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Winklevoss Twins Revealed As Owning 1% Of All BitCoins
Think the 75% plunge in BitCoin values in two days has crushed all former supporters of the virtual currency (which truth be told is only back to levels from a month ago)? Wrong. As the NYT reports, a very unexpected supporting genepool (split into two identical halves) has emerged in the shape of two names previously linked to yet another pre-bubble frenzy name, FaceBook: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (collectively, the "Winklevii"). Following stints as Olympic rowers, Simpsons characters, and antagonistic Facebook litigants, the two 31 year-old identical twins are now indirect investors in the latest "currency" craze, whose heyday may well have come and gone, courtesy of owning a whopping 1% stake in all of the entire outstanding supply of BitCoin which at last count was worth $1.3 billion (if maybe a little less now).
An array of speculators have now bid up the price of the bitcoin to the point where the outstanding supply of the digital money was worth $1.3 billion at last count. The Winklevii — as they are popularly known — say they own nearly 1 percent of that, or some $11 million.
The decision by the brothers to go public with their position signals a new stage for what has been an experimental alternative to national currencies. Created in 2009 by a programmer or programmers known only by a pseudonym, the bitcoin world has been dominated by anonymous programmers and traders.
...
The 6-foot-5 Winklevii were unfazed by the latest tumult. Indeed, the brothers said they used the low prices to buy more. They argue that bitcoin will have much further to soar once a broader audience sees its virtues: a unit of exchange that can be moved around the world at the click of a button without requiring any payments to Western Union or American Express.
“People say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a bubble,” said Cameron Winklevoss. “People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days.”
The brothers began dabbling in bitcoin last summer when the dollar value of a single coin was still in the single digits. In addition to the purchase of bitcoins, they also say they have invested in a bitcoin-related company, but declined to disclose which one. The currency itself exists as a string of letters and numbers. In order to keep their holdings secure from hackers, they have taken those codes off networked computers and saved them on small flash drives. They said they have put the drives in safe deposit boxes at banks in three different cities.
Nothing like having a string of letters and numbers in safes in flash drives in three cities as a store of value...
To some more cynically inclined observers, for the two brothers who lately have been desperate to get back into the public arena, this latest "investment" is nothing but a rather expensive PR campaign, and one which depending on their cost basis, may have already proven to be a huge loss. However, that will not step them. Or many others desperate to ride on the coattails of the next parabolic bubble:
Other Silicon Valley venture firms, while not holding bitcoins, are starting to show interest in the technology. Tim Draper of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson put money into CoinLab, which is doing bitcoin-related projects. Tribeca Venture Partners announced this week that it was putting money into Coinsetter, a start-up trading platform for the currency.
Sadly, a somewhat notable problem with BitCoin, the currency and not the bubblicious asset, is that one can't really use it for much other than to buy more bitcoin, or convert it into fiat currencies: the same fiat currencies that BitCoin is trying to replace:
So far, few real companies accept bitcoins as payment, and the primary place they can be used is an online bazaar, known as Silk Road, where narcotics are the main wares for sale. But the currency’s believers see a future in which Starbucks and Amazon take bitcoins. For their part, the Winklevoss twins have used some of their bitcoin to pay for the services of a Ukrainian computer programmer who has worked on the site of their venture capital firm.
But the drop dead punchline:
“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler Winklevoss said.
That's funny - it is more or less what the heads of the Federal Reserve and all other central banks have said for the past 100 years.
As for the future of BitCoin? Well, if its credibility can survive a collapse like this...
... maybe it just does have staying power. Unless, of course, the other sizable "investors" are none other than the central banks the currency hopes to supplant, just biding their time until they launch the next avalanche selloff...
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They don't just own 1%. They invented it! Watch out Bitcoiners. The Winlevii are planning to sue to get your bitcoins, which are rightfully theirs!
I thought for sure this headline was a joke.
I'm sorry Winkelvii, you are still at the mercy of the Bernanke and Congress. Would that it were otherwise, but if BTC becomes a real threat a some future date, all they have to do is shutter the exchanges and make it illegal for legit merchants to accept.
If it were that easy, Zuckerberg would have already beat you too it.
like they did with drugs and illegal guns.
“People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days.”
Do people really disagree with this statement? A borderless virtual currency seems both inevitable & for the best.
