[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox and Bitcoin (and the petition)
I'm just wondering if anybody has done any analysis of the suitability of Bitcoin for FreedomBox? For example, Bitcoin provides a certain amount of anonymity, but not complete privacy. In other words, anybody can create an anonymous Bitcoin account, but anyone else can trace the movements of Bitcoins through that account. Does this lack of 100% privacy make it awkward for FreedomBox to include Bitcoin? What Bitcoin does excel at is providing an alternative money supply. In previous eras of bank failure (e.g. over 9,000 US banks went pop in the 1930s) people reverted to gold and silver. Nowadays, so many of us are involved in businesses that rely on ecommerce and distant clients paying for virtual/intangible services. Most trade relies on electronic payment by bank transfer or credit card, not a physical meeting with cash. Iceland's banks went pop and it's been speculated that Greek banks will go the same way when they leave the Euro. It seems like fertile ground for a solution like Bitcoin deployed on a convenient platform like FreedomBox. There is also the diversity of businesses supported by Bitcoin - it can be very difficult for a business to start accepting credit card payments, banks often insist that the business already has capital or real estate. But any start-up business can accept Bitcoin payment without such discrimination. Back to the original question though: do these potential social benefits outweigh the lack of 100% privacy in Bitcoin? Is there a `privacy threshold' for something to be included in FreedomBox? Also, somebody has started a petition to ask the ISO to provide a three-letter symbol for Bitcoin (BTC is not officially recognised yet): http://www.change.org/petitions/six-interbank-clearing-include-a-symbol-for-... _______________________________________________ Freedombox-discuss mailing list Freedombox-discuss@lists.alioth.debian.org http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
participants (1)
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Daniel Pocock