Coinbase Says Entire Crypto Market Could Destabilize if Bitcoin's Creator is Ever Revealed or Sells Their $30 Billion Stake (yahoo.com) 227
Coinbase on Thursday released documents for its public debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange via a direct listing. In the filing, the digital trading platform cited as a risk factor Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto -- the pseudonym used by the person or group of people who created bitcoin. From a report: If the identity of the creator was revealed, it could cause bitcoin prices to deteriorate, according to the filing. The filing also referenced Nakamoto's personal stash of bitcoins, which totals over 1 million. As of February, one bitcoin was worth about $50,000. Nakamoto could negatively affect Coinbase, the company said, and destabilize the entire crypto market if the creator decided to transfer his bitcoins, which are valued at over $30 billion.
Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
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The prices going up does not count as instability, apparently.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. Tulip bulbs that have the value of, say, just a tulip bulb, is a stable situation.
I just bought a dozen. Tulip bulbs, not bitcoin. In a week or two I will dig a dozen little holes in the garden and through them in there. The tulip bulbs, not bitcoins. And then through the summer, I will have something in my garden that looks nicer than any bitcoin. Tulips.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Tulip bulbs that have the value of, say, just a tulip bulb, is a stable situation.
I just bought a dozen. Tulip bulbs, not bitcoin. In a week or two I will dig a dozen little holes in the garden and through them in there. The tulip bulbs, not bitcoins. And then through the summer, I will have something in my garden that looks nicer than any bitcoin. Tulips.
I have bad news.
https://www.miraclegro.com/en-... [miraclegro.com].
"Tulip bulbs should be planted in the fall."
You'll have some nice tulips next year. You can probably just save the bulbs and not bother planting them until fall.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
"Tulip bulbs should be planted in the fall."
I have worse news - tulips grow to 8 feet tall in Australia and are likely to bite, maim, or otherwise eat you.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Could bitcoin even be less stable than it is today?
Not really, but apparently there is profit in claiming it could be.
Ok sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The "guy" has over 1 million bitcoin.
Each bitcoin is valued at $50,000.
So the "guy" has a total bitcoin net worth "valued at over $30 billion".
Well, the I guess article writer isn't wrong, but it seems like an odd underestimate.
Re:Ok sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Satoshi is one of the greatest modern mysteries. Ok we know you can't sell that many bitcoins without crashing the market just like with stocks (before the tulip brigade chimes in). Just imagine the self control that takes to sit on that much potential wealth and not touch it. I mean not even a few grand in case you need a new roof or used car or something. So Satoshi is either dead or no longer has access to the wallets.
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Or wealthy enough that he doesn't need to touch it, and doesn't feel like touching it. Not even necessarily a millionaire, maybe just a 10%er making 6 digits a year.
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If he is a 10% and he isn't touching any of it he is literally the most foolish man a live. You don't catch Lightning in bottle often and when you do it rarely stays there long.
Even if he really really believes in his creation at this point he could sell a small portion of his stake become a very rich individual in terms of either dollars or yen and let the rest ride!
To me the fact that so many of those early coins have not transacted pretty much indicates they can't because the are no longer accessible to
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Possibly. That puts you a foul the 'three men can keep a secret only when two of them are dead' problem.
Bitcoin is now the domain of mega banks, political policy makers, and other powerful lobbies. If its a clandestine service creation there are only a few I would think capable of keeping a lid on that at this point, certainly not any American three letters.
Re: Ok sure (Score:2)
it's all relative, you need to be making $8m to be in the 1% in Monaco. And only $500k in the US. but there is a big difference for a "six-figure" income of $100k versus $500k, when 100k doesn't even get you into the top 10% nationally (125k does)
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No, but this idea Satoshi can't move his Bitcoin is a terrible one. Sure, "he" can't dump all that coin in one shot without moving the market but that is true of mass whales in any market. There is absolutely no reason Satoshi shouldn't be entitled to slowly sell off that coin and enjoy the spoils of the this creation the same as the founders of any megacorp or inventor of revolutionary new technology does. That doesn't mean Satoshi no longer believes in bitcoin either, it just means he actually wants to be
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No, but this idea Satoshi can't move his Bitcoin is a terrible one.
If Satoshi transfers just one coin (or a fraction of a coin), it will confirm that *someone* has access to a single wallet with the potential to crash the entire Bitcoin market. This could have a very negative impact on the perceived value of Bitcoin.
Re:Ok sure (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. He could just have a nice stock of coins mined later under a different identity providing a nice source of money.