I disagree. Maybe the top .000005% can engage in virtual currencies so they can move their capital from the Hamptons to the south of France. It's dark ages for the rest of us. Cash and PM's.
Given that most currency is held electronic, without even paper backing, we should assume 99% engage in virtual currencies.
What will your cash be worth when the government declares the notes null and void, as it has done with the €500 note.
On a site like this I'd of thought there'd be far more support for such a currency because of the obvious advantages from a libertarian point of view.
The BTC principal is good, the reality isn't. The Winklevii are going to be Zuckerburged by the TPTB.
The government doesn't have to outlaw it, there are other options to make BTC irrelevant. Many of these options have been posted by numerous ZHers before.
(1) They can co-opt BTC as electronic currency.
(2) They can have users self-report, which will make it as useless to the law-abider as an offshore account.
(3) They can track it since the same technology that allows for verification also removes anonymity.
(4) They can manipulate the shit out of it causing wide price fluctuations.
Have you tried tracking firesharers that pretty much use the same network technology?
Have you tried buying a computer from Amazon with an ounce of cocaine? If that doesn't work, why? Is it because Amazon doesn't accept cocaine as payment, or because the government outlaws cocaine?
Does it even matter? Again, governments have very simple methods for making sure bitcoin never moves beyond black market status.
Have you tried buying a computer from Amazon with an ounce of cocaine? If that doesn't work, why? Is it because Amazon doesn't accept cocaine as payment, or because the government outlaws cocaine?
Wow finally someones explained this! I've tried to order so many books on Amazon by shoving cocaine into my sd card reader and it's never worked! Gawddamn that's helpful.
Next time I'll put gold in my sd card reader, I'm just not sure what's the best way to cut up the bars?
Mt Gox closed for 1 hour.
"Service is down for emergency maintenance for one hour, until 2013-04-11 23:30:00 UTC. Please retry at that time"
Crash & burn...
Bitcoin, magic beans that when planted create a giant sinkhole.
BitTheDustCoins
Oh is that a new quip now? Bitchcoin, Bitcon, Bitthedustcoin, yada, yada..
Any 8-bit moron can denegrate the pinnacle of computer science, networking, cryptography, currency and more. But now let's see you make your own contender?
Indeed, the Winklervii already have a suite of action figures.
"Bitcoin ? Heyyy !"
http://img3.etsystatic.com/000/0/6293116/il_fullxfull.301462971.jpg
"Trading is halted until 2013-04-12 02:00am UTC to allow the market to cooldown following the drop in price."
You do the math...
What math? The math that got me into Bitcoin back in 2011 or the math that made some idiots sell yesterday?
Im beginning to think that you are a Winklevoss......
Right... I forgot your technical innovation was to mail people gold & silver bars using FedEx! Fucking brilliant!
You know all those Winklevii Bitcoins in safe deposit boxes, I just finished spending them all on hookers and blow...sue me bitchez, but I'm not as easy to find as Zuckerberg!
Bitcoin is dead hahaha it was all a joke hahaha it will never prove itself hahahaha it is not safe hahahaha it can't hold value hahahaha pump and dump hahahaha yadda yadda...
Now please stay away from bitcoin. Sit back, sure of yourself, and do not watch our work.
Bitcoin was kinda interesting until these two douchebags showed their hand- now I realize it's just a medium for fonestar to perpetuate his kiddie-porn biz......
So much for "free of manipulation" when the largest trading house can just close up shop if the price doesn't go in a direction they prefer.
They suspended service for upgrades to handle higher volume of trades / quotes, and better resistance to DDOS attacks.
Still, having a single central pricing mechanism for what is supposed to be a decentralized currency creates such a large target for any malicious intent.
Anyone else noticing that this "dramatic" "horrible" crash has taken the value of BTC back a whole of ... 20 day? Yeah I don't know how any market could ever survive a setback of more than two weeks from the last top.
You mean like the Dow, NASDAQ and the S&P?
lol
If BTC is anonymous, how was it possible to find out how much these guys own?
Some silver people are mad because of Bitcoin. Silver used to be "the crazy shit" until Bitcoin came along.
Kinda like how crystal-meth took some of the alure away from crack-cocaine for some select aficionados.
