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As Obama Asks If He "Should Be Worried" About Bitcoin, ATMs Arrive In 5 Canadian Cities
The world's first Bitcoin ATM will be ready for use this week at a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. Created by Las Vegas based Robocoin, the new ATM in Vancouver will allow users to turn bitcoins directly into Canadian dollars, or turn Canadian dollars into bitcoins. As The Telegraph reports, the ATM first scans the user's palm to ensure security and transfers are limited to CAD$3,000 per day. Until now, the currency existed only on the web but the introduction of these ATMs brings bitcoin-as-cash usage closer.
The Bitcoin ATM Promo...
The Bitcoin ATM in action...
Bitcoiniacs says it has ordered five Bitcoin kiosks from a Las Vegas-based company called RoboCoin... and will be rolled out starting this week in Vancouver...
Four more kiosks will arrive in December and although their locations are not yet certain, Bitcoiniacs says it's eyeing major Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa
"Basically, it just make it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoins and hopefully will drive the adoption of Bitcoin, and make it more accessible for people," says Mitchell Demeter, the 27-year-old owner of Bitcoiniacs.
...
Currently, acquiring Bitcoins is often done through an exchange, an arduous process that requires users to jump through several hoops, including linking their bank account to the exchange and sending in paperwork to verify their identity.
...
The RoboCoin kiosks are expected to make the process of buying and selling Bitcoins much easier says Jordan Kelley, the company's chief executive.
"Our goal is to make Bitcoin truly grandma-friendly," says Kelley.
...
Using a kiosk means you don't have to wait to verify your account on an exchange or hand cash to a stranger, says Kelley. It also makes Bitcoins more accessible to people by adding an element of legitimacy and increases liquidity in the market.
...
RoboCoin plans to ship out 10 to 15 kiosks to customers before the end of the year. The first one will go to Bitcoiniacs, says Kelley.
Demeter says many Bitcoin startups are gravitating to Canada because the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada — also known as FINTRAC — aren't as strict as regulators in the U.S.
"It's a lot more open up here, that's for sure," says Demeter.
Those last two paragraphs/comments are especially notable in light of President Obama asking Eric Schmidt if "Bitcoin is anything he has to worry about?"
Via Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Here’s a story recently related to me by a guest at a White House dinner, which included Google’s Eric Schmidt: The president, whose most important job is surely to protect the integrity of the monetary system, smugly asked Schmidt if Bitcoin, one of many growing challenges to currency hegemony, was anything he had to worry about.
- From a USA Today article titled: How CEOs are Clueless About Technology
If the above is accurate (and I have no reason to suspect it isn’t), it is priceless information on so many levels. First of all, rather than ask about Bitcoin in an inquisitive manner free of prejudice as a enlightened leader surely would, Obama is merely primatively wondering if he needs to “worry about it.”
Actually Barry, if you had any sense and foresight whatsoever you would be looking at it as a great opportunity. An opportunity for the nation to lead the way in growing the Bitcoin economy and shed the archaic, feudalistic monetary system we are currently enslaved under. However, since you work directly for the oligarch money manipulators themselevs, you are clearly and disastrously unable to see things in a more productive and beneficial way.
Second, as I highlighted earlier this year, Eric Schmidt had no clue what Bitcoin was when Julian Assange first mentioned it to him in a lengthy interview in 2011. The initial exchange went as follows:
Assange: On the publishing end, the magnet links and so on are starting to come up. There’s also a very nice little paper that I’ve seen in relation to Bitcoin, that… you know about Bitcoin?
Schmidt: No.
Assange: Okay, Bitcoin is something that evolved out of the cypherpunks a couple of years ago, and it is an alternative… it is a stateless currency.
So Obama is asking Schmidt for his advice about Bitcoin, when Schmidt had no idea what it was two years after it had been created and released into the wild. One bureaucratic control-freak asking another for advice. What could possibly go wrong?
More from the USA Today article:
The president surely believes his important expertise is in matters of policy, law and political machinations. But he is, too, the chief executive of the U.S. government, with its increasing dependence on digital performance. And, in that area, he seems a near-illiterate, or at least a big boob.
An older establishment that still regards technology as a back-office function, or infrastructure issue, or buyable skill set, vs. an emerging native digital establishment that sees technology as an end in itself, serving a customer base with ever-higher technology expectations and standards.
