

Theory

First off, I do understand why you would think there is. Honestly. You're used to a certain system, you grew up in a certain system, you expect the trappings of that system anywhere you go.

Ever gone camping, fishing, hiking, and turned your eyes looking for the faucet or power outlet or wifi modem lights or whatever ? Sure, rationally you know and understand that you're in the bellybutton of fucking nowhere, and there never was and never existed such a thing as you're looking for within a hundred miles. Nevertheless, at some level, your brain expects that faucet. What do you mean nobody has ever laid a hundred miles of pipe/cable/bacon trails all the way to right over here ?! Impossibru!

You're in Alaska, they never had tornadoes there, they never could have tornadoes there. Nevertheless, you grew up in Nebraska, and even today your eye sort-of expects that cloud over there to turn into a sucker any moment now. You're in a one man capsule flying through space on a one man mission that will end with your life, as no landing or returning to Earth was ever planned ? That's fine, but if you were violently and unpleasantly raped in your youth you're still thinking you perceive someone coming at you right past that corner. What corner, in a one man capsule ? That one!!!

It's just how the human mind works.

Second off, fungibility is the most important property of any medium of exchange. As a working medium of exchange is the most important guarantee against stupidity, and as socialism is nothing but stupidity, obviously it then follows that the chief business of socialism would be to attack fungibility.

Which is exactly what happens in the world today. The AML bullshit is quite plainly, and quite tiredly, an attempt to render the currency unfungible. Sure you have five units of account, and sure Iran also does, but you may and Iran may not use its five units of account to buy a cup of coffee. Pecunia non olet ? No such thing in socialism. The ability to render the currency useless is chief on the list of what socialism needs to acquire in order to maintain itself, because otherwise it will presently get discounted out of existence. Once this is ensured, the bezzle becomes possible, and it no longer really matters what numbers you print on the website that you've substituted for actual reality.

Thirdly, the chief value of Bitcoin, and the reason it is so disruptive, and the reason why it will render socialism impracticable in the world, is strictly that it is absolutely and indomitably fungible. Any satoshi is exactly equal, exactly interchangeable and exactly identical to any other satoshi, and nobody can do one damned thing to "fix" this.

Sure, Bitcoin is important as a store of value. Sure, Bitcoin is important because you really like holograms and hollowed out base metal rounds. Sure, Bitcoin is important because you've put up a donation address on your POV nudies blog. The most importat quality of Bitcoin however is none of these. The most important quality of Bitcoin is its absolute, indomitable fungibility. This is why it's a better tool than gold, and this is why it did what gold did not and eventually could not : gold is, indeed, very fungible. But it is not absolutely fungible, and the difference between an efficient engine and an absolutely efficient engine will become apparent to you just as soon as you try and build the latter.

Fourthly, I obviously understand why agents of the US Government would try to convince the general public of the contrary. Really, I do. Nevertheless, it won't stick. Retarded pieces like what Matonis is retweeting of late (shame on you man, seriously) are powerless in this matter, just as Max Keiser was powerless in the matter of exchange rates last Spring. Why is this, you may ask ?

Because I say so, that's why.



Practice

Firstly, as discussed here two years ago, nobody holds any title to any Bitcoin. This means that nobody can claim superiority of title, and as such nobody can legitimately "confiscate" any Bitcoin. This doesn't mean that people can't take others' Bitcoins, nor does it mean that people can't claim such behaviour is "legitimate". Scammers do all the time, for all sorts of entertaining reasons and considerations. Nevertheless, a claim does not a title make.

Secondly, any relationship, of any kind, between any two distinct Bitcoin addresses is logically unsound.

Re-read that once or twice so it may sink in. By observing Bitcoin moving from address A to address B you can not make any sort of statement whatsoever about the owner of A in relation to the owner of B. Specifically :

A and B may be addresses owned by the same person, in the same wallet. If their RNG is any good, you will never know. If their RNG is utter shit you may at most suspect it, but then again you may suspect anything you wish at any time whatsoever. Some people suspect Obama is a Nigerian scammer who used a fake passport to "verify his identity" right into the most valuable account in the US. Some other people suspect reptilians are secretly running the world in the shape of dressing up like goutish old Jews and hanging around boring 1970s parties in Florida. More power to them.

A and B may be part of different wallets, owned by the same person. You'll never know. Sure, you may suspect. Suspect away, there are five million botnets all over the Internet and they are sort-of looking for more stuff to do on a regular basis.

Either A or B may be undisclosed addresses of a merchant. Such as BitBet, or MPEx, or anyone else. Sure, you may ask them, and if you ask nicely maybe they'll tell you . But maybe you can't or won't ask nicely, or maybe you don't even know what nicely even means in their culture. The Internet is global after all.

. But maybe you can't or won't ask nicely, or maybe you don't even know what nicely even means in their culture. The Internet is global after all. Either A or B may be the addresses of an unrelated third party. Like you know, back when I was being DDoS'd by "someone" and then I pointed the DNS to the White House ? Yeah, exactly like that. If "we know where you live", what's a Bitcoin address ?

There are no technical means to circumvent these problems.

Sure, you may maybe convince a kangaroo court to do what your Politburo wants done, and maybe that's all you want. But derp, if you need technical measures to convince kangaroo courts to do what they exist to do in the first place you're uniquely inefficient.

Uniquely inefficient systems do not prevail in nature.

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