What you seem to forget is that without silver, bitcoin does not exist. No silver, no computing. What is the bitcoin equivalent? My bat-shit crazy obsession with silver has PHYSICAL value. Crack and Meth have more value then bitcoin. Until you can address the issues posed by the poster above, I will keep stacking.
Idiot. If hydrogen did not exist, neither would the planet Saturn.
Any other inane analogies?
one real problem with bitcoin is that there isnt much of it. if they really want to crash it, they can print the money and buy and destroy it for free.
Slice and Dice the Block Chain to find money supply concentration (and volatility) the keys themselves don't have to be anonymous, for example if I wanted to waste money on a piece of software from Microsoft, why would I consider sending BitCoins to an anonymously signed key, when there is no chargeback mechanism? I know for a fact that Microsoft uses publicly signed keys for email correspondence, so if or when a supposedly legitimate business all of the sudden wants intenet "anonymously" some serious questions are raised...
However, I would assume these two went hunting in search of the press.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you ... <-- you are here
Queue the gemini conspiracies now....
Haven't you had enough fun this week? I'll tell ya what... take tomorrow off, you deserve it.
BTW, my Bitcoin account reads
-1-100-1-1-100-1-1000-10-1-1-100-1-100
Can you help me out with this?
thx
I've never had enough of the Bitcoin experience! I will be right back in there like a dirty shirt!!
.com's, Vegas real estate, Dutch tulips...but it's different this time.
I think you forgot UST, USD, JGB, EUR, CAD, etc, etc....
+1 fonestar (Darrin)
"You are a tenacious little monkey. Alright, I'll do it"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=icDXNHF-oEw#t=306s
Anyone who wants to get into Bitcoin is just going to have to "be the ball". I am fine with that.
That's just the backdoor being installed... Or the upgrade due to increased activity...
Slawterer
I freely admit it's a shitty metaphor. Maybe if I'd called it Bitweed or something...
The point is, all it takes is the government saying it's a "tool of terrrrrrrrists" and mainstream retailers won't accept it. Doesn't matter if it's virtual at all. What matters is whether it's accepted, and if it's not, it's not a viable medium of exchange.
Who gives a shit? When hyperinflation starts, bitcoin will be one of the measures of the loss of purchasing power. Just like every hyperinflation.
How's this for irony: Who would have thought that Paul Krugman and Gold Lovers had so much in common? They both hate Bitcoin, because it competes with fiat and gold as a currency and assaults their plans for wealth.
"Must diss BTC. Must kill BTC. Must diss BTC. Must kill BTC...."
Personally I'm fine with having both. What one won't do, the other one will.
Statist propaganda to confuse the question.
That's actually a very insightful observation.
Who would have thought that Paul Krugman and Gold Lovers had so much in common? They both hate Bitcoin, because it competes with fiat and gold as a currency and assaults their plans for wealth.
Interesting. Can you give related reference on Krugman? I would think Krugman shoud be a great supporter of bitcoins:
after all, it creates a lot of activity (and jobs!):of course, 95 percent of these activity is totally mindless but it never bothered Krugman...
Recommended. These gold bugs are so fanatical, they would never dream of owning silver or platinum. Gold tinted eyeballs.
I don't have a horse in this race. I own neither bitcoins or gold, though I support those who do in their efforts to give a big middle finger to the system. I merely point out the limitations of bitcoin, some of which also apply to gold.
I don't think people fully recognize how important having control over fiat currency is for governments and banks. These entities are, in point of fact, more than willing to resort to violence in order to defend the very system from which they derive their wealth and power. That said, I believe a steady diet of propaganda will suffice to keep the sheep in line and fully supportive of whatever monetary system the powers-that-be want.
I wish this were not so, but our world is not a fair one. We'll all be forced at some point to choose whether to fight back or be subservient, and anyone who chooses to fight — however that may be — is alright in my book.
p.s. Fuck Krugman with a rusty sewer pipe.
"Who would have thought that Paul Krugman and Gold Lovers had so much in common?"
lol...who would have thought Krugman & bitsters would have so much in common, "manufacturing money" from thin air.
Nice try though ;-)
But this time is different, damn it!
;o)
lol...good point, Krugman didn't claw himself to the top of the fiat ponzi by standing on principle ;-)
I encourage people to try and find sellers of BTC on localbitcoins.com that are selling BTC < $70. They are about as plentiful as eBay sellers letting you have NGC or PCGS slabbed ASE's for $27.92 USD + shipping.
