty of other cryptocurrency algorithms exist, using much
more sensible amounts of energy (Wh/transaction: bitcoin: 634,000,
Ethereum: 43,000, (Visa: 1.69) Stellar: 0.03). The tricky bit is
making sure that remains true when the thing gets popular.

i've been thinking about this, beyond what monero does (which plans
to hard-fork to increase the random-access memory usage). monero is
not possible to do on a custom ASIC because it deliberately requires
large amounts of memory (6gb, 8gb). if you were to make a custom ASIC
it would *be* a GPU... therefore you might as well buy...
off-the-shelf GPU Cards.

beyond that i think you need to specify and agree hard limits about
mining capabilities that, if exceeded, result in PENALTIES not
REWARDS. such mining contracts would need to be stored *in the
blockchain* rather than being hard-coded. miners would be required to
sign up to the mining contract (in the blockchain) in order to
participate, along-side a declaration of running some CPU benchmark
tests which indicate the computing capacity that they are declaring
that they intend to use.

if they go OUTSIDE of those parameters, by responding too fast on a
block (which can be verified by other miners re-running the same
algorithms that they did), they get PENALISED *not* REWARDED.

if that's combined with the ability to fork a coin *within* a coin (by
placing an ID or #tag on transactions that indicate that it is totally
separate and completely distinct from other coins *within the sam e
blockchain*) the nice thing about such a scheme would be that isolated
communities, for example those running off of isolated sporadic
internet, on smartphones only rather than having access to GPU
resources, could declare the mining contract to be within the
capabilities of the average smartphone... and the community as a
whole. an "outsider" would then NOT BE ABLE to destabilise their
"local" currency.

Post by Wookey
If those numbers are right bitcoin is generating the same emissions as
a flight to Spain from the UK (300kG) _per transaction_ which is
completely nuts. Buying a beer in the Haymakers really shouldn't have
that sort of footprint.

even up until 2016 it didn't... but it does now. and it's an
exponential rise of about 20% *per month* and shows no sign of slowing
https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

l.

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[Louis Pearson]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
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Post by Wookey

Post by Philip Hands
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-

abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

Post by Wookey
There's always someone isn't there? This is why we can't have nice

things.

I believe that grin ( http://grin-tech.org/ ) should be immune to this from
the way that its
transactions work. From what I remember off the top of my head anyway. I
really like
the way that the developers are approaching creating a new cryptocurrency.
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[KRT Listmaster]

Now the discussion is starting to get interesting....

On 03/21/2018 07:11 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

[...]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
*if* people agree - world-wide - to slow down on the mining *then*
the hashrate - world-wide - will slow down. however the only way
that's actually realistically likely to happen is when the "reward"
drops sufficiently (halves every 18 months) for the financial
incentive to lower.
*then* when the financial incentive lowers, the number of people
mining will also lower (non-financially-viable equipment switched off)
and the hashrate will correspondingly drop.
the problem with that assumption is that the people mining will only
be motivated by profit. if they're genuinely interested in going over
the 50% share in order to corrupt / control the blocks then that
doesn't happen, and bitcoin goes to hell in a handbasket.

Exactly, this is something most people fail to understand about mining.
There's nothing inherent to the algorithm or the protocol that makes
Bitcoin so power-hungry. If the entire network agreed to all shut off
the ASICs and run everything on low-powered SBCs running on photovoltaic
cells only (for example), the network *itself* would continue to
function just fine. The difficulty would adjust itself (eventually, up
to two weeks for BTC) to match the processing power available to it.
That's the design.

When I first came across Bitcoin, the idea was to let your wallet
solo-mine all the time in the background. Pools didn't even exist yet
when I first tried mining (on an ASUS netbook in rural Peru, no less),
or at least I wasn't aware of them. At the time, I compared it to
something like ***@home, which looks for signals from space-brothers as
a screen-saver, basically. Everyone mines a little bit, and everyone
gets a little bit of the reward. One CPU, one vote. That was the
original intent.

