Bitcoin Forum

UPDATE: Up now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzHC7Pf2fk




James Turk in conversation with Félix Moreno de la Cova talking gold and bitcoin. Video to be released soon.
https://www.facebook.com/goldmoneyresearch

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s480x480/558574_10151172358033188_1950594738_n.jpg


I wonder if James had his epiphany yet about Bitcoin or if he will repeat the same nonsense "it's digital ultimate fiat bla bla bla"

Very much looking forward to that!

looking forward to this.

Apparently:
I feel like a bait and switch has been pulled on me but let's see when it comes what it'll be.

Well, by definition, it cannot be fiat money if it is voluntary. "Fiat" indicates a government mandate, decree or command... in short: force. As is the case with legal tender laws.

As in "fiat lux" = "Let there be light" (by divine will...). It implies that governments have the power to make something just by their almighty say-so. It's almost a flashback to the divine rights of kings.

It always amazes me how many people who claim to "know money" have not yet learned the real meaning of fiat: value by decree.

It's fine if someone wants to say Bitcoin is "not backed by anything" (intelligent people can argue this both ways)... but it is inaccurate to say it is "fiat."

I keep waiting for humanity to get sick of Sumerian economic theory and bitcoin is the first tool in my knowledge that actually gives us a shot at breaking free of it. 5000 years of this crap is long enough.

when a supposed "expert" dismisses a new idea so carelessly you know they have a vested interest in doing so.

There is another interpretation of "fiat = let it be" where it doesn't mean a decree but rather just that it was created out of thin air, you know like how the fairly tale about god creating stuff goes where he supposedly said: "Let there be light." and there was light and it was good bla bla bla...

But yeah I too understand fiat to mean by a decree rather than being created out of nothing.

Understanding Bitcoin Security - Trace Mayer interviewed by VisionVictory

http://youtu.be/OtN9YUvh_XM

I think it's important to emphasize the better definition - fiat meaning "by decree." It's a very important term in that sense, to understand a money having value by force. If we want to make a new term to describe money that is "backed by nothing" then we can do so (though I'll argue gold will fall in that category as well ;) )

It's called "money". :)

I 100% agree with everything you said, the gold part too ;)

Oh, here we go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzHC7Pf2fk

Watching right now..

EDIT: heh James still has problems with tangibility of biticoins, he thinks because he can touch a gold coin that's somehow the reason people all around the world will accept it

EDIT1: well at least he seems to be open to it and wont reject it outright but I'm slightly disappoint, can't be too surprised it's typical of someone a bit older (no offense to anyone, I understand there are many exceptions)

Yes, James is not convinced...

on the one hand James says he looks forward to the return of a tangible currency as his vision for Goldmoney but neglects the fact that he is trying to revive his internet based digital gold tx system which is key to its success and which has so far failed and been restricted to Jersey.  this fails b/c it is an abstraction system layered on top of physical gold which can be manipulated or fractionally reserved by James himself.  not that i believe he is dishonest but the threat is there. it is also subject to regulation b/c of its centralization which is why the digital tx system got relegated to Jersey only.

he also neglects the fact that his operation is no better than eGold which was a centralized entity which can be shut down at any moment or forced to abandon its digital tx system as has already happened.  James doesn't understand peer to peer or decentralization which is the antithesis of what he is as Goldmoney.

the Bitcoin network is tangible in my opinion.  it consists of the cables, computers, and ppl involved in backing it.  not to mention all the fiat that has been spent to make these things happen.

i was a former Goldmoney holder and the reason i shut down my acct and liquidated my gold holdings was precisely b/c of the centralized fear of it being shut down by a gov't and my gold being seized.  James doesn't even consider this possibility.

yes, but his tone was much more conciliatory and guardedly optimistic than prior.  Trace must be hammering on him.

Bah.  It's tangible (imo) because it's effectively irreproducible (just like gold, but simply leveraging different mechanics.)

Interesting thing is that one block chain is as good as another for actually doing accounting.  Similarly, a brick of gold is no better or worse than a brick of lead for knocking someone on the head if that is the goal.  But it's not.  If the very goal is to do reliable accounting, a block of substance with a specific number or protons in the specific number of nuclei, and a balance in the what I call 'blockchain zero' have a very strong similarity.  And both gold and Bitcoin(orig) have the 'mindshare' required to serve their purpose.  For now at least.

certainly thats part of the equation for Bitcoin.  one really needs to consider the whole concept to effectively understand it.  its no wonder that sunnankar is spending so much time trying to explain why Bitcoin is "tangible" here on the forum.  its b/c of Turk.  i think its somewhat of a red herring anyways.  i'd much more prefer to argue that it has "backing" which is the most common complaint i hear. 

He's not yet convinced, but he's getting there. He just need time (hopefully for him not too much) to be able to trust Bitcoin.
And Félix is a good speaker, clear and good arguments. Kudos to him.

