This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Crossing Borders With Gold And Silver Coins - A Glimpse Of Things To Come
Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,
It’s well-known that you have to make a declaration if you physically transport $10,000 or more in cash or monetary instruments in or out of the US, or almost any other country; governments collude on these things, often informally.
Gold has always been in something of a twilight zone in that regard. It’s no longer officially considered money. So it’s usually regarded as just a commodity, like copper, lead, or zinc, for these purposes. The one-ounce Canadian Maple Leaf and US Eagle both say they’re worth $50 of currency.
But I’ve recently had some disturbing experiences crossing borders with coins. Of course, crossing any national border is potentially disturbing at any time. You might find yourself interrogated, strip searched, or detained for any reason or no reason. But I suspect what happened to me in three of the last four borders I crossed could be a straw in the wind.
I’ve gradually accumulated about a dozen one-ounce silver rounds in my briefcase, some souvenirs issued by mining companies, plus others from Canada, Australia, China, and the US. But when I left Chile a couple of months ago, the person monitoring the X-ray machine stopped me and insisted I take them out and show them to her. This had never happened before, but I wrote it off to chance. Then, when I was leaving Argentina a few weeks later, the same thing happened. What was really unusual was that the inspector looked at them, took them back to his supervisor, and then asked if I had any gold coins. I didn’t, he smiled, and I went on.
What really got my attention was a few weeks later when I was leaving Mauritania, one of the world’s more backward countries. Here, I was also questioned about the silver coins. A supervisor was again called over and asked me whether I had any gold coins. Clearly, something was up.
I haven’t seen any official statements about the movement of gold coins, but it seems probable that governments are spreading word to their minions. After all, $10,000 in $100 bills is a stack about an inch high; it’s hard to hide, and clearly a lot of money. But even at currently depressed prices, $10,000 is only nine Maple Leafs, a much smaller volume. Additionally, the coins are immune to currency-sniffing dogs, are much less likely to be counterfeit, and don’t have serial numbers. And if they’re set aside for a few years, they won’t be damaged by water, fire, insects, currency inflation, or the complete replacement of a currency. Gold coins are in many ways an excellent way to subvert capital controls. And I think they’ll become much more popular in that role.
That’s because, all over the world, paper cash is disappearing. People are moving away from paper cash. That’s partially because there are fewer and fewer bank branches where you can cash a check, and ATM machines are costly to use. And partially because everybody has a cell phone and they’re starting to use them for even trivial purchases, like a cup of coffee. Governments are encouraging this because if all purchases, sales, and payments are made electronically, they’ll know exactly what you’re doing with your money.
From their point of view, the elimination of cash will have several major benefits: It decreases the opportunity for tax evasion, it decreases the possibilities of “money laundering,” it eliminates the expense of printing currency, it obviates counterfeiting, and it gives the state instant access to all of any individual’s cash. From an individual’s point of view, however, the safety and freedom offered by a stack of paper cash will disappear.
Much of the safety and freedom offered by foreign banks and brokerage accounts has already disappeared. Few people seem aware of the fact that not so long ago, there was no limit to the amount of cash you could transfer in or out of the US without reporting. Or that you didn’t have to report the existence of offshore bank or brokerage accounts (although you did have to report taxable income from them).
That changed in 1970, first with the passage of USC 3156, and then the perversely-named Bank Secrecy Act. The 1986 Tax Reform Act made it highly inconvenient, and largely uneconomic, to invest in passive foreign investment companies (PFICs). In 2010, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) required every foreign financial institution in the world to report info on US persons to the US government. The enormous regulatory burdens and potential penalties it imposes now make it very hard to find a foreign institution that will even open an account for an American.
These are all de facto capital controls. In the US, banks are starting to notify customers that they’re not responsible for the storage of cash, or gold, in their safe deposit boxes. When I was in New Zealand a couple of months ago, I was taken aback to see that the suburban branch of a major bank was closing down its substantial safe deposit box department.
When I inquired why, the manager only knew that it was a new policy and if I wanted a box, I’d have to go to the main branch. This seems to be another worldwide trend. If there isn’t a safe place to store paper cash or gold, then people will be less likely to possess them.
But it’s getting worse. Over the last couple of years, there have been efforts to pass a bill that would allow the US to deny issuance, or cancel, the passport of anyone who is simply accused of owing $50,000 or more in taxes. I expect this will become law at some point. After all, it clearly states on your passport that it’s government property and it must be turned in on request. People are actually the most valuable form of capital. Emigration has always been nearly impossible from authoritarian regimes.
