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Schlichter: "Bitcoin Is Cryptographic Gold"
Submitted by Detlev Schlichter via DetlevSchlichter.com,
The Bitcoin phenomenon has now reached the mainstream media where it met with a reception that ranged from sceptical to outright hostile. The recent volatility in the price of bitcoins and the issues surrounding Bitcoin-exchange Mt. Gox have led to additional negative publicity. In my view, Bitcoin as a monetary concept is potentially a work of genius, and even if Bitcoin were to fail in its present incarnation – a scenario that I cannot exclude but that I consider exceedingly unlikely – the concept itself is too powerful to be ignored or even suppressed in the long run. While scepticism towards anything so fundamentally new is maybe understandable, most of the tirades against Bitcoin as a form of money are ill-conceived, terribly confused, and frequently factually wrong. Central bankers of the world, be afraid, be very afraid!
Finding perspective
Any proper analysis has to distinguish clearly between the following layers of the Bitcoin phenomenon: 1) the concept itself, that is, the idea of a hard crypto-currency (digital currency) with no issuing authority behind it, 2) the core technology behind Bitcoin, in particular its specific algorithm and the ‘mining process’ by which bitcoins get created and by which the system is maintained, and 3) the support-infrastructure that makes up the wider Bitcoin economy. This includes the various service providers, such as organised exchanges of bitcoins and fiat currency (Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, Coinbase, and many others), bitcoin ‘wallet’ providers, payment services, etc, etc.
Before we look at recent events and recent newspaper attacks on Bitcoin, we should be clear about a few things upfront: If 1) does not hold, that is, if the underlying theoretical concept of an inelastic, nation-less, apolitical, and international medium of exchange is baseless, or, as some propose, structurally inferior to established state-fiat money, then the whole thing has no future. It would then not matter how clever the algorithm is or how smart the use of cryptographic technology. If you do not believe in 1) – and evidently many economists don’t (wrongly, in my view) – then you can forget about Bitcoin and ignore it.
If 2) does not hold, that is, if there is a terminal flaw in the specific Bitcoin algorithm, this would not by itself repudiate 1). It is then to be expected that a superior crypto-currency will sooner or later take Bitcoin’s place. That is all. The basic idea would survive.
If there are issues with 3), that is, if there are glitches and failures in the new and rapidly growing infra-structure around Bitcoin, then this does neither repudiate 1), the crypto-currency concept itself, nor 2), the core Bitcoin technology, but may simply be down to specific failures by some of the service providers, and may reflect to-be-expected growing pains of a new industry. As much as I feel for those losing money/bitcoin in the Mt Gox debacle (and I could have been one of them), it is probably to be expected that a new technology will be subject to setbacks. There will probably be more losses and bankruptcies along the way. This is capitalism at work, folks. But reading the commentary in the papers it appears that, all those Sunday speeches in praise of innovation and creativity notwithstanding, people can really deal only with ‘markets’ that have already been neatly regulated into stagnation or are carefully ‘managed’ by the central bank.
Those who are lamenting the new – and yet tiny – currency’s volatility and occasional hic-ups are either naïve or malicious. Do they expect a new currency to spring up fully formed, liquid, stable, with a fully developed infrastructure overnight?
Recent events surrounding Mt Gox and stories of raids by hackers would, in my opinion, only pose a meaningful long-term challenge for Bitcoin if it could be shown that they were linked to irreparable flaws in the core Bitcoin technology itself. There were indeed some allegations that this was the case but so far they do not sound very convincing. At present it still seems reasonable to me to assume that most of Bitcoin’s recent problems are problems in layer 3) – supporting infrastructure – and that none of this has so far undermined confidence in layer 2), the core Bitcoin technology. If that is indeed the case, it is also reasonable to assume that these issues can be overcome. In fact, the stronger the concept, layer 1), the more compelling the long-term advantages and benefits of a fully decentralized, no-authority, nationless global and inelastic digital currency are, the more likely it is that any weaknesses in the present infrastructure will quickly get ironed out. One does not have to be a cryptographer to believe this. One simply has to understand how human ingenuity, rational self-interest, and competition combine to make superior decentralized systems work. Everybody who understands the power of markets, human creativity, and voluntary cooperation should have confidence in the future of digital money.
None of what happened recently – the struggle at Mt. Gox, raids by hackers, market volatility – has undermined in the slightest layer 1), the core concept. However, it is precisely the concept itself that gets many fiat money advocates all exited and agitated. In their attempts to discredit the Bitcoin concept, some writers do not shy away from even the most ludicrous and factually absurd statements. One particular example is Mark T. Williams, a finance professor at Boston University’s School of Management who has recently attacked Bitcoin in the Financial Times and in this article on Business Insider.
Money and the state: Fact and fiction
Apart from all the scare-mongering in William’s article – such as his likening Bitcoin to an alien or zombie attack on our established financial system, stressing its volatility and instability – the author makes the truly bizarre claim that history shows the importance of a close link between currency and sovereignty. Good money, according to Williams, is state-controlled money. Here are some of his statements.
“Every sovereignty uses currency.”
“Trust and faith that a sovereign is firmly standing behind its currency is critical.”
“Sovereigns understand that without consistent economic growth and stability, the standard of living for its citizens will fall, and discontentment will grow. Nation-state treasuries print currency but the vital role of currency management– needed to spur economic growth — is reserved for central bankers.”
Williams reveals a striking lack of historical perspective here. Money-printing, central banking and any form of what Williams calls “currency management” are very recent phenomena, certainly on the scale that they are practiced today. Professor Williams seems to not have heard of Zimbabwe, or of any of the other, 30-odd hyperinflations that occurred over the past 100 years, all of which, of course, in state-managed fiat money systems.
Williams stresses what a long standing concept central banking is, citing the Swedish central bank that was founded in 1668, and the Bank of England, 1694. Yet, human society has made use of indirect exchange – of trading with the help of money – for more than 2,500 years. And through most of history – up to very recently – money was gold and silver, and the supply of money thus practically outside the control of the sovereign.
The early central banks were also very different animals from what their modern namesakes have become in recent years. Their degrees of freedom were strictly limited by a gold or silver standard. In fact, the idea that they would “manage” the currency to “spur” economic growth would have sounded positively ridiculous to most central bankers in history.