Tangibility (as in "I can touch it") is clearly not important. He's saying "I can exchange a tangible asset, a silver coin, for a tangible commodity". He can also exchange the silver coin for a non-tangible asset, for example a service. A service clearly has value even if it's not tangible. And fiat money also proved that tangibility is not an issue. Most of fiat is electronic, and that's not the problem.
Problem is the amount of energy needed to expand the supply. USD supply can be expanded with a few keystrokes (basically 0 energy), gold supply can be expended by mining it (non-zero, increasing energy, sometimes not linear wrt time), bitcoin supply is expended by mining too (energy increasing arguably even faster that gold, piecewise-linear wrt time, reaching infinity in around a century if things stays like that)

"Backing" is also a complex term. To me it just means it's something desirable, not something which have another utility. Basically, in the case of money, backing would be desirable property for an object to be used as money.
Clearly bitcoin has desirable property as money :
 - divisible, fungible, verifiable, cheap & fast to transfer, peer to peer (no third party). That would be the good properties for a medium of exchange.
 - limited & predictable supply, decentralized control, and a good medium of exchange. That would be properties for a store of value.

Clearly with regards to these properties (I might have forgot some), bitcoin is superior to every other form of money. All these properties are the "backing" of bitcoin, and make it desirable.
No need to use Mises regression theorem (to me bitcoin is a good proof that this theorem is limited/wrong).

now there's a novel thought.  we Austrians often get trapped within our theorums and never think to question whether its outdated or just plain wrong.

Yep, seems to be a big problem in economics. More of a cult than a science, ignoring (or firing (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/08/26/economist-appearing-on-max-keiser-show-forced-to-resign/)) contradition. Fortunately some are getting back to real science (I'm reading "Debunking economics" by Pr Steve Keen these days, this guy looks like a real scientist. Though apparently he doesn't like bitcoin because of deflation)

This is the most cordial interview ever.  Felix is one smooth talker.

i like Keen's work very much.  especially his theory about how conventional Western based debt systems depend on accelerating debt.  just a drop off in the rate of that acceleration can lead to havoc which is where we are right now.  when you look at the contracting debt of the shadow banking system, you can understand why Ben has his panties all twisted up.

You mean that graph ? :

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/06/Shadow%20vs%20Traditional%20Liabilities%20.jpg

Still wondering how you can be bearish on gold looking at that  ;D

Watched the interview.  de la Cova touched on something which hit me as something of a 'killer app' of Bitcoin within minutes of my having a basic understanding of the solution (and have vocalized on this board off and on since that time.)  That is, as a transfer mechanism for physical gold since both gold and Bitcoin of fungible, divisible, reliable and offer a degree of privacy if one puts a priority on that.

It may occur to Turk that his outfit is potentially very well positioned to capitalize on a need for services here.  That is, if he does not mind relinquishing physical control of his inventory on demand.  And if he does mind doing so...hmmm...

Of course GoldMoney has to put up with all of the regulatory issues so it legitimately may not be worth the hassle to broker physical gold transfers.  Like Bitcoin itself, a much higher degree of questionable financial behaviour would be involved with a population of participants who value the capabilities of the solution.  And I personally am not about to hand over my biometric data to PayPal, Mt. Gox, or GoldMoney even though there is nothing I do which is even remotely questionable...at the present time and under the presently understood laws of the jurisdictions in which I operate at least.

Is there a quick counter-argument for the "bitcoins are not tangible"?

It should be added to the Bitcoin - Myths, in honor of James Turk.

I liked the interview, James Turk seems reasonable enough. If the "tangible" is the only issue for him to embrace the idea, man, that's easy.

The best way to approach this fallacy is to dig a bit deeper and ask if he thinks gold coins are money around the world because they are tangible. If you dig deeper you see it has nothing to do with it's tangibility but rather it's history of having value, the properties it has and utility value it has, a gold coin that is. A counter could be that tomorrow we could discover another tangible element with far better qualities and properties suited for the role of money that could make golds value plummet due to having an inferior quality as money or we could find that it's easy to mine asteroids for gold and gold looses it's property of being scarce again rendering it less useful as money which could make it's value plummet.

So tangible has nothing to do with it being accepted as money and therefor it's irrelevant. What is relevant are the utility value and it's properties and history of course which are all aspects of money bitcoins can match and/or surpass gold's performance at.

As I understand Mises's regression theorem per Rothbard:


Bitcoin follows the theorem perfectly if it's perceived in its environment: the network. TCP/IP itself has already been commoditized long ago and IP addresses, domain names and network access themselves are all commodities.

Bitcoin is a natural evolution of the network and trading on it, just as gold, silver and seashells were natural progressions of trade in the meatspace.

Some nam-shubs are hard to recover from.    :-X

yep.  b/c that graph indicates net debt destruction which will paradoxically drive UP the value of the remaining USD's in the system.

"Debt is money" is apparently a strong one.

watch the interview again.  Turk did ask him how one would become an exchange for Bitcoin...