$66.00 USD
https://btc-e.com/
Nobody in my neck of the woods is selling...
Your three friends on "Farmville" don't count....
maybe you have some friends in your bunker?
Well, if he does, I hope they look like this - Bunker Shot
Ya gotta luv hot pink-on-pink... :>D
Already contacted my three usual guys... just like the physical markets they are happy to sit and wait it out.
Send him a copy of Waiting for Godot.
Send him a copy of Waiting for Godot.
Lol one of the better quips i've heard on here lately.
If you are libertarian, you don't understand the importance of government independent money?
I'm not libertarian, but the banking cartel and the globalists are pushing hard to replace cash and make the sheeple use electronic currencies, and you are keen for bitcoins? Great, people like you are happy to become chipped as long as they can pay with bitcoins after RFID identification.
If I were Rothschild I would have invented something like bitcoin for the pseudo-sceptical facebook-sheeple.
If they bite this bait, I would know they do not understand the principle of anonymous and independent money at all, they also do not understand therefore the value of gold, these sheeple go online, and only because they are not forced to put into their names in banking masks, they are stupid enough to believe, the virtual currceny they are using was an "independent" or anonymous one...
Incredible. We are doomed if the intellectual capabilities of today's "freethinkers" have reached such a level.
Bullshit. The people in Bitcoin are the very last people that would be "chipped". Fact is, most of you will just be RFID'd whether you know it or not.
You might want to look up how the FBI infiltrated the KKK and other racist organizations over the years. Don't be shocked when that guy you know who is the biggest proponent of Bitcoins ends up being a Fed.
Or maybe the biggest opponent.
Your solution to a technical dictatorship by the global elite? Simple, sell everything for gold and hide in a cave!
No, not everything and not a cave. But acting wise to increase independence.
Your reply shows me, that you are a binary thinking person.
And how clever is it, to believe that choosing a technology dependent currency could increase freedom? A technology like the WWW! With no anonymity. With total legislative control. A technology they can shut-off completely with a dozen kill-switches!
Since when does a vampire family like the Rothschilds "invent" anything?
There business model has always been fraud, coercion, hijacking and enslaving. NOT inventing and certainly NOT advancing prosperity for the common people.
Can they hijack bitcoin? Maybe... maybe they can pump and dump it a few times, but it will get more difficult over time.
We'll see, bitcoin is far from dead, and the next round will be even more interesting to watch.
Trade ounce of cocain for bitcoin, trade bitcoin for local currency. Buy computer.
Option 2:
https://www.bitcoinstore.com/information-technology/computer-systems.html
I thought maybe these guys were smart until I read...
"They said they have put the drives in safe deposit boxes at banks in three different cities"
Smart enough not to tell everyone where they keep their wealth. "See this drive? It has $5 million worth of bitcoins and I keep it in my desk drawer at home when it is not in my pocket". lol ya right.
I went to the bank to try and deposit some invisable coins..........they called the fucking cops.........
Invisible money LOL
Suddenly I see there is a bit of a problem with the lack of coin
Oh well it was fun while it lasted...
I don't mind the term black market. I certainly like dealing in the black market and respect other people in the black market.
Here's a speculation from me: eventually, this black market status for Bitcoin is either going away, or the black market becomes the main, the biggest and most preferred market.
The US government and local law enforcement track peer-to-peer every day. They get many convictions of people downloading child porn this way. They also get a ten year enhancement on the convictions because Bittorents et al. uploads while downloading, meaning that the douchebag perverts were distributing it as well.
Don't believe me, then google the total phrase below and you can read numerous appeals that have been denied but all show how the gov't tracks peer-to-peer.
peer-to-peer site:.uscourts.gov
Proxies? Tor? VPNs?
Or maybe they were too busy spanking it to bother?
How do any of those help a normal person adopt bitcoin as a currency? The average human is way to busy or does not care enough to take these percautions. When you can go to an ATM an have the option of bitcoin beside all the other choices, talk to me.
Fuck the "normal person" they consented to this shit we are in now. Leave them behind to rot.
Without the giant herd of "normal persons" BitCoin is DEAD.
Way to busy camped out in front of the TV and watching PC Hollywood junk.