Additionally, by starting their own central banks, the sovereigns did not put “trust and faith” behind their currencies – after all, their currencies were nothing but units of gold and silver, and those enjoyed the public’s trust and faith on their own merit, thank you very much – the sovereigns rather had their own self-interest at heart, a possibility that does not even seem to cross William’s mind: The Bank of England was founded specifically to lend money to the Crown against the issuance of IOUs, meaning the Bank of England was founded to monetize state-debt. The Bank of England, from its earliest days, was repeatedly given the legal privilege – given, of course, by its sovereign – to ignore (default on) its promise to repay in gold and still remain a going concern, and this occurred precisely whenever the state needed extra money, usually to finance a war.
Bitcoin is cryptographic gold
“Gold is money and nothing else.” This is what John Pierpont Morgan said back in 1913. At the time, not only was he a powerful and influential banker, his home country, the United States of America, had become one of the richest and most dynamic countries in the world, yet it had no central bank. The history of the 19th century US – even if told by historians such as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwarz who were no gold-bugs but sympathetic to central banking – illustrates that monetary systems based on a hard monetary commodity (in this case gold), the supply of which is outside government control, is no hindrance to vibrant economic growth and rising prosperity. Furthermore, economic theory can show that hard and inelastic money is not only no hindrance to growth but that it is indeed the superior foundation of a market economy. This is precisely what I try to show with Paper Money Collapse. I do not think that this was even a very contentious notion through most of the history of economics. Good money is inelastic, outside of political control, international (“nationless”, as Williams puts it), and thus the perfect basis for international cooperation across borders.
Money was gold and that meant money was not a tool of politics but an essential constraint on the power of the state.
As Democritus said “Gold is the sovereign of all sovereigns”.
It is clear that on a conceptual level, Bitcoin has much more in common with a gold and silver as monetary assets than with state fiat money. The supply of gold, silver and Bitcoin, is not under the control of any issuing authority. It is money of no authority – and this is precisely why such assets were chosen as money for thousands of years. Gold, silver and Bitcoin do not require trust and faith in a powerful and privileged institution, such as a central bank bureaucracy (here is the awestruck Williams not seeing a problem: “These financial stewards have immense power and responsibility.”) Under a gold standard you have to trust Mother Nature and the spontaneous market order that employs gold as money. Under Bitcoin you have to trust the algorithm and the spontaneous market order that employs bitcoins as money (if the public so chooses). Under the fiat money system you have to trust Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and their hordes of economics PhDs and statisticians.
Hey, give me the algorithm any day!
Money of no authority
But Professor Williams does seem unable to even grasp the possibility of money without an issuing and controlling central authority: “Under the Bitcoin model, those who create the software protocol and mine virtual currencies would become the new central bankers, controlling a monetary base.” This is simply nonsense. It is factually incorrect. Bitcoin – just like a proper gold standard – does not allow for discretionary manipulation of the monetary base. There was no ‘monetary policy’ under a gold standard, and there is no ‘monetary policy’ in the Bitcoin economy. That is precisely the strength of these concepts, and this is why they will ultimately succeed, and replace fiat money.
Williams would, of course, be correct if he stated that sovereigns had always tried to control money and manipulate it for their own ends. And that history is a legacy of failure.
The first paper money systems date back to 11th century China. All of those ended in inflation and currency disaster. Only the Ming Dynasty survived an experiment with paper money – by voluntarily ending it and returning to hard commodity money.
The first experiments with full paper money systems in the West date back to the 17th century, and all of those failed, too. The outcome – through all of history – has always been the same: either the paper money system collapsed in hyperinflation, or, before that happened, the system was returned to hard commodity money. We presently live with the most ambitious experiment with unconstrained fiat money ever, as the entire world is now on a paper standard – or, as James Grant put it, a PhD-standard – and money production has been made entirely flexible everywhere. This, however does not reflect a “longstanding bond between sovereign and its currency”, as Williams believes, but is a very recent phenomenon, dating precisely to the 15th of August 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window, ended Bretton Woods, and defaulted on the obligation to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed price.
The new system – or non-system – has brought us persistent inflation and budget deficits, ever more bizarre asset bubbles, bloated and unstable banking systems, rising mountains of debt that will never be repaid, stagnating real incomes and rising income disparities. This system is now in its endgame.
But maybe Williams is right with one thing: “If not controlled and tightly regulated, Bitcoin — a decentralized, untraceable, highly volatile and nationless currency — has the potential to undermine this longstanding bond between sovereign and its currency.”
Three cheers to that.
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Pricing of various coins depends entirely on the market acceptance of each (network effect), rather than theoretical utility which is pretty much the same for all.
Actual utility value of each coin depends on the network effect - just like USD is more widely accepted than SA Rand .... so it has more support (and these days is also a virtual currency).
Another attribute that affects the pricing is the percieved risk attached to the supporting infrastructure. Bitcoin now has what is the most massive computational network ever built, devoted to securing the transactions it deals with. This makes it the lowest technical risk crypto currency around. As a contrast, the USD supporting banks do have security risks too, and you have the deliberate debasement of the USD by the Fed QE process all of which is guaranteed to bleed your wealth way.
So we a seeing a (partially) free market selection process between national fiat currencies and other choices. The market leader of crypto currencies is Bitcoin by a huge margin, and nothing has launched itself as a better contender.
$1,343
I think we will hit $1450 by the end of the quarter. I also think the move from $1450 to $1600 will happen lightening quick. Then we may retest $1500 or something but gold is in the middle of a nice move up for sure.
Nothing is standing in its way.
crude poppin big as well.
Germany gets about half of its oil from Russia. They burn about 2.5 million bpd. Their domestic production of oil is about 50K bpd.
They won't be voting for war.
hm. Palladium, platinum, silver, gold, WTI & Brent oil showing this, copper in sharp disagreement. That's a cause for concern.
throw the peasants a few more crumbs
make them think they are happy
let the price of gold rise
same difference..
a piece of gold will usually
get you what you need
no mater where you are..
golds true value..
Gold is insurance but BTC is a flyer on the future of money and no matter how cynical the trolls are it seems that there is some science and logic behind it all. It is here tom stay so get over yourselves.
I have 10% of my investments in gold/silver , 25% cash and 2% in BTC. The rest is in dividend paying stocks and mortgages and a few industrial buildings.
I sleep well at night .....
retracements are soooo yesterday...
We'll hit 2500/oz within a year.
Thank you, Nostradumbass.
I've done it before. You haven't. I nailed gold prices for 2 years within about 4% every single day.
such WOW, you should start a newsletter or something.
Why, to collect money off people? I make money from trades of my own & since I'm going to put the time in to produce the charts & spreadsheets regardless it does me no harm to share them out free.
Fonestar is a .gov tag-team, facilitated by ZH, the .gov owned propaganda outlet, boosting BitCoin once again.
Or so it would appear, based upon this load of schlidt just published...
