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[Cthulhu]

Yes or no to what?

You could probably make an argument it was counterfeiting, but it's technically not.

[Jimmy]

People keep asking why anyone would need anonymous online currency if you weren't engaged in illegal activity. I ask why you shouldn't have the choice to have the same anonymity online as in real life. It's the same argument that people make for internet monitoring laws. If you have nothing to hide then why shouldn't the government be able to monitor your internet activity? Obviously if you don't want someone else reading your email it's because you're up to something shady.

Sadly most people are willing to trade their civil liberties for a sense of security.

[Cthulhu]

Well for one, BitCoin isn't all that anonymous.  If you really try you can maintain anonymity but you can do that with regular money if you really try too.

I'm not entirely sure what civil liberties are being infringed because my financial transactions are being monitored.  If a camera watches you buy your lingerie, you just lost your IRL cash anonymity too. 

And again, despite all this talk about civil liberties and people needing to be anonymous, virtually no legitimate businesses have considered that a big enough deal to adopt BitCoin.  You could probably argue that, considering this anonymous money has pretty much no legitimate uses at the moment (Unless you consider speculating legitimate) and has become basically the official currency of the deep web black market, and is used for buying things like CP, weapons, and fucking people, that maybe anonymous money is more trouble than it's worth.

[Helgoland]

Alright then, let's start the anonymous Bay12 ducat!

[misko27]

Alright then, let's start the anonymous Bay12 ducat!

And all of them mut have pictures of me on the back. "in Misko we trust".
 
Or the Toady One.

[MrWiggles]

People keep asking why anyone would need anonymous online currency if you weren't engaged in illegal activity. I ask why you shouldn't have the choice to have the same anonymity online as in real life. It's the same argument that people make for internet monitoring laws. If you have nothing to hide then why shouldn't the government be able to monitor your internet activity? Obviously if you don't want someone else reading your email it's because you're up to something shady.

Sadly most people are willing to trade their civil liberties for a sense of security.

Though the next question should be asked, if there no correlation between anonymity, and black market activity, then why on the onion network, it seems to be especially easy to find black market goods and services, with most of those sites accepting bitcoins. 

[Jimmy]

Well for one, BitCoin isn't all that anonymous.  If you really try you can maintain anonymity but you can do that with regular money if you really try too.

I'm not entirely sure what civil liberties are being infringed because my financial transactions are being monitored.  If a camera watches you buy your lingerie, you just lost your IRL cash anonymity too. 

And again, despite all this talk about civil liberties and people needing to be anonymous, virtually no legitimate businesses have considered that a big enough deal to adopt BitCoin.  You could probably argue that, considering this anonymous money has pretty much no legitimate uses at the moment (Unless you consider speculating legitimate) and has become basically the official currency of the deep web black market, and is used for buying things like CP, weapons, and fucking people, that maybe anonymous money is more trouble than it's worth.

If a camera watches you buy lingerie it's because someone was looking for you there at that time. On the other hand, a credit card transaction can be traced back to that shop months later without the person knowing you went there in the first place.

The civil liberties this relate to are privacy and anonymity. Yes, these are an official civil liberty.

Civil Liberties
Privacy

Financial privacy is part of this. Previously we had a choice of paying with a non-traceable cash currency or using a traceable financial institution's money transfer system. Prior to the widespread use of EFTPOS there were cheques and manual credit card transactions to accomplish this.

Your financial history can be used to cause discrimination, personal embarrassment, or damage to your professional reputation. Where and how you spend money reveals your preferences, places you have visited, your contacts, products (such as medications) you use, your activities and habits etc. If you wanted any of this information concealed, you could pay with cash and avoid ever leaving a permanent record with your name attached to it. Currently no such system exists online.

Bitcoin uses wallets that show a record of purchases attached to that wallet, but the wallet doesn't need to be linked to the person using it. This is where the system offers more anonymity than other products like Visa gift cards, which all must be registered with a person' identity in order to be used.

Though the next question should be asked, if there no correlation between anonymity, and black market activity, then why on the onion network, it seems to be especially easy to find black market goods and services, with most of those sites accepting bitcoins. 

