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Bitcoin: The Sexiest Non-Solution Of All Time?
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market blog,
A few years back, at the end of 2009, I was approached on two separate occasions by people claiming to be “representatives” of a digital alternative currency format. I was, of course, intrigued by the initial proposal, being that I had been writing for some time on the concept of non-participation as a way to insulate average Americans from the dangers of our unstable fiat driven mainstream economy. Before that, I had already dealt with just about every currency alternative one could imagine; from paper scripts backed by goods, to scripts backed by time or labor, to gold and silver laden currency cards, etc, etc. All of them had the advantage of NOT relying on private Federal Reserve notes, and all of them had flaws as well. The proposed digital script, which the representatives called “Bitcoin”, was no different.
The idea was to recruit my website as a promoter for bitcoin, but I had many questions before I would stick my neck out on a brand new high-tech anti-currency, and most of these question were not answered in any satisfactory manner.
There is no shortage of “solutions” in Liberty Movement circles, but many of these solutions require that we work within the system according to establishment rules (which they can change at any given moment). They assume that the system will abide by some kind of internal code, that our candidates will be treated fairly, that elections will not be rigged, that a better methodology or technology will be acknowledged and eventually adopted, that the “majority” of the public will someday see the light and back our cause, that the elite will not simply decide to put a bullet in our head.
The reality is, if a solution is dependent on a paradigm controlled by the corrupt system you are trying to change, it is no solution at all. Because of this, my focus has always been on methods that separate Americans from reliance on the system as much as possible.
When first confronted with bitcoin activism, I recognized almost immediately that this was NOT a method that operated outside the system, even though it tried very hard to appear that way. It was high-tech, it was sexy (admittedly far sexier in its presentation than gold and silver), and it catered to the egos of the digital generation, the loudest voices in media today. This thing was certainly marketable. However, just because something is highly marketable does not make it a good idea, or a meaningful alternative.
The Tantalizing Allure Of Non-Solutions
When a person invests a sizable amount of capital into an idea, not to mention a sizable amount of philosophical faith, they tend to lose a measure of objectivity. This is not just a struggle for proponents of bitcoin but for proponents of ALL methodologies. I do believe that many bitcoin promoters have the best of intentions, and that they are seeking some way to break from what they understand is a corrupt financial structure. That said, there is an escalating streak of elitism within the bitcoin culture, and I have witnessed on numerous occasions the kind of anger and immediate dismissal the average statist would spew when they are confronted with criticism. If you dare to question the greater details behind Bitcoin, be prepared to be accused of anything from “conspiracy theory”, to “jealousy” for missing the boat on bitcoin profits, to “ignorance” of the genius of cryptography.
What I came to realize through my questions to bitcoin followers was that many of them were not actually involved in the deeper aspects of the Liberty Movement, constitutional activism, sound money, self defense, and so on. Almost none of them had a preparedness plan, few of them had experience with precious metals, none of them owned firearms, and none of them had any inclination towards the building of local networks for mutual aid. Worst of all, many of them had no understanding of the wider threat of economic collapse that America faces today. In fact, when the possibility of full spectrum collapse is brought up, many Bitcoiners actually respond with the same brand of shallow dismissals that one would expect from the Paul Krugman's and Ben Bernanke's of the world.
This reaction is not necessarily shocking. Most people imagine themselves accomplishing heroic feats, and why not? It is one of the more noble and beautiful traits of mankind. For the crypto-engineers of the new century and the digital generation overall, heroics have felt unattainable. Elections are finally being recognized as the sham they represent, while protest activism has fallen flat on its face. The concept of peaceful redress of grievances has been met with rather frightening displays of state violence and censorship to which a physical response for the common protestor is unthinkable. The signs and slogan chants may have inspired the education of some, but in the meantime, they have accomplished very little in terms of political or social change. The bottom line is that the establishment LOVES non-aggression protests – they have no plan, few concrete goals, and present no overt threat to the elite.
The system only grows more despotic, more invasive, and more dangerous. Anti-establishment champions have been searching for something that goes beyond mere “education”, or clamoring like caged monkeys for media attention. They want to storm the castle, they want to fight back, but they haven't the slightest clue how. They desire an intellectual method of combat, something with far less fear, far less risk, and far less pain. Enter Bitcoin.
Bitcoin gives the digital generation the chance to feel heroic where they never could before. They don't have to face the machine head on. They don't have to fight. They don't have to suffer. They don't have to die. All they have to do is utilize some cryptographic wizardry within the supposedly anonymous safety of the web, buy bitcoins en masse, and the system would crumble at their feet, rebuilt in the name of free markets by the electronic commons and without a shot fired. Again, very sexy...
Unfortunately, the real world does not necessarily lend itself to the demands of the digital. The digital world is at the mercy of physical. The real world is rarely sexy; often it is ugly, brutal, hypocritical, illogical, and psychotic. The real world, at times, can break, and when it does the digital will break with it. The digital world is in large part a fantasy supported by the whims of the real. Which leads me to the core failings of the bitcoin adventure...
Bitcoin Theater
We've all heard praises lavished on bitcoin, not only from the web activists but from the mainstream media itself. Establishment controlled outlets like Reuters and Bloomberg have an astonishing number of bitcoin stories per week, and most of these stories paint the crypto-currency in a positive light. We've heard about bitcoin's “unbreakable” cryptography. Its finite supply. The inability to duplicate the currency from thin air. Its rising acceptance in the corporate world. The Cinderella stories of bitcoin investors buying Lamborghinis and New York brownstones. Even Ben Bernanke seems to have a soft spot for bitcoin:
But is bitcoin's rise really all it's cracked up to be? Here are just a few of the problems which lead me to believe the digital currency is ultimately a clever distraction.
Who really started Bitcoin?
One of my first questions to bitcoin representatives back in 2009 was WHO, exactly, founded the operation? Well, Satoshi Nakamodo, everyone knows that, right? But who the hell is Satoshi Nakamodo? Who is the original designer of bitcoin? Who holds the foundational key to the structure of bitcoin's cryptography? Is Nakamodo a person, or a group? Why should we trust him, or them, to safeguard our wealth any more than the Federal Reserve? The fact is no one except maybe Gavin Andresen, the chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, knows who is behind the digital currency. We actually know more about the banking elites behind the Fed than we do about the founders of bitcoin.
The common response to this concern is to suggest that it doesn't really matter, bitcoin is secure, it is open source, it is cryptography's holy grail, the creators are protecting their identities against retribution from the establishment, and the excuses go on...
I'm sorry, but this attitude constitutes an act of blind faith in a currency mechanism, which is exactly what proponents of the dollar are guilty of. If an activist individual or group is going to offer a solution to the movement, then they had better be willing to take the risk of being personally available to the movement. If you don't have the balls to show your face to help legitimize your idea, I can't take your idea seriously. Maybe I'm just old fashioned...
For all we know, bitcoin is a creation of the establishment, not a creation countering the establishment. After all, the globalists WANT the destruction of the dollar - why not let the public destroy the dollar using a mechanism that ultimately does not represent a threat to the greater bankster cartel?
The Media Love Affair With Bitcoin
During the first and second Ron Paul campaigns, the mainstream media made a blatant and obvious effort to purposely ignore the candidate, his arguments, and his successes. Coverage was next to nil. His expansive crowds of supporters were edited out of news footage. His high polling numbers were censored. If not for the independent media, you wouldn't have known the guy existed. When someone or something presents a legitimate threat to the establishment, the establishment's first tactic is to make sure no one knows.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, has received a steady flow of positive media attention, with the random critical piece thrown in for good measure. Overall, the establishment has embraced, if not directly fueled, the bitcoin trend. This is rather surprising to me considering the “destroyer of the dollar” has only been around for four years.
When an anti-establishment vehicle suddenly becomes the center focus of establishment affections, and when globalist monsters like Ben Bernanke throw flower petals in its path, I have to wonder if Bitcoin is a real threat, or just a ruse.
