Quote from: westkybitcoins on January 30, 2012, 05:31:05 PM

Quote from: BkkCoins on January 30, 2012, 05:03:13 PM

Plausible in the sense that you would accept having a "joint" account with the govt. People don't do that now so it seems unlikely they'd be very willing later.

Plenty of people, in a sense, have this, at least in the U.S. It's called a bank.

Government thinks you're a criminal? Boom, your account is frozen. They think you owe them something? Boom, they take the money out directly. The fact that they don't do it that often doesn't mean it never happens. And most people still wouldn't DREAM of not having a bank account, or worse, banking with some *unregulated* bank that doesn't do what the government tells it to.

I've even heard the sentiment expressed in this forum that letting government take a little bit of control of bitcoin in some form or fashion is a good thing because it lends bitcoin legitimacy! To my mind, the idea of there being a push toward government-controlled (read: "regulated") multisig accounts isn't just plausible, it's a question of "when", not "if."

Excellent thread! I agree that having govt-controlled multisig accounts is just about time.
When somebody asks why would people want to give up control to govt, they miss one point.
The point is that most of the people will probably hear about this stuff from govt in a first place.
It's like "have you heard our govt came up with this new currency bitcoin to save us from financial collapse?"
So for them it will be the only way to do business and get their salaries. They wouldn't even know that once bitcoin was free.

The question is whether they will be able to technically outlaw non-govt controlled transactions.
Since P2SH addresses are clearly distinguishable from normal ones, they might just declare original ones illegal,
forcing current businesses to convert