Here's another take on the "regression theorem" in this context:

Bitcoin: A New Commodity Created To Serve Market Demand
http://economicsandliberty.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/bitcoin-a-new-commodity-created-to-serve-market-demand/

Mr. Turk's logic is twisted; particularly in the interview. He asserts, "Bitcoin is not a tangible asset. ... A financial asset has counter-party risk." This is probably because he conflates definitions and has incorporated a factor and treated it as an element.

The issue is whether either corporealness or scarcity is an element for tangibility?

If I were in the interview I would have retorted and reframed it, "What is tangible? Does something have to be corporeal to be tangible?"

Then I would have used his own words against him. He asserts that Goldgrams are tangible as they represent ownership of the underlying tangible and corporeal asset, gold. But the legal construct of ownership is incorporeal; and some may argue not even tangible, or at least not as tangible as the realness imparted by the physics and chemistry sciences, because it is not based on something real (laws of men).

From one of my earlier posts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85448.180):

"The word tangible means 'perceptible by touch' or 'clear and definite; real' but the etymology for tangibility (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=tangible&searchmode=none) has more to do with mental sense than corporeal status. It appears to be used to connote realness as opposed to fantasy, delusion or illusion.

I have been thinking a lot about tangibility and how it applies in monetary science in an attempt to formulate a rule or theorem.

In the Information Age I think organized information, information objects, can have properties of tangibility just as clear and definite, or real, as physical objects. Thus, for something to be real it does not have to be corporeal.

The Bitcoin Magazine exists in both a corporeal (paper) and incorporeal (PDF) form. Both are both clear and definite thus they are equally real. One is an information object the other a physical object. But this distinguishment does not go to tangibility as they both exist in the real world and are not figments of imagination, fantasy, delusion or illusion. We would agree that the Bitcoin Magazine Issue #1 is tangible, regardless of paper or PDF form, and flying fire breathing black dragons are not tangible. Indeed, a bitcoin may be more tangible than a Goldgram because bitcoins are backed by the laws of mathematics while Goldgrams are merely backed by the laws of men (transfer of 'ownership').

Then Mr. Turk adds counter-party risk and payment risk in a discussion about financial assets. But Bitcoin is not a financial asset, at least not if those two risks are elements, as bitcoins have neither counter-party nor payment risk and if he thinks it does then he does not understand the 'double spend solution' as well as he thinks he does. The software solution to the double spend issue limits bitcoins while technology has the potential to synthesize precious metals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals), like gold, through nuclear transmutation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation) or electricity or space is another example. Thus, using Mr. Turk's logic you could have things which are tangible but not scarce and things which are not tangible yet scarce.

A bitcoin is real because it has clear and definite organization of information therefore making it an information object in the real world and is not a figment of imagination, fantasy, delusion or illusion. Bitcoins are not subject to counter-party risk and there is not payment risk so long as the Bitcoin network is functioning. Bitcoins exist solely as organized information. Therefore, a bitcoin is tangible but not corporeal.

Thus, the argument can be summed up as Bitcoin:Gold::math:physics/chemistry.

At least, that is a rought draft of the argument and why the use and definition of words is so important for the communication of ideas.

+1

Yes, pre-existing commodities/assets have been re-organized into a new form (the essence of entrepreneurship) to create a new commodity that is valued in the marketplace.

Considering MtGox has, as of August 2012 (https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120831.html), 192,270 registered accounts with 15,391 active in the last 30 days (about the same size as GoldMoney's 22,349 customers), and has grossed about $525,000 from Jan-Aug 2012, surely Mr. Turk cannot be so dense as to not sense the tremendous business opportunity; particularly given the relatively low cost of implementation because of GoldMoney's current system of AML/KYC, etc. already in place.

Plus, given all the negative experiences MtGox customers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=105638.0) have had they could use a good competitor.

Thanks for that. Basically bitcoin would be just another digital commodity within the network, with better properties as money. Interesting thought :)

Wow!  :o What an excellent post. Very well stated! Loved it!

This is the obvious synergy between GoldMoney and Bitcoin.  Turk needs to add Bitcoin as both a deposit/withdrawal mechanism as well as simply another "hard-commodity" offering alongside gold, silver, platinum, palladium.

sunnankar:  get yourself on Capital Account.  she's cute too.  ;)

Perhaps you could nudge them?

I have an interview lined up to be released around the first week in October with a finance/economics blog that does about 10m visitors per year and the author interviewing me recently gave a speech at the NY Fed. Hope I can handle the heat! Going to be fun exposure for Bitcoin either way.

If one thinks about it, the quantum electrodynamics which are responsible for the physical properties of a the gold in a Krugerrand and lend it some of it's strength as a monetary instrument are every bit as conceptually challenging as the mathematics and cryptographic algorithms which do the same for Bitcoin.  Vastly more-so I would suggest.

Felix also mentioned Hayek's theory of Emerging Order which fits Bitcoin to a tee:

Hayek’s key insights included a recognition that, because knowledge is dispersed and depends on time, place, and context, no central authority could acquire all the knowledge required to plan an economy. He also sought to better understand a phenomenon first identified by philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment – that of spontaneous orders. Many orders such as languages, Hayek noted, are not constructed by a central authority. Instead, millions of individuals acting on their own create an ordered way of communication with one another.

i actually tried to put up a comment request yesterday but couldn't get their commenting function to work.  i'll try again.

