Bitcoin: Who owns it, who mines it, who’s breaking the law | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin: Who owns it, who mines it, who’s breaking the law

mitsloan.mit.edu

FTA: "The authors found that participation in Bitcoin is skewed toward the elite. Their research showed that at the end of 2020, there were 1,000 “clusters” controlling 2 million bitcoins." (and 4 million among the top 10,000 accounts)

This claim doesn't distinguish between wealthy people who acquired bitcoin and people who are now wealthy because they acquired bitcoin.

>and 4 million among the top 10,000 accounts

How are they defining "accounts"? Bitcoin addresses? It's hard to take them seriously if that's the case, because many people can be sharing one bitcoin address (custodial wallets, exchanges) and a single person can have many bitcoin addresses (most wallet software generate fresh addresses for each transaction). Drawing any conclusion from such flawed methods seems highly irresponsible.

From the article:

> The authors clustered addresses so that all addresses that sent bitcoins in any single transaction were deemed to belong to the same entity.

And those who could have been wealthy if they did not loose their private keys

I have a hard time understanding how anyone can claim they know the true percentage of crypto transactions that are used for illegal activity. At best they can report the subset that they were able to track down, and it seems reasonable to believe that most large value illegal transactions are carried out by people who know how to hide it.

There have been tracing applications around for years now in this space. They've identified wallets & send micro transactions around to many to distinguish who is who in terms of dark markets, services, bad actors etc. Given the many hacks with wallets and also services selling that data believe me they know more than you are giving them credit.

In terms of the bad actions.. Those who are trying to hide money have known this for years so they are in different currencies that provide better privacy.

I didn't make any claims about how much they know.

They use various clustering algorithms and heuristics, but it's true that it only gives a lower bound at best.

For example: https://youtu.be/D_Eqz8_Jm2E

They don't know the true percentage, and what we do know per the findings shared by Coinbase [0] is that the amount of fraud is not meaningful. It's the same situation with other forms of currency. I really think the claims about fraud are intentionally overblown because bad actors just want to subsume crypto's momentum.

[0] - https://blog.coinbase.com/fact-check-crypto-is-increasingly-...

This is not just about fraud. And I could wave the same stick at you - "I really think claims about illegal activity are intentionally swept under the rug by crypto shills." See how easy that is...

Except the data does not support your stick. Whereas it does support mine.

So much wrong with this article.

Funds don't originate with criminal activity, they originate with coinbase transactions. A dollar used on illegal activity doesn't make that dollar less useful, that's part of the whole idea behind money in the first place. You don't measure how much money was used at some point doing illegal activity, if you go back far enough, every dollar was used on something illegal at some point. The only honest measure is how much is currently being used for illegal activity.

"The elite" implies people that own mansions on long island. But the elite in this case includes regular people that made the smart financial decision to go in on this thing early. When being elite is superfluous it becomes a meaningless distinction.

Addresses do not equate to individuals.

The article is interesting though, it is still a decent article and somewhat informative.

Weird tangent with how cocaine has "contaminated" the US paper currency.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8835657/

The so called whales in the article are crypto exchanges holding btc, and not actual individual holders. The only person to hold more than a mill is Satoshi.

Never forget the enormous pollution that Bitcoin generates!

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/

Currently comparable to the entire energy consumption of Poland!

Obligatory: now do the petrol dollar.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co...

1 bitcoin transaction ~ 1,800 kWh

100,000 visa transactions ~ 150 kWh

Yes but:

1 Bitcoin ~ validated by millions of nodes

100,000 visa transaction ~ validated by one entity

Has there been, in the last few decades, any concerns about the validity of the Visa transactions?

Of course, have you never heard of credit card fraud?

Credit card fraud is effectively the same as someone stealing your bitcoin wallet password. Bitcoin does nothing to stop that. In fact, credit cards are much better at stopping fraud since they'll just undo any transactions you dispute.

Maybe not, maybe yes and Visa hasn’t released the new because it would be disastrous publicity for the company.

No dog in this fight

But just for clarity since you're top comment, I assume he means the gross support costs of the dollar via the military / empire industrial complex ->

(1) https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-...

Correct. Let alone in addition to:

- The credit card terminals

- The power for Visa's servers

- The power for Visa's customer support offices

- The power for the phones at Visa's offices

- The power at the credit agencies

- The fuel for the money trucks

- The power for the money printers

- The power for the servers at all of the banks

- The power for the atm's

I could continue.

Fair point about a lot of this. But if you want to make it fair, you're going to have to include the hardware costs of all the mining machines for the upkeep of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem appropriate to include the "cost" of Visa's customer support - since it's a service that Bitcoin doesn't provide. Fuel for money trucks isn't likely to be different if the ATMs were not there - there is already money trucks moving around, and a few pounds of cash extra do virtually no 'damage'. etc.

