A threat? I don't know about that. It is still one of the most accessible on-ramp. Not ideal for privacy for sure but you have options. All US exchanges are KYC so no much option there, but after the purchase how these coins get to your final destination wallets is another matter :-) Use your imagination and you can always take it on a boat ride :-) If you want to use P2P or foreign exchanges you will probably pay more but that's your choice.

Banger, except I can't even imagine any "right way to use an ETF".

Probably won't, but interested to read all the same.

I think about K Y C and how wrong it is. When you grew up in an analogue world, there were many examples of life, K Y C free. And it worked.

Telephones (i.e payphones, landline phones) this was non K Y C communication (not without limitations) but it was great. You might opt-in to put your name next to your phone number in a phone book, like businesses might do.

Then obviously in the payment world, it really the case of cash providing anonymity (security and privacy.) You went out, you needed a wallet. I guess there would be the point made that there were more victims of street theft. Although this doesn't seem to have changed (other than have gotten worse in many places where governments are failing) there was the fantastic feeling that you were essentially free. You could go anywhere, and nobody knew where you were, unless you told someone, at your discretion.

So here we are. I don't see this as a direct attack on Bitcoin, though without doubt, within the crosshairs. The entire, 'blue checking' (real-name identification) limitations on the use of cash, in wallets, real or digital is totalitarianism.

I don't mind if anyone wishes to opt into such a system. The freedom to make choices is a principle that great nations were founded upon. Just personally, as I see it, it's not making the world any safer (in actuality, more insecure, more paranoid, less trusting.) The right to privacy is your personal inalienable right.

[Sorry tangential rant off]

Bad forks are like any sub-standard item. It is a hard sell when there is a market and flight to quality.

Without deliberating the possibility of an actual Disk-esque future where we have mind reading and pre-crime, as technological progress seems lagging considering lifespans of recently manufactured vehicle, or quality of food items versus yesterday, you cannot prosecute something that is 1. Not really there. Electrons/information is not an actual possession. 2. Something that when many people acquired, was deemed worthless and irrelevant by authorities (i.e governments collectively, politicians individually and economists generally.) As a bad analogy, it's like stepping in some animal excrement in the street and being prosecuted for that. I acquired that excrement on the street. Was it my animal it came from? Was it in my own street I stepped on it? The fact that if you took a forensic analysis of my shoe a few years down the line, or 15 years it is possible that there may be traces there on my shoe of somewhere else. It's really not my fault that it was dismissed as worthless (and debatably is) whilst now simultaneously being made into a structured investment by government-regulated entities.

Just curious here - do you think KYC Bitcoin is acceptable ever?

What happens after the "government fights us?"

I do believe that KYC bitcoin will be attacked over and over - somewhere, sometime, by some body of government and/or some "bodies" of control(ers) yet to be realized - this is after all "A tale as old as time!"

I also believe that this "volatility" also dissipates over time (hundreds perhaps thousands of years) and moves toward to the edges of adoption if you will....

With that end in mind - I think the best steps we can take is to work towards making that future - the present...and in as much of an orderly and calm fashion as we can.

They may want to fight us at every turn but that doesn't mean we have to play in their pond....we do after all, now have our own :)

There are guys who do consider two Bitcoins: KYC and non-KYC. I would love to know Satoshi’s opinion on this.

What is this "self-sending chain trail"?