Bitcoins Can Indeed Be Confiscated
Some of the early hype surrounding Bitcoin claimed that the currency could not be confiscated, making it “better than gold” (the better than gold motto has been widely espoused by Gavin Andresen). This claim turned out to be false when the FBI became the holder of the world's LARGEST Bitcoin wallet:
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/fbi_wallet/
I find arguments that this is only a temporary condition and that the feds will eventually auction off their holdings a bit laughable, but indicative of the denial inherent in Bitcoin culture.
Bitcoin Values Can Be Manipulated
Another claim heard was the assertion that bitcoins cannot be created out of thin air, they must be “mined” using powerful computers, which removes centralized manipulation of value. This may be true in certain respects (for now), but anything digital can be exploited in one way or another.
Bitcoin malware, for instance, hijacks the computers of unwitting people and uses them to artificially “mine” the currency.
The bitcoins mined are then transferred into the hands of anonymous hackers. This represents a serious threat to the stability of bitcoin because it creates an invasive form of attack speculation. Bitcoins can be removed from the market and deliberately hoarded. Hackers, or governments could conceivably kill bitcoin by mining a large portion of them out of circulation, artificially hyperinflating the value of the remaining coins (like a speculator would do with commodities), or dumping a large portion and abruptly cutting the value. Major bitcoin hoarders could use their massive bitcoin stakes to shift values at will. As long a Bitcoin operates on supply and demand, it can be threatened through speculation like ay other commodity (if you consider digitized numbers floating around the web a commodity).
Bitcoin Is Not Private
While bitcoins can apparently be stolen or criminally mined by anonymous persons or organizations, honest users are subject to considerable scrutiny. A disturbing aspect of bitcoin is the group surveillance that goes into tracing transactions, otherwise known as the “proof of work system”. The bitcoin network is constantly dependent on decoders who track and verify bitcoin trades in order to ensure that the same bitcoins are not used during multiple trades or purchases. Anyone with the desire could decode the transaction history of the network, or “block chain”, including governments. Though Bitcoiners are considered “partially anonymous”, tracking the individual identity of a bitcoin trade is not difficult for entities such as the NSA because every transaction leaves a digital trail..
The use of anonymising browsers like Tor also have not produced the kind of privacy that was promised when bitcoin was introduced.
This is exactly the kind of currency system global bankers have sought for some time - total information awareness of all financial transactions and purchases within the system. While bitcoin proponents claim that their currency is a revolution against centralized oversight of monetary transactions, the truth is they have built the perfect centralized surveillance solution. Paper dollar purchases are difficult to trace. Gold, silver, and barter purchases are nearly impossible to track. Bitcoin, though, is the most traceable form of currency on the planet, and this is basically REQUIRED by the network itself. The entire trade history of every bitcoin is recorded. The digital landscape is the ultimate form of privacy invasion, especially for the likes of super computer wielding agencies like the NSA. Bitcoin aids the development of this intrusive system.
Bitcoin Relies On The Continued Survival Of The Open Web
Yes, bitcoins can be stored on physical wallet devices, but the majority portion of bitcoin trading and bitcoin mining requires the continued operation of the web. The internet is NOT a creative commons, as many believe. It is in fact a controlled networking system that we have simply been allowed to use. The exposure by Edward Snowden of NSA activities has proven once and for all that nothing you do on the web is private. Everything is tracked and recorded. Period.
Web access can also be easily denied by governments, and power centers around the globe have been utilizing this option more and more. During a national crisis, whether real or engineered, the continued function of the internet as we know it is not guaranteed. A currency relying on a government dominated internet is not truly independent. A grid down situation would also make bitcoin stores virtually useless.
The Suspicious Nature Of Bitcoin
Bitcoin is consistently touted as a superior option to precious metals as a way to decouple from central bank fiat. Under examination, though, it appears to me that bitcoin is instead a deliberate distraction away from gold and silver, and other tangible solutions; in other words, I believe it to be a form of controlled opposition.
A vital aspect of physical gold and silver investment is not only to break from the dollar, but to also remove physical metal from the system and starve international banks that issue millions of fraudulent unbacked paper certificates. The strategy, which I still stand by, is for the public to absorb as much of the precious metals market as possible until manipulators like JP Morgan finally have to admit that they don't have the coins and bars to back all the fake ETF's they have been issuing investors for years. In the process, we decouple from the dollar AND do damage to the banking cartel itself. The bitcoin fad, in my opinion, is designed to lure the public away from overtaking the metals market while banks and foreign governments vacuum up remaining physical in preparation for a dollar collapse.
Bitcoin's market value is not only extremely volatile, the currency is also subject to replacement at any time. Anyone with an interest can create a cryptocurrency. There is nothing particularly special about the bitcoin design, and if someone offered a digital currency tomorrow that was truly anonymous, it could quickly supplant bitcoin. Though its cryptography makes it difficult to artificially inflate (again, for now), other digital currencies can still be produced out of thin air. Bitcoiners desperately want to equate cryptography with tangibility, but the truth is that there is no comparison. Physical gold and silver cannot be artificially produced by anyone, anywhere. Digital currencies can be produced at will and hyped like Dutch tulip mania.
The most unsettling aspect of bitcoin, however, is not its distraction away from precious metals. Rather, it is the distraction away from localized solutions. Bitcoin proponents may be searching for decentralization, but they seem to have forgotten the most most important part of the process – localism. The trade of digital mechanisms over impersonal web networks and online marketplaces is not conducive to local economic stability or sustainability. Bitcoin does not encourage people to build local markets, to adopt useful trade skills, to prepare for a grid down scenario, or circulate wealth within one's community. Bitcoin only furthers the removal of independence and self sustainability from local economies by fooling activists into thinking that buying things without dollars is enough.
If Americans in particular want to pursue any solution to the threat of globalism or dollar collapse, they are going to have to start with themselves, and the community around them. Online trade is the last thing they should be worried about. Only when neighborhoods, towns, and counties become producers and self suppliers will they be safe from financial instability. Only when those same communities band together for mutual aid and self defense will they be safe from tyrannical political entities. Bitcoin accomplishes nothing in either of these categories, making it possibly the most popular non-solution for liberty to date.
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Altruism, bringing enlightment to the masses. wink wink.
I don't offer this as a panacea to the struggle we face. And I don't think the author was offering a pancea either. But his observations on the silliness of so money (pun intended) things we all consider so important (such as the concept of money and wealth) is refreshing, particularly since it is coming from a Tibetan Monk who adapted in the West: http://www.scribd.com/doc/148127083/PDF
Boris is recommend insulin when pancea is fail.
What does Filipino food have to do with it?
gold is en route to correct to the mid 1100s...i suggest you consider a bargain...
No, gold is en route to hit 1300 in short order and by the end of 2014 should be around 2500 usd/oz troy.
It occurred to me a long time ago, that certain government agencies could have constructed the bit key operation all for the purspose of generating hashkeys to break encrypted files. This would explain why it hasn't been shutdown. unlike people who produce silver coins which actually have a value. Seeing a Congressman on CNBC the other day implicitly promoting bitcoin sent up another red flag. Why would they support an alternative currency. What is their benefit?
Because the people are the top are still technically and economically illiterate, and they haven't figured out yet that Bitcoin is their destroyer.
You know it's not true which is why you can't explain how that happens.
I know it's not true and can explain why it's not true.
#1 currency must work off grid. MOST need for money is with zero availability of electric power or communications. Bitcoin fails there.
#2 currency between nations MUST be something on THEIR particular grid, or they have no use for it. Nations trade with each other just as nations face each other with a military. Something like bitcoin doesn't serve them & that means bitcoin can't work. Currency in the WORLD is currency OF THE GOVERNMENT.
You don't get it. That which is not government currency can't be used for international trade which means NO OIL, NO PALLETS OF GOLD, NO SHIPS, NO TRAINS, nothing.
Maybe if you're lucky you can buy a loaf of bread with a bitcoin but you sure can't buy a yacht, a shipment of Benz's or a freight train. Ever. You certainly can't buy military hardware & guess what? Money is used for that.