It's not about fairness, it's about freedom. You should want something like Bitcoin to exist. It's the first form of decentralized money in world history. That means that a majority of the world's root problems (e.g. war, inflation, etc) are solved.

Ironically, Bitcoin is the most fair form of money that's ever existed. Governments can't print more of it, they can't manipulate it, they can't tax it (directly), they literally have no control over it. That's why the propaganda machine against it is relentless ("look at what this evil thing is doing, but ignore our never-ending stream of atrocities that make your life objectively more difficult!").

While this may fly over the head of most privileged Westerners, this means the difference between hostile regimes being funded and terrorizing people vs. a family being able to build a business for themselves and live a peaceful life.

If you're against Bitcoin, you're against your fellow humans whether you realize it or not.

> That means that a majority of the world's root problems (e.g. war, inflation, etc) are solved.

Isn't the root cause of war competition for resources (oil, food, land, etc.)? How has Bitcoin solved that problem?

Ultimately, yes. That problem is unsolvable. There will always be more of us than there is stuff to sustain us (unless you get rid of the people ;) ). Our survival—and arguably, sense of meaning—is dependent on our ability to produce value for others in exchange for money.

What Bitcoin solves is removing the ability for that money to be manipulated. For example, in the U.S., if I'm at a bank or a large enough company, I can get 0% interest loans from the Federal Reserve. That would be fine if the money was backed by something, but it isn't. As the Federal Reserve, I can print more and more money ad infinitum and then give it away at 0% interest. This is literally money that is not backed by a commensurate amount of value (e.g., gold or some other precious asset like my time/labor). In this model, I can take resources of the table without replacing them rendering me, effectively, a parasite.

The U.S. dollar (or any fiat currency) is not _real_ in the sense that it functions within a set of fixed, well-defined laws.

Bitcoin on the other hand functions based on the laws of mathematics and its own, publicly exposed source code (which can only be changed via majority network consensus). It has a fixed supply that is doled out on a predictable schedule in exchange for creating value (a miner processing transactions). Because of this and its inherent decentralization—meaning it can't be controlled by one or a few small players—its value exists in it being incorruptible.

In laymen terms, it means that what you make is _yours_ and can only be taken by force (and that's _if_ they can get access to your private keys). You can actually build savings and invest in the future. You can predictably plan for your business without having to constantly adjust for inflation. You can live without the boot of government on your chest.

This, inherently, will make the world more peaceful in time. The more peace we have, the more our minds function properly (a mind in a state of fear is easily controlled and limited). The more our minds function properly, the more creative we are. The more creative we are, the more we can invent solutions to our problems, etc.

I appreciate the thorough response. I think I see what you are saying - the deflationary and decentralized nature of Bitcoin acts as a stabilizing force in the economy by enforcing a real value to money or resources to money relationship.

I'm not sure I see how that will "make the world more peaceful over time." Wouldn't the same issues still exist at the geopolitical scale (where the wars are)? The primary means of acquiring new or more resources for your nation have been the same for all of human history: trade and conquest. I can see a more stable economy being a benefit, but I don't really see how it changes that fundamental dynamic.

> Wouldn't the same issues still exist at the geopolitical scale (where the wars are)?

Not as easily. In order to finance those wars, assuming Bitcoin renders fiat currencies useless (not improbable), those governments would have to create value, which governments are terrible at. There's a "pipe dream" element to this, but it's not _impossible_. Adopting Bitcoin at scale would put a serious handicap on the ability for governments to pursue conquest or harass their citizens under the guise of "authority." Their only option would be to invest in entrepreneurs and citizens domestically, focusing on being the best place to be as opposed to the ape with the biggest or most rocks (nationalism without the "seig heil!").

That's why I'm so hyper about it. As a civilization, we've never been in this position before so there are a lot of unknowns. At the very least, it would be a grave mistake to dismiss Bitcoin as a "scam" or "bad invention" or fall under the all-too-common spell of "the important thing is the Blockchain technology" (false because you can implement highly-controlled blockchains which recreate the same problem).

The book The Sovereign Individual (interestingly written in the 90s) explains this idea in a more articulate/elaborate way.

The world used to run on exactly this type of currency: the gold standard. We had the gold standard during both World Wars, during colonialism, during slavery and every other atrocity in human history.

And of course inflation can still happen if the world were to run on bitcoin. If cost or supply of many goods are directly impacted (e.g. because of problems with oil supply, which underlies production costs of much of the goods and even services in the economy), then inflation can occur even with a fixed monetary supply.

