Integration is bad for Bitcoin.

A marginal player in the USG remittances space which spuriously pretends involvement in and relevancy to Bitcoin announced it is "working to wreck the damned thing".

In itself the announcement is entirely pointless -- they've been working non stop, day after day, every day and since the very first day to try and wreck the damned thing as much as humanly possible. In any practical sense Bitpay announcing it's working on wrecking Bitcoin is about as interesting as your pet kitten announcing it's working on aerobic respiration. You don't say ?!

Nevertheless, for the entertaining of the peanut gallery, those people who "I just want to understand how the news relates to me" (notwithstanding that being poor and stupidⁱ is an absolute bar to the news ever relating to them), here's two major problems with this particular wrecking attempt :

I. Re-introducing imperial barnacles into the Bitcoin protocol is of no service to the Republic and something the Empire is entirely dependent on. There is absolutely no conceivable reason you might have to open a ssl connection to whoever you're paying. If you're willing to do that, which is to say : if you're willing to include the Great Inca in your payment structure, just fucking send a wire. It will be "cheaper"ⁱⁱ and "safer" than dicking around with Bitcoin, which evidently is not for you.

II. Giving minersⁱⁱⁱ pretexts to break the protocol is not in anyone's interest (miners themselves included). Excluding a validly signed transaction for any reason is breakage of Bitcoin, and should not be tolerated for the directly obvious consideration : the reasons will change down the road.

So no, integration is not good for Bitcoin, irrespective of whether you mean "integration of NSA into your payment flow", or "integration of merchants and customers", or "integration of payers and miners" or any other kind. Bitcoin is valuable and powerful for being fragmentary, not for being unitary. There already exists such a thing as the unitary payment stack, and not only everyone hates paypal but moreover we're here in the first place because we wanted an alternative. Which we now have. What's the grand idea, "take these torrents and make them moar like netflix" ? That's not much of an idea, is it now!

Needless to say, the reference Bitcoin implementation as maintained by the Bitcoin foundation (not to be confused with various scammers' phishing attempts^iv) will never implement or support such nonsense. I suppose, given Bitpay's absolutely minuscule size we don't even need to revisit 2015-era points about who's got the money and therefore who makes the rules.^v

Never forget :

Bitcoin is valuable today because for the past five+ years I've been intransigently sinking each and every attempt of all the scum and barnacles sticking to its mighty hull to make it "more acceptable to governments" which is to say useless and stupid.

It was true in 2015 like it was true in 2013 like it is true in 2017 and like it will stay true in 2019.

1. Wouldn't you be worried if your grand strategy and 2017 tactical moves run into rebuttals written 2012 ? Really, five years wasted for the Empire, this is your progress ? Schmucks. [↩]
2. Doh, why did you think it's important to raise the miner fees, huh ? [↩]
3. You recall, those people who weren't paying kakobrekla to not attempt to cover up their inexistent cartel at the time. Yes ? [↩]
4. Riddle me this : how does the Empire's "safety infrastructure" protect you from reading nonsense as it were fact on Empire-sponsored phishing sites ? Oh, it doesn't ? Wow! Such a useful boondoggle to have around the house, then! [↩]
5. Ahh, remember delicious two years ago, back when the imperial slavebois still thought they might challenge that point ?

   Such good times. [↩]