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Is anyone else starting to become a bit worried? mod note in first post

Autochange

Bear markets
Fud
Regulation
Wall Street manipulation
The supposed tether ticking time bomb

What are your thoughts? Have you cashed out? Have you been buying the dips?

MOD NOTE:
Its good to see healthy debate and discussion taking place and I am sure every supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain can agree that the contrarian viewpoint is worthwhile reading, if only to act as an anchor and help prevent investors from getting carried away in an echo chamber of "everything is wonderful, just keep going"

However, there have been a few reported posts recently which I did not action as I wanted to see the thread level out itself rather than start forcing viewpoints and I have been in two minds about that decision.

I'm not going to single any posters out but I'm going to ask that all posters read the forum charter and I want to point out that it was established years ago in the Television forum, that dropping in on a forum to tell the followers of that forums topic (in that case a particular tv show) that it was all crap and only idiots watched it etc etc was the exact definition of being a dick and attempting to troll. I know this because I was the mod of the forum at the time. Now look at the forum charter again.

There is pretty much one rule on this forum : if you cannot discuss in a civil manner, and I mean discuss, not soapbox or attack, then you have absolutely no business posting here and I have no qualms about removing your ability to do so.

This forum is for people that have in interest in cryptocurrencies, blockchain and their application to financial investments. that can be positive or negative but if you really feel the need to start pulling out memes / hiding insults in imaginary hashtags / attacking personalities or just generally being a dick there are other forums you can post in where I will let the local mods determine if it is within the scope of allowable behaviour. Here, it is not.

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smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

For example if my name is held in a blockchain and I want it removed. What is the person/entity which can be held accountable and has the technical means for completely wiping my information off that blockchain including from all the nodes it has been shared with and the backups of the old versions of the blockchain they might have?

Difficult to know the exact editing mechanism as we're speculating about a piece of functionality that has yet to be implemented. Off the top of my head, I'd guess at a consensus based change request to edit the content that needed changing but there are many ways of achieving this goal. As for off-line backups of sensitive data, yes they will exist, just as they do for any and all on-line information. The internet is full of caches many which get backup up and archived. Once anything is publicly visible at any point in time it can be copies and archived and this happens as a matter of course.

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

Once you have transparency, traceability and very limited mutability on a large, open, distributed system such as blockchain you essentially also have clear liability.

You have been saying that a lot but I don't see how this is true in the context of something like personal data and GDRP or of holding illegal information.

For example if my name and address are held in a blockchain and I want them removed. What is the person/entity which can be held accountable and has the technical means for completely wiping my information off that blockchain including from all the nodes it has been shared with and the backups of the old versions of the blockchain they might have?

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

The fact that blockchains are distributed and with a difficulty for data controllers to ensure data is deleted everywhere as well as for data processors to have the capacity of addressing possible issues with the data they hold makes completely different from a Facebook.

If Facebook's case there is clear accountability and empowerment to control the data at every level of the chain. Both Facebook and the data processors it entrusted data with have misbehaved but it is clear they are the responsible parties who will be liable for that misbehaviour, and it is clear that if they had wanted to they would have had the technical means of processing that data differently. That clarity currently doesn't exist with blockchain as per my previous post.

I suspect this again will be a strength rather than weakness for blockchain going forward, where data controllers on large closed systems have been shown to be irresponsible and ineffective on numerous occasions in the past and remain so today. Once you have transparency, traceability and very limited mutability on a large, open, distributed system such as blockchain you essentially also have clear liability. The assertion that large centrally controlled IT systems owned by big corporations are somehow better able or likely to look after the best interests of the public user than decentralised commonly owned systems has yet to be proven and to my mind seems dubious. It is worth remembering that these new pieces of EU consumer protection legislation are being put into place as a direct reaction to irresponsible and potentially abusive behaviour by the likes of FaceBook and not by the likes of BitCoin. That blockchain tech may well fall foul of such legislation in the short term is incidental and correctable, the same can be said of any connected application that has a possibility of storing personal information. Facebook shares have also taken a hammering in recent months and rightly so.