So what’s next? I expect, as the subtle war on both cash and the transfer of capital across borders gains momentum, that gold coins are going to become the next focus of attention. So I suggest you act now to beat the last minute rush.
Have a meaningful percentage of your net worth in gold coins.
Have a significant number of those coins stored outside the country of your citizenship.
Concentrate your future purchases in small coins that are indistinguishable from loose change. Things like British sovereigns (.23 oz of gold) or their continental equivalents (French, Swiss, German, Danish, Russian, etc., pieces of generally .18 oz of gold). Not only is gold cheap now, but all of these are currently at only a few percent above melt. Happily, they have collectible value, and they resemble common pocket change to an X-ray machine.
Also, do this: Put a bunch of silver Eagles in your brief case the next time you travel internationally and let us know if your experience resembles our own.
»
- 133544 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
transfer in container with frozen fish.
Nobody ever asks about the gold in my pocketses. It's certainly not ferromagnetic.
First Doug tells about the growing challenge of taking PMs across borders.
Then Doug tells about the closure of safe deposit boxes abroad.
Finally, Doug urges readers to store a portion of their gold abroad.
I get the feeling Doug may have cut and pasted piece of two different articles together without doing a final proof read.
Dummy
I was once stopped at the security checkpoint at the airport in Oslo, Norway carrying 20 oz of American Silver Eagles when flying to Copenhagen, Denmark. The told me to open my bag, pointed at the screen and asked me what's inside that tube. So I did show them. They, the security, just looked at the coins with silence for a moment and then said "They look expensive!". I said nothing. They asked: "How much are they worth?". I responded "They price changes every second, so I can't really tell for sure." They gave me back the coins and let me through :)
This is exactly what Bitcoin excels at... existing everywhere, on all sides of teh borders all at once. Actually, all gold & silver are really good for anymore is manufacturing Bitcoin mining equipment.
Bitcoins aren't worth the silicon their printed on when an EMP goes off. Poof...
Chances of an EMP going off all around Earth and toasting everything, killing everyone who would have seen the point in rebuilding: roughly 0.00%.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to be on that interweb thing to use bitcoins? I mean with a (secure...whatever that means) computer and a 'connection' to other bitcoin types and what's this NSA thing everyone's talking about? What if your computer gets squashed or stolen or soaked in saltwater? I guess you can get to your bitcoins from,say, an internet 'cafe' in, say, Ecuador. But then, how do you buy your lunch with them? The whole internet thing seems to entail not counterparty risk but third, fourth, ad infinitum party risk. Some of those parties (.gov's) are not nice people with your interests at heart and nothing done on line is done with impunity. Maybe I'm stupid but I just don't get it so please set me straight.
Systemic risk is everywhere. Say you made it with your gold coins to Ecuador, but there is a confiscation order over night. A worldwide EMP or a worldwide power outage is a worst case scenario, then you don't make it everywhere, regardless if you own cash, gold or bitcoins.
Bitcoin posts are like remoras on every gold thread.
I've asked this question several times and never got an answer, if bitcoin are so secure how did the feds seize all the bitcoins the guy from silkroad had?
Look, it's simple... if your wallet.dat file is unencrypted, stored online all someone has to do is copy the file, upload it to a client and spend your coins.
I always travel with PMs. There is always a nice AGE on an 18k gold chain, a couple of ounces of gold there...but it is JEWELRY! And then there are always a couple of tubes on Mercury dimes. I've been stopped a couple of times and told the scanner can't see past the rolls of dimes, so they want to search. I've learned to put these in an outside pocket and lay the bag down so that the Mercs are against the conveyor belt.
Happened to me with 2 rolls of eagles over a year ago at san diego international airport. Was travelling to pheonix to meet up with some family in Sedona and had some gifts. They zeroed in on the coins immediately took them to supervisor asked me where i got them and what they were worth. I said none of your business. The other supervisor came over and asked what they were..i said gifts. He asked me the value. I said look at the stamped value on the coin. He did and then handed them back to me.
I though s they was looking fo bombs...nope capital controls. Duh.
RIPS
Correct but if the wallet was encrypted by the owner, then you'll still be able to see the amount of bitcoins but you won't be able to spend the bitcoins.
Therefore, the owner can open his backup wallet file on his computer and transfer all his bitcoins to a "new" wallet file that he has encrypted with a different or same password.