It is certainly a pertinent question: If the government can’t run an e-commerce website, how in the world can it process all the data that they are supposedly sweeping up to spy on outlaws and citizens?
Non-tech people, no matter their good intentions, can’t do tech, at least never as well as tech people do it. This is something ever-more evident to people steeped in daily digital life, as most Americans are. It is less clear to CEOs, many of whom are somehow still uncertain in their digital habits and reflexes.
Let’s just hope these clowns don’t grasp Bitcoin until it’s already way too late…which fortunately it may already be.
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Escrow services exist for situations where you don't know if you can trust the third party.
Go to your friendly neighborhood coin shop.
They have been doing it for years.
And do not need a palm scan.
This has to be the most horrible fucking zh comments ever. Fuck u guys. Seriously.
I thought mine were pretty good. But you get what you pay for and these days not too many folks are focused on quality, unlike me. My motto is quality is job one.
I offered up a little contrary opinion requiring the reader to think a little about the Bitcorn in relation the the reality in which he lives. Sometimes these younger generations are true believers that Grand Theft Auto is their reality, it's the world in which they actually live.
It's not.
Anywho. Carry on.
Over.
OK, OK ... so the golbalists in conjunction withe BIS tied central banks want more than anything a fully electronic global currency under their control.
Magically BITCOIN appears on the scene as a global fully electronic currency that supposedly no one has a clue who developed it ... and it is supposedly some counter culture thing THAT IS F'N EXACTLY WHAT THE GLOBALIST BANKERS TECHNOCRATIC WANKERS WANT!!
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? A guy in the Carolinas coins a few pure silver pieces that people can trade as a pseudo currency and the US government pounces on him for counterfeiting. BITCOIN gets not only alternative media attention, but also magically gets the attention of the captured corporporate propagandist mainstream media and the US government is apparently helpless in discovering and stopping the use of BITCOIN as an alternative to the legislatively monopolistic Federal Reserve Note. Tell me the f'n NSA gnomes don't know who created and is promoting Bitcoin?!? Not likley.
THE ONLY POSSIBLE CONCULSION ONE CAN MAKE IS THAT BITCOIN IS A GLOBALIST SPONSORED GLOBAL FULLY ELECTRONIC CURRENCY BROUGHT TO US BY THE GNOMES OF ZURICH... and that it is their wet dream to have it adopted globally. It makes one think twice about the so called alternative media sites that are "promoting" Bitcoin, doesn't it? Have they been fooled or are they complicit?
Learn something before you spout in public.
Really.
His explanation is much more plausible than your blind admiration for an unknown entity.
Attention Attention Stackers r requied to wear foil hats now. this is not a drill. Bitcoin controlled by TPTB. Hold a gold coin and testicles to deny access. Remember in gold we trust.
In God we trust. Everyone else pays cash, or whatever is passing for money at the time of transaction. Keep stacking the real stuff.
Bitcoin is open source. Anyone can read the code. So the "unknown entity" who created it is irrelevant now. We can see that Bitcoin is an amazing new money, something that was predicted by computer scientists years (decades) ago, but only now has it been realized.
Bitcoin is the world's first fully decentralized agreement protocol. You can read about the theory here: http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/the-byzantine-generals-problem/206904396
Two points. First this from ZH:
"See, there's no need to worry: the reason the NSA is generously providing the source code for every Google-based smartphone is for your own security. Oh but it's open-sourced, so someone else will intercept any and all attempts at malice. We forgot."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-09/nsa-has-inserted-its-code-andro...
Secondly, have you considered cryptography built into the source code itself?
The world's best cryptographers and computer scientists have vetted Bitcoin's code and called it "brilliant" and "air tight". Currently there are Bitcoin addresses worth $100 million, and no one has been able to move the coins. I'd say that's a pretty good indications it's secure.
I don't know who these people really are. Look at who have passed on the msm as trusted figures who have been on the CIA payroll for years.
From former intelligence officer Walter Cronkite to CIA intern Anderson Cooper.
Likewise for the cryptographers and computer scientists.
You sould like Steve Jobs pitching his iCrap.
Amazing
"His explanation is much more plausible than your blind admiration for an unknown entity."
Maybe not so blind and not so unknown... $$$$ (you do know who runs this site, no?)
Over.
your blind admiration for an unknown entity.
LOL. I'd bet large that I've spent FAR more time researching BTC than you, or any of the haters.
