How, and who, distinguishes a dirty coin from a clean one? Assuming we're not talking about counterfeiting, is cleanliness of a coin determined by who owns it?
If a coin could be declared "dirty" and be forfeit solely on the basis of that, then the hypothetical triumvirate in charge of such declarations becomes a de-facto ruling council with power over the blockchain.
You can track coins, but not prevent their spend. You can prevent the coins being converted back into fiat on government regulated trading platforms, but nothing prevents their use in the digital world. Only specific entities that are government controlled could choose not to give you the services you paid for if you used one of these coins. But there are always other people outside the reach of the Fed today that will accept your coin.
That's not the point. Governments can PROSECUTE YOU FOR THE CRIMES THEY MAKE UP, and traceable money is therefore their biggest wet-dream since the invention of the database.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, is arguing that electric-tulips can't have value as currency.
If you are worried about being prosecuted, or losing your license, or any other regulatory infraction, then you are government controlled by definition. There are people in other countries not affected by that. However, nobody can stop anyone SPENDING the coin. A government can only prevent you from delivering services after receiving it.
With Bitcoin's PoW (Proof Of Work) algorithm, any group that controls 51% of the mining hashrate essentially can determine who is allowed to spend their coins. So they would be your triumvirate. No group that we are aware of to date has been able to achieve this, and if they did, and demonstrably thwarted an attempted spend of a coin, it would immediately destroy the value of the currency plunging the entire community into crisis.
This is one of the dangers of mining hashrate centralization though, and why so many altcoins have been created trying to overcome this inherent problem. Still, after more than a decade,Bitcoin's PoW algorithm is the best of a bunch of bad choices for genuine decentralized platforms. Nobody has yet come up with anything which is not ultimately subject to centralized control in some form by a determined group so nothing ultimately fixes this problem. That said, given the number of SHA256 miners out there, it is incredibly difficult and resource intensive to pull off a 51% attack against the network. You would need the electrical generating capacity of several countries to do it.
Bitcoin is definitely not green. But that waste is the only way to keep it safe.
How, and who, distinguishes a dirty coin from a clean one? Assuming we're not talking about counterfeiting, is cleanliness of a coin determined by who owns it?
If a coin could be declared "dirty" and be forfeit solely on the basis of that, then the hypothetical triumvirate in charge of such declarations becomes a de-facto ruling council with power over the blockchain.
You can track coins, but not prevent their spend. You can prevent the coins being converted back into fiat on government regulated trading platforms, but nothing prevents their use in the digital world. Only specific entities that are government controlled could choose not to give you the services you paid for if you used one of these coins. But there are always other people outside the reach of the Fed today that will accept your coin.
That's not the point. Governments can PROSECUTE YOU FOR THE CRIMES THEY MAKE UP, and traceable money is therefore their biggest wet-dream since the invention of the database.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, is arguing that electric-tulips can't have value as currency.
If you are worried about being prosecuted, or losing your license, or any other regulatory infraction, then you are government controlled by definition. There are people in other countries not affected by that. However, nobody can stop anyone SPENDING the coin. A government can only prevent you from delivering services after receiving it.
With Bitcoin's PoW (Proof Of Work) algorithm, any group that controls 51% of the mining hashrate essentially can determine who is allowed to spend their coins. So they would be your triumvirate. No group that we are aware of to date has been able to achieve this, and if they did, and demonstrably thwarted an attempted spend of a coin, it would immediately destroy the value of the currency plunging the entire community into crisis.
This is one of the dangers of mining hashrate centralization though, and why so many altcoins have been created trying to overcome this inherent problem. Still, after more than a decade,Bitcoin's PoW algorithm is the best of a bunch of bad choices for genuine decentralized platforms. Nobody has yet come up with anything which is not ultimately subject to centralized control in some form by a determined group so nothing ultimately fixes this problem. That said, given the number of SHA256 miners out there, it is incredibly difficult and resource intensive to pull off a 51% attack against the network. You would need the electrical generating capacity of several countries to do it.
Bitcoin is definitely not green. But that waste is the only way to keep it safe.