Bitcoin Forum

I've accepted an invitation to do a question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (http://www.cfr.org/) in Washington, DC on Thursday, February 6, 2014.

I've been told anything related to the Council on Foreign Relations tickle's peoples Grand Conspiracy buttons, so I thought it would be best to be open about exactly what will happen. I hope it doesn't spark as long a thread as my visit to the CIA, but Bitcoin is a lot bigger than when I visited the CIA...

Anyway, here's the invitation I received:


The format of the event will be a 90-minute question&answer session, moderated by somebody yet-to-be-determined. It will be "on the record," meaning press could be invited to attend and recordings and/or transcripts may be posted on CFR's website.

The audience will be CFR members and invited guests (and maybe press); it is not open to the public. I am not getting paid by the CFR.

cool let us know if angelina jolie is there

"BitCoin"....

Need some educating!!!

Thanks for keeping us informed

-Edit-

Here is the record:
http://www.cfr.org/economics/voices-next-generation-gavin-andresen-bitcoin/p32339

Gavin did a great job addressing some hard questions.

CFR were one of the first to get/publish the Congressional Research Paper ....
http://www.cfr.org/economics/crs-bitcoin-questions-answers-analysis-legal-issues/p32148

Ha, I'm sure it will do more than tickle them. Clearly you have now become a NWO puppet ;D.

Are you representing the Bitcoin Foundation when you are there? because  Inputs.IO led by TF the biggest Scammer in history is still on their sponsors page.

https://members.bitcoinfoundation.org/current

https://bitcoinyellowpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/inputs-io-1024x1024.png

Soon Mike Maloney will release a chapter titled Trade Fortress  :D

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-17/hidden-secrets-money-part-4-biggest-scam-history-mankind-7-easy-steps

Cool. I think this is exactly the right approach. Unlike many central banks Bitcoin, its operating policy, and records etc. are completely open and available for discussion. The Bitcoin community has nothing to hide or fear from such high profile government discussions.

One of the greatest intellectuals of the United States, Noam Chomsky, has some interesting things to say how forums such as the CFR operate: "The Council on Foreign Relations is essentially the business input to foreign policy plainning." [1] As far as I can tell inside the US Chomsky is seen as a conspiracy theorist or left-wing nut (which would be certainly the view inside of circles such as the CFR). But the view outside of the US is quite different. What I would like to see is the cryptocurrency system becoming more international. The foundation claims that bitcoin is "non-political online money", which is really absurd if one thinks about it.

[1] http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19850319.htm

So long as they learn how they can benefit from BTC, this may be an extremely important Q&A.  Glad to hear they invited you.

Where would one be able to find video of this presentation afterwards?

Oh this will be fun.

Don't take any food or drink offered. :D


EDIT: And why do they always capitalize the "c" in Bitcoin? "They" being international bankster-types and their affiliates.

They can benefit from it the way anyone else can. Bitcoin is user neutral.

I actually think it's cool. It's actually a sign of respect for the community that they'd want to meet with Gavin. If they were totally hostile there would be no meetings.

We have to get on from the conspiracy theories. Let us be realistic, if someone has to meet with these groups it should probably be Gavin. I view this development as excessively positive for the future of Bitcoin.


One interesting fact about the politics of the US. The more you represent the actual politics of the US in your speech the more you will be presented as a lunatic. That does not mean that you're not representing a certain political demographic, it just means that the political views in the US are all presented as crazy by the media. It's not a left or right thing, it's inclusion or exclusion.

Yeah I heard they put a mind control chip in your head during the CIA visit.  ;D

Thanks for the update Gavin. Please teach them how to spell Bitcoin as one word, without a capitalised 'C' in the middle.

does the word amateur mean anything to you

Just like the Bitcoin Foundation.  Imagine that!


Some good work to make sure that blacklisting remains possible should change that unhappy state of affairs.  Eventually.

Nice list of war criminals you've been cozying up to. Who's next on your list, Hitler ?

These guys are NOT to be trusted!  They're near the top of the $*&tlist!

Very interesting news indeed.

Please give those eugenicist corporate scum maggot nazis the finger for me. :)

First the CIA. Now this.

Tis a very sad day in Cryptoland.

Also, make sure that you are on your toes!

These types of meetings are meant for one thing only...to evaluate you / to size you up, so that they can figure out how to manipulate the situation in their favor.

Remember...Bitcoin doesn't need to ask for permission.  It doesn't need to cozy up to the enemy.  And, make no mistake, these guys are the enemy...of the masses...of the planet.

The more I think about it, this meeting is a real $*&t deal!

One day or another, this was to be expected. If bitcoin is really banking and governmental proof we shouldn't worry, no? As long as the source code remains open everything should be OK.