> BITCOIN IS A GLOBALIST SPONSORED GLOBAL FULLY ELECTRONIC CURRENCY BROUGHT TO US BY THE GNOMES OF ZURICH
Your supposition (and a capital one it is...that's a joke, son) might hold true but for the presence of one very annoying fact: the central algorithm.
Bitcoin is based on an encryption scheme called the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). ECDSA is actually a collection of algorithms and operations that result in a Bitcoin "private key" which can be hashed into a public key, creating a keypair unique to any other (theoretically) and each keypair being statistically near impossible to reproduce.
Within ECDSA is the central algorithm that has two variants. Depending on its implementation, it can be called either secp256k1 or secp256r1. Bitcoin implements the first one, secp256k1, as it's a more "expensive" method that sacrifices speed for security. It's a more secure method than the second one.
NIST, the NSA and the US government in general are big fans of the second variant, secp256r1, and use it as their standard because they have a better chance of cracking it as it sacrifices security for speed. The Feds call the second variant P256.
If Bitcoin was just another Basel operation (like the Fed, the NSA and the NFL), they don't have their shit together enough to use the right algorithm for what they're trying to do, do they?
All of that being said, guess who loves secp256k1? Chinese and Indian programmers. Bitcoin is probably an Asian operation.
Asia's rising. I'd buy in, were I you.
And who dominates finance in Asia...the gnomes of Zurich/Rothschild et cetera who switch the style of currencies every time they blow up one after the other...run off with their riches, and leave the ordinary mug holding the empty bag. Fiat, digital, bitcoin...same game, different medium. Same owners. Same game plan.
Keep stacking the real stuff, tangible stuff.
I stack PMs and bitcoins. I bought into btc and waited till it tripled. I then traded them for more PMs than I would have gotten with the FRNs I traded for the original bitcoins.
But us Bitcoin users are just a bunch of dipshits, eh?
BTW, The Basel Bastards might own the banks but they're CLUELESS about P2P networks. They missed the internet until everyone else was on the boat, too.
I'm not saying you are a dipshit. I am saying that you take the risk, rather like people do with FRNs, perhaps without recognising the full risk. I wouldn't take your risk, but you pays your money, and makes your choice. Good luck with your timing. No offense intended.
Risk is what all trade is about, eh? I'm aware of the risks everytime I use Bitcoin. As the tech continues to mature, risk will lessen as will reward. That will be a shame for wildhair like me.
No offense taken. I've become used to the abuse re: Bitcoin here on ZH so sorry if I sounded harsh. In actuality, we're fighting the same fight but with different outfitting.
you take the risk
And there's no risk with phyz??? Do you not remember 1933, or home invasions, or metal detectors?
I stack PMs and bitcoins.
YES! That's what sensible people do.
.
I like to be able to physically hold my money, as in silver and gold. In my opinion, bit coin is not the answer. However, local currencies could be. There are quite a few started; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_community_currencies_in_the_United_States
Also time trade groups are another way of avoiding Federal Reserve notes. I belong to one.
"I like to be able to physically hold my money"
Governments like that, too, because they can easily confiscate physical money when you try to pass through checkpoints and borders.
Honest question: When was the last time you used silver or gold in an exchange for a good or service?
Gold & silver are a store of wealth that could be converted later to whatever currency you want. Also starting to be accepted In Utah & Arizona;
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/20/arizona-set-to-ok-gold-silver-currency/2100039/
When was the last time you went to the grocery store or any storefront and paid with bitcoin? I'm not looking to bash bitcoin. For me personally, I won't use it. I don't trust it. If the internet or power went down, you're screwed. Gold & silver have been used for 1000's of years and have held their value. But everyone gets to make their own choice. So if you want to convert $ to bitcoin, that's you're right.
"Gold & silver are a store of wealth that could be converted later to whatever currency you want."
Like Bitcoin, you mean?
(Actually, BTC is arguably easier, since I can transfer it across the globe and withdraw it in the local currency in seconds)
"When was the last time you went to the grocery store or any storefront and paid with bitcoin?"
No grocery stores around me accept gold either. I have, however, spent quite a few bitcoins online. How much gold have you spent there?
If bitcoin is a replacement currency for the PTB then where's the vig?
I feel another spoof Hitler video in the making.
'Mein Fuhrer...the bitcon...I mean coin...it meets resistence. Doubts.'