The problem is greed. Some clever bastard decided "Why limit myself to
just a single background process?" That's when dedicated mining rigs
started, and the arms race began, even before GPUs came into the picture.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
i've been thinking about this, beyond what monero does (which plans
to hard-fork to increase the random-access memory usage). monero is
not possible to do on a custom ASIC because it deliberately requires
large amounts of memory (6gb, 8gb). if you were to make a custom ASIC
it would *be* a GPU... therefore you might as well buy...
off-the-shelf GPU Cards.
beyond that i think you need to specify and agree hard limits about
mining capabilities that, if exceeded, result in PENALTIES not
REWARDS. such mining contracts would need to be stored *in the
blockchain* rather than being hard-coded. miners would be required to
sign up to the mining contract (in the blockchain) in order to
participate, along-side a declaration of running some CPU benchmark
tests which indicate the computing capacity that they are declaring
that they intend to use.
if they go OUTSIDE of those parameters, by responding too fast on a
block (which can be verified by other miners re-running the same
algorithms that they did), they get PENALISED *not* REWARDED.

Yep, the Monero devs are very much dedicated to "egalitarian mining",
which I think gets closer to Satoshi's original intent,[1][2] and makes
something like javascript browser-based mining possible, which then
opens up an entire new set of ethical concerns, even if it's a tiny step
towards fair hashrate distribution. [3][4]


What are the other options? POS coins take very little energy, but "the
rich get richer", and the more coin you have, the more you stake, etc.
Not very egalitarian either. Or some insta-premine like Ripple, where I
just make a bajillion tokens out of thin air and then start selling them
for a tenth of a cent each? Neither of those seem like better
distribution schemes to me. So, how do we get newly mined coins into as
many hands as possible?

Definitely an interesting conundrum.

- krt

---

[1] https://getmonero.org/2018/02/11/PoW-change-and-key-reuse.html
[2]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitmain-announces-new-monero-mining-antminer-x3-cryptos-devs-say-will-not-work
[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.02887.pdf
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/27/ethical_coinhive/

[Sam Huntress]

Excessive power consumption by bitcoin miners is an indication that either power is undervalued, bitcoin is overvalued, or both.

Post by KRT Listmaster
Now the discussion is starting to get interesting....
[...]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
*if* people agree - world-wide - to slow down on the mining *then*
the hashrate - world-wide - will slow down. however the only way
that's actually realistically likely to happen is when the "reward"
drops sufficiently (halves every 18 months) for the financial
incentive to lower.
*then* when the financial incentive lowers, the number of people
mining will also lower (non-financially-viable equipment switched off)
and the hashrate will correspondingly drop.
the problem with that assumption is that the people mining will only
be motivated by profit. if they're genuinely interested in going over
the 50% share in order to corrupt / control the blocks then that
doesn't happen, and bitcoin goes to hell in a handbasket.

Exactly, this is something most people fail to understand about mining.
There's nothing inherent to the algorithm or the protocol that makes
Bitcoin so power-hungry. If the entire network agreed to all shut off
the ASICs and run everything on low-powered SBCs running on photovoltaic
cells only (for example), the network *itself* would continue to
function just fine. The difficulty would adjust itself (eventually, up
to two weeks for BTC) to match the processing power available to it.
That's the design.
When I first came across Bitcoin, the idea was to let your wallet
solo-mine all the time in the background. Pools didn't even exist yet
when I first tried mining (on an ASUS netbook in rural Peru, no less),
or at least I wasn't aware of them. At the time, I compared it to
a screen-saver, basically. Everyone mines a little bit, and everyone
gets a little bit of the reward. One CPU, one vote. That was the
original intent.
The problem is greed. Some clever bastard decided "Why limit myself to
just a single background process?" That's when dedicated mining rigs
started, and the arms race began, even before GPUs came into the picture.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
i've been thinking about this, beyond what monero does (which plans
to hard-fork to increase the random-access memory usage). monero is
not possible to do on a custom ASIC because it deliberately requires
large amounts of memory (6gb, 8gb). if you were to make a custom ASIC
it would *be* a GPU... therefore you might as well buy...
off-the-shelf GPU Cards.
beyond that i think you need to specify and agree hard limits about
mining capabilities that, if exceeded, result in PENALTIES not
REWARDS. such mining contracts would need to be stored *in the
blockchain* rather than being hard-coded. miners would be required to
sign up to the mining contract (in the blockchain) in order to
participate, along-side a declaration of running some CPU benchmark
tests which indicate the computing capacity that they are declaring
that they intend to use.
if they go OUTSIDE of those parameters, by responding too fast on a
block (which can be verified by other miners re-running the same
algorithms that they did), they get PENALISED *not* REWARDED.

