{"id":31546,"date":"2016-10-31T08:33:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T15:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=31546"},"modified":"2018-02-24T10:14:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T18:14:28","slug":"bitcoin-fungibility-a-benefit-of-privacy-anonymity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/bitcoin-fungibility-a-benefit-of-privacy-anonymity","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Fungibility: A Benefit of privacy &amp; anonymity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was pointed to this article by Jon Matonis, Founding Director, Bitcoin Foundation. I was sufficiently moved to highlight it here at Lifeboat Foundation, where I am a contributing writer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/weuse.cash\/2016\/06\/09\/btc-xmr-zcash\">On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and ZCash<\/a> \u2026 [<a href=\"https:\/\/steemit.com\/bitcoin\/@dnaleor\/on-fungibility-bitcoin-monero-and-why-zcash-is-a-bad-idea\">backup<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>This is among the best general introductions I have come across on traceability and the false illusion of privacy. The explanation of coin mixing provides and excellent, quick &amp; brief overview.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding transaction privacy, a few alt-coins provide enhanced immunity or deniability from forensic analysis. But if your bet is on Bitcoin <em>(as it must be)<\/em>, the future is headed toward super-mixing and wallet trading by desgin and by default. Just as the big email providers haved added secure transit,<br \/> Bitcoin will eventually be fully randomized and anonymized per trade and even when assets are idle. It\u2019s not about criminals; it\u2019s about protecting business, government and individuals. It\u2019s about liberty and our freedoms. <sub>[Continue below image]<\/sub><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4579\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4579\" style=\"width: 584px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4579 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/bitcoin-fungibility-a-benefit-of-privacy-anonymity2.png\" alt=\"coin_mixing-04\" width=\"584\" height=\"214\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4579\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">How to thwart forensic investigation: Fogify explains an advanced mixing process<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The next section of <a href=\"http:\/\/weuse.cash\/2016\/06\/09\/btc-xmr-zcash\">the article<\/a> explains the danger of losing fungibility due to transaction tracing and blacklisting. I can see only ONE case for this, and it requires a consensus and a hard fork (preferably a consensus of ALL stakeholders and not just miners). For example, when a great number of Etherium was stolen during the DAO meltdown.<\/p>\n<p>My partner, Manny Perez, and I take opposing views of blacklisting coins based on their \u2018tainted\u2019 history (according to <em>\u201cThe Man\u201d<\/em>, of course!). I believe that blacklists must ultimately be rendered moot by ubiquitous mixing, random transaction-circuit delays, <a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/bitcoin-fungibility-a-benefit-of-privacy-anonymity.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4577\" src=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/bitcoin-fungibility-a-benefit-of-privacy-anonymity.jpg\" alt=\"dilbert-060219\" width=\"294\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>and multiple-transaction \u2018washing\u2019 (intentionally invoking a term that legislators and forensic investigators hate)\u2014Manny feels that there should be a \u201cLaw and Order\u201d list of tainted coins. Last year, our Pro-&amp;-Con views were published side-by-side in <a href=\"http:\/\/awildduck.com\/registry%20of%20tainted%20bitcoins.htm\">this whitepaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, for Dogbert\u2019s take on <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em>fungible<\/em><\/span>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fungible.net\/definition\/\">click here<\/a>. I bought the domain fungible.net many years ago, and I still haven\u2019t figured out what to do with it. Hence this Dilbert cartoon. <span class=\"wp-smiley emoji emoji-smile\" title=\":-)\">smile<\/span> <br \/> ____________<br \/>\n<sub>Philip Raymond is co-chair of The Cryptocurrency Standards Association.<\/sub><br \/>\n<sup>He also presents on privacy, anonymity, blind signaling &amp; antiforensics.<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was pointed to this article by Jon Matonis, Founding Director, Bitcoin Foundation. I was sufficiently moved to highlight it here at Lifeboat Foundation, where I am a contributing writer. On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and ZCash \u2026 [backup] This is among the best general introductions I have come across on traceability and the false illusion [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1318,1761,39,418,1412],"tags":[2563,2161,2564,2565,2566,2567,2568,2162,2569,2570],"class_list":["post-31546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bitcoin","category-cryptocurrencies","category-economics","category-internet","category-privacy","tag-anonymity","tag-bitcoin","tag-forensics","tag-fungibility","tag-fungible","tag-mixers","tag-mixing","tag-privacy","tag-traceability","tag-transaction-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31546"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76291,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31546\/revisions\/76291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}