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Comment by JonChesterfield | Hacker News Reader

The point of bitcoin was that it can't be taken off you by the state. So either this was severe user error, to the tune of why aren't the keys somewhere secure when there's a billion dollars behind them, or the nominal reason for bitcoin existing is nonsense.

We thinking user error or crypto is nonsense? On the forum I expect the former.

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Unless you are suggesting that the encryption algorithms underlying Bitcoin have been broken (which would be absolutely huge news with all sorts of far reaching consequences), then it's clearly the former.

Crypto is nonsense for a lot of its stated purposes once you strip away the shared delusions that have been propped up by us living in a fairly stable global society that at least goes through the motions of supporting the rule of law (though this is obviously changing quickly in some places recently).

But then again holding some piece of paper (or a database entry) that says you own some gold that you don't actually have in your possession is equally nonsense that also works until it doesn't.

If you don't pay your debts or taxes then even items that you own and which are in your possession can be taken from you, thanks to the rule of law. Conversely, if someone comes along and takes it from you without legal justification, the rule of law allows you to claim it back. That same rule of law ensures that you are entitled to the gold you own that isn't in your possession.

Drawing the line at possession is arbitrary. Either way your ownership is governed by law, and is only as good as the strength of that law.

Sure, but my point is that quite a few people argue that owning crypto (or gold, which is why I also brought that up) protects you in the situation where societal structure fails, and they just obviously don't.

Yes, and I agree with that point. I just think you haven't extended it to its natural conclusion which is that if societal structure fails, even physical possession of things you own isn't going to help you if you have gangs of criminals rioting and looting. Consider for example what happened in Haiti in 2018+.

What matters is rule of law, not possession. If you have strong rule of law, you have some protection for whatever you own, possessed or not. If you have zero rule of law, you have no protection for any of it.

I think we are in full agreement, really.

Having gold on your person in a societal collapse is going to be somewhat better than having a slip of paper that says you own gold (in theory you could barter with it) but neither is going to help you much. When the shit actually hits the fan to that degree, the best thing you can be is heavily armed.

But my personal plan is to just hope the shit never hits the fan to that degree while I'm alive and not really worry about it. Its effectively a singularity event beyond which I don't think there's much point in planning for it as an individual.

Reminds me of this XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/

With bitcoin you can't even just rely on memory for the keys, you need something physical that can be taken away from you.

Not really. Hardware makes it easier to manage, but anyone with the private key can access the coins at a given address.

Of course, private keys are practically unmemorizable, but you can restore a Bitcoin wallet with your seed phrase.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Seed_phrase

> The point of bitcoin was that it can't be taken off you by the state.

The point of a "pig butchering scam" is that victims are socially engineered into giving their assets (in this case, bitcoin) to someone else.

you're right but that's not what we're talking about. we're talking about someone among the social engineers that made a mistake which allowed the DoJ to seize the btc.

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