Yep, the Monero devs are very much dedicated to "egalitarian mining",
which I think gets closer to Satoshi's original intent,[1][2] and makes
something like javascript browser-based mining possible, which then
opens up an entire new set of ethical concerns, even if it's a tiny step
towards fair hashrate distribution. [3][4]
What are the other options? POS coins take very little energy, but "the
rich get richer", and the more coin you have, the more you stake, etc.
Not very egalitarian either. Or some insta-premine like Ripple, where I
just make a bajillion tokens out of thin air and then start selling them
for a tenth of a cent each? Neither of those seem like better
distribution schemes to me. So, how do we get newly mined coins into as
many hands as possible?
Definitely an interesting conundrum.
- krt
---
[1] https://getmonero.org/2018/02/11/PoW-change-and-key-reuse.html
[2]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitmain-announces-new-monero-mining-antminer-x3-cryptos-devs-say-will-not-work
[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.02887.pdf
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/27/ethical_coinhive/
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[zap]

Post by Jean Flamelle

Post by KRT Listmaster
Yep, the Monero devs are very much dedicated to "egalitarian mining",
which I think gets closer to Satoshi's original intent,[1][2] and makes
something like javascript browser-based mining possible, which then
opens up an entire new set of ethical concerns, even if it's a tiny step
towards fair hashrate distribution. [3][4]
What are the other options? POS coins take very little energy, but "the
rich get richer", and the more coin you have, the more you stake, etc.
Not very egalitarian either. Or some insta-premine like Ripple, where I
just make a bajillion tokens out of thin air and then start selling them
for a tenth of a cent each? Neither of those seem like better
distribution schemes to me. So, how do we get newly mined coins into as
many hands as possible?
Definitely an interesting conundrum.
- krt
---

I think it is safe to say that cryptocurrencies aren't very feasible
right now.

My thoughts are: Liberapay is a good idea,

I don't know if anything else is anywhere near as good.

Post by Jean Flamelle

Post by KRT Listmaster
[1] https://getmonero.org/2018/02/11/PoW-change-and-key-reuse.html
[2]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitmain-announces-new-monero-mining-antminer-x3-cryptos-devs-say-will-not-work
[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.02887.pdf
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/27/ethical_coinhive/
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[Tor, the Marqueteur]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by zap
I think it is safe to say that cryptocurrencies aren't very
feasible right now.
My thoughts are: Liberapay is a good idea,
I don't know if anything else is anywhere near as good.

Liberapay is good, though I'm afraid their funding model isn't
sustainable in the long term.

The development costs are probably mostly upfront, but there are the
ongoing server costs, and much more significantly, the costs of dealing
with disputes, fraud, etc. I think the disputes should be fairly
minimal given the nature of their transactions, but they are sure to
come up, and it will take manpower to deal with them.

In the interests of their long term sustainability, I would like to see
them figure out what they need to deal with that, and charge it.
Probably somewhere around 1-3% from what I gather. It would be good to
let the donor choose whether to pay it on top, or give a set amount and
take it out of what the recipient gets.

I really like their design of figuring out their costs for getting
money in/out of Liberapay, and charging that when those transactions
occur, so people know where their money is going.

Tor


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[Lars Kruse]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Hi,


Am Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:26:29 -1000

Post by Tor, the Marqueteur
In the interests of their long term sustainability, I would like to see
them figure out what they need to deal with that, and charge it.
Probably somewhere around 1-3% from what I gather.
[..]

