Quote from: Goldenmaw on June 07, 2011, 10:57:17 AM

Quote from: phonomancer on June 07, 2011, 03:03:50 AM

Fun debate guys, nice to watch.

Thanks. I enjoyed it. There are a lot of extremely intelligent people here, and that includes the entire roster of people who have been my volcanic opposition during this. Conflict of ideologies, I suppose.

As for the debate itself, this is only beginning. Bitcoin is developing an image problem, and I truly believe that is the most dangerous possible problem for it right now. If it isn't adopted (regardless of why), and used by the general populace for trade of everyday goods and services, I cannot imagine how it is to retain its value in the long run. I will say that if it is driven underground as a solely black market currency, I'm simply going to get off the boat. And god help the miners - they'll be so easy to catch if the USA decides to allocate its resources to the punishment of the Bitcoin end-user.

You win! You got message 420, I hope you're happy now... Cheesy

This has been the most intelligent and passionate discussion I've been involved in since last year's Gulf oil disaster at PeakOil dot com. It's amazing what happens when a bunch of people get focused.

I think you make a valid point, Bitcoin and especially Silk Road are "developing an image problem". I don't know what Bitcoin can do in regrds its relationship to SR, maybe doing nothing is the best thing right now. Clearly the public focus is on SR. I laid out a few ideas below on some things I think SR sellers should be doing with hard drug transactions. And while it's certainly not the definitive last-word I do beleive these kinds of ideas (known as harm reduction) can help mitigate that image thingy. Implementing harm reduction into its business model is not only the right thing to do, it also gives SR more credibility as a viable alternative to the street.