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Friday Humor: The ECB Explains What A Ponzi Scheme Is; Awkward Silence Follows
From the ECB's Virtual Currency Schemes, aka the "Bash Bitcoin Boondoggle" (p. 27):
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity
Considering that this elucidation comes from the very same entity that launched the SMP, LTRO, OMT, EFSF, ESM, oh, and of course, TARGET2, and whose head said to not short the EUR as there is "no risk" whatsoever in holding said currency, one would expect that this definition is absolutely spot on...
* * *
And as an added bonus, here is the part in which the ECB appears to be so worried about BitCoin taking over as legitimate "legal tender" from the EUR (which the ECB's Coeure said two days ago is as "solid and longlasting as a diamond") it dedicated an entire report to bash the recently conceived electronic currency:
In an extreme case, virtual currencies could have a substitution effect on central bank money if they become widely accepted. The increase in the use of virtual money might lead to a decrease in the use of “real” money, thereby also reducing the cash needed to conduct the transactions generated by nominal income. In this regard, a widespread substitution of central bank money by privately issued virtual currency could significantly reduce the size of central banks’ balance sheets, and thus also their ability to influence the short-term interest rates. Central banks would need to look at their existing tools to deal with this risk (for instance, trying to impose minimum reserve requirements on virtual currency schemes).
The substitution effect would also make it more difficult to measure monetary aggregates and, as a consequence, would affect the relationship between the monetary aggregates as measured and inflation, which is used to gauge risks to price stability in the medium to longer term.
Lastly, on this second aspect, when virtual money is created outside the realm of the central bank and virtual credit can be extended, this may have implications for the way interest rate decisions by the central bank are transmitted through the economy and the central bank’s control over money and credit developments could become less effective.
And while it is one thing for the Chairsatan to say gold is not money but is merely "tradition", it is a whole new level of panic when a major central bank is forced to defend itself against an electronic currency.
h/t woerner
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Ecb; like the ABC murders of Agatha Christie. Good laff there!
lol @ the ECB unknowingly encouraging people to use Bitcoin by acknowledging it poses a risk of castration for their megalomaniacal central banker madmen
Western economies are a ponzi today. The term "economy" has be stripped of all ingenuity. It has morphed into HFT, credit advances, leverage, and finally theft. The banking system is so far past insolvent, it's not even funny anymore. This pig is dead.
And if you can't see how bad things are, how banks are being held up with Fed intervention, and how the petro dollar is foreign policy, then you're an idiot.
We could never return to a gold standard because gold isn't 'backed' by anything...
~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9IkX3oJipo
I don't think the down-arrower followed your link. Hilarious clip though.
That's a hall of famer right there.
Despite 'Friday Humor', some folks just ain't that jolly... I suggest they start drinking heavily...
~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYqnoULgD30
Apple longs...
Sound advice... In any era...
~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYqnoULgD30
It takes one to know one.
Sort of like what GE did for years, just to pay a dividend when they were actually bankrupt under Jack Welch.
rofl...
Thanks for the insight, Bridget. Now I can feel much more 'secure' about my 0.25% CD.
I watched the video... stupid. Gold it backed by the cost to extract and refine it and of course demand... and there's 5000 years of demand.
+ 10,000 green up arrows.
Thank you....turned my miserable day into something brighter!
+ 10,000 green up arrows.
Thank you....turned my miserable day into something brighter!
How about this for a sweet ponzi. Have your company issue shares and pay dividends out of the proceeds. Attract new granny investors with promises of said dividends. Rinse and repeat for DECADES.
http://s1144.photobucket.com/albums/o489/_DrBenway/The%20Great%20Australian%20Investment%20Ponzi/
Benway: Holy crap, that's amazing. It never ceases to amaze me. Anyways, great presentation. did you write that? Well done.
Thank you! Yes I did write that. Funny thing is, although Aussie LICs may seem a niche subject, it has parallels everywhere. The issues of weblike crossholdings, accounting fraud, share ramping, ponzi business models, HFT manipulation, misleading metrics, etc. Also, the LICs have deep connections with the shadow banking sector, indeed they can be considered part of the shadow banking sector. This is where it all ends:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/untimely-death-clouds-banksia-probe-20121101-28mxn.html
Any thoughts about that ANZ open on October 18?