This is good, I'd hand out some printed paper wallets with a few bucks each, with directions on the black on how to import into a blockchain wallet. Good luck.

With biometrics on the horizon, this is anything but good for crypto currencies. And further proof that Bitcoin is a false flag /hope that will give the banksters the cashless society they've been dreaming of.

Why biometrics should be bad for cryptos? Cypro currencies are good money because they are flexible. It's not because you can use biometric that you are necessarily forced to use it.

For one, the religious christian wackos are going to get wackier because this will self fullfill yet another bible prophecy.

Two... kiss your anonymity goodbye.

What will you do if/when they decide to turn your power and/or internet connection off ?

Simply put, the CFR is the Establishment. I think they really don't understand why we hate them so much. I think the best outcome here is...meh. We don't want these bastards to know what a threat bitcoin is until it's too late to do anything about it. Gavin is good at this sort of thing. Get's all technogeeky until they snore. That's the optimum response, IMHO. If these guys get in at this point, we'll only take out Western Union and Paypal. I want ALL those bums to loose their shirts.

This is what they have to understand:
It takes the same amount of energy to be happy or to be miserable.
It is much better they embrace bitcoin than to fight it and discover they cannot win the battle.
An international currency like bitcoin is the way to a much more united and fair world.

When talking about these guys, one word is all you need to check into:

'Ponerology'

gaVin thaNks fOr keePing uS uPto daTe on the cFr stUff

viVa bitCoin

 

Please highlight how bitcoin is a useless ponzi scheme and how your just doing this as a big joke. Make sure they don't invest anything.  ;)

Please be careful Gavin.
These people are master manipulators.

The word conspiracy theory is for hiding behind the straw man. People in the US just don't realize that their capitalistic system is a corporate system through and through. They don't even notice it. And corporatism means that business and government co-opt into a single net of of power. And its exactly institutions that CFR that stand for this. Of course if you're inside that bubble you don't realize it and think everything is just fuzzy and perfect. Like say a Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg, running around and explaining how the future will just be more of the same. Of course they have no problem with working with the government on spying on people. They just don't call it that. And for someone in such a position to come out in the year 2014 (post Snowden) and play the conspiracy card is very telling. I hope the bitcoin community can really come up with much better positions than that.

Chomsky is considered a nutjob and conspiracy theorist in the US? News to me. Then again, I bet they call anyone a conspiracy nutjob who is anti-establishment there.

Noted CIA asset and self admitted space alien Gavin Andressen confirmed today that he is conspiring with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral commission and the Bilderberger Group to bring about global hegemonic control of all bitcoin transactions through secret NSA backdoors and HAARP mining/weather control datacenters. When asked for comment, noted investigative journalist Alex Jones stated "I predicted this 10 years ago!"

Now..

http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/0ce/0c5/48c/resized/alexjonesidiot-meme-generator-listen-in-great-deals-on-berkey-water-filters-196b7e.jpg?1338170571.jpg

Alex, is that you?

Gavin visits the aristocracy...

this is really interesting, can I speculate on this one ? ;)  be courageous and calm, I wish good luck...

Certainly good news, I think is an important event where we have to bitcoin known to be accepted by more and more people, much encouragement Gavin I hope you bring us great news.

The bitcoiners we should work more on expanding bitcoin worldwide.

I encourage the entire community to work hard these years.

PD: Sorry for my bad English;)

Regards

Certainly the core team is the weak point of bitcoin, and cooption is the most effective strategy.

It's a bit more complicated than that. I'll agree with you that they are the establishment but it's not a bad thing to explain Bitcoin to the establishment. Maybe if they had a better understanding on what Bitcoin can do for the world then they adopt better policy stances.

Why assume every meeting will go bad or that just being in the establishment makes someone evil? Those are conspiracy theories and they don't help.


The CFR has an agenda and I will admit that. Everyone knows what their agenda is. But you have to expect that they'll need Bitcoin explained to them and Gavin is the person to do it. I don't see this as negative.

Would you see it as negative if President Obama wanted to meet personally with Gavin? I would not see that as negative, I would see it as an extremely bullish signal. If they were hostile there would be no meetings, no discussions, no questions and answers.


Do you really expect a meeting with Obama to go well if you go in hating the US government and everything it stands for? On the other hand if you actually care and just have a difference of opinion on how the government should be run or how thing should be handled that is different.

Bitcoin is not going to overthrow the US government but it is going to change the world and change how all governments operate in the same way that the web, the Internet and the industrial revolution changed everything. It's essential that people in the CFR understand the importance of Bitcoin because whether you like them or not they have control over the legacy institutions and those institutions need to adapt to change.

Does he have to present there, because he is in the US civil service?