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It's not a mystery, it's fairly clear it's professor Nick Szabo. He
* Was one of the maybe ten people in the world who took cryptocurrency seriously pre-bitcoin.
* Proposed the immediate predecessor to bitcoin, bit gold.
* Publicly asked for help in making a practical implementation of bit gold a few months before first release of bitcoin. Talked about making a practical implementation of bit gold on his blog, right before the release.
* Satoshi seems to have tried to draw attention away from Szabo (e.g. by cre
not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Selling "a few grand" at a time is exactly how big stockholders sell their wealth so they can benefit without crashing the market. I wouldn't be suprised if he's been quietly selling a few grand here and there and living off the proceeds.
I mean yeah, if he sells a few million dollars worth and buys a big house on the ocean that might send prices down as people start to panic but a tiny amount here and there won't change anything. It's similar to how the stock market works when you hold billions of dollars in stock.
Because of the blockchain, all sales are visible. If anyone transferred any of the early bitcoin, everyone would notice.
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Exactly. The wallets haven't been touched.
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That is another good reason Satoshi should be slowly selling off his hoard. It puts too much value in a small number of wallets making the target value high enough to justify a massive amount of computation to crack.
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Sure but that is true of the large stakeholders in every company as well. They sell their stock at regular intervals based on their financial need and the sales are publicly reported. This way people can see they aren't engaging in insider trading.
Why people have decided to box in the creator of bitcoin and declare bitcoin would be null if he profited off his creation I have no idea. Selling the early coins in bulk could cause a price movement but every early coin that goes out into circulation actually hel
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Sure but that is true of the large stakeholders in every company as well. They sell their stock at regular intervals based on their financial need and the sales are publicly reported. This way people can see they aren't engaging in insider trading.
Why people have decided to box in the creator of bitcoin and declare bitcoin would be null if he profited off his creation I have no idea. Selling the early coins in bulk could cause a price movement but every early coin that goes out into circulation actually helps undermine the credibility of the Ponzi scheme myth. Nobody calls Facebook, Tesla, Google, etc Ponzi schemes but their early adopters have profited more than Satoshi. Why can Musk spend his money without undermining the credibility of Tesla (or Paypal) but Satoshi can't? This is just a terrible myth.
I especially would support Satoshi making arrangements to sell a portion of his hoard to large institutional parties like central banks.
It is generally believed that the early bitcoin are lost. If even one of them were transferred, that means someone knows how to transfer them, greatly increasing the perceived number in circulation.
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You are correct in the distinction between a Ponzi scheme and an speculative bubble, but I think the element of truth I referenced survives the distinction. I also think you're wrong on the fiat apocalypse and I know you're a bit off when you say that nobody controls BTC, because 51% of people control BTC.
What is the minimum cost of a proof of work for a transaction? To me this seems to be the absolute minimum premium over cash/PayPal/Venmo that BTC can sustainably charge. My impression is that it is too
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Memories are priceless! =)
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Memory is a precarious thing. Imagine if it's a forgotten password that keeps those coins in his wallet...
Re: not possible (Score:2)
And nothing of value* was lost.
_ _ _ _
* Value, as in, making the world better and andvancing humanity (which in my case implies it getting better, not e.g. more Apple or more Google). Not money. As that, by itself, is worthless.
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Never mind the irony of said posters computer being paid for with...money. Apparently money is useful for getting one's anti-money messages out.
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Those USB drives are ridiculously unstable. The things die all the time. I can't imagine why anyone would have stored anything on a single USB drive over a decade ago and actually think it wouldn't have been eaten by bitrot at this point.
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I'm certain the minute something happens with his wallet id that the world will know.
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Probably takes into account that you can only sell if somebody buys. And if BTC crashes, _nobody_ is going to buy, or at least nobody sane.
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Is it a currency or an investment casino game? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bitcoin is too small for even a million bitcoins flooding the market to change the real price of ordinary goods and services. The price of a car or a hamburger or a laptop isn't going up or down, it's only going to move the decimal point on its bitcoin price.
The only people harmed are those people gambling on bitcoin as an investment vehicle which is the same risk as buying any other currency and assuming it will continue to rise in value.
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A million bitcoins is literally about 5% of all bitcoins.
That's a MASSIVE amount.
Re: Is it a currency or an investment casino game? (Score:2)
Funnily, the exact same thing is true for the Dollar, if you're in an independent local economy that doesn't rely on it. Say a village with farmers and workers and shops circulating their own "vouchers" or "gift cards".
