@evoorhees
> 1) It is pretty darn anonymous, actually. Find me the MyBitcoin thief,
For an individual to find that out, you are right, it's darn hard. I never said one person could do it (doesn't mean they can't though
. Multiple address will give you very good privacy but not anonymity.
If law enforcement chose to, they can subpoena all the traffic logs at the ISP. Get warrants, etc.
Alphabet agencies probably have their own logging at all major peering points on the Internet. Also placing enough peers on the bitcoin network can get you a lot of information.
>The block chain is unreliable in court, because coins can change ownership without the blockchain knowing (see Bitbills, for starters)
How can you make a blanket claim like that?
The prosecution presents evidence against an accused embezzler. From the wallet taken off his computer, from the computer taken from his house, they show all the transactions and huge amounts of money being transferred from and to various addresses contained in the wallet.
You are saying all the defense has to do is say it's not his wallet?
Another example.
A wife copies her husbands wallet and other info from his computer and then instigates divorce proceedings. Claims infidelity. She hires a P.I. who finds messages to a call-girl in info from husband's computer. To connect call-girl address to husband's wallet he sends payment to an address in the wallet he thinks is hers. Then contacts her and says hey you get my payment? When can we meet? She says, "Sure Hon". Now imagine if her wallet get's subpoenaed.
> 2) Solved with time and user-friendly, trusted online wallets.
So it's back to trusting a central authority. An entire peer-to-peer set-up so we can layer central authorities on top of it.
>3) Don't be jealous of other people who discovered the value of Bitcoin before others. I fail to understand why an "unequal" distribution of coins is a problem for anyone who's not ideologically a communist.
How much 'work' had to be done when mining with a low difficulty as compared to now? It would have nothing to do with "unequal" distribution, but fairness. They earned 50 bitcoin for doing a miniscule fraction of work compared to today, but that is NOT the point I was making. I never mentioned fairness, or unequal, or equal in my post. I was pointing out that a very few people are sitting on massive hoards of the entire money supply. I am saying that is not good. I am saying it wasn't necessary. It would be much better for the bitcoin community to not have huge hoards and instead have many more people holding the coins instead and that an equal reward for the same amount of work would have been the best way to do it.
> 4) Again solved with time and user-friendly, trusted online wallets.
Same reply. See above
>5) With "green addresses" and trusted nodes and a modicum of creativity this problem is solved. Legit e-wallets will arise that can certainly be trusted for small common lighting-quick transactions. Doesn't mean you need to store your savings there.
Again you've stepped away from bitcoin to using a central authority you need to trust.
> 6) I can send a micro-payment right now pretty easily. When there are "millions" of these payments, you can assume the price per bitcoin will be significant and thus processing issues will not be too problematic.
How do you do that? When I try to send 0.000005 it won't let me without forcing me to pay a transaction fee.
> 7) Over time (long-run) the price of Bitcoin will stabilize. And Bitcoin is actually inflationary, just not as fast as government fiat currencies. This inflation approaches zero, but Bitcoin will never be "deflationary" unless many people are losing their coins.
I disagree. Unless they change the limit of no more than 21 million coins, there will be deflation as more and more people use it. Plus there will always be some small but constant coin losses, due to accident, error, etc.
Imagine if over then next five years 10 million users start using it. On average all of them want to save a mere 2 bitcoins as a reserve they never spend, sort of a virtual savings.
> And deflation, as an economic problem, is contentious.
Yes, that is why I asked if anyone has ever studied a currency or economy that had perpetual deflation.
> Observe that you buy computers frequently, even though you know they'll be cheaper and more powerful in 2 months.
Computers are not used as a medium of exchange. That makes a huge difference. If they were they would be inflationary because as time goes by they are worth less.
