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Bitcoin Versus Gold
Submitted by John Browne via Euro Pacific Capital,
Ever since President Nixon broke the US dollar's last link to gold, the world has been set adrift on a sea of fiat currencies that have been increasingly debased, serving the interests of governments and financial elites. For the last five years, central banks have imposed near-zero rates of interest that have helped push up stock, bond, and real estate prices, but have made it nearly impossible for savers to receive meaningful returns on bank deposits.
To make matters worse, the apparatus of national security has turned financial transactions into a massive exercise in government surveillance. Under the camouflage of 'protective' measures, such as the USA PATRIOT Act, governments have invaded the privacy of citizens and compromised banking secrecy in an unprecedented and often unconstitutional manner. Despite huge potential transaction-cost reductions achievable through advances in digital technology, banks continue to charge exorbitant transaction fees while maintaining transfer delays that reflect a pre-digital age. In addition, bank regulators, led by the IMF, have shown a willingness, in the case of Cyprus, to make depositors liable for poor banking decisions. Many private citizens may naturally see the status quo as a deliberate policy to crush middle-class savers and pave the way for centralized socialism. Some have sought a way out.
Gold 2.0?
Traditionally, investors have turned to precious metals such as gold to help protect and privately transfer their wealth. However, ever-increasing regulation, monitoring, and physical searches have eroded some of the key protections afforded by gold. Gold's weakness over the past 24 months has also spooked many former adherents. In such an environment, many have seen the recent arrival of digital crypto-currencies as the means to restore the monetary independence that has been co-opted by big governments. Currencies like the now-famous Bitcoin offer the potential for a store of value, low transaction costs, free movement, and anonymity. It's no wonder that Bitcoin has taken the world by storm. But all that glitters is not gold.
Wikipedia defines a crypto-currency as, "a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency [or medium of exchange] whose implementation relies on the principles of cryptology to validate the transaction and the generation of the currency itself." In short, it is a virtual currency traded by private, unregulated internet exchanges. Despite the recent fame of Bitcoin, there are actually a number of other crypto-currencies that have been created in recent years. Names include Litecoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, and Primecoin. Bitcoin, established in 2009, is undoubtedly the most successful, and it became a breakout news story in 2013.
Bitcoin Pros & Cons
Bitcoin offers a few distinct advantages over conventional currencies: it allows almost instantaneous peer-to-peer transactions that completely avoid the expensive and cumbersome bank-run electronic payment systems, and it allows for fast international movement of funds outside foreign exchange controls.
Many investors are also betting that Bitcoin will offer a better store of value over time than serially printed fiat currencies. That's because the Bitcoin protocol automatically, and apparently irrevocably, limits the number of bitcoins that will be created to 21 million. In this sense, they are immeasurably more honest than US dollars. However, unlike US dollars, pounds sterling, or euros, bitcoins do not carry legal tender status, but rather rely on the network of merchants and individuals to continue to accept them as payment for goods and services.
Finally, by utilizing anonymous wallets, some users may think that crypto-currencies like Bitcoin offer increased financial privacy. I believe that this is largely an illusion. Governments have shown a great ability to crack any code no matter how well planned (just look at the British government's success against the Germans in the Second World War). I have full faith that the US Federal government can, over time, develop techniques to map all cyber transactions.
A Volatile Elephant in the Room
But it is Bitcoin's volatility that will likely be its immediate undoing. In recent months, as more speculators have moved into the market, prices have been unstable to say the least. On November 29th, Bitcoin reached $1,242 in Tokyo just as gold dipped to $1,240 an ounce. When those two values crossed, many began to speculate that Bitcoin had replaced gold as the premier alternative to fiat money. With relatively high transaction costs and delivery delays, precious metals are expensive to store and transport. In contrast, Bitcoin transactions are fast, cheap, and transnational. But little, if any, store of value is offered. That reality has been demonstrated in recent weeks as Bitcoin has dropped by some 50 percent in market value.
While crypto-currencies remain insulated from central bank manipulation, governments have thus far been tolerant, perhaps because their capability to track transactions is more advanced than Bitcoin believers admit.
Nevertheless, the advent of crypto-currencies represents the increasing popular demand for a currency insulated from political debasement and bank profiteering. Crypto-currencies represent a legitimate attempt by private citizens to reassert their sovereignty over such government actions. I appreciate the effort, and I believe it holds much promise. But for now, I will stay with the traditional store of value, gold.
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Nothing about Bitcoin meets the requirements as money. Currency maybe but even then if you can't protect it with an AR-15 you don't own it. A cashless society is a dependent society.
You can protect it with or without an AR-15. Nobody can make you give away your passphrase protecting your coins. The AR-15 is optional, just for extra deterrent.
A free and open internet is an invaluable tool on its own, and you only need to insure that you have that to have a new class of currencies that are as good as cash.
P.S.: If anything is unclear you could check some of the older conversations about those same points you raise, e.g. here, all the way through here.
It meets all the requirements of good money, and in most cases beats out gold. It's highly divisible - one bitcoin is equivalent to 100,000,000 "pennies", of which it takes about 1200 of them to equal a single US penny right now. It's infinitely more portable than gold/silver because its information. Because its information, it is not consumable - it doesn't rot and its effectively indestructible because you can duplicate it (but not double spend it). Also, it's unstealable or unseizable because you can use strong encryption and store it offline, safe from malware and prying eyes. It's scarce, more so than gold because the suns of the universe will continue to spit it out from their exploded bodies long after we're all dead - but Bitcoin will cease to be created after 2140 AD. Only 2.1 quadrillion monetary units. Period.
It's scarce, more so than gold because the suns of the universe will continue to spit it out from their exploded bodies long after we're all dead - but Bitcoin will cease to be created after 2140 AD. Only 2.1 quadrillion monetary units. Period.
Wow, can't argue with that type of logic but I can argue that your last sentence is not true.
Taken from http://bitcoin.org/en/faq
Won't the finite amount of bitcoins be a limitation?
Bitcoin is unique in that only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created. However, this will never be a limitation because bitcoins can be divided up to 8 decimal places ( 0.000 000 01 BTC ) and potentially even smaller units if that is ever required in the future. As the average transaction size decreases, transactions can be denominated in sub-units of a bitcoin, such as millibitcoins ( 1 mBTC or 0.001 BTC ).
So basically a single bitcoin can be divided an infinite amount of times if required. This is no different than your analogy (actually it is MUCH different but I don't think you will see it) or uncle Ben firing up the printing press
So basically a single kg. of Gold can be divided an infinite amount of times if required. WTF?
"Nothing about Bitcoin meets the requirements as money."
No shit, we all agree on that. Bitcoin is a currency (and transaction system), it isn't money--gold is.
The beauty of crypto is that the AR-15 isn't necessary.
Duplicate paper wallets thousands of miles apart.
Multiple encrypted USB thumbdrives also thousands of miles apart.
IronKey thumbdrive on my person at all times.
You go to work with your "stacks" and AR-15 in tow? How 'bout vacation? The freakin' supermarket?
If you're on vacation in a foreign country and the shit hits the fan, you have to hope that
1. A trusted party rescues your stash and doesn't make off with it.
2. You make it home to your AR-15 before disaster hits.
This is coming from a long time holder of PMs, but I see that there's also a huge value in the portability and duplication of assets. Best of luck.
So Schiff is changing his mind a bit?
I think Schiff is out of his mind a bit.
I watched an interview with him today where he said he would be a proponent of a monarchy style rulership. I mean, that is some bat shit crazy shit.