I don't know anything specific. In general though, the equation is this: If the cost of moving the price of the underlying is lower than the profit from the derivative, the price will be moved. In the ANZ case it was futures I think, or it can be issuing shares, or it can be avoiding debt covenants, there are lots of ways second-order profits can be made from share prices. What determines the cost of moving the price? Mainly the liquidity and volume of the underlying. Since the Australian market has gone full tumbleweed, the cost of manipulating share prices has fallen and the prevalence risen. My favorite new manipulated stock is PPT.
Join my Facebook page or like it... Nominate Charle Ponzi!
http://www.facebook.com/CharlesPonziForANobel?ref=hl
Marathon Cancelled
looks good on you Mayor Dictator
Oh my!!!
I do hope Mayor Neroberg doesn't cancel the Circus Maximus or Hunger Games!!
I paid quite a bit of tribute for my seats!!
They "ran" out of 32 oz cups
Say, now about those generators.....
(whatta buncha irresponsible fucktards... so much for the Bloomberg bounce to the Obay ticket... never let a good storm go to waste, eh?)
.
Nah, he dun goofed. This just makes it twice as obvious.
I was thinking the same thing.
Thanks ECB for promoting BTC. Please run an article on the Silc Road next so that you can really get people's attention.
i tell you the only way left to "vote" is via alt currency and PM's and alternatives such as bitcoin will supplant this gov central bank ponzi bullshit! I'm sure by then the banksters will try and "take over" more at "bring to market" virtual currency and thankfully they will go the way of massive large companies (think: record labels, blockbuster and soon to be extinct netflix) and other modern-day unwieldy corporate dinosaurs.
I remember in late 90's media giants started chasing after people downloading music and videos off the internet for free. When cases were publicized, the majority reacted: "What? There's free content on the internet?! How do I get in on the action?"
This is known as the Streisand Effect. Keep up the free publicity ECB! :)
Spot on! My favorite thing about owning phys Au is that it's inaccessible to the banking system. Wasn't interested in Bitcoin until today.
lol @ the ECB unknowingly encouraging people to use Bitcoin by acknowledging it poses a risk of castration for their megalomaniacal central banker madmen
lol @ the Tylers finally having amassed a large enough position in BTC to allow them to feel confident enough to throw their voice in the mix regarding (knowingly encouraging) BitCoin...
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/13972
Obviously I kid.
If some intrepid journalist had asked them how printing Euroz/$/Yen is not a Ponzi, can you imagine the amount of splutterings and harrumphs? :>D
Did you know Tim Geitner is the illegimiate child from an affair Charles Ponzi had with a donkey on a summer vacation in Ohio!
Not as strange a possibility as you might think...was it Ohio, Columbia by chance?
O-HI-o???... Uncle 'Tim's' Cabin...
Oh my God, no....
Probably a good thing to get folks to the polls....
:)
Excuse me while I wash my eyes out with nitric acid..
Haha WOW the ECB runs one of the biggest ponzi schemes on the go. The only one bigger is the FED.
http://schiffblog.blogspot.ca/
If the ECB was legitimately (rationally) worried about currency substitution and its negative impacts on central bank authority and power they would be more concerned about physical USD notes floating around the EU (since there is SIGNIFICANT precedence for the phenomenon) or CHF notes since they come in 1000 denominations .are being freely supplied by the nearby nutty gnomes of the SNB.
just when one had thought he has seen it all
baam! the ECB declares war against virtual currency
"...and the central bank’s control over money and credit developments could become less effective."
Oh, the horror!
Yes, without the monopoly, no one would use it.
Good commentary here: http://www.dgcmagazine.com/bitcoin-the-european-central-bank-sees-you-as...
Bankster'll never change
Guess I need to find somebody to trade my World of Warcraft gold coins for physical assets!
Defining themselves out of a job?
Reminded me of that line from Office Space;
"Tell me, what exactly do you do here"?
"In an extreme case, virtual currencies could have a substitution effect on central bank ...“real” money.."
you mean your virtual electronic "real" money???
all monopolies try to crush competition... the other thing barberous relics, like central banks for example, will do is hamper all progress by whining, dragging their feet, throwing their spoilt-brat toys out the pram
what a brat
we don't need no central bank monopoly scum ...we don't need no rotten cartel banks ....free market please... let competition to these barberous relics commence and consumers have a bright, colourful market of gorgeous money choices rather than these whining old farts holding society back and forcing us to swallow their garbage monopoly product
VERY WELL SAID...