He said he accepted an invitation.  I think that is pretty literal.  Although some invitations really shouldn't be turned down.  I suspect it is a very great honor, and a very heavy burden.

An earlier link in turn lead to a pdf for a Congressional Research Service analysis of bitcoin.  I read that paper.  The word choices and scenarios presented in this analysis suggests to me that they are viewing bitcoin as a disruptive technology, but not in a knee-jerk fearful manner.

It's just part of the real world.

Have a great time at the meeting, Gavin.

If you check the CFR board of directors (http://www.cfr.org/about/people/board_of_directors.html), you'll find the names of some of the "democratically elected leaders" who directly lied to the world in order to justify wars of aggression against foreign nations. There are also several lesser-known figures that might have participated at a lower level in the facilitation of the murders of hundreds of thousands of people. And I would bet 25 BTC that most of those who don't fit into either of those two categories fit into the 3rd category: war profiteers.

That's not to say there are no good people in the CFR. But know who it is, what it is, that we are talking about. This is not by any stretch of the imagination an organization with your/our interests at heart. These are millionaires and billionaires seeking to influence/direct government policy for their personal benefit and amusement.



Hilarious! :D But don't confuse/conflate Alex Jones (the Rupert Murdoch of alternative media) with "the opposite view" of the "official view". The official/default view is given by some of the biggest liars and richest people on the planet. There's no actual reason to believe them any more than Alex Jones. If you truly believe the "default/official view" about think tanks like the CFR as presented in the MSM is more credible than Alex Jones' fearmongering drivel, here is a good starting point to rid yourself of that delusion:


And as coinrevo pointed out:


Anything labeled a "conspiracy theory" is subconsciously considered false/impossible. Such is the power of the MSM.


Absolutely spot-on observation. Those clueless old rich men in suits are hoping to use Gavin to help wrap their minds around the very concept of decentralized digital currency. Their intent is most likely to find ways to "regulate" (control) it.



Hahaha, you have got to be kidding me!

You're saying that because they currently have control, it's important that we help them adapt to the change that Bitcoin brings?

"It's essential that people in the Mafia understand the importance of Bitcoin because whether you like them or not they have control over the legacy institutions and those institutions need to adapt to change."

Dead on.  The 'conspiracy theory' label has become an astonishingly effective way to completely short circuit any critical thinking among people who otherwise have them mental capacity to do so.

The neat trick is that even when crazy conspiracy theories such as 'them' being able to turn on the mics of our cell phones become factual truths, the conditioning is still effective and keeps working without a hiccup.

---

On a different subject, I would have a bit more respect for Gavin if he just said "My presentation, the Q&A, and any conversations I have will be public record.  Period.  Else go piss up a rope."

Clearly this is not how Gavin rolls as evidenced by the structure and methods of the Bitcoin Foundation, and that is a major part of the reason that I do not support Gavin or the Bitcoin Foundation.

I suspect that the entire Bitcoin project is in danger of losing what support it has among the more radical of the 'open' group of thinkers.  If/when this happens it may happen in a landslide.  This would be a great loss because many of these people are highly skilled, and the concept of transparency is one which can resonate strongly with large swaths of humanity and that sentiment is likely to grow.  If the Bitcoin Foundation were smart, they'd at least try to pay some lip service if nothing else to the concept of transparency.

Part 1 of a saga

tvbcof: Don't be disappointed and upset. The crypto-currency movement is stronger then NSA & CIA with their agents positioned at the Foundation board.
The Free World will make cryptos develope further and survive, for the better of mankind. Looks like, only the US will kinda be left behind.

The developers have all my respect for the technical issues. In terms of political issues there is much too be desired. I strongly believe cryptocurrencies are inherently political - in the end its as much about consensus of people as it is of nodes (nodes are run by people).
Who makes the decisions about bitcoin and by what authority? The problem really is that the code is coupled to SSH keys. We need a distributed model for code changes, which is very hard to do. Hopefully there will be enough competition of coins, although some think it's impossible.

*cough* *cough* ...your SHA256 is written by NSA  :P

Yeah, you are wise man. Embrace USA, embrace NSA & CIA, embrace all war and war criminals, embrace water boarding, embrace guantanamo, embrace greed, embrace Bitcoin Foundation. Do it. And ridicule and make fun of everybody not sharing you great ideas and mindset.

Ya, well, I'm an U.S. American and I like most of my countrymen on a personal level.  I find a lot to like about certain parts of our history, and I even like a certain fraction of our current and recent state sponsored activities.  I don't want to be left behind!  Better that then bludgeoning every other human on the face of the earth into submission though.

A preferable scenario would be for Bitcoin Foundation and the reference client to loose support while the rest of the project continues on without it.