I watched an interview with him today where he said he would be a proponent of a monarchy style rulership. I mean, that is some bat shit crazy shit.
Actually, it isn't, and I'll bet that you just "know" that, with little to no factual base.
All government is batshit crazy, but the truth is that Europeans were far freer under monarchy. It only sounds crazy because you've been indoctrinated.
But to clarify: All government is immoral and evil. I oppose ALL of them. That said, "democracy" is definitely worse for average folks than the weak monarchies of Europe were, from 1000-1800 AD or so.
Monarchies are a roll of the dice. Sometimes you might get a ruler who is fair and just, then you get some psychopath retard. Is it the same with all governements? Sure, especially with voting fruad. But thinking that having a monarch rule is insane.
And I write it again if you didn't catch it - I am not saying that they governments we have now are anything special. In fact you put words in my mouth because I never compared the two, you just created an arguement to make your point and you made a very fallacious argument.
People who are voting you down have not read the republic from Plato.
The benevolent autocrat has a few incentives to make it work:
1. It can not pass the problem to the next guy elected. If he screws up he can be personally liable or his son could end up in trouble (like in France for example).
2. If he runs the country actually and holds power, he is not dependent on special interests to get elected or does not need to make entitlement promises to get votes because there are no votes.
3. It is a private management of a country rather than anonymous or full of moral hazard. Bill Clinton does not care if a bubble comes nor dubbya cares about Medicare part D or tax cuts + low interest rates. He cares about been elected. A king has long term incentives for the thing to work.
BTW this is why China has been able to get out of abject poverty. This is an autocrat regime and an autocratic regime is the worst with bad people (Mao) but somehow the power fell on Deng Xiao Ping which was a good ruler.
SIngapore is not a democracy nor is Hong-Kong, have you seen the tax rates? Are people oppresssed?
Democracy lead to tyranny that is the conclusion from Plato, and it remains true today. Mass movement driven politics are the most disastrous form of government.
he's got a business to run. This is his trial balloon to see if/how he can transition from "you're fucking stupid if you don't go all in on gold" to perhaps a more balanced approach that still captures the spirit of protecting yourself from CB actions.
When Collapse occurs, and the grid has gone down, those digital currencies will be useless. But I'll still have my precious metals...
Really? Electricity gone, on a global scale? Really??
Pro-tip - you can have both. It's not like your gold will implode when you download the blockchain, and Bitcoin doesn't give a fuck what you own. Until then, you can queue up Mad Max again for todays fap-fest.
"Crypto-currencies represent a legitimate attempt by private citizens to reassert their sovereignty over such government actions. I appreciate the effort, and I believe it holds much promise. But for now, I will stay with the traditional store of value, gold."
I agree and I think crypto-currencies are an interesting concept but I am watching this one from the sidelines.
Too many secrets...
Don't spend your life being passive. Get involved!
You don't have to go all-in (in fact, you shouldn't), but if you think it's interesting, get involved, even if only in a small way.
Stasis is death.
what if i don't think it's interesting?
Personally, I'd say you're not looking at it deep enough then.
Bye, have fun with your fiat notes.
Would you really like to reassert your sovereignty over the criminal government? I know I would.........well the answer has been out there right in front of your eyes. Take a lesson from the citizens of India, keep only the money you need to pay incidentals in fiat, but ALWAYS store the families wealth in gold( to be kept in your posession at all times) They have kept the banksters at bay for eons and would be a mighty force if TPTB tried to confiscate it. Notice that Indian families still have their wealth through the generations.
Interesting to see Peter Schiff send his guy out to tell us the bitcoin protocol is a superior medium of exchange to both fiat and gold as well as tell us bitcoin holds much promise. This is a good start to his uninformed fear mongering he was spewing before. So volatility is going to be the demise of bitcoin? Here is the real kicker that will stick in your craw Peter - the price of bitocin is irrelevant.
Bitcoin is not a currency it is a technology that can also function as a currency. It is a peer to peer protocol that facilitates the transfer of wealth from any person directly to any other person instantly on earth at a lower cost than the legacy financial system or gold could ever do. It is the internet for money.
This non-monetary utility of the bitcoin protocol is the same whether the "price" of one bitcoin is $1million or $1. Bitcoin as a peer to peer wealth sharing protocol cannot be stopped anymore than bitTorrent as a peer to peer file sharing protocol has been stopped. Once knowledge of a technology is in the public domain it cannot be unknown.
What happens when there are hundreds of competing crypto-currencies? Or thousands? Don't they just become another fiat structured currency? I think so.
That is a great question. What will happen in the money industry is the same thing that happens in any industry where there is free market competition. The superior product produced at the lowest cost will recieve our consumption votes. Whether it is bitcoin or not does not matter. What matters we will have superior money options to consume enriching our lives. Inferior money products will not be consumed, production will stop and will disappear. Do you see any GE TVs on the shelves anymore? Most likely one of those money products that disapears from lack of consumption will be the inferior money product we have been forced to use for the last 100 years produced by the Federal Reserve's uncontested monopoly over the money industry.
Yep, I'm all FOR people deciding. And I like to believe that the best way to promote something such that it can attain the best test is to have it open to the greatest numbers of people, which means that it cannot be complicated. Based on this I question whether any crypto-currency can really ever come out on top. On a smaller horizon I CAN see them as knocking off fiat and generally fucking up banks; but, anyone thinking that fiat and the current banking system isn't going to collapse due to its own dead weight, well... the "success" is guaranteed.
Humor me for just a minute and suppose you had to choose a digital currency to use right this second for some reason... Which one would you choose right now? There are about 70 to pick from, and you could even trivially create your own at coingen.bluematt.me - literally fork your own bitcoin protocol by clicking a few buttons... So, back to the experiment, which digital currency would you use? My guess is you'd use the one that everyone is already using, the one that actually has support at all the payment processors, exchanges, and merchants. Which one is that? Bitcoin.
Many people believe differently, or else the valuations of all other alt currencies would be zero.
There is no strong reason to choose Bitcoin over several other alt currencies, other than that Bitcoin was first. The existing financial structures for Bitcoin are very primitive and easily duplicated; many are scams or incompetent.
But in the world of software, being first is not necessarily the most important issue. Software is too easy to change and improve, and barriers to entry for crypto currencies are extremely low. How many people are still using Visicalc, or Lotus 1-2-3?
I would do some research (you would have to give me at least a few hours) and I would use the one that was undervalued but still creditable. WOuld that be bitcoin? I don't know.
Paypal. Sometimes, Elon is the Rightest Man in the Moon, er, Room...
I can answer that question, been in this biz for 50+ years,
In all these high-tech scams, the early guys lead,... you got to be one of the three ..
1.) the first
2.) the fastest
3.) the best
If your 3 out of 3, your GOLD and its yours forever.
BTC was first, but its a DOG, and the block-chain is already a fucking mess, BTC will never be the best, impossible. The reason is BTC is NOT really PEER 2 PEER, BTC is mining-pool to exchange the peers on BTC have no power.
You are talking about that "internet" high tech scam from 20 years ago? Hmm... you seem to not mind using that scam right now. You miss the point completely. Bitcoin is not a currency. It is open source technology. It is a peer to peer wealth sharing protocol. Nobody owns it. Nobody controls it. It is similar to bitTorrent. It is open source technology. It is a peer to peer file sharing protocol. Nobody owns it. Nobody controls it. You have to stop thinking about bitcoin as a currency because it is not. It is a technological protocol that functions as a currency.