Eat shit and fuck you ECB
Definition of SHELL GAME ; : fraud; especially : a swindle involving the substitution of something of little or no value for a valuable item.Sounds a lot like the ECB to me... "Piigs bonds for Euros"
While we're on the BTC subject, do any UK holders know what the story is with GBP and intersango/other uk exchanges? Are they ever going to be able to to BTCGBP again?
"...payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors."
Not another story about the folly of the US Social Security system.....
The ECB is working in the best interests of all European citizens and to prove it, they are issuing all taxpaying German citizens a FREE wheelbarrow.
The Draghi Wheelbarrow Company is funded by the EU Regional Development Council.
What would the implications be to our society and to the world be when the day comes and no more money is needed?Would the stock market,banks and such still be needed in a 100% electronic monetary system controlled by the Government?I think a lot of politicians and crooks alike would be afraid of this.It's called "control".Just a more accurate and defined form in order to trace which hands it goes through.After all,how would a third of the world's economy controlled by organized crime be paid?Right,no more cash or printed money and no more crooks.That's unless the crooks still decide to stay in business and are forced to use precious metals which are the ultimate form of money.
AEP article on Hollande:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100021082/do...
ZH is mentioned at the very end.
"...the central bank’s control over money and credit developments could become less effective."
And the downside is what exactly?
they might as well have written "Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws"
a priceless quote from the past :
Pauvre con ! Le droit ! Mais dis-toi bien qu'en matière de monnaie les États ont tous les droits et les particuliers aucun !
---Asshole, the law! Tell yourself that in matters of money the state has every right and the citizen none! ---
Now we know; the so called ponzi of the private bank or of the Madoff kind, is rightful, good finance when practised by the central bank of state.
"Lastly, on this second aspect, when virtual money is created outside the realm of the central bank and virtual credit can be extended, this may have implications for the way interest rate decisions by the central bank are transmitted through the economy and the central bank’s control over money and credit developments could become less effective."
What an amazing observation. That's exactly what the early Bitcoin developers were trying to do.
Let me guess, it took a dozen eCONomists 6 months each paid 100k to come to this conclusion.
I got lost in a cloud of irony when they started talking about attacking virtual money...lol.
was it irony or hypocracy??
their monopoly virtual electronic money is different to others virtual electronic money you know.. it's "real" stuff
Within all this Fridays humor let's not forget to be thankful because WE ARE SAFE finally:
"Due to baseless and relentless legal badgering by a certain four letter government agency, it's time to bid a fond farewell to the world's most popular adult desk toys, Buckyballs and Buckycubes. That's right: We're sad to say that Balls & Cubes have a one-way ticket to the Land-of-Awesome-Stuff-You-Should-Have-Bought-When-You-Had-the-Chance."
We should ban every single possible thing that could be harmful if ingested, just to be safe.
I guess it doesn't have anything to do with Rare Earths being controlled by China and a strategic material for manufacture of electronics. Nothing to do with that AT ALL.
I read that stuff about the virtual currencies.
Is that stuff supposed to be some kind of DOWNSIDE?
Steeken NFL game Giants/Steelers game still on for sunday.
It simply means game over for central planners. That what they are afraid of.
Must see cartoon image of Madoff
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=madoff+ponzi+scheme&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1067&bih=498&tbm=isch&tbnid=nXRv6O9l3LzARM:&imgrefurl=http://www.lifeishid.com/DISCERNMENT20.html&docid=NZF8_WuhnVe-mM&imgurl=http://www.lifeishid.com/MADOFF.jpeg&w=512&h=365&ei=hU2UULXDFqWViAe-zIGQBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=247&sig=100447729640687242678&page=1&tbnh=143&tbnw=209&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:75&tx=72&ty=48
In our review of the report, the ECB says Bitcoin would need to impact the real economy. Forgive me for asking, but what is a "real economy?"
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=12962
The one reflected in fed, BLS and associated stastics as presented by the likes of CNBS....
Who needs banksters, wars, democracies, nations, politicians or psychopathic crimminal globalists when you have bitcoin?
