That's a really twisted way of saying that TPTB sanction one type of protest, but not another. It's very clear to everyone now that they only support the global agenda and "the message".

New rules come into effect on May 1. 

There's something more going on than that cAPSLOCK, no?

We are not just going to throw up our hands and do whatever the scared and increasingly needing to be compliant exchanges want, right?

Wouldn't part of the goal be to get all or most of the private transactions going through hygiene or mixing services, and then the exchanges have to choose whether they are going to be in the bitcoin business or not.

Of course, there needs to be options so that bitcoin HODLers still have ways to use their coins whether through exchanges, direct interactions or other ways of liquidating (or getting coins) products/services.


What we going to do?  just throw up our hands and give up?  These kinds of tools are likely to continue to be developed.. and hopefully become increasingly more user-friendly.



That's the spirit!!!!!!!!!   Think more positively.  You fuck.


Can't disagree with you here.


Potentially part of the problem  that you are having is to attempt to answer for all people, and for sure, bitcoin remains a plane in the air that continues to be worked on while in flight.. and there are going to be people at all kinds of variations of levels, skills, abilities and desires... so for sure, some people can handle the implementation of more complicated tools, but others need the various tools handed to them on a silver platter (I know I am mixing all kinds of metaphores).  Part of my point remains that all of us know that we are continuing in quite early days and the Canadian situation (and even some of the reactions/seeming plans of other govts) has highlighted various bitcoin weaknesses... and difficult for sure to get into attempts to directly attack status quo institutions at this time.

We can see that these are early days.. and sometimes if we might be engaging in transactions with others, we might even get worried if we might be receiving coins that either had been blacklisted or happen to be 5 hops down the chain.. and for sure, we have likely gotten dollars in those kinds of ways, but we have not even known about that.

I am not going to presume that everything is going to play out into easy-peasy transition into bitcoin dominance and fungibility - but at the same time, we cannot be throwing up our hands, either.  Of course, some of the more OG folks and even the more technically knowledgeable can help us to get through some of these times by presenting some of the ideas and dilemmas.. and for sure, you are one of those folks.. and for sure, the Canadian issue had helped to highlight some of the thorny issues that both currently exist and highlighted some of the difficult ways forward too... not all doom and gloom for sure because bitcoin surely has tools..that might need to both become more user-friendly but also better if they are more wide-spread in their adoption/usage too.....

What I'm trying to wargame out in my mind, is if there is any market for selling "dirty" coins cheaper, to liquidity providers who DGAF about taint, and just throw all that tainted coin into Lightning, and watch the WEF and TPTB have steam and sparks coming out of their ear-holes because tainted coins they have tried to "outlaw" are actually being put to good use...

/brainfart

Well... This is a very interesting question, I think.  And actually somewhat easier to answer than it looks.

Who have you opened channels with, and what condition were those channels in when you closed them?

You and I have three channels open together.  So no matter WHAT is done with our channels, you and I will be the only ones to see the bitcoin at the end of those channel's lives.  We could facilitate trade between millions of transactions among hundreds of thousands of parties, and when we CLOSE that channel it is still the 5mm each (I think) that one or the other of us put up between us. Those bitcoin have never moved.  The ONLY thing different is who gets what at the end of it all.  It is even possible (though difficult) that we both get back exactly the same sats we put into each channel only losing the value of the fees involved.  And at the other extreme the other user could receive the bitcoin from the contract initially put in by the channel partner.  In the latter case you would have another channel with another user where you gained exactly that much equity.

So far as layer one is concerned it's sort of like a poker game.  You and I put money in the middle, and then one or both of us gets some of that money back out.  The only difference is in the meantime our nodes could have agreed to thousands of transactions canceling themselves back and forth forever.

I have a couple of channels with partners where we have done magnitudes more transactions than the channels even hold.  If I wanted to close those channels I could let the money all come over to my side, then close the channel effectively doing nothing.  Back to square one. 

So the point is if you open a channel with a criminal you might end up with  bitcoin used in a crime previously.   I personally see the opportunity to "launder" money on layer 1 with the lightning network to be fairly bad, unless we are only talking about very small amounts.  Now moving money around privately without a clear link???  Well that is another story.  I have a channel opened between the two nodes I run as well!   (Well I used to... I need to reopen it lol)

If you have some kind of pooling service, and there are something like 1,000 input addresses, and let's say that 5 of the input addresses are "blacklisted,"  then the various government agencies want to taint all 1,000 output addresses - but the reality of the matter remains that they are full of shit.. because only less than 1/2 percent actually were blacklisted...

We can all get scared away from using those kinds of pooling services, but the reality of the matter is that they tend to be very effective and ultimately if they are used on a wide-spread basis lead the government to having to blacklist all bitcoin addresses.. which surely is neither workable nor practical, but it works so long as they can scare people away from using those mixing/pooling services.


Your response, Torque, shows your own inclination towards cloudiness in your thinking.  It would be best to take the politics out of your ways of looking at the matter rather than looking at these matters through tainted lenses.. even if the tolerance of protest does vary from time to time based on political climate.. whining about some protesters getting treated better than others does not get us very far in any kinds of attempts to really work through matters without getting overly distracted.


What else is new?

That's part of the problem, but I doubt that the solution would be to whine about one protest getting better treatment.. merely because the powers that be were less threatened by it.

Yes.  That bolded part.  And Lioghtning adds another whole dimension of abstraction.  I wonder how lightning over Liquid might work.  That could be a very private setup.  You peg in, and no one can even see you open a channel really...  it would be like a back hole inside a black hole.  "Cept they aren't really black... just shades of grey.

I need a drink.

Should be able to run it on a regular PC or Laptop, right? I don't think an RPi is a requirement.