I'll always be able to hit up my farmer friends and handyman neighbors and they will always be able to get help with computers or building or designing some device from me, even if we're making it from literal sticks and stones. I will never starve and never not have a home.
Re: Is it a currency or an investment casino game? (Score:2)
"the total amount of coins shrinks"
Correct
"which means every unit of currency just increases in its percentage of total value."
And because the intrinsic total value of bitcoin is $0, that doesn't mean anything.
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What is something that you consider to have intrinsic value?
My pecker
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Except that nobody knows if a wallet that hasn't been seen in a while is being saved, or lost.
So the $30+B in this person's wallet will stay there, valued, and active in the ledger forever even if he died. Nobody else's value will go up because of it, as there is no way to know if it's just HODL or the result of an accidental sudo rm -rf /
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Except that nobody knows if a wallet that hasn't been seen in a while is being saved, or lost.
If bitcoin turns out to have lasting place in the basket of commodities we actually trade (I still expect the regulators and big banks to step in and trigger its ultimate crash regardless of their intent)
I would expect coins in wallets that have not transacted for the half-life of a human or so will be for the most part dismissed in the market place as being gone. So there will be deflationary pressure from pools of coins that have not transacted for many years under the assumption they are destroyed.
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No, that's what this story is about. The valuation is subjective (market-based) and gradually has become a built-in assumption that those coins are out of circulation, so if they do start circulating now it could harm the value.
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On the contrary, Bitcoin cannot go anywhere but up in value. There is a limit on total coins
The fact that something is limited doesn't make it valuable. There is a limit on the number of shits I will take (limited by my lifespan). I guess my shits are valuable, and can only become more valuable as each one gets flushed and disappears into the system.
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Actually, there are also transaction fees. Assuming bitcoin is still a thing when the mining runs out, the miners will just rely 100% on transaction fees and transaction fees will just go up. They already went up a few years ago in the previous spike, when the pitiful 400k/day transaction limit became an obstacle and the miners began asking "who wants to pay the most in fees to make sure that their transactions actually go through instead of sitting there unprocessed day after day".
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They already did that in an attempt to fix the size. That's what the Bitcoin Cash fork was about. After launching in 2017, over the first year it dropped in value from 3000 to 300, and has mostly sat at that level pretty much since then (though it has doubled in the last couple months). Other than a few tiny day-long to week-long spikes here and there, the transaction volume has mostly varied between 20-50k transactions per day (though in the last month it's ramped up suddenly to close to 350k per day).
But
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The Bitcoin "miners" can be tipped for processing transactions, so they can continue to earn Bitcoin even after the last Bitcoin has been mined.
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Is NSA a three-letter agency? (Score:5, Interesting)
I still suspect that the real inventor of Bitcoin had been some security agency at some nation state who had wanted to entice people into creating a vast network of nodes for cracking cryptographic hash sums for them on demand -- which is what "mining" is.
In other words, Chinese Lottery Cryptoanalysis [faqs.org] on the Internet.
Or, at least create a market that would lead to faster, more cost-effective hardware that they could purchase for their code-breaking purposes.
ps. In Japan, the family name comes first: Nakamoto SAtoshi ... ;) ;) ;)
PsA: Op's not serious. (Score:2)
Relax before you moderate. :)
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Fuckin weebs.
Re:Is NSA a three-letter agency? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cryptographic hash sums - all exclusively to result in the hash 0000000000000000000000000 (or however many zeroes) are mathematically pretty useless. Guess how Bitcoin works? By hashing data on top of the blockchain until the total hash is that many zeroes.
If they weren't mathematically useless, the hash itself would be useless from a security point of view anyway. Literally one of the requirements of a hash algorithm is that you can't easily predict the resulting hash or craft it to result in a particular hash. If you wanted to craft it to result in a VERY SPECIFIC hash, then you might have something (i.e. a dataset that matches the hash of a particular password or file that you want to replace/fake access to/whatever).
But Bitcoin only results in zeroes-hashes, which are useless, and only does so with blockchain-like data, which is not only random and unpredictable, but out of the control of any one entity, easily discernible as such from its structure, and pretty useless.
So... no...mining isn't there to crack cryptographic hashes. If it was, the person who cracked the hash would be a Bitcoin billionaire overnight and mine all the rest of the remaining Bitcoin almost instantly. Which would devalue the thing immediately, and they crash-and-burn the entire Bitcoin chain in a matter of hours. And nobody would care because at that point, that hash is actually *securing* things far more important than a cryptocurrency blockchain, which is basically a mathematical toy to make you do lots of pointless work to prove that you did lots of pointless work.