HeeHeeHee as technology supercedes primative systems; so much faster this time.
anybody heard of reverse psychology?
the ecb et. al. could purchase as many bitcoins as they wanted with their fiat digits. the bitcoin has a predetermined number of coins that can be mined. by definition, bitcoin is deflationary.
"the bitcoin has a predetermined number of coins that can be mined"
Until the issuer(s) unilaterally change the rules of the game...
Think about it.
It's no different than a central bank promising to remain on a certificated gold standard .... then issuing more certificates that gold... as in effective fractional reserving...
Until the rule is changed, unilaterally....
And bitcoin has what for collateral?
Aside from a promise?
By whom we do not know?
Son, I know how to game that system inside and out. And if I can figure it out, so an the issuer of bitcoins...
Tony Soprano'd look at that like a "gold" mine
i have no issues with your thoughts on the bitcoin. my point is that the nwo is more likely to embrace, extend and monopolize the bitcoin for their own agenda rather than being afraid of it. what an ideal digital currency with all transactional history embbeded in the bitcoin. the nwo would be stupid not to embrace and extend this technology. in fact, it might even be their technology and brainchild; rather than some purported japanese kid that nobody knows anything about....
There is no issuer to change the rules. To change the rules would require a rewrite of BTC's protocol and cryptosystem. Doing so would equate to a new currency. It won't happen.
There is no collateral, no promise, and you do not know anyone, because there is nobody to issue. BTC is pure monetarism without a central bank. Its supply/demand determines the price and nothing else. The best way to view BTC right now is as strictly a medium of account and exchange. Although it is by protocol deflationary, it has great utility in fx, as you can easily transfer arbitrary amounts of money nearly instantly without cost.
You'll have to understand some fundamentals of cryptography, p2p networking, and distributed computing in order to know why BTC is solid. It's too late at night for me to get into detail about all this but maybe someone else here can.
You'll have to understand some fundamentals of cryptography, p2p networking, and distributed computing in order to know why BTC is solid.
I don't think he really wants to know. He just wants to say that BTC is "not good."
Malikai is correct bit coin cannot be fucked with it is pure p2p open source. Look at big corps efforts to close bit torrent fail fail fail.you have to switch the lights off completely. Any rebel organization in the world will use tor to hide ip location because the code is 100 percent open so any developer can see any change to any line of code and any developer in the world can download the code and improve it if the community accepts the change it is done and always transparent. It is amazing that this glass box standard in innovation now scares the fuck out of wanker bankers. Honesty and transparency these concepts totally fuck the mindsets of the parasitic elite..apple take original bed software and handicap as many features as possible to generate income streams..to call it progress is a joke and anyone using android or Linux knows this..I guarantee the majority of the best it pro,s in the world run Linux at home virus free browsing and technology without limits
the idea here, for the nwo, is to embrace (btc), extend (btc like) and extinguish (btc); imagine, from corrupt fiat to gold like digital currency to corrupt digital currency
Personally, I'll start asking that question very seriously on the day the oligarchs 'support' BTC.
So, the increase in difficulty / change in rate of creation of new bitcoins, is fixed into the protocol and not determined by any person? Who controls updates to the bitcoin software?
That's right. It is fixed into the protocol.
There are several different open projects which manage the different software components. But even they could not individually change anything about the coin generation proccess without first changing the protocol and breaking everything.
There is no autoupdate to the software so essentially the users do. When a new updated software is released it's up to the users to check the open source code weather or not something malicious was added and download that new version or not which is quite easy to do with github.
Plus in order to get the rules to stick you'd need virtually every users to switch to new rules which is virtually impossible. So even if a majority does, the minority can still run the old rules and create a fork of the transaction history and go on on their merry way as if nothing happened. That's why Bitcoin is not democratic but rather voluntarist, no one can force you to either use it or under which rules it must be used.
In fact there already are several other version with different rules that people took the original software and modified it except Bitcoin has a huge head start with it's adoption and a hell of alot more attractive rules.
You're missing the point. Bitcoin may be rock solid, but central bankers don't control it. That's the problem.
It's not about the coin, it's about the control.
Central bankers want the control so they can (a) enact laws making their currency the only legal currency, and (b) create more of said currency at their whim, i.e. having their own "money tree" nobody else has access to.