#3 a currency must not fluctuate in purchasing power up & down more than 10% per YEAR. Bitcoin does that more per DAY.
fail. utter fail. Bitcoin is self-suiciding by JUST that ONE feature.
#4 reversibility of transactions. Due to the nature of MANY banks & customers a KEY demand is REVERSIBILITY of transactions made in error, by fraud, by theft, and to control the end-points of issuance of transferred currency.
This KEY FEATURE is SUPER-CRITICAL. To remove it is to shoot every customer with bullets and HOPE some manage to survive.
Bitcoin FAILS UTTERLY on this by pretending an EXTREME FAIL, no-reverse transactions, is a benefit. It benefits NO ONE but a theif. NO ONE. That ONE trait is EXTREME SUICIDE for a digital currency.
At least with CASH in hand, face to face, you might stab, shoot, grab a person who tries to run with your cash but gives you nothing.
In the digital realm all security is DESTROYED by this trait, which is never a feature.
It's like putting a gun in your mouth and calling it a FEATURE of mental stability, a benefit, rather than a suicide attempt.
You'd be INSANE to defend this.
I am FAR MORE literate both in economics AND algorithms (and hardware) than you ever will be. You aren't even trying. IF you tried maybe you could catch up. You have hubris & ignorance.
Let this be a lesson.
Bitcon is severely flawed but that's not one of them.
Producing every hash possible in advance would mean having the entire problem solved using computing power that didn't exist years ago to even approach the problem as well as having a completed blockchain somewhere that wouldn't be consistent with the existing blockchain.
Further, computing all solutions for all hashing algorithms is exponential of the bit size.
2 256 = 1.1579208923731619542357098500869 x 10 77 bits or 1.4474011154664524427946373126086 x 10 76 bytes, with a slightly less cumbersome number of 1.3164 x 10 64 terabytes just for all possible bit combinations of 256 bits.
That's not what happened. if you can't figure that out after seeing these numbers you need further assistance on what actually existed for storage medium & computing power every single year. Homework.
BIT-Coin
Bye It Today....................will be gone tomorrow!
:) A nice thorough piece of FUD.
Too long to bother to rebut. Filled with half-truths, straw-men (of course it can be confiscated, what idiot told you otherwise), red herrings (the media loves it, it must be bad!) and failings that apply to most people (most aren't revolutionaries in the trenches...and never will be).
If you do shit properly, it can not be confiscated.
Properly: not electrons. Must be physical atoms. Electrons can always at all times be destroyed & destroyed = confiscated.
No one needs to use your electrons, your btc, for confiscation, only to stop YOU from using them.
"The idea was to recruit my website as a promoter for bitcoin, but I had many questions before I would stick my neck out on a brand new high-tech anti-currency, and most of these question were not answered in any satisfactory manner."
An extremely valuable quote indicating that back in 2009 there were supporters actively recruiting known website journalists to promote Bitcoin to the average readers like you and me. So it wasn't some massive uprising of average people against the U.S. dollar, it was a planned and organized activity designed to enrich a small group of insiders.
But people doing the same for gold is totally legit, amirite?
Except for that thousands of years of history thing, I suppose you might have a point.
Amazing that happened since Bitcoin was actually worthless at the time and wouldn't have a real world transaction (for pizza) until a year later placing it's value at $0.003 a coin.
Shhhhh, history is hard. Conspiracy theories are much easier.
Everything comes with a conspiracy theory these days, so nothing surprising.
Still worthless now :) I wouldn't trade a slice of pizza for a bitcoin.
I was intrigued by the Bitcoin idea until it went hockeystick effectively making it not an alternative currency for the proletarian. And thus, I will periodically keep storing some metal in my boat until the weather is warm enough to take it for a joyride across the nearby lake.
this whole 'boating accident' is kinda retarded these days when they can now find sunken ships of silver and gold in the fucking ocean
so your little lake stash would be exposed in an hour if you actually did drop it there and we all know you only have 2 coins under your mattress anyway
And you point is what exactly?
and it catered to the egos of the digital generation
Yep, Brandon nailed it. Look at the strongest proponents of bitcoin on ZH. What do they have in common? Young know-it-alls who haven't been around the block for many years who think they're smarter or cooler or more modern than the old geezers who are skeptical of bitcoin.
It's perfectly fine to be skeptical (I have my own list of risks regarding Bitcoin), but some of the people here are downright ignorant of how Bitcoin works and yet are extraordinarily vocal about the subject ("THEY R JUST GOING TO CHANGE THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF COINZ IN THE CODEZ!!"). If someone's going to debate, they should at least have a little knowledge of the subject their debating.
To channel Murray Rothbard:
"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics Bitcoin, which is, after all, a specialized discipline technology and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' 'magical internet money.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects Bitcoin while remaining in this state of ignorance."
Now that the control of Bitcoin is centralized into the hands of a small number of mining pools and exchanges, they could easily make major changes such as the maximum number of coins.
As far as I can tell, many Bitcoin users do not even run the full wallet software on their own equipment, they use the Multibit wallet or web-based wallets, or just work through exchanges. So the protocol has already become substantially centralized.
The maximum number of coins does not depend on the concentration of mining/exchanges.
Any group, however large, who changes the protocol instantly forks Bitcoin into two versions: one for the people who accept the new protocol, and one for the people who don't. They will have created an entirely new cryptocurrency incompatible with Bitcoin.
Everyone who had an account in one would still have an account in the other (same blockchain up to the point of the fork), so even the people not running the full wallet software won't have lost anything; if it turns out that the third party verifier they were using has switched them over to the new cryptocurrency, they can simply switch to a third party verifier who does not accept the new protocol and they're back to where they were.
but their currency would be de-valued & having no control to stop this, that would be the new value.
That's pretty much the single-most important aspect of bitcoin losing value but not hitting zero.
The grid-down situation is the one that puts all forks of bitcoin to zero for good.
The top-holders of btc also being miners 100% assures they control how many btc can exist, maximum, by setting it in the code, being the majority holder of btc & the blockchain & using virtual machines also be the #1 group (in size) using a fork of both (blockchain & new code). This makes the others invalid. The world will not tolerate multiple forks of bitcoin: it's a pain in the ass as it is, being so volatile, and this would drive people to drop them all & go to dollars/local currency.
Those who seek gold / silver already know better. This likely won't push anyone further into gold/silver.
I have knowledge.
The number CAN BE CHANGED. You can't stop it.
So long as the apparent number of people adopting it is a majority that fork wins.
Problem is, you can't stop a bazillion virtual machines launched from a few very powerful server farms from doing precisely that.
Can you? If you can stop it tell me how. It could be set up to exceed the total number of people ON EARTH if needed, much less "bitcoin users".
They don't need to run fast, they just need to use the new version of the software & fork. it would be more than easy to put that into place with a ready-bake fork of the blockchain set up by fewer but faster computers, virtual machines if need be, say... 12 hours earlier. 12 minutes. 5 minutes.
Could happen any time.
Government computing power is 100's of times more than everyone else's.
I'm 62 years old... involved in micro computers for 35 years, (since they were born). Was one of the first Internet Service Providers in North America and think that bitcoin can have as much, or more significance, then the internet does, to change common peoples lives for the better, once the bitcoin to gold/silver/commodities exchanges open bypassing the doomed dollar.
No, I assure you, you are just a teenager living in your mom's basement, because well, all people who know about bitcoin are apparently. Someone higher up in the comments here said so. Surely no one with any experience or who knows what they are talking about would dabble in something so loony as bitcoin, right right!?!1/
Really, so what do you do when the network is down?
Right now I'm fully able to live fine with no internet & no power.
It's a hassle but I'll get by. Grid went down in the big ice storm that we just had too.
No one could use the internet or electricity. No transfers of money, cash in hand only.
Show me how btc survives this.
It doesn't. Without real money btc is useless. It isn't real money of any sort. Useless.
I fail to see why the viability of bitcoin should be dependent on the developers having guns and a bugout plan?
Isn't that just doing the same that he blames bitcoin of doing: being a member of an existing group?
