{"items": [{"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892", "anchor": "fb-892181054892", "service": "fb", "text": "I don't think that's an accurate analogy, and it ignores existing, applicable, centuries-old common law.

The relevant law is: the owner of an asset owns assets whose existence is a product of the original one. So let's say we're both farmers, and for whatever reason we agree that I will keep one of your cows in my farm for a period of time. Then it turns out a calf is born from your cow. (This is a world of frictionless spherical cows that reproduce through parthenogenesis, so that we don't have to worry about how the calf was conceived in the first place.) The law is unambiguous: your cow's calf belongs to you.

I think this is a better analogy for the fork than \"you show me a Dollar bill with a serial number I haven't seen before, I give you Credits.\" That analogy obfuscates one fact that I think is crucial: Coinbase and other exchanges already hold massive amounts of Bitcoin Cash. It is not like they had to go to someone and ask for it: the fork generated previously non-existent tokens associated with an asset they hold but not own (private keys to a whole lot of Bitcoin). Those new tokens are an asset and, just like the calf, are the property of whoever owned the original bitcoins.", "timestamp": "1501942877"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892181948102", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892181948102", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I don't think it's so clear. In the analogy, serial numbers on Dollar bills are equivalent to the private keys for Bitcoin Cash. My new Credits are a product of Dollars just as much as Bitcoin Cash is a product of Bitcoin. My Credit fork generates previously non-existent tokens associated with an asset that the bank holds but does not own (serial numbers to a whole lot of Dollar bills). Where do you think the analogy breaks down?", "timestamp": "1501943342"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892182157682", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892182157682", "service": "fb", "text": "→ If Coinbase is held liable to give people their BCH (which they've already announced they will do), then this introduces a risk for exchanges and anyone holding someone else's cryptocurrency as a depositary, that the currency they own will fork and they'll have to restitute the owners not only the asset in the original blockchain but also the one in the forked blockchain. But what I said is actually inaccurate: this doesn't *introduce* this risk. This was a risk that had always existed. The concept of a hard fork is not new, and one big cryptocurrency has already forked (Ethereum). When Coinbase entered the market as a depositary of bitcoins, they knew that this was a possible thing that could happen to the asset they're holding in trust for others. Now that risk has obtained, and they really can't complain.

Conversely, if for some reason the doctrine is accepted that Coinbase is entitled to the BCH it currenly controls, that generates a perverse incentive: people who hold crypto are incentivized to fork it. So Coinbase and other exchanges could create an astroturf campaign (funded with untraceable money, which is what crypto is/can be) in favor of \"Bitcoin Plus\" or something like that. They could make technical arguments \u2500 let's say, Bitcoin Plus would combine the \"segregated witness\" technology of BTC with the 8MB blocks of BCH.

Once the fork is accepted, some value flows to Bitcoin Plus (because people love investing in new things). Coinbase cashes in on all that value, rinse, repeat.", "timestamp": "1501943372"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892182646702", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892182646702", "service": "fb", "text": "→ You seem to have agreed that Bitcoin Cash is to Bitcoin as calves are to cows. This means the existing law applies, and Coinbase doesn't own the BCH it holds.

A more precise analogy would be: you're a bank that holds dollar bills. (Let's ignore the complexities of fractional reserve.) Then suddenly, there's a loud \"poof\" inside your vault, and for every greenback in there, there's also a bill that looks a lot like a dollar bill, except that it's blue. This has simultaneously happened to every single dollar in existence.

Given this more accurate analogy, I don't see how the bank could claim that the \"bluebacks\" in its vault belong to it.", "timestamp": "1501943610"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892182796402", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892182796402", "service": "fb", "text": "→ To use a different analogy: let's suppose I own gold and deposit it with a bank. Gold shoots up from $1200 to $1500. I am the owner of this $300 in value, even though I didn't do anything to cause that appreciation (nor did the bank). This is widely recognized.

Why is it that value that is created, similarly through no action of the owner or depositary, but associated with a descendant asset, treated differently?", "timestamp": "1501943733"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184078832", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184078832", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I think the \"dollar bills spontaneously divide\" case is pretty different from the \"independent organization creates altcoin that uses dollar bill serial numbers as private keys\" case, and I think BCC is much more like the latter.", "timestamp": "1501944359"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184088812", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184088812", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno, banks don't keep more than a small fraction of their deposits in a vault. If the blueback magically appeared for every dollar, your bank would definitely not owe you bluebacks for your deposit.", "timestamp": "1501944388"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184108772", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184108772", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jess, that's precisely why I said \"let's ignore the complexities of fractional reserve\".", "timestamp": "1501944422"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184328332", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184328332", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Coinbase is independent from the miners who decided on the fork in the same way that stock brokers are independent from publicly owned companies whose stock they hold for investors.

