
Senate hearing on Bitcoin [video] - sinak
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies
======
eof
I've been watching since about 20 minutes in; it is overwhelmingly positive.

There seem to be 2 'groups' of testimonies, the first coming from law
enforcement and government bodies; the overwhelming consensus was that
existing laws are satisfactory to prosecute bad actors using bitcoin.

The second group is still talking; again extremely positive.. analogies to
bitcoin being similar to the internet in the mid nineties; its scary but
overall good. The lawyer from the bitcoin foundation is really driving home
the idea that the main problem right now is that bankers are too scared to
give bitcoin business bank accounts.

I see overall nothing negative; and the chairman seems extremely reasonable
and open to the notion of bitcoin and brought up the bitcoin-now <-> internet-
in-the-nineties analogy himself.

No one is asking for stricter laws, everyone is asking for clarity. Much, much
more positive than I expected; only the secret service guy seemed to be very
cautious; he never said the word bitcoin and mostly spent his time saying the
secret service was awesome.

~~~
Varcht
I think a possible reason they're overwhelmingly positive is because the FBI
has a pretty good cache of bc.

~~~
maxerickson
They wouldn't care if those coins were worth $5 billion. The federal budget is
silly compared to a few hundred thousand bitcoins. Or maybe that's the other
way around.

~~~
jarin
The FBI and CIA can use Bitcoin to anonymously pay off foreign informants
though

~~~
TomGullen
We'd see them spend it and ask what they've spent it on.

~~~
saraid216
I'd expect the CIA to know how to launder money competently. It seems like a
ridiculously obvious thing for them to learn how to do.

------
jdreaver
The chairman asked the panel about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the
pseudonym used by the creator or creators of Bitcoin. When one of the
panelists was going to respond, the chair cut him off and said "you don't
think it was Al Gore, do you?" The panelist said "well, he hasn't denied it!"

I've never seen decent humor in a Senate hearing haha

~~~
sliverstorm
The anonymity of Satoshi definitely gives the origins of BTC some mythos. I
can picture historical fiction a hundred years from now speculating (assuming
BTC takes over)

~~~
jlgreco
I suspect that historians, given free access to a very very wide range of
writings (and of course all the works attributed to Satoshi) and whatever the
modern analysis techniques will be will make quick work of figuring out who
Satoshi was.

Few writings remain truly anonymous if the author also wrote significant
amounts non-anonymously (and these days, who doesn't?).

For his sake, I hope he isn't uncovered during his lifetime, but assuming
bitcoin remains relevant I greatly suspect that history books will eventually
have his name.

------
nostromo
It's interesting to watch Jeremy Allaire repeatedly say that only well-funded
companies should be trusted to hold consumers' bitcoins.

Companies like, well, his.

~~~
sliverstorm
It's nothing new. You _want_ banks to have considerable reserve capital, and
if you are a company whose function is to "hold BTC" you are a bank.

~~~
julespitt
The definition of bank is not an entity that holds currency, otherwise any
company or you or I are a bank.

To keep it simple, Banks hold reserves because they lend. Paypal, for
instance, is not a bank.

If your tiny Bitcoin startup holds $1000 in bitcoin, and your obligations are
$1000, I don't see the problem.

~~~
camus2
> Paypal, for instance, is not a bank.

Paypal is a bank in Europe. A paypal account is legally a bank account here.

------
sehugg
WSJ: _Despite interest in bitcoin, Monday 's hearing was attended by only one
member of the Senate panel, Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), who chairs the
committee. Other senators were still en route to Washington after spending the
weekend in their home states._

Marketwatch: _More than one hour into the hearing, and Sen. Carper is the sole
lawmaker to ask questions. It appears no others are there._

Embarassing.

------
mindslight
Alright, the market has remained irrational longer than I've remained solvent
in resolve. So I'll admit it: This would have been a nice bandwagon to have
jumped on.

But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking tragedies.

~~~
chm
> "But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking
> tragedies."

What do you mean?

------
presidentender
Positive attitudes regarding Bitcoin by the powers that be give me pause.

Why would law enforcement be eager to support a technology which, on the face
of it, seems to reduce the power of law enforcement?

~~~
crygin
I'm unclear on why everyone seems to think that Bitcoin reduces governmental
power. It makes all transactions public -- no more cash deals, hard-to-
subpoena international wire transfers, etc. It makes the job of law
enforcement much easier.

~~~
avar
It doesn't reduce police powers, but in the long term if it pans out it'll
reduce the power of fiat currency. That's what people talk about when they say
it reduces the power of the government.

~~~
PeterisP
Can't NSA datacenters with specialized crypto chips simply get 51% of bitcoin
mining power for some time, if they want? Now _that_ would be 'fiat currency'.

~~~
tlrobinson
51% attacks don't allow you to mine arbitrary amounts of Bitcoin. At worst
they could DoS the Bitcoin network and double-spend their funds, but the
recipients (their own citizens? other governments?) would find out and be
_pissed_.

~~~
moron4hire
The citizenry is _already_ pissed and it means nothing. They do what they
want.

------
sjcsjc
"You don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" \- quip from the senator running the
hearings on the subject of Satoshi's real identity.

