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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

Not only they will stand a chance, they will grow substantially as the only way to mitigate the governments efforts to enforce surveillance and regulations. Darknet exchanges will emerge if not there yet. People have been dreaming of real electronic cash nobody can know you have or give to somebody for so long and wont give up easily. By the way this can even happen to be the way to the new kind of economy that relies on reputation and competition rather than surveillance and prohibition.

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>Not only they will stand a chance, they will grow substantially as the only way to mitigate the governments efforts to enforce surveillance and regulations.

Parent meant if it will ever stand a chance as a mainstream, legal, option. Not if it will make a second career as a tool in darkweb networks for buying CP, heroin, and "specialists".

>People have been dreaming of real electronic cash nobody can know you have or give to somebody for so long and wont give up easily.

People have mostly been dreaming of something like that you can easily use to buy regular things, and that wont land you in court if something goes wrong and they find you have it.

> they will grow substantially as the only way to mitigate the governments efforts to enforce surveillance and regulations

Cash comes with substantial privacy benefits. It's also inconvenient. TL; DR Most people trade privacy for convenience.

What makes you sure convenience will not improve?

> What makes you sure convenience will not improve?

Nothing. I was responding to a comment claiming a national ban “will” cause Bitcoin to “grow substantially.” My position on Bitcoin has always been it’s an interesting moonshot being priced as an eventuality.

With increasing regulations around cryptocurrencies large private transactions will be much more regulated, or possibly illegal, which will cut down on usability. Even if it's actually anonymous and buyers don't have to worry about it sellers will have to or risk being shut down

The SEC is already moving in the direction of trying to mitigate large scale transactions. They know they can't stop the spread of crytpocurrencies, but they're doing everything they can to reduce people using it for larger scale transactions or investments.

How does money get in or out of such a system. If you're cut off from all sources of fiat what's the point?

It can grow value of its own as the ecosystem grows and a black market can emerge for the needs of conversion.

The point is that people can still use it for things, and the various dark net markets that exist prove that there's at least some kind of use for unofficial (pseudo?)-anonymous currency.

Though, by no means are darknets the only way of getting some use out of unofficial currencies. There will always be desire and utility for such systems.

Those darknet markets are only used to buy illegal things, or circumvent currency controls.

I understand using a darknet to buy heroin and assassinations, but why on earth would I want to use a darknet market to buy a car? To pay my rent?

So all the spammers/scammers can't see what car you just bought and how much you paid for it and use it for spear phishing?

They can't see how much I paid for a car when I paid with a cheque either. This is not a problem that I, or 99% of human beings have.

Again - what is the darknet supposed to protect me from?

Seriously, I have yet to hear a single legal use case that Bitcoin improves.

Transferring large amounts of money overseas for large purchases is cheaper, faster and safer than using the current banking system. So that's at least one legal use case Bitcoin has improved for me. Even after exchange fees and miners fees, I paid less in fees then I would have using a bank and the transaction confirmed in under an hour vs several days or more through banks.

Mainly referring to the credit card companies that will sell your data.

1. You don't buy a car on a credit card. Dealerships won't even accept cards. Private individuals won't, either.

2. Your counterparty (the dealership) will sell your data, regardless of whether you pay with cheque, cash, bitcoin, gold coins, or lost pirate treasure.

No. Darknet markets also sell things that are unambiguously legal to buy everywhere, as well as products that are legal in some countries but not others. The products on sale are far from only the stereotypical drugs porn warez and fraud (and no you cannot buy assassination on darknet markets; any such offers are a mix of law enforcement stings and scams which take place without any marketplace providing escrow).

If nowhere but darknet markets let you buy a car with Bitcoin or Monero, then only darknet markets are what someone who has cryptocurrency and wants to buy a car with it will use. That being said, you can exchange cryptocurrency for a car safely and legally, without touching a DNM or doing anything shady.

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