Have you - any of you- tried listening to this video, posted just 3 days ago here, and straight from the horse's mouth? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zhj1zeisqWY#t=200s
LOL at the downvote - facts are a bitch, huh?
5) they can shut it down.
Sheeple generation facebook never heard of kill-switches.
In all honesty, I'm always surprised, that most people don't know, that the WWW is NOT a decentralized net. They do not know, that it's running over a dozen nodes and can be kshut off completely.
Everyone's a sheeple, if he believes a currency, dependent on their technology, brings more independence than the monetary metals!
I'd even say: I will be able to use Paypal and the Fiat currencies much longer, than bitcoin will last. Why? Because in history there have been often alternative currencies and guess what happened, when the official currency failed? They forbid it. That's why they hate gold that much. It's deeply anchored in the human psyche, in cultures and in tradition. Wedding rings, symbol for eternity - made of the eternal metal.
How historyless must someone be, to promote a virtual, technology dependent currency over the eternal money of the kings?
And ofcourse they try to promote it on ZH... The pseudo-scepticals are the obvious target group of this brilliant job (equally brilliant like Google and Facebook but IMO with the same intention...).
Not to be a contrarian dickhead here, but, the "they" you speak of don't hate gold, they just hate the fact that you may have some of it.
(1) Could you elaborate on that? Would that by any chance happen to transfer a huge amount of wealth from the government to the current Bitcoin economy, the one they would be trying to fight or make irrelevant? Regardless, even if they did debauch Bitcoin somehow, another fork or a new design could take its place. Whatever wealth they gave away to free people due to their own stupidity stays with free people and not fascists, so all is good.
(2) Which would simply demonstrate the uselessness, worthlessness and irrelevance of their legal system. This would get the message across clearly to people that they have the personal choice to abide or not to abide by unenforceable "laws". Any attempt to extract taxes from something like Bitcoin in effect becomes a solicitation for donations.
(3) I don't see how a currency not being anonymous makes it irrelevant. I'm not convinced always acting anonymously is a desirable thing. Sometimes you want to be known. That said, Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Pseudonymous means one person can create and control any number of identities, not linked to each other. This combines the best of both worlds: you can either use a new identity for every transaction (and some common sense measures) and in effect acheive anonymity (nobody knows who the identities belong to), or, if you decide, you can reliably link any two identities you control (including your public, physical identity). Some people might actually want to prove that they indeed did what they claim they did.
(4) Spending money which goes from the government to the Bitcoin economy, in a process which does not affect BTC's long-term course, and certainly does not help the course the governments are in.
Well the level of debate is 'silver bitchez - your shite coins are going to zero. LOL. Tulliptards!'
So we should buy into anything as long as it's not fed? Faith-based jumping even on obvious bubbles? That's not libertarianism at all.
Besides, intelligent supporters of BTC longterm viability would have been appalled by the parabola, and realized exactly how much damage it would do to BTC. If BTC could have grown slowly and stably, with increasing retail acceptance, it would have succeeded. Now it has been seriously set back if not destroyed by the manipulated ramp (not by the inevitable crash).
It's ironic, in the Alanis Morissette meaning of the word, that it is the promising aspects of BTC that attract the greedy speculation that destroys said promise.
I was referring to the possibility of a borderless virtual currency, not necessarily bitcoin specifically (though bitcoin is promising).
So we should buy into anything as long as it's not fed? Faith-based jumping even on obvious bubbles? That's not libertarianism at all.
I'm not trying to give investment advice, just saying I'd of thought there'd be more support for having that type of currency option. And besides, practically every argument involving government regulation of bit-coin could easily be applied to pms.
If the government wanders in and decides to tax, regulate, confiscate etc. your pms it's not much different. Much harder to move the pms around though.
I love the concept of some decentralized money outside the control of the government with the properties bitcoin seems to possess, but I think it still has some flaws, quite possibly fatal flaws.
One of those flaws, not shared with PMs is one noted in an article on ZH recently. Apparently each bitcoin necessarily contains all of its transaction history since it was created, and that history is available to all of the bitcoin network. As the number of transactions grows that history takes exponentially more processing power and that will inevitably require big servers rather than PCs, tablets and smartphones to handle it all. Once the servers enter the picture, as they already have, as virtual banks to store the bitcoins, anonymity is compromised and we now have counterparty risk as some are already finding out to their dismay when the companies to whom they entrusted their bitcoins have been hacked, and significant amounts of bitcoins stolen from at least one of them.