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

The challenges in relation to the right to be forgotten, and data protection with respect to the person, go far beyond blockchain though, as can be seen with recent and ongoing controversy surrounding facebook and other social networks. In the EU their is a clear demand for much greater transparency and personal protection in this regard. When you think about it, this need for transparency and controlled mutability is something that is ideally suited to blockchain technology and favours it hugely over closed, propitiatory, and centralised systems. This short term controversy will most likely be a huge advantage for blockchain in the medium to long term. At a technical level, it is all very achievable.

The fact that blockchains are distributed and with a difficulty for data controllers to ensure data is deleted everywhere as well as for data processors to have the capacity of addressing possible issues with the data they hold makes completely different from a Facebook.

If Facebook's case there is clear accountability and empowerment to control the data at every level of the chain. Both Facebook and the data processors it entrusted data with have misbehaved but it is clear they are the responsible parties who will be liable for that misbehaviour, and it is clear that if they had wanted to they would have had the technical means of processing that data differently. That clarity currently doesn't exist with blockchain as per my previous post.

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

The opinion piece does explain how to fix bitcoin (which we knew already) and how blockchain technology might not pose legal challenges in the US according to the authors. But it certainly doesn't aleviate legal challenges for blockchain technologies in general.

The challenges in relation to the right to be forgotten, and data protection with respect to the person, go far beyond blockchain though, as can be seen with recent and ongoing controversy surrounding facebook and other social networks. In the EU there is a clear demand for much greater transparency and personal protection in this regard. When you think about it, this need for transparency and controlled mutability is something that is ideally suited to blockchain technology and favours it hugely over closed, propitiatory, and centralised systems. This short term controversy will most likely be a huge advantage for blockchain in the medium to long term. At a technical level, it is all very achievable.

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

Good article on Wired covering all this here; Why porn on the blockchain won't doom bitcoin

I think this opinion piece doesn't really alleviate concerns related to blockains in general. They are giving a legal argument and a technical one but both are fairly limited in scope.

On the legal side

They are referring a lot to US law which I don't know and their point might all be correct, but even if they are they are largely irrelevant as when it comes to a global distributed system like a blockchain with both users and nodes across all countries, what matters will be the most restrictive law (which clearly isn't US law, EU countries have much more restrictive laws in the area which will soon become even more restrictive with GDPR). Their points would only be valid with an assumption that a blockchain's nodes and users are all exclusively located in the US, which might makes sense in some cases but most of the time it would defeat the purpose of the technology.

For example, they spend of lot of time to explain that because a node holds potentially illegal data it doesn't mean the person running that node is liable for it as long as their is no intend to hold it. But this is completely at odds with GDPR which is clear on the fact that both data controllers and data processors (someone who oversights a network and a network node in blockchain terminology) have a liability. It also specifies that data controllers need to ensure all their data processors are compliant wit the regulation can can be liable for breaches in the regulation if this is not the case. So every stakeholder in the operations of the blockchain is on the hook if there us a breach of the regulation.

And the beauty of GDPR for us EU internet users is that even if both the data controller and all the data processors are located in the US, as soon as they start storing EU citizen's data GDRP does apply to them related to that data. So we don't care about what US folks are saying in this piece and what applies to us is our own more restrictive/protective rules. This is not just a legal risk for the node operators who might not be clear on whether they are holding data illegally and how to technicaly go back to legality without stoping the node altoghether, but it is also a risk for a company which would be running a system which collects data and distributes it across thousands of nodes around the world (as per the regulation of a single of those nodes becomes non compliant, the company who shared data personal data with them is liable for any potential mis-uses of the data).

On the technical side

They state that "Blockchains are shared ledgers that record cryptocurrency transactions" and argue that simply removing any free field comment with fix the problem.

And yes this is the obvious solution for bitcoin and nothing new compared to what we had said on this theead already.

BUT leaving it at this is a very restrictive view of the potential of blockchain technology, limited to cryptocurrencies. This doesn't answer the wider question I was asking, and if it is the only technical answer available it essentially means that blockchains can not be used store any personal data, any free entry data, or any file uploaded by a user as there will be no control over these and the only suggested fix is to ban them from the system. This limits the scope/potential of the technology drastically (an as a side note is reinforces the point that they will not be able to offer traceability to the original person who added content aside from an anonymised identifier).