'Vat?!!! These people! Exasperating. They don't vant the paper money. They vant metal. Ve give them metal. BITCOIN! Why the doubts?'
'Mein Fuhrer....I...I...I...don't know.'
'Zen shoot zem all. Agenda 21 is quicker anyvay. Tell Jaime he's ok. We keep zee gold.'
One problem: the alternatives dislike being mocked, so the Hitler video will likely support bitcon...errr...coin.
Fine. Keep missing out. Maybe your metal will save you this time. Like it saved us back in 1913, or 1971.
Actually, gold has saved real, inflation adjusted, wealth since then and long before then. That's why it is the world's oldest currency, along with silver sister.
Good luck with your bitcoin experiment. Your money. Your choice.
You'll notice that bitcoin didn't save Dread Pirate or the new Silk Road. I smell a rat in the bitcoin boat.
What is it with you constitutional guys. Is it just the history and stacking you love. Isn't the 2nd Ammendment all about protecting the people from a Tyranical Government that could threaten your rights. A corrupt Government that could threaten the entire counrty. HELLO HELLO Mr Potato Head
Wipe the spittle off your lips, calm down, and think rationally. You are making no sense at all. You are an easy mark for conmen.
...and in the last two years alone Bitcoin has realized many multiples of inflation-adjusted wealth and purchasing power compared to thousands of years of PM monetary history for holders. That's why it's the world's newest currency and then some. Imagine where you'd be financially if you'd put $1K into BTC when they were pennies a piece only a few years ago? Hundreds of percentage points more 'inflation-adjusted wealth" than gold and silver have realized in thousands of years. Like it or not, that is the truth.
PMs are nice, don't get me wrong but they are not be all and end all financial and/or monetary panaceas.
For a trivial amount of risk and money one could have made a small fortune, real purchasing power, while huddled around one's stack of PMs waiting for civilization to collapse into chaos whereby gold and silver are rendered as the only "money". Good luck with that also as the Bitcoin experiment has already proven itself.
Despite being incarcerated, Ross Ulbricht is still in control of multi-millions of dollars worth of BTC in his wallet(s) that alphabet agencies have been, and will be for the forseeable future, unable to decrypt. With BTC, if one's passphrase/brainwallet/etc. is strong enough, one doesn't even have to "hold it to own it". Just because he promoted his online "emporium" through gmail once upon a time and left a trail to his doorstep in other regards does not compromise the security and utility of Bitcoin itself, don't get your facts mixed-up.
If you don't control it, you don't own it. Possession is 99% of the law, particularly in volatile times. Your trust in bitcoin is just that: trust. There's no rational reason for me to believe you. Bitcoin is no better than FRNs, in my opinion, except that some people imagine they can escape taxation and the State by using it. They will discover how wrong they are, as anyone who keeps aware of global law trends understands.
You missed the point completely. If you control your private keys you do control it, completely. Go and read my reference to DPR as many times as it takes to sink in.
I don't trust Bitcoin, I don't trust PMs, I don't trust that my car will start when I go to work tomorrow, I don't trust I'll wake-up to go to work tomorrow, I don't even trust myself most of the time. Some of the arguments being presented to not use Bitcoin are highly spurious all things considered but that's certainly nothing new at the ol' ZH.
This is not about operating outside of the system and dodging taxes, etc. as this is why these machines need to accomodate for AML regulations. Exchanges are the same and operate under pretty strict regulation now. Your comments show your lack of understanding and perception that Bitcoin is used by nobody but money launderers, drug dealers and tax cheats. Utterly fallacious blanket assumptions. One only has to look to the $US as being preeminent for those activities after all.
I don't care if you believe a word I say, in fact given your reply I'm glad you don't. I'm just trying to be helpful. Bitcoin has already proven itself to me, and continues to.
How did that "possession is 99% of the law" thing work out in 1933 when the US Government confiscated Gold?
For the last fucking time, the US federal government in the 1930s NEVER CONFISCATED GOLD!
Please stop repeating that lie already!
What they did do was illegalize the possession of more than roughly five ounces of gold per person. They NEVER physically went door-to-door ransacking homes for privately-held gold. Not once. They did not have the resources or means to do so then, and they do not have the resources or means to do so today.