Let's say FooCorp decides to split its stock: for every currently existing, common share of FooCorp stock, there will be one common share and two preferred shares.

If Baz Brokers hold 1000 pre-split shares of FooCorp you own, after the split they hold 1000 common shares and 2000 preferred shares. You own all of these shares.", "timestamp": "1501944619"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184333322", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184333322", "service": "fb", "text": "→ In the blueback/stock case the asset itself divided, like a cow, while in the BCC/JeffCredit case a new coin bootstrapped itself by issuing to people who could demonstrate ownership of a different asset.", "timestamp": "1501944621"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184383222", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184383222", "service": "fb", "text": "→ A calf is not a division of a cow, Jeff.", "timestamp": "1501944659"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892184667652", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892184667652", "service": "fb", "text": "→ And Bitcoin Cash private keys are not \"new\" keys \"issued\" to holders of Bitcoin keys. They are the same keys. (At least that's what I hope, I still haven't touched my BCH.) If you export your BTC private key and import it on a BCH wallet, it works, because it is the same key.

Your analogy makes it seem like Coinbase had to do anything, had to ask someone who is \"the issuer of BCH\" to \"convert\" they BTC into BCH. They didn't. On August 1, there really was a metaphorical \"poof\" in their metaphorical vaults and they started being in possession of BCH.", "timestamp": "1501944855"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892185216552", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892185216552", "service": "fb", "text": "→ The bank doesn't have to actually re-loan the dollars for the law to be clear about whether they owe depositers bluebacks. It's intrinsic to the nature of the implied contract of a fungible commodity. A better analogy for cases where depositers have a claim is a non-fungible valuable like jewelry, but this shows exactly that bitcoins and dollars are in the fungible category, while cows and jewelry are in the non-fungible.", "timestamp": "1501945143"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892185471042", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892185471042", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Fractional reserve banks are not a strictly valid analogy to a bitcoin exchange. I used the bank analogy with the model of full reserve banking in mind, and I think Jeff accepts that.", "timestamp": "1501945238"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892185670642", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892185670642", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Suppose you own Apple stock. This is not printed papers with ornate lettering you keep in a drawer at home (although this is what owning shares used to look like, literally). Owning Apple stock means you have a contract with a brokerage that holds your shares for you.

Suppose CrazyCorp issues shares and announces everyone will get CrazyCorp shares at par with the amount of Apple shares they hold.

How does *the broker* own the CrazyCorp stock derived from *your* Apple stock, instead of you owning it?", "timestamp": "1501945440"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892192297362", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892192297362", "service": "fb", "text": "→ That's a good analogy. CrazyCorp's announcement isn't your brokerage's problem, and they should feel free to ignore it. The exact implementation of the disbursement matters for figuring out who will end up with the CrazyCorp stock though.", "timestamp": "1501947032"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892192576802", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892192576802", "service": "fb", "text": "→ CrazyCorp can give away free stocks to whoever they like. Your broker is not under any new obligations to you on account of CrazyCorp's actions.", "timestamp": "1501947198"}, {"author": "John", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892197197542", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892197197542", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I'm not sure that's true. In the general case, if a piece of another person's property ends up in my possession, I'm under obligation to not destroy it and to let them have it back, even if there is no contractual agreement between us at all. If something a person has falls on my property, for example, it is generally illegal for me to refuse to either give them it or allow them access to take it. This is most notable for property left behind by former tenants; it remains theirs, clearly under law, which constrains options for disposal. In the calf case, not only is the calf yours, but if they kill it, including through neglect, I suspect they would owe you compensation, because of the general principle that you are not allowed to destroy property other people have just because it falls into your hands and you didn't promise not to. It is not implausible that especially given the stance taken by the rest of the market, a judge would rule that the BCC was the property of whoever owned the BTC, and Coinbase was as a result obligated to give it to its owners, even if doing so required some active effort on their part, just as a landlord is obligated to give left behind property back to its owner even if doing so requires them to go to the work of arranging access.", "timestamp": "1501948484"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892199278372", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892199278372", "service": "fb", "text": "→ But the brokerage/Coinbase \"ignoring\" BCH is not in question. That is something they could theoretically do, as in it is physically possible for them to do, but it's not within the reasonable range of possibilities of what they will do as a profit-seeking company.

The options are to recognize the customers own the BCH they hold (and it is a mathematical fact that they hold BCH), or to claim ownership of the BCH they hold and benefit from ownership of that asset.