Whole-of-life tracability is the basis of all cryptocurrencies. Why do people want tracability?
Here's his youtube channel...FWIW
https://www.youtube.com/user/weihrauchfan1999
...fonestars last youtube upload...WTF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7wvyqVCwdQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd...
OK, so the dude's got "cabin fever".
Doesn't matter, he is putty in the hands of his Masters.
However, he can't be all bad, if he has enjoyed "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".
Nice hat..... what grade of foil is that ?
No not even close. Bitcoin can easily be hacked, stolen, whatever. Physical... You have to get past a hail of bullets. No comparison sorry. Everything digital is accessible from distance. To say it isn't is pure ignorance.
There's no hail of bullets if taxation on gold transactions is 80%. Then you will have no money for bullets.
<facepalm> Now tell us why taxation on bitcoin transactions can't be set to 80% as well.
(Bonus: why taxation evasion measures couldn't be done on both of them equally.)
Because gold can not be traded over great distances without a 3rd party introducing risk. You can't tax an online black market that only transacts in bitcoin.
Ignorant baloney.
Imagine two scenarios: you store your gold in a house with no glass in the windows and no bolts on the doors. You have no ammunition for your firearm, which is, in any case, a varmint rifle (e.g., an M4).
That is a decent analogy for the noob fucknards who think that they should store their bitcoin wallet on their phone with no (or shitty) encryption.
Conversely, folks with half a fucking brain have the Bitcoin equivalent of a nuclear-survivable bunker with murderholes through which poke twin M2s and a Mk19 (for good measure) and a guy overlooking the approach with an M107 (or a Dragunov SVD or a CheyTac Intervention if you prefer... frankly I think you want fewer types of brass, not more... keep it all at 50cal so you dont' have to fret if the 'X' is behind a wall).
You can't judge the security of a protocol based on the sort of fuckwit who uses "p@ssw0rd" as their password. Those sorts of folks are the types who think that a flywire door is 'security'.
"Bitcoin can easily be hacked, stolen, whatever." This is not only currently technically impossible, it is also (physically impossible). If you are referring to people who lose their bitcoins due to their own ignorance then I am not sure what your argument is. The mathematics behind bitcoin are much more sound than attempting to use violence to fend off an attacker such as the state that is much more powerfull than any individual.
Satoshi Nakamoto once fought Superman on a bet. The loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his pants.
I bet Chuck Norris could take him.
Both Carl Weathers and Wesley Snipes bet on black, except when they can bet on Chuck Norris.
Satoshi Nakamoto's puppy is named Chuck Norris. She's a good little bitch.
Yep, Satoshi doesn't even have a bridge named after him....
So is ZH finally dropping the CNBCesque petulant attacks on Bitcoin and analyzing it in a mature fashion?
We all know the current system will implode yet everyone is here is to cool for school to at least acknowledge that bitcoin is a very likely option to fix this abortion.
How is BTC or any other crypto scheme going to fix the "current system"? We can see how it could be useful for money laundering and reducing transaction fees but that falls short of fixing "this abortion".
Did anyone claim bitcoin has a purpose to fix a system?
There is no monetary fix for a planet running short of its primary energy source that moves food. There's no fix of any other kind, either.
Bitcoin's value is you get to take it with you when you flee. Simply and only that. And that's a huge value, as we saw in Cyprus, and Argentina, and now Ukraine.
When withdrawls are limited and life becomes unlivable, then like any other refugee, you flee.
It is a platform and infrastructure. Transfers/remittances are just one feature.
Ghostzapper said the current system was going to implode and that bitcoin was very likely to fix the problem/"abortion". So, yeah, ghostzapper claimed that bitcoin had a purpose for fixing the system.
Just responding to what he posted.
Fellas - I am not saying it was created with the sole purpose of destroying the banksters so to speak. I am also not a "Bitcoin nerd" or bitcoin suckup. I'm just trying to be realistic and open minded. I've made mistakes but over time have done a damn good job training myself to eliminate personal feelings/thoughts to the best of my ability. In other words - it doesn't matter what YOU think or feel what matters is what all of the relevant data/information is telling you is the most likely outcome.
I'm convinced the ONLY way and I mean ONLY way society could ever have a sound financial system over time is if humans were eliminated from the control over money. Didn't Jefferson say this a couple hundred years ago???? Bitcoin does indeed accomplish this by letting mathematics determine how much new currency/money is printed/mined on a schedule that any idiot can ultimately understand. This turns the entire system of money printing/debt/inflation on its head.
I mean come on guys just look around. Every time you blink some currency is imploding. The problem is when humans control it then it will end up fucked up and in the toilet. Politicians will ALWAYS choose the easy way out and temptation of printing more money. Do you really think this will EVER change?
The thing is Bitcoin can be much more than just a payment method or butt of a childish joke used by CNBC or some other financial media whore. You could create an entirely new financial system and ecosystem on top of the Bitcoin platform. Less than one billion people have access to legitimate banking/scam services yet more than a few billion have mobile internet access. Christ almighty you don't need to be a genius to see that it is WAY more likely that these "underbanked" and yet to be ripped off by Dimon folks will end up moving to something like Bitcoin if not Bitcoin itself before Dimon opens a chase branch in their neighborhood/village. .
Gold is great but let's face not it practical at all. Additionally, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how much gold exists and who owns it and where it is located. You would think if gold were so "rock solid" then that shit would be wound tight. Then why the fuck is it so hard to actually pin down this information? Answer - humans are involved and it's been sliced and diced and chopped up by bankers and lord knows where it is and who owns it. That doesn't mean I don't support owing some gold because I do. I just feel it has its limitations.
Mt-gox came from gamers, ... guy that stay up at night playing wizards, and game-boys, and x-box, ... and nintendo,
In their minds they created the perfect crypto-currency that would right all wrongs done to NERDS for all time.
Great fucking narrative for a game-box
BUTT, now for the big but, along come KARPELES and SHREM 2 AIPAC ZIONIST spawn boys that walked away with 1 Billion USD of real money from the game-boy cult, ... and to date the game-boyz, still don't even realize they have been robbed.
"I said that BITCOIN would take you places, I never said GOOD places" - the joker
Bitcoin is a fun hobby, if you like playing around with computers, and somebody else is paying your expenses. Cashing in a few coins now and then is fun too, and the money can be used to upgrade your rig.
Everybody wins! Except the chumps buying the Bitcoins, and who cares about them anyways? When it comes time for them to get their money back, it will be conveniently lost or stolen.
Total slap for your comment. If you read the history of Bitcoin, and especially the original whitepaper, it is the result of several decades of research by lots of extremely serious cryptographers. Not 'gamers' by any stretch.