What's amazing about the claims of security, is that bitcoin *relies* on recording every bitcoin transaction. In other words, there are *no* anonymous bitcoin transactions!!! In order to make a bitcoin transaction, I have to tell *everyone* about it! The reason people say it is "anonymous" is because it is theoretically possible for someone not to know the identity of actors in the bitcoin system. But this is a rather weak argument. All a govt has to do is define a registry of bitcoin identities, and declare it to be illegal to trade with anyone whose identity isn't registered. On top of that, because *every* part of *every* transaction is public, it is usually fairly trivial to trace money flows as a practical basis.
On top of that, the security makes some assumptions about the nature of reality that, while currently true for computers, may wind up not being the whole truth.
So, in short, bitcoin (a) isn't private, and (b) rests on questionable metaphysical assumptions. That isn't really where I would want to put my wealth.
If the government was actually using the Bitcoin model as an experiment, then I'd imagine they would also know how to crack the encryption when needed (ex Silk Road takedown).
http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol46/iss4/6/
In case that is a serious question, I believe it was the sign-in app. Javascript, iirc. (Krebs On Security had a good review of that some time back.)
Flying overseas:
1. Husband flies to day, wife flies tomorrow with 8 oz's each.
2. From the US fly overseas (no checked luggage) with a conection in the US. Say Atlanta to Miami - Miami to South America. Hide the boarding pass to SA. Leave a hefty 3-4 hour layover and make sure there is no security rechecking. (skip ORD) Carry as many coins as you want. Since the first flight is not going overseas, you do not have to declare. Board the overseas flight in Miami. (If you get caught or questioned and you don't feel right, declare them in Miami.) Legal (or bail out.) Check the laws of the country you are going, in case the customs checks you.
Thanks for the advice. I wonder has anyone been saving those 1 oz platinum coins? It's pretty low right now.
I am. Physical Platinum is truly rare & is a steal at today's prices.
howd i guess this would turn into yet another argument with the bitcoin people. It is an all digital curency, does not exist in any physical form(kinda like most peoples money in their bank accounts). NOTHING is secure on the internet, nothing. An all digital currency like botcoin is the WET DREAM of the central planners. It allows everyone to be tracked, and all transactions recorded, all money to be traced, forever.If you think you are eluding the govt tracking BS with your blockchain you are delusional
But, if you REALLY want to trust your wealth to something so sketchy, good luck. And I mean that, I truly wish you guys the best of luck. anyone trying to buck the fiat dollar fraud and debt based system we have now is fine in my book, I just don't think this is it. There already exists a currency that has been used by humans for thousands of years. Its requires hard work to get, it can't be printed. no need to reinvent the wheel here
"If you think you are eluding the govt tracking BS with your blockchain you are delusional"
But but but, that Crazytech guy (Who I havent seen commenting yet, but will most certainly be spouting a whole bunch of bullshit across this page) insists it involves more combinations than atoms in the universe and is impossible to break.
..yea yea, I know, he's fucking delusional too if he thinks a crypto algo invented by the NSA is unhackable by the NSA. And there's always the possibility of someone breaking your crypto by the sounds the PC makes (true story).
Centralization is insecure, bitcoin changed that.
Here is my bitcoin.
https://blockchain.info/address/1DUDkzVEPwUWDX2uBip77nCDofUT7bdi2Q
Everyone is invited to hack it. Good luck.
Ha ha
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group-now-controls...
Ghash is a mining pool not a Bitcoin group. If you understand how pooled mining works, then you know that this article is bullshit.
Oh my god 77 of them ?
I can see a few ways someone could go about hacking it if there was more BTC in that wallet. I think its a really bad idea to tie a screen name, or anything identifying, to an address with lots of BTC. No one cares about hacking out 77 BTC.
We do not know those BTC really are his .... he is just claiming that is true. Maybe he just scanned for and found a fairly large amount at some address, then uses that address to write his comment.
I know that is what I would do.. why risk any BTC you control, just to write a comment.
The difference would be that you'll most certainly still find someone willing to take your gold, despite a confiscation order, and an EMP would make your stupid bitcoin impossible to access.
In such a worst case scenario better have guns and ammo than anything else.
Yes, to blow your brains out when you run out of money and food.
Bitcoins need a bank account to convert back into fiat. If you can't open a foreign bank account, then transfering the bitcoins across a border IS USELESS.
Stop and think with one or 2 brain cells before wasting your time on shit coins.
OK.
You forget that bitcoin fanatics do not have one or two brain cells.
I count 10,184 cities in 246 countries where this is not true:
https://localbitcoins.com/
Congrats, you have a bitcoin good for use in 10184 cities you dont live in and probably wont be able to travel to. LOL!