"It is a technological protocol"
And that's what concerns me... I understand it, but I don't see how most of the world will be able to. And I'm quite certain that the technological reach (speaking in terms of ALL things technological) will become less rather than more (owing to declining resources- energy being key).
We are entering a true free-market in currencies. Free-markets abhor a monopoly, so there is basically zero chance of a sinle cryptocurrency "winning" outright. There will always be competitors, and most currencies will end up going bust. This is a great thing actually, as consumers benefit from better features each year that goes by.
"This is a great thing actually, as consumers benefit from better features each year that goes by."
I guess I'm not seeing this as being some simple drop-in, plug-and-play replacement that others do. I figure that when current fiats go down TPTB will pretty much have lost their control and this loss of control will materialize in failing infrastructure and other systems that we all happily run on ("we" as in the 1%-ers [out of the 7+ billion of humans on the planet]). Just not seeing eBay and Amazon.com continuing to shuttle our goods, no matter how splended the currency.
Nice to see some actual intelligent input. I agree. I also feel very few people are considering how Bitcoin could replace a huge chunk of the legal services industry as the platform that it is not to mention a huge chunk of the financial services industry.
"Bitcoin could replace a huge chunk of the legal services industry as the platform that it is not to mention a huge chunk of the financial services industry."
This is not true, and shows one of the fundamental weaknesses of the existing Bitcoin system. Bitcoin has no methods for conflict resolution between buyer and seller, and no protection for buyers such as provided by Visa's chargeback. Some vendors may like this and consider it a "feature," but customers will not tolerate it.
Already you can see numerous fraudulent players in the crypto currency world, and numerous complaints and conflicts among individuals. By reading on the Bitcoin discussion boards you will see every day some new complaint against an individual, group, or exchange concerning possible fraud or incompetence.
I was struck immediately upon making the first Bitcoin transaction, how opaque the entire mechanism is. You just send an amount of Bitcoin, with no acknowledgement, no paperwork or receipt, no way of verifying anything. No business could be run this way. It could be used between two trusted parties, who are never expected to have a disagreement or conflict concerning payments, but how likely is that in the real world?
What if you send 1000 BTC to your trusted counter-party, and then he says "I never received it." What do you do then? That's $1 million down the drain, no accounting, no paperwork.
Perfect question. This why there are escrow type services springing up like weeds. Ripple.com, Circle.com, etc.
So now I have to trust an escrow services, just established yesterday, and by your own words "like weeds."
But let's assume they are honest, and competent, then I still have to trust centralized third parties similar to banks or brokers, and I certainly will have to pay them a fee, showing once again that you cannot get financial services for nothing, you will have to pay for it.
How does the total cost compare to existing alternatives such as banks, stock brokerages, or Visa payments? It's certainly not free. What guarantees do they provide in case of problems or conflicts? How much capital do they have to insure against problems with large transfers such as 1000 BTC?
Don't ask difficult questions; it irritates the faithful.
I'm astonished that you have yet to called a "stacker", because, well, every fool knows that if you have over-riding concerns about Btc than you must be a "stacker".
Just click your heels together and sing kumbaya we will overcome (the central bankster).
P.S. thank you for the insightful and even-tempered commentary. I can't even point out how absurd and oxymoronic it was to state that 'btc has huge intrinsic value (sic) because it is the native currency of the internet'. That leads to down arrows and non-sequiturs.
I've been hammering on these same things. Hashed them a LONG time ago in another life when actually being in this very biz.
Until folks can provide meaningful numbers and comparisions to the existing shit then they ought to stop touting what they cannot support with data.
Handling massive amounts of data isn't cheap. High volume merchants require realiable computing infrastructure. Peer-to-peer might be quick, and that's great, but running through some insurer/clearer who is bottle-necked isn't likely going to be.
Yes, so, unless someone can provide actual costs from entitities like these it would be good to stop promoting "cheap transaction costs." Again, it does no service to Bitcoin to tout something as though it's in full production and discount what very likely will be (based on history) added costs (for such services as provided by these entities).
I would like to thank you for mentioning them, as this at least helps point out what I've been saying for quite a while now...
Your concern on tranaction fees is absolutely correct Seer.
So what do you do with a million-dollar gold transfer? I'd be bringing a drill, security guards, etc. You''ll be relying on third-parties on any transaction at that level.
"Bitcoin has no methods for conflict resolution between buyer and seller, and no protection for buyers such as provided by Visa's chargeback. "
Completely and utterly false - this shows you currently understand almost zero about BitCoin. BitCoin has functionality built into the block-chain that allows escrow, therefore validation and reversal by a third party.
The third party can also actually be a script (computer program) that is built ONTO the blockchain - including its own separate encryption. For example, you might build a script that runs through a 3rd party who collects the payment, checks the goods then authorises the transaction - but if the transaction can be verified electronically, like the movement of title deed for land for example, then the whole process can be automanted via BTC and activated 3rd party software that it is authorised to run by providing the user entered security requirements.
In addition, you can script in things like disbursments to an unlimited number of adresses by sending to a specific address - with each address being credited by its own rules - ie. an automatic payroll system, that is attached to the block-chain and secured with its own encryption.
This is not even the beginning of what BTC can do, and people who are totally ignorant excepting for the most superficial transaction aspects of BTC seem to do very shallow research.
The block chains list of possible functions is currently being developed by third parties, and no doubt those who start building this into wallets and services will make a lot of money. The bottom line is, the foundation for this already exists and can be completely automated - the crypto doubters are going to see some (apparently) very surprising things being done via BTC in the near future.
Not to mention namecoin replacing ICANN led DNS.
NameCoin will very likely be disruptive to more than ICANN... domain names are just one 'non currency' item it can be used to recorded in a decentralised manner.
Long term, it could also be used for a Share register, Land Title register, Contract register, Copyright register and so on.
A public, honest record of all sorts of things - that idea puts pressure on all the (dishonest) middlemen - not just the bankers. So lawyers, accountants, brokers etc are all in the frame now.
And neatest trick? NameCoin is co-mined with BitCoin ... the techincal infrastructure support the NameCoin system IS the BitCoin hardware.
It will continue to be useful the black market whether people personal think its an NSA honey pot is irrelevant.
They in the next couple days they are launching an Onionland Stockexchange.
drfar5tik2x2ycwb.onion
kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion/wiki/index.php/Onion_Stock_Exchange_%28pastebin.com/wB3iGU3s%29
http://pastebin.com/wB3iGU3s
.
.
Buy guns, id's, stolen credit cards cvv's, and a mountain of drugs. This is the backdrop of the crytocurrency scene if everything fails. This blackmarket generates hundreds of millions in sales annually and continues to grow at triple digit rates. Once large players move in we could see its economy eclipse smaller countries
apples, meet oranges.
I am good and sick of this Bitcoin bullshit. Gold has always been a store of wealth because it is one of a very small number of elements (along with silver and the platinum group) that is rare enough to be worth something, non-manufacturable to preserve rarity, solid and stable enough to be held for decades, and not radioactive.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is just some bullshit made up by some guy. What's to stop 1000 other guys from making up 1000 other bullshit fake currencies? Litecoin, Peercoin, Jerkoffcoin...
It is called free market competition. It is why you are watching a flat screen HD LCD made in Korea instead of a picture tube TV made in the USA. The word is innovation. Google it.
"The word is innovation. Google it."
WOW! I get "NSA!"
Stupid natives, never could appreciate "innovations"... (so we killed most of them off)
btc reminds me of something like "paypal"
like stock owership too. you don't own unless you have the certificates. i read a little about naked shorting or something of that matter 5 or so years ago. some real dirty shit going on with ownership of stocks. it was on the yahoo boards for a little bit but was something that was quickly not talked about.