I really appreciate their current model: they ask for a voluntary amount of
long-term donation right after sign-up. The default value is zero.
I was impressed by this and committed a small weekly sum.

The statistics show that currently the users of liberapay honor this
open approach: the group [1], the founder [2] and the organization [3] of
liberapay collect a combined sum of 420 Euros per week. This is quite
impressive, considering that currently approximately 2200 Euros are distributed
per week [4] among all creators.
This funding ratio (currently almost 20%) will surely drop with a growing number
of users. In general the strategy looks very healthy and honest to me.

Cheers,
Lars


[1] https://liberapay.com/Liberapay/
[2] https://liberapay.com/Changaco/
[3] https://liberapay.com/LiberapayOrg/
[4] https://liberapay.com/about/stats
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[Hrvoje Lasic]

Post by Sam Huntress
Excessive power consumption by bitcoin miners is an indication that either
power is undervalued, bitcoin is overvalued, or both.

ask yourself simple question: If all cryptocurencies are gone tomorrow,
what would you miss?
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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
ask yourself simple question: If all cryptocurencies are gone tomorrow,
what would you miss?

crypto-currencies are literally the first time in human history where
contracts can be made and honoured between one or more parties in an
atomic fashion *WITHOUT* third party intervention or arbitration.

what would be missed? we would return to centralisation and abuse of
power at the hands of central banks, corrupt governments, expensive
and flawed judicial systems, overcharging and underpayment by
unethical insurance companies - the list goes on and on.

crypto-currencies are right now in their infancy.

l.

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[Hrvoje Lasic]

I completely disagree. You are mixing block chain and cryptocurrencies.

Also, I disagree on second point. We still have ` power at the hands of
central banks, corrupt governments, expensive and flawed judicial systems,
overcharging and underpayment by unethical insurance companies` *This is my
main point, there is no actual business processes implemented.* Now this is
all on speculation basis because it is `great technology`. Now is more
about greed then something that can be good for all of us.

Not too mention very inefficient process for exchange that spend way too
much energy, just the opposite what main idea was. Paying with cryptos
looks expensive right now. Then fraud practices, literally taking your
money etc, criminal practices etc. These are all valid problems.

I think we all agree that blockchain is really good technology but it
should not be about speculation. Also, I am a bit skeptical about how we
are to avoid third parties completely. Wherever there are humans there
could be disputes, frauds etc. Then again you need some kind of regulation.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
ask yourself simple question: If all cryptocurencies are gone tomorrow,
what would you miss?

crypto-currencies are literally the first time in human history where
contracts can be made and honoured between one or more parties in an
atomic fashion *WITHOUT* third party intervention or arbitration.
what would be missed? we would return to centralisation and abuse of
power at the hands of central banks, corrupt governments, expensive
and flawed judicial systems, overcharging and underpayment by
unethical insurance companies - the list goes on and on.
crypto-currencies are right now in their infancy.
l.
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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
I completely disagree. You are mixing block chain and cryptocurrencies.

not entirely

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Also, I disagree on second point. We still have ` power at the hands of
central banks, corrupt governments, expensive and flawed judicial systems,
overcharging and underpayment by unethical insurance companies` *This is my
main point, there is no actual business processes implemented.*

that's not entirely true... and bear in mind i did say, "it's early
days". ripple implements a business process, and cryptokitties
definitely implements a business process.

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Now this is
all on speculation basis because it is `great technology`. Now is more
about greed then something that can be good for all of us.

yes that's very true. like i said: "early days".

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Not too mention very inefficient process for exchange that spend way too
much energy, just the opposite what main idea was. Paying with cryptos
looks expensive right now.

paying with *bitcoin* looks expensive [but didn't only 2 years ago]

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Then fraud practices, literally taking your
money etc, criminal practices etc. These are all valid problems.

look at where the fraud primarily occurs: i think you'll find that
there's a direct correlation between *central choke-points* and the
fraud. oh. sorry, i forgot to add the other qualifier to
crypto-currencies / blockchain: *individuals* have to take *direct*
responsibility [where previously they could abdicate that
responsibility to a third party / central authority]. if they fail to
take responsibility, they get ripped off [viruses, lost wallet
passwords etc.].