No problem, use geo-locate to find someone near you.
https://mycelium.com/lt/help.html
Got anything else? Or is it time to stop talking about things about which you have no actual knowledge.
Please enlighten me on how an internet/digital domain currency will have ANY value once the order is given to "turn off the internet globally"?
Which can be done in less time than it takes for "the word to leak out".
No EMP or CME required and MUCH faster than even a coronal mass ejection capable of blanketing every square foot of the Earth's surface.
Are you envisioning some altruistic individuals are going to resist that order?
FYI - I will not respond to anyone who has anything other than a complete TECHNICAL explanation as their sole response.
Some of us have been trying to tell people for over a decade that the BIGGEST fantasy in the history of the world is believing the "internet" is neutrally controlled or operated.
One other caveat - if you can't explain in your OPENING sentence HOW the FBI cracked down on organized crime in the 1970's, you are a naif and of ZERO interest.
There was another thread talking about engineering. I happened to be working on a project that involved possibly digging near a major fiber optic cable coming from Japan to LA. No one and I mean no one knew where the cable was located. There were no plans at any govt. agency (Local City, County, and Caltrans). Someone just knew there was a cable somewhere running along PCH. That's how I imagine most of the internet infrastructure is run. Not to mention Russia poking around on the East coast with their cable cutting ship. Very possible, though I do still hold some LTC just because.
Will post somewhere further in here, but why travel with PM coins? Why not gold framed sunglasses? Do people get stopped across borders with $100k wedding rings? No one is going to check a jacket with 2oz gold buttons, or my fake Gucci bag with decked out gold hardware. How do rappers do international tours?
If your money is legit, you do not need to export your gold. You fly to Switzerland, HK or what have you and buy the gold there by wiring money from your US account.
Most of the buyers in my area had a pretty low maximum purchase (like $1000 - the odd $5000) and the difference between the buy and sell prices is as high as 25%. The market is still not mature enough for serious exchange.
Wrong, you simply don't understand it.
Do a search for Case Bitcoin wallet and do a little research. You don't have to be on the internet to use bitcoin. If the merchant can read QR codes, you can pay for lunch with bitcoin.
I have done a bit of research into bitcoin, its use and its reach. It is spreading rather quickly, having been conceived in October, 2008 (make what you will of the coincidental nature of that date), and, unless there is complete and total catastrophe - in my mind unlikely - the internet, cell phones, electricity, running water, etc., will still be available for the rest of most of our lifetimes.
I've been a bitcoin basher, but the more I find out about it, the more impressed I am with it. There's a very good chance that it will become the de facto crypto-currency, which means everybody - and I do mean everybody - should divirsify at least a small percentage of funds to it. All currencies are fungible, and so is bitcoin, but I fail to understand why so many here just want to bash it without truly understanding it.
Maybe a little reading and talking to a couple of millenials with tech backgrounds would help.
Anything that relies on electricity of any kind to transact is not worth storing your wealth in. This includes Bitcoin, internet banking systems, etc. People don't understand that when the big financial crash happens, one of two things will happen to electricity:
1. It will be severely restricted by increasing the price so much that the plebs can't afford it anymore.
2. If there is an EMP attack it will be completely wiped out in that region.
Even if there isn't an EMP attack, if you (or the person who you want to transact with) can't afford electricity, a USB full of Bitcoin is worthless. Compare that with precious metal coins and you'll understand why people on here bash Bitcoin so much. It doesn't keep its store of value if we as a society largely go back to before modern-day conveniences such as electricity and the internet were harnessed/invented.
Always operate on the premise that either you or the person you want to transact with when the crash comes will not have access to electricity, the internet, mobile phones, etc. Then decide accordingly what you wish to stock up on to transact with.
I think you will find most bitcoin nodes are now very well hardened against EMP. EMP would affect grid power distribution more than communications which now mostly run over optical fibre which is EMP immune. If EMP ever did hit the power grid bitcoin would be the last of your worries.
The point being that if an EMP goes off, everyone scrambles. Someone selling something will take gold/silver/cash. Bitcoin? Nada. Sure, a month or two later IF the power goes back on, you can gain access to your bitcoin server but more than likely if Bitcoin is all you have, you're a goner.
As someone who has Motorola training in electromagnetic discharge and more are you sure that an EMP would effect teh file structure on a USB key or SSD that is not even powered on? I highly doubt that. And can you point to teh last time an EMP effected everywhere on Earth? Again, highly doubt that. Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
So if an EMP goes off, how are you going to transact with it if there is no power for 6 months? I know plenty about EMP effects, power grids, etc. Unless your USB is stored in a faraday cage, bye bye. Think it through and protect yourself.