In conclusion

The opinion piece does explain how to fix bitcoin (which we knew already) and how blockchain technology might not pose legal challenges in the US according to the authors. But it certainly doesn't aleviate legal challenges for blockchain technologies in general.

smacl

Good article on Wired covering all this here; Why porn on the blockchain won't doom bitcoin, and another on EU rights relating to retrospective removal of personal data. My reading of both is that blockchain software that allows free-form data entry will need modifying in terms of what can be stored as immutable data, and what is effectively an editable attachment but does not form part of any contract. Not exactly rocket science, and block chain software does receive regular updates to cover potential issues such as these.

Bob24

august12 wrote: »

Does that mean, our info from crypto sites cannot be shared with any institutions.

I think the main concern is that GDPR says that user consent should be gained for any collection/sharing of their private data (with a fairly wide definition of private data is - for example a connection IP address is considered private data), and very importantly that at any time the person has the right to ask for their data to be corrected or deleted.

With a blockchain it is hard to make sure all the data related to an individual can be identified and deleted from every single note.

Basically if you were running a blocking network or even just a node as a miner on than network and I knew that blockchain contained information about me that don't want in there anymore, I could come to you and request that all of my private information is deleted from the blockchain or from your node. And legally you would have to comply with my request or face hefty penalties, but technically and with current blockchain technology it might be difficult or even impossible to do.

lifeandtimes

august12 wrote: »

Does that mean, our info from crypto sites cannot be shared with any institutions.

I don't think traceability is a data protecrion breach to be honest, if it was then every piece of fruit or meat from board bia couldn't have the appeal from farm to plate with their farmers on the pack or tuna with what vessel caught it

Think this is being blown out of proportion

august12

Bob24 wrote:

Basically in its current state it seems like the concept of blockchain is quite possibly at odds with GDPR regulations which will apply to anyone who deals with EU citizens data starting in May (and which btw are a great thing for us European internet users).

Does that mean, our info from crypto sites cannot be shared with any institutions.

Bob24

Bob24 wrote: »

Agreed.

Also as per previous posts, I think a big issue if there are no strong restrictions on what can be sorted on those blockchains will be who is legally liable for what they contain.

A lot more on legal questions related to blockchain technology: https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-new-eu-privacy-laws-will-impact-blockchain-expert-take

Basically in its current state it seems like the concept of blockchain is quite possibly at odds with GDPR regulations which will apply to anyone who deals with EU citizens data starting in May (and which btw are a great thing for us European internet users).

Bob24

As of today all that had been recovered since the previous February bottom for bitcoin is now gone again ...

seannash

lifeandtimes wrote: »

https://cointelegraph.com/news/big-investors-will-make-all-hell-break-loose-in-crypto-in-2018-says-abra-ceo

And wow

https://news.bitcoin.com/russian-hotels-to-surprise-world-cup-fans-with-bitcoin-payments/

I wouldn't say wow per se. People who are gonna pay in bitcoin already know about bitcoin.
Also Abra stand to benefit from any growth in Crypto's so like and company spokes person the future is nothing but positive.

lifeandtimes

https://cointelegraph.com/news/big-investors-will-make-all-hell-break-loose-in-crypto-in-2018-says-abra-ceo

And wow

https://news.bitcoin.com/russian-hotels-to-surprise-world-cup-fans-with-bitcoin-payments/

smacl

Autochange wrote: »

Is there a bit of a consensus developing here?
Since I posted nobody has commented in support of the future of crytpocurrencies.

Is there anyone out there???

Personally, I still think that cryptocurrency has a strong future. As I already commented previously, I suspect price levels will fall to the level they were at in early autumn of last year at which point I'll be looking to buy back in. It's worth remembering that over a one year time-frame, the big coins are still about 500% up so I'd say there is still a bit of descending to do before a more stable period and future growth.

On another note has anyone in this continued downtrend tethered their alts or sold to BTC and then into fiat ?

Been using Kraken for FIAT transactions, typically through ETH rather than BTC. Haven't touched tether and no need nor intention of ever doing so. Hung on to all of my alts, and while I've managed to increase my holding slightly through some FIAT switches, down in the order of 60% all in at present. The money put in was on the assumption of losing it entirely, so not particularly concerned.

smacl

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Even the value of blockchain is starting to come under the periscope of reality all of a sudden. It's extremely computationally expensive, and doesn't offer much in the way of additional functionality over plain old distributed databases. As an outsider, you could see use cases for the creation of smart contracts between parties that don't have that trust model in place, but there's an argument that IBM and Microsoft are making shapes in their clouds about offering that as a service.