So Bitcoin fits into the Regression Theorem and the Emerging Order theory, yet the mainline Mises/Hayek crowd is still hesitant. Maybe they're waiting for the government to give Bitcoin its imprimatur? ;)

Except that Bitcoin is all of that (quantum electrodynamics) and more being an abstraction running on top of it (gold, silicon, copper, etc.).

The mind, like a parachute, has to be open to work. Most people are just followers anyway and very few are willing to actually do the hard intellectual labor of thinking. Let alone the harder intellectual work of changing how others think!

I suspect the run to bitcoin (pardon the pun) will start when the upper-tier deleveraging becomes more apparent to the mainstream investor. Rumors of QE3 and now the actual event makes everything look rosy at the moment but the buzz won't last.

in contrasting this with the system we have in place today, what we have is a fiat/debt based financial system whose means of conveying accurate price information (or communication) between billions of people is in purposeful disorder.  the most accurate information is hidden by a financial cartel that exists to hide or obfuscate information (communication) in order to gain unfair advantage and thus profit from this information (communication) asymmetry and the volatility it creates. 

Bitcoin solves this unfairness by maintaining a decentralized publicly based accounting ledger and software protocol open for all to see and examine in a way as to preserve order, not disorder.

RUNTOBITCOIN.COM!!! :D

ok, just put up a comment requesting you on today's Capital Acct video.  how does she contact you?

To be quite frank, I have a feeling any exchange that Turk sets up will be hacked.  The CEO of a bitcoin exchange has to be not only business savvy, but also techincal.  If the CEO has a hard time now understanding bitcoin there is a chance he will miss something.  I hope I am wrong.

if James Turk were to tell me that money should be tangible or something i should be able to hold in my hand i would immediately ask him how can he justify developing digital GoldGrams?   he would blurt out something like, "well GoldGrams are backed by my patented proprietary software and there will never be anymore than there is physical gold in the GoldMoney system".  i would then retort, but i don't trust you James.  how do i know you won't change the code, get hacked, or fractionally reserve my bullion?  how do i know the US gov't won't come in and seize my gold?

Fair enough.  All of these arguments do aptly illustrate that, similar to a fractal, pretty much all potential monetary instruments (and pretty much everything else besides) has many layers which could be explored.  And could safely be ignored if one wishes to focus on the simple engineering challenges of employing said instrument reliably.

I (for one) hold that both gold and Bitcoin are more simple and [thus] more robust than the various counter-party based instruments that are presented through 'MOPE' as the only realistic options.  (Alas, I must associated GoldMoney with the counter-party stuff as Cypherdoc argues/frets about, though I admit to not knowing much about it.)

I wonder if Turk ever knew that Ruxum was allowing funds to be added to their exchange using GoldMoney goldgrams account-to-account transfers.  (The goldgrams received by Ruxum were converted to USDs or other fiat currency and credited to the account.)

goldbugs demand tangibility, what they actually mean is :
I want to be able to be the only one who can touch it.
when someone translates them that their word "tangibility" means "absolute ownership"
they should be able to get on the right track to understanding advantages of bitcoin

and about backing,
it is backed by me not wanting to sell it (cheap)

This is a good start.

Absolute and provable ownership and easy verifiability are great features of Bitcoin. Tangible or intangible, doesn't matter, it's an asset.

Lots of discussion going on in the Youtube comments. I posted a hell of a lot, need sleep now. Someone take over for me. In case you're wondering, I have Sabbetus as my nickname over there.

to use Turk's language, the gold bugs do not want any "counterparty risk".  Bitcoin fulfills that definition completely.

The huge positive from this interview, and many others now advocating competition in a free market for currencies is that realisation is growing, quite quickly now, that competition is possible. We do not have to live inside this draconian monopolised monetary control matrix. There are other ways. Gold and bitcoin and Hayekians can live peacefully together.

http://monetaryfreedom.org/ (http://monetaryfreedom.org/)

https://mises.org/daily/3204 (https://mises.org/daily/3204)

I see u put a lot of energy into discussion with the lower class :)
why bother ?

You cant get logically into their emotional way of "thinking".
It's more like reacting, and not thinking.
Math, logic, pure healthy reason, they simply don't work,
most people lead their lives based on some set of beliefs,
they build worldviews on emotional reactions, and they got those from people around them

they are their worldview, they become one with their stance on issues of debate,
and just like with addiction, old ego must die for them to be able
to accept new ideas

I am trying to set myself free from arguing with "them" for quite some time...
best way to get them in, imo, is through low instincts,
to entice their greed, envy, to show that you benefited from it and to create doubt in them by being better off,
then ego is able to change because it is endangered, it sees that you could survive easier with it, than he without it.

do like you would do with a chimp,
he won't listen, but when he sees how u reached a banana, he will do the exact thing you did.
just say, i bought bitcoin, then sold it and earned myself a bycicle, that should do the work,
not that bitcoin solved double spend problem or whatever...

long replies also are a mistake,
u become the one who explains things, and it is a weak position, not a position of power.

ok, i'm battling over there with ya as "none6524".