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
I think we all agree that blockchain is really good technology but it
should not be about speculation.

because the carrot dangling free money in front of people gets them
interested like nothing else....

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Also, I am a bit skeptical about how we
are to avoid third parties completely.

by designing algorithms that take that into account. Zero Knowledge
Proofs, Pederson Committments, proper peer-to-peer distributed
protocols and much more. i reiterate: it's early days yet.

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Wherever there are humans there
could be disputes, frauds etc.

if there is fraud and disputes, then the design of the algorithm has
failed and/or the user has not taken proper responsibility. again: i
reiterate, it's early days yet.

Post by Hrvoje Lasic
Then again you need some kind of regulation.

if regulation is needed then the design of the algorithm has failed.
again, i reiterate: it's early days yet.

l.

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[Philip Hands]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
oh. sorry, i forgot to add the other qualifier to
crypto-currencies / blockchain: *individuals* have to take *direct*
responsibility [where previously they could abdicate that
responsibility to a third party / central authority]. if they fail to
take responsibility, they get ripped off [viruses, lost wallet
passwords etc.].

I'd like to announce a revolution in data privacy. Individuals can take
control of their data, and ensure that it doesn't leak into the hands of
people that they don't want to have it.

Just install PGP.

Thirty years later, where do the vast majority of people do their
crypto? In Google's data centres.

Even people that have been using crypto for 30 years almost never
actually encrypt their email. I still sign most of mine, but that's
really just nostalgia for the time when I still thought that we could
expect everyone to end up doing that sort of thing.

I'm pretty good at looking after my keys, and would not for instance
need to revoke them if you stole my laptop, so am in a tiny minority.

Would I be willing to make my current account balance contingent on my
not screing that up?

NO! and I definitely want a court to go to if my bank tells me they
lost track of my money.

I think you can be sure that the people will fight viciously to avoid
taking any sort of responsibility. See: Facebook & Cambridge Analytica.

Cheers, Phil.

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

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Post by Philip Hands
I'd like to announce a revolution in data privacy. Individuals can take
control of their data, and ensure that it doesn't leak into the hands of
people that they don't want to have it.
Just install PGP.

hurrah! :)

so let's think about that case for a minute... PGP/GPG were designed
for encrypting / signing static data. if that was all that was
involved, crypto-currencies would have been replaced by people using
PGP/GPG to sign static text files containing "money" or the digital
representation of the same.

the difference then is that extra step - the guarantees of an "atomic
transaction". so it's the combination of *both* factors: putting
responsibility into individuals' hands (so that banks cannot literally
empty your account if they so choose) *and* the atomic inviolate
contract / transaction guarantees.

Post by Philip Hands
I'm pretty good at looking after my keys, and would not for instance
need to revoke them if you stole my laptop, so am in a tiny minority.

yehyeh

Post by Philip Hands
Would I be willing to make my current account balance contingent on my
not screing that up?

... did you hear about the banks in ... i think it was portugal
italy, when they were going bankrupt they decided blithely to just...
take peoples' savings. one pensioner actually committed suicide as a
result.

they would almost have certainly done that with the blessing of the
courts / government. so going to court would have no effect.

Post by Philip Hands
I think you can be sure that the people will fight viciously to avoid
taking any sort of responsibility. See: Facebook & Cambridge Analytica.

i shouldn't laugh at that happening, but i can't help it.

l.

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[Philip Hands]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
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Post by Philip Hands
I'd like to announce a revolution in data privacy. Individuals can take
control of their data, and ensure that it doesn't leak into the hands of
people that they don't want to have it.
Just install PGP.

hurrah! :)
so let's think about that case for a minute... PGP/GPG were designed
for encrypting / signing static data. if that was all that was
involved, crypto-currencies would have been replaced by people using
PGP/GPG to sign static text files containing "money" or the digital
representation of the same.

You miss my point completely.

What I was saying was that we have the existing experiment of a
decentralised system, capable of providing a significant benefit to the
public, if only they were willing to take some responsibility.