*IF* an EMP goes off bitcoin is going to a about a gazillion times more resistant than the current centralised banking / financial system datacenters because it is globally distributed ledger held on thousands of servers operating in parallel which are mostly mixed on and off grid and EMP hardened and connected by optical fibre. No power for 6 months ? You ever heard of a fucking Solar Panel ? How about a fucking Battery ? You Flat Earther's crack me up ....
You have zero idea about whan an emp does. You think everything connecting you to an EMP-proof rack of gear is EMP hardened? WTF up. Go read One Second After.
Use a crystal radio powered by a hand crank charger
http://www.cnet.com/news/survive-with-sonys-hand-crank-usb-charger/
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoiners-finland-send-cryptocurrency-radio/
A crystal receiver or hand cranked transmitter is way above the IQ level of the average Flat Earthers here on ZH.
I would advise Smoke Signals , sent slooowly using a blanket , no crytographic hash required.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And this bitcoin network is going to persist on a bunch of hand crank servers and radios.
BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!! Fucking BUFFOOOOON!
It already does,,,so your point is ?
Bitcoin lives on a network of hand cranked servers?! Ummm, no it doesn't. Not so much. So you can prove it, or STFU liar.
for $100 you can buy 10 batteries for your phone,
It will be hand cranked in a Synchronized Hand Cranking Buffoonery kinda way.
Built one of these as a kid. It worked. But, the radio station was only 2 miles away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio
Don't ask about the electric motor I tried to build from plans in a library book!.
You need the coins in your fist.
You simply go with your brain or paper wallet to an area where is power.
And connect with...
...your friends on Facebook.
LOL.
You cannot eat a silver eagle and definitely not a bitcoin. They would have little value to me in a banking shutdown and resulting chaos.. But tell you what I will sell you a lb of my store of rice if you go hungry for say five of your eagles? What's that about $65 bucks a pound? No worries if you run out of them I can show you how to eat the nibs off the pine trees and cattail roots.. no charge :-)
I can go a lifetime with no silver or bitcoin but maybe 15 days with no food..
"You cannot eat a silver eagle "
Why do you imbeciles always insist that people that buy PMs say or think that? And then IMMEDIATELY turn around and say you'll be happy to take them after SHTF. I've never heard ANYBODY ever say that WROL, they're eatin silver. And why the hell cant someone buy ...follow me here.... food AND PMs?
Sorry dude, but if you think you're going to survive and thrive solely on your store of rice, you're as delusional as these bitcoin schmucks.
or you could grow your own veggies
One reason I wish we had a well. I do know where all the wells and water tanks are around us. Too bad they all have multiple reversed barb wire fences surrounding them. Why are so many water tanks around Los Angeles like this anyways? hmmm.
or you could grow your own veggies
Cattail roots are excellent food!
Idiot, if we store silver we can damn well store a LOT more rice and beans than you can. Mostly we have brass and lead to protect it as well.
You can not eat a Fiat paper but you can wipe your ass with one.
+1 for fiat.
.. the internet. Internet was designed to sustain desasters, go figure.
Really? Ever connection point between you and the internet is EMP-proof?
I am an EE, and let me tell you, there is very little literature about just what an EMP will actually do to what. I would imagine that it is classified data. That it will destroy a cell phone is not clear, but that it will probably bring down large grid transformers is pretty certain.
There are two kinds of EMP, a high altitude nuclear device and a discharge od particles from the sun. The nuclear EMP may only radically affect devices with something connected to them. For example your cell phone could be ok, but if your cell phone were plugged into a USB port, with a 4' wire, maybe not. The sun generated EMP could vary tremendously in strength and areas affected.
It's a matter of size and length of wires connected. Miles of wires connected to transformers is pretty risky. If there is definitive data available, please give links. I have looked for a long time.
One Second After is just a book, the author is not even an engineer. Engineering and scientific papers are what is needed.
A story.
I met a guy once that had worked at bell labs. They were sent a refrigerator sized device to use in testing EMP hardened equipment for the military. One day they needed to test something. They read the manual, charged it up, and pressed the button. The hardened piece of equipment they were testing was fine. Every other piece of electronic gear in the building, and it was a large building, was destroyed. Many cars parked outside the building were dead also. Over $50 million in damage.
Very simply, they neglected to test the device inside the magnetic anechoic chamber (faraday cage) that they had on site. Heads rolled.