The same exists for cash. How many drug deals do you think are paid for with a credit card? Does this mean that cash is evil? Or since most child pornography is distributed online does this mean the internet is only used for evil purposes? Only the application it's used for makes the transaction illegal, not the medium used to accomplish it.

[Cthulhu]

The problem is, once more, not that bitcoin is used for illegal transfers, but currently that's almost all it is and can be used for, because only illegal businesses consider the anonymity worth using a commodity that can shift by whole dollar amounts overnight as the Russian mafia washes their illicit profits in it.

Here's the problem though.  If this bad guy trying to get dirt on you is dedicated enough that regular anonymity methods associated with normal online purchases isn't enough, he's probably dedicated enough to find shit out through bitcoin too. 

I'll say it one last time.  People keep saying this is important for preserving our civil liberties, and yet this anonymity is not enough to give bitcoin any kind of white market penetration (But it's plenty .  People apparently don't consider anonymity a good enough bonus to deal in them yet.  If the BitCoin gets enough market penetration and stabilizes so it starts being used as an actual currency instead of a temporary proxy for money, this argument might have a leg to stand on.  That's a very big if though.  Like I said, somewhere to the tune of 90% of all currently mined bitcoins have never changed hands.  I think it's all but a given that the ground floor guys are going to treat this like a pyramid scheme and detonate the market for profit at some point in the future.

[Nulzilcho]

Like I said, somewhere to the tune of 90% of all currently mined bitcoins have never changed hands.  I think it's all but a given that the ground floor guys are going to treat this like a pyramid scheme and detonate the market for profit at some point in the future.

Given the noted liquidity issues bitcoins have wouldn't that likely just result in

Spoiler: this? (click to show/hide)

 Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!  Move it, chowderhead!

[Pnx]

Quite possibly. Although I suspect the people who own that large quantity of untraded bitcoins are a bit disappointed by the way things have been going, it's not really a very lucrative bubble to burst right now for them.

I think I'm expecting this to go one of two ways.

1. The market gains enough legitimacy and strength that a few select people at the top of the pyramid to decide it's time to start cashing out before things start to falter. They start selling, the market dips, they make a tidy profit. A bunch of people will be really annoyed that they didn't get to cash out with them, and there will probably be people who thought they were "in on it", and were going to be told when everyone was cashing out, but they weren't.

2. Eventually one of the people who owns a significant stock of bitcoins decides to cash out on his/her own, possibly just to beat out the rest and make a profit now, but quite probably because they were just getting tired of it all not really going anywhere. Expect the people that were expecting to be able to do this themselves to be very annoyed.

At this point this is when I'd expect the Russian mob or something to step in and start propping up the market, it's no guarantee but they might decide this stuff is too lucrative to let fall apart.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

Pray, who might be this "russian mob"?

[Reelya]

They have pitchforks. And are convinced the local count is a vampire.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

Mind you, that was exactly what I thought. I was asking because I couldnt visualize them coming home to boot their linux box and buy a load of bitcoins to invest in their hacking activities (you know, buying new golf clubs)

[Reelya]

In reality, the are a real thing. The number of scam websites with .ru domains is quite large. Quite a few of the Russian mafia originated from Ex-Soviet KGB. idk if they make up the majority of members, but there's definitely a leak over from the old intelligence services to organized crime.

Don't forget that the Soviets had an absolutely excellent education system. It's only collapsed since the "free market" took over. Ex-internal intelligence guys in Russia have a fine grasp of technology.

Soviet Russia had a quite extreme level of indutrialization and technical education, it was only Western propaganda that they're all backwards tractor-drivers with muscly fat women build like brick outhouses (Russian women are hotter and a lot thinner than American girls), and literacy beats USA.

Anyway, take a look at the stats of USA and Russia before writing off Russians as "backwards peasants". That's nothing but propaganda.

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Russia/United-States/Education

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

And they have the kind of organization and cautiouness western hackers sometime lack... As well as old friends to protect them in case something go wrong.
so they could be interested in investing in bitcoins? It's not that hard to anonymize a wallet :
Tor contacted instawallet, bitcoinfog, another instawallet then your good to go, send it to mt gox or intersango.