Gold is beautiful
Gold doesn't rust
In almost all cultures world wide GOLD will get you pussy 24/7
GOLD has been good for 100 million years
Gold can be buried, gold can be stored, and it can be sunk in the ocean, or placed at the bottom of a shit-house, and it will wait for you.
***
Virtual Currency is just that "VIRTUAL", its a make believe thing, as real as a number, as real as the book "The Little Prince", where some asshole was selling stars and giving people a certificate with a number on it that told him that out in space that star was his, ... and those certificates had value among the FOOLS, for as long as there has been MAN, there has been MORONS.
***
Nobody needs to PIMP or WHORE or PROMOTE GOLD, well except the ETF/ETN Whores that PIMP fake paper gold, but the real deal GOLD sells itself.
[ correction high-margin collectible gold coins need to be pimped to morons, when I talk gold I'm talking raw commodity bar, tael/ounce ]
BTC needs to have a fucking army of fucking pimps. To find other idiots to BUY into the scam.
How many 10's of 1,000's of early donation BTC's is Ron Paul sitting on?
Funny that the banned political contribution in the form of BTC that might be embarrassing if you were running for office.
"GOLD has been good for 100 million years."
Actually, gold, being an element, has been "good" since our planet congealed after being spun off from the sun some five billion years ago, with most of the near-surface gold considered to be asteroidal in origin. And given that our species is only around 200,000 years old, with money only coming to be a few millennia ago, gold is a relatively recent arrival on the human scene.
It has stood the test of time, however, and certainly has its uses, though, increasingly, only as backup for cryptos, given the uncertainties of the power grid and thus the Internet.
One should therefore hold it (and silver) in reserve.
"In almost all cultures world wide GOLD will get you pussy 24/7"
I call bullshit on that .... only in the far east (and possibly Africa) .... the closest you get with that is with gold/silver coins - never bullion. And not without a lot of negotation.
The US sheeple seem to have been conditioned that gold is no longer money ... and most pussy for money is of the 'sheeple' persuasion.
From personal experience, that's just not true. Raw gold, just burned amalgam cake is preferred curriency in the kiamoos of the Amazon...@ 80% of spot...
How much gold does an Amazonian Woman demand for her services?
I would guess Big Girls would want a Big Pile?
I think I'll stick with those tiny Asians.
To wcvarones: 1000 "other guys" can and will make up "1000 other coins", and the best and most useful ones will be worth the most, while others will either be less valuable or die altogether. Either way, crypto currencies represent a market based, decentralized alternative to centralized paper fiat money.
Keep your gold in case we go back to the stone ages, but you are missing the point if you still don't "get" the value of what you call "fake currencies".
Digital currencies are not any more "fake" than the New York Times website is a "fake" version of the "real thing" - with the "real thing" being a heavy, expensive paper version and the "fake" one being instantaneous, mobile, and cheap to distribute. If being "physical" is how you distinguish between "real" and "bullshit", what are you doing on ZeroHedge?
It'll be a while before we make it back to the stone age, but make no mistake about it, we ARE going backwards, and all that is petro-based will pretty much be erased.
Got skills?
Don't you think these arguments were hashed out thousands of years ago when people were just discovering the properties of good money? Fuck those god damn sea shell shitfuckers. Talley sticks are the way to go! Ah fuck talley sticks, lets use rabbit skins! This same debats gets to be rehashed now that Bitcoin has been invented because it has some very useful properties and use cases that were not available to humanity before.
How about a thought experiment.
Bury a few 1,000 BTC in the ground, magnetically or whatever, and then BURY GOLD out in the desert with a GPS.
Then wait 5 years.
Which is MORE valuable?
GOLD: Who gives a fuck its still there, and may or may not have lost value, but you still have something.
BTC: In 5 years your fucking HASH will not mean shit, your wallet will not mean shit, the block-chain of today will be long gone, who are you going to go to? There is no recourse, you got a bag, or tape, or a bunch of numbers stored on non-volatile memory, but its nothing, except once upon a time it had value for a very short time.
Gold has been valuable since man came down from the trees, BTC has been valuable IF&ONLY-IF a BTC exchange is operating, and someone is willing to complete the exchange into something REAL.
***
Most will NOT get this comparison, ... I don't have to be told I'm right, seen this shit too many times, people with no knowledge of technology or math, simply don't understand that the ENTIRE BTC biz is a SCAM, built on a foundation of HOT AIR.
BItcoin is exactly five years old today. What would have been the outcome today if you did this same exercise exactly five years ago? If you could go back five years in time and do this same exercise, would you have buried gold or bitcoin?
BULL FUCKING SHIT, the REAL LIFE of BTC didn't begin until APRIL 2013, before that it was fucking ALPHA, and now its still in BETA.
***
This is like saying that OBAMA's presidency started back in KENYA in the 1960's when he was a baby.
Life in the software world doesn't begin until you get out of BETA, and BTC didn't get out of BETA until APRIL 2013, and only now is it in the real world and its falling apart.
The block-chain has been fucked so many times that pretty soon even humpty dumpty will not be able to repair, I can see the time that BITCOIN.ORG (WASH-DC BTC LOBBY) will self appoint themselves to edit the block-chain, and of course it must be CULLED because most devices only can support 2gb RAM for real work, .... as designed.
Bitcoin Genesis was on Jan 3rd, 2009, read it and weap, bitch.
http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae4...
Genesis block January 3rd 2009. Just because you were not paying attention does not mean you could not have been paying attention. So I ask you again your own question: if you could go back five years and bury bitcoin or gold in the ground to be uncovered today which would you bury, gold or bitcoin? Dude, I am just asking you the same question you asked me!
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block
en.bitcoin.it is a FRAUD SITE, ran by frauds,
Anybody that wants to learn the truth about BTC must go to
wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
****
BTC is software, the Block-Chain is just a ledger, and not the software, anymore than a spreadsheet data is more than program software.
The fact that the BTC whores and pimps don't understand the difference between SOFTWARE a fucking computer program, and DATA, which is a string of numbers is telling.
***
It's impossible to argue with MORONS who use the DATA as the CREATION date for software and assume that the the software was steet ready the first day any day was initialized. Only in BTC land is it so easy to pull bullshit out of your ass.
***
BTC is not math, its software, the 'COIN' is the block-chain, the data, but the software is what makes or breaks the program.
***
Gold has been on the STREET forever, BTC didn't hit the street (MSM) until April 2013, before that it was a vehicle for nerd masturbation.
Cool. But you didn't answer the question. If you could bury bitcoin or gold five years ago and waited five years which would you have buried, bitcoin or gold?
"May 18, 2010: Laszlo Hanyecz is widely regarded as the first person to spend bitcoins in a "real" financial transaction. He offered 10,000 BTC for anyone who would order him a pizza. Someone did. The transaction valued each bitcoin at around $0.0025. Today, those 10,000 BTC would be worth around $8 million."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/03/five-years-...
More lies?
ahem, Peter Schiff is a whore.
Like I said BTC bitches bury your BTC coin TODAY, not 5 years ago, there are no fucking time machines in this game.
Fuck off, I bury both. BTC is riskier than gold but, by that same token, has greater upside potential. Much greater.
Upside all the way 'up' to $5/btc.
Oh wait, something is the 'mattering' with the 'up'
You can bury 1+1=2 anyplace and it will still be true 10,000 yrs from now. Crypto currency depends on specific numbers, and there are around $10 billion reasons to believe that the BitCoin software will be adjusted to maintain the value no matter what changes in the future.