I started to read your blog and decided to reply asI just finished One Second After. I know, it is made for Hollywood but for me makes me think about my preparations. That said, I am not sure what a nuc EMP would do but it would cripple us and who knows for how long. Definitely long enough for Russia and/ or China to finish us off if they weren't hit too. If everything "turned off" suddenly I would grab my Glock, grab my cash and head to the nearest mom and pop to clean out meat and cigarettes (even though I don't smoke). A couple cigarettes would be more tradeable than bitcoins or even my silver eagles.
I heard that the state of Maine started to harden their grid when the US gov side-stepped the issue. Do you know any more.
"A couple cigarettes would be more tradeable than bitcoins or even my silver eagles."
So, you're saying that the people who told me growing and curing my own tobacco were just as stupid as I thought they were?
Yeah, tobacco can be grown in every state in the union, including Alaska. Besides, nicotine is the base element of almost every good pesiticide, so it's great for protecting your vegetable plants.
you may be a trained technician, but you are not an astute political observer.
its not necessarily the EMP that will toast your e-funds, its the "never let a crises go to waste" government response, as well as the Mt Gox-esque "never let a crises go to waste" chance to clear their books. bit coin? what bit coin? we have no record of your accounts sir.
How can a government or malicious exchange clear my bitcoins?
Ask the silkroad guy and the alphabet agency that later sold the bitcoins for the most efficient way.
"can you point to teh last time an EMP effected everywhere on Earth?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
"And can you point to teh last time an EMP effected everywhere on Earth?"
Yes. The Carrington Event. Set fire to houses and buildings connected with even the basic wiring of telegraph lines.
A similar event today would destroy every unshielded transformer on the planet, and every satellite in the sky. Good luck fixing that in time to buy some of the rapidly diminishing food supplies with your digital currency.
A well grounded tin foil hat will protect everything.
That's total BS you can buy a solar charger for your phone for 10 bucks on eBay , and now that most cellphone towers also have on and off grid green power supplies , maybe you could get a job showing other people to talk out of their a$$ as well ? I am sure you could earn good money from that.
Cell phones will be working post EMP? LOL.
Yes actually, you Flat Earthers never heard of hardened electronics ? Most moden electronics are now being hardened , most industrial servers and comms equipment ships today as a double Faraday screened appliance which is resistant to EMP , the only thing left now is the power grid and that is being worked on. If the best argument you got against bitcoin is EMP well all I can say is good luck down there, I hope you manage to climb out of that hole you call your own ignorance.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
If you store a spare computer in a metal safe, no problem.
But what are you going to connect with?
The internet.
via what? You really think all connection points between you and the internet are EMP-proof?
It's not called 'fibre optic' for no reason. Maybe you didn't know but 95% of all comms now runs over fibre which is resistant to EMP because it is photonic based and not electromagnetic,
The electronics that process your TCP/IP packets are most certainly not hardened and are only kept in neat little chain link fences, not Faraday cages.
Also the electric wiring makes a damned good conductor to the circuit boards and power supplies on the Cisco routers / switches. So now you have two point failure sources.
EIGRP / BGP are pretty robust, but they aren't THAT robust.
fiber optics is absolutely dependant on the electronics at each end of its termination, but the real issue is the 'last mile'. almost no residences have fiber into the house - its all copper from where the fiber link is branched out to all the smalller end users - and that last mile is completely susceptible to EMP disruption.
i wish some of the commenters here who have 0 engineering background would just STFU on stuff above their pay grade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile
can't say i care much for bitcoin, don't know much about emp. i do know i have fibre optic right to the house although there is a likely copper cable (cat5?) for the last 15 ft from the fibre router? to my network router. everyone here has fibre to homes.
Really? That might be true about the backbone, but how about the 'last mile' between you and the local exchange?
Almost all still copper.
electrolytes.....
No kidding. What fucking fantasy tech world does that buffoon live in!?
Christ, if you bitcoiners are this naive, maybe the business to be in is selling bitcoin related anything. Jesus.
At some point you may find most serious bitcoiners as you call them are much more serious software engineers , electronics engineers , and most are very serious followers of Von Mises Austrian economics and Hayek. Many have been PM stackers long before yourself. Call that naive of you feel the need.
Doug needs a prothesis.
They expect the metal detector to go off, and you can get so many coins in it, the major danger
is the suction cup losing its airtight seal.
I have never been asked to remove it for inspection ever.They get so embarrassed after patting you
down after the metal detector goes off, they just want you gone.
Ahh, so you plan on hand cranking up a bitcoin server network after an EMP.