A better way of putting it would be to retire the reference implementation as a prototype that has served its purpose, once a heterogeneous mix of two or three clean slate implantations are ready to replace it.

One one of these threads some time ago I proposed the following:

A separate exact mirror repository be maintained by a group of devs who have the trust of a sub-set of users (i.e., Maxwell and Todd.)

It would make no different what repo was pulled from (or binaries built from) functionally, but users could sort of 'vote' in a way by choosing one distribution channel or the other.

The advantage of this, in addition to providing a way for users to express sentiment, would be that a separate distribution channel would be  exercised and thus more understood and ready to go in case of a dire need (e.g., Gavin comes under pressure to introduce (or not introduce) some critical code structure.)

If such a structure were developed and proved to be popular I think it could also have the effect of discouraging evolution along paths that a majority of end-users considered to be harmful.  As it stand now, a fair fraction of the userbase seems to not trust the Bitcoin Foundation and their motives for the ecosystem (with good reason in my opinion) and I don't think it is a rational argument that this body has no influence on the code-base direction.

Stall them so the bit and altcoins get to a billion people by the time they regulate or ban it it will be to late. I use to think the Communist where evil till my eyes opened and saw how deceptive the those control freaks are with access to the money printing and government and big corporation they hate freedom even more but yell freedom freedom. They will crush bitcion or crush it with regulations. In any case if that starts in 5 years it will be to late (hopefully)

Thanks for the advance disclosure Gavin.

FYI: Most recent CFR session mentioning Bitcoin on Nov 21st:

http://www.cfr.org/global/us-economy-fiscal-policy/p31935 (video here (http://www.cfr.org/economics/us-economy-fiscal-policy/p31910))

I think the repo is mirrored already to instant starting a fork, when bitcoin foundation (with its bad actors) is try something that is bad for Bitcoin. Forget by whom.

It's pretty obvious, that the core dev team is already split into:

- Team USA with Gavin, Mike & Allies on on side (with their plans and hopes to implement blacklists, wallet freezings, bringing SSL cert insecurity to Bitcoin, ...)

and on the other side:

- open-minded people, serving the public good like Gregory Maxwell, Peter Todd, Pieter Wuille, Amir Taaki and many more.


Project will most likely fork into:

- a USACoin fork (managed, regulated and backdoored by the US government) for Americans
- ("real"or "orginal") Bitcoin fork/version used by everyone in the free world, which follows and assures all values and ideas by Satoshi and the movement

I'm very much a newbie to the bitcoin community, but I can see only one reason that the CFR would want to get involved; to co-opt it in some way. The best way to control the opposition is to lead it.

No, I think that is when he goes to the Bilderberger meet-up (not on google meet-ups btw) ...

Bilderberger meetup is in Barbados this year.  But don't tell anybody, it is a secret.


PS to dewdeded: Mike Hearn and I both own non-US passports, so putting us on Team USA is funny. We should be Team Global Conspiracy (mmm... gotta get T-shirts made...).

Let's be serious. Gavin and the US work together to kill the bitcoin protocol?

That just can't happen. They might kill the current revision of bitcoin protocol. They just cannot make us forget about it.

And I'm sure Gavin is not in the killing process.
He might just be a bit naive and too conciliant.

Because, Gavin, you need to keep in mind we don't owe anything to those people.
They, ultimately, are struggling to keep the power they have acquired over time. And bitcoin will annihilate this.

You can talk to those people, of course. But you don't have to, and this won't be relevant anyway, as they only talk to you to figure out how they could keep some crumbs of that power.

I am pretty sure Gavin as private person doesn't want to kill Bitcoin. We know, he is a correct and intelligent guy.

The problems with him are

a) Gavin wants US regulation, US govt want to kill or overtake Bitcoin, when he goes for regulation he helps them killing, thats the problem (like the poster before said, its to naive)

b) he doesn't stop or segregate bad actors like Mike Hearn, thats bad for itself, but the the real problem people have is, if he accepts Hearn, what's next? CIA becoming platinum foundation member? federal reserve bankster get consulting seat at board of directors? some BIP specification and implementation is outsourced to NSA coders?


I think >99% of the community would be happy, if Gavin
a) stops going actively for US regulation and just focusses on development and his job at Coinbase
b) disempowerment Mike Hearn and make it clear, that agents and goverments are not accepted in Bitcoin development and standardization and on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation

That's my point. We don't fucking care about where those people come from.
Bitcoin is not just a currency, it's a whole new protocol, a whole new way to embrace value, voting, etc.

And that magic all come from the blockchain, and all the additions/improvements such as PoS.
They can try as hard as they can, they won't be able to kill those concepts, unless they kill everyone knowing about those.
Which won't happen. ;)

Terminate bitcoin? Maybe.
Terminate public-ledger based crypto-currencies? No FUCKING WAY.