In my view, the latter option is an unambiguous case of unjust enrichment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unjust_enrichment", "timestamp": "1501949150"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892199532862", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892199532862", "service": "fb", "text": "→ \"CrazyCorp can give away free stocks to whoever they like. Your broker is not under any new obligations to you on account of CrazyCorp's actions.\"

True, but also irrelevant to the crypto fork debate. Bitcoin Cash did not \"give away free coins to whoever they liked\". What they did was create new rules for a blockchain that recognized previously existing private keys, which is a very different beast from \"giving away free coins\".", "timestamp": "1501949246"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892199767392", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892199767392", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Apple is a third party with regards to the contract between a shareholder and their brokerage. If Apple splits its stock 2:1, it is clear and unambiguous that the broker owes the customer the new shares.

The miners who decided to fork Bitcoin are a third party with regards to the contract between customers and Coinbase.", "timestamp": "1501949353"}, {"author": "John", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892200151622", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892200151622", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I could plausibly see a judge ruling either way; either that whoever got BCC was as defined by the mathematics and there was no clear grant of property in the forking of the chain, or that whoever got BCC was a grant of property to the owners of the BTC and them being delivered to whoever presently held the BTC was an implementation detail (as with the stock split scenario). I think they'd lean towards the latter, though, especially given it is the stance everyone else in the market took. Would make for good precedent.", "timestamp": "1501949508"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892200306312", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892200306312", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Also, I'd like to hear Jeff's opinion on the consequences argument I made. To recap, the argument was that recognizing the ownership of the customers means holding Coinbase responsible for a risk they assumed when they entered business and that this is in keeping with standard practices in the financial industry, while attributing Coinbase ownership of said BCH creates a perverse incentive for exchanges to fork the currencies they operate with and shields them of responsibility for that risk.", "timestamp": "1501949608"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892200700522", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892200700522", "service": "fb", "text": "→ John it is my understanding that Coinbase made a promise that is at least implicit, if not explicit to some degree: that keeping one's Bitcoin in their exchange is essentially equivalent to holding them yourself. The extent to which it is true that Coinbase made this promise is the extent to which courts should rule in favor of customer ownership of the BCH. After all, if Coinbase owns the BCH, that is a significant difference between keeping BTC there versus holding it yourself.", "timestamp": "1501949744"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892203624662", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892203624662", "service": "fb", "text": "→ What part of the contract with coinbase do you believe implies a promise that holding Bitcoin is essentially equivalent to holding them yourself? It would be very convincing if there were literally language to this effect that was not found in agreements regarding other fungible commodities.", "timestamp": "1501951310"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892203659592", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892203659592", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Other fungible commodities are not subject to forks in their blockchain.", "timestamp": "1501951372"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892203694522", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892203694522", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I have not read the Coinbase T&C. I'll admit I'm basing this on intuition.", "timestamp": "1501951435"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892203724462", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892203724462", "service": "fb", "text": "→ It is worth noting that Coinbase has already announced that they will give customers their BCH by January 1, 2018.", "timestamp": "1501951470"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892203859192", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892203859192", "service": "fb", "text": "→ At the very least, that promise is somewhat implied by them calling their \"wallet\" a wallet.", "timestamp": "1501951539"}, {"author": "John", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892204293322", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892204293322", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I think fungible commodities are also subject to this.

There's a difference between \"X is holding Y BTC for you\" and \"you gave your Y BTC to X, who now owns it, in exchange for a variety of weird zero-cost options that strangely involve them doing stuff with Y amount of BTC\", and I think it would actually be really hard and require a very large amount of explicitness to get a judge to recognise the latter as validly not owning it.

In particular it would be a ruling that would mean currency in Coinbase wouldn't count as owned crypto for the purposes of e.g. declaring crypto owned on entry to the US, or declaring assets, which sounds like a thing a judge would not want to rule.", "timestamp": "1501951653"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892214737392", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892214737392", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno: \"Bitcoin Cash did not 'give away free coins to whoever they liked'. What they did was create new rules for a blockchain that recognized previously existing private keys\"

That really doesn't seem different to me than \"I'm going to treat the serial numbers on dollar bills as private keys\". They ascribed additional meaning to existing information.", "timestamp": "1501955597"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892215261342", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892215261342", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jeff, I've given legal arguments, I've given arguments based on the consequences of the recognition of each norm, and I've pointed out that you might be modeling the situation inaccurately. I'd like to hear your thoughts on each of the arguments I've made.", "timestamp": "1501955949"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892215381102", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892215381102", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Oh, and I've given the argument that for all intents and purposes Coinbase agrees with me on this.", "timestamp": "1501955987"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892215875112", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892215875112", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno: \"But the brokerage/Coinbase 'ignoring' BCH is not in question. That is something they could theoretically do, as in it is physically possible for them to do, but it's not within the reasonable range of possibilities of what they will do as a profit-seeking company.\"

It is completely within that range, and what they intended to do before the fork:

\"Q: Will Coinbase keep UAHF coins [BCC] for itself?