All talk of 'government confiscation' of gold is purposeful fearmongering, either by those who would use disingenuous twisting of historical fact to support the physical personal posession (or purchase) of gold, or by those who attempt to make the US federal government appear all-powerful and capable of such an act, when they are in fact not.
Save your health akak, that's one myth that will refuse to die ad infinitum. I have relations and friends whose grandparents lived through that era. They held gold above the legal limit and of course they didn't relinquish it. Funny how some have grasped so tightly to the myth. History isn't fully appreciated anymore. The revisionists have won I'm afraid.
Miffed;-)
Gold didn't prevent governments from issuing paper and digital fiat. Most people didn't care, because nobody used gold and silver in day-to-day transactions. Let's face it, it's a hassle compared to digital and paper money.
Bitcoin kills two birds with one stone. And it's global. And it's fixed supply. And it's digital.
And it's redundant, which means you can access your money from any computer anywhere in the world - with gold, you NEED physical proximity to the metal.
Bitcoin is better than gold.
What happened to the anonymity of BTC? Online they want ID, kiosks want palm scans. Isn't this just giving the NWO its digital global currency where all transactions are traceable to each individual down the line?
Yes, it is... for the same people who think a caffe latte is more interesting than coffee and milk. It's the thrill of being different. The same owners control the ingredients.
Bitcoin's anonymity is intact if one isn't stupid enough to give up their biometrics to a machine.
So you need a palm print and a photo to buy and redeem bitcoins??
Fuck that ...
What photo!? And you never heard of Halloween or Guy Fawkes masks, or do you need to be spoon-fed with every counter-move to protect your privacy?
And it's "A" palm print. Nobody said anything about 'your own' palmprint. And since dBases store finger prints, this won't be cross-correlated. Nor is it stored.
But for the extremely paranoid, of course it is all stored. Even though they can't run the all-important Obamacare website, they have the magical ability to track and store everything about you, cause you're so fucking special.
If not cross checking or storing, there's no reason then to scan your palm.
With technology, masks won't even work:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130711113420.htm?utm_source...
"So you need a palm print and a photo to buy and redeem bitcoins??"
No. You need a palm print and photo to use the bitcoin ATM from the story. If one of your local coin dealers started requiring photocopies of your driver's license on PM purchases, would you say "So you need a palm print and a photo to buy and redeem gold??"
I think not.
There is only one currency that cannot be speculated, manipulated and will always retain its full value. It is also without a doubt the most valuable currency we will ever have.
Watts of power
the banks of the future will be hydro dams, solar grids, wind farms and nuclear (hopefully fusion) reactors. There will be dirty banks as well with oil, coal and fission nuclear. Doesnt matter the source. It all ends up the same.
Its the only way.
Have been saying that energy is the ultimate currency for about 30 years.
The problem with the idea is you can't print it and favour a tiny elite of greedy psychopaths that way.
Doesnt seem like a problem for me :)
Good luck hoarding it. lol.
Hoarding it wouldn't be impossible, for anyone who wanted to store the stuff enough to justify the capital expenditure. On the most basic level, all you need is a dam, or a reservoir on top of a hill. Pump water in when energy is cheap and keep it there until you need to turn the potential energy back into instantaneous power.
Then there are various types of flow batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery
Or use cheap energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and store them in tanks until you want to get the energy back.
Probably a load of other ways, with a little ingenuity applied to the process. Tons of physical, chemical and biological processes that could conceivably work.
Hence the reason that, like PMs, Bitcoin is a finite monetary expression of energy and/or work.
Energy being finite depends on your idea of how the Universe works: thunderbolts.info | A voice for the Electric Universe
Currency is nothing more than a token for the amount of energy spent/saved in a tradeable process.
Canada has Bitcoin ATMs and Germany has Gold ATMs
Try trading that bitcoin key written on a piece of paper to a farmer for a fresh Thanksgiving turkey after the electricity has been off for 2 weeks..
I buy real assets and save with real assets. Digital = intangible if electricity is unavailable. Silly sheeple.
Stack On
So you've already got a wood or gas stove (with appropriate reserves), passive solar hot water heater, clean water and passive filtration methods, and a cage to carry that fresh turkey back home in your pre-1970s vehicle or on your horse when the electricity goes out? Nevermind all the other incidentals that require electricity.
If so, cool. If not, then you're just in the same position as the person exchanging BitCoins when the power is off.