Bitcoins are not tangible.

Also non tangible but valuable:

Dollars at the bank
Domain names
Patents
Trademarks
Copyrights
Movies
Songs
Digital books
Bonds
Calls
Puts
Contracts
Etc. etc.

LMAO! Get 'em, Trace!

LOL!

Oooooh, an interview with the Economic Policy Journal?! Very exciting!!! Way to start blowing up the Austrian map, Trace!

Yes, and Mr. Turk overlooks that obvious fact that when you hold a GoldMoney account you are also subject to "counterparty risk". You risk the potential inability of Mr. Turk to redeem your digits digital warehouse receipts for physical gold. All his customers' gold sits there as a fat, juicy target for existing power structures. Just ask Mr. Douglas Jackson how that business model worked out for him.

Super sketchy to ask people to trust you as counterparty while denying that risk exists. I don't trust him (Turk) one tiny bit.

From the same lecture, Hayek predicts where the best kind of money ideas will come from:


The current grand old minds need to back up the younger and more flexible brains we have today.

unfortunately the young minds are gonna have to step up and take what's rightfully theirs.

you know, with all my kidding about that, i knew i should've gone out and grabbed that domain!  ;)

Had thought about it before but not quite so sure you would be as professionally courteous as he is with Matonis (themonetaryfuture.com).

I kind of figured you'd snag it so I'm glad I left it. :)

They're already doing it. I'll keep lending a hand.

A USB key is something tangible, right?  I can put my wallet in it, can't I?  If I also erase the copy of my wallet on my PC, then this USB key becomes the only thing in the whole universe that can allow me to get my bitcoins back, right?

So to me, bitcoins ARE tangible.

And what is so magic about holding something in your hands, anyway?

I suppose a "brain wallet" is intangible. So bitcoin value can be held either as tangible or intangible ... messes with people's heads like this.

If it is not able to be physically touched does it really exist?

I don't think Turk denied the very existence of bitcoins.  He just doesn't like the idea of them not being physical.   Still it's funny debate.  Can be annoying or interesting, depending on whether or not you're in the mood for metaphysical stuff.

Bitcoins are amounts whose transfer requires the knowledge of private keys.   Private keys are numbers.  Knowledge of numbers is information.

So, is information something tangible?

On one hand, yes it is.  Because it always requires a medium for storage.  And that medium must be physical.   Even if it's in your head, it's somewhere in your brain, encoded with some of your neurons.

On the other hand, no it's not.  Information can travel through space vacuum via EM waves, a.k.a. light.  And light is a non-material substance:   you just can't hold it in any way.  It's the best example of non-tangible substance we can imagine.

The real question is:  should we care if information is tangible?  Does it matter if bitcoins can not be hold in hands?  I don't think so.

James is a great man in his own right. He is a true gold and silver vigilante. He may be a little misguided when it comes to the topic of bitcoins. Max Keiser is the bitcoin champion.

You've just rediscovered wave-particle duality.  :D  Gold itself is mostly empty space as most of the mass is contained in nuclei which are tiny compared to the space between them.

The problem is that Keiser shows little sign that I can detect of being Austrian school or Libertarian.  This sorely limits his appeal in certain circles.  Fortunately for him (and me), his material and presentation seem to be enough to overcome his other liabilities.

+1 sunnankar  (thanks!)

Exactly. The whole point is having a system that doesn't require trust. You can see the code, all transactions are public, etc...

GoldMoney attempts to do this by having third-party audits.... but that just pushes trust back from the company to the auditor.

Bitcoin does away with that need.

OTOH it is still pretty volatile... until Amazon or some big site with millions of users start accepting Bitcoins, prices will continue to zigzag too much.

hahahahaha  ;D He already snatched it up? :D lol

WAIT A MIN, sunnankar is Trace?! I just realized that... should have read his signature sooner lol   :P Awesome interview with visionvictory btw.. You did exceptionally well a side from that one little inaccuracy about being able to confiscate someone's bitcoins if you had ~$30bil worth of hardware.. all you could do with that is disrupt the payment system by blocking transactions or double spend, you couldn't confiscate someone's bitcoins. But aside from that I thought that interview was one of the best explanations of Bitcoin for non technical people to date.

Yes, I suspect this was his way of letting the market know he's warming up to bitcoin and that he's setting the stage for future options. I see no other plausible reason why he would put out this video.

As who was with matonis?

To be fair, gold tangibility is a sensual thing, and not just mental ownership.  Holding gold in hand, feeling the weight, the color, the luster, it's a tremendously pleasant experience, especially if the coin is very old and has history attached.  Looking at a screen with your Bitcoin wallet doesn't quite measure up.