Also note, the problem is not that there are more of us than stuff to sustain us. The modern economy produces more than enough to fulfill at least the base needs of each and every person on Earth. The problem is that many people believe that they are owed much more than others, either personally, organizationally, or nationally. Most likely wars over resources wouldn't go away to any significant extent even if the world's poorest 5 billion people were to drop dead tomorrow (well, once new soldiers are manufactured).

> this means the difference between hostile regimes being funded and terrorizing people vs. a family being able to build a business for themselves and live a peaceful life.

Indeed, cryptocurrencies help war-mongering regimes bypass international anti-terrorist sanctions.

Cryptocurrencies aren't handed to them by governments along with billions worth of weapons and equipment.

While that's certainly a long list of things, I'd be surprised if they added up to the six-orders-of-magnitude difference one would need to make these two costs remotely close to one another on a per-transaction basis. Bitcoin has its uses, but its comparative advantage does not lie in its superior energy efficiency as a medium for licit transactions.

(And surely "money trucks" here can only be meant metaphorically? The vast majority of US dollars only ever exist as entries in electronic ledgers anyway.)

The lightning network makes the entire throughput argument beyond irrelevant: https://lightning.network/

The entire banking system (credit card terminals, support offices, credit agencies, money trucks, bank servers etc.) does much much more than bitcoin. Transactions are a tiny subset of banking, but they are the only thing that Bitcoin addresses.

Bitcoin doesn't do loans; it doesn't do fraud protection (as in, you payed for this item, but the seller is not sending it to you); it doesn't address mistaken transactions; it doesn't address insurance; it doesn't address financial advice; it doesn't address day-to-day payments (the entire bitcoin network couldn't handle the day-to-day payments in a village). I could go on.

Not to mention, the US military-industrial complex wouldn't lose 1 satoshi if the entire world moved to Bitcoin. So it's absurd on the face of it to attribute US military energy to the dollar.

All of the things you're describing are layers on top of the dollar, not the dollar itself. In the same way, Bitcoin requires investment to build up those systems. When people push propaganda against it, it deters the ability for that to happen (the exact point of the propaganda).

For example, loans already exist: https://unchained.com/loans/.

The internet didn't do lots of things back in the 90s and look at it today. This game is long-term and requires investment and attention _now_ to achieve its potential. Having a decentralized form of money is an incredible head start.

You were the one comparing the energy expenditure of Bitcoin with the entire banking system. I was merely pointing out why that comparison is irrelevant.

Yes, please continue, because all of these things are still a rounding error compared to Bitcoin, despite serving more functions and handling orders of magnitude more transactions than Bitcoin.

Not the lightning network, which would be the primary network used for day-to-day transactions: https://lightning.network/

> Scalability. Capable of millions to billions of transactions per second across the network. Capacity blows away legacy payment rails by many orders of magnitude. Attaching payment per action/click is now possible without custodians.

Assuming that the military/industrial complex would disappear if bitcoin prevailed over the dollar seems very questionable.

Yes, that's one of the most bizarre positions I've seen from proponents of crypto. It's somehow oddly optimistic?

It's the entire reason that it exists. If you can print endless amounts of money without accountability (and convince people it has value that it doesn't), you can do what you want.

If people realize "oh, this Bitcoin thing works just like those dollars and a government can't manipulate it," in time, yes, the military industrial complex will collapse. Not immediately and not without a fight, but eventually, yes.

You haven’t offered any kind of explanation at all here.

If there is a ‘fight’ involved, how will bitcoin owners fight against the military industrial complex?

By removing their money from the existing system and moving it into Bitcoin. If the dollar is the air supply, Bitcoin is the plastic bag over their proverbial head.

It’s pretty easy to stop businesses from accepting Bitcoin if you are the military industrial complex.

Black markets are hard to eliminate altogether but no real threat.

They'd have to shut down the internet. If you can generate an address, I can send you Bitcoin (the role of the internet is limited to broadcasting the transaction to the network).

So, no. Perhaps for a certain class of user—someone who depends solely on an exchange—they can stop them but ultimately, no. They'd be limited to showing up with guns.

It's not nearly as futile as it seems unless people buy into the propaganda.

Why would they need to shut down the internet to prevent business from accepting bitcoin? That makes no sense. A simple regulation or tax would do it.

Why then did war happen happily in the millennia in which money supply was almost entirely limited? Governments have the ability to buy currency if they can't/don't want to mint new coin.

For example, states have been issuing various forms of bonds to raise money for war since at least the 1600s.

Nobody is assuming it would disappear, people are only correctly observing that some of the cost to support the current world financial system is paid in blood.

If it wouldn’t disappear then it’s not a cost that can be attributed to the current financial system.

You may as well say that since the current financial system enabled the development of computers and the internet which were pre-requisites for the development of Bitcoin, then Bitcoin was paid in blood.