If everyone suddenly used a risk equalized
medium of exchange Washington wouldn't
have to educate a single person and it could
buy all the war toys and bugs it wants, and
underwrite all the privatized profits and socialized
cost it wants, but then it might as well do so
from Toys-R-Us, using all the play money the
store chain has available.
ZH contributors are coniderably more savvy than say the average Huffington Post sheeple. Yet their general ignorance of the conditions that make money money (hint on a big one, an object without intrinsic acquires intrinsic value once it becomes money, many objects with intrinsic value do not become money). Undefeatable encryption lies at the core of btc survival. The fact that btc has reached $200 usd = 1 btc in the face of the nascent ignorance surrounding btc is very encouraging. I store "money" as 1/3 btc, 1/3 gold bullion, and 1/3 silver bullion. All are money, all cannot be manipulated, and all are very real. In the present chaos of the fiat money world no one knows which objects will come to serve the role of money, particularly global money. I include btc because I really like its underlying characteristics that will cause it to survive and thrive and would not be surprised to see it hit 1btc=1m usd before the uninitiated become cognizant of its authentic attributes and really start to adopt it.
Bitcoin is destined for failure and this is a major reason why: http://www.examiner.com/article/man-has-16-500-worth-of-bitcoin-stolen-f...
You think your Bitcoins are safe? When they can be stolen by a hacker, and the NSA has made every computer system vulnerable to hacking, on purpose?
People with large Bitcoin hldings keep them on computers which have not been connected to the internet.
Also the private key can be printed out and stored on paper inside a book inside a safety deposit box, or hammered into metal with letter punches and buried in a jar in the garden.
You can even hammer the letters and numbers of your bitcoin private key into a 1 oz gold bar!
Bitcoin will absorb the wealth of the world.
It's one thing to support Bitcoin but it's quite another to make an absurd statement.
I keep wondering what if behind BC is a shadow agent - what better way to get reluctant people to adopt something pro-establishment than to have it pass for anti-establishment? As for it being inflation free/etc., there's plenty more to social/economic engineering than just playing with currency value.
Learning to shepherd an unknown flock, while maintaining apparent flock autonomy
Come on guys the gold vs bitcoin debate is ridiculous and only leads to further divide & conquer successes by the powers-that-be a.k.a politicians & their bankster friends. We need to unite in the fight against our common enemies.
I'm personally a strong bitcoin supporter simply because it goes against the current system. I love precious metals too, but why close my mind to other fiat alternatives?
It's obvious that this divide seems to be generational as older folks stick to tried-and-true low-risk gold & silver while dis-trusting the new and younger people embrace the new high-tech but risky bitcoin with enthusiasm. I think young people really have no reason to play it really safe considering our future has already been gambled away.
Basically agree with your take on bitcoin except calling it another fiat althernative. Fiat means "by command." Bitcoin is voluntary and not backed by the big guns, uniformed thugs, and jail cages. Whether it is a backdoor scam by the banksters or for real, only time will tell. If it is legit, my primary concern is that the beyond black quantum computers of the shadow government could crack the encryption in a heartbeat.
I like the ATM. Looks cool.
If Bitcoin continues to grow and flourish, there is no way that it will survive in its present unregulated, unmoderated form.
If/when it becomes a serious threat to existing fiat money, govts will move swiftly to introduce laws to regulate and control it. That will include regulations that require an audit trail of transactions carried out using it.
The same old same old excuses will be used to justify control: "it's being used by drug traffickers", "it's being used by organised criminals", "it's being used by tax evaders", "it's being used by money lauderers" etc etc.
Further, governments may see it as fulfilling their goal of creating the cashless society they crave for and may decide to take it over.
None of that means that Bitcoin is doomed, far from it. It's just that the anonymity it provides will be removed and some actions (eg: cross border transfers/payments) will be withdrawn or subject to control.
It seems Bitcoin was designed with this eventuallity in mind. There's no easy way to stop the technology. They can fight the network traffic but SSH-tunnelling and Tor would make that pretty futile. Being that Bitcoins are intangible, there's nothing to really outlaw or confiscate. The private keys are just numbers. I don't see governments making numbers illegal. They might pass laws such that: Thou shalt not give a person a good or service if that other person previously or afterwards uses numbers to move other numbers around.
Wait till mesh networks mature. Encrypted P2P on mesh will be quite the challenge for the surveillance junkies.
