Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Address Expiration to Prevent Reuse

From: Gregory Maxwell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 03:13:06 +0000

On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 1:51 AM, Thy Shizzle <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Yes I agree, also there is talks about a government body I know of warming
> to bitcoin by issuing addresses for use by a business and then all
> transactions can be tracked for that business entity. This is one proposal I
> saw put forward by a country specific bitcoin group to their government and
> so not allowing address reuse would neuter that :(

I hope you're mistaken, because that would be a serious attack on the
design of bitcoin, which obtains privacy and fungibility, both
essential properties of any money like good, almost exclusively
through avoiding reuse.

[What business would use a money where all their competition can see
their sales and identify their customers, where their customers can
track their margins and suppliers? What individuals would use a system
where their inlaws could criticize their spending? Where their
landlord knows they got a raise, or where thieves know their net
worth?]

Though no one here is currently suggesting blocking reuse as a network
rule, the reasonable and expected response to what you're suggesting
would be to do so.

If some community wishes to choose not to use Bitcoin, great, but they
don't get to simply choose to screw up its utility for all the other
users.

You should advise this "country specific bitcoin group" that they
shouldn't speak for the users of a system which they clearly do not
understand.