Satoshi added final 'keystone' in the puzzle - he solved the Byzantine Generals Problem. But most of the Bitcoin system is other well tested logic units created over decades by many other talented people.
You comment is factually incorrect, misleading and gives away your true motivation as paid banker shill.
"Did anyone claim bitcoin has a purpose to fix a system?"
You mean besides GhostZapper two posts up?
well, that's reasonably useless.
Where I would flee to must have physical security for my body, my material goods, past & future, and from surveillance, which generally means I will go to a place that has no grid which means I can't use bitcoin. It then has zero value. No network, no power grid, no cell towers, nothing. That's safety & that's where I'm headed.
"There is no monetary fix for a planet running short of its primary energy source that moves food"
Depends on what else is food. We're very near a time of having artificial photosynthesis. Already work has accomplished bleeding electrons out of it.
Once we can pump electrons into it we can farm crops in pure darkness.
That changes things up quite a bit.
It eliminates humans from having literally any control over how much nee money is created. Just think about that for a long time without letting any of your personal opinions or stack of PMs influence the magnitude of this potential. The entire debt/money printing system could go away over time. I'm just being realistic as opposed to childish like most here.
No, everything about how bitcoin works is dictated by humans. Humans dictate the ASICs performance & power to them (electricity) and which connections (wires) and servers (computers) will use btc and how the software works to allocate bitcoin or generate the SHA hashes. It's not automatic, it's not from nature, it's from humans.
You fundamentally misunderstand what bitcoin is. You're not a programmer.
I am.
I understand what bitcoin really is, what it really can not do, and that's why I'm smart enough to never use it.
See that is the problem debating BITCOIN with the 'fonestar' crowd here, is that they're NOT programmers, they game-players, they could NOT write a compiler, or operating-system, or network in their lifetime, not a fucking clue any of them,
But they do have the power to impress other idiots.
Long ago a smart man said "Never argue with a moron in public, as the other morons, never know who is the real moron"
Any of us that are programmers and who have read the Satoshi papers and read the Satoshi code, know that its all a fucking "HACK", but 99.99% of the religious ones will never be confused by fact, because they operate on passion and faith, ... while us programmers operate on what we 'know'.
Well I am a programmer too - and with many decades of experience in that and other life disciplnes... and whilst the Satoshi code is pretty clunky from an 'elegance' viewpoint, it is stunningly good at implementing the protococol he invented.
It also seems to be more robust than I would have expected from looking at it.
At any rate, his real invention is the protocol. Anyone can write their own code to conform to that - or propose revisions to his code. It is Open Source ....
And the gamers can/will rave on regardless.. and the haters will hate.. time for a cup of coffee
I assure you being a programmer is not an assurance of one having any understanding of money. Also your previous comments seem to show the same about being a programmer and having any understanding of bitcoin. But please, continue telling us all how much smarter you are than everyone else here because you have deemed yourself a programmer.
I assure you my understanding of money came after being a programmer, it came from understanding gold and oil.
Now I understand both at an expert level.
I clearly understand everything about bitcoin works far, far better than you do.
That's what's so laughable. You're a retarded monkey trying to tell me bananas are magic and I'm a real live human with a very high IQ wondering how to entertain the monkey and keep dodging the occasional fistful of feces you throw.
You're so funny. You think you're a people.
Maybe next for fun we should teach you how to use fire.
How will it fix the current system? By bypassing the banks.
The banks are the source of very nearly all of the evil in modern society.
Nothing about how bitcoin works stops the banks from participating just as nothing about fiat requires that you use a bank. You could use direct paper cash & no bank. I know many who do. I'm nearly there except my employer insists on electronic deposit so I use that. I could be extra-insistent and avoid it but it's not worth the hassle, for now.
I guess I'll change my mind the day a deposit goes in & can't be removed.
Same for bitcoin: nothing blocks a participant from using it, trading it, maybe for fiat, or holding it, with many wallets, and for that participant to actually be a bank. Nothing identifies bank-held bitcoins vs non-bank-held bitcoins.
Aye, that is rather the beauty of it. The network identifies participants by randomly generated address. Banks can participate but we are not forced to use banks while using the bitcoin network. C'mon, we all know No Child Left Behind was a failure but learn the difference between "bypass" and "allowed to participate".
+1 for making some good points.
The thing which seems retarded is the hashing and energy required to do so, (as you pointed to). Maybe someone will tell me that this amount of power is what it takes to form a network of this magnitude, but I don't think that running messaging software or an email program requires so much energy. Not looking for holes in BTC protocol, just seems a little wasteful.
I prefer payment using analogue methods. Okay, I can transact with BTC no problem, but I still haven't found an appropriate person whom I could feel comfortable purchase them from, (without handing out my life information to an exchange over the internet). If/when that changes, maybe I'd start using it, but I guess the market will already be cornered by that time.
When you write a message on ZH, they take your text and store it in a database on a central server. When others request this page, ZH feeds your text to them. Instead of handling text, if ZH started a currency that trades freely around the world, it would be shut down. There are examples of this (E-Gold, Liberty Reserve).
With Bitcoin there is no central server. There's no central office like Visa or Western Union where all the transactions simply clear against an in-house ledger. So, the distributed network has to agree which transactions are legit and which aren't. Bitcoin is not naive, we realize there are bad actors out there that would like to block or otherwise falsify transactions. People vote with their computer power. The assumption is that using hashpower properly and receiving mined currency in return is incentive enough to keep the network honest.. and protected against those who would like to attack it.
Re: "(without handing out my life information to an exchange over the internet)." You do realize that is all gov't mandate AML/KYC crap, right? In general, bitcoin sellers and companies wouldn't give a flying fuck about it. That and the fact it is very easy to reverse most types of fiat transactions but once a bitcoin is out of a seller's hands, it is gone. LocalBitcoins.com can hook up anonymous cash transactions but you'll pay a premium.
The blockchain is a big fat target taking the place of a central server and in the worst possible way.
Now you get all the losses of a take-down AND all the confusion of having forked blockchains and the added inconvenience of a proven-exponentially growing blockchain so eventually no one will be able to use it both those with the most money for the most computing power & highest network transmission speeds.
Epic fail.
PGP signatures could solve more than this problem with zero hashing & we can keep upgrading key sizes & web of trusts on keys as well as how many signatures ON a message are required to make them valid at all.
Bitcoin can't do any of this.
Public/Private key signatures are a part of the bitcoin tech stack. Bitcoin just uses a more efficient and more secure algo than PGP.
