Interview with Andreas Antonopoulos, bitcoin entrepreneur

[jandrese]

Ooh, another Bitcoin entrepreneur. I wonder how long until he is in jail? For some reason a lot of his peers seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping everything above board.

[phidauex]

True, I found it somewhat interesting that the post calls out HSBC for drug money laundering, given the recent arrests and allegations of the exact same behavior by bitcoin entrepreneurs. For all the differences, money is still money, and people are still people.

Appreciate the detailed coverage (and comments from people who are apparently pretty versed on the subject).

[jandrese]

Worse, Bitcoin is money without normal oversight. It’s really attractive to people for whom oversight is a problem.

[lhl]

While the media reports tend to go breathless about how Bitcoin is untraceable or anonymous, it’s actually much more traceable than cash - the entire ledger is public and we’ve seen that government agencies have no problems doing large scale network analysis / unwinding transaction histories to assist in criminal investigations. Both the Silk Road bust and the recent BitInstant indictments help show this (for the latter, it’s unclear to me whether there was willful intent or just negligence to recent FinCEN guidance, but I haven’t been following that too closely).

If anything, Bitcoin is actually threatened by the lack of protocol-level mixing/anonymization as it has implications not just on privacy, but on the basic fungibility of the currency (allowing specific Bitcoins to be tracked on a transactional level introduces significant counterparty risk if third parties are introduced for validating transactions).

[tradertimm]

@hallam

Yes, naughty Cory, telling us bad news that we might not want to hear. Skepticism is only appreciated when it is directed at fiat money!

I find it curious you thought the Stross smear piece was merely “skepticism”. But again, you let your agenda fly proudly by announcing in your mocking tone how Cory is “naughty”. Wonderful, another random internet participant with the manners of a Daily Mail editor.

I appreciate skeptics, they allow the rest of us who actually understand how deeply flawed the existing financial system is an opportunity to reap the benefits of foresight. While the skeptics end up flopping around in the mess of QE, the upcoming negative-returns of MyRA, and the next alphabet-soup “Economic Relief” plan, we’ll be sitting back and having a good chuckle at those that couldn’t see the forest for the trees. (And yes, those effects will be global, so please don’t pull the - “America Isn’t Everything” trope out of your hat.)

@hallam

I am not the only person in the crypto protocol design community who is skeptical of BitCoin. Ben Laurie wrote an extensive technical takedown a while back. I earn my living from designing crypto protocols, I don’t recognize your name. You have the right to an opinion but you don’t have standing to accuse other people of not knowing theirs.

Interesting - a combination of “appeal to authority” AND a thinly veiled personal attack on my professional credentials. How pedestrian. I’m sure there are legions of crypto protocol designers, economists, PhD’s, Congressmen, Presidents, Chancellor of the Exchequer’s, Royal Figureheads and smug Information Technology workers that are skeptical of Bitcoin.

That’s fine with me, because unlike the “ponzi” you keep whipping around like an umbrella in a hurricane, Bitcoin doesn’t need your participation. In fact, I’d feel better if the only ones who used Bitcoin were the same people who deeply understand its whitepaper and underlying mechanics, including those who have experience in finance. They are slowly outnumbering those that don’t.

So please, don’t purchase, hold, or even contemplate acquiring Bitcoin. I know it will rattle your “ponzi” stance - after all, isn’t the FIRST thing someone does is beg and plead for someone to participate? It is a bit sad as well, because you have no idea what the implications are.

I love how you try to wrap your mind around the “clearing price” of Bitcoin and how it relates to mining “sunk costs”. Many before you have tried the same correlation, and it doesn’t apply. You of course ignore the divisibility of Bitcoin as well. If you had done proper research, you’d know what the smallest unit is, and how many of them will be available when the final Bitcoin is mined.

