BITCOIN

Cus

How do you ensure transparency with bitcoin ownership? Does that mean I can identify how many bitcoin any company or person owns?  Do these addresses or wallets (sorry not sure) allow identification? Do you have to be registered somewhere?

User232002

Cus said:

How do you ensure transparency with bitcoin ownership? Does that mean I can identify how many bitcoin any company or person owns?  Do these addresses or wallets (sorry not sure) allow identification? Do you have to be registered somewhere?

The entire BTC blockchain, that has recorded every transaction since inception, is 360GB, so you could download it and use that - but its easier to use web based versions such as https://www.blockchain.com/explorer or https://etherscan.io/

You can follow any transaction or wallet on the blockchain that you want. Earlier this year, I raised a question to a team in a discord chat when they moved 700 ETH without telling their users - the open nature allows users to hold people to account. Coinbase holds a lot of users BTC. Their wallet addresses are known which is how we know that (1) they hold the BTC they claim to on behalf of users and (2) the numbers of BTC on such exchanges is going down - which means institutions are buying it and taking custody of it themselves.

Once you know someones wallet address, you can track that address and any coins from or to that address in perpetuity. This is why the blockchain is not a good place to hide illegal transactions despite what unaware people continue to claim. Many institutional addresses (such as Coinbase, Binance etc) are known given the sheer size of them. I would be in favour of regulation requiring large holders to publically disclose their addresses (they are all large public companies or, in rare cases, UHNW individuals) in filings but it doesnt matter too much because the market will likely take care of this anyway.

Notepad_Phil

darren232002 said:

Notepad_Phil said:

Sounds very similar to the gold standard, or do you see any critical difference between that discredited system and your idea?

1. A gold standard system is hard to audit. The federal reserve hasn't been audited for several decades I believe. BTC is an open and transparent Blockchain that anyone can audit with a few clicks in their browser.
2. Gold is a difficult asset for ordinary citizens to buy and store, resulting in inequality of accessibility. BTC can be self custodied in your head by remembering 12 words.
3. The emission and availability of Bitcoin is known in perpetuity. It is unknown for gold.
4. Its a misrepresentation to say that the gold standard was 'discredited.' There are multiple schools of thought in modern economics on the issue and there are plenty of educated people that believe the abolition of the gold standard was a mistake.

Not many Bitcoiners are in favour of the complete abolition of fiat currencies. Its a very vocal minority. However, citizens are entitled to an avenue to protect their wealth outside of their nations currency that protects them from rampant debasement. 

1) You can indeed audit BTC with a few clicks, assuming of course that you're running untainted software 
2) The gold standard did not necessitate that ordinary citizens bought gold itself so I'm unsure of your point. But regarding self-custody by remembering 12 words, I'm pretty sure that's not too difficult when you're in your prime, but anyone who has aged relatives will realise the almost impossibility of that being a plus when someone is in their advanced years.
3) So you know for a fact that in a 1000 years that Bitcoin will still be around and used (even as some direct descendant of Bitcoin). The ones and zeroes used by bitcoin can't be used to make pretty jewellery, so I'm fairly sure that if one remains in perpetuity then that one will be gold.
4) Yes there are educated people who believe the abolition of the gold standard was a mistake, but they are in a minority and outweighed by the numbers of educated people who would indeed say that it was indeed a discredited system.

Your idea of having the government paying for things by borrowing BTC would run through many of the same scenarios which caused the ditching of the gold standard. In the current covid situation I'd hope that any government running such a BTC scheme would have ditched it in double quick time. Any problems caused by inflation from Covid QE (and not from the inflation caused by the opening up of society when every company suddenly wants everything at once) is I would suggest minor to the unemployment and health issues that the restriction of borrowing would bring.

User232002

Notepad_Phil said:

1) You can indeed audit BTC with a few clicks, assuming of course that you're running untainted software 

This is either really dumb or really sarcastic and I'm not sure which.

Notepad_Phil said:

2) The gold standard did not necessitate that ordinary citizens bought gold itself so I'm unsure of your point. But regarding self-custody by remembering 12 words, I'm pretty sure that's not too difficult when you're in your prime, but anyone who has aged relatives will realise the almost impossibility of that being a plus when someone is in their advanced years.

In 1933, the US mandated a set price for gold and a maximum amount that citizens were allowed to possess. The fact they could do this is a weakness of the gold standard. Bitcoin can be self-custodied and thus is not this vulnerable.

The rest of your quoted point is a spectacularly bad argument.

Notepad_Phil said:

3) So you know for a fact that in a 1000 years that Bitcoin will still be around and used (even as some direct descendant of Bitcoin). The ones and zeroes used by bitcoin can't be used to make pretty jewellery, so I'm fairly sure that if one remains in perpetuity then that one will be gold.

This is a ridiculous strawman argument. No company or government has been around for 1000 years so by your analogy we should probably consider all stocks and bonds as worthless.

Nobody is buying Bitcoin or making any investment decision because of events they think may or may not happen in 1000 years.

Notepad_Phil said:

4) Yes there are educated people who believe the abolition of the gold standard was a mistake, but they are in a minority and outweighed by the numbers of educated people who would indeed say that it was indeed a discredited system.

I'm not a fan of the gold standard and I'm not advocating for its return, I just think its important to point out there are many academics who would point out that it did have positives. However, I don't believe the alternative of a fiat currency that enriches a select few at the expanse of many is a stable solution. If we have two bad options, the discussion shouldn't be between choosing A or B.

Notepad_Phil said:

Your idea of having the government paying for things by borrowing BTC would run through many of the same scenarios which caused the ditching of the gold standard.

