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Does bitcoin have any value if Russian oligarchs can't use it?
3988 sats \ 25 comments \ @Scoresby 25 Apr bitcoin
The Samourai people tweeted this last June:
Welcome new Russian oligarch Samourai Wallet users
Obviously, this was not a tactful statement. It got singled out in the DOJ press release about the developers' arrest. It is likely that statements like these may have played a role in their current discomfort.
Matt Corallo on TFTC recently said this:
Censorship resistance is the value proposition.
This is a far more palatable version of the same statement. Censorship resistance means Russian oligarchs can use Bitcoin.
So my question is this: did Samourai make a mistake of semantics or is this the inevitable end of Bitcoin?
Some people seem to think what got them in trouble was their implementation (centralized coordinator) or accepting fees for a service or their loudmouth bombastic social media presence.
To me, however, the problem here is that the central idea of bitcoin (censorship resistant money) is already illegal as far as most governments are concerned. They're just trying to figure out how they can stop it.
If Bitcoin lives up to its promise (money you can send to anyone anywhere anytime and no one can stop you) is it inevitable that we all become outlaws?
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235 sats \ 1 reply \ @jgbtc 25 Apr
It is inevitable that the state will attack bitcoin in every way it can. It's not inevitable that it will win. Given the first part, keeping a low profile, not bragging about enabling illegal actions online for example, is important. Bitcoin is censorship resistant, key word resistant. The level of that resistance is affected by behavior.
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137 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 25 Apr
Yes. Being giant, vociferous asshats in public is a way to attract unnecessary notice and to needlessly fast-forward opposition. Would have been nice to deal with this shit in a year instead of now, but this is why we can't have nice things.
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38 sats \ 0 replies \ @om 25 Apr
If Bitcoin lives up to its promise (money you can send to anyone anywhere anytime and no one can stop you) is it inevitable that we all become outlaws?
(O<O)
Yes.
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47 sats \ 8 replies \ @windward 25 Apr
(centralized coordinator)
even though they weren't in charge of customer funds, I'm pretty sure that the feds are going to argue that the centralized coordinator situation is going to be the 'inaction' that they're looking for.
So my question is this: did Samourai make a mistake of semantics or is this the inevitable end of Bitcoin?
I'm certain the semantics didn't help.
it's one thing to market 'privacy for everyone' - criminals 'might' use it, but if everyone has privacy that's ultimately good (and harder to convince a jury the devs are doing something illegal /morally wrong)
it's another to straight up say in your marketing material (according to the DOJ) 'our revenue model is based on crime and those evading taxes' - to a jury that's a different set of implications altogether
If Bitcoin lives up to its promise (money you can send to anyone anywhere anytime and no one can stop you) is it inevitable that we all become outlaws?
the State is always expanding. on a long enough timeline, sure. I don't actually think they've fully realized it's the money, yet.
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30 sats \ 7 replies \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr
I am afraid that we are all getting distracted by Samourai's loudmouth online persona and missing the reality that a mining pool providing a block template or an ecash mint with a lightning gateway are not so different.
If we accept that coinjoins are only okay if they aren't intentionally used for bad things is it different than accepting that bitcoin transactions from someone in North Korea should not get mined?
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122 sats \ 1 reply \ @windward 25 Apr
I am afraid that we are all getting distracted by Samourai's loudmouth online persona
their online persona is separate from what I'm describing - in the DOJ release they post what looks like a picture from what they claim is Samourai marketing for investors that their revenue for their add-on would come from 'online gamblers, dark/greymarket participants, high net worth individuals, and asset protection/capital flight'
https://m.stacker.news/28074
The stated or heavily implied intent of your product matters to the government in its ability to pursue charges against you. Explicitly stating that you want to raise money from investors to hide darkmarket money / people under sanction puts a target on your back.
If we accept that coinjoins are only okay if they aren't intentionally used for bad things?
I think that coinjoins are ok, actually. If they could be conducted in a way that didn't require a central coordinator that'd probably be alright.
However, if you decide to run a business whose sole purpose is to help users do coinjoins and you collect revenue from it, while advertising it as a way to facilitate crime, I expect the State to eventually come on the offense.
If Samourai didn't have that marketing material for investors, and did not collect fees + used some decentralized coordination, the feds would find it much more difficult to prosecute.
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62 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr
This is a good argument for the "they made a semantic mistake" side. I hope it's true.
Do we end up with Bitcoin can be censorship resistant money as long as we don't brag about it?
When I next have a couple hours, I wonder how easy it would be to compare the btc addresses on the ofac list with recent blocks. How many sanctioned addresses have made it into blocks in the last 365 days?
(I guess it's possible that none of the owners of those sanctioned addresses have wanted to move their btc, but surely some have...)
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38 sats \ 4 replies \ @windward 25 Apr
separate post:
ecash mint with a lightning gateway are not so different
it is actually - because ecash / lightning is peer to peer routing, where Whirlpool was a centralized router.
whirlpool does not run without the centralized coordinator and they collect a fee from it
anyone can spin up a cashu mint + mints are interchangeable + no fee collected by mint = not as straightforward to target
on a large enough scale though, the State will find a reason.
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20 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr freebie
lightning is peer to peer routing
What do we think of LSPs? The way Phoenix does it where a wallet only has one channel and that is with ACINQ?
Boltz might be another example of this. A centralized coordinator taking a fee.
As to mints, if I spin up a mint, the people who mint tokens park their btc with me. And if they want to redeem those tokens, someone has to bring them to me (the mint) to do it.