And then you pull out the old chestnut of all state-dependent people everywhere - “If I can’t use it to pay taxes, then…” yes, the old “Fiat is force” argument. How completely inured you are, rising to the defense of a deeply flawed system, waving your flag and proudly exclaiming your willingness to be separated from your earnings - regardless of its use or utility.

Please, don’t let me interrupt your intensely patriotic moment, you seem to derive a lot of pleasure from conforming to the government mandated modes of behavior. How proud your comrades must be.

[hallam]

@tradertimm

Interesting - a combination of “appeal to authority” AND a thinly veiled personal attack on my professional credentials. How pedestrian. I’m sure there are legions of crypto protocol designers, economists, PhD’s, Congressmen, Presidents, Chancellor of the Exchequer’s, Royal Figureheads and smug Information Technology workers that are skeptical of Bitcoin.

That’s fine with me, because unlike the “ponzi” you keep whipping around like an umbrella in a hurricane, Bitcoin doesn’t need your participation. In fact, I’d feel better if the only ones who used Bitcoin were the same people who deeply understand its whitepaper and underlying mechanics, including those who have experience in finance. They are slowly outnumbering those that don’t.

You have repeatedly attacked critics of Bitcoin as being ‘ignorant’ of how it works. When someone is accusing others of ignorance and thus attacking their credentials, I think asking them to establish their standing in the field to be justified.

I am not making an appeal to authority, on the topic of Internet payment systems I am an authority. I held the payments portfolio at the World Wide Web consortium when the Internet payment system was designed. I was Principal Scientist at VeriSign for over a decade.

Note that I did not say ‘bitcoin sux because I say so’. What I said was that you have no standing to attack your critics as being ‘ignorant’. I also pointed out that bitcoin is actually just the latest in a long, long line of Internet currencies and that anyone predicting its future should be aware of the ways its many predecessors failed.

If you don’t want your credentials to be challenged, don’t challenge the credentials of others and don’t accuse them of ignorance or being otherwise unqualified to have an opinion.

[tradertimm]

@hallam

You have repeatedly attacked critics of Bitcoin as being ‘ignorant’ of how it works. When someone is accusing others of ignorance and thus attacking their credentials, I think asking them to establish their standing in the field to be justified.

Actually, if you had been paying attention, I said that I love skeptics - regardless of what their “credentials” are. Bitcoin is a very useful litmus test that separates those inured to certain types of thinking, to those who can deconstruct FUD and its associated appeals of “But it’s always been done this way.”

@hallam

I am not making an appeal to authority, on the topic of Internet payment systems I am an authority. I held the payments portfolio at the World Wide Web consortium when the Internet payment system was designed. I was Principal Scientist at VeriSign for over a decade.

Excellent, I’m very impressed. What isn’t impressive is your lack of vision and objective thinking on the subject of a global payment system that is decentralized and doesn’t rely on a corporate figurehead to tie everything together.

And perhaps that is the real problem here, you’ve been steeping in corporate culture for so long that design-by-committee and nodding along at meetings has dulled the more inquisitive and creative parts of your faculties needed to appreciate something as game-changing as Bitcoin.

To wit:

@hallam

Note that I did not say ‘bitcoin sux because I say so’. What I said was that you have no standing to attack your critics as being ‘ignorant’. I also pointed out that bitcoin is actually just the latest in a long, long line of Internet currencies and that anyone predicting its future should be aware of the ways its many predecessors failed.

Fine, you’re the smartest of the smartypants smart people - yet you don’t understand Bitcoin. Its okay, plenty of people thought the automobile was a fad, along with electric current generation, lightbulbs, airplanes, and naturally - computers and the internet. Just because you have degrees on the wall and a long list of lauded accomplishments doesn’t mean you can’t make a mistake. And believe me, you are making a rather large one here.

Don’t even get me started on the falsehood of saying “Because other internet currencies have failed, therefore THIS one must also fail…” – Please. It’s like you aren’t even trying.