------
pilom
I'm reminded of a course I took which was co-taught by the CTO at the
Department of Homeland Security. He once said that "The criminals will always
be better at using cryptography than the people who use them in positive
ways."

~~~
rhizome
Except that the NSA and FBI have been defining crypto as suspicious activity,
so kind of a double-bind there.

~~~
maxk42
Well it's no wonder: they only use it for suspicious activities.

------
EricDeb
The FBI and government have considerable bitcoin holdings, assuming they
acquired the silk road wealth + what they already have their total BTC is at
least 524,000. src:
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0)

~~~
igravious
Is this the same entity that has ~ $16,000,000,000,000 external debt?

source: a part of the government

[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html)

------
ademarre
It's refreshing that the overall tone of the hearing is not one of 'we don't
understand this cryptocurrency thing, we need to shut it down', but rather,
'this thing is happening, we have some concerns, but we need to adapt so we
aren't left behind'.

------
namuol
Kicking myself for all eternity...

EDIT: Or not... [1]

[1]: [http://imgur.com/cp01D2m](http://imgur.com/cp01D2m)

~~~
nisa
You are not alone.

------
nilkn
Slightly off-topic, but I don't understand how a deflationary currency could
be practical. Why would you ever spend it, except begrudgingly, if whatever
you buy will be worth less tomorrow (thinking exclusively "in bitcoin,"
without regard to other currencies)? This is a question, not a criticism.

~~~
eurleif
Why would you spend your USD if you can convert it to BTC instead and it will
be worth more tomorrow?

------
vijayboyapati
This sounds very encouraging to me. A number of panelists have talked about
how banks aren't allowing btc businesses to setup up basic checking accounts
and how this needs to be fixed if the US isn't going to be left behind.

------
andy_ppp
Once goods and services are available ubiquitously to buy in bitcoin fiat
money will become worthless.

This isn't a bubble IMO, it's just that USD won't hold it's value compared to
available currency that has at least has _some_ value.

:-D

------
Ellipsis753
Just sold off my bitcoin at $700. Who knows where the price will go next. Hope
I won't regret this too much... :)

~~~
asciimo
Congratulations on your massive profit, and thank you for stimulating the
Bitcoin economy! However, I think that you will eventually regret this
decision.

~~~
Ellipsis753
Hehe. How do you know I made a massive profit. I could have bought it just
hours ago. ;) You're correct though, I got mine for $100 dollars a little
while back. I may regret it but $700 is not to be sniffed at. I feel that
although it may go up massively it could of course go down too. The economy is
just too unstable for me at the moment.

------
thinkcomp
My comments:

[http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatemen...](http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatement.pdf)

Jerry Brito's testimony was quite good.

------
vinchuco
This is great for those that invested just before the hearings. All the
attention given to it will get more people in the US involved. I wonder how
much longer can this growth last.

~~~
oxalo
I think that depends on to what extent Bitcoin will replace the current money
system. [1] looks into the price of Bitcoin if it becomes as widespread as
Bitcoin or PayPal.

[1] [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or-
val...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or-value/)

------
hgsigala
As a staffer who works down the hall from this hearing, I am glad to see all
the anti-Congress sentiment usually expressed on HN digressed for true
discussion of subject matter.

------
presty
related: [http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on-
bitcoin-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on-
bitcoin-2013-11) BERNANKE: Bitcoin 'May Hold Long-Term Promise'

------
shmerl
This looks very positive indeed.

------
Zoomla
I heard PATRIOT Act....

~~~
dangrossman
Considering the PATRIOT Act is what established the "know your customer" due-
diligence rules for financial institutions (i.e. why your bank wants to see ID
when you open an account), there's nothing ominous about the name of that bill
coming up.

------
sneak
Can't view without Flash, I won't install Flash, therefore I can't view.

~~~
saraid216
Do the Hacker News thing and spin up a VM with Flash on it, watch, and then
delete the VM afterwards.

~~~
idupree
That works for technical reasons but not legal reasons. You can't "virtually"
agree to the terms&conditions and then delete your agree-ment along with the
VM. (Unless the terms or the law let you do so. Sometimes they do.)

~~~
gknoy
What are the terms of the Flash EULA that you might violate while spinning up
a VM to read something? You're not planning to copy it, publish it, etc, and
since you're destroying the VM later you don't care about stability/etc --
outside of the reading event, you are not doing any actions with the product.

I'm genuinely curious. I can understand an argument from principle like RMS
might use, but I am unsure what the difference is between agreeing on a VM and
agreeing not-on-a-VM.

I'm really trying to see an edge case where doing it on a VM that you destroy
later is in any way worse (or even different) than doing it on a laptop that
you buy, use, and then later incinerate.

~~~
idupree
My point applies in the same way to a laptop you buy, use, then incinerate.
Even after you incinerate it, you are still bound by the terms you agreed to
(to the debatable extent to which [1] is enforcable at all, anyway).

[1] The download page states "By clicking the "Download now" button, you
acknowledge that you have read and agree to the Adobe Software Licensing
Agreement.". That statement is hundreds of pixels away from the actual
download button.