Many of the other issues have been talked about plenty, but that seems to be a very serious one to me. They have some advantages over PMs and some significant disadvantages with them as well.
I hope these types of things keep growing, evolving and improving, but I don't think they're quite ready for prime time yet.
I'll be rooting for them, but wouldn't be putting any significant money into them.
There will eventually be a borderless, virtual currency, and it will be controlled by a global central bank.
Freedom?
Actually, the BIS and will be similar to Special Drawing Rights. They have to figure out a way to get people to live without currency. Once China and Russia sign off on the basket of currencies (with a helping of gold), the roll out will be pretty easy.
If you/we are serious about countering TPTB and their 666-Gitcoin, we'd put our money where our mouth is and... BTFD! Lest king Harrod kill the infant Jesus in his cradle. So to speak.
The Department Store killed Jesus?
Must be that updated English King James version...
"On a site like this I'd of thought there'd be far more support for such a currency because of the obvious advantages from a libertarian point of view."
I think everyone sees the "utility" of it while at the same time realizing its not money.
Lets stir the pot and see what floats to the top ;-)
For example, if the banking industry hadn't been completely absorbed by the state, where they are damned near indistinguishable, the banks would be providing a private transaction service too (its what they used to do believe it or not)...only opening their books on proof of criminality, shown in court, with a warrant.
Thats all bitcoin has going for it in my opnion...privacy...and volatility of course...lol.
Its all part of the jigsaw to take down the gold price a bit further.
And make goldbugs unsettled and sweaty.
Do you see the ECB is about to forcably sell off Cyprus's gold reserves?
i'm smelling a buying opportunity here my friend.
I didn't see that BigD, found it, thanks for the tip ;-)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/us-cyprus-bailout-gold-idUSBRE93917M20130411
On a site like this I'd of thought there'd be far more support for such a currency because of the obvious advantages from a libertarian point of view.
That, of course, presumes that all libertarians are idiots. If you want to gain on a Ponzi scheme, do not appeal to ideology.
"What will your cash be worth when the government declares the notes null and void, as it has done with the €500 note."
What will your electronic currency be worth when you get called on to bail in your bank?
What will your virtual currencies be worth when the farmers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc. etc. etc. Whose cash you just wiped out decide to continue exchanging their services for cash, pm's and whatever else they decide and tell anyone with virtual currencies to go fuck themselves?
Does Lawsofphysics accept bitcoin?
You should ask him.
'carpenters, plumbers, electricians '
50% of them of have Ipads, and their children can install the bitcoin wallet for them.
Don't be such a bullheaded bumpkin. King Lud II?
I'd bet more then 50% of them have ipads, and their children can install bitcoin for them.
I'd bet almost all of them have a helluva lot more cash on hand than a $500 ipad and they are not touching bitcoin with a ten foot pole, no matter what their unemployed 22 year old genius kid tries to tell them.
Don't be so delusional.
These same people will balk at getting a tin of beans in. Their fridges will be empty day 3 of a bank run. Most people have little more that a weeks cash in hand. Many people get by on a debit card and loose change. So who gives a fucking monkey about these people. They will be dead day 4.
I agree with that. We may be talking about 2 different types of people. When the dust settles it will be the carpenters, etc. etc. that can manage on their own, and they will call the shots.
I speak to working men all the time. A friend of mine operates a fork lift truck. Tried to convince him to get precious metals in. Wasted my time. Did manage to get him to store a few kilograms of rice, but he has no tins of meat, or fish or veg.
Carpenters still need steel tools, and it will not be enough for communities to trade locally. Metal, oil, chemicals...it is all national, or international. You need to procure that stuff with remote transaction systems. Physical delivery of metals will not do. When there is no electronic representation of Gold, then somebody has to invent it.
Will carpenters have much work on, given all the chairs and tables are free for looters? Warehouses full of DIY...
I speak to them as well. Most of them just stuff the mattress with cash. Always have, always will. Getting Cyprused is just beyond their comprehension. Some of them are now slowly diversifying into PM's or other hard assets. I believe Laws when he says "all economies are local". If they are not now they will become it.
I have this argument with one of my tech buddies all the time. He says we are heading towards the singularity and I say we are heading back to the stone age. I admit I could be wrong.
