I think about this a lot.
Bitcoin's open ledger means it has the potential for CBDC-style surveillance. But I think this is easily solved by using privacy protocols that already exist (lightning, cashu, fedi, Monero, coinjoins, etc). Thus the only people who might get trapped are those still holding KYC coins, and/or coins on exchanges or ETFs. Sadly I suspect that's the majority, but fortunately I believe enough people are already using these protocols that it's now trivial to hide.
I think a more legitimate threat is if mining becomes too centralised, then the large pools could be forced by their nation's authorities to implement censorship which leads to whitelists or blacklists, where, for example, any "anonymous" bitcoin (such as mentioned in the previous paragraph) is deemed illegal and prevented from transacting on-chain.
One counter to this is simply not transacting on-chain, but you'd need to be very well prepared in advance and would also need to be holding your stack off-chain. As far as I know, that's not really a good option just yet.
A more solid counter is game theory. By which I mean that there are many big players in bitcoin, including likely some countries quietly holding, who are interested in keeping their holdings anonymous and hence would not push for such regulation. Both on an organisational and an individual level. Remember governments are all just groups of individuals and any that understand bitcoin are very likely stacking already.
Another good counter is to push for more decentralising mining! Easier said than done, but at least there is growing awareness of this issue now.
Some small things we can do include home mining and simply continuing to educate those around us. Orange pilling remains tough but the low-hanging fruit here is educating existing holders about non-KYC and why it's so important.
Is that kind of what you were thinking about too? Very curious to hear your thoughts and what you think the risks are.
enerG
npub1qk…x2upf
2024-07-18 04:10:54
in reply to nevent1q…vrxs
Author Public Key
npub1qka69qssj8cr9269jdav2m6p3l3tvhj3mn5uygn659s6tystaqys0x2upfPublished at
2024-07-18 04:10:54Event JSON
{
"id": "6e6bf7fc6b02903476357cf3c5fe337a79a295bee24fa4107cb5ffadcd4bf258",
"pubkey": "05bba2821091f032ab45937ac56f418fe2b65e51dce9c2227aa161a5920be809",
"created_at": 1721275854,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"p",
"9267545d2917b80f707ffdb44a8ff979182568ef7baa04ee756b1f01d4e3688a"
],
[
"e",
"b87fe8835c5e56e6ed778f3cc605f73f887d165d7bd55f0478a05059d6810231",
"wss://nostr.mom",
"root"
]
],
"content": "I think about this a lot. \n\nBitcoin's open ledger means it has the potential for CBDC-style surveillance. But I think this is easily solved by using privacy protocols that already exist (lightning, cashu, fedi, Monero, coinjoins, etc). Thus the only people who might get trapped are those still holding KYC coins, and/or coins on exchanges or ETFs. Sadly I suspect that's the majority, but fortunately I believe enough people are already using these protocols that it's now trivial to hide. \n\nI think a more legitimate threat is if mining becomes too centralised, then the large pools could be forced by their nation's authorities to implement censorship which leads to whitelists or blacklists, where, for example, any \"anonymous\" bitcoin (such as mentioned in the previous paragraph) is deemed illegal and prevented from transacting on-chain. \nOne counter to this is simply not transacting on-chain, but you'd need to be very well prepared in advance and would also need to be holding your stack off-chain. As far as I know, that's not really a good option just yet.\nA more solid counter is game theory. By which I mean that there are many big players in bitcoin, including likely some countries quietly holding, who are interested in keeping their holdings anonymous and hence would not push for such regulation. Both on an organisational and an individual level. Remember governments are all just groups of individuals and any that understand bitcoin are very likely stacking already. \nAnother good counter is to push for more decentralising mining! Easier said than done, but at least there is growing awareness of this issue now. \n\nSome small things we can do include home mining and simply continuing to educate those around us. Orange pilling remains tough but the low-hanging fruit here is educating existing holders about non-KYC and why it's so important.\n\nIs that kind of what you were thinking about too? Very curious to hear your thoughts and what you think the risks are. ",
"sig": "2e1663bbdf45a3ca5a6d48945be9cb6fa887e3f39a6b859951c5258a332ab4217ffc537776da7646a630046993f12db17630edb2149632c0c87189af901174a8"
}