We ran the experiment for decades, and the point at which it partially
succeeded was when the likes of whatsap provided people with a way of
avoiding responsibilty.

I therefore suspect that citing benefits of crypto-currencies that will
acrue, if only the public would take responsibilty for themselves, is
pointless.

Cheers, Phil.

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

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Post by Philip Hands

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
so let's think about that case for a minute... PGP/GPG were designed
for encrypting / signing static data. if that was all that was
involved, crypto-currencies would have been replaced by people using
PGP/GPG to sign static text files containing "money" or the digital
representation of the same.

You miss my point completely.

mmm ... more that i've not made mine clear (apoligies)

Post by Philip Hands
What I was saying was that we have the existing experiment of a
decentralised system, capable of providing a significant benefit to the
public, if only they were willing to take some responsibility.

yes, i agree, and understand your point completely. however look at
the steps that are required, that the users are required to take, to
achieve the same result. it's too much for the average person to cope
with, isn't it? 20+ years shows that it's too much...

... yet put pretty much the exact same crypto-primitives from OpenSSL
into a crypto-currency wallet, and suddenly they're interested...
because it's *convenient and easy*.

Post by Philip Hands
We ran the experiment for decades, and the point at which it partially
succeeded was when the likes of whatsap provided people with a way of
avoiding responsibilty.

there's another one... what's it called... telegram? that has become
extremely popular amongst libertarians because of the convenience.

l.

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[Robert Wilkinson]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---

Post by Philip Hands
We ran the experiment for decades, and the point at which it partially
succeeded was when the likes of whatsap provided people with a way of
avoiding responsibilty.

there's another one... what's it called... telegram? that has become
extremely popular amongst libertarians because of the convenience.
l.

I think that Telegram use suspicious crypto and I know that the
Russian government has been leaning on them to hand things over.

Maybe you were thinking of https://www.signal.org/ ?

Bob

[Hrvoje Lasic]

Post by Jean Flamelle
This is difficult to express so please bear patience. Able
manipulators of money do exploit the interest in cryptocurrency to
affect the prices thereof, purchase and sell cryptocurrency increasing
their stockpile of national and international currencies while
sustaining their supply of cryptocurrency. The practice of buying low
and selling high, is generally accepted, but I refute it. Not only
does no way of proving if they manipulated the price practical, but
buying low and selling high can only be possible if someone somewhere
tries to change the price of whatever their trade includes. This means
the price of bitcoin should be decided by netizens across internet
forums and some powerful actor is ensuring that can't happen.
As a store of economic influence, I fully agree and support
the decision to hold donated bitcoin. However to convert it by means
of trade into any other currency, while what is happening is
happening, I can't stomach this morally. Individuals who are getting
tricked into purchasing cryptocurrency at exactly the wrong moments
are losing all the have. This is not simply gambling with high-stakes,
there is a concerted effort to deceive people into purchasing bitcoin
and other currencies. If anyone sells cryptocurrency now, they very
likely risk funding these scams.
Please do not sell donated bitcoin or any other donated
cryptocurrency for the foresee-able future.
This is not a permanent problem, but one we can't know when
will be resolved.

I think this complete idea has gone very much into wrong direction and it
is not going to end well. Cryptos are worth billions but you cant buy
pizza. Blockchain is bullet proof technology that is taking notice of any
transaction so it is impossible to take money, but it is easy to hack
account where people actually hold money, most probably by bank owners them
self. Then they say `we are sorry`. But since all this is unregulated,
nobody is responsible. Also, the guys with most crypto-money are now most
probably calling for regulation so they hope that cryptos will be used for
transactions (not only speculating like now is the case) and will be able
to hold some of `values` they have in speculating cryptos. Meanwhile, there
are very powerful players who actually try to sell as much as possible and
in the same time keep hype so more suckers keep buying.

Meantime no or very few actual business are build on blockchain idea and I
know few that are trying but it is quite slow process for many reasons
(regulation, taxes, old business etc.)...

Post by Jean Flamelle
Thank you.
-J. L.
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