Regardless, someone needs to show Turk the combo 1ozAu/1000BTC Casascius coin.  That elegant merger of equals will totally blow his mind.

People forgetting James Turk motivation, one of the reasons why gold sells well is because people like to think that they own something they can touch, therefore James Turk has to advocate gold's tangibility.

problem is, the online gold trading is going in reverse. its now contracted back to within the Jersey shores.  not good.

Agreed he definitely does have some down falls. I hardly agree with everything he says, but then again it is hard to find someone that you agree 100% with.

Send him this intangible photo  ;)

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/thumb/5/51/Casascius_gold_coin.jpg/531px-Casascius_gold_coin.jpg

<offtopic>


I think a lot of folks would argue that several things would happen with a really tiny government and a robust truly free-market economy:
1) In general, there'd be more prosperity as perversion of incentives and capital allocation due to government interference would be greatly reduced.
2) People would no longer grow up in an environment where they expect things of government; thus, they'd be more self-motivated. This, in theory, sharply reduces the pool of people in need of a safety-net.
3) People who really cannot (or still will not) provide for themselves now have a greater pool of well-off friends/family to mooch off of.
4) Private philanthropy can now cover a much greater percentage of the safety-net needs since the pool of people requiring it is much smaller, plus there's more private capital in general.

But who knows...

</offtopic>

Back on topic...

The interview seemed to suggest a grudging acknowledgement by Turk that bitcoin is important. But it's obvious he still has lots of hang-ups and just can't bring himself to accept a few things; namely that bitcoin and gold are similar in that neither is backed by anything - they are *both* fundamental. He's also failing to fully understand the fact that bitcoin transactions *are* immediately extinguished at the time of transaction just like trading a silver coin for a meal. He seemed to imply that because bitcoin is a "currency" (his distinction vs. gold), it therefore has counter-party risk, whereas gold doesn't. He hasn't yet internalized the ownership model of bitcoin. It does take some getting used to, of course, so I'm not going to begrudge him too much... And obviously he needs to push his own goldmoney service (which *does* have real counter-party risk, clearly).

Off topic:


Yes, why not indeed. I hope you understand though that advocating for a limited government is advocating against the choice you just advocated for..

Turk is conceptually correct in saying that there is counter-party risk with bitcoin, the counter-party being the bitcoin network itself. If the bitcoin network were to fail in some way, e.g. successful hack/attack, take-over by evil devs, etc then those are counter-party risks similar to relying on a centralised clearing house. Since it is a decentralised network of clearing then the risks are much diminished but not zero, as it is with gold.

Mmm... Perhaps you could argue that there are two types of network risk:
1) The risk that everyone will lose confidence in bitcoin and leave the network, thereby rendering bitcoin useless.
2) The risk, as you state, that the network/protocol will actually be compromised, leading to #1 above.

Seems to me that Gold can suffer #1 as well. It has value because people think its properties are useful. Gold doesn't suffer from #2 in the same way as bitcoin; however, as time goes by, the likelihood of #2 goes down significantly, to the point (we might already be asymptotically close) where the risk of #2 is really only a total disintegration of society and hence the internet. Clearly gold can still be useful after an internet-destroying apocalypse, whereas bitcoin can't.

But I don't think that's what Turk was implying when he insinuated that bitcoin suffers from counterparty risk.

Then he should have been more clear because that is nothing like what it typically meant by the term.  Bitcoin is just as counter-party free as gold...one's holdings in either are not a liability to someone else.  Period.

For the record, and I've stated it before, Bitcoin appeals to me more than gold because it suffers from this theoretical weakness and it is much more tenable for an 'attack' to take this form compared to gold.  Put another way, if the 'haves' of Bitcoin take advantage of their position to much, it is possible that the peeps could simply walk away and choose a different (but effectively the same) solution.  It would be much easier than with gold I feel...just a software update.  So the 'have nots' would have somewhat more leverage in a peer-to-peer crypto-currency economy.  In my theory at least.

Mr. Turk was referring to counter-party risk in the context of financial ability to pay which is different from performance risk.

For example, GoldMoney does not have counter-party risk with the gold bullion it stores because it is held on the balance sheets of the customers and not GoldMoney. However, customers do have performance risk that GoldMoney will honor and perform the contract.

So likewise, Mr. Turk is wrong in ascribing financial asset status or counter-party risk to Bitcoin is not a financial asset and has no counter-party risk; bitcoins are a digital object of organized information just like gold is a physical object of organized atoms. There is also no performance risk with Bitcoin because the performance is ascribed by the rules in the code.

Additionally, to assert that corporealness is an element of tangibility is another logical error Mr. Turk makes; an assertion he contradicts by ascribing tangibleness to abstracted Goldgrams.

In other words, Bitcoin:gold::math:physics/chemistry.

Yes, precisely. He's failing to understand that bitcoins can be owned/managed/stored/handled/spent/whatever uniquely by any individual without reliance on a 3rd (central) party of some sort. That has never been the case with digital currency/commodities/money before, and will likely remain a wall in Mr. Turk's thinking for some time. His current monetary view has been built up and hardened over decades; he's not likely to get off the made-up-of-atoms-tangibility soap-box anytime soon.