If there is a third party offering a lightning gateway, the tokens still have to come back to the mint to get redeemed even if it is the gateway operator who brings them back.
Also: isn't every ecash transaction actually reported back to the mint with the "sent" tokens being burned and the "received" tokens being newly issued? Sounds like a centralized coordinator to me ...
Are we just hoping that all these services talk politely and don't piss off any government agency?
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17 sats \ 2 replies \ @windward 25 Apr
What do we think of LSPs?
An LSP is just a big node that actively states they want to trade liquidity for connections.
The way Phoenix does it where a wallet only has one channel and that is with ACINQ?
This is a separate thing. I don't like the idea that I can't create my own channels to the nodes that I want and it's harder to argue that they're not in a similar situation as users of Phoenix cannot from what I understand.
Boltz might be another example of this. A centralized coordinator taking a fee.
Boltz is an example - but they advertise more like a public service than a business - and not one attempting to cater directly to "enemies of the state" (note - the state will never understand money)
As to mints, if I spin up a mint, the people who mint tokens park their btc with me. And if they want to redeem those tokens, someone has to bring them to me (the mint) to do it. If there is a third party offering a lightning gateway, the tokens still have to come back to the mint to get redeemed.
They don't ever have to come back to the gateway if people really didn't want them to, & really trusted the mint.
Cashu itself is not centralized - anyone can spin up their own mint, and the token holder can almost always move to a new mint provided they aren't actively being rugged, or have enough notice before the mint closes down.
When Samourai got caught up, Whirlpool stopped, and without someone starting up the central coordination software for elsewhere, it won't start up again.
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr freebie
If I have a mint and my server gets seized by the govt, the people holding tokens from my mint will have a very hard time exchanging them for tokens from any other mint or for btc.
Cashu is not centralized, but my Cashu mint is centralized.
provided they aren't actively being rugged, or have enough notice before the mint closes down.
Isn't this the problem though? They dont give you warning. You just suddenly hear that the mint is down.
They don't ever have to come back to the gateway if people really didn't want them to
But whoever is running the gateway won't run it for long if it's a one way trade. If all they do is hand over btc and receive that particular mint's ecash, they will run out of btc. How do they turn the ecash back into btc? They go to that particular mint which created the ecash.
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17 sats \ 0 replies \ @windward 25 Apr
Cashu is not centralized, but my Cashu mint is centralized.
yes. cashu mints are centralized.
You just suddenly hear that the mint is down.
this is why most cashu wallets allow you to melt between mints - that way you can 'distribute' risk as a holder. You are also only affected if you had tokens from that specific mint. cashu would still exist.
you can't spin Whirlpool back up without Samourai, as of right now.
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38 sats \ 0 replies \ @nicosey 25 Apr
This is why we need to take the battle to chain surveillance and the companies supporting this
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47 sats \ 0 replies \ @rax0m 25 Apr
This was a thought-provoking post. Thank you.
did Samourai make a mistake of semantics or is this the inevitable end of Bitcoin?
The answer is yes and yes. Their mistake of semantics accelerated their fate but it has to be the end of Bitcoin as the current governments around the world see it. Our best hope to counter this is that Bitcoin "captures" and "corrupts" the governments officials to such an extent that in the future, actions such as these will have too much resistance internally to happen.
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28 sats \ 4 replies \ @harrr 25 Apr
Those oligarch weren't using bitcoin, they were using a centralized service.
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11 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr
Yeah, look: there are bitcoin addresses on OFAC lists. It's not too many steps from samourai's centralized service to the centralized service of block template creation provided by mining pools.
And yes, they were using bitcoin.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @harrr 25 Apr
If they had used bitcoin they would still be able to do what they were doing, yet they aren't.
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30 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr
If by "they" you mean Russian oligarchs, I do not know whether they are doing what they want or not.
If you by "they" you mean Samourai, my post isn't about what they are doing now.
I was trying to point out that bitcoin needs to offer censorship resistance or else it loses a good chunk of its value proposition.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @harrr 25 Apr
I was trying to point out that bitcoin needs to offer censorship resistance or else it loses a good chunk of its value proposition.
Bitcoin IS censorship resistant and that's unstoppable. Centralized services can be stopped, peer to peer cash can not. People who use centralize services need to stop whining when they break.
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117 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 25 Apr
The right question is this:
https://m.stacker.news/28089
  • does those guys steal money from somebody? No
  • does those guys did any damage to somebody? No
  • does those guys killed somebody? No
So if there's no crime the case is closed.
As I always said, don't try to debate or argue with the gov or the justice system, because that will not end up you winning. They always win. Instead, rebut their authority. Show me the proof you have any authority over my money and how I use them. There's none. Case closed.
Also they have to admit that Bitcoin is money. Do those guys used dollars? Then the situation is different. if they used only BTC, then nobody have any authority over your BTC.
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17 sats \ 0 replies \ @gd 25 Apr
If you ever want to wedge yourself in between nation states, you kinda have to be a bit more strategic about it.
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17 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 25 Apr
Was everyone able to move their btc out?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 25 Apr
They all have their keys, so I don't think there's any issue with "moving it out." It should be just a matter of importing the seed to a new wallet (because they really shouldn't keep using Samourai). How they feel about their privacy is another matter.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @machuPikacchu 25 Apr
What this has shown is that more people need to mine so they have KYC-free sats. Coinbase transactions have no history and therefore don't have the same privacy problems.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 25 Apr
Oh come on, what an overdone title.
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