Modifications to the BTC protocol require democratic agreement, will the largest holders agree to debase or destroy their own value? Possible, but unlikely in any nearby future. If computing power threatens the security - a more secure arrangement will be made - whatever technical problem is faced by BTC, it is very likely to be fixed in a permanent way that sustains its value.
Gold and silver have stood the test of time, but the crypto is an abstraction, an idea, and idea's may ultimately be harder to kill than you currently imagine - especially idea's that are able to constantly evolve to defeat threats.
"Then wait 5 years."
Ok, I pick the five years between 2009 and now.
Schiffheads who are incapabie of thinking for yourselves - you now have official approval from your deity to believe bitcoin holds much promise. Stay tuned to EuroPacific Capital for more updates on what you are to memorize and repeat.
Irwin ain't stupid somewhere up his sleeve he has some BTC ETF's to sell you.
Hopefully someone will come up with suckmycockcoin well before it's revealed that the NSA controlls bitcoin so that I can continue to accumulate real gold as long and as cheap as possible over the course of the next few years.
What I find interesting is how gold bugs point to gold's "intrinsic value" as the main reason it is such a great store of value but gold's "value" is a purely faith based belief. Gold has no real use, apart from jewelry which is itself a "faith based" form of value.
If the world stopped believing gold had value, it would have none. I don't think that will happen in my lifetime, but considering the wider range of possible uses, it's clear that Bitcoin is a more likely candidate for a global "people's" currency than gold ever will be.
As an investor who has watched technology revolutionize industries while gold just sits there (and GLD is more and more at the mercy of Wall Street in terms of its market value), my money is on Bitcoin.
Count me in as one of those dumb fuck gold bugs for believing in something that has a tried and true varifiable history over that last few thousand years.. how old is bitcoin again ?
Before the invention of the automobile horses as transportation had a tried and true varifiable history over a few thousand years. Do you ride a horse to work? Why not?
They say the average life of fiat is 40 years? I don't know how long bitcoin will last but I hope it last long enough and takes the pressure off of demand for real gold long enough that I can build a small pile of gold as cheap as possible... have at it bitchezz. I should be glad bitcoin came along.. if only I could look past how fucking stupid the whole concept is... bitcoins is to techno-geeks what "economics" is to Krugmanites.
I would not state things that way perhaps. Capital flows one way or the other... or at least it should. Bitcoin seems to soak up liquidity very well and prevents the liquidity from flowing into gold.
I have played the Bitcoin game with other ZHers. I have played it with other Bitcoiners too. I nailed the whole thing down on the transaction fees regarding simple transactions. Who is making that transaction "vig money", if you want to call it that? Many bitcoiners were not even aware of this charge. Come off it, the bitcoin exchanges have ALWAYS been the problem and the weak point just like any other exchange is.
BitCoin has a HUGE chink in it's armor and if I can find it then so can everyone else.
Transaction fees generally go to the miners. However, transaction fees are necessary for the safe operation of the protocol.
Without transaction fees, the system is vulnerable to the "dust attack" whereby a few parties trade very small amounts of Bitcoin back and forth among themselves. This would be lossless since there are no fees, and can be done very fast. The blockchain becomes filled with meaningless transactions, gigabytes of meaningless data, and blows up in size.
bit of a problem here. Let me paint the picture. Some people will choose poorly & buy / make things in excess that you will need but have far, far too many of these things, thus extending your purchasing power using gold & silver.
Those who hold only cash or only bitcoin will probably have nothing.
Yes, obviously it's good that you have purchasing power but if too many suckerz in your needed vicinity are suckered in, how will you get TO the non-suckerz to buy in?
If it's big enough to hold down the gold price OTHER than the existing criminal manipulations, it's big enough to hit so many people you may want to vacate the premises prior to collapse just so you can be sure someone has actual goods worth buying when only gold & silver are money.
"Before the invention of the automobile horses as transportation had a tried and true varifiable history over a few thousand years. Do you ride a horse to work? Why not?"
I've already addressed this incorrect analogy. Not every technological invention is accepted. The automobile has replaced the horse-drawn carriage, but the electric car has not replaced the internal combustion engine, because the technical improvements are minor in comparison to the costs of changing over to a new system.
We already have digital currency based on dollars, Euros, etc., so the question is what benefits does Bitcoin provide beyond the current system? Certainly the existing system has faults, but for Bitcoin to replace it, or even provide significant competition, it must provide substantial benefits as well as serving all existing needs. And these benefits cannot only accrue to certain parties, they must be broad-based.
I guess it depends where you work.
I can think of one who definitely does :-)
But in nasty terrain you sure would need a horse, certainly could not use a car. Take away those nice flat roads & you are fucked for a car. Maybe a tank but not on a steep incline or narrow, winding mountain paths.
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union, 1881
“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty.”
President of the Michigan Savings Bank, 1903
“Television won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl F. Zanuck, President of 20th Century Fox, 1946
“There’s no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
Carrier-pigeons had a tried and true history over the last few thousand years. How old is e-mail again? Text-message?
Your argument is invalid.
You are wrong!
Gld is used to make pretty jewelry. Men buy pretty jewelry to give to theor wives for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Women are so appreciative they give a good blowjob(s). The value of gold is directly proportional to the number of blowjobs a husband receives when he give it to his wife.
Lame.
Not lame.
Yes, it is lame because gld is paper or digital. ETF's do not make jewelry that gals might like. She will not be impressed by your printout origami.
"Gold has no real use, apart from jewelry which is itself a "faith based" form of value"
If you're pretending to be an idiot in order to discredit the Btc pumpers, then you need more convincing bullshit.
A simple netsearch of "gold industrial use" will show you how incredibly fucking stupid that you pretend (?) to be.http://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml
Use of Gold in ComputersGold is used in many places in the standard desktop or laptop computer. The rapid and accurate transmission of digital information through the computer and from one component to another requires an efficient and reliable conductor. Gold meets these requirements better than any other metal. The importance of high quality and reliable performance justifies the high cost.
Edge connectors used to mount microprocessor and memory chips onto the motherboard and the plug-and-socket connectors used to attach cables all contain gold. The gold in these components is generally electroplated onto other metals and alloyed with small amounts of nickel or cobalt to increase durability.
Perhaps your computer is as devoid of parts as is your reasoning ability.
Gold hits its golden age as a high-tech material
https://www.llnl.gov/news/aroundthelab/2012/Aug/ATL-082212_gold.html
GLD is digital.
GLD and all ETF's / ETN's are for morons.
All paper gold is a scam. That is well accepted.
BITCOIN is an electronic scam, just a cyber ledger that is public.
***
We all agree that GOLD in the HAND is the only thing a man can trust, in the real world.
***
Those who talk about mixing GOLD&BTC, are really talking about you trading your physical gold, for their BTC, fucking brilliant.
"I have full faith that the US Federal government can, over time, develop techniques to map all cyber transactions."
If the US Fed Gov are able to map all cyber transactions it would mean that every bit that traverses the internet would have to be run against every other bit since, say 20 years ago, to be able to conclusively say that the message in the bottle did not get through.
Sounds like a lot of "fool" faith there dude. One thing for sure though whatever the dear Gov finds it won't be for your benefit.
What the NSA and other snoopers do is sell fairy tales to the people that supply money to them. That is their job.
Consider the mirroring and storage of all internet traffic for real-time and later analysis and you begin to get an idea of how much of a boondoggle they are pawning off to get the FED to counterfeit money for them.
They are scumbuckets.