Heck, you can even argue that gold can physically fail due to implications from quantum mechanics, it's just incredibly unlikely. But so is fundamental protocol failure of the bitcoin network at this point. Just a matter of degrees...

where get the behind the scenes image?

The DHS drone that follows Mr. Turk around and got hacked.

everyday i'm putting up requests for Trace Mayer in that days video comments.  :D

You seem to have a lot of confidence in a beta networking software experiment .... bitcoin does have counterparty-risk associated with it, regardless of however small it is, it cannot be just wished away.

Bitcoin2.0 (incl. native protocol strong anonymity feature) seems to be the biggest threat here for me.

hey, thanks for turning me on to that YouTube comment page.  i'm having alot of fun slaughtering all those peabrains over there.

394 it's a lot of comments
Felix is "gallatinfx"

i want Lauren to interview Trace.

Lauren Lyster? oh yeah

for goldmoney videos?

Now 238

What/where is info on bitcoin2.0?

no, for getting Trace on the show.

what show

Capital Account with Lauren Lyster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_TpbxORxmnY#t=483s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_TpbxORxmnY#t=483s)

Brief mention of bitcoin on today's Keiser Report.
James Turk will be soon in the show, and seems like he'll be ask (again) his opinion on bitcoin  ;D

Why should we apologize for the fact that Bitcoin is intangible (in the sense that it's non-corporeal)? That's a huge advantage. Until we invent cheap and reliable teleportation, you can't spend corporeal things at a distance. Sorry goldbugs, but gold is not particularly well-suited for the information age. Corporealness was never important in and of itself. It was simply the price you had to pay to eliminate counter-party risk. Until now. Gold's only real advantage over Bitcoin is a few thousand years headstart. But I think you'll be surprised how quickly Bitcoin makes up the distance.

What percentage of gold has been stolen?  Bitcoin in it's short life?  Seems to me that a fair amount of BTC has been 'teleported' across distance right into some thief's pocket.  And that this scenario is as 'reliable' as clockwork.  'Cheap' for the thief also since it is unusual for them to be caught and fairly unheard of for them to be punished.  So you see, everything has it's advantages and dis-advantages.

Most of the thinkers (or most who impress me much at any rate) seem to recognize that Bitcoin and PM's have some significant potential to complement one another.

Most of the people who have had their coins stolen were not in possession of them at the time. If you ask someone to hold onto your gold bullion, that also increases your risk of theft. (And I'd imagine that a HUGE amount of gold has been stolen over the years.) And the Bitcoin thefts are also largely a product of the newness of the technology and thus the naivete of its users. But lessons are being learned. But I absolutely agree that PM's and Bitcoin complement each other very well. I'd certainly recommend holding both. The main disadvantage I see with Bitcoin is the possibility that it "breaks." But if it doesn't, I think in the long-term it will steal a lot of market share from PM's. Of course, if and when that happens, your BTC purchasing power will be up so dramatically, you probably won't be too concerned about whatever hit you've taken in PM's.

I would love it if Bitcoin stole even the tinyest barely noticeable amount of 'market share' from PM's.  Among the reasons, it would make me insanely wealthy personally.  That is a part of the reason I speculate in it.

Another reason I prefer Bitcoin is that gold is very difficult to shake out of the hands of those who hold it, and most of these are hands that I would love to see working in the poor house.  With Bitcoin, OTOH, if a significant fraction of the user-base were at a significant enough disadvantage complements of the owners of the currency base, they could simply upgrade their software and switch to a more promising solution.  So there is pressure on the holders of the currency to ensure that it is relatively useable and useful to the general population.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TpbxORxmnY#t=8m20s

seems like they just mention turk and talking about bitcoin, but not in this specific video, please help if i mistaken

In a victoryIndependence interview, Trace Meyer argues the tangibility of bitcoin referencing the James Turk interview this thread is about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YHVVi7M4jbo#t=779s

what's "kerebral"?  does he mean "cerebral"?  ;)

corporeal?

I re-listened. Although he seems to say something like: "coreporal", I think he means "corporeal" as in "having a touchable physical body"

Sidenote: It's pretty interesting what he has to say about property rights on bitcoin starting around 18:00

i think he means "cerebral".  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cerebral

If you're talking about this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YHVVi7M4jbo#t=818s) part:


then I think "corporeal" makes more sense than "cerebral" in that context, no?

lol.  i think cerebral makes more sense as in "of the mind".  :D

thanks I have added to the list of interviews discussing bitcoin:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113361.0

lol. Well, he's arguing that bitcoins are tangible although they don't have a physical body. While I agree that being cerebral is not a prerequisite for tangibility, I think in this case he's arguing that being corporeal isn't a prerequisite for tangibility.

In case you think something that doesn't have a physical body cannot be tangible (which would explain why you think it should be "cerebral"), then you might want to listen again to the argument, because that's exactly the view he's trying to show to be inadequate in the case of Bitcoin.