Why should a government have to borrow money at all? Why can't governments just, y'know like regular people, live within their means? (Broadly speaking) 

But again, your argument is another strawman to me at least, as I'm not arguing that governments borrow or peg their currencies to Bitcoin. Its pretty obvious that no country should borrow money in a currency that they can not print.

Fiat and BTC can co-exist and I expect they will. If a country prints a load of money, their currency will devalue against Bitcoin. The net affect being that governments are incentivised to live within their means or their citizens are incentivised to put their wealth in to BTC rather than that countries fiat alternative.

HHarry

darren232002 said:

Notepad_Phil said:

3) So you know for a fact that in a 1000 years that Bitcoin will still be around and used (even as some direct descendant of Bitcoin). The ones and zeroes used by bitcoin can't be used to make pretty jewellery, so I'm fairly sure that if one remains in perpetuity then that one will be gold.

This is a ridiculous strawman argument. No company or government has been around for 1000 years so by your analogy we should probably consider all stocks and bonds as worthless.

Nobody is buying Bitcoin or making any investment decision because of events they think may or may not happen in 1000 years.

But the comparison wasn’t with companies or governments, it was with gold, which has been used as payment or a store of wealth for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Section62

darren232002 said:

Why should a government have to borrow money at all? Why can't governments just, y'know like regular people, live within their means? (Broadly speaking) 

Because 'regular people' elect governments to do stuff which costs money and that money isn't always on hand to be spent. Nor is putting up taxes always an option.

Governments that try to cut back on spending (and borrowing) tend to be pretty unpopular and short-lived... because the 'regular people' who elect them are quite happy for the services and infrastructure they want right now to be provided at someone else's expense (even if that's their great-grandkids problem).

This is a political problem - or more specifically a problem with who is allowed to vote - and it isn't going to be solved by Bitcoin.  The subject is interesting, but getting rather off-topic on a Bitcoin thread.

User232002

Section62 said:

Because 'regular people' elect governments to do stuff which costs money and that money isn't always on hand to be spent. Nor is putting up taxes always an option.

Just to avoid some silly semantics here, I'm not referring to cash flow issues when I talk about borrowing. I think its fine for a government to borrow money throughout a tax year to alleviate cash flow issues associated with receiving tax revenues in large chunks on specific dates.

However, consistent deficit spending (living beyond your means) can't be condoned. The bill comes due at some point and you can't put it off forever. This has to be a self evident truth surely - If you genuinely believe that borrowing can be done with impunity then why can't we just 'borrow' (because by borrow, we really mean print) a few trillion and make everyone a millionaire? 

Historically, deficit spending was conducted in the hope that higher future growth would allow you to pay off your accrued debt in the future. However, growth and productivity have been consistently trending down in the UK (and many western countries) for some time now and the debt has approached such a size that this argument doesn't seem to hold much water any more. How high does growth have to be and for how long just to pay off the current accrued debt? Does that seem realistic? The current best hope is technological innovation - but tech companies seem more interested in getting everyone to scroll through adverts for cheap tat  than providing the lower tranches of Maslow's needs in a more efficient manner.

Section62 said:

Governments that try to cut back on spending (and borrowing) tend to be pretty unpopular and short-lived... because the 'regular people' who elect them are quite happy for the services and infrastructure they want right now to be provided at someone else's expense (even if that's their great-grandkids problem).

I agree. I've posted exactly this in this thread before. The incentives of the current status quo are not aligned with the long term health of society and because of this a fiat system is doomed to failure.

Section62 said:

This is a political problem - or more specifically a problem with who is allowed to vote - and it isn't going to be solved by Bitcoin.  The subject is interesting, but getting rather off-topic on a Bitcoin thread.

I don't think this is off topic at all and its exactly what Bitcoiners refer to when they use the phrase 'fix the money, fix the world.'

You'll notice I talk about incentives a lot; Bitcoiners (and crypto particpants more widely) tend to believe in creating systems of incentives that encourage the particpation that you want/need/aspire to. 

Notepad_Phil

darren232002 said:

....
I'm not a fan of the gold standard and I'm not advocating for its return

Apologies, it was spnego on the previous page who was advocating "If we were in a bitcoin based system, a bitcoin standard if you will then governments wouldn't be able to magic up money out of thin air to pay for things they would have to borrow real bitcoin."  and it was in terms of that post that I was replying.

As to the rest of your post:

I was heavily involved in software engineering so my mention of tainted software was more of a throwaway warning. Code can always potentially be tampered with - it might be very difficult but it's not impossible, and no I'm not talking about 51% attacks or other such unsubtle methods.

Self-custody is great until it's not - be it forgetting or losing the slip of paper with your 12 words on, or however else you've lost access to it. I wonder what the percentage of bitcoins in lost wallets is at now?

It was you who was talking of bitcoin perpetuity, so I'm not sure how you can complain about my mention of 1000 years.

If BTC gives you the means by which you feel safe against the ravages of QE then that's great. However it doesn't give me that feeling so I'll continue to keep clear and continue investing elsewhere.

Zola.

Much like separating religion from government policies .. Cutting off the ability to print endless amounts of money to then invade another country would be another benefit in moving to a Bitcoin standard.

If the government had to raise that money honestly they'd think twice about the true cost and consequences of war 

Aegis

Zola. said:

Much like separating religion from government policies .. Cutting off the ability to print endless amounts of money to then invade another country would be another benefit in moving to a Bitcoin standard.

If the government had to raise that money honestly they'd think twice about the true cost and consequences of war 

History would very much suggest that this wouldn't be a barrier at all.  In fact, the vast majority of wars we've been involved in were when we had an asset-backed currency.  There are plenty of discussions to be had around currency and asset-backing vs fiat, but the idea that an asset-backed currency would reduce wars is just not even close to true.