Care to speculate on their motivation for remaining anonymous?
Consider me amazed at how far it's already gone, if it goes much further it may very well be extremely wise to not be known as one of its creators.
A culture of anonymity and unaccountability may be a good thing with respect to the users of a currency, but not for its creators and backers, IMHO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann
This is probably going to end a lot worse:
(1) bitcoin survives, lots of parties angry
(2) bitcoin is broken, a fatal flaw is detected, lots of people lose money, lots of parties angry
In either scenario there will be a lot of parties pissed off at bitcoins creators. Anonimity seems to be a smart move, just like many other pre-emptive strikes that are embedded in bitcoin.
Trust me, no governmental entity gives a hoot about who created the bitcoin standard. They probably will give a hoot about how it's used.
Better safe than sorry seems to be a good strategy in cases like this, if there is no upside to claiming credit, why would you claim credit?
Not really. All of the ones I'm aware of involve DMCA pissing matches, which aren't relevant here.
Citation needed.
>Trust me, no governmental entity gives a hoot about who created the bitcoin standard.
Are you talking of the same government agencies that had 10,000 page files on people such as John Lennon and such?
Also, I don't think John Lennon would have turned down his opportunity for celebrity if he'd known that J. Edgar Hoover was going to open a file with his name on it. He might have thought twice if someone had told him about that Chapman fellow, though.
The people die, the practices do not.
Government agencies have Harry Potter long files on all kinds of peaceful activists, from tree-huggers to EFF members, to authors and free press writers, and such. Even more so than back in the day, because they can get tons more info through electronic means.
>Also, I don't think John Lennon would have turned down his opportunity for celebrity if he'd known that J. Edgar Hoover was going to open a file with his name on it.
Lennon might not, other people that would only get the negatives without any benefits of that celebrity, would not.
Far worse to be an operator than a software developer.
Also some people are at more risk, even if they wouldn't be killed or even arrested for creating ecash. If you were at all legally questionable for drugs, taxes, politics, or had a day job with a clearance, a company with pr exposure, etc....
Not very far, in the grand scheme of things.
The whole amount of money involved is less than what some LOCAL restaurant chains make in a year.
There have been more widespread regional alternative currencies in the past. Given that this one also has all those internet-technology advantages to spread, it's surprisingly minuscule and insignificant.
Maybe gold a long time ago but still doesn't fully compare
Well, how about gold?
>Maybe gold a long time ago but still doesn't fully compare
Why not? In addition you have:
a) no logs b) no reason to trust some advanced crypto stuff (that might collapse 10 years from now due to some hole/collision/whatever discovered in the algorithms). c) acceptable everywhere already
Oh, and it doesn't lose 70% of it's value in 2 days, like BitCoin has done in the past (from what I read).
Bitcoin won't be so volatile after it has been more widely adopted.
And the "advanced crypto stuff" of Bitcoin can never collapse. It is already partially post-quantum and was designed to be easily upgradeable to fully post-quantum algorithm set.
You would do yourself some good if you took a minute to learn some things about crypto.
Like a lot of libertarian activists, or indeed activists in general, they may have overestimated how much governments would feel threatened by their actions. Or, maybe they were prescient. Hard to say right now.
1. http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G...