Several of his arguments had nothing whatsoever to with bitcoin. The fact that he capitalizes "Liberty Movement" provides a tell that he's pushing his own agenda, rather than providing any insight into bitcoin. While many of his ideas have merit, he did an extremely poor job of presenting them, as they're all wrapped in a layer of pretentious smugness.
I much prefer reading skeptical articles rather than ones that pretend they know right from wrong.
Hell, I could even take his tack and state that since he did such a poor job critiquing bitcoin, he must be an agent provocateur looking to sabotage it for his masters.
I am not pro nor anti-bitcoin, but this article is worthless for anything other than promoting divide and conquer (as heavily evidenced in this thread).
I guess Brandon really doesn't understand community after all?
+1
we should start charging BS for all the research he highjacks from below the line on ZH & spits back up in service of the "Liberty Movement".
yo BS, here's my primecoin address
1800COINTELPRO101
<- I am not a neandrathal
<- I must hold a shiny thing in my hand to value it.
To suggest a decentralized open source peer to peer protocol used voluntarily is controlled opposition is quite likely the most idiotic statement I have read yet on ZH about anything. The gold bug community is going full retard in their attempts to cling onto the past. Let me guess, you guys also write and send letters through the postal service because email is controlled oppostion secretly trying to take away your freedom of speech too? Gold bugs are quickly revealing themselves to be modern day neandrathals that must hold onto shiny things in their hands to value it. You are being left behind just like the neandrathals of old who insisted on using rocks instead of spears. Go to your caves, stack your phyz, ammo and dried food waiting for the end of the world bitchez and leave us to utilizing the innnovative solutions paving the way to a better future for ALL humans, not just priviledged white people hoping their gold will skyrocket in value making them rich and powerful.
not just priviledged white people hoping their gold will skyrocket in value making them rich and powerful.
@John___Connor
Step away from your keyboard in your mums basement and....................remove that "Chip on your shoulder"
Peeps donot buy gold/silver to become rich and powerfull.
They buy it for insurance.............against GOV and devalueing fiat paper money.
Can you name one fiat currency that has not lost it's purchasing power?
Get reading..................and learn what the rich are doing with thier fiat money...................buying hard assets!
For us that are not rich and cannot afford those hard assets silver and gold fit the bill nicely.
decentralized open source peer to peer protocol
Were you trying to sarcastically be exactly the type of person Brandon Smith was writing about (young, wanna be digital-know-it-all), or was it just who you are? You guys are the pajama boys of the currency world.
Another form of fiat is not an innovative solution to anything, dipshit. Your comment about priviledged white people hoping their gold will skyrocket in value shows you have absolutely no understanding of the idea of preserving wealth in the transition to a post-USD world. So, turn off your little iPad, do some research by reading a book or three, and get a fucking clue before spouting off about shit which you know absofuckinglutely nothing.
to suggest it isn't controlled when fiat exchanges for btc are directly linked to FIAT, which can be printed endlessly by ONE power that truly is our sworn enemy - is more naive than a 2 year old.
Money requires an atomic nucleus.
Only that kind of money is immune to this power. Nothing else.
The grid WILL BE TAKEN DOWN BY FORCE and your btc WILL BE UNABLE TO FUNCTION.
Period.
Cannot wait for Fonestar's 4000 posts talking about how we are too stupid to understand Bitcoin, and that Bitcoin will never go away. Oh and how he has perfectly timed every dip, and unloaded some at every peak.
"we are too stupid to understand Bitcoin"
For Bitcoin to be successful, then stupid people like myself must be able to use it without difficulty or complication. It needs to be as simple as a Visa card, or a Food Stamp card. If its use is limited to computer geniuses, it's not a universal currency.
A niche financial instrument perhaps, used by black-market operators and businessmen needing to make large international financial transfers.
Gold Silver Crypto
Buy all three
I've got crypto because unlike doomer Brandon, I don't think the world is going to end with a massive shootout against the Fed outside the FEMA camps.
Logically, I would expect the power companies and the other utilities to switch to crypto, rather than go out of business in a hyperinflation.
Crypto for me goes hand in hand with the precious metals. Trade in crypto, save in PM's
That's just too damn rational. Doesn't hurt to have some ammo in case Brandon is right. ;)
Trade in crypto, save in PM's
Sounds reasonable so far - now we're waiting for your fool-proof solution to convert from one into the other and back, now and especially when the Dollar will be gone.
It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.
--Robert Heinlein
that's not logical : it would be more logical to assume they'll rise power prices until your BTC are no better than break-even and then demand you pay in BTC which locks you in, or worse, to establish THEIR OWN RATIO.
They're the power company, they can do what they want.
if they charge 100x the rate in BTC but don't do it for fiat, guess what?
You're fucked.
Tell me how you'd stop them. Run your own nuke plant?
The power companies are NOT in danger of running out of business from hyperinflation.
They have government & government can take what it wants so it won't fall short.
Hyperinflation is only bad for the people that DON'T print money. Those that do, and who receive it first, are a-OK.
Tell me which governments will abandon their power sources. None.
They might let you suffer in the dark... but that's a-OK with them.
Then you're grid-down with BTC & no way to use it.
not a-OK for you.
It's "scrip" not "script"
Why is every critic of Bitcoin so hung up on Bitcoin's "value" (i.e. it's exchange rate with the USD)? What's that have to do with anything?
Bitcoin will finally come of age when people start exchanging it for goods and services without reference to its exchange rate with the USD.
Exchange value means everything because it is a measure of the relative purchasing power of bitcoin compared to other currencies. That's the whole point of a currency, right? That it represents stored labor or investment that can be spent on real, tangible goods.
@ElvisDog
Yes it does, but if I have $100,000 in the bank, it presumably represents my stored labour or investment. If I exchange it for x number of Bitcoins, it still represents my labour and investment, only now it is denominated in Bitcoins. If enough people do the same thing then we have a parallel currency system using Bitcoin that needs no reference to the US $ or any other fiat currency. Furthermore my stored labour and investment cannot be inflated away by the Government/FED. If everybody (most people ) accept(s) Bitcoin we have no need of Dollars, Yen, Euros. Maybe then the fiat currencies fade away.
no, to meet that requirement both ends must be willing to bid.
On this side it looks like for the average job no one would really be willing to pay more than 1% of the (rigged fiat back-and-forth-bid) "market" value for btc for actual work wages.
The volatility is too high & the utility of the currency for every other kind of good & service is too low.
If the fiat exchanges didn't exist & BTC was established FIRST for goods & services, this probably wouldn't have happened.
It's a one-way gig. It's fallen down the stairs to the ponzi boiler-room - it can't fall UP the stairs.
Too late.
If that happens it's the goods I'll need to start, not the bitcoins. I'll stock them first.
Ignore bitcoin. Why?
1. The USG is calling off the regulatory dogs. They've tested all the methods of manipulation and they are workable. It is their tool now.
2.The banks are getting into it. see #1.
You mean like they did with gold and solver 40 years ago?
Valid point, however paper instruments are reaching the end of the "confidence cycle".
There is no reason to believe that bitcoin will be more resiliant than a common stock or a money market fund if there is a major disruption in confidence. Based on it's behavior over the last couple of years, it is not a garnering a lot of confidence as a stable medium of exchange.
see it for what it is, an internet gambling operation.
Bitcoin is consistently touted as a superior option to precious metals as a way to decouple from central bank fiat.
[citation required]
But don't worry, Pauly Krugnuts hates bitcoin almost as much as you do. They are teh evulz.
But, muh shanee mettles!!
Excellent. Thanks.
Major FUD, complete with majorly flawed arguments.
Brandon. Crying about everything doesn't do anything for the liberty movement either. Yet for someone so outspoken I don't see you leading a charge on the white house with a bayonet clenched between your teeth. Having a gun with a few gold coins buried in a coffee canister in your back yard doesn't mean you're a part of the "liberty movement" or whatever you're soap boxing about.