SHA256 is not going to be broken by Moore’s law computational improvements in our lifetimes. If we see a weakness in SHA256 coming gradually, we can transition to a new hash function after a certain block number. The new software would keep a new hash of all the old blocks to make sure they’re not replaced with another block with the same old hash.
As far as multi-sigs, Bitcoin has Script built in. Forth-like, stack-based, it is purposefully not Turing-complete, with no loops. Multi-sigs, time-capsule locks, just about any smart contract you can think of, out of the box. Yeah, decentralization sucks.no, PGP uses the most secure.
Bitcoin is a fixed key size & that's a problem.
SHA256 could be broken enough times using existing hardware to ruin bitcoin completely. It would need to happen only to the 10 biggest btc wallets ever, in all history, to make all people dump all bitcoin. You'd dump it too.
I'd send you another Yoda picture about sensing much butthurt.
Each time bitcoin gets cut in half, everyone forgets the 10 handle that came before. Let's think about that a sec, taking time out from mapping together Putin's rather impressive daisy chain of military bases designed to protect his pipes.
Never Forget. Never Surrender.
ZH has been fairly even-handed concerning bitcoin. It just seems to you like Tyler attacks bitcoin because unlike most bitcoin communities, he posts the good and the bad news.
Agreed. The comment section seems to love arguing about bitcoin so ZH provides more articles about it. It's important to remember that a lot of people on ZH lost a lot of money because of the usual suspects we love to hate. BitCoin is not exactly a mainstream investment right now and entails risk. Risk has been Off for a long time here.
Quoting the Mt. Gox bitcoin as "the" bitcoin price after they suspended withdrawals is pretty god damn far from even-handed, and you know it.
You just hate bitcoin, so you ignore it and pretend biased headlines are legitimate.
My nephew and his friend built themselves really nice gaming systems with dual high end graphics cards. They're really excited that they can mine DogeCoins with their graphics cards and between the two of them they have accrued $150 in a month. They asked me if I knew a good way to exchange DogeCoin for US clownbux. Apparently they're both on the hook for the increased power bill from their parents who will take it out of their allowance if they don't pay up. On the plus side, their rooms don't need to be heated.
"On the plus side, their rooms don't need to be heated."
You might consider buying your nephew a fire extinguisher to keep handy near the mining rig.
Speaking of gold, off to the races tonight... is war bullish for gold?
I asked my drug dealer if he would accept bitcoins as payment and he looked at me like I was on drugs
LOL!!
Now that's funny !
He's certainly behind the curve then according to every MSM report on bitcoin and drugs.
NO. That is my answer to this new, innovative and very modern ideas like Bite-coin. No go area. I'm fine thank you.
http://www.thewarningsecondcoming.com/666-will-be-embedded-its-number-hi...
What is wrong with gold and silver? It can't be diluted to zero like FIAT and BITCOINS.,
gold can't be hacked either. it probably won't get stolen. if it's gold or bitcoins i'm gonna have to side with the goldbugs.
I think you could argue that a "salted" bar is a form of gold-hacking... unless you have the equipment to test, how do you know it's solid all the way through?
Why you just pull out your handy port-o-smelter. Don't you know there are no practical limitations to using gold as a transactional currency? Buzzsaw, you were siding with the bankers a few comments up so I am not sure how valid your opinion is at this point.
How do you test the purity of gold in a trade?
acid & magnets. How do you test the purity of dollars? Apparently a special marker, UV lights, same now with Canadian fiat bills.
How do you test purity of bitcoin?
You need 2 things & that's a problem: #1 you need to analyze the entire blockchain, which is growing exponentially, #2 since metals have intrinsic value & electrons-PATTERNS like bitcoin do not, you now have to validate a real bitcoin can actually be traded for anything of value. THIS PROBLEM is insurmountable: not only does this require reliable conections for verifying bitcoin fiat value it also requires reliable ON-GRID shipping for goods or services at a distance, which is the typical use of a digital currency. It's pointless to requirea network & power grid to exchange a network currency for goods in-person. That's what actual coin & cash are good at & reduces risk.
Tungsten embedded in a gold bar isn't going to be affected by surface acid tests and it's not magnetic just like gold. The only way you are going to be able to verify it 100% without a $50k piece of equipment is to drill into it. As for the fiat currencies any counterfeiter worth their salt can overcome all of their so called security features.
Yet again you show your complete lack of any understanding of bitcoin and how it works. Yet you continue to spread your bullshit lies/ignorance as gospel. What happened? I thought you were a self proclaimed programmer? Perhaps not in the right languages? If someone transfers a bitcoin to your legitimate bitcoin address then it has already been verified by all of the network to have been real BTC, you dont' have to verify this yourself but you certainly could if you wanted. Posessing a "fake" bitcoin is not even possible as it could not exist in the blockchain to begin with. As for having internet access you seem to really be reaching for anything to invalidate bitcoin at this point. Most all goods for sale around here are avaliable to be purchased by credit or debit, meaning all of those locations already have internet access. As for the farmer selling his produce on the side of the road, even he likely has a phone with internet connection, and if he doesn't now he probably will in the coming decades.
Incorrect.
Every conducting metal has a unique reaction to every choice of velocity, linear or angular, in a magnetic field.
This gives it away completely.
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SILVERMAGNETSLIDE#g/u
"If someone transfers a bitcoin to your legitimate bitcoin address then it has already been verified by all of the network to have been real BTC, you dont' have to verify this yourself but you certainly could if you wanted"
You're skipping a step:
that takes several minutes when I want it to take ZERO. Those precious minutes every transaction are a perfect time to fork the blockchain.
Gold doesn't have a blockchain and money never needed one. Blockchain iz fail.
The only way to mess with the magnet test is to construct a lattice pattern of one metal within another & that would have to be specially constructed for each geometry of each bar or coin and even then, it wouldn't act like pure gold or silver, it would act like a composite whose inner layers resemble the mesh of a microwave door's shielding, only the holes attuned to different sizes to account for the expected eddie-currents which would directly depend on the velocity of the metal in the magnetic field.
You're amateur-hour dealing with real scientists here.
You're out of your league.
If you can't do your own assay, you trust a third party. You will require a few things and time to do your own assay.
sincerely,
member for 9 weeks.