Bitcoin is singularly useless in this regard, and the proof-of-work is absolutely, mathematically and cryptographically pointless. By deliberate design, it would appear, precisely to stop such misuse and assertions.
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The proof-of-work work the bitcoin protocol does is useless for breaking encryption.
And why would NSA pay for the commoditization of ASICs (or whatever) anyway? That gives them no advantage versus China or Russia. They don't need them to be cheap anyway, and the fewer that have them the better for them.
I'm Sataoshi Nakamoto (Score:2)
Re:I'm Sataoshi Nakamoto (Score:5, Funny)
Ask me anything.
What is the private key to your million bitcoin?
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Tomato or tomahto?
Probably not (Score:3)
Of course the price would drop, because supply increased. But I don't think it would actually "crash" or drop a tremendous amount. The volume of bitcoin traded in the last 24 hours was close to 1.5 million bitcoin (trading volume $66,512,529,110), or 50% more than the amount the creator holds. With that amount of buying going on, those 1 million bitcoin would be bought up in a mere day or two of normal trading. That's not enough to crash or "destabilize" bitcoin. Further, the creator of bitcoin is not in control of bitcoin, thus doxxing them shouldn't have any actual impact either.
If anything, the massive press and news, if that ever happened, would just bring more attention to bitcoin and cause more people to get interested and buy.
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The problem is if you doxx Satoshi then you potentially have access to his wealth.
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Not likely. It's not that easy to press someone for money, especially not if the whole world knows.
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All you need is the wallet file and passcode and the bitcoins are yours.
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The problem is that people are aware that selling that million bitcoin *could* possibly crash the market, and also that they haven't been touched in a long time.
So if even a small portion of them are sold, a bunch of people may start selling "just in case" the whole amount are dumped and the value goes down. Then a feedback cycle starts. *That* is probably what would cause the price to crash, not the actual extra bitcoin in circulation.
That said, if selling those particular bitcoin has that much power over
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Maybe... (Score:2)
Re: Maybe... (Score:2)
Lol. If there was, you'd have linked to it.
Obvious clickbait is obvious (Score:2)
Transaction cost makes BTC unviable (Score:2, Insightful)
A single transaction costs 620 kWh, or $100. Currently this cost is externalized to the miners. As soon as mining for new coins stops, the system will come crashing down as nobody wants to pay that much.
Re:Transaction cost makes BTC unviable (Score:5, Informative)
Once the mining stops, the difficulty will adjust downwards.
It's high BECAUSE people mine.
Re: Transaction cost makes BTC unviable (Score:3)
Difficulty and income per block have to remain high enough to head off 51% attacks.
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Better hope not. The more valuable bitcoin is, the more the difficulty needs to go up. The required difficulty is tied to the value, not the profit from mining, because the worth of an attack is tied to the value. If the difficulty falls too much double spending attacks might become profitable, but far more likely is that it would be politically beneficial to screw around with it. Imagine if you could pay a billion dollars to take over control of the New York Stock Exchange. I can imagine some people who wo
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Transaction fees.
Yesterday miners earned ~9M USD in transaction fees alone. Also yesterday 900 BTC were mined when valued at ~45K BTCUSD, that's ~40M. So about 20% of a miner's rewards today are from transaction fees alone.
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$100 you say? https://ycharts.com/indicators... [ycharts.com].
The last coin won't be mined for over a century.
If $30 billion dollars destabilizes your currency (Score:2)
Basically if the big boys ever get involved it'll become another way to funnel wealth out of the hands of people who work for a living. They'll use stuff like this to outmaneuver the little guy and the small investor like they always do.
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It is by nature deflationary and that's a questionable feature for an expanding economy.
More importantly, since the total amount of coins is limited, there is a very real possibility for ALL of it ending up in the hands of very few. Since making new coins is very hard and becoming harder, at that point there would be no way for the poor to ever un-poor themselves, except by somehow convincing the rich to give them some of the currency.
That's a few frightening thoughts.
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Well, they could pull off the old trick of taking control of the means of production and refusing to recognise the value of bitcoins. They are just numbers on a hard drive, after all.
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Since making new coins is very hard and becoming harder, at that point there would be no way for the poor to ever un-poor themselves, except by somehow convincing the rich to give them some of the currency.
