/biz/ - Business & Finance

There is a lie that is propagated by those who seek to falsely claim that Bitcoin was created as an anarchist system designed to oppose government and banks. Such is the scam that tries to change Bitcoin into bit gold.

Bitcoin does not act outside the real world. It is not completely virtual. Bitcoin is not permissionless. At no point did I ever say so, not as myself using my real name and certainly not as Satoshi—my pen name.

People argue how I don’t understand Bitcoin; unfortunately, it’s the other way around. Government and courts in general can alter Bitcoin. A court order can force a transaction to be invalidated. A court order can change the nature of the blockchain and require that the UTXO set is updated. On hearing it, you will be told how it is not possible because all the nodes won’t accept it. My answer is simple: so what.

The nodes that matter are associated with businesses. All of them have real physical addresses, and all of them can be sued or charged with criminal offences. More importantly, an exchange or miner that decides to go against the dictates of the US court following anti-money laundering decisions will find itself cut off from global banking. To some, the argument will be about how they can simply use Bitcoin, except that such won’t be the case. Such a decision would isolate a company from the rest of the financial system and have downstream repercussions including the cutting off from suppliers and vendors.

There is a lie that is propagated by those who seek to falsely claim that Bitcoin was created as an anarchist system designed to oppose government and banks. Such is the scam that tries to change Bitcoin into bit gold.

Bitcoin does not act outside the real world. It is not completely virtual. Bitcoin is not permissionless. At no point did I ever say so, not as myself using my real name and certainly not as Satoshi—my pen name.

People argue how I don’t understand Bitcoin; unfortunately, it’s the other way around. Government and courts in general can alter Bitcoin. A court order can force a transaction to be invalidated. A court order can change the nature of the blockchain and require that the UTXO set is updated. On hearing it, you will be told how it is not possible because all the nodes won’t accept it. My answer is simple: so what.

The nodes that matter are associated with businesses. All of them have real physical addresses, and all of them can be sued or charged with criminal offences. More importantly, an exchange or miner that decides to go against the dictates of the US court following anti-money laundering decisions will find itself cut off from global banking. To some, the argument will be about how they can simply use Bitcoin, except that such won’t be the case. Such a decision would isolate a company from the rest of the financial system and have downstream repercussions including the cutting off from suppliers and vendors.