This May, we live in interesting time.
hi there i'm a plumber.. i've been buying pm's since 1999.. i'm well stocked with goods ammo and guns.i think my services will be needed in most any condtions..
hi there i'm a plumber.. i've been buying pm's since 1999.. i'm well stocked with goods ammo and guns.i think my services will be needed in most any condtions..
Electrician here. My job depends mostly on the grid staying up if things get bad. Spent the last 7 years donating free time to other contractor friends to learn their trades.
Got to one of their jobs later than expected one day; there was a 2x4 with a nail in it performing my "helper" job admirably well.
He said he only scrawled my name on the 2x4 because he missed me. ;)
Sounds like you need to think more creatively or visit the 3rd world to see how things get done. There won't be No Grid, unless a meteor hits Earth. What there is going to be is a bifurication of the economy so we wiill wind up like any other Central or South American country.
I am an electrical engineer, but I don't work with power generation or distribution.
I visited a tiny island that's owned by two countries. On the way to the capital city, our tour bus driver took us on a dirt road shortcut through the center of the island where all the poor peoples is at. The poor people lived in make shift housing or Lean-To's. What I saw while traveling through the center of the island was:
Garbage Service: - They burned it.
Indoor Water: City mains was dug up and tapped with makeshift manifolds, essentially a whole lotta Y connections, to deliver water to each Lean-To and the more upgraded Domiciles.
Plumbing: The area was on the side of steep hill and dirt road had fairly deep ditches dug on the sides of it for water run off. This was also used as a latrine.
Electricity: I wish I took a picture of it... The mains utility poles were tapped, in a way that I can only describe as an upside down mop: with many many many many connections tapped off of each pole.
Cable TV: Satellite TV was brought in via hacked cards, this was in 2008 so I don't know if this is still available, but even bars / hotels were getting satellite TV this way.
Phone: Cellphones only.
Anyways, someone smart enough to not kill themself made all of those connections / taps. In otherwords: you will always have a job because of the knowledge in your head.
I think the more likely scenario is the local (poor people) grid goes down, but the walled city rich people grid is still up. Even so there are still many other ways to generate power. A car alternator is a generator, you just need to find a steady mechanical force able to turn it.
You are all hilariously dillusional.
How many nuke plants are there in the US?
What happens if the people who all work there never show up for work again?
Shows like The Walking Dead and movies like The Road fail to identify this minor fact. Fukushima everywhere, idiots.
The future will be Brazil: with shirtless people in sandals living under bridges robbing and stealing, just a short drive away from the fenced in upper class surrounded by militarized police.
Now go heat me up an MRE to go with my glass of reconstituted orange juice.
I am not sure if you are speaking to me but either way I fully admit I am delusional. Probably worse by this point.
"How many nuke plants are there in the US? "
It's a big list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#United_States_of_A...
fonzannoon, they've banned the $500 note because of money laundering (the official reason) and capital flight (unofficial reason). They Euros still come in 500 notes ($650), for now.
Pity the CNY does not come in > 1000 notes, per Tyler:
Re: Why the biggest currency in China is 100 RMB???by tylerdurden » Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:01 am
Now that's a good topic for a thread, hlbb.I assume it's to make blatant bribery, graft and tax evasion just slightly more difficult.
Not that anyone seems to care. During my early days here, I remember going into a bank to deposit about 40,000 rmb. I was terribly nervous holding such a large amount of cash. Then a little old lady parked herself at the adjacent teller window and proceeded to pull from a tatty fake LV bag about a cubic metre's worth of bundled pink Maos which she calmly handed over to the teller.
People here walk around with bags stuffed to the hilt with cash, and they don't give it a moment's thought. There are plenty of countries where they'd be knifed and left for dead within a stone's throw of their front door if they tried that.
TD, are you not impressed? ;-)
If Laws of Physics is worth his salt as a businessman, he'll accept anything (any cyber currency) that he can readily convert into his favorite currency (fiat or PM) and with the right profit margin. Especially if it enhances his privacy. If not, then he's not a very good businessman, is he?
I am not trying to debate, just point out some things. I have seen, by me, more and more places start to not accept large bills. Especially $100 bills. They give fake bills as the reason. Maybe it's true. I don't know. But if I held a lot of $100 bills that were derived from non tax cash transactions....I'd start spending those benjamins. Which seems like it may be the goal of this whole endeavour. But That is my tin foil hat speaking.