Gavin, tainting any worries about powerful vested interests as conspiracy is manipulative. Either you are living a fantasy or being dishonest.

Developers control the software they make. Developers represent interests. It's not conspiracy to be worried that power becomes vested in corporations and mafias *against* the individual and black markets.

There are many deep technical decisions in the software that don't involve changing the protocol, and aren't clear to everybody. Sometimes it might be hard to make a decision one way or the other. When it's not clear, it's easy for corruption to tip the balance in favour of the big guy. And as Bitcoin grows, step by step it deviates, step by step it becomes corrupted.

If you cannot see that, you are living in la la land. Branding others as crazy means you're delusional, not others. Especially now that the Snowden revelations have shown the global adversary as FACT. Currying favour is a weak move based on fear.

You have the choice how you use your time and resources. We decide through individual action. How much are you willing to refuse to do the right thing? How about if it's a small bad for lots of money? It's easy to lose our confidence to hold steadfast and do what's right without justifying corruption in some way if we're not constantly vigilant.

Note: I'm not talking about the meeting. I'm talking about your reference to calling people conspiracy theorists.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/13/digital-economy-task-force
"Bitcoin, Tor and Gates Foundation join task force to prevent child exploitation"

I feel like you all actually believe what you're saying which is sad beyond belief.

You didn't quote the most interesting parts.

You barely belong to those topics. Go back and play your power games with your friends.
This is serious talk, here.
Protocol matters. Not USD/BTC/Lambo exchange rate rants.

Fixating on the co-opting angle might be missing the point.

The possibility for a bitcoin-like system has existed for a lot longer than is often recognised. Influential power brokers like CFR members will have gamed the options since at least that long ago. Even if it wasn't taken seriously until bitcoin began to get real use, they will have realised that bottling the genie could be an expensive exercise in futility. Global paradigms shift, whether big movers like it or not.

So, what if the plan of these big interests is to accept cryptocurrency and the changes it brings? That could mean that their strategy to capitalise on the outcomes of such a scenario have been in place for some time already.

It might be better to look at this as something that all people who understand the significance of the CFR will be watching. Could the session appear positive for the future of open competition of cryptocurrencies with fiat currencies? Prepare for price movements, and perhaps more market entries from bigger corporate names. Possibly more love-in government hearings, too. Alot of influential governments have said close to zero about bitcoin up to now.

Gavin, please don't be so quick to label us as conspiracy theorists just because we are questioning motives. Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-YYG8nrHI

With Mike Hearn pushing for blacklists, and investigating freezing addresses by regulating miners, it doesn't make us completely crazy to think that Bitcoin developers have their own agendas. Mining is already highly centralized anyways, it could happen, and it could be very bad.

I just hope you are the same Gavin when you return from the CFR :)

Oh yeah, it's a major deal, because the US' ridonculous money printing right now (85 billion a month), combined with it's declining status as the world's reserve currency (Jim Rickard's 'Currency Wars' is a great read for this) will make for the perfect $US hyperinflation storm here shortly.  

The BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), along with other nations, more and more no longer trust/want the US dollar (see page 165 of that book for a list of 14 non-trivial developments in this regard).  The tipping point comes when the US defaults on its debts and absolutely noone wants US dollars. Given US debt/money printing, this collapse is inevitable at this point.  When the US defaults, world fiat money will be thrust into chaos, at least for a little while.  This is when the value of other stores of wealth such as precious metals, land,...and of course bitcoin, could go through the roof.

Some might label this as 'conspiracy theorizing' but you can't just sweep US debt / money printing under the carpet.  If the money was going to the average Joe, it would be one thing, but it's going to the insolvent banks and their buddies.

This flight from fiat is accelerating, and the fact that a decentralized currency invention such as Bitcoin is emerging at exactly this time is MAJOR!

Organisations that are rooting for the US dollar and not for Bitcoin include the CFR!

I'm usually pretty careful not to call people names.  Did I screw up?

I DO think there are lots of crazy conspiracy theories. I might even believe some of them myself, but that doesn't make me crazy (just "almost certainly wrong.").

RE: child exploitation:  Good example.  We all agree that child exploitation is BAD, right?

We might disagree about what (if anything) we should DO about it, but isn't it worth discussing whether or not there is something we MIGHT do about it?  For example, maybe offering mostly-anonymous bounties to reward anybody who gives information that leads to the arrest and conviction of people abusing children for profit or pleasure is a good idea.  Maybe those bounties could be paid in Bitcoin.

Maybe that is a terrible idea that will have awful consequences, but instead of rational discussion there's a knee-jerk GOVERNMENT BAD! that, in my humble opinion, is counter-productive to making the world a better place.

