Quote from: proudhon on November 15, 2013, 12:28:45 AM

Quote from: SgtSpike on November 14, 2013, 11:28:09 PM

Here's my question: What choice do we have?

If the government decides they want businesses to report what Bitcoin addresses they are using (say, on a new virtual currencies tax form), and who has sent them money and who they have sent money to, it will effectively de-anonymize the whole network. Businesses couldn't operate legitimately without compliance, and businesses who complied would effectively rat out all of those who didn't.

If the government decides to implement it, it wouldn't be hard to get enough businesses onboard to make it eventually fully effective.

I agree this would effectively kill Bitcoin - no one wants every financial transaction they make to be aired to the public. Basically, the government is in control of Bitcoin's future.

I think coin/address tracking is inevitable. It's the best way for governments to gain some control over bitcoin (I'm not saying it's a good thing).

But here's what I think about it. I think if governments are going to mandate that coins/addresses be tracked and attached to real-world identities, then the government should accept responsibility for when (not if) that data is leaked/stolen from the centralized servers that store it.

Upcoming built-in mixing will prevent this