BOGUS BUD,
Hi Dad : )
I was reading the comments on a story on ZeroHedge about the deep freeze and of course the debate turns to global warming. My jaw dropped when I read this comment, third paragraph, and thought you might get a smile from reading it too : ) Sun, 01/05/2014 - 23:10 | 4303521 Spumoni
Weather records exist in some detail for the US since 1865, and part of my job once upon a time was to analyze that data and determine the geographical dimensions of low pressure systems. Using what was available from 1865 until 1997, we were able to say with a 99.7% certainty that the diameter of the largest 10% of low pressure systems crossing the mid-Atlantic region increased a little bit each decade until about 1965. After that, the rate of growth began to accelerate rapidly. Since Hurricane Mitch, we have seen higher tops, greater diameters and windspeeds in the top 25% of storms than any measured since the NWS began. This is, admittedly, a short timespan from a geologic or geomorphic point of view. It is quite clear, however, that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth atmosphere has been increasing on a logarithmic scale since shortly after the industrial age began. For that, we have data that is millions of years old, taken from isotopes buried in layers of ice in glaciers and the icecaps. What is not in doubt is that the current levels of carbon and its compounds in the atmosphere exceeds anything ever measured using isotopes.
The thing is, when you add it up, we actually do produce more pollution now than so-called "natural" sources (many of those forest fires you mention are human derived). That oil you mention was never in the atmosphere until we burned it. For every gallon of diesel or gasoline we burn, we are adding about 8lbs of pollutant gases and carbon to the air we breathe. How many hundreds of millions of gallons of gas are burned globally every week? Every time Assad blows up another building, someone vents a methane dump, turns on the furnace, starts the car, opens the fridge or turns on the lights, more oil/coal/gas is being burned somewhere to make that happen. It didn't matter so much when the human population was ten million. It matters a lot more when the population is closer to ten billion.
The thing about a closed system is this: quantum events happen. The electron doesn't gradually make its way from the K valence to the L valence-it jumps those angstroms all at once. You don't precipitate the gold from an acid solution of aqua regia gradually - the reaction doesn't happen until the level of sodium metabisufite is enough to trigger the reaction. The fossil record is jammed full of species that failed to adapt to a changing environment - and if the percentage of free oxygen in our atmosphere goes too far from the well-established norm that nobody argues about, then we, my friend, are done. Full stop. If the several hundred billion tons we dump each year into our atmosphere is or isn't what pushed it over the edge, there will be nobody left to argue the point.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-05/jfk-shuts-down-after-plane-skids-ice-skating-rink-runway-entire-nation-blanketed-sub?page=7
for gold assay: never, ever trust a 3rd party. Verify all that you can yourself or you know nothing.
I understand a lot of us will be lazy on this but it's a risk. That risk means getting or giving a thing of lesser value and that may lead to a fucked up inventory later of goods you need or someone returning with a gun & a grudge in SHTF.
For the sake of all involved I strongly suggest personally being able to assay.
Why do you post about things you are completely ignorant of?
Sorry but GOLD is MONEY. Bitcoin is at best a computer-generated money transfer system...but it's not money in and of itself.
THANKS for that
Actually. GOLD IS just GOLD. It's just been worshiped as the best proxy for exchanging things the longest. But make no mistake, the idea of putting "faith" in gold is no different than putting "faith" in something like bitcoin. It's an idea competing for followers. Nothing more, nothing less. How many people believe in it, embrace it, write books about it, develop industry and education around it and develop a full working economy around it is what takes it from an idea to global proxy of exchange.
Just as occurred when gold was first chosen, and when fiat currencies first emerged. It's religion with evangelists writing the gospel and looking for believers.
Bitcoin is a religion, and the most important point in this piece is that even if bitcoin fails, the idea of decentralized proxy for exchange lives on morphing into the next itteration building on what it's learned from it's previous failures. Just like gold did, just like fiat did.
Yep.
How the... Who the heck let you in here?
Gold is already decentralized of course. It can be held apart from any bank or government influence. And if I get tired of looking at it as money, I can always make something else out of it.
Not so much with BitCoin and its various exchanges of worth & value.
Pretty versatile, wouldn't you say? ;-)
Bitcoin is actually a new data storage type as well as a currency. Before it's creation you could not have a documents existence verified and timestamped by an entire network of anonymous peers. This ability certainly has value.
As the poster above has pointed out, money is what society as a whole decides, and for the future of the human race I would hope they could decide logically and choose the option with the most benefits.
"How many people believe in it"
Well, that's the point. More people "believe in" gold having value, and have done so for the longest time, than in any single other item. Plus...you can hold it in your hands - unlike a computer program.
Bob Dylan - The times they are a changin'
That's a fundamental misunderstanding:
I have zero faith in gold.
I have uses for gold & I can see how others have used it and I do not mean for trade, though I am aware of that as well.
Gold is a proven useful material & bitcoin is proven, having no atoms, to be not useful at all.
By your logic a promise to complete a trade is useless. Remind me to never enter into a contract with you.
You probably find love and friendship useless as well.
no reminding is necessary: I make honest trades, which are physical things or bartered services. You do not. You offer only empty tokens & they are of no value.
My friends trade as I do, physical useful things or valuable skilled abilities.
Love: yes. I reject it. I have no place for it in my life. It has only ever served to bring me anger and trouble. I removed it and my life's been happy ever since.
You must a be a real hoot at parties, fucking psycopath.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
A psychopath doesn't know right from wrong. I do. I'm showing you what's right from wrong. You're in disagreement.
That could easily make you the psychopath. I stick to what has value & I don't disrespect my friends so I don't offer them shit and call it value.
You really shouldn't INSULT religion.
Maybe what you mean is that BTC is the ICON for the religion of stupidity.
Certainly the BITCOIN CULT certainly act's like SCIENTOLOGY, in every fucking way, from their defense, to their offense, they follow the scientology playbook.
But Scientology wants it all, they want your body, mind, money, property et-all
But Bitcoin CULT only wants your money, thus its just a low level fraud, perhaps eventually some smart fuck-head out there will create the "CHURCH of BITCOIN", where fonestar can have human sacrafices and total power over the lives of others, ... for now BITCOIN doesn't even scratch the surface of 1% of the power that a true religion can have over peoples lives.
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We certainly see BITCOIN as a family, and where they want their HERD to break off from the system, I'm sure soon we'll here of a BITCOIN-GULCH, where the true believers can live like Jones-Town in GUYANA, until fonestar pours the KOOLAIDE.
Uri Geller bends spoons with his mind. Satoshi Nakamoto bends minds with his spoon.
Uri Geller bends spoons with his mind. Satoshi Nakamoto bends minds with his spoon.
As you may or may not agree, Uri Geller is an illusionist. Most fail to understand this. Granted, he probably makes money from what he does, as I'd guess does the alleged person you write of. Of course, it's all a matter of belief, yet I remain dubious. A mémoire of Keiser Söze.