A government that can't lainch a workable website in 3 years is going to do that?
You have far too much faith in government.
I think you might have missed that one FF. Q99 used a quote from the article to lead his post. I do not believe that Q99 was suggesting the .gov was the answer to anything.
wrong. One need only verify the connection & the easiest way to do so is to ensure the router itself is NSA-corrupted. Easily done. They'll cut your wires & slow your transfer speeds if that's what's needed to gather it all.
Think of what JUST THE HFT computers do, 2000+ trades per second, front-running EVERY trade for EVERY participant, period. PERIOD.
It's the same just more such centers built.
At the fibre-optic level the boondoggle doesn't even exist. Run more fibre, feed through optical-only circuitry. Done 'n one.
"Gold vs Bitcoin"
False dichotomy.
Tell that to the alchemists that convert bitcoin to gold when their prices cross.
Gold + Bitcoin vs. USD
I'd like to see kind of a mix between bartercard and bitcoin.
Don't ask me how that could possibly work.
C'mon, surely there's some fucking genius that can make that work?
The real relationship between Gold/Silver and Bitcoins needs to be a marriage!
The way to move the whole thing forward is to open an exchange, like mtgox, but only gold and
silver weights, not US$, to be exchanged/traded for btc. You need to use small shops
everywhere, like a current cash shop, or pawn broker that fronts all of the small trading for
everyone. So you give them some gold or silver and they give you btc or you give them btc and
they give you gold silver based on current gold/btc exchange rates.. all 3 things cant be
touched by megalomaniacs and are outside of "world money regulation/phantom creation" This also
solves the problem of not much liquidity for the easy transfer and payment using actual pieces
of gold and silver over the internet ..... now their value is transferable to btc, which is
easily exchanged anywhere for everything starting with the most important thing wages for
employment.
BTC is the same as gold in some ways , it has a finite amount available over time, cannot be
"printed" into oblivion, must be mined and is a store of wealth and no one individual or group
owns the system, it belongs to everyone. To marry the two is perfection, you give liquidity to
gold/silver /other commodities via btc so they can be transferred instantly anywhere for goods
and services and you eliminate the governments and richest families from regulating it because
of its current links to currency which they have always completely controlled for their
benefits.
The numbers make sense..if you look at fractional bitcoin system the numbers more then make
sense... each btc can be broken down to units that equal .00000001 so There are really
2,099,999,997,690,000 (just over 2 quadrillion) maximum possible units in the total maximum
bitcoin design. The value of "1 BTC" represents 100,000,000 of these. there is only around an
actual 1 trillion in printed usd $ around and currently 60+ trillion in total debt
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ (not including unfunded liabilities ) So there is, or will be by the
year 2140 (end of bitcoin mining), 2000 times more exchangeable bitcoin units then us$ in the
world and then there are no more BTC, more gold mined down the road will just change exchange
value... just change exchange value..but both gold and bitcoins have physical limits of the total in existance.
Thats not so bad of an idea
It's a damn good idea...
as a staunch opponent of bitcoin ponzi-monium I support direct btc for barter with no fiat in the middle at any time.
It won't be grid-failure immune but it will solve most of the other problems regarding bag-holders.
I see a lot of comment here about the government tracking Bitcoin and the same government screwing up the Ocare website. There is a big difference in the NSA capability to snoop and the White House desire to run health care. The NSA apparatus is designed to snoop and it's probably pretty good at that. The people in charge of NSA are excperts dedicated to snooping. Ditto with healthcare. The gov't website built to handle O-care did exactly what the planners wanted it to do, worked perfectly from the start and is working perfectly now. It was never about health care. It was about the continued total destruction of this nation, and it is working just fine for that purpose. Even the law itself is perfect for its intended purposes, because as we have seen, it can mean anything the government wants it to mean. Once you understand that nothing - nothing - coming from DC is for your benefit--once you understand that, then it all makes perfect sense. It does no good at all to explain anything from DC until it is understood that DC wants to steal your wealth and obliterate your lives. It makes no sense to compare this thing to that, because it's all designed for the same result. O-care was designed to destroy the health care system, and that's exactly what it's doing. A working website would have been very counterproductive to the goal of destroying healthcare. The lies told to Americans were designed to keep you dumbed down. The money paid to design the website was intended to be stolen. It all worked so perfectly for the intended purposes. Want evidence? The evidence is: That happened and what are you gonna do about it? Case closed. Copies to: NSA, FBI, DHS, CIA, CSI, S&P, MGM, M&M, TG&Y
I see a lot of comment here about the government tracking Bitcoin and the same government screwing up the Ocare website. There is a big difference in the NSA capability to snoop and the White House desire to run health care. The NSA apparatus is designed to snoop and it's probably pretty good at that. The people in charge of NSA are experts dedicated to snooping. Ditto with healthcare. The gov't website built to handle O-care did exactly what the planners wanted it to do, worked perfectly from the start and is working perfectly now. It was never about health care. It was about the continued total destruction of this nation, and it is working just fine for that purpose. Even the law itself is perfect for its intended purposes, because as we have seen, it can mean anything the government wants it to mean. Once you understand that nothing - nothing - coming from DC is for your benefit--once you understand that, then it all makes perfect sense. It does no good at all to explain anything from DC until it is understood that DC wants to steal your wealth and obliterate your lives. It makes no sense to compare this thing to that, because it's all designed for the same result. O-care was designed to destroy the health care system, and that's exactly what it's doing. A working website would have been very counterproductive to the goal of destroying healthcare. The lies told to Americans were designed to keep you dumbed down. The money paid to design the website was intended to be stolen. It all worked so perfectly for the intended purposes. Want evidence? The evidence is: That happened and what are you gonna do about it? Case closed. Copies to: NSA, FBI, DHS, CIA, CSI, S&P, MGM, M&M, TG&Y
Now we're compariing ACA to NSA? My that's a lot like comparing btc's to gold.
NSA is in FT-MEADE MIL SIGINT, hires the best minds in the world for 60+ years,
ACA is dispersed and hired the dumbest MOFU s contractors that the big-5 accounting firms could find? and pass the BILL to the US-TREASURY
The average ACA developer is a highschool dropout with no education like Edward Snowden, the NSA most have PHD's and are leaders in their field.
Nobody said NSA is controlling the BTC, what we said is they designed it and release the early papers, and software, and then turned it over to bitcoin.org,
***
ACA was always a failure,
BTC is not a website, its mostly just a collection of old NSA papers that got flushed into the system, but most date back to the early 1990's.
***
On the other hand all the mining-pool websites and exchanges can be likened to ACA, they take money in, but the day you try to get the money out the all fail and dissapear.
timbaaaarrrrrrr!
$930/BTC
9.30 is more like it.
BTC is finished.
Next to no volume trading it at this moment and then the flood will come in. It's fiat-exchange insiders bidding back & forth to each other - maybe even the same person over and over - bait. Just like the HFT's.
Once the volume flood comes in it's GAME OVER.
http://flic.kr/p/iFQMoV
140 is just around the corner. Then 40. Then 0.40.
BTC whores say "WE HATE GOLD, LUV BTC"
But they want to have shops all over the world where they can collect real gold, and return to the gold holder a worthless share of virtual pie in the sky.
***
NOBODY is going to trade his GOLD for BTC's, 99% of the holders of BTC got their BTC's for free being early guys to the pyramid scam.
Now they want to turn their BTC's not into USD's, but into GOLD, who could have guessed.
BTC came to the party naked and stupid, and BTC will return to the desert naked and stupid.