A: No. Coinbase does not intend to support or interact with the UAHF chain. If this were to change, Coinbase would make those coins available for customers to withdraw, not keep them.\"

From https://support.coinbase.com/.../2844217-uahf-uasf-faq

These kinds of forks are relatively common, and most of the time the new fork ends up not being worth anything. Coinbase didn't think the engineering effort to implement support for BCC was going to be worth it. Now, it turned out that BCC is worth enough to care about (7% of BTC), so Coinbase is supporting it, but if BCC had instead been worth 1% would you be making this argument? 0.01%?

\"The options are to recognize the customers own the BCH they hold (and it is a mathematical fact that they hold BCH), or to claim ownership of the BCH they hold and benefit from ownership of that asset.\"

The option of \"this fork is not worth the engineering effort to deal with\" is kind of the default option when you have forks, you just don't hear about those forks.", "timestamp": "1501956162"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892216942972", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892216942972", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno: \"I've given legal arguments, I've given arguments based on the consequences of the recognition of each norm, and I've pointed out that you might be modeling the situation inaccurately. I'd like to hear your thoughts on each of the arguments I've made.\"

I'm working on it! This is an asynchronous discussion that I'm trying to fit in around a bunch of other things I'm doing.", "timestamp": "1501956643"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892216982892", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892216982892", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Okay! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come across as demanding.", "timestamp": "1501956669"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892217042772", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892217042772", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno I think the main thing I'm curious about is what you think exchanges should do about the reasonably common hard forks that create new altcoins that are worth very little? I think this is the main reason my sense of \"what should happen based on consequences\" differs from yours?", "timestamp": "1501956722"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892217312232", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892217312232", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Because anyone can create an altcoin, make it annoying to run in all sorts of ways, and the idea that Coinbase etc should be automatically on the hook for supporting it is nuts.", "timestamp": "1501956805"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892218514822", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892218514822", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Previous forks are a good argument, I hadn't thought of them. However, I don't think forks like the one that happened on August 1 are common at all. Previous forks of bitcoin happened while the original implementation remained the same. This fork is \"serious business\" because bitcoin itself changed, and it did so in a way that was controversial, unlike previous minor changes that were basically consensus among the community.

It is because this fork is different, because it is actually addressing (in two different ways) serious problems with the original implementation, that BCH has quickly gained substantial value. And this is the crux for me: I believe that this value does not legitimately belong to Coinbase. I believe it belongs to the depositors.

I am not saying that Coinbase should be required to \"support\" BCH in the sense of establishing itself as an exchange for BCH like it is for BTC. Whether or not to do so is a legitimate business decision for Coinbase. What I think they should do is restitute to customers the value that they were holding and that didn't belong to them. In the case of BCH, which seems to have \"caught\" as a currency (and one that came about as BTC itself changed its rules), Coinbase should give people BCH.

In the case of other, minor forks, their low value means Coinbase could easily repay people in BTC or $. Like, \"you own 10,000 BrunoBitcoins, here's your 0.00001 BTC in exchange for that.\"", "timestamp": "1501957135"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892227491832", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892227491832", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno: as an example, how do you think CLAM should have been handled http://cryptocoin.cc/table.php?cryptocoin=clams ?", "timestamp": "1501959447"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892229353102", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892229353102", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I don't really know much about CLAM and the page doesn't easily give me things I'd look for like price history and which exchanges hosted accounts denominated in the forked-from currency.

I think the general rule stands: exchanges are liable for the value that accrues to currencies they hold. It is conceivable that there's a way of organizing the software of an exchange to make this easier (as in, Bittrex immediately allowed people to withdraw their BCH). It is also reasonable that if the costs of doing so are prohibitive, the depositors be credited in the original deposited currency.

It is worth noting that the exchanges have the power to tank the market by dumping all of their forked coins at once, so this is a certain balance against their risk.", "timestamp": "1501960166"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892230625552", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892230625552", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno I'm confused by your proposal that the exchanges may pay people out in BTC instead of the forked coin, just at the value of the forked coin. Does the exchange say \"we'll pay out based on the value of the forked coin on exchange X at time Y?\" or something else?

(Seems very prone to manipulation.)", "timestamp": "1501960383"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892231104592", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892231104592", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Yes, that's the gist of it. Possibly it would only apply if the relative value of the new coin is below a certain fraction of the forked-from coin (or a value in $).