You hit the nail
The problem with this article, besides the rehashing of every single anti-Bitcoin point that has been pointed out 100 times, is that it approaches its evaluation of the value of Bitcoin from the perspective of an individual attempting to break away from the establishment. If we drop all the paranoid BS for a few seconds and ask if it has any value as a low cost protocol to transfer funds and make payments, then you may look at it in a different light.
Not all of us that like Bitcoin like it because we are anti-statists. I just think it's a better method to make purchases. I don't care if the other party knows where I live. I live in a state that lists every property you own on the assessor's website. I'm not hard to find. The fact that is is traceable keeps it honest. And unless all you preppers expect the end of the world tomorrow, I'd rather have an honest system in place where banks aren't constantly skimming every cent from me that they can while providing nothing for peer to peer transactions that Bitcoin can't provide.
It's going mainstream and with that, regulations and taxation are almost a certainity. It's going to lose it's cool factor with the libertarian crowd. And it's going to likely make some people a lot of money.
That, or it's going to get boot stomped out of existence. If that happens, I want to see everyone here claiming it's a CIA and NSA scheme retract their criticism. I honestly think the odds are probably 50/50 it's this or mainstream.
"I'd rather have an honest system in place where banks aren't constantly skimming every cent from me"
Oh, trust me they will find a way even if you are using bitcoins.
"That, or it's going to get boot stomped out of existence. If that happens, I want to see everyone here claiming it's a CIA and NSA scheme retract their criticism."
So if it doesn't cease to exist, you agree that the NSA/CIA sponsored it?
"It's going mainstream and with that, regulations and taxation are almost a certainity."
So is that a win for bitcoins? At least with Gold I have a choice if I wish the thieves government to know (and thus tax/loot) what I possess (i.e. hide my shit by physically paying cash for gold).
"I just think it's a better method to make purchases."
It can be regulated and taxed like fiat money, so why is it better than it? Oh, it's supply is "finite".
And what is the guarantee there is only a "finite" supply of bitcoins? By relying on the wisdom of some UNKNOWN code guru(s)? or that it can't be instantaneously stolen from me or my spending fully tracked by the mafia government or any of its intelligence agencies? NONE.
What is the guarantee that tomorrow a big fucking loophole is not discovered in bitcoin's algorithm and my hard earned savings blown to smithereens in a virtual crypto-instant? NONE. At least with gold I KNOW FOR A CERTAINITY that it can never be diluted, it will always be scarce and NEVER be destroyed.
I doubt if the majority of bitcoin holders/potential buyers fully understand the code behind it. And if you buy what you don't understand you have only yourself to blame when this particular scheme falls apart.
"What is the guarantee that tomorrow a big fucking loophole is not discovered in bitcoin's algorithm and my hard earned savings blown to smithereens"
Several problems in the algorithm have already been discovered, and wreaked havoc on the networks involved.
A few days ago DogeCoin had a blockchain fork, resulting in at least 3 forks running before the software guys got the situation under control. Some miners ended up on the wrong fork and lost 1000s of coins. These were not stupid people, they were fairly sophisticated operators who just had bad luck. Bitcoin had a similar incident a couple of years ago.
Personally I had only pocket change involved, but it took me a long time to rebuild the software for my own system.
These are just experimental algorithms at this time. Putting a significant amount of money into them at this time is very risky. If you read the technical discussion boards, you will see that most of the techs are recommending caution with respect to "investing" in any crypto currencies.
By suggesting dogecoin is bitcoin is suggesting silver is gold. This is another example of the neandrathal gold bug - if I cannot hold something shiny in my hand it has no value. Do you guys ride horsed to work still? Burn wood for fuel? Send letters via the postal service? Relics of the past holding onto innefficiency because of fear and/or lack of understanding.
so how is sha-256 superior to scrypt? and what about primecoin, where the mining improves the cryptography?
and if i have gold & silver that have an equivalent value in fiat, what is their difference, other than the weight i have to carry around in my pocket?
sustainable offgrid heating & fuel:
wood gasification.
YES, we are.
engineer775 channel
videos:
http://youtu.be/yYGKn12Weu4
http://youtu.be/FqWOCHI9wuo
http://youtu.be/DaIxxochPkw
http://youtu.be/h0FTHrMHD3Y
http://youtu.be/aP8JM9VfZ5s
These are not relics of the past.
These are the way forward.
The future you assume will never exist. The grid will be gone.
You dont' follow any common rules of logic.
"So if it doesn't cease to exist, you agree that the NSA/CIA sponsored it?"
- No, If they destroy it definitely means they weren't behind it. If they don't destroy it, it doesn't mean they are behind it, though. It just means they didn't destroy it. You can't correlate a non-action as an undeniable proof of an implied act.
Of course taxation isn't a win for bitcoins. It's a win for acceptance, but not a win for keeping my money. Once again, you infer meaning that conforms to your bias without any implication from me at all. The comment was supposed to be taken with respect to the next sentence, that taxation and regulation will lose the libertarian crowd for Bitcoin.
"It can be regulated and taxed like fiat money, so why is it better than it?"
It is better because the skim off the top, the taxation by the banking cartel, is much, much smaller. Also, it doesn't require that any more information than necessary is transferred when you make a purchase. If you are afraid of giving out account numbers, you can make new ones instantaneously every transaction. With a mobile phone, it's as quick as scanning a barcode. Their's a new chrome extension that makes payments even easier than that. There are lots of reasons I like it more. But, you once again imply you know the reason - " it's supply is "finite"."
I never said that, you keep feeding your own bias into every single thing I wrote. This has been written 100 times, but I'll comment on your finite theory just to clarify for those that haven't heard it before. The guarantee that the supply is finite is implicit in the trust given to the network that all transactions are valid and the supply of bitcoins is constrained. It is not in the interests of the people in charge of the code to change it, nor is it in the interests of the miners who would have to approve it. There has to be a consensus by at least 51% of the network that the code is valid or the new code will just be a fork in the chain that is not accepted by the network.
Lets say they did decide to change it and the miners are in favor of diluting the value of their work for some crazy reason. You don't have to use it. No one is forcing you to use Bitcoin. If it shakes confidence in the system, everyone can leave. This is a voluntary currency. Which is why this will never happen. governments get away with this kind of behavior because you have no choice but to continue using fiat. If Bitcoin developers decided to dilute the currency for some reason, it likely wouldn't exist anymore.
"By relying on the wisdom of some UNKNOWN code guru(s)? or that it can't be instantaneously stolen from me or my spending fully tracked by the mafia government or any of its intelligence agencies?"
You want me to prove a negative.... again. I can't prove to you that it can't be stolen from you anymore than I can't prove the FBI isn't going to raid your house and torture you today until you give up your gold. It's a strawman argument and one that hasn't happened at all yet.
"What is the guarantee that tomorrow a big fucking loophole is not discovered in bitcoin's algorithm and my hard earned savings blown to smithereens in a virtual crypto-instant?"
Oh look, another prove something that hasn't ever happened argument again. How many times are you going to require proof that something that has never happened isn't going to happen? Prove to me the sun isn't going to explode tomorrow.
And I'm sure you understand the intrinsic properties of gold enough to tell real gold from fake gold in a prepper's world. Especially when dealing with extremely small quantities.
There's no way people are going to band together in this utopian fairytale-like scenario until AFTER the shit hits the fan and then trying the self-sufficient route will be 100x harder if not impossible when everyone is going fucking nuts. Just imo.
As far as bitcoin goes this is a good thesis. Sounds like something a bunch of stupid crazy assholes would try to pull off.
"Sounds like something a bunch of stupid crazy assholes would try to pull off."
Stupid crazy assholes sounds like a pretty accurate description of the US government. The most salient point of this article, which I guess really wasn't a point since the author was wise enough to only speculate about it, is that bitcoin could well be a tool of the administration to defer interest in TRUE alternatives to fiat such as precious metals. Gold and silver are actually money. Bitcoin is not. Bitcoin is a digital currency and has real utility in the facilitation of transactions, but it is not a store of value.
Try telling that to the majority of people in the world using fiat currencies as a store of value.
really? How are my transactions facilitated by a volatility of +/- $100/minute , day or week?
I think not.