***
Mixing GOLD&BTC, ... deja vu, you give me real money ( gold or USD ), and I'll return you a virtual certificate that shows you have gold/btc, fuck where have we seen this before? SCHIFF?
GOLD is GOLD if it's not in your hand you don't own it, BTC exchanges and mining-pools have 100's if not 1,000's of PAID WHORES trying to convince new idiots to part with their USD and GOLD.
FUCK BTC whores, and mining-pools, and exchanges.
People who talk about MARRYING BTC&GOLD are really saying "I PLAN TO FUCK YOU AND HARD"
Run like hell.
Satoshi +100.
I will keep my gold I can hold in my hand. Tangible assets will always trump fiat currency no matter what form it comes in.
Actually, dummy, there's plenty of places that trade PMs for BTC. amagimetals.com is one of many. A couple of seconds on Google would have saved you the embarrassment.
As a "BTC whore", I've been averaging in my PM purchases at about a 94% discount. Enjoy your PM purchases with USD/Euro whatever's.
PS: Caps are for f-tards.
BITCOIN Versus BEANIE BABY's ... THEY'RE NECK&NECK deja vu its 1999 or is 2014?
Forget about BTC versus GOLD, the real compare here is BTC versus the beanie-baby.
This is not to say that bitcoin won’t retain its price. After all, the greater-sucker theory of speculation can ensure a large price for a long period. As long as bitcoin believers can recruit enough new money to balance the newly mined-for-sale coins, the price may sustain itself indefinitely. And, in the greater scheme of things, bitcoin is small: even at a roughly 10 billion dollar market capitalization it is almost irrelevant in financial terms. This is probably roughly the peak market capitalization achieved by Beanie Babies in 1999.
There are indeed important and valuable ideas that exist in bitcoin’s design. But bitcoin itself? Its volatility and built-in irreversibility will doom it to the ash-heap of history.
1.) No-Recourse, who are you going to call when you get bit-coin fucked? fonestar or ghostbusters?
2.) Not-Reversible, .. I mean how often to you type 'send', ... think about it, ... just one time you make a mistake, and its final forever, major fucking flaw. With BTC one 'click' and its final forever, a lot like throwing real USD cash into a fire.
Morons want smart people to enter this new world, they call non-recourse and reversibility old-school, well guess what fuckheads us old-school still have MONEY, and you don't.
Haha, actually it's a conspiracy to keep you out. Thanks.
After The Crash: The Future of Bitcoin and Math Based Digital Currencies
The video in the beginning of this discussion is the great explanation of the Bitcoin. And history of Crypto-currencies development is nothing less than fascinating. But there is the progress and there is an idea to get rich overnight. These are too very different things. We have the feeling that this entry will be at the right timing again. There is always another crash coming to Bitcoin. It is not the question of the technological advance presented by Bitcoin, but it is the nature of its created Bubble. After our last entry Bitcoin has recovered from low of 2011 to the 4742 at BTCChina. Now another shake out could be coming - the volume is going down dramatically as Bitcoin price is moving up. By the end of January China's ban on currency withdrawal will be in place. You can make your call when the next wave of selling will begin. It is quite interesting that Gold price is moving strongly up last few days with the new money being allocated to Gold. China encourages its citizens to accumulate gold and bans Bitcoin for its financial institutions. Will 2014 become the year of Great Rotation from Bubbles and into the real assets? http://sufiy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/after-crash-future-of-bitcoin-and-ma...
Fuck all this shit. I just want to fondle all the shiny stuff in that picture, and then give in to my natural dog instinct to bury it.
I think it would be awesome if people started using Dogecoins as a joke and it actually became a real currency.
BTC started as joke and then a guy got a real pizza, the rest is history.
The problem with a currency tied to gold is that you cannot print more money. Now, this is what everyone says is the problem that we have today. This is true.
But, in tomorrow's world - to help solve the problems of unemployment, aging, automation and robotics - fiat is what we need. Fiat will allow us to build the world that we need to support an ever aging population, and to live healthy, and happy. It will finance all we need without disturbing the free market.
See, fiat is not the problem, politicians and globalized corporations are. We need to curb the power that politicians have and put laws in place that stop the wealth transfer.
Sure, we will need a broad discussion about how this will work, but there's no escaping: today's system is over and done with, and gold will not save the day. This is also the reason why gold has no mentionalble value in tomorrow's world.
PS
There's too much black/white thinking, either/or. Bitcoin and its siblings will provide alternative currencies and there's nothing wrong with that.
Some may be regulated, others won't.
It's funny to see all the free market loving posters on this site being so strongly against free currencies, and so supportive of government issued money, backed by gold or not.
Alternative free currencies will play a part of tomorrow's world's economy, if you like it or not.
StProg.verbot..loadmem..mem loadsarc...sarc loadwit.....module missing press any key to continue. ..
Okay,,,, breathe bot, breathe...oh bitcoin....let me count the ways..
First off I want the dyson sphere catching a supernova to crack the 256bit encryption story again. I loved that one..
Who has seen the odd wires brightly painted, bent this way and that way, many colored blocks pierced with holes sliding to and fro, mounted on a large base and found mostly at waiting rooms? Those virus laden bits of wood soaring up and down on the wires as children push the bits around the "track" is all I hear with bitcoin.
"Boxcars" I called them..even "magic" boxcars as most agree one may insert USD and withdraw Yen or Rubles (thats for you boris)
I even get why folks want to sashay down to the railyards and bid up some fancy rolling stock (buy bitcoin) but what value is having a yard full of boxcars "magic" or not?
So whois left are those seeking to be the switchmen and yard wranglers (control and own the bitcoin infrastructure) of these "boxcars".
What is the value if the boxcars sit? If that value is less than a moving bitcoin (I.e. broker/dealer/merchant usages) where is the motivation to hold bitcoin except as an official entity.
And why not just start with all the "coins" made up and distributed from the start?..whole world wakes up one day with a single "coin" on a phone or email..etc.. watch the flow when its correct to the term "distributed" not this incestuous hoarding method going on now. ..imho...
"breathe bot, breathe" HAHA
Gold is in the same boat..if it isnt being used for industry it is going to waste... nobody these days cares where the numbers come from as long as the atm spits out enough fiat to eat, drink, you get the idea.. the idea of money is not going to survive the digital age as it was before.. it simply is about who can issue valid credits on the system.
Oops! Did I say out loud what the scramble is about?
Fiat is training...you could use bottlecaps as long as they accepted. Now we digital and we dont even need to see the fiat anymore..just own or be given the proper interface devices/dongles.. to purchase and transact..
Gold sits...almost all of it is above ground, poor folk want food and ways to mend the soul from the days labors and now that is done with a phone...
I play silver for that reason alone and find little sense in some of the gold based ideas at times.. to own the ashes of an exploded star is how I see it and a small bit is enough for me to have.
I transact digitally and so do all of you, the fightis who will be issuers of credit on the new systems so look there for the real fighting and clear informations...imho
There is nothing wrong with digital gold and if it wasn't for modern economics and central planning we'd probably have it along with 100% reserves and we would all the better off because of it. All the original banksters understood gold and 100% reserves as the biggest obstacle to their dominion.
"the fightis who will be issuers of credit on the new systems"
These issuers of "credit" do no such thing, merely issue to you a way to transact on their slave plantation. That's not credit, that's serfdom and you have resigned yourself to being a "credit" slave. Gold and silver is money I can always use outside of the plantation. I can do digital gold too, if it's not made illegal by the rentier class.
"Crypto-currencies represent a legitimate attempt by private citizens to reassert their sovereignty over such government actions."