How do you see this being prone to manipulation?

I know there were futures markets for BCH before the fork, those could be used as input on the exchange's decision of whether to pay out in new coins or forked-from ones.", "timestamp": "1501960716"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892231458882", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892231458882", "service": "fb", "text": "→ If I know that the price of trading at time Y will determine the amount coinbase or whoever has to pay out, and I have a lot in coinbase, I could try to buy a lot right at that time and push it up. If I'm coinbase, I could try to sell a lot right at that time and push it down.", "timestamp": "1501960993"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892232137522", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892232137522", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I think these markets aren't even that liquid, and I'm not sure the amount of BTC you'd have to spend to pump the price (or the amount of BTC Coinbase would get in dumping it) would be worth it.

Exchanges could set the price to be a long moving average to counter that.", "timestamp": "1501961346"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892181054892&reply_comment_id=892232546702", "anchor": "fb-892181054892_892232546702", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Also, let's not forget that crypto transactions are not free, and if you request a withdrawal from an exchange you pay the transaction fee. We're operating here on the hypothesis of a forked currency that's worth 0.0001 BTC or less. Many people wouldn't even own enough of them that paying the transaction fee is worth it.", "timestamp": "1501961445"}, {"author": "Alice", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892196289362", "anchor": "fb-892196289362", "service": "fb", "text": "I think this is why we have financial regulation? People have different intuitions and there's a lot of money at stake? Clarity in contract would be a good stop-gap too. And since it's a regulation issue I think we're best served by asking \"what patten of behavior is encouraged by each option, and what patten do we want to encourage? (unless you want to literally litigate the issue right now, but in that case you should probably not be practicing your legal arguments here)", "timestamp": "1501948134"}, {"author": "Shawn", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072", "anchor": "fb-892214897072", "service": "fb", "text": "Yeah I don't understand why you would introduce a new currency this way. It seems like it would just lead to one of two outcomes: 1) Your new currency is worthless, so what's the point; 2) Your new currency has some positive value, so a bunch of people rush to register as many Dollar bills as possible before someone else does (say the banks). Neither way seems like it accomplishes the original goal of duplicating existing Dollar wealth into Credit wealth.

I guess if customers care enough they can change banks if some banks will give customers the Credits and some won't.", "timestamp": "1501955702"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892215989882", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892215989882", "service": "fb", "text": "→ The goal of the bitcoin fork was not to duplicate wealth, which is another way in which the original analogy fails. Not to mention that there is not a fixed supply of dollars and that there is fractional reserve banking in dollars but not bitcoin.", "timestamp": "1501956238"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892216259342", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892216259342", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno \"there is not a fixed supply of dollars\"

There is a mechanism for issuing dollar bills, and there's a mechanism for issuing bitcoin. The mechanisms are pretty different (centralized designated humans deciding how many to print vs anonymous humans voting with their hashpower on what policy should determine how many to print) but they're both fixed at any moment in time.", "timestamp": "1501956417"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892216443972", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892216443972", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno \"there is fractional reserve banking in dollars but not bitcoin\"

There's nothing that means you couldn't do fractional reserve in bitcoin. A bank could take bitcoin deposits, invest them on your behalf to pay interest, and let you withdraw whenever. This isn't how existing exchanges are set up, mostly because people trust more ones that will do full reserve, but there's nothing fundamental about it.", "timestamp": "1501956535"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892218904042", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892218904042", "service": "fb", "text": "→ > there's nothing fundamental about it.

True, but the fact that there is *currently* no fractional reserve banking in bitcoin does weaken your initial analogy, IMO.

> they're both fixed at any moment in time.

Also true, but barring extreme changes of how people see bitcoin, it is and will remain the case that there are only ever gonna be 21 million of them and that new ones are issued on average once every 10 minutes. There is nothing analogous to that for dollars. Another thing that weakens the original analogy IMO.", "timestamp": "1501957373"}, {"author": "Shawn", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892221883072", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892221883072", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bruno, honest question: If the Bitcoin fork wasn't intended to duplicate wealth, why did they implement it the way they did? They had many options for how to distribute wealth in the new system, but chose to distribute one Bitcoin Cash for every normal Bitcoin, which makes me think the reason was so that people's investment in Bitcoin would be duplicated into their investment in Bitcoin Cash. Do you disagree with this explanation for the motivation?", "timestamp": "1501958961"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892214897072&reply_comment_id=892228240332", "anchor": "fb-892214897072_892228240332", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Completely.