Bitcoins are tangible ;)

He is saying corporeal with that accent (southern?) of his ... he's already outlined some of these ideas in other places ... it's out there.

http://www.runtogold.com/2012/11/why-bitcoin-is-tangible-digging-into-the-guts-of-bitcoin/ (http://www.runtogold.com/2012/11/why-bitcoin-is-tangible-digging-into-the-guts-of-bitcoin/)

Yep. Corporeal.

I just received the annual Survey of GoldMoney where the usual things are asked (what can we improve, how much would you recommend us, etc), and guess what? There are some specific questions about Bitcoin:

12. How much are you interested in using Bitcoins for online transactions?

13. Please specify below which Bitcoin functionality you would like to use:
* Use Bitcoin to buy precious metals with GoldMoney
* Use GoldMoney to store Bitcoins in a secure wallet
* Other

(I note that the option "Use precious metals to buy bitcoins" is missing from the choices, though)

This means Bitcoin is very seriously being evaluated by them.

It seems that the survey is public, so if someone wants to give his opinion on the matter:

https://www.research.net/s/goldmoney-survey-2013

Turk finally got it through his skull how similar and complementary to PMs Bitcoin is?  Sunnakar's doing?  No matter...hurry anyway.

I did fill out the survey. I suggested they talk to Trace Meyer and pointed them to his article about bitcoin tangibility: http://www.runtogold.com/2012/11/why-bitcoin-is-tangible-digging-into-the-guts-of-bitcoin/

Interesting... It seems that GoldMoney is at least open to the idea, given enough demand...

http://www.runtogold.com/2013/01/goldmoney-mulls-bitcoin-integration-why-your-gold-is-not-safe-there/?awt_l=7N7a.&awt_m=IhcKX3mAUbfdxm

I did fill out the survey too.It's an interesting idea.

competition  ;D
https://twitter.com/TheRealAssetCo/status/289408911981826049 (https://twitter.com/TheRealAssetCo/status/289408911981826049)

That is one way for a scrappy upstart to take market share!  :D

This is very exciting and good news

Somehow I'm not too excited about trading bitcoin that is in my possession for gold that is in some vault somewhere...

you're coming around  ;)

That's not why we're excited (at least not why I am). I'm excited about this because it means a lot of gold bugs will evaluate bitcoin. They might put a percentage of their wealth into it or use it to transfer wealth across country boarders.

Well, $2,2B of bullion in the vault means that if .5% were allocated to bitcoins then it would amount to $11M. I wonder what $11M would do to the MtGox order book (http://mtgoxlive.com/orders); particularly since prices are set at the margin.

$11M would do exciting things

good interview
note:bitcoin was mentioned 24:45 min
Anarchast Ep. 52 with James Turk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPazVjb0OpQ)

great! added
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113361.msg1224331#msg1224331

James Turk:

"[Bitcoin] i think its going to be around for a long time

we're looking at using it in GoldMoney"

I don't get this whole thing.  Can't goldmoney be transfered from one goldmoney customer to an other goldmoney customer?  If so, it should be easy to exchange bitcoins into goldmoney in both ways, via any currency exchange service.  

So to me there should be no need for GoldMoney to deal with bitcoins in any way, as long as they provide internal liquidity for their customers.

It used to be like that, as I understand it I'm not a customer. BUT, recently they changed their terms due to recent law changes/uncertainties and now only GoldMoney customers domiciled in Jersey (i.e. tiny percentage) can still use the account transfer facility.

Bitcoins maybe a way to circumvent the new legal traps and give an inter-account transfer facility back to their global customer base I suppose, albeit they transfer/exchange between accounts using only Bitcoin but then hold balances in Bitcoin and/or GoldMoney holdings.

jesus f. christ! Turk just can't let go of the tangibility issue. He should read Trace Mayers opinion on that. He probably has but doesn't agree.

He has a point about the long history of gold, but I think the transactional properties of bitcoin more than make up for that.

Anyhow, it seems to have been a good idea to fill out that goldmoney bitcoin survey.

I think Turk's opinion about gold vs bitcoin is more about certainty and safety, and less about what exactly the definition of tangibility is.
I kind of agree, the value of gold as a physical commodity will never go to 0, there is no counter-party risk etc.  
The only thing that would seriously harm golds valuation long-term is if its monetary aspect was lost because of a better alternative.... something like bitcoin (which is why i own both  :) ).
To me, bitcoin is golds monetary properties on speed, but there are certain risks involved.

I almost can't believe how fast Turk seems to be coming around to bitcoin. He's now got a much more open-minded approach and it's clear he he re-thought his opinion regarding the bolded part above in relation to bitcoin.

He now says:


wow!

and earlier after Max postulates "intrinsic value in cryptography" (I'd like to debate that) or something it's even clearer:


This is exactly the reason why turk loves gold: it can't be (easily) confiscated.

I conclude: he's coming around to bitcoin.

Thanks James Turk for rethinking your opinion!