Bitcoin's not money, not currency, not anything but a pennystock without a company attached to it.
Spot on !
Excellent post Brandon. Appreciate the critical thinking on this very important topic. Well done.
Explain to me what critical thinking was done? If you've read an anti-bitcoin article in the last month on here, what did he add to that argument? This is a rehash post. I'm all for people having new criticisms, it's something to consider - but he literally didn't add one thing that hasn't been said before.
Well, he added lots of obscuring emotionalism in the form of fear, paranoia and utter disdain for anyone who would disagree with him.
In other words, he's turning into a typical movement leader ("Liberty Movement, that is").
Rule #1 is ALWAYS defense of the institution.
turning into a typical movement leader ("Liberty Movement, that is")
*cough* Bill Ayers *cough*
"Many [Bitcoin followers] were not actually involved in the deeper aspects of the Liberty Movement, constitutional activism, sound money, self defense, and so on." Um, yeah. Since when does using or investing in a currency require you to become a doomsday prepper? Guess what. Many precious metals investors are not interested in doomsday prepping either. How exactly do gold and silver solve the issue of globalism? Please limit your criticisms of a currency or investment to its role as a currency or investment.
True, and it's quite recent that gold and silver are considered as barbarous relics by the system... it has been its preferred currency for centuries ! This said, the lack of monetarist culture within the btc crowd is a problem. I hate all those speculators jumping in the crypto bandwagon that they perceive as a get rich quick plan.
China promotes gold. So, according to Brandon, I should dump it ? Why not, for a change, a constructive and objective article about Bitcoin ? The author raises valid points that are understood by moderately optimists about BTC, but they don't demonstrate that cryptos have no future.
Advantage (maybe) of Bitcoin over Gold is Bitcoin cannot be confiscated. TBTB can squeeze Retailers / Exchanges, or try a Stuxnet way to disrupt trade, but thats about it.
Also possibility that US wants a weaker dollar for Exports/Inflation/reduced Debt load but doesn't want to interveve directly and piss off neighbours, so maybe the boys that created STUXNET were tasked to come up with a way top weaken the US dollar anonymously....and BITCOIN was born.
Just sayin.
"Bitcoin cannot be confiscated" ... unless it's on a NSA leash. But, you know that with a name like Winkylvii behind it, it has to be good.
Sure, NSA will simply bend natural law and then all are fucked.
natural law shows bitcoin already has been confiscated many times.
Bitcoin is a very safe investment/currency for CRACKPOTS.
London Times cryptic crossword 1 across: "These two drugs will make you crazy - 8 letters" The queen can apparently still complete the whole crossword in less than 30 minutes. I've never come close to completing one.
crackpot, 5 seconds
Yeah much safer to have left all your saving's in a Cyprus or EU bank , far safer , by far ..
That may be one of the most pointless articles I've read in recent decades but I'm sure the fascinatingly original comments will completely make up for it.
I have here some Tulip bulbs, very rare colors!!
$ 25.00 each, get in at ground level!!!
Can you stick your Tulip Bulbs down an ethernet cable ? Are they perishable ?
Additionally, one might ask, can they be reproduced endlessly, by anyone, and to excess?
This question ALONE puts the lie to the tulip comparison.
Any idiot still using tulip analogies is to be pitied,
Dimbulb downvotes, yet CANNOT counter my point.
Liberty has to do with choice. If people choose a solution that purportedly isn't "local," so what? There's nothing magic about "local" solutions. My city doesn't let me park in the street in front of my house overnight, as an minor example of its hatred of liberty. Local government and local solutions can be just as bad as big ones. The keys are choice, control and distributedness.
I'm covering this thread in a new page of my blog. Check out it out here.
https://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/battle-of-the-bitcoin-1st...
I intend to list all the different commentors but if i mess up ranking your comments feel free to correct me. I will use:
Number of Commenters
Number of posts
Avarage posts per commenter
Total Likes/Dislikes
Links to soft articles
Links to hard articles
Rebuttles
to rank the top players on the thread i will use the same methodology.
The world needs trainspotters too.
LOL, which is worse?
.
---> people reading ZH 8 hours a day
---> writing about people reading ZH 8 hours a day
anorak, this is where we lose our american friends...
Fine i'll drop it
LITECOIN 4 LYFE!!!!
I wish someone would put together a guide to what is controlled opposition and what is authentic opposition. I mean, I would have gone downtown to the Occupy camps, but they were obvious, but bitcoin? Really? Co-opted, yes, but controlled opposition, I don't know.
I'm so confused. Who do I believe anymore?
Help!, somebody help me!, before I join the wrong movement and find my bff is fbi!.
Excellent observation. this is a dual problem,
1. infiltration into radical groups
2. controlled opposition redefining the narrative,
I am working on several tactics and security measures to weed out infiltrators but but nothing comprehensive yet. I can cook something up.
https://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/battle-of-the-bitcoin-1st...
This is the intended result of FUD.
Inaction.
To act - right or wrong - is the only way to get to your destination. Right action just gets you there sooner, and a little less bruised. But wrong action can still get you there...if not a little wiser for your trouble.
"Elliptical curve" like "a rock star from mars." #winning
Instead of an unreasoned dismissal of the article above, I would like to address every major argument.
I too remain a bitcoin skeptic and a bitcoin fanatic. there are good reasons to like and dislike it at the same time:
like gold, bitcoin can be viewed as a tool of human networks. a different tool, but a network tool. gold , outside of its network purpose, retains little to no value. ( almost all the 'jewelry value' of gold is derived from its acceptance as commodity money'--this much i learned from being a jeweler . gold is not valuable because it is shiny. glass baubles are shiny too. )
The most unsettling aspect of bitcoin, however, is not its distraction away from precious metals. Rather, it is the distraction away from localized solutions.-------- When first confronted with bitcoin activism, I recognized almost immediately that this was NOT a method that operated outside the system, even though it tried very hard to appear that way ---What I came to realize through my questions to bitcoin followers was that many of them were not actually involved in the deeper aspects of the Liberty Movement
the cult of dissidence can be overly myopic. dissident movements and cult figures engage is "you are with us or against us" thinking. some people not in the 'cult' can be of use to the liberty movement without even caring about it much. some tools can be of use to the liberty movement without being gold. this completely exclusive "in or out" way of thinking is precisely the type of thinking that defines the status quo mentality of most people who are vehemently against the liberty movement. and this thinking in the liberty movement plays into their hands---or at least---the hands of their masters......
i'll tell you that most occupy types i met think this way. not that all of them are retards i guess, but many.....i think that's why many thinking occupiers migrated towards liberty type movements rather than their view of centrally planned communism as the answer going forward.
.
no shortage of “solutions” in Liberty Movement circles, but many of these solutions require that we work within the system according to establishment rules there are solutions within and outside the system, who says the best approach is not to use both. are they mutually exclusive? no.
We've all heard praises lavished on bitcoin, not only from the web activists but from the mainstream media itself. Establishment controlled outlets like Reuters and Bloomberg have an astonishing number of bitcoin stories per week, and most of these stories paint the crypto-currency in a positive light.
------you could have said the same thing about occupy wall st when it was popular. the media is irrelevant.
Who really started Bitcoin? Who really started the gun?This makes NO difference. to assesment of cryptocurrency other than that it is open source and in plain sight.
The Media Love Affair With Bitcoin again, who cares, this is merely a distraction from genuine examination of the the substance behavior and functionality of crypto-currency.
Bitcoins Can Indeed Be Confiscated so can gold.
Bitcoin Values Can Be Manipulated so can gold
Bitcoin Is Not Private BEING PUBLIC is what gives gold its value. bitcoin can be private. you can store gold for your friends secretly in your vault by making a 1-to-1 promise . you can give your friends your bitcoin wallet address and your password. without sending them your bitcoins through the network. similarly , you can promise your friends to give them these things while you store them safely on an actual piece of paper in a vault. more to the point. gold's network value is extended by issuing bank notes backed by gold and having them traded in public as 'money'. or you could actually COIN the gold. bitcoin was built upon a network functionality embedding the ability to be traded like gold notes. without public trade of gold on a regular basis----without a network effect, the monetary value of gold goes down. consider a world where no one sees or trades gold in any form for 500 years. how much would the gold in my vault be worth after 500 years when a new generation of people arrive to consider its utility for monetary purposes?