I don't like people assuming that they know what I'm thinking, or assume that because I'm willing to talk to people that I agree with those people, or assume that because I'm pragmatic about regulation I "want regulation."  For the record:  I'm mostly libertarian, I think we'd be just fine if we replaced 99.911% of regulations with voluntary, private, market-based solutions. But that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

Then why do you lose time to explain the bomb that will ultimately kill them (as in "make them poor and powerless") to those guys?
You've got better things to do, now, really. ;D

And it will happen, no matter what, so...

Gavin:

1.) You don't have to help or empower any law enforcement agency. This is not your job. This is their problem. It's not the  problem of our community, if you want to act for us, then it shouldnt be yours.

2.) You are intelligent, you must known

a) they will 100000% extend the list of crimes you(btc foundation) needs to help fighting against (now its child rape, e.g. then its robbery, then its drugs deals, then they add political criminal act, until they arrive at their bullshit programm with copyright infrigements, trademark laws and so on)       

and

b) they will 100000% abuse the controlling/freezing/anticrime/anti whatever technology you develope and implement for them (as they in history did with EVERY spy and monitoring technology, just read your US news papers or websites)

You know deep down in side your heart both a) and b) are true.

So I wonder, why you want to do this. You don't need this, stand up against this bullshit, Mike Hearn and all future other attempts by US agencies


Look at the TOR Project or Wikileaks, their project leaders and all core team devs tell any agencies to fuck off, go away, their will never be cooperation. Do it like them.

Check this video:
http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5423_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272030_-_the_tor_network_-_jacob_-_arma.html

It's Roger Dingledine and Jacob Appelbaum of Tor project, they describe in it how they handle agency    inquiries. It's pretty inspirering.

I'll make a prediction:

The efforts of the Digital Economy Task Force will save exactly zero children from being exploited.

The spectre of child exploitation will be brandished like a club in order to silence the critics of whatever the task force is really about, just like every other time the "for the children" meme is trotted out.

That's good to hear! :)

But honestly, that they want to talk to you is simply scary.

Afterwards, you'll need to tell us what it was like to be surrounded by Sith. ;)

http://www.tvbabble.com/userimages/user2448_1178843499.jpg

 :D

That or they are trying to make up their minds, with how to go about things. eg.. a few loose ends need some tying up.. ;)

We must petition Gavin to simply decline the invite. Let them buy a mining rig, if they really want to learn about cryptos !

Should he go ? YAY or NAY ?

LETS BRING THIS TO A VOTE ! ;D

the best way to learn about your enemy, is to offer your enemy to speak

Hey, that's a good saying.

I'd rather see Luke Rudowski pay them a visit.

War criminal Henry Kissinger confronted..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xgfaBTlt4

Tony Blair PWN'd !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQf2-3EiAxs

WeAreChange sticking it to the CFR scum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pDY_ny6Qo


Not when its done behind closed doors.

Good response. People are way overthinking this. Why would any of you turn down this invitation? Hell, I would go just to see the inside of the building, the people and event. I am confused how answering some questions aligns you with an axis of evil?

Let's see, I could either be front and center on one of the most influential geopolitical stages for a couple hours, in a situation that I never imagined I would be in my entire life.... or I could have my normal Tuesday and watch the corndog going in circles inside my microwave?

Easy choice, why wouldn't you go?

Interesting.


Ernie Allen was also one of the attendees of the senate hearing:

http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/?id=872d9e33-d0e4-452c-93d6-8816c4a75c47

This whole meeting still seems like a power play on the CFR's part.

Did they offer to meet you on neutral turf?  It wouldn't hurt those cottage cheese smugglers to get off their loathsome spotty behinds to meet you at some conference hall that isn't part of their power base.

Just remember, if they start calling you Neo and insist on talking about red pills and blue pills, just get the hell out of there, as fast as humanly possible.

They'll call him Mr. Andresen instead of Neo lol

Baron M.A. Rothschild - “Give me control over a nation’s currency and I care not who makes its laws.”

Yeah. I'm not sure what to think about this. The CFR is the top of the pyramid. The group is the promotional arm of the ruling elite (the men behind the central banks - http://www.rothschild.com/banking/home/). I was under the impression Bitcoin's main selling point was not to be associated or controlled by a central banking authority. Yet one of the lead developers is breaking bread with them? The reason why the USA has a national income tax is because of the CFR. It was declared "Unconstitutional" in 1895 and the CFR lobbied to get it passed through congress headed up by Senator Nelson Aldrich.

It's definitely time to start looking at a different currency.. One focused on anonymity vs exposition. I'd suggest Anoncoin, Stablecoin and the upcoming Zerocoin. Those currency developers see what's coming around the corner and are making preparations to safeguard holders not expose them. I guarantee the developers of any of those currencies would of told the CFR to eat a bag of d**cks rather than meet them.

