Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

[steenkh]

Spoken like somebody who lives in a (relatively) free world where the authorities don't monitor/control every penny you spend. One of the arguments against central bank digital currencies is that it would give the government the power to do just that.

As far as I know, my government can ask the banks to inform on everything I do if they get a court order, and I think it is the same in most countries, but I don't know about the U.S. But the point is that I would use bitcoins if I contemplated crime, and in those countries you would not call free, it is the same, although the definition of crime would be different.

 

[dirtywick]

I don't see any shops anywhere saying you can pay in bitcoins, or advertising the price in bitcoins. I would also think that the volatility of bitcoins would make normal use difficult, because prices would have to be adjusted all the time. So what remains are the shady businesses where the anonymity of bitcoins is more important than stability. Obviously, it is impossible to prove that nowhere in the wide world it is possible to pay for normal services with bitcoins, but I think it is fairly safe to say that by far, bitcoins are only used for speculation, crime, and tax evasion.

Majority of bitcoin trading is a hoax, new study finds

Ninety-five percent of spot bitcoin trading volume is faked by unregulated exchanges, according to a study from Bitwise this week.

www.cnbc.com

a majority of bitcoin trades are wash trading, fake trades to generate the appearance of demand.

How many people actually pay with Bitcoin? Real use cases revealed

Key takeawaysWhen Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualized Bitcoin, they thought of it as digital money. However, a question stands today: How many people really use Bitcoin to buy things?The answer is not simple. Payment data is fragmented, many transactions go through intermediaries, and an increasing num…

www.tradingview.com

it’s difficult to tell exactly how much trading volume is in exchange for goods and services, it’s not much.

A 2025 National Cryptocurrency Association survey found that 39% of crypto holders reported using cryptocurrency to shop for goods and services.

According to GM Global Cryptocurrency Insights, conducted in 2024, 11% of respondents reported actively using crypto for purchases, while 19% expressed interest in using crypto for everyday transactions.

These surveys indicate that a sizable minority of crypto holders have used crypto to make purchases at least once. Yet these surveys tend not to separate Bitcoin from other assets, and they do not track how often it happens.

the article goes on to note el salvador crypto payment experiment, which is an interesting experiment in broad crypto use for payments

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, it's not just wash trading. The Cryptoland scammer for example used something like 3 different accounts, transferring funds to each other, to try to avoid being tracked down. If he'd spread it in different amounts than exactly what was coming in into the first one in the pipeline, it might have even worked. But yeah, from the outside it looked like every actual transaction was actually 3 different ones. But in reality it really was just one transaction, to the same guy that owned those accounts.

 

[dirtywick]

yeah people definitely use multiple wallets of obfuscate their transactions. makes it very difficult to follow, part of the dichotomy between transparency and anonymity that crypto likes to straddle.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Spoken like somebody who lives in a (relatively) free world where the authorities don't monitor/control every penny you spend. One of the arguments against central bank digital currencies is that it would give the government the power to do just that.

Paranoid much? The government always knows what everybody is buying and selling, for tax purposes. The only thing I'm worried about is a scammer gaining access to my bank accounts (my neighbor almost lost $10,000 to a scammer a few months ago).

 

[psionl0]

Paranoid much?

Reading comprehension fail much?

The government always knows what everybody is buying and selling, for tax purposes.

Paranoid much? (I don't know about New Zealand but the ATO does not have direct access to everybody's bank account).

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Kinda makes one wonder what kind of government oversight were you against then.

And anyway, meanwhile with crypto, if they can get your ID as part of an investigation or sting, the ledger is public. Even easier if you used some third party like FTX, since you can't make a fraud claim against them without saying which one is you and how much. Now the cat is out of the bag for ever. At the very least they can know exactly how much you've been spending or selling for crypto, and even how much exactly to or from any other known ID. Hardly seems like an improvement even for "government oversight" purposes.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

(I don't know about New Zealand but the ATO does not have direct access to everybody's bank account).

The IRD doesn't normally troll through private individuals' bank accounts, it relies on banks reporting interest payments which it then uses along with PAYE records to calculate your tax. However it regularly audits businesses, both randomly and when 'red flags' are detected. From this it has access to every transaction including customer sales, 99% of which are done electronically and have the customer's EFPOS, credit card, or bank account number.

The IRD now uses 'AI' to detect suspicious activities.

How IRD Detects Undeclared Income In NZ

IRD now cross-checks financial data from multiple sources including:
banks,
Xero and accounting software,
employers,
payment gateways,
property transactions,
overseas tax authorities,
and online platforms.