The only thing that can be transferred in this crazy "money transfer system" of which you speak is bitcoin. So what is the money that is being transferred? I'll wait for it...
These ZH bitcoin articles are absolutely ridiculous.
They are posted to inflame and instigate people... the bitcoin nerds vs the PM bugs... no other reason.
Clicks pay the bills.
Keywords pay the bill's, to educated those who may not understand GOOGLE advert revenue is driven by KEYWORD clicks,... keywords drive the ad's and the rankings, people are still out their searching google for gold or bitcoin, ... By ZH having these pathetic story's then when people search for 'gold' or 'bitcoin' they're brought to this site, new readers are needed as people in general quit ZH quicker than they come in.
Most important is that not only does google rank keywords, but keywords are ranked by political correctness as well. Bitcoin may be valuable for an advertiser because anybody that is STUPID enough to buy into BITCOIN is a 'mark' that can be sold anything thus young stupid idiot kids living in mom's basement, but access to mom's credit card, everybody wants those kinds of people to sell them bullshit.
Another problem with this chasing the 'google nickel' model of being a WHORE on the internet is that GOOGLE ban's many keywords such as 'j-', or 'Zion..', .... or Israel, ... or AIPAC, or AZC any such keywords on your site and your site gets down-ranked, which means that you become invisible on the internet.
Thus ZH has many problems at hand, they need stupid comments and posts that have HOT keywords like "GOLD", "PUSSY", "BITCOIN", but on the other hand the sites MUST not have keywords like "Jew", "AIPAC", or "Zionist". Managing the balance to maximize nickels and ranking positon in google is the holy-grail for those who whore themselves on the internet.
Micro-payments for the win!
Satoshi - serious question - why is it that Jim Quinn @ The burning platform was dropped from Google, while ZH retains it's Doubleclick/Adsense/+1/Anlaytics trackers to pay the bills? I can't make sense of why he was canned and others who have similar contentious speech are not in a similar position.
Google Clicks
That is a very complicated question. Infinite scenarios I'll pick a few
1.) Is that ZH is an AIPAC approved WHORE of GOOGLE/NSA, and they tolerate little to no bad words j-, ... z-, but everytime that ZH goes over the edge they get a courtesy call, and delete the trouble makers ( me ).
2.) Is that another party say in INDIA could making making mega-clicks on 'burning platform' which puts them on google's shitlist, ... you can pay someone to click ad's, and they share the google ad-works profits with you, ... you do this on somebody you don't like with one of the more evil click services and you will KILL that site,...
3.) ZH makes it just hard enough to get in that google can discern good/bad clicks, and note also to get a ZH account to use ZH, you must use the GOOGLE validator, which means they have your IP, which is a HIGH trust level for google with ZH, I'm not sure that 'burning platform' does the full retard NSA/GOOGLE nazi partner tracking as found here on ZH.
In summary ZH/AIPAC/GOOGLE-NSA are incestuous
No. It isn't anymore gold than tulips or beanie babies were. And the hacking has only just begun. These non-tech clowns have no idea WTF they are talking about. No one needs to break any codes. No one needs access to your flash drive. If you trust bitcoin you are one step away from being the kind of person that opens up email attchments from strangers. You lack knowledge and imagination.
All you need to know is the NSA has a backdoor on every system that transacts in bitcoin. Then it gets worse from there because the free market is involved. What else do you need to know about digital currency?
I need to know if it will xray at the airport.
Yes. It looks just like a hard drive on the xray machine.
"All you need to know is the NSA has a backdoor on every system that transacts in bitcoin." Quite a broad statement. Any proof of this?
Yes.
Where?
He's writing from the "truthiness" sector of his brain, so he can't provide a source.
To him, the NSA is God, and not to be defied. Only deified.
leaks & confirmations from Snowden, Drake, Binney. We're talking hundreds of documents at least on-point to this.
I think you confuse the ability to strongarm corporations like ISPs and Google with the threat of state power with the ability of having more mathematical knowledge than all of the rest of the world combined. Don't you think if this were truly the case and the NSA were somehow atleast 10 times smarter than everyone else there wouldn't have been a 'leak' to begin with?
I think you misunderstand the topic completely. By capturing the network only the most secure devices can retain data integrity and none of the networks can sustain transmission-integrity, and that speed-transmission of error-free data is a basic requirement of bitcoin's blockchain.
Next to 0.000001% of all people using bitcoin have any mathematical knowledge at all. You're certainly displaying none.
SHA256 is no more than 256 bits long, 32 bytes, do you agree or disagree? If you want to go into math you must be very specific to every algorithm & bit or you have no place making a comment on a sub-topic except to show your ignorance of each such issue.
Good article! Stunned... Everyone needs to realize Bitcoin is digital money, and is not proven as a digital currency. However a digital currency will come along, probably backed by Bitcoin or gold or both, that will be used for daily trade. It's unavoidble.
How is a raven like a writing desk?
I have no idea.....
“Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Poe wrote on both.
You're smacking them out of the park tonight!
Ok, I took the time to read it.
It is still encumbered, therefore it is not and cannot be "money". It relies on a myriad of devices, operational infrastructures and faith of exchange to even be recognized as a "currency", let alone money.
Unbacked fiat notes are currency, not money. Money does not lose purchasing power to the banking system, any unbacked currency does because it relies on something besides itself.
If you want to find the value of money vs unbacked fiat (and theoretically BitCoin) look up the melt value of a 1964 quarter. It's value in purchasing power is the same thing it was then...roughly, a coke and bag of chips OR a gallon of gas.
Now, you can in fact place "a value" for moving money through cyberspace and it also comes with a risk quotient, thats one thing, it's a conveyance of money but it's not worth $600 a pop. You can do that with a debit card now or anything else the bankers have already devised & built (the infrastructure) but realize you just converted a real asset (real money, your saved labor) into something unreal, a world in which they live in.
Good luck with that.
Your definition of money is what is encumbered. If you continue at this rate I don't think anything will fit the bill. Perhaps nothing is truely good enough to be called money? Don't you need trucks and fuel and armed guards to transact over large distances with gold? Don't you need precision analytic equipment to verify that gold is authentic? Wouldn't you need high quality scales to weigh gold if it were actually being used globally with the current quanitity that exists on earth? How about the practical issues of divisibility if everyone on earth were to transact in gold? Sure seems like gold would rely on quite a few things besides itself. Some of it even including that scary thing called technology, and I mean, who can trust that stuff am I right? Such a myriad of devices and operational infrastructure.