I don't buy it. Currency be it paper or crypto hashes is only valuable so long as you thing someone else will accept it in exchange for goods or labor.
The thing about fiat currency and the inflationary ability of the printing press is it actually lends security against the situation you describe. Its better for joe average if the pool of money in flight does not get to small. Imagine %99 of bitcoin are in the hands of 1%ers who mostly have it on the side lines. I have few acres of berries planted and would
Best pyramid scheme ever. (Score:2)
I wonder if bitcoin were to be introduced in today's climate if so many would still fall for it.
Re: Best pyramid scheme ever. (Score:2)
Of course they would.
Such schemes feed on desperation and the hope for an easy way out.
The goal for solving almost all of our problems, is to reduce suffering. By providing stability and stable wealth.
And automation, owned by the community, is the best way I know, to improve that. As is free education. Hence me working exactly in those fields.
Nice self-destruct option. (Score:2)
Well, it's about time to do it!
What about one? (Score:2)
Sure, selling a million bitcoin is going to do something to the market.
But what would happen if just one bitcoin was transferred from (what we think is) Satoshi's wallet to another wallet?
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Sure, selling a million bitcoin is going to do something to the market. But what would happen if just one bitcoin was transferred from (what we think is) Satoshi's wallet to another wallet?
Because the blockchain provides transparency, everyone would notice if even a single early bitcoin were transferred.
So why hasn’t Slashdot destroyed Bitcoin yet (Score:2)
Wait a second (Score:2)
Ridiculous... (Score:2)
I don't understand why people say this. Sure, dumping a huge amount of bitcoin in one move would move the speculative market but there is nothing wrong with the creator cashing in, putting that coin back into the economy, and retiring.
Did Microsoft destabilize when bill gates dumped most of his stock in a foundation?
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Stable? (Score:2)
New old news (Score:2)
for anyone the least involved in crypto the last years or so, this should come as no surprise. Everyone who has dipped into alt coins also knows the concept of pre-mine, while an advantage for the coin's kickstart, is a problem on the long run. I would even argue that SN him/herself predicted this problem and their alleged death could very well be a way to smooth out that risk, but there's no social consensus on that death, so there's always the risk.
The one word missing in all this discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
'Volatility'
Oh, and 'volatile'
Bitcoin is interesting, and some version of a totally digital currency will one day become either predominant or widely accepted, but there's a reason the Rand, as an example, isn't used much as an exchange currency. Bitcoin volatility makes it hard to use for everyday purposes.
It's still too volatile for me to consider it anything but a toy, or a marginal use case. Conventional payment processors jumping in doesn't change my opinion. I can't wait to see how they handle exchange and valuation.
What "legal consequences?" (Score:3)
Everyone, put on your prosecutor's hat. What would you charge Nakamoto with? I doubt there's anything illegal about what he did; change my mind.
Are the "legal consequences" something other than that?
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Re: Always Entertaining (Score:2, Troll)
I've seen the behavioral patterns of arrogrant denial, strawmen arguments, and willful delusion in too many cults. From those suicidal new age ones over pyramid schemes and motivational seminars to Apple fans, from religious fundamentalists and N@zis to Trump fans and certain SJWs.
It's always the same.
You can't be helped, because you do not respond to reason. Talking to you is pointless. You think you ARE your fetish / golden lamb / god. Suggesting you drop it is like suggesting you kill yourself. *Of cours
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Because they're old and don't understand new technology anymore. Instead of actually reading about bitcoin all they can do is yell something about tulips.
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Even if you had bought at the last $20k bubble in 2017, you'd be doing great at this "crash" at $46k.
Re: Always Entertaining (Score:2)
There's just as many or more people who will turn around and talk about the speculative gains every time they need to quell their cognitive dissonance about the objective fact that after all these years Bitcoin has no significant real world use case except malware and speculation. It facilitates no trade, it facilitates no capital allocation in productive use ... just malware and speculation.
Also the objective there's more Bitcoin wrapped up in Ethereum defi than Lightning. Lightning is a bunch of hobbyists
Re: Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonim (Score:2)
Do you know any implementation that is 100% independent from belief? As in "Reality is that, which, if you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.".
Because only spacetime, matterenergy, work and information seem to qualify for that, and information does not really qualify, as it is only virtual and can be copied without doing the actual work of coming up with it.
And I don't yet see how that could be a sensible real-world currency. Aside from maybe electricity.
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If that's what you require, I've got bad news to you concerning the deed to your home.
Or good news, I suppose, depending on whether you own or rent.