Even small inconsistencies can trigger a review.
For example:
income reported to your bank may not match your tax return,
GST filings may differ from sales activity,
or lifestyle spending may appear inconsistent with declared earnings.
These red flags can lead to compliance checks or full audits.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'd still worry more about third parties. I've literally had my credit card suspended and had to take an emergency trip to the bank to reactivate it and ask why. Oh, "unusual activity." What was the suspicious activity? My buying a bunch of The Sims 4 expansion packs one after the other on EA's OFFICIAL STORE PAGE.

Well, OK, I guess that's warranted. It's unusual that anyone would spend more money on that disappointment of a game, years after it launched

 

[psionl0]

Kinda makes one wonder what kind of government oversight were you against then.

It doesn't make anybody wonder if they read my post. There is plenty of scope left for government oversight beyond banks being required to report large deposits and interest payments for tax purposes. Where would you draw the line on government oversight of bank accounts?

And anyway, meanwhile with crypto, if they can get your ID as part of an investigation or sting, the ledger is public.

We have already agreed that this is the case (please pay attention). The point is that crypto payments can't be blocked or reversed by a third party. This may not be an essential feature in a western democracy (yet) but it was still one of the original motivations for the creation of bitcoin in the first place. (The other concerned the government or banks diluting the money supply).

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But it still doesn't address how the 'government knowing about it' argument actually says it's (mainly) useful for illegal stuff. I've had many tens of thousands of euros coming suddenly into my bank account, from selling an apartment I owned at the time through a third party. It sure was way above the legal limit to trigger that flag for the bank, to my best understanding of the rules. So f-ing what? Nothing happened. Yeah, I sold a property, taxes were paid, yada yada. No reason to fear that the government knows I've sold a flat. I mean, they already knew so I don't have to pay taxes for it any more.

How paranoid would I actually need to be to fear government oversight on that? Unless you're buying drugs or CP or something, exactly WHAT do you fear about if the government knows about it? Generic rhetoric about the gummint being bad, their knowing stuff is bad, etc, yeah, it sounds good in propaganda until the Fridge Logic trope (as TV Trope calls it) kicks in. As in, you go to the fridge to get a beer, and your brain catches up and thinks, "Wait, how does any of that make any sense?" In this case, like, what, do I actually care if the government subpoenad my records from the bank and saw I was buying a lot from the supermarket? No judge or jury would indict me for THAT.

 

[dirtywick]

Kinda makes one wonder what kind of government oversight were you against then.

And anyway, meanwhile with crypto, if they can get your ID as part of an investigation or sting, the ledger is public. Even easier if you used some third party like FTX, since you can't make a fraud claim against them without saying which one is you and how much. Now the cat is out of the bag for ever. At the very least they can know exactly how much you've been spending or selling for crypto, and even how much exactly to or from any other known ID. Hardly seems like an improvement even for "government oversight" purposes.

it has quite a few design features that make it desirable for criminal use, and undesirable for more widespread use. definitely not something you'd consider an improvement.

in any case, you do want some government oversight over financial matters. when you think about the above, you think of drug dealers and pedophiles and scammers and the like, but you don't really think about how everyone involved in any single one of your everyday financial transactions can look at your entire financial history. went on facebook marketplace and bought a used dvd player? guess what, that guy knows who you are and can see your bank info

and forget about the financial crimes. somebody said let's deregulate finance and the only thing crypto has ever been is a never ended stream of scams

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, I was mostly focused on the government, since his not wanting government oversight is what started the detour. But yes, everyone else you've had a transaction with or otherwise knows your id (e.g., because you're selling something) can also see exactly how money you have, how much you're spending, etc, since the ledger is public by design. The guy who figured out who the Cryptoland scammer was, yeah, it was a private person, not the government.

And yeah, in a crypto-only world that includes everyone else. Your boss can know you're already paid more than you spend in the next salary negotiation round. The car dealer knows how much you have and how much you've spent on the previous car, since it's just one or two hops away from connecting your id to, say, Ford. Your car mechanic also knows exactly how much you're good for. The grocery store can know it too after the first purchase and use it for *ahem* dynamic pricing. Etc.

Plus, you're just one step away from any company that sells your info to advertisers also including how much they can fleece you for. Or worse, some dishonest and/or disgruntled employee selling it to scammers, or it getting stolen in a hack. I mean, how does anyone think they know your email address to send you spam? They sure as f aren't just brute-forcing their way through the alphabet to get to [email protected], as that would take millennia. Well, congrats, now they can also get all your financial info. Hell, even flagging which ones are valid addresses just became easier, since you can just see who has a valid id on the blockchain. Now that data just became all that more valuable.