"To be paranoid means to believe in delusions of danger and persecution. If the danger is real, and the evidence credible, then it cannot be delusional. To ignore the evidence, and hope that it CANNOT be true, is more an evidence of mental illness." - Terry Melanson

If he hears:  "I'm a Smith...Agent Smith." Time to bust an epic move out of there!

@Goat
Great Pic.

@JohnsonRobinson
They are too filled with self importance to meet anywhere but a location of their choosing.

@Coolstoryteller
That was pretty "Heavy".  I agree with Gavin there needs to be dialogue, for the good of Bitcoin.  I just hope he is prepared.

This thread was covered in a recent video by BitcoinChannel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhWFyhWTfFA

I find it infuriating and insulting that the Bitcoin Foundation is all down with fight the crime of 'child exploitation', but has not done jack shit to find 'TradeFortress' who paid them.  Child exploitation is a heinous crime and I'd love to see all guilty parties castrated.  Literally.  All ten of them plus the dozens who are employed by the US as mercenaries.  It, like 'terrorism', is simply not a large problem but are invariably used just to get a foot in the door.  Scum like TF abound and they are definitely the low hanging fruit in terms of fighting problems in the economy.

As for presenting at the CFR I'm all for it, but it should be done from a reasonably well deserved position of strength.  It should be easy and completely justifiable to say "Look, Bitcoin derives it's strength from being an open project that the community supports, and that support comes, in part, from transparency.  We don't do private opaque meetings."  Unfortunately the Bitcoin Foundation threw that out the window from pretty much day one.

There are a lot of good reasons to not grovel before 'the powers that be' and it has nothing to do with some sort of machismo.  It has to do with principle and mechanics because operationally it will be easier to do the right thing by being polite and accommodating of reasonable requests, but also firm, separate, and operating with a defensive posture.

Why are so many so afraid of a visit?

You all have the power of choice. Dont like where a crypto currency is going? Vote with your feet. There is nothing to worry about. Just remain vigilant.

"When you dance with the devil, the devil don't change - the devil changes you."

It is just common sense that "leaders" would be targeted for subversion. These CFR people are the complete opposite of libertarians. To be dismissive or to make a joke of real community concerns does not sit well.

I would personally prefer to have people in leadership positions that would ignore these organizations if not tell them to piss off and focus on improving the bitcoin system (the system that needed to be created because of these CFR types). I don't know the "leaders" of bitcoin, I have to hope that they have more guts and substance then to sell out to the wishes of these scum bags... the complete opposite of that "bobdude17" guy, who sounds like he would sell out for a ride in a private jet and/or a cheeseburger.

 

I believe that is exactly what they are doing .... or you have a problem with participants expressing their opinions?

 

ROCK   8) ... GAVIN     :-\  ..... HARD PLACE     >:(

Not at all. I want to emphasize that we are all in a position of power, not dependency. There is no reason to fear a visit so much.

Ty for that, wise newb. ;)

Very well put.

Yeah, and when these currencies you suggest get big enough, The USG will start calling on them for meetings too. Nobody is safe from these bastards, and going to have a talk or meeting with them doesn't mean shit. Of course the government wants to know more about this. Do you really expect them to just sit back and do nothing? If I got an invite I'd go too and so would most if they had the balls. All expenses paid trip probably, and hey, I'm sure it'll be a little exciting getting even a tiny view of inside the establishment. You could always just troll them if you wanted, but I doubt that'd reflect well on BTC. Answer their questions, collect your money, leave. Bitcoin is going to keep moving ahead regardless and you'd be naive to think The Man isn't going to want to have a sniff around at some point.

genjix +1
dewdeded +1

genjix has phrased it well. This is important stuff. Actions and decisions matter. Nobody is neutral here. The work of the developers is build on their beliefs how information systems should operate. bitcoin was the dream of crypto anarchists since the late 80's and now this "foundation" marks it as non-political money? seriously - what a shame. this is quint essential politics - how are people in the future going to co-operate and co-ordinate.

all of this 1 month after Wikileaks leak about TPP
https://wikileaks.org/Second-release-of-secret-Trans.html
http://www.cfr.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership/p29303

Gavin, while I do not support the CFR and believe that a majority of their members support war, I will give some constructive advice.

Since the subject is Bitcoin your audience is not expecting war talk like if Dick Cheney or John McCain were speaking. Most likely their concern is the US dollar as the world reserve currency. It is very vital to the US economy that the US dollar remain the world currency because that is basically all we have anymore, that and our military might.