You were saying something about total BS and people talking out of their ass....
No I just need to charge my phone using a 10 dollar solar charger.
"I think you will find most bitcoin nodes are now very well hardened against EMP"
A bitcoin node simply being peer to peer network connections fully dependent upon a whole buncha machinery and networking.
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nodes-need/
IOW, most certainly NOT an EMP Proof infrastructure. For someone that claims to be a tech guy, you sure do post a whole bunch of buffoonish anti-tech garbage.
If you are so ignorant to think a EMP will destroy bitcoin you deserve to be stuck bartering in a world of international commerce.
Yada Yada Yada
What price did you buy bitcoin at? $800? $1000? $1100?
And what price did you buy silbver at, $50?
4.50
That was your first or second oz ?
LOL.
apples and oranges anyway. there is thousands of years of monetary history and industrial uses that say silver will be worth a lot more one day. bitcoin? maybe, but probably not. Id much rather have a silver bar i bought for 50$ than a bitcoin i bought for 1100.
And for the record, I didnt buy any silver at 50, but I did buy a bunch in the mid to high 30s. and a lot more in the teens....
Those were the days...1999-2001 I bought a lot on ebay and other sites, sometimes I picked up ounces at sub $4.
A late 90's ebay account is worth at least 10oz of silver.
Do you think BITCOIN is being used in places like Venezuela and Argentina to trade for food and other necessities?
If you are so ignorant to think that BITCOIN will be accepted by anyone except other BITCOIN fanboys during a major
national emergency then you likely fall into one or all of the following categories:
1. Gay, with turd particles slowing neural transmissions
2. Young, inexperienced and no perspective
3. An elitist liberal who thinks he is smarter than everyone else
4. Just plain dumb.
Imagine yourself standing in the street with a dead iPhone, dirty skinny jeans and tears streaming down your face wondering why no one will take your bitcoins.
ROFL
+infiniLOLs. Glad I wasn't eating/drinking anything while reading that.
It is a good idea for anyone to practice living at least one day without electricity. :-)
If an EMP goes off your gold won't save you. Cans of beans and ammo will be more valuable.
Congrats, you've made a case for wealth storage diversification. Most people who like bitcoin already don't put all of their wealth in the currency. So who are you arguing with?
Getting an EMP burst is going to be more dangerous to your physical health as your plane has half its systems burnt out or your drive by wire car stops functioning correctly at highway speeds. At worst, a carrington event will roll back the ledger a number of hours to the time of the most recent optical disk backups. That's bad, but hardly irrecoverable as a worst case scenario from a pretty unlikely event.
Agreed , in the future the spot price of gold & silver will be dependent upon how much demand there will be for it for the manufacture of ASIC mining chips and chip cooling systems.
Like the chip cooling system in George Jetson's space-mobile?
exactly. Works perfectly everytime despite being made in china
So you're no doubt gonna show more of that tech acumen you seem to display everywhere and show us that demand for computer processors and their cooling systems going down. A graph of the last 2 decades should prove that once and for all. Whazzat? you cant show that?
just FYI for you guys, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it doesn't matter if your eagle or maple says its only worth 50$ or whatever, it is worth whatever an ounce of gold is worth. So, 9 eagles isnt worth 450$, its worth 10,700(approx, according to my LCS selling them for 1190). I haven't gotten stopped or had coins taken for not declaring them, I just know what the rules are in the USSA and don't want to see any of yall geting into it with the TSA insisting you aren't bringing in or taking out more than 10k with 9 or 10 eagles or something. Not defending the law in anyway, but thats what it says and you will lose your shit
Same in EUSSR , face value don't mean shit . They will confiscate them then you get a lawyer to argue the point and they will pay you back in paper fiat at face value. Getting PM through border's is for idiots. Switch to bitcoin then cash out again when you arrive.
Switch to bitcoin then...
have govts shut you down because you're American. Whazzat - You arent aware of govts ever colluding? Perhaps you should read the story again. Assuming bitcoin will always be available to you everywhere and always is for idiots.
localbitcoins has pretty good global coverage and is pretty opaque to the government. You meet at a local cafe that has wifi and conduct p2p currency exchange in a public place. No passports are required for it.