The reason Bitcoin Cash was created had nothing directly to do with wealth, especially not with \"distributing\" wealth. The reason both changes were implemented \u2500 \"segregated witness\" or segwit on the main Bitcoin chain and the increased block size on Cash \u2500 is to make transactions faster and cheaper. This indirectly relates to wealth, of course, because at the end of the day the purpose of bitcoins of any flavor is to store and transfer wealth. But that's very indirect; the direct motivation is to solve the transactions bottleneck.

I think the \"stock split\" analogy confuses people about what exactly happened on August 1, in real non-metaphorical terms. The analogy is used because the effect to everyday people holding some bitcoin before the fork is similar to a split, but what actually happened was this:

There used to be a bunch of people running certain software on their computers. This software acts in a way that if you send them a message, signed with a private key, to transfer a certain number of units associated with your key pair to another key pair, they will do it for a fee and register that movement of units in perpetuity (as long as there are people running said software).

At one point, one large group of this bunch of people announced that starting on August 1 they would be changing the rules of how their software worked. Basically, they would implement a certain upgrade to their software.

Another, perhaps smaller but still significant group of that original bunch of people said they didn't want to run that upgrade; they wanted to run a different upgrade instead. This latter group's upgrade made their registry of transactions incompatible with the former group's.

So what happens is that *the very same key pairs* are accepted by *both* groups, for transactions *within that group*. It really is like \"poof there are blue banknotes in your wallet\", rather than you having to show your green bills to get blue ones. I don't think a cryptocurrency fork can work any other way than this.", "timestamp": "1501959602"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332", "anchor": "fb-892220755332", "service": "fb", "text": "Relevant: https://www.bloomberg.com/.../bitcoin-exchange-had-too...", "timestamp": "1501958216"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892228624562", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892228624562", "service": "fb", "text": "→ That is very interesting. Also, Bitfinex's decision was probably wrong. Anyone who sells anything short knows that there is the risk of the asset appreciating and them losing money. It is an intrinsic risk of short selling.", "timestamp": "1501959661"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892228674462", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892228674462", "service": "fb", "text": "→ But then again, one could also make the case that it is an intrinsic risk of having (long) bitcoins in an exchange that you can risk all or part of their value.", "timestamp": "1501959701"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892228889032", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892228889032", "service": "fb", "text": "→ What about the argument in the article, wherein such a policy would create artificial demand for gratuitous forks?", "timestamp": "1501959760"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892230405992", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892230405992", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I am a bit confused. Do you mean the thing where, if the policy I suggest was implemented, then short sellers of BTC would have to rush to buy BCH to give their buyers?", "timestamp": "1501960346"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892230969862", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892230969862", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Yes, that. Especially since this can happen even when there'd otherwise be no demand for the forked asset.", "timestamp": "1501960615"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892231798202", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892231798202", "service": "fb", "text": "→ My intuition is that the feedback loops involved are negative and this is just part of the currencies finding their post-fork equilibrium price, rather than being a positive loop that somehow totally screws up everything.

Basically, the thing that the market would be trying to do is equalize the \"real\" number of BCH in existence, to match the pre-fork number of BTC. (\"Real\" here means something like the concept of monetary aggregates in macroeconomics \u2500 MB, M0, M1... \u2500 when there's leverage in BTC this means there's an M1 of BTC that BCH would try to match after the fork.) The policy that Bitfinex implemented prevented this correction. Given that TANSTAAFL, the protection of short sellers probably came at the expense of someone (e.g. BCH holders.)", "timestamp": "1501961155"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892233095602", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892233095602", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Yeah, something like that is supposed to happen, and in the case of a non-gratuitous fork this is all well and principled. (And indeed, Bitfinex explicitly paid BTC holders only 85% of the BCH they'd have otherwise received.)

The problem is that anybody can fork Bitcoin, and the normal mechanism preventing such forks from taking off is that nobody wants the forked asset, so nobody expects it to have value, so it doesn't. If I can tell people that they have to buy the forked coin and give it to me, then this mechanism doesn't work. (Analogies to fiat currency are obvious.)

The BCH fork looks fairly non-gratuitous at this point, but that wasn't obvious in July, and it doesn't seem like those exchanges that were trying to preemptively kill it were doing anything especially egregious.", "timestamp": "1501961789"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892235445892", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892235445892", "service": "fb", "text": "→ This only works if you hold an existing coin (let's say, BTC) in an exchange that allows short selling.

If you gratuitously fork BTC, there's a problem you're not considering which is hash power \u2500 people won't even believe your coin is legit if you're the only one mining it, and you need to mine it or convince people to mine it for it to exist. It's not 100% literally true that \"anybody can fork bitcoin\".