The periscope? AFAIK, the only thing under a periscope is a submarine

The computational cost of mining something like bitcoin is due to the artificially limited number of coins, it is not something inherent in blockchain technology. The additional functionality is possibility of open and verifiable ownership and transaction history for every record independent of the publisher across massive datasets. This has huge ramifications for asset management and proof of ownership for various physical and digital assets.

It's this Microsoft Azure thing I'm becoming fascinated about all of a sudden. Those bucko's are lining all the ducks up in a row about the future of computing. I'll be having a sniff at their shares, and DYOR on whether to invest a few quid on it.

Microsoft play a reasonably good marketing game, but I don't think there's anything exceptional about their tech. I say that as someone who's been using their dev tools since the early 80s as a full-time code monkey professional software engineer (any other MASM fans out there?). I still use their tools for many hours every day and find them great, but won't be buying any shares. I'd find technologies like OpenCV far more exciting, and if I was taking a punt would be more tempted by the like of Boston Dynamics than MS. As you say, DYOR.

JohnnyFlash

Wombatman wrote: »

The value of blockchain technology and that of an individual concurrency implementation, like Bitcoin or Ether, should not be confused.

Even the value of blockchain is starting to come under the periscope of reality all of a sudden. It's extremely computationally expensive, and doesn't offer much in the way of additional functionality over plain old distributed databases. As an outsider, you could see use cases for the creation of smart contracts between parties that don't have that trust model in place, but there's an argument that IBM and Microsoft are making shapes in their clouds about offering that as a service.

It's this Microsoft Azure thing I'm becoming fascinated about all of a sudden. Those bucko's are lining all the ducks up in a row about the future of computing. I'll be having a sniff at their shares, and DYOR on whether to invest a few quid on it.

Wombatman

The value of blockchain technology and that of an individual concurrency implementation, like Bitcoin or Ether, should not be confused.

lifeandtimes

Supercell wrote: »

My wife just came back from China (visiting family) and she was amazed at the changes there in the last few years. Fiat isn't used in cash form pretty much anywhere anymore. You use your mobile to pay for everything from taxis to street sellers, its all using WeChat Pay and Alipay, nobody carries cash any more apart from the very elderly who don't have phones.

Personally I think this is the future, fiat is what is electronically exchanged utilising apps, I really dont see any need for crypto to replace that unless you want to hide your tracks somehow which means the person you are buying from also wanting the same which limits daily useage.

Have to agree with others saying here that its now pretty trivial for large companies who want to use the blockchain to make their own inhouse and keep control. For the rest of us fiat physical cash will be replaced by the app not by the blockchain.

Yes but with fiat you will always need a bank and again there in lies a 3rd person you need to trust.

As with all business they look to remove the 3rd person to mitigate costs

Crypto was created to remove the 3rd person and remove fees and time frames in transferring money.

If people are getting on board with tap and pay then once they find out there is a free way to do it in a quicker manner and further distances they will quickly adapt.

Which crypto (s) that is, is yet to be seen

Autochange

Is there a bit of a consensus developing here?
Since I posted nobody has commented in support of the future of crytpocurrencies.

Is there anyone out there???

On another note has anyone in this continued downtrend tethered their alts or sold to BTC and then into fiat ?

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

Eight actual images spammed into free-form note records in an open database of that size is neither significant nor suggests a ready mechanism to form a child porn ring, so no not really a practical example at all. At worst it indicates a minor security flaw that will in all probability be corrected in the short term.

Your point was that "blockchain would be a serious dis-advantage here as those involved in such illegal activity are hardly looking for authentication and traceability."

If you post here a trace of where those pictures come form and who added them to the blockchain, I will happily agree you are right.

Until then, I don't see how my exemple is invalid.

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

As per previous posts there is child porn on the bitcoin blockchain and it is not clear who put it there and how to remove it. So yeah it is a very practical example.

