He [Yifu] probably is spinning PR or focusing on short-term implementation plans to avoid discussing the longer term plans discussed in the article. If you read it with the PR-interpretation mindset its not so good. [...]
The KYC part yes, the clean coins I am not so sure - they really do seem to think longer term that tracing coins is somehow a useful thing to do, which can only harm fungibility. We may need a priority deployment of CoinJoin option into multiple clients before they get far with that.
He [Waters] has
responded to you directly and confirmed my suspicions, although I am with you that this is probably just a primer and we will start slipping down the slope in no time.
Yifu also responded via tweet. Now Waters via reddit. I responded to them on reddit and tweeted also.
https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/402370818232958976http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qmude/yifu_guo_is_conspiring_to_make_his_own_coins/cdgn3fuHere is what I put on reddit.
From the Forbes article:
Its a tracking system for Bitcoin ownership that would theoretically weed out bad actors like the Dread Pirate Roberts from the legitimate Bitcoin business world. Their plan is to compile a database of the known identities associated with Bitcoin addresses in the hope that Coin Validation will become the one-stop-identity shop for law enforcement when trying to find out whos doing something nefarious with Bitcoin, while providing a red-flag system for businesses who have customers trying to use Bitcoin thats associated with illicit use.
Would you be able to explain how the above is not taint tracing? I know you and Yifu (who replied to me tweet) focus now on talking about the KYC, AML certs, however the majority of the article was actually about taint tracing/clean coins/red-flag, which seems something quite different and with potentially dangerous adverse effects on fungibility. The bad actors are not going to buy AML certs, and you cant provide "red flags" to businesses based on absence of AML certs. I do not think you can fairly characterize articulating the risks to fungibility of taint analysis based red-flags as FUD. It seems hard to reconcile the above forbes article quote with what you are now saying. It seems more like you are starting with AML, KYC certs (good) and considering taint-tracing (dangerously bad) for the longer term, and so choosing to focus more on the less controversial former and gloss over the forbes articulated longer term plans. I welcome your clarifications. I see someone posted my full comments and it has worked its way up to the forbes top comments.
Adam