That's a bit too reductionist IMO. Human beings didn't invent suffering, animals rended each other limb from lim for eternity before us, so does that mean the suffering from warfare cannot be attributed to human beings, or that past suffering was not attributable to the state of the world then?? Warfare for profit existed before America, so does that mean the american military industrial complex cannot be attributed to America, or that Roman conquest cannot be attributable to Rome seeing as conquest did not disappear?

You can very clearly see that the current state of affairs is propped up with blood. That doesn't mean the future state of affairs won't also be supported by suffering and death, but that doesn't absolve the current state of things.

Nobody is trying to absolve anything. The point is that Bitcoin won’t either.

> If it wouldn’t disappear then it’s not a cost that can be attributed to the current financial system.

That's a pretty clear absolution.

Bitcoin might not solve this problem, but it (or I should say cryptocurrency) can resolve an existing problem with the financial system, that is, manipulating worldwide economics by manipulating money supply. Perhaps that level of economic control is used to prop up imperialism, colonialism and might makes right to some degree. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

>> If it wouldn’t disappear then it’s not a cost that can be attributed to the current financial system.

> That's a pretty clear absolution.

Not even close. You seem to be interested in attributing blame. My comment is about causality.

If your assumption is that the financial system is the cause of imperialist oppression, then you will also be likely to believe that an alternative financial system can be the cure.

I think that’s naïvely utopian. If Bitcoin is money, then powerful people will use it the same way money has always been used. At best you might reshuffle who is in power, but ultimately it will just be a case of “it’s my turn with the gun now”.

> If your assumption is that the financial system is the cause of imperialist oppression...

I've clearly stated my point: that the current world economic system is to some degree reliant on continuing oppressive warfare. That's the only claim I'm making.

I've also very clearly stated that my point is not that bitcoin is the cure, only that it would assist in toppling the current largest incentive for oppressive warfare. I've clearly stated that I don't think k it is a cure. You're arguing with yourself at this point.

> only that it would assist in toppling the current largest incentive for oppressive warfare

You have made no case for this.

It's not like the need for military protection goes away with Bitcoin. People will attack each other to get what other people have, justly or unjustly, the same as they always have done.

Cute graph. What's the source?

Now include a future discounted transaction flow of a growing sidechain (Lightning network) that also "settles" transactions off the main chain.

1 main chain transaction != 1 transaction

In the same way Visa uses a centralized database to "handle" millions of transactions, Coinbase/Paypal/Square can offer inter-user transfers that occur off the main chain too, scaling to the millions.

These are apples and oranges, if you want to compare transactions, you should first define what a "transaction" is. A bicycle is more energy efficient than a car, but that doesn't mean they solve the same problem.

It's by design, not a side effect.

To add on to this comment, its ultimately the market that decides how much energy is spent for one bitcoin. Anything else of value will expend the same amount of capital to meet demand. Fracking in oil was a great example because even when the difficulty to acquire this asset increased the market was willing to expend more capital for it as long as it made economical sense. Which is another way of saying, bitcoin has nothing to do with pollution and that responsibility lies solely with the energy sector and how its regulated.

It is so hard to know whether these reports are really done with the vigour that justifies trusting the conclusions but I guess I'll spend some time finding out.

First observation: their research points out 80% of transactions are via exchanges and it seems their research basically does nothing to analyse that 80%, it's all on-chain analysis (ie, completely worthless and extremely ironic since they literally describe the block chain being a move away from a "few centralized record keepers" - bitcoin is far better, only accounting for 80%)

>"Without proper regulation, this is going to be a very dangerous place for many retail investors.”

I don't like Bitcoin. I hold no bitcoin. Even for me, this reeks of institutionalism. Is it better that you pay repetitive over-draft charges at your bank or exorbitant fees to your local investment advisor, or watch your savings disappear into nothing through inflation? I don't know how, but MIT is radicalising me.

To be honest the over-arching theme of this article is just "let's apply all the legacy regulations to bitcoin". Which is probably right in general, but this article does a poor job of selling it.

I think your sentence makes more sense of s/vigour/rigor/g

I think both work.

Previous discussion of actual paper:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28874803

Is 3% really "small"?

The underground economy in developed countries is estimated at around 10% of the GDP, so comparatively yes. [1]

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/062216...

Good to know, thanks for the link!

Underground economy is a term for any transaction that isn't reported to the government and don't pay taxes. It's not a name for illegal activity only.

Most of it is perfectly legal or is illegal only because it's evading taxes.

> Illegal activity is a small fraction (3%) of what actually goes on in the Bitcoin blockchain.

The other 97% should be considered illegal activity, too, since it's all one big Ponzi scheme.

You must be fun at parties

Just testing out Poe's law again.

Ponzi schemes aren't often as forthright that they're promising vapor.

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