As far as Lawsofphysics goes....he produces something that people need. So in my book he should call the shots as far as what he accepts. His product is what defines him as a good businessman. People have the choice of buying elsewhere if his product is below average. Granted he has to probably conduct most business in fiat. But if fiat is slowly going the way of the dodo, then maybe he starts having more of a say.
The Abstraction "Given that most currency is held electronic, without even paper backing,"
What is paper backing? Considering your handle "Abstraction", you should know that there is no paper backing. The only difference between electronic and paper is that in markets past the secondary, one can conduct transactions without an identifying trail when using cash. But there is no paper backing. I think you ment something else so I'll give you credit.
No, I was being literal. Paper backing is the promise that a withdraw on your account will yield cash.
Did their cash in a bank lose 40% over night ?
Bitcoin = Ponzi = snakeoil
Only if you can convert it on either side of the transaction to a currency of real value... like gold.
Only if you can convert it on either side of the transaction to a currency of real value... like gold.
Been possible for a while.
uh, you can. bitmit.net.
There's a thrid Winklevii brother kept from the public eye. If you look in the reflection, the one taking the photo...there he is...Augustus Winklevoss!!!
I thought his name was Ruprecht.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqMc9B7uDV8
+1
For the Steve Martin, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels reference.
the war on drugs has been a stellar success
government cronies have been providing their friends work for years, and the for-profit prisons are brimming and healthily profitable
I'm sure our free-market loving Fed wont mind alternative currencies emerging - they will absolutely love that just like they love gold and silver!
Or else they'll pop it like the monetary pimple it is...
Right, because Ma and Pa Jones are going to load up on a bunch of illegal bitcoin, buy their food and whatnot over the internet, have it delivered to them by some shady Russian ganster dude — all while risking jail-time — just to stick it to Uncle Sam?
Again, bitcoin will be stuck in the black market because that's the only place it will be allowed. It will never be accepted as a mainstream alternative currency because the vast majority of people will cower in fear of their government.
Zactly right. I agree 100% McMolotov.
And the minute a virtual currency appears to be picking up steam, watch for governments to step in with their own "safer" alternative.
Electronic currency controlled by governments and/or central banks has to be the #1 wet dream of statists everywhere.
yes the minute it picks up steam. like from 10 to 130? OK. and the reason people like bitcoin is because they dont trust the government genius. congress approval never lower. trust in governemtns at all time lows and its going no where but down. short gov long bitcoins a pretty good trade.
freedom to roam, or try putting your gold in your geo and getting over to canada.
I've said this a million times: I love the idea behind bitcoin. It works great (for now) for moving one's wealth from point A to point B.
But it would be extremely easy for governments to collude with businesses to make bitcoin acceptance for transactions impossible anywhere but the black market. That is its big limitation. And as I've said before, this limitation also applies to gold, though its use as money in the past would make a government slander campaign less effective.
And as I've said before, this limitation also applies to gold, though its use as money in the past would make a government slander campaign less effective.
Yeah exactly, no .gov has ever successfully limited peoples use of pms as currency in the past & certainly would never dare to in the future!
You are using the word "currency" wrong
You think the Winklevoss twins don't trust Government?
I'm starting tho think bitcoin is some elitist currency. Almost the opposite of the black market. Just a great way for high flyers to move their money around the globe. Kind of like the Russian oligarchs in Cyprus. They all probably assume they are in the club. Maybe one day a few of them find out they were not.
It's always possible. I doubt they trust Zuckerberg, and he's basically synonymous with the NSA.
exactly.
From the Overlord:
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-age...
"It's funny because it's true." H. Simpson.
One of the best stories they've done.
you know one of the biggest facebook investors left for singapore?
Fonz, you are closer to the truth than you think.
you know there are 7 billion people on the planet right? bad case of short sightedness, you should get that checked out.
Bitcoin supporters vastly underestimate what the control of fiat currency means for the central bankers, for the governments. They vastly underestimate the amount of political capital that has been invested in the control of fiat currency.
Great quote.
and you vastly overestimate their ability
I looked up 'ponzi' in the dictionary and there was a picture of a Bitcoin..........imagine that........