bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

Sampo Syreeni decoy at iki.fi
Wed Nov 27 02:52:33 PST 2013


On 2013-11-27, Guido Witmond wrote:

> Bitcoin cannot stop corruption but it may make it harder to hide.

How, precisely, compared to what we have now?

> My hope is that Bitcoin is transparent enough for action groups to 
> investigate and bring the dirty laundry into the sunlight.

My and most cryptoanarchist's hope, I believe, is the precise opposite. 
At least I think BitCoin is woefully inadequate in the anonymity 
department, and should be made better so that no action group, 
government, anybody at all, can trace godfuck about what happened with 
it. Most certainly that "dirt" is just the killer app for any and all 
crypto currency. Not a bug, but the primary feature of the arrangement.

> My worry is that by using intermediate payment providers, this 
> transparency gets lost due to 'banking sectrets'.

I on the other hand worry about how much transparency such intermediates 
still afford. Because there should be none at all. Full opaqueness is 
what we ultimately strive for. Or why do you think anybody would want to 
go with crypto in the first place?

> My point was that money == power and power needs to be checked. Not by 
> those in power.

Good money is *individual*, *distributed* power. Not power in the sense 
of a central despot. It's power in the sense of power to the people, 
individual and several.
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy at iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front
+358-40-3255353, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2



More information about the cypherpunks mailing list