<story><title>Every important person in BitCoin just got subpoenaed by NY financial regulators</title><url>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/12/every-important-person-in-bitcoin-just-got-subpoenaed-by-new-yorks-financial-regulator/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flyinglizard</author><text>This is why I don&amp;#x27;t believe in BTC for the long term. It&amp;#x27;s not anywhere near anonymous.&lt;p&gt;Those saying BTC has no inherent value (as opposed to gold, for example) are completely overlooking the fact that BTC is the only kind of exchange that can be used for illicit activities in a relatively untraceable manner (good luck buying stuff on SR using gold).&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, BTC &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; traceable if governments decide to spend the resources monitoring transactions, and I suspect this would be the primary motivator in the demise of BTC and a replacement with a more anonymous currency - the other motivator being that there&amp;#x27;s a huge financial upside for being an inventor or early adopter of a successful cryptocurrency, as BTC shown us.</text></item><item><author>pnathan</author><text>Unpopular opinion of the day: bitcoin is real money, and the government &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; regulate it and control it as such.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the end-game is this: bitcoin addresses are taxable, with occasional tax agents spot-checking large accumulations of bitcoin to determine if said addresses fall within their jurisdiction.  Bitcoin has the unusual ability to have a very tight trace on where a given virtual coin goes: that just makes the ability to watch the money easier.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sillysaurus</author><text>If the government steps in to &amp;quot;de-anonymize&amp;quot; bitcoin, then people will simply begin using tumbling services.  People don&amp;#x27;t use those services right now because there&amp;#x27;s no impetus to.  But as soon as the trust inherent to the public ledger is violated by creating a large-scale effort to track the flow of bitcoin, then people will counter that action with tumblers.</text></comment>
<story><title>Every important person in BitCoin just got subpoenaed by NY financial regulators</title><url>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/08/12/every-important-person-in-bitcoin-just-got-subpoenaed-by-new-yorks-financial-regulator/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flyinglizard</author><text>This is why I don&amp;#x27;t believe in BTC for the long term. It&amp;#x27;s not anywhere near anonymous.&lt;p&gt;Those saying BTC has no inherent value (as opposed to gold, for example) are completely overlooking the fact that BTC is the only kind of exchange that can be used for illicit activities in a relatively untraceable manner (good luck buying stuff on SR using gold).&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, BTC &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; traceable if governments decide to spend the resources monitoring transactions, and I suspect this would be the primary motivator in the demise of BTC and a replacement with a more anonymous currency - the other motivator being that there&amp;#x27;s a huge financial upside for being an inventor or early adopter of a successful cryptocurrency, as BTC shown us.</text></item><item><author>pnathan</author><text>Unpopular opinion of the day: bitcoin is real money, and the government &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; regulate it and control it as such.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the end-game is this: bitcoin addresses are taxable, with occasional tax agents spot-checking large accumulations of bitcoin to determine if said addresses fall within their jurisdiction.  Bitcoin has the unusual ability to have a very tight trace on where a given virtual coin goes: that just makes the ability to watch the money easier.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mtgx</author><text>There is this proposed extension for anonymity, but I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s very likely it will be implemented:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zerocoin.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;zerocoin.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>