Bitcoin Relies On The Continued Survival Of The Open Web ----THIS IS WORTH A WHOLE DISCUSSION AND ..is a valid point. it is very true in part. but is a complex point.
The Suspicious Nature Of Bitcoin ------while there is wisdom in the chinese proverb that "muddy waters make it easy to catch a fish", you're an old fuddy duddy. if muddy waters were used to distort honest money, it will be a confusing multi-pronged path forward to unmuddy the waters. suspicion is good as it makes people think critically and produce positive end results.
Bitcoin's market value is not only extremely volatile, the currency is also subject to replacement at any time NO, not "at any time"----is gold is subject to replacement at any time by silver, if people who hold gold substitute for silver. it's a money network. all money networks are substituteable just not 'at any time"
volatility of a currency is greatest during it's birth and death. bitcoin is still in the ob-gyn ward of currencies. this applies to crypto-currency in general. other crypto-currencies can in fact compete with bitcoin and the bitcoin specific network of 'miners' can over time , and through grueling sluggish methods, CHANGE the protocol to deal with problems of bitcoin that other currencies might address. if bitcoin is irretrievably flawed---than eventually there is opportunity for a competing crypto-currency to gain wide adoption. this isn't bad, it's good. people talk about gold as if it's this magic independent animated metal. human beings in fact mine gold through methods developed over the ages, and some recently developed methods. then they smelt and refine it and then turn it into bullion and market it. this process is open and many people do it independently. same for silver. why should cryptocurrency be different?
Before that, I had already dealt with just about every currency alternative one could imagine; from paper scripts backed by goods, to scripts backed by time or labor, to gold and silver laden currency cards, etc, etc. All of them had the advantage of NOT relying on private Federal Reserve notes, and all of them had flaws as well. The proposed digital script, which the representatives called “Bitcoin”, was no different.
this is all you need to know. it's an experiment. any experiment, so long as it is genuine, is a possible alternative and thus a useful exercise if not actually destined to be a useful tool. while bitcoin is already being co-opted by the likes of the NSA and the TBTF banking system, that is mostly because they cannot crush it. bitcoin, as a crypto-currency was born of the notion of peer-to-peer transactions with distributed 3rd partys participating in a system of checks and balances . the lack of a centralized clearinghouse was planned into its existence and hopefully will remain this way despite commercial investment into advanced hardware used for mining at ever faster rates. this does not make bitcoin perfect. bitcoin can be tracked and traced with enough money . but it gives the average user FAR more anonymity and safety than any other digital solutions to date. it is also far more expensive for sleuths to track you. with modest effort, a person seeking anonymity can make it FAR more difficult time consuming and expensive for government to track them. arguably 'gold' might be untrackeable---but you still need to with move it or communicate with someone to make it's potential value realizable through promise or transaction making. gold is a network too. all money is network money. any network that doesn't belong to the fed----is in competition with it------they will always attempt to co-opt what they cannot crush.
It's
S#IT COIN
That's all you need to know
Sell High If (it's still) There
Yeah it will crash real bad and dissapear , just like it did in 2009 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , ..........
Many of the comments on this article are so amazingly stupid it is quite clear that the commentors either did not read the article, or they did read it, but failed to comprehend it's meaning.
YAWN!! Yet another negative ZH Bitcoin post.
A non regulated money that is the tool of widespread scamming on the Internet.
Who really thinks the Oligarchs will allow this to be a competitior to the greenback until they or a CB of "repute" doen't control it?
Its a sucker's dream come true to be a libertarain gold digger.
For it to grow it needs to ensure users of its ethics and stability.
Instead of an unreasoned dismissal of the article above, I would like to address every major argument.
8) Bitcoin Relies On The Continued Survival Of The Open Web ----THIS IS WORTH A WHOLE DISCUSSION AND ..is a valid point. it is very true in part. but is a complex point. ----------and your best criticism.
1)
The most unsettling aspect of bitcoin, however, is not its distraction away from precious metals. Rather, it is the distraction away from localized solutions.-------- When first confronted with bitcoin activism, I recognized almost immediately that this was NOT a method that operated outside the system, even though it tried very hard to appear that way ---What I came to realize through my questions to bitcoin followers was that many of them were not actually involved in the deeper aspects of the Liberty Movement
the cult of dissidence can be overly myopic. dissident movements and cult figures engage is "you are with us or against us" thinking. some people not in the 'cult' can be of use to the liberty movement without even caring about it much. some tools can be of use to the liberty movement without being gold. this completely exclusive "in or out" way of thinking is precisely the type of thinking that defines the status quo mentality of most people who are vehemently against the liberty movement. and this thinking in the liberty movement plays into their hands---or at least---the hands of their masters......
2) .
no shortage of “solutions” in Liberty Movement circles, but many of these solutions require that we work within the system according to establishment rules there are solutions within and outside the system, who says the best approach is not to use both.
are they mutually exclusive? no.
3)
We've all heard praises lavished on bitcoin, not only from the web activists but from the mainstream media itself. Establishment controlled outlets like Reuters and Bloomberg have an astonishing number of bitcoin stories per week, and most of these stories paint the crypto-currency in a positive light.
------you could have said the same thing about occupy wall st when it was popular. the media is irrelevant.
4_
Who really started Bitcoin? Who really started the gun?This makes NO difference. to assesment of cryptocurrency other than that it is open source and in plain sight.
5) Bitcoins Can Indeed Be Confiscated. so can gold. so what?
6) Bitcoin Values Can Be Manipulated so can gold. even physical gold yes! so what?
the search for a one perfect currency is a red herring. honest money is not perfect money. don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
7) Bitcoin Is Not Private BEING PUBLIC is what gives gold its value. bitcoin can be private. you can store gold for your friends secretly in your vault by making a 1-to-1 promise . you can give your friends your bitcoin wallet address and your password. without sending them your bitcoins through the network. similarly , you can promise your friends to give them these things while you store them safely on an actual piece of paper in a vault. more to the point. gold's network value is extended by issuing bank notes backed by gold and having them traded in public as 'money'. or you could actually COIN the gold. bitcoin was built upon a network functionality embedding the ability to be traded like gold notes. without public trade of gold on a regular basis----without a network effect, the monetary value of gold goes down. consider a world where no one sees or trades gold in any form for 500 years. how much would the gold in my vault be worth after 500 years when a new generation of people arrive to consider its utility for monetary purposes?
8---addressesed first above
9) The Suspicious Nature Of Bitcoin ------while there is wisdom in the chinese proverb that "muddy waters make it easy to catch a fish", you're an old fuddy duddy. if muddy waters were used to distort honest money, it will be a confusing multi-pronged path forward to unmuddy the waters. suspicion is good as it makes people think critically and produce positive end results.
10) Bitcoin's market value is not only extremely volatile,
volatility of a currency is greatest during it's birth and death. bitcoin is still in the ob-gyn ward of currencies. this applies to distributed crypto-currency in general. other crypto-currencies can in fact compete with bitcoin and the bitcoin specific network of 'miners' can over time , and through grueling sluggish methods, CHANGE the protocol to deal with problems of bitcoin that other currencies might address. if bitcoin is irretrievably flawed---than eventually there is opportunity for a competing crypto-currency to gain wide adoption. this isn't bad, it's good. people talk about gold as if it's this magic independent animated metal. human beings in fact mine gold through methods developed over the ages, and some recently developed methods. then they smelt and refine it and then turn it into bullion and market it. this process is open and many people do it independently. same for silver. why should cryptocurrency be different?
11) the currency is also subject to replacement at any time
NO, not "at any time"----is gold is subject to replacement at any time by silver, if people who hold gold substitute for silver. it's a money network. all money networks are substituteable becuase that is their purpose. just not 'at any time"
11) the currency is also subject to replacement at any time
NO, not "at any time"----is gold is subject to replacement at any time by silver, if people who hold gold substitute for silver. it's a money network. all money networks are substituteable becuase that is their purpose. just not 'at any time"
Bullshit argument.