Control is far more important than value. Fed can't control the value of FRNs. But they can control the quantity.
They can affect the value by outlawing other currencies, coins, etc. But they can't control the value totally.
"Bitcoin may be rock solid, but central bankers don't control it. That's the problem.
It's not about the coin, it's about the control."
Herein lies the rub. It's not about wealth. The owners of the FED are already the richest bunch of assholes the world has ever seen. They have been since long before the FED and they will be long after the FED. It is 100% about control. Or, more precisely, open, community based control vs. closed oligarch based control.
I say we just let Gresham figure it out.
What about Moore's law & the declining energy cost per computation, and (possibly) declining costs of renewable energy? (eg solar panels are a lot cheaper than they were - though silver prices may prevent that trend continuing...)
Couldn't Dubai (or an equivalently arid place) turn itself into a huge solar-powered bitcoin mine, if it really caught on?
Yes, but if 50 percent of the total has been produced, would they have enough time to get more machines online for the project to pay for itself?
Also, the mathematical difficulty for generating new bitcoins increases over time, so it takes longer and longer (in computational cycles) to make new coins.
Money is a mass delusion. Whether it's bits on a harddrive or a shiny lustrous metal. It has no value until society decides to assign it a value.
The key thing to remember is Bitcoins can't be created at will, just like other hard assets and counter to goverment currencies.
" Bitcoins can't be created at will"
well, unless by will you mean a bunch more GPUs get put online and start mining alot more bitcoins. If there is a sudden increase in processing power, does the system itself automatically compensate to control the universal mining rate? And, is there anyway for any person, such as the people that release software updates, to alter the mining rates?
You want to host a bunch of FPGAs/ASICs so you can be the biggest miner out there, get all the coins, chicks, and rule the world? Go ahead. Difficulty will go up real quick. You'll be competing against one of the largest distributed computing clusters on earth. If you're lucky, you may take a large chunk of new BTC, but it will come at tremendous cost in hardware, power, and systems management time.
Here's another gem from said ECB report:
"Although the theoretical roots of the scheme can be found in the Austrian School of economics, Bitcoin has raised serious concerns among some of today’s Austrian economists. Their criticism covers two general aspects: a) Bitcoins have no intrinsic value like gold; they are mere bits stored in a computer; and b) the system fails to satisfy the “Misean Regression Theorem”, which explains that money becomes accepted not because of a government decree or social convention, but because it has its roots in a commodity expressing a certain purchasing power."
There's more ....
To paraphrase the ECB: The reputation of central banks could be damaged if there is a fuck-up with virtual currencies.
Now imagine the damage to reputation if the virtual currencies actually work better.
Anyway interesting times!
Bitcoins have no intrinsic value like gold; they are mere bits stored in a computer;
Uhhhhhh.... Euros have no intrinsic value either.
"Bitcoin has raised serious concerns among some of today’s Austrian economists"
LOL
Modern central banks have raised concerns amongst some of today's Austrian economists....
Holy sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeit!
Whata buncha of sanctimonious self centered propagandists.
It really is very poor quality trolling. I just can't figure out why these assholes keep stabbing themselves in the face. Anyway, what do I know..
"Any publicity is good publicity."
The Fed will not tolerate fraudsters and chaletons.
It cannot abide the competition.
The NWO Int'l. Banking Cartel has just designated a Fab`list of '28 TBTF's' GrandOverseerer's ...`Master's of BitCoin de`Fiat' by order of Basil the III !
This decree is a global initiative orchestrated by fascist, dictatorships, communist, socialist, and delusional quasi-pseudo anarchist democratic-republic entities- to be known hereof as the 'Monopolistic Emporium' !!!
The end is near... the final groundwork is being laid for global dominance and the soon to follow faceless societies?
Think about it for a nanosecond...never would a TBTF ever had been imagined prior to '911', but now, it is a widely accepted and oh-so prudent thing to do for the benefit of all mankind! Whose benefit? The USSR; the Chinese; N&S Koreans; Africa; Pakistan / India; ME, and all the central banks now whole except for *Iran,* Sudan, and *N.Korea [could have missed one?]... but, when these *few fall, the matrix will be a solid-state component.