Let's then assume you got enough people who own long bitcoins within exchanges that allow short selling. What we're discussing here is requiring short sellers to buy the new, forked coin (from you and your associates). To do that, they sell bitcoin. This causes the value of your holding of bitcoin to drop by about as much as the value of your new coin rises. This is why I believe this is a negative feedback.", "timestamp": "1501962968"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892429751502", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892429751502", "service": "fb", "text": "→ So who decides whether a forked coin is sufficiently legit that people who were short BTC at the time of the fork are legally obligated to buy it?", "timestamp": "1502053540"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892429891222", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892429891222", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Hm... short sellers owe it if long holders demand it? Because the exchange could do what Bitfinex did, and short sellers would just have to cover the difference.", "timestamp": "1502053630"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892430001002", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892430001002", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Why would long holders ever *not* demand it if it's free for them?", "timestamp": "1502053674"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892430045912", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892430045912", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Most forked tokens have essentially zero value.", "timestamp": "1502053726"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892430280442", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892430280442", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Would that still be true if people were legally obligated to buy those tokens? And what if the long holders colluded with/were the miners of the forked token? What if the fork was designed to heavily reward the first people to mine it after the fork?", "timestamp": "1502053859"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892430335332", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892430335332", "service": "fb", "text": "→ If the fork was designed to heavily reward its first miners, it loses value in the eyes of people outside that group.", "timestamp": "1502053920"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892430410182", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892430410182", "service": "fb", "text": "→ So? They have near-monopoly power over it, and short sellers are legally obligated to buy it from them.", "timestamp": "1502053968"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892431278442", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892431278442", "service": "fb", "text": "→ No.

Let's say this is a fork of Bitcoin, at a point where there are 16 million BTC.

There will be an exchange rate at the point of the fork. This will usually be at par.

There will be a total number of bitcoins that were short sold at the point of the fork. Let's assume it's 10000.

By the nature of how forks work, there will be a total of 16 million ScamCoins in the hands of Bitcoin holders. The short sellers of Bitcoin will have to buy 10000 ScamCoins to give to long holders who demand them (a superset of the scammers).

There is absolutely nothing that says the short sellers have to buy ScamCoins *from the scammers* (who would defeat their purpose by selling their ScamCoins, by the way). And the number of ScamCoins that have to be bought is the same (10000) regardless of the rules for post-fork emission of ScamCoins: the only reason why it matters if the scammers allocate 1 billion new coins per block is that this *devalues* ScamCoin (including the pre-fork 16 million coins), making it *easier* for short sellers to acquire 10000 ScamCoins and fulfill their obligation.

If ScamCoin refuses to acknowledge the pre-fork 16 million coins, this shouldn't be considered a fork in the legal sense. It is a fork in the github sense, but not in the cryptocurrency sense. A crypto fork extends the original blockchain and therefore recognizes existing coins.", "timestamp": "1502054493"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892457166562", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892457166562", "service": "fb", "text": "→ ScamCoin could be forking by requiring you to do something unpleasant to transfer coins. At an extreme, say transferring a ScamCoin requires paying a Bitcoin to ScamCoin miners.", "timestamp": "1502063087"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892465629602", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892465629602", "service": "fb", "text": "→ That's not a good faith fork.", "timestamp": "1502066090"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892465729402", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892465729402", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Who decides whether a fork is \"good faith\"?", "timestamp": "1502066109"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892466976902", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892466976902", "service": "fb", "text": "→ The courts. The purported victims would have an excellent case to show that this \"fork\" was created with the intention of exploiting the proposed rule.

I don't know the details of all forks and original altcoins that have ever been created, but I assume all of them have at least two characteristics:
1 - mining fees are paid in the currency itself.
2 - the currency has some technological or economic reason to exist: unlimited supply, faster blocks, a different hashing algorithm, proof-of-stake, anonymity, a theme like Dogecoin, something. Either Scamcoin would lack this (making it noticeably different from all previous altcoins in a way even a judge can perceive), or it wouldn't \u2500 in which case the scammers would have to put some effort into it, lowering their net payout.

Besides, there's another thing that hadn't occurred to me when I said it wasn't a good faith fork: *nobody* is going to use a currency that requires paying Bitcoin to transact, especially since that means transactions in that coin require full confirmation in the Bitcoin blockchain (meaning, ScamCoin blocks can only happen once every half an hour at best, better if it's only one every hour. Nobody wants a currency with blocks that rare, especially if they have to pay for the \"privilege\" of using it.)