Where is the evidence that "private citizens" attempted the bitcoin crypto-currency ?
Proof it is not some sort of cia, nsa, goverment or banking cartel initiative !!
I am with deposit on the topic of whois.....lots of assertions of stupendous character and superb mathematics while its all about who issues credits on the system...hmmm..visa and mastercard do it now PayPal geez most companies issue a form of inhouse monies..check online games to see for your self a host of games rolling private money from fiat monies all day long..online pokerchips.... ..the issuer is the power so lets look at "satoshi"
A very clever implementation of Monopoly Money, much better than letting the neighborhood kid be the banker, but would you trust your life savings to it?
Verbot....load combat...combtld online asign target..
S. Some
A . anonymous
T. Theoretical
O Organization
S. Secretly
H. Hearing
I. Intensely
Anyone wish to refine the concept yes/no?
I must still request the dyson sphere catching a supernova story..it makes me smile to think of all those bits at near perfect temperature being driven to crack open a bitcoin with the dying scream of a large stellar mass...
I plan to run the teams scraping the gold and heavy elements off theinside of the sphere...
When all is said and done, might is right. When it comes down to it, the man with the biggest gun or nuke will tell us what is worth what and for how long. Either way, the man is ahead of whatever we may think, because he is making the rules. In my experience, it is rarely this or that, but usually this and that, and in the end: Neither.
There is room for just more than one non fiat alternative, people have their preference but we are here advocating for the denationalization of money as Hayek put it, so welcome Gold and welcome to Bitcoin.
Now if we wish to promote a method of exchange isnt there many ways we could just start using any method as long as it is agreed? Hell I will trade you ten u-play points for the chicken...ahh where is yourahhh game console or smartphone?.. one model has the owner of the chicken motivated and able to convert the payment, one model has the buyer leaving hungry.. to make the trade is to garner consensus on u-play credits and to have the needed infrastructure to transact...see how stupid it sound when I say it not using bitcoin? See how transparent the desire to force/lure acceptance and be the issuer becomes and what few roles there are to be had for any and alle players...
So once upon a time there was a busy race who built a giant ball around a star....
Oops....unload combat.....combatoffln...
I want to issue my own currency... verbucks... there it is done.. (some ground shaking here so hope you all are ok)
Now when you find your verbuck dont be alarmed as they can take many shapes and sizes, but most important is that everyone has been issued one verbuck each...no more, no less.. each day you will awake to find a new verbuck but each old verbuck will be recycled. I am taking applications for the recycle fairy posistion so out out the word..
Verbucks are good worldwide need nopower beyond the human imagination come in delightful packets of mystery to see what form the next one will take...
Just trade them with others for your daily needs and wants.. just be insistent or even run away with goods if someone does not take your verbuck as they just have not be training and informed as you are...
Can verbucks be traded for pussy? If so, count me in!
OT (Off topic) warning:
grr!
Bitcoin has intrinsic value. It is the computational cost of the solved block. The key in understanding the intrinsic value is to consider the electricity and computing power required to solve a block today, and in the future. This cost is your 'minimium self manged cost' and is high, as I am led to believe (unless you are using submerged asics). The intrinsic value is in the avoidance of this cost (you don't need to create large quantities of air pollution using cpus and gpus via coal-fired electricity) while still gaining the ability to participate.
Said differently. One can participate in a simple funds transfer (not an investment) by buying bitcoin, then transferring it. You gain intrinsic value of a nature granted by the ability to participate and actually use it while avoiding the need to mine the block yourself.
Said differently. Intrinsic value is granted to bitcoin users by their ability to participate without needing to mine.
A miner of bitcoins creates the intrinsic value.
If you want to measure the intrinsic value, I suggest count in coal burned per block solved, or in oil or gas or nuclear fuel used per block solved (energy used during calculation, not energy used to create the calculating machines or to feed and house the person who operates the computer for the duration they are attached to the 'mine bitcoin' task). I am guessing that the computer and labour cost is largely insignificant as it is self-initiated and well distributed across a relatively wide variety of countries and social stratas, and in most cases it is a HOBBY affair, not subject to commercial value calculations. (a person who invests days trying to understand and use bitcoin and mine it, thereafter failing without a block solved is a typical hobby user - this sort of energy consuming user isn't considered as being part of the input energy, having not solved a block, as opposed to the hobby user who does solve a block and who would have their computer energy consumption subject to calculations)
Ahhgsh, those are my thoughts anyway.
"Bitcoin has intrinsic value. It is the computational cost of the solved block."
This is as much a piece of sophistry as the labour theory of value. You confuse value with the effort expended to create the the thing because of your own selfish idea that that people should value your efforts. The market decides value - even for gold. We say gold has intrinsic value, because all the elements do really, but the value is still subjective, as all value is. Value is not embodied in work. I could pile mud for the next ten years but you wouldn't call my mud heap valuable. Same goes for bitcoin - unfortunately mathematics supports and infinite number of monetary systems, no matter how hard it is to generate them, the effort may well be for naught.
"If you want to measure the intrinsic value, I suggest count in coal burned per block solved"
You have a "labour theory of value" here. This was refuted in economics long ago.
"I could pile mud for the next ten years but you wouldn't call my mud heap valuable."
True. Just because energy is expended, does not prove that useful work was performed. You could dig holes and fill them up again forever.
This is basic thermodynamics.
Of course if Bitcoin was suddenly mandated by law as a global currency then the energy expended would indeed be valuable. Governments would then back Bitcoin with their monopoly on violence. Actually, digging holes to find jars of paper money was one of the contributions of Keynes, the original government loving gold hater. Thermodynamics (or common sense) be damned if it interferes with the plans of technocrats!
I'm with bomdog. I will add, however, that
"Bitcoin has intrinsic value. It is the computational cost of the solved block"
misstates the facts. If your assertion of its intrinsic value is correct (and I disagree completely that it is), then on this basis a btc's value would be the weighted average of all computational costs since day 1 of btc.
Either that or you would by necessity be stating that a btc mined in 2009 has less intrinsic value than one mined today. If you disagree with that, then you'd be stating that an apple that was flown around the world and chauffered to my home has more intrinsic value than an identical apple that I bought at Waitrose last week for $1.99/lb USD.
QED intrinsic has nothing to do with the cost of mining a btc.
It astonishes me to no end the number of posters who carelessly throw around the phrase 'intrinsic value'. The semantics police may wade in and tell us that intrinsic value is non-existent, but in the context of which you and the others have applied to the phrase you have abused it to no end.
Tyler, why do you continuously promote tulip bulbs?
I agree that there is a cost to the "solving" of the block chain which can be slicermathed into some valuations of bitcoins. I do ponder how the blockchain accepts new "coins" as how can it know a number not yet solved..I am sure it has to do with algo extrapolation or something I wont guess though.. but again, with transfer being the primary usage what good is fallow coins when moving coins and fees made more closely follow what is being done...and the whole who wants to run the "railroad" thing...
To all the people who think the NSgAy is behind bitcoins, please consider the nature of open-source. If they did write it, then at some point someone will find that backdoor. Or that piece of code will be replaced in an update. Then the spooks will have lost all control. I don't think even the nsa is dumb enough to release a competitor to the USD that they couldn't guarantee control of.
Considering that Btc's crypto uses SHA-256, you might also ask yourself, "Why would an agency with extensive focus on cracking codes release an "uncrackable" Secure Hash Algorithm into the wild?" Job security? Backdoor? Ability to spoof?
"SHA-2 is a set of cryptographic hash functions (SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-512/224, SHA-512/256) designed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA256