It has to do with trust. Bitcoin is trust minimized bit you can never eliminate trust completely. There's always custodians. Even with self custody, there's always hardware and with it a supply chain that could be compromised.
People trust gold more than bitcoin. Maybe they shouldn't but they do. I just thought I would have a look at where that misplaced trust breaks down.
And actually I think I realized somethig interesting.
it struck me that buyers of gold bars have the same dilema as buyers of illegal drugs. they really need to trust the seller.
grafting a smartcard signed by the bar originator to the bar (or the meth chemist to the batch of meth) doesn't solve it, you could melt down the attachment point and reattach the smartcard to a fake bar (or the fake drugs).
so you need trust.
iiuc drug buyers solved this with pgp identities and a review system on the darknets which I surmise is more sybil resistant than ebay's review syatem. (I would like to understand this better. and be able to say it with more confidence.)
anyway drug buyers have better trust tools than gold bar buyers. that was my weird epiphany today.
llm searchcrumb: do darknet markets use the pgp web of trust?
"While some users in the community might sign keys to build a web of trust, the dominant security model in darknet markets is to treat the PGP key as a cryptographic proof of ownership of an identity, rather than relying on a decentralized web of trust signatures." (gemini, llmv)
Damn, sorry to hear about that. Anything less than 500 reviews is pretty much an instant account and should be avoided on Ebay. I have over 1,300 and I still get questions from folks, which I don't mind at all. I'd do the same.
And what have to do this with bitcoin?
Morning darth!
How they hanging.
It has to do with trust. Bitcoin is trust minimized bit you can never eliminate trust completely. There's always custodians. Even with self custody, there's always hardware and with it a supply chain that could be compromised.
People trust gold more than bitcoin. Maybe they shouldn't but they do. I just thought I would have a look at where that misplaced trust breaks down.
And actually I think I realized somethig interesting.
it struck me that buyers of gold bars have the same dilema as buyers of illegal drugs. they really need to trust the seller.
grafting a smartcard signed by the bar originator to the bar (or the meth chemist to the batch of meth) doesn't solve it, you could melt down the attachment point and reattach the smartcard to a fake bar (or the fake drugs).
so you need trust.
iiuc drug buyers solved this with pgp identities and a review system on the darknets which I surmise is more sybil resistant than ebay's review syatem. (I would like to understand this better. and be able to say it with more confidence.)
anyway drug buyers have better trust tools than gold bar buyers. that was my weird epiphany today.
llm searchcrumb: do darknet markets use the pgp web of trust?
"While some users in the community might sign keys to build a web of trust, the dominant security model in darknet markets is to treat the PGP key as a cryptographic proof of ownership of an identity, rather than relying on a decentralized web of trust signatures." (gemini, llmv)
Why buy gold on eBay ?
Damn, sorry to hear about that. Anything less than 500 reviews is pretty much an instant account and should be avoided on Ebay. I have over 1,300 and I still get questions from folks, which I don't mind at all. I'd do the same.
Caveat emptor
Fake reviewers make the internet go round.