They could simply outlaw any sort of trading using Bitcoin (retail/Internet etc) ...if that's what they wanted to do. That would relegate Bitcoin to being little more than another 'black market' currency since a vast majority of people like to do what they're told by government.
But I suspect that's not what they would like to do; taking it over is probably closer to the mark...again outlawing unofficial trading using it and ending up with a cashless society where all transactions are electronically logged.
I don't care WHAT people use for the purpose of currency as long as they are prepared to wear any losses they incur without running back to the taxpayer for a bailout.
My bet is that it will eventually fail without some embellishments but I would be truly happy to see it succeed as a replacement to the current counterfeting operation being run by central banks.
Still no one addressing the elephant in the room; hyper-deflation.
Can't happen. Bitcoin's super duper cryptographic swoquix jovaphile nedril magnetic simplex generator is going to prop up the entire world economy if deflation ever shows it's ugly face.
Over.
h/t http://www.wordgenerator.net/fake-word-generator.php
If you think letting central bankers siphon money out of your bank account through inflation is the price of a stable economy, you've been sold a bill of goods. Hyperdeflation is a myth.
Come on, its simple... lets say I make a product for 2 bitcoins, It takes me a month to sell that product. In that time bitcoins have appreciated by 50% and I had to sell it for 1 coin. I've made a loss. Its cheaper for me to not make goods.
You think bitcoins are going to appreciate 50% month over month forever? Right now they are appreciating in terms of USD, because they are small and growing. If/when they become the standard currency, the value will stabilize, and inflation will be easy to calculate since it's baked into the algorithm itself.
But really, you make a fundamental mistake: what are bitcoins appreciating with respect to? If no goods are being produced, there can be nothing to buy, and if there can be nothing to buy, how can bitcoins be appreciating in value? Equilibirum will always be reached.
More like the USD is dying.
10000 to 1 bitcoin is just another in a long line of bankster cons. You really think the most ruthless evil organization of psychopaths wouldnt of stamped this out a long time ago if it wasnt there baby? Not knowing the owners is their trademark, if you havent noticed.
Like Globalist Googley Eyes Eric didnt know anything about it. He probablly was tasked to create it. Next youll be able to trade bitcoins from your leash... err i mean smartwarch or smart eye eyes.
When are people going to get smart brains. Im sick of cons.
I have trust issues. If Bitcoin is anything other than the coming "global currency" it will not be permitted a continued existence free of government interference.
And just for the record, I'm not anti-bitcorn, intrinsically, just anti-fuckery. And I smell fuckery big time.
When the time comes there will be no political consequences to confiscate this outlaw money than to seize the general public's savings....get yer bitcoins while they're hot.
And don't forget to upload your palm print, retina scan and dna for convenient storage in Utah . Link all your other savings accounts as well....
confiscate this outlaw money
How are they going to do that? Bitcoins are harder to confiscate than gold. They may have caught the guy behind the Silk Road, but they still can't get his bitcoins. By the time he gets out of jail, he's going to be the richest guy on the planet.
Let's say Bitcorn is too elite for .FED to reverse engineer. (cough). If he does not hand over his key, he will never get out of jail to enjoy his fortunes. Trust me on that one. You know, suicide because of depression and high dosages of medication.
Too, .FED will cripple the young enterprise. Trust. In God. IN GOD!
Over
The great thing about Bitcoin is that you can't prove how many keys a person has . . .
I know you guys love this 'Lawless Currency' dream but I would not bet the farm on it.
Instead, I'd be interested in you setting up moar black markets with the existing currency.
Over.
Do you have something solid to tell me about bitcoin's weaknesses or why we shouldn't use it?
"I don't understand/trust it" is a perfectly valid reason for you in particular not to get involved, but it isn't exactly useful to people like me who understand how Bitcoin works and where its strengths lie. No amount of hand-waving and chanting "spooooky government" will really change that. You gotta give me something concrete.
Then go big. Bet the farm on it. You'll be a bittionaire in no time. Enjoy.
So . . . you don't have anything concrete to tell me to make your case?
does the hand scan ATM worry you? (i'm a fan of bitcoin, but was a bit a gut punch for me).
The only legal currency in the US is the USD... Bitcoins can be declared counterfeit and accepting them outlawed.
If you can't spend em anywhere what good are they?
How would .gov finance itself in a bitcoin economy?