In short, the things you're claiming to make ScamCoin seem possible all reduce its value \u2500 to zero, in the extreme.", "timestamp": "1502066692"}, {"author": "Taymon", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892467251352", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892467251352", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Given that most forks and altcoins don't have much reason to exist, I'm trying to picture the legal system ruling on the distinction between \"silly but good faith\" and \"scam\". I can't imagine this going well.", "timestamp": "1502066884"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892496602532", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892496602532", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I do think this very remote possibility \u2500 very remote because there are a ton of economic factors acting against this, which I have mentioned above \u2500 does not outweigh the clear harm done to buyers by the protection afforded to short sellers.", "timestamp": "1502079086"}, {"author": "Bruno", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892220755332&reply_comment_id=892497016702", "anchor": "fb-892220755332_892497016702", "service": "fb", "text": "→ In fact, I think that the very act of lumping forks in with \"block-zero\" altcoins is inadequate to this discussion.

If the short sellers are not liable, then the exchange should be.", "timestamp": "1502079226"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892245131482", "anchor": "fb-892245131482", "service": "fb", "text": "One difference: with forks, it is (at least in principle) somewhat arbitrary which one \"really is\" BTC/ETH/whatever. Whereas that's completely clear and non-arbitrary with the dollar serial number example.", "timestamp": "1501968033"}, {"author": "opted out", "source_link": "#", "anchor": "unknown", "service": "unknown", "text": "this user has requested that their comments not be shown here", "timestamp": "1501982912"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892285196192&reply_comment_id=892292217122", "anchor": "fb-892285196192_892292217122", "service": "fb", "text": "→ What I thought was the obvious conclusion with the dollar fork is \"someone creating a system that's derivative of the dollar puts no obligations on anyone else, and whoever happens to be holding the physical bills is free to do whatever they like\", which is the opposite of what a lot of people think in the Bitcoin case.", "timestamp": "1501983208"}, {"author": "Clarence", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892285196192&reply_comment_id=892440330302", "anchor": "fb-892285196192_892440330302", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jeff Kaufman I'd think the difference comes about from how people view the ownership of a bitcoin they've stored in an exchange. They think they own it, and hence own any derivative of it; others think the exchange owes the depositor a bitcoin, so the exchange owns any derivative of it while it's theirs. (The latter being how banks work in the US, though not everybody knows that.)", "timestamp": "1502057746"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892285196192&reply_comment_id=892560724032", "anchor": "fb-892285196192_892560724032", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Elliot, I guess it's not obvious what implications your \"we should be extremely suspicious of anyone trying such a thing\" would have for Jeff's intuition, but (to me) if anything your comment seems to support it:

It'd be pretty weird if someone taking these stinky scammy actions could impose obligations on banks holding people's USDs. I'd imagine that imposing such obligations makes it much more likely for such a scam to succeed (vs. allowing everyone to just ignore it).", "timestamp": "1502118414"}, {"author": "Emma", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=892559855772", "anchor": "fb-892559855772", "service": "fb", "text": "In your analogy I'd say that if credits are worth anything then registered and unregistered dollar bills have a different value now. If the difference is enough to matter then that ought to be reflected in settlement of debts. At the very least I'd require payment in unregistered bills for all new contracts.

However if you didn't specify in the contract then this is just the same as giving physical coins with lower metal content, it's a risk you run specifying a debt in currency.", "timestamp": "1502118065"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=918033970442", "anchor": "fb-918033970442", "service": "fb", "text": "Here's a list of coins that have distributed to bitcoin holders like this: https://btcdiv.com/", "timestamp": "1514295498"}, {"author": "Zera", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=918034988402", "anchor": "fb-918034988402", "service": "fb", "text": "You say \u201cin the dollar case this is very clear\u201d - are you referring to what, legally, is clearly correct? It sounds like you might think what you say about Credits is very clear with respect to reasonability, in which case I want to register my disagreement. If you lent me Dollars that hadn\u2019t been registered for Credits, it seems more reasonable to me that I would owe you Dollars-not-registered-for-Credits than the alternative.", "timestamp": "1514296688"}, {"author": "Zera", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=918034988402&reply_comment_id=918035028322", "anchor": "fb-918034988402_918035028322", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I haven\u2019t read through the 86 existing comments; probably my view is already represented and argued. Will check later. \ud83d\ude1b", "timestamp": "1514296751"}, {"author": "Bil", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/892173799432?comment_id=918040617122", "anchor": "fb-918040617122", "service": "fb", "text": "Although Dollar Bills have serial numbers (and are hence unique), the vast, vast majority of Dollars are just accounts in banks (and are hence identical). And I can freely exchange them. So... does that apply to Bitcoin, too? It must... (?)", "timestamp": "1514299856"}]}