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Which begs the question: why don’t criminals skip the middleman by using any of the supposedly anonymous shitcoins?
Maybe they do, fake article is fake, nobody really knows. If you can tumble across chains without before hitting a KYC off-ramp it doesn't matter what chain you use.
Let them use XMR to buy ETH to buy stables to buy bread.
They'll still buy a little Bitcoin for their nestegg when they're done washing.
"They'll still buy a little Bitcoin for their nestegg when they're done washing."
At this point for "the nestegg" they would have been better buying the S&P or the mag 7 or the QQQ. You know, for 'nestegg'.
The problem with those is that they offer no actual real ownership or censorship resistance or public-private keys nothing at all.
If its purely nestegg then they could just buy nvidia shares
Exactly why Bitcoin is a store of value above all, criminals don't need it for crimes when stables are better. Stonks are not storage.
They need Bitcoin when they're done doing crimes and living on a catamaran in Corsica.
"criminals don't need it for crimes when stables are better"
Stablecoin wallets literally get smoked every day when tether 'turns them off' at the drop of a hat...
Most likely 1 billion $ in Iranian held stables were turned off recently... And somehow stables are better?
Stonks may not be storage for us, but they are definitely storage for people, there are multiple US tech companies worth individually more than all the bitcoin combined.
"They need Bitcoin when they're done doing crimes and living on a Catamaran in Corsica."
If we try to permanently separate SoV and MoE of bitcoin becase it is SoV only... Then we are done.
Stables don't need to be perfect to be better than Bitcoin. How many billions are stables moving that don't get smoked.
How many of those billions would have been traced if the IRGC used Bitcoin exclusively? And if they were traced, how would the IRGC get access to the dollars they need?
Stonks are rugged just as easily as stables, probably even more so, because they represent equity the government can use... whereas dollars they can just print.
It is SoV only, everything else is downstream of that and a nice-to-have at most. Accept it.
I don't accept that. Store of value means that miner revenue from fees doesn't matter, that stacker news doesn't matter, that nostr doesn't matter... That its only about 'store of value' when frankly its a pretty **** store of value if I do say so myself.
I have the right to transact with you and you, or not transact as long as we don't interfere with the rights of others...
And to have those transactions be based on sound money where underlying inflation doesn't chsnge. Saying its 'store of value' only is quite frankly the biggest cop-out I have ever heard
Miner revenue from fees does not matter, large Bitcoin stakeholders will do it at a loss to protect their investment if need be. I doubt it will come to that, because Bitcoin will be so valuable even the near 0 fee rate today is more than enough.
Stacker News is fun, a nice-to-have, but absolutely unimportant in the context of a world reserve currency.
Nostr is more like a digital printing press allowing free-flow of asymmetric communication, much different animal. That's useful to Bitcoin as a MoE, MoE can be supportive of value, but value must exist first to drive MoE.
Our rights are irrelevant in this conversation, they don't change what Bitcoin is or is not.
If Bitcoin wasn't a store of value you wouldn't be here, you could go exchange worthless reddit karma.
Bitcoin is a transparent NSA ledger
I don't believe this
You just don't want to believe it, but it's right there in front of you.
So you open a lightning channel, meet a random stranger on the street, he/she gives you 5$ and you send them 5$ in sats to their channel/wallet/whatever...
And the government is monitoring "extrajudicial flows?"
The government doesn't give a rats ass about our $5 or even $5000 transactions.
They care about entities on the OFAC list and or foreign controlled patronage networks operating domestically that move hundreds of millions to billions.
Those are the kinds of flows they can track with Bitcoin and why it's critical to NatSec, because international bankers don't share domestic national security priorities.
What is the government (western government or governments) going to do when Iran starts paying china, or starts paying Russia literally in bitcoin?
Iran is taking bitcoin for 'safe passage' tolls from supertankers... And you think the US wants to stand by and "track the flows?"
The US already wants to pressure miners if they aren't already are, to not include overseas entities transactions even though they'll eventually get mined anyway.
You think the US wants Iran to use bitcoin for international trade, like they are starting to do?
They NSA will trace it and have nearly perfect insight, something they can't do with ships full of oil or gold.
Then when China or Iran then sends it to ActBlue or whatever in the US to fuck with domestic affairs, they have a full chain of evidence to deal with the domestic actors.
Every Iran headline is fake, but let's assume they did take Bitcoin for tolls (they can only do this with US approval anyway given our Navy), that would be great for the US... because the US can then watch where those sats end up. They don't even need to go through the hassle of installing CIA operatives at Barclays, Sberbank, or Credit Suisse.
The US already wants to pressure miners
Not sure to what you're referring, but export controls on Bitcoin would be exceptionally bullish. Keeping the US financially dominant enhances national security.
the US wants Iran to use bitcoin for international trade
The US wants everyone to use Bitcoin for international trade, and end the Triffin Dilemma.
If the black market prefers bitcoin over stables, then we are not educating people well enough.
Bitcoin is a transparent NSA ledger where flows can be tracked extrajudicially across borders, wtf would criminals use it other than to store their wealth?
The state can turn YOU off at any time, stables being turned off while they're being tumbled through "DeFi" exchanges is the least of their problems.
Also, we know that banks love to be partners in crime, stables are the perfect tool for banks to keep laundering funds for foreign adversaries while maintaining deniability. DEniability FInance.