Brilliant. Thank you. I recently tried to do an in person transaction where I traded PM's for bitcoin. The buyer had scales and magnets (probably acids as well) to test authenticity. He found a couple of suspect rounds and refused the whole batch and insisted on cash. I had to drive to the local coin shop from which I purchased the coins and he bought them back with only a cursory inspection. We completed the cash/BTC transaction as i viewed the coins arriving to my address on the blockchain in seconds. No muss no fuss, no scales, no magnets, no acids, no expensive handheld ultrasound devices.
nmewn? Sorry Digi, guess you haven't been 'round long enuf or sumptin. The same thing happened to me and and I waited and waited. The ZH doesn't inform when you get a reply from what I can figr, which only compounds the BS.
Its called living in different time zones and in some cases, apparently, on different worlds.
Still waiting to feel & behold my new BitRing, in all its virtual beauty, I hope it fits ;-)
I suppose if being able to be used as jewelry is such an important property for your choice of money to posesses, then so be it.
Accidental double post...
A spot-on cogent analysis. Bitcoin is indeed modeled after Gold. By design. It also is not something that governments can simply print at will.
Don't get me wrong, PMs are great. Bitcoin shares similar desirable properties and adds some. Even if bitcoin were to be cryptographically defeated, the genius of using distributed consensus to defeat double spends would survive. Folks, crypto-currency has value and isn't going away any time soon. May as well try to understand it and use it to your advantage rather than dismissing it out of hand without honestly evaluating the merits.
He who controls the code owns all the bitcoins.
No-one controls the code. It's all in the public domain.
Might as well claim that he who controls the mines controls the gold. Sounds truthy, but it just ain't so.
If I download the code, whose code am I downloading? If there is an update to the code, how does it get out and where does it come from? Who controls the code? That person is king.
Enjoy!
The way BTC works is that he who controls more than +51% of the computational horsepower at any given time, is the QUEEN-BITCH.
In the orginal PLAN by SATOSHI, there was no MINING CORPORATIONS (hash-io), and NO BIG BTC banks(mt-gox)
Satoshi concluded BTC would work, because TRUST was there given that NO man would ever have more than 5% of the computational power, given that BTC was to be P2P ( peer to peer ), little guy to little guy,
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the FRAUD, mining became a BIG business, POOLS were formed where ONE guy did have control of +51%, and Exchanges became so big they too had over +51%, then the Greed took over the 2-5 men controlling +90% of BTC fucked the bitch for everything that it was worth.
*
BTC 2.0 will be real p2p, and it will have no mining pools, and no exchanges.
If readers agree that he who controls the VOLUME of money is the controller of all things, then I think you have a very valid point. As he who is capable of manipulating "generation" rate and thereby complexity is thereby capable of manipulating the VOLUME of bitcoin.
I would suspect this is why Satoshi said that nobody should control more than 5% of the hashing network horsepower, as that starts to enable manipulation of volume.
Fair enough, but let's all remember that bitcoin is in it's infancy. I don't think anyone here is arguing it isn't in Beta. I am willing to bet that the distribution of hashing power spreads out as opposed to concentrating.
Yes, this article is "as good as Bitcoin."
lol
Lol, as Good as SHIT, as good as feces, as good as road kill.
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This article sucks dick, but its telling that it got only 2k reads, which means less than 20 humans have even clicking the fucking post.
Nobody gives a fuck about BTC anymore, ... its already cabbage-patch doll dead.
Man, the Satoshi University is cranking them out as fast as ZH grants memberships. And, they have serial numbers. This one is 1 week and 4 days old. It has its parameters and talking points. It's officially on the clock.
The supply of gold, silver and Bitcoin, is not under the control of any issuing authority.
*
The FUCKING liars never quit, even when their down knocked out and all those who OWN BITFUCK (winkelvoss) want out, ... but it goes on and on. What's telling here is 2k views and 90 coments, which means that only 4-6 people even give a fuck about BTC on this site.
The supply of gold/silver is limited by geology, time, ..
The supply of BTC is limited by SOFTWARE, software that can be modified, deleted, groomed, and manipulated.
The 'debate' of course will never end, just like the ZH whores will be forever confusing PHYS-GOLD, with Paper-Gold.
If it's NOT in your possession, you don't own it. Compeche?
With BTC all you ever own is a well described in the book "The little prince", ... go read the fucking book and learn about people who bought the stars and put a number on them.
Bitcoin dismisses the periodic table of elements. Bitcoin only recognizes the element of surprise.
Fear and surprise.
Fear of spiders is aracnaphobia, fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, fear of Bitcoin is called Logic.
Fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency.
*Wondering how long it will take for ZH to get the joke*
It was obvious to me, so obvious I didn't comment. However, "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" on ZH.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY
$5.76/btc : http://flic.kr/p/kyKgtF
looks like yer the one who got surprised. Far, far surpassed my downside target of $140/btc near-term.
Bitcoin iz fail.
Load it back in mspaint.exe and fix up Hi/Lo in the upper left corner.
ksnapshot & GIMP
I'm in Linux, Ubuntu 12.04, not Windoze virOS.
"The supply of BTC is limited by SOFTWARE, software that can be modified, deleted, groomed, and manipulated." Only if the consensus of the network agrees. This is called a fork. You are free to increase the supply of bitcoins to whatever you want. Download the software (it's open source), adjust a constant, built it and join the network. Easy-peasy. You won't get very far though without the majority consensus of the network.
I am Satoshi, I wrote the software, and all the papers.
Anybody controlling over 51% can over-ride BLOCKCHAIN consensus anytime and FUCK-ALL to his/her wishes.
BITCOIN mining is 80% controlled by one UKRAINE man.
BITCOIN exchanges was 60% controlled by MT-GOX, in all prior years of BTC history, the ability for ONE PERSON to MODIFY the block chain for his personal FUCK was there, and it was used many times for their personal GAIN.
*
The problem with BITCOIN is that the DEFENDERS are morons. They cite BITCOIN as software, yet they know nothing of software. This cite math, but know nothing of mathematics.
Debating BITCOIN with BITCOIN moron is like to talking about science with dog or cat, ... they'll just stare at you, but when your done is going to be woof-woof, or meow-meow,... and then the next day the MORON is still a moron, and progress is never made.
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The block-chain can and has been modified for personal GAIN. The max number of BTC's can be increased anytime that the person who controls +51% desires.
Me thinks that given that the FBI/CIA/NSA is accumulating BTC's quicker than the public is buying, ... that eventually the GUBMINT will be the one HOLDING +51%, and most likely that was the plan all along.
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Lastly, go read the fucking original Satoshi paper, if you don't understand the above.
You are not a credible source. Go away.