Bitcoin is still in beta testing so to say, might work, might not work in the end. Banning cash was done to some degree in communist countries and it always failed. Now you have the phone wallet, then you had cupons. In the end people will subvert these measures (eg use the credit card or debit card of a friend). The cash economy also provides for about 30% of the population that are not in the labour force, so banning cash is not really in the interest of the government unless they are looking for some rioting. These measures point to something else, lack of solutions for our current predicament.
bitcoin IS working , right now ... In realtime.
www.blockchain.info
I was just at the grocery store, not only do they not accept bitcoin, the checker didn't even know what it was. Good luck cyber currency, you'll need it.
next time, ask the clerk if they accept 'debt based fiat'...........that'll turn some heads.......
My friend in Canada bought lots of 24k maples every chance he had with his bonus, extras, etc when their dollar was strong, I think 1:1 with USD. Now it has dropped over 30% and he is sitting pretty on his stack. He is getting close to being "restructured" with thier energy layoffs so he has a nice stash to get him thru.
Simple - take two d size batteries out of a dildo and hollow out the contents, Fill each battery shell with a stack of gold eagles and return the batteries to the dildo. When asked what is that, remove the dildo from the bag wave it around and in your best tinkerbell fag boy voice loudly claim it as a "personal item" and ask if you are being discriminated against? You will be waved on fast with out further ado
Or I once resorted to my old trick of hiding the contraband in your kids shitty diapers in the diaper pail in the trunk of my car at the Mexican border. ,He wanted to look it the trunk, so I opened it in 100+ summer heat and the smell hit him in the face and about a million flies instantly zoomed in. He slammed the trunk and waved me through immediatly.
That probaly would have been a good idea. But now you have announced it to the world there is probably a memo being sent out right to agents across the world now about how dildo's are being stuffed full of gold coins....
There was an incident a couple of years ago at LAX where they thought a dildo was a *device* and they evacuated the entire terminal becase it was making some noise , the poor embarrassed owner's name was announced righty over the entire loudspeaker syetem ...
Still better to cash in the gold for BTC locally , then cross the border then cash out again into PM.
The bitcoin BTC ledger is distibuted across the entire planet in parallel , so technically nothing is being transported across any border because the data already exists in every location .
are you really that stupid or just playing one on TV?
The stupidity, it burns.
"take two d size batteries out of a dildo"
Holy crap, that must be some kick-start drilldo you're operating there.
Log-in just to upvote!
Spit-take.
Grocer didn't take gold shavings for some potatoes either... I wonder why ? It won't be long beofre their cash register takes a software update that will allow them to accept bitcoin , to accept gold they will need extremely accurate scales down to a millionth of a gram to sell 1 potato and a laboratory to test it's purity. Then they will need to employ security guards and pay for secure transport and also insurance , oh fuckit ,
Bitcoin payments were added to the NCR silver POS terminal system on November 10, 2014 which is aimed at the SMB market. NCR is pleased with the response according to news reports. Paypal and ApplePay were also added at about the same time.
If people start asking for these payment options, merchants will flip the switch. If nobody mentions it, they probably won't undergo the software reconfiguration and cashier training expense unless they call it a marketing expense.
Bitcoin is far, far, far from "beta testing", it has already survived several iterations of Moore's Law in cpu development, processing power. Better get with teh times man because 6 years is almost forever when you're talking computing & technology.
You are confusing a software program for money. Due to the advances in technology you might very well be right in the long run. However, having Blythe pimp BTC I don't know what to say.
Just admint it man - Blythe Masters is one hot chick - with great legs BTW ,.. You idiots all slag her off but you know you have a secret crush on her right ?
No /sarc tag here - I think she is hot as hell !! Go bitcoin !!!
Goldman recommends buying gold. So stay away from gold or what?
Goldman = ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
It's best to leave the dildo-filled with gold a bit sticky, I presume.
Just leave some smushed up baked beans on the end. Just a little. No need to overdo it.
Pack it next to that Baby Ruth in the suitcase ....
I weep whenever I think of all the wasted computer processing power and electric power consumption that has gone into what you erroneously call "mining" bitcoins. Imagine how much better off humanity might be if it had gone into protein folding computations, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or anything that provided something useful for humanity.
That is a strange thing to say considering microchip technology took several big leaps forward recently in the advancement of data processing chips due to the devlopment of new , more efficient bitcoin mining chips ,
Including the further development of quantum computing chips due to massive Venture Capital thrown at mining chips there was also several new spin off technologies that will end up folding proteins etc..
microchip technology took several big leaps forward...due to the devlopment of new , more efficient bitcoin mining chips
Ahhh, so someone developed a better video chip (because that's what's used), therefore microchip tech took several leaps forward....
Sorry, they didn't develop new video chips BECAUSE OF bitcoin. LOL! The dumbest shit just rolls out of your mouth.