Quote from: toknormal on April 04, 2015, 12:31:14 AM

Quote from: Joshuar on April 04, 2015, 12:07:48 AM

so if even government issued currencies aren't that transparent, why restrict cryptocurrencies that way?

Fiat currencies are operated by a counterparty known as the banking system and they are totally transparent to that counterparty.

In crypto, the counterparty is eliminated but so are the "people". The cryptocurrency money system is just a ledger with numbers. I notice that in your previous posts you've used terms like "you can't see who they sent it to". That implies that you see people as synonymous with blockchain addresses which they are not. Only a private key is directly associated with a blockchain address. Even at that level there's not even any sense in which anyone is associated with a private key other than that they have access to it.

So you cannot see "who" anyone's sending money to even though you can see coins moving between addresses. Any associations can only be inferred. Making that monetary movement invisible doesn't do anything for privacy, it just makes the whole blockchain suffer a loss integrity and credibility. It's an engine, not a telephone book.

Quote from: Joshuar on April 04, 2015, 12:07:48 AM

Cryptonote coins are not invisible, they are "visible"

Do you mean I can just parachute in without a "viewkey" and see what's in every address, see which address transfers were made to and from and so on ? Because thats what I mean. As I've described above, that isn't a breach of privacy that's just being able to endorse the integrity of the system. Any money system needs an arbitration layer. In fiat it's the banking system, in crypto it's the public. Take that away and your money's worth nothing. A "viewkey" to see a single account doesn't cut it. This is another area where cryptonote has the systems analysis all wrong. The analogue of the "arbiter" in the fiat system is the banking system itself, not some auditor that comes and visits your office.

The fungibility of the tokens is a different matter. That can be massively improved by embedding what I've called previously a "cash drawer" mechanism or token recycler to keep the whole blockchain at a high level of fungibility so that patterns remain largely random. That's the real challenge here, not obscuring it from view. Your private key is already obscured from view using the most secure cryptology known to man.

What are the definitions upon the terms by which you're using? You're making it seem as if fungibility and "invisiblity" are the same things. "Invisiblity" cannot be seen or made out, such a thing is not in Cryptonote. Cryptonote gives you the option to allow yourself to be transparent(By using a mixin of 0), or to allow yourself to be anonymous/private. It's not restricted in any one way. The points that you're making has nothing to do with Cryptonote, as Zerocash is the only anon scheme that makes it so that literally everything is "invisible", to the extent that you can't even prove you own (x) amount of coins in your own wallet.

The blockchain is not just a monetary system, Bitcoin is not just a currency, it's a commodity and more as well. You're restricting the blockchain by putting it into little neat categories that you picked out, and you're wrong. What you've said in your earlier posts was

Quote from: toknormal on April 03, 2015, 11:57:47 PM

You want to see the blockcain in operation - every single aspect of it and every address. You just don't want to be able to know who's controlling those addresses. That's where the fungibility comes in.

So, why are you going back and forth? What you've previously said is exactly what Cryptonote does. Cryptonote is not "invisible", it's visible but obscured you can say, so you can see a general outline of things happening(Like # of coins emitted), but you can't delve any deeper.

Quote from: toknormal on April 04, 2015, 12:31:14 AM

Do you mean I can just parachute in without a "viewkey" and see what's in every address, see which address transfers were made to and from and so on ? Because thats what I mean. As I've described above, that isn't a breach of privacy that's just being able to endorse the integrity of the system.

What? What you're describing isn't privacy, so you went from being a supporter of privacy to a now supporter of total transparency? If I were to give you a $20 bill, will you be able to see who previously had that $20 bill? So then why would you not want the same thing for crtypcurrencies?

Quote from: toknormal on April 04, 2015, 12:31:14 AM

Fiat currencies are operated by a counterparty known as the banking system and they are totally transparent to that counterparty.

Ok? Why did Satoshi make bitcoin/the blockchain? To get away from middlemen aka the banking system. That's the entire point of the blockchain being created, what you're proposing is a step backwards to those middlemen. Having an arbiter is useless when speaking about cryptocurrencies, you simply don't need one. Cryptocurrencies are supposed to be decentralized and not have to rely on a centralized authority to make decisions or oversee things, you saying that we need an arbiter is taking a step back towards the traditional banking/monetary system, which is what we(everyone or mostly everyone involved with Bitcoin/cryptos) are against.