Eight actual images spammed into free-form note records in an open database of that size is neither significant nor suggests a ready mechanism to form a child porn ring, so no not really a practical example at all. At worst it indicates a minor security flaw that will in all probability be corrected in the short term.

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

Thing is though, blockchain would actually be just about the worst solution imaginable for sharing nefarious material, so it really isn't a great example.

As per previous posts there is child porn on the bitcoin blockchain and it is not clear who put it there and how to remove it. So yeah it is a very practical example.

Supercell

My wife just came back from China (visiting family) and she was amazed at the changes there in the last few years. Fiat isn't used in cash form pretty much anywhere anymore. You use your mobile to pay for everything from taxis to street sellers, its all using WeChat Pay and Alipay, nobody carries cash any more apart from the very elderly who don't have phones.

Personally I think this is the future, fiat is what is electronically exchanged utilising apps, I really dont see any need for crypto to replace that unless you want to hide your tracks somehow which means the person you are buying from also wanting the same which limits daily useage.

Have to agree with others saying here that its now pretty trivial for large companies who want to use the blockchain to make their own inhouse and keep control. For the rest of us fiat physical cash will be replaced by the app not by the blockchain.

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

It’s just an exemple to ask the legal questions, not saying blockchain would be the best solution.

If you want an ogganised and updatable database of pictures with some kind of presentation layer, regular P2P networking alone won’t work though as a database is needed for the metadata.

Thing is though, blockchain would actually be just about the worst solution imaginable for sharing nefarious material, so it really isn't a great example.

GreeBo

smacl wrote: »

You don't need blockchain here, you simply need P2P networking such as BitTorrent, which is how this data is already moved around. Blockchain would be a serious dis-advantage here as those involved in such illegal activity are hardly looking for authentication and traceability.

Correct, using a photo sharing framework thats built on blockchain would allow you to trace exactly who first provided the illegal content and trace them.

Adding blockchain to a system such as this would be much safer for the owners and other/legal users of the system.

meanwhile, its all continuing to tank

Bob24

smacl wrote: »

You don't need blockchain here, you simply need P2P networking such as BitTorrent, which is how this data is already moved around. Blockchain would be a serious dis-advantage here as those involved in such illegal activity are hardly looking for authentication and traceability.

It’s just an exemple to ask the legal questions, not saying blockchain would be the best solution.

If you want an ogganised and updatable database of pictures with some kind of presentation layer, regular P2P networking alone won’t work though as a database is needed for the metadata.

smacl

Bob24 wrote: »

For exemple if someone came up with a blockchain based photo sharing service and child pornography became rampant on it. What would be the practical ways for a country to enforce the law and have the picture removed, and it is not possible who would be held legally responsable for keeping the content available online?

You don't need blockchain here, you simply need P2P networking such as BitTorrent, which is how this data is already moved around. Blockchain would be a serious dis-advantage here as those involved in such illegal activity are hardly looking for authentication and traceability.

smacl

breadmond wrote: »

At the end of a day, a blockchain is just a distributed database with some verification built in. The number of use cases is endless but I would rank 'alt money' very low on the list in terms of utility.

Very true, but that begs the question which network are you distributing your database across, who's computers are authenticating transactions, and at what cost. Ask yourself what are the advantages of an open distributed database over a proprietary centralised database and what you need to leverage those advantages. Open databases allow for independent verification and traceability and hence create trust. Distributed databases provide robustness, redundancy and scalability to massive datasets. This all demands massive computing infrastructure and if you're considering using existing infrastructure 'alt money' becomes 'alt transaction processing and storage fees'.

Bob24

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Or in how many can be created. It's now trivially easy to create a coin. The value pool is tiny. There's a post on Medium somewhere that shows that the 2.5 billion of tethers floating round the ecosystem is making up over 90% of the entire trading volume some days. There's absolutely no new money going into crypto, and you'd have to be worried about the likes of coinbase and kraken and other sites that allow you to exchange coins for real money. The liquidity must be taking a battering.

I was actually talking about legal implications of using blockchains for other applications than coins (if you start being more open about what can be stored in it than just a financial ledger).

For exemple if someone came up with a blockchain based photo sharing service and child pornography became rampant on it. What would be the practical ways for a country to enforce the law and have the picture removed, and it is not possible who would be held legally responsable for keeping the content available online?