While gold can be replaced by silver or platinum or rhodium anytime, the number of possible replacements is limited to the number of elements which are non-gaseous at room temperature.
And especially to extract and purify any element comes with a cost, even if it's a very low cost, which kind of hints at its value.
In contrast the number of alternative Bitcoin-like digital currencies is unlimited and creation is practically free of cost.
Bzzzz fail...
It IS easy to replicate the code for an alternate crypto currency.
It is NOT easy to replicate the massive distributed processing network that underpins Bitcoin, and it is not easy to supplant the existing consumer and merchant base, which is also rapidly expanding for Bitcoin, but not for the alt-coins.
Epic fail.
Comparing physical effort to social effort... why again did most dot com stocks implode?
Looks like Brandon Smith & Paul Krugman's pillow talk has leaked out.
Bitcoin...
Because religious beliefs and debates about them never get old.
My local hitman only accepts US fiat currency so I must oblige his preference.
I could have saved the author a lot of time and trouble with 3 words.
BICOIN IS GAY
Finally! An article that captured all the things that bother me about Bitcoin. Spot on.
I've seen that picture of bitcoin somewhere... its a condom package (!)
If you're a Euro Yahoo, bitcoins mine themselves.
In gold we trust.
But platinum will do fine.
And silver is wonderful too.
It is easy to get lost in the weeds (details) on topics like this. What matters most are the fundamentals. And the fundamentals come down on the side of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium and a host of other real, physical, durable goods.
And the most fundamental of the fundamentals? Real value. Real utility.
Which means, the very best way to hold wealth is... in productive equipment and supplies (that you actually operate to produce more goods). As much as I trust gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium and other goods and goodies to hold wealth, one gold-hater criticism is valid, namely "precious metals do not produce additional wealth".
As a producer, that point resonates. So I'm fine holding wealth in precious metals until I have accumulated enough to buy something that produces other goods and goodies that I can enjoy or trade.
A good example? Well, how about my solar panels. Every day they produce electricity so I can run my computer, my fridge, and keep an internet connection so I can annoy people at ZH. Or perhaps my two [not so] little greenhouses that produce food for me to eat. Or a spiffy pick-and-place machine so I can assemble my own PCBs with 0.30mm pitch components and 0201s or smaller: definitely on my wish list.
Bitcoin? Nah. Not for me.
I take my own advice.
And I always say.
Get real.
So I do.
and keep an internet connection so I can annoy people at ZH
please feel free to continue sister...the air always smells fresh on your side of the fence.
though on the subject, would be much more interesting i/m/h/o if all that processing power was being used for SETI, if only for shits & giggles.
How about this for a liberty based arguement for bitcoin.
Let two people use anything, they apply value to, as a means of exchange to complete agreed upon transactions.
Bitcoin works really well to do transactions over long distances with others who value bitcoins (as long as the internet works). There are very small transaction fees and almost instant transactions. If this sounds interesting to you, please join us and use bitcoins. If this sounds crazy and bitcoins hold no value to you please don't use them. That's the beauty of liberty.
Consensus will always win over fiat as power diminishes. Gold and silver that be consesus too.
My concern with BTC manipulation is the same for any crypto-currency (CC): A business model with an Achilles Heel (Mining Manipulation).
1. What happens when the mining difficulty increases to the point where only a small network of ASIC miners ("Star Trek computers") mines coins?
2. Front-running this Mining Problem by going to the next-most-popular coin does not prevent the inherent problem. It merely delays it.
Since there is a small ecosystem of crypto-currencies, the one with ULTIMATE success (in a few years) will be the one to resolve all these Mining-Manipulation problems. If one CC becomes vulnerable, the other ones will gain in market share -- but only IF they are resistant to similar takeover + manipulation by TPTB.
I have not spent oodles of time looking at all the CC and their features and mining methods, but I would imagine that a CC which is resistant to a hostile takeover by TPTB (NSA etc), would have its mining designed such that no "get rich quick" method works. Because such "get rich quick" architectures result in "a business model that inherently attracts the Big Bucks". Because only the Big Bucks can a room full of ASICs". Thus, in time, the few rule the many. Unless... counter-measures are built in.
One example of how to prevent the guys with mega-bucks from taking over with a room full of ASICs, is to have an inherent "randomizing" algo rewarding the work: spread the work to large number of pools. Another (and perhaps more just) way, would be to limit ANY pool/party from having no more than 5% of the total pool (the Anti-Trust rule). The same Anti-Trust rule could somehow be formulated for a country, to prevent its formal authorities from hijacking the system for nefarious and selfish purposes.
If we take a page out of "Lesson Learned" on how a specific demographic group that is 2% of the US population ended up dominating the rest of the 98% and thus dominating many of our allies and foes alike... we realize that they started out by dominating and taking over departments in an org or company (private or public). They then moved up the food-chain: they took over the company, and then the entire sector/industry. This principle of "Hierarchical Positioning & Leveraging" ("nested hierarchies") worked for a small, smart, tightly knit group. It could also work for taking over the CCs, if the CCs do not have "democratizing counter-measures" built in, which keep the mining and usage widely distributed.
the one with ULTIMATE success (in a few years) will be the one to resolve all these Mining-Manipulation problems.
voila. primecoin seems to be the closest to this so far, but imho, the ultimate one would combine primecoin-style POW, POS, CPU only mining, plus some genius branding. it would be really fucking interesting if an algo could be designed that would leverage any attackers' processing power in service of the algo, jiu-jitsu style.
What a great artcile. This type of writing helps keep me on my toes. It helps me to build a fuller understanding of BTC strengths and weaknesses.
In my head, as I read this article, I found myself suggesting solutions to many of the misunderstandings the author has. At the end when the author suggests BTCs largest failing is the it is "non-local" I realized he didn't see bitcoin as the proper tool for a certain job.
I believe it was in Argentina a few years ago, local markets popped up and many used their own currency. This was because the official currency was being printed like crazy (and now supposedly Argentina is short on TP?!? anyway). Anyway what would have happened if at those market places, the local people used a global currency. One enterprising individual could've gotten shitloads of TP brought in and made a killing using a global currency to solve a local solution.
I saw a funny wrench a while ago. I was asked to predict what it's purpose was and I failed to imagine the purpose. I could not come up with the purpose for this novel wrench.
However I wasn't given the answer.
I was given a problem and as soon as I understood the problem, the unique wrench popped into my mind as the perfect solution.
Bitcoin is the best tool for the job of.
"They desire an intellectual method of combat, something with far less fear, far less risk, and far less pain. Enter Bitcoin.
Bitcoin gives the digital generation the chance to feel heroic where they never could before. They don't have to face the machine head on. They don't have to fight. They don't have to suffer. They don't have to die. All they have to do is utilize some cryptographic wizardry within the supposedly anonymous safety of the web, buy bitcoins en masse, and the system would crumble at their feet, rebuilt in the name of free markets by the electronic commons and without a shot fired. Again, very sexy..."
Go fuck yourself author.
I got piles of letters from the IRS.
I refuse to give out my social slave number.
I've been arrested for non violent crimes.
No house and kids so I paid huge taxes.
That fight is tiring especially with dumbasses like you watching from the sidelines while my government keeps raping me.
Fuck that fight. Now I simply side step with bitcoin.
Sun Tzu probably would say I'm wise in my choice of battlefield.
I don't bother with the IRS anymore.
I don't use their money.
My neighbors want Chinese antibiotics, or lead metal, but the dollar is dead. Luckily I can help my local community with my global currency.
You probably make a living and pay taxes. heaven forbig you be the first to lift a finger against big brother.
I lifted that finger, I got little support from "locals" gainst big brother, and told big brother to fuck off.
Its bitcoin for me.
Give me liberty or give me death.
A clear-headed analysis of the Bitcoin scam. Very nice!