<nettime> Fwd: Stephen Foley: Bitcoin needs to learn from past e-currency

[Douglas La Rocca <douglarocca@gmail.com>]

> The devil is in the subordinate clause starting with "while" that hints at
> the collateral damage of the utopia you sketch. The question is whether
> transparency is a value per se. (I would argue: no, it's only a tool for
> achieving other goals such as ethical conduct and social responsibility.)
> Taken as a value per se, with no prisoners taken, it easily amounts to a
> totalitarian nightmare.


This isn't a problem at all. There are several so-called "tumblers" that
can provably obscure (anonymize) transactions.

The Silk Road used one before it was shut down.

As far as the so-called "ordinary user" who can't be bothered to use a
tumbler in practice, there are other crypto-currencies have chosen to build
a tumbler into the protocol. In any case, the current ordinary practice of
using bitcoins by nature encourages the use of many distinct addresses and
wallets. I cannot count how many addresses I have used once and forgotten
about. (There are enough addresses possible that the likelihood of
generating the same one is effectively zero, and they will never run out.)

There is a significant difference between Bitcoin and e-cash. Bitcoin is a
currency in its own right, as well as a NEW kind of money-substance.

(For the fullest exposition of the nature of money, the difference between
symbol- or token-money and money-substance, and so on, see Marx's
dialectical Hegelian reading in the *Grundrisse* and elsewhere.)

The FT article displays the typical resent of the investor who missed a
good chance. It is weak tea and can be easily disproved in all details.

-dl


On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 6:45 PM, Florian Cramer <flrncrmr@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 9:02 AM, Antti J?rvinen <costello@katiska.org>
> wrote:
>
> > While I understand that individual humans need to enjoy greater
> > privacy than commercial or government entities (that, to my opinion,
> > should not expect any privacy regarding their monetary- or other
> > issues) this thing that everybody has copy of everybodys wallet
> > relieves big and small companies and any other money-handling
> > organizations, including the (now almost obsolete) banks, from
> > producing yearly financial statements. Talk about transparency, man.
>
>
> The devil is in the subordinate clause starting with "while" that hints at
> the collateral damage of the utopia you sketch. The question is whether
> transparency is a value per se. (I would argue: no, it's only a tool for
> achieving other goals such as ethical conduct and social responsibility.)
> Taken as a value per se, with no prisoners taken, it easily amounts to a
> totalitarian nightmare.
 <...>

-- 
Douglas La Rocca



-- 
Douglas La Rocca


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