Finally:

@hallam

If you don’t want your credentials to be challenged, don’t challenge the credentials of others and don’t accuse them of ignorance or being otherwise unqualified to have an opinion.

Your opinion is noted, your credentials polished and put upon a pedestal. Feeling better? Because it doesn’t change the unalterable fact that smart people can be completely and utterly wrong about things.

Sorry hallam, but you are wrong about Bitcoin.

Don’t worry, it’ll end up benefiting you too, even if you don’t think it will.

-------- Since Boing Boing’s Silly forum software limits replies - here’s the rest, hallam ---------

You asked how Bitcoin is different from other e-currency proposals. You are a crypto expert, are you not? I didn’t go into detail because I thought that would be insulting your intelligence, but now you tacitly admit you haven’t even bothered to read up on it.

If you had, you’d realize that a decentralized network, much like the decentralized Bittorrent protocol, is impossible to “shut down” or “seize”. The very fact you think that a “bunch of money” and the government could do so just points to your inured relationship with governance.

As for Mt. Gox, every exchange is a temporary “bridge” converting bad paper token money into good money, and therefore they are an easy target. In this case, Gox’s woes are from a bad software implementation of their custom wallet, which has been screwing up on them and not transferring funds properly.

The failed QA of one exchange hardly means Bitcoin itself is the issue, and there are other exchanges that are functioning perfectly well. Most people who have been involved in Bitcoin are very aware of their specific problems, which is why Gox is only fourth in overall cleared volume compared to other exchanges.

But naturally you’d pounce on the opportunity to infer that the entire Bitcoin network is flawed because one single exchange is having problems. That would be like declaring the internet is broken if a single website gets hacked.

I know you keep flaunting that “expert” label, but honestly it seems more that you’re hiding behind some credential to prevent yourself from logically approaching the problem. I’d shudder to have you on a team troubleshooting a real problem, you’d probably make some curt announcement that it “has to be this” and then sit in the background playing angry birds on your iPhone.

[hallam]

@tradertimm

And perhaps that is the real problem here, you’ve been steeping in corporate culture for so long that design-by-committee and nodding along at meetings has dulled the more inquisitive and creative parts of your faculties needed to appreciate something as game-changing as Bitcoin.

Don’t even get me started on the falsehood of saying “Because other internet currencies have failed, therefore THIS one must also fail…” – Please. It’s like you aren’t even trying.

What I asked is how BitCoin is different from the systems that have failed ahead of it. So far you haven’t come up with an answer. Its all appeal to novelty. You can hurl out insults but you can’t answer my questions.

The fact that people will put money into some Internet thing does not prove that it isn’t the stupidest thing ever. Once upon a time there was Pets.com which burned through billions of shareholder money without ever coming close to turning a profit because shipping costs double the price of dog food and kitty litter which is most of what people buy in the stores.

BitCoin addresses an ideological fetish that less than 0.01% of the population understand or care about. At best the audience for BitCoin is the set of true believers in Ayn Rand.

If BitCoin really did threaten to threaten the position of world governments it would have been shut down already. It is not as if the authorities don’t know about it or lack tools to shut it down. They successfully shut down Liberty Reserve and GoldAge and e-Gold. If the FBI lacks the legal tools to effect a shutdown they will simply ask Congress for more.

[hallam]

Right now Mt Gox is refusing to permit withdrawals. Which is rather a problem. The bitcoin price is sliding over at the other exchanges.

The problem with decentralized systems is that there are strong network forces that tend to tip the system into consolidation. Mt Gox isn’t necessary for BitCoin technically but if Gox falls, confidence in BitCoin will fall with it.

[jandrese]

MtGox ran out of money?

[hallam]

@jandrese

MtGox ran out of money?

Or maybe they ran away with the money.

This libertopia thing might end up causing some people to rediscover the advantages of having governments and regulations. Stopping people ripping you off for example.

Like those people who made sure that the SEC could not police Wall street then complained about losing all their money in Madoff’s Ponzi scam.