What the Samurai wallet indictment could mean for mining
565 sats \ 13 comments \ @machuPikacchu 8 May bitcoin
The Samurai wallet indictment alleges the Samurai service is a money transmitter despite not meeting the definitions set forth by FinCEN. The service itself never took control of funds nor did it transmit the funds. If this case rules in favor of the DoJ then it sets a precedent that could be used to target mining in the US.
A miner takes transactions and includes them in a block and then broadcasts them out to the network. This process is not meaningfully different from what Samurai was doing if we go by the extremely loose definition of money transmitter the DoJ is proposing.
This means that all miners could eventually be forced to apply for a money transmitter license which can be denied or revoked on political grounds. It also drastically raises the barrier of entry and so pushes the industry into the hands of those companies and individuals who are politically connected or who can afford the lawyers to help them acquire the license.
Reminder that this is coming at a time where Antpool has almost 50% of the hashrate. If mining is jeopardized in the US then expect Antpool to have well over 50%. Now is the time to raise awareness and share your concerns with policymakers.
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45 sats \ 4 replies \ @siggy47 8 May
It's good to consider the possibility. I don't think the government will attempt this, though. BlackRock and Larry Fink have too much to lose, and Larry is practically a cabinet member at this point.
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60 sats \ 3 replies \ @machuPikacchu OP 8 May
I hope you're right, but I fear it might just mean that BlackRock will enter the mining industry and few others will be allowed to operate. It's the closest a nation can get to being able to censor transactions.
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70 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 8 May
Also remember it's a big world outside the US. Hash rate can wander.
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82 sats \ 0 replies \ @machuPikacchu OP 8 May
Indeed and in the long term it's healthier for the industry to find more homes too. There are reasons to be optimistic for sure!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 9 May
https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/what-is-bitcoin-governance/#who-is-in-control-of-bitcoin
Even with a 51 percent attack, individual nodes can ignore blocks produced by renegade miners
https://t.me/bitcoin_maximalists_gab/1136
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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 8 May
Oh boy, TheWildHustle can't wait for a US ban on mining, then he'd really feel like a revolutionary.
Hangs picture of Jason Lowrey with a Bitmain Asic gun meme
Best case scenario is all nation states ban bitcoin mining and start attacking large pools like they're the new weapons of mass destruction.
Hustle will continue mining and will build and sell bitaxes like a communist distributing half baked political ideologies.
In Hustle's opinion, sharing concerns with policymakers is a waste of time. The courts and policies are theatricals acts which only serve the purpose of concealing the states true intentions of absolute control.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @softglitter2d 9 May
If miners have to KYCs the transactions, two options: either accept that or the mining market will be over and move to other places. Not a big deal, happened with China in previous years, the hashrate dropped 50% and nothing happened. We're here.
Or just in case they want to censor transactions, remember Marathon when they tried to be OFAC-friendly and people started to fill their blocks with coinjoin transactions. Fuck it
What USA is doing? It seems something like a money wall. Build it. And remember always this beautiful meme because, in the end, this is the true.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 9 May
Ant pool and Foundry each have 27 percent so combined they would have 54 percent.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 9 May
Antpool has around 27 percent according to mempool
https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/pools
Foundry also has about 27 percent
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @machuPikacchu OP 9 May
Antpool constructs the block template for many other pools like Binance, Poolin, F2Pool, and others. It appears to be separate pools if you don't look closely but in reality Antpool decides what transactions get into about 50% of the blocks.
See this source for more details: https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-mining-centralization-risks-matt-corallo/
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @travis 9 May
Yup. The government is retarded.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 9 May
Yes, the possibility is there but with big players involved in mining, I don't think they would go behind mining.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 8 May
My view is that it increases the value of freshly mined sats, since the purpose of the coinjoin is effectively cleaning them.
I don’t view it from an ordinals perspective, but rather scarcity is even more than before
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