A web of unbelievable treachery and horror! Hmmm, just let me put the head in- and, I ain't talkin bout the camel's purple nostril ! [ http://www.bigeye.com/griffin.htm ] note: get it passed and we'll turn time back or forward at [Y]our?] leisure?]
jmo
ref: http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/list/fsb_publications/index.htm Nov. 1, 2012 ***(G-SIBs)
thankyou tyler
This is absolutely stunning.
Financial Stability Oversight Board.
The Board is comprised of the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of the Federal Home Finance Agency, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
So the board is composed of the same people who brought us this mess.
What did you expect? It's merely an oversight.
Looka like Romania is startin to get it right: "Romania: 33 bankers and officials detained"
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-02/romania-33-bankers-and-officia...
"Prosecutors on Friday detained 33 government officials and bankers on suspicion of money laundering and fraud that cost Romania €22 million ($28.5 million).
The detainees included three Economy Ministry officials, the deputy chairman of the French-owned Romanian Development Bank, and the chairman of a state fund that offers banks guarantees in exchange for business loans.
The officials have been suspended, pending an inquiry, and prosecutors have asked the Bucharest Court to rule later Friday that 32 of the detainees be held under arrest for one month."
The Romanians are such children. Obviously these 32 detainees didn't make the right contribution to the correct official charity.
Hegelian Dialectic at work.
Central banks must be allowed to manipulate interest rates. If governments had to roll over their debt at market rates, they'd quickly go insolvent.
Bitcoin also makes income taxation difficult, since there's no way to connect Bitcoin accounts to physical persons. They could try to guess your income based on your lifestyle, but then they'd be taxing consumption, not income.
Forty years ago, the US abolished the draft and converted to an all-volunteer military. Could the IRS do the same, asking high-earners to please give ten percent of their income to the government?
Possibility of redeeming ~ funds Guaranteed (and at par value)
Redeemed for what ? Unredeemable paper?
Thx for covering this Tyler. I never thought this self-embarrassing assessment would ever see the light of day.
A ponzi scheme using counterfeit money.....mmmm----must be the fractional reserve banking system
Bitcoin Prevents Monetary Tyranny
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/10/04/bitcoin-prevents-monet...
At least they know what they're doing.
The whole of 'american' economics is a ponzi.
Useless to focus on money and how a currency can be organized to foster ponzis.
Better to look at the consumption of the environment.
As their way to legitimate the huge stealth streak 'americans' have been performing, 'americans' put forward the claim they could overcome the environment. That they were not stealing, simply taking from inefficient hands an asset they, 'americans' could make thrive better.
The rest is history. Replacing investments by resources or simply the natural world and one sees how 'americans' have developed a ponzi based on physical goods.
The GD happened when 'americans' ran out of indian land to transfer (there was simply none left) and the ponzi was down.
Gave out two WWs, several other wars, the GD and so much more...
The whole of 'american' economics is ponzi.
"Capitalists often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many capitalist enterprises, the capitalists focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity."
Bitcoin, or BTC as it is referred to in trading circles, is backed by two things - source code that defines the system, and the asymmetry of time.
Each bitcoin is created by cryptographic proof-of-work algorithms. This is a fancy way of saying "brute force solution that consumes lots of processing cycles". The sheer amount of time needed to create a bitcoin is the foundation of the blockchain, or ledger, in the system - which prevents double-spending, among other things.
It is the largest distributed processing network on the planet, collectively outclassing all prior networks used to solve different problems.
I don't vote in elections, but I 'vote' with bitcoin. Every coin I acquire and spend is a vote for a free financial system. Every time I use bitcoin for achieving my goals, I'm giving a big middle finger to the banks, Federal Reserve, and misguided monetary policies.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - bitcoin can change the financial world. Time to join the silent financial revolution.
Lol "minumum reserve requirements" lol the "real" banks dont even have any requirements anymore the "real" money is MORE virtual than the digital bits.
awkward silence, must be a prayer session
of some kind, not to disparage prayer or
silence, just the awkward part.
lol a fucking joke
"solid and longlasting as a diamond"
whew.. I was just afraid he was reffering to gold :P quite ironical that a central banker is trying to assure his currency is as solid as a longterm tradition.
now here comes a question: if EUR is at best as solid as diamonds, why not hold diamonds rather than EUR?