RE: Digix: Hard Money on the Blockchain
Yes, and it doesn't matter if it is billions or millions, either way, you have incentives and abilities to fund terrible stuff with no chance of discovery.
I am overall in favor of privacy, and I'm not suggesting we try to outlaw this stuff. I just think about how hard it can be to find the really bad bad guys who want to like a city, or release poison gas, or a bioweapon, etc. And it can be funded anywhere.
On a smaller scale, some of the private features of the internet have made it easier for child porn and other horrid stuff. Blockchain storage makes that stuff impossible to delete. That doesn't mean drop blockchains, but it does mean we need to consider what we lose and what we gain when we develop and support these things.
I think a lot about Plato and the Ring of Gyges.
High moral character or lack thereof comes in to play, definitely, whether in the darkest corner or in the revealing light of day, and all points in between.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I read a lot of posts talking about how censorship doesn't exist here, but usually it's while trying to justify some behavior that wouldn't really fly anywhere else.
I think some people think that common decency is akin to censorship.
Privacy vs. fostering criminal acts is going to be an ongoing issue for sure. It's not an easy issue to sort through, especially when you espouse guilty until proven innocent, or not being hauled in until you've actually committed a crime, even if you're threatening and have the means to do it.
It seems like that we have the opportunity to keep things within the daylight side here on the blockchain if we balance it with some security. I don't know. You are absolutely right. A lot more thought needs to go into these kinds of things beyond what's expended to create it, just because we can.