But, to be fair, I'm not actually sure he actually meant it about not wanting government oversight. I at least to believe that most of those using those same old tired propaganda points aren't criminals and don't actually have anything to fear from the government. I think most crypto-bros are just rehashing the same old tired libertarian rhetoric just because they want another incentive for others not to cash out and leave the market, cratering the price. I mean, it's still dishonest at the end of the say, but it's not criminal. But then that's just what I like to believe. I can't actually prove it's not criminals deploying smoke-screens, so i guess that's not very sceptical on my part

 

[dirtywick]

plus there's a ton of downsides on the inflation control side of the implications of using bitcoin as a currency. then they present things like self custody and transparency of the block chains as positives because the government is bad, but ignore all the downsides of the way bitcoin handles security and the way it handles transparency that it's probably actually much worse.

but even that's all under the false pretense that there's some kind of belief that this is going to be used seriously as a currency, when in reality everyone is just gambling on the future of the price of the tokens used in a computer program that makes crime and scamming easier while using a lot of electricity.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Inflation control, yes, would be another downside. Without the government having any choice on fiscal policy, and if Bitcoin mining approached nothing, cf the Phillips curve, unemployment wold shoot right up. For all the rhetoric about the gummint being able to just print money, and how in the good old days you could go to the store and return with a whole bag of stuff (but then they started having surveillance cameras in shops ) that's actually essential in keeping the economy from going from boom to bust and back.

 

[psionl0]

But it still doesn't address how the 'government knowing about it' argument actually says it's (mainly) useful for illegal stuff. < remaining BS snipped >

What a ridiculous strawman! I knew you wouldn't dare draw the line on government oversight of bank accounts. I am going to assume that you would be perfectly fine with a totalitarian government having total control over individual bank accounts and being able to block (or prosecute) transactions that violate government policy. (After all, anybody who disagrees with a government policy is a criminal in your book - right?)

Government surveillance may not be that extreme (yet) but every new law takes us further down that path.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'm pretty sure that Europe doesn't count as totalitarian governments. Also that even places like China and Iran wouldn't bother with prosecuting you for paying your rent and buying groceries.

And I see you still haven't addressed the fact that (even in totalitarian governments,) crypto actually makes it EASIER to check most of your transactions, if they know your id, since the ledger is freely available to anyone. That's the whole POINT. It's how blockchain even works. And confiscating your computer and beating you up until you unlock it so they can get your crypto id is actually EASIER for a totalitarian government. They don't even need a warrant.

And I mean, it would even be worse in a crypto-only world, as your company would have to know your id to transfer your wage (which they'd probably be required to tell to the government,) and you'd tell it to the government every time you pay your taxes. It would make it trivial to identify if you've got your income from state-approved companies and citizens with good social score, or you've been funded by someone with very low social score or it comes from abroad, or if you've ever paid money to such.

So basically, yeah, yeah, unsurprisingly you post more dodging and rehashing the same old tired propaganda points. Which frankly didn't impress me even the first time I've heard them. After hearing them a thousand times? It's even less convincing than when the next fundie comes to witness to the unbelievers in the Religion forum. At least those occasionally come with a new argument. Still dumb, but I haven't heard it before. Makes it more interesting. Meanwhile I haven't heard anything new from you on the topic, just straight up regurgitating the same old crypto-bro arguments..

 

[psionl0]

I'm pretty sure that Europe doesn't count as totalitarian governments. Also that even places like China and Iran wouldn't bother with prosecuting you for paying your rent and buying groceries.

Now you are just playing dumb. Since when did I say that this was about "prosecuting you for paying your rent and buying groceries"?
If you can't think of payments that a totalitarian government might want to block/prosecute then you are not even playing dumb.

And I see you still haven't addressed the fact that (even in totalitarian governments,) crypto actually makes it EASIER to check most of your transactions

Sure, pretend that I haven't agreed with this multiple times.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

So let me get this through my thick head. You're arguing that, at the same time:

1. Authoritarian governments are a reason to not want government supervision. AND
2. You have already agreed that it would make it EASIER for such authoritarian governments to get that financial data.

That's not the most self-defeating argument I've ever seen, but it's up there

But, I mean, sure, do go on. I could use more laughs. As the saying goes, not with you... but still, I can enjoy a good clown act

 

[psionl0]

So let me get this through my thick head. You're arguing that, at the same time:

1. Authoritarian governments are a reason to not want government supervision. AND
2. You have already agreed that it would make it EASIER for such authoritarian governments to get that financial data.

You are really determined to twist everything I say into something that is the opposite of what I said. That shows how bankrupt your arguments are.

As for the anonymity issue, if was really impossible to keep your name disassociated from a wallet then criminals would have no use for bitcoin so that your argument that ONLY criminals use bitcoin (for payments) is false.