
PayPal Assault On File-Sharing Sites Makes Business Case For Bitcoin - pelle
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/01/09/paypal-assault-on-file-sharing-sites-makes-business-case-for-bitcoin/
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adventured
I don't think it's hard to imagine a near future in which the US Government
outlaws the use of bitcoin within its borders. In fact I'd almost guarantee
that outcome. Bitcoin is far too threatening to the establishment (from the
likes of Visa and Paypal to the Treasury and Fed due to the monetary aspects).
If they owned it or could control it, that might be a different story.

Indeed, I'll pin a time table on it. At the current growth rate, within 24
months the first calls to outlaw bitcoin will echo from some Senator or House
member's office in DC. It'll lead to blanket legislation targeting bitcoin and
any similar services that could exist in the future.

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pixie_
Not if politicians are receiving donations in bitcoins ;) Mark Warden already
does. <http://www.markwarden.com/page/bitcoin-donation> also your 'matter of
fact' attitude annoys me.

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rthomas6
Do you disagree with the actual argument, or just how they said it?

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pixie_
You aren't annoyed when someone acts 'matter of fact' especially about things
that haven't even happened yet? It's the ultimate in arrogance.

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rthomas6
If you only disagree with the posturing and not the actual argument, how would
you phrase what they said?

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b1n
As all transactions are public, what would stop a government creating a
blacklist of bitcoin transactions?

Permanently banning legitimate businesses and bitcoin exchanges/banks from
accepting coins from 'tainted' wallets that have received these transactions
(as well as parent and grandparent wallets).

I accept that there are use cases when this isn't a problem, but being able to
transfer wealth from one currency to another is a feature that a lot of
successful currencies have.

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lubos
I don't see how government could enforce this. not to mention you never know
as an outsider which wallet belongs to who.

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b1n
Creating a sub network of approved bitcoins who's ownership/lineage could be
verified. Perhaps by forcing companies to register their wallet addresses and
the details of anyone buying through their bank using a credit card (this is
assuming that the company doesn't want to break the law). A 3rd party
(government) signed hash could be required for all transaction to prove
legality.

Deep packet inspection could be used to locate people who send bitcoin
transactions (by default transactions are far from anonymous). Offline seizure
could be used to prove large wallets illegality (e.g. if they tracked down
silk road owners). There are plenty of algorithms that can infer people you
might know based on your FB friends friends, I'm sure they can be easily
applied to transactions.

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lmm
There was talk of some EU "payment neutrality" regulations in the wake of
visa/mastercard cutting off wikileaks; did that ever get anywhere?

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rprasad
No. It turns out the EU delegates were more worried about their own
governments getting Wikileaked than they were about "payment neutrality," so
the proposals were put on the backburner.

People don't seem to understand that it's very easy to kill bitcoin, the same
way they killed online gambling in the U.S.: make it illegal to transfer money
to bitcoin exchanges or to financial institutions known to violate these
regulations. This would kill all the legitimate exchanges and essentially
prevent legitimate users from using bitcoin. This solution also has the
advantage of being jurisdiction agnostic; the rules would apply only to US
banks (or if such laws are issued by the EU, to EU banks) or to other
financial institutions operating in the U.S. or with U.S. customers. It's also
(relatively) trivial to implement such a blacklist--financial institutions can
act on a dime if jail time is at stake.

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Dylan16807
Is it really so easy to outlaw an arbitrary product? Gambling has a history of
regulation as a vice. But bitcoin? What about suddenly outlawing trading
cards? It doesn't seem that simple.

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pavel_lishin
> _Is it really so easy to outlaw an arbitrary product?_

Like hemp and alcohol?

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Dylan16807
Hemp itself isn't outlawed, and the drug law again goes into 'vice'. And
alcohol isn't an example of a law at all. Don't even joke about a bitcoin
constitutional amendment.

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nym
Here's a free guide on how to buy bitcoins in America:

<http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/united-states/>

Hope it's helpful. Please let me know if it can be improved.

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HockeyPlayer
CoinBase doesn't mention it on their site, but in addition to the 1%, you are
also paying the bid/offer spread. So if a bitcoin is worth 13.5 US dollars,
you will pay 13.6 at CoinBase and only get 13.4 when you change back into
dollars.

BitMe.com lets you deposit cash at any Chase branch for free, and you can take
money out via ACH for 25 cents.

All of the ways you suggest are fine for small amounts, but if you are trying
to move thousands of dollars into BTC, percentage-based fees matter.

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lectrick
Here's a list of online stores that accept Bitcoin:

<http://www.bitcoinstore.com/> <http://bitcoincoffee.com/>
<http://www.bitcoinin.com/> <http://www.bitcoinblaster.com/>
<http://www.bitmit.net/en/recent> (like eBay for BTC)

There's a bunch more out there (and growing), that's just a starter list.

There's also a whole bunch of gambling sites (surprise) which will take BTC
now.

I think Bitcoin will take over all online gambling sites, then all Usenet
sites, it will become the go-to currency for all virtual good buying/selling,
and now all private torrent trackers, all they need is someone like Wikipedia
or Reddit to start accepting BTC and it's game over, I think.

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ihsw
Are there any ISPs or hosting companies that accept BTC?

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runeks
There's plenty of hosting companies accepting BTC:
<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Web_Hosting>

I haven't heard about any ISP accepting it.

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driverdan
If you used PayPal to accept donations for a controversial / illegal service
such as a private torrent tracker you're foolish. It was only a matter of time
before PayPal shut down these accounts.

For that matter, anyone who trusts PayPal is foolish. Keeping money in a PP
account is a great way to lose it.