So your approach should be to explain Bitcoin, assure them that it is very unlikely to replace the dollar any time soon and emphasize that the US is currently winning against China when it comes to Bitcoin adoption and that if we want to stay the world's dominant economy we need to embrace Bitcoin and encourage its use in the US lest other countries embrace it sooner and leave the US behind.

You can show some statistics showing the United States as having the most Bitcoin activity which likely means the most Bitcoin adoption which means that supporting Bitcoin in the US will keep us ahead of the Chinese who are right behind us in adoption.

Here are a few links with graphs showing adoption by country:
http://nikola.pekas.org/wp0/
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/countryHosts.html
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=how%20buy%20bitcoins (Google trends: how buy bitcoins)

CFR folks will eat up a US vs China argument and want to beat the Chinese, even in Bitcoin use.

bitcoin has nothing to do whatsoever with the United States. the citizens of the US don't own this currency. bitcoin is the first global, truly international currency. its the first in history, so some people ought to get some perspective what this means. the history of money has always been connected to the history of rule, ever since the first gold coins were minted in ancient turkey 2500 years ago. its truly amazing that human beings have all this knowledge and yet are effectively blind to the tides of history.

True, but that isn't going to stop the government from putting regulations and trying to tax it. They're not gonna sit back and watch us launder money freely.

This logic is deeply flawed. Note, nobody is not telling you not to meet with people. But this stance of currying favour by being willing to sacrifice your sovereignty in exchange is fucking dangerous! It's the same story why in the UK for instance, we ended up the IWF (a fake charity and shadow organisation) who censors the internet - despite no laws or regulation existing. It was an organisation formed preemptively by ISPs worried about the threat of censorship... Well we can see how that's turned out; it's ended up being the foot in the door for control freaks and now the UK internet is basically unusable with default filters on every new internet connection that requires national ID to opt-out to a weaker blacklist.

https://i.imgur.com/ssWdbZH.png

You're willing to compromise on Bitcoin's fundamentals to help a few exchange businesses?! You can't trivialise regulation of cryptocurrency (possibly as fundamental as the internet) by comparing it to something meaningless. All this talk about placating to power is part of a deeper issue in Bitcoin. There's this dangerous attitude among the elite Bitcoin class that the anarchists invented this nice plaything but now it needs to be taken away from them and legitimised in order to become acceptable for everyone else. Note, this same attitude has played out with the internet. And anytime we didn't hold steadfast and resist, we lost our integrity forever.

Do you honestly believe giving the people in power "warm fuzzies" does anything but empower them? Do you see yourself as a keizer soze type figure moving in powerful circles undermining their standing from within? Or is the reality more that you're compromising on what Bitcoin stands for in the name of pragmatism.

Pragmatism is what people tell you when you try to do the right thing. It's an excuse to divert your attention from doing whats right because of fear. Fear of failure, fear of retribution, fear of whatever. "be pragmatic, be realistic", but in your heart you know that is only corruption speaking. It is through being "pragmatic" that we accept the situation as unchangeable and end up supporting a situation we don't support.

You are being used as a figurehead to represent the viewpoints and interests of others to push their agenda. By remaining silent on issues, and remaining in their circles, you are consenting to their actions.

Well.. if Gavin fucks up Bitcoin.. there is always Litecoin :)

Then people will start crying when Charles Lee is invited to speak with da big bad government.

As Andreas pointed out first one on the blacklist would be Wikileaks, and last would be HSBC (money laundering inc.). Wondering what the CFR has to say about that. Its really the question what the goals of the project/network/developers have. Problem is SSH access to the repository should be a different mechanism and how do developers respond to outside ideas/pressure/suggestions/....

if Bitcoin somehow is ruined pretty much all alts will follow.... as simple as that ;)

If they ask about problems with money laundering or drugs ask them what they're doing about the problem with banks laundering drug money. Simple.

For those who might be interested

http://www.cfr.org/economics/crs-bitcoin-questions-answers-analysis-legal-issues/p32148
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf

Another angle you're all forgetting is that the CFR may take this opportunity to subtly propagandise their preferred direction of development for cryptocurrencies. Who knows what that could be.

But apparently the very unsubtle strategy of beckoning Gavin towards the Dark Side in a pre-publicised meeting is the only thing that's possible.

I do not see how sabotaging bitcoin itself could possibly work, and anyone who believes otherwise is underestimating the intelligence of this class of people who they dislike/fear so much. My opinion is that we will get to see a cryptocurrency-ubiquitous world monetary system, the concept is too powerful to ever be restrained. If you've spent enough time thinking all the consequences through, you should see that.

But what other changes can we expect to accompany such a world? We would be wise to consider the range of possible changes, as it's much more of an imaginitive leap than "Gavin helps kills bitcoin and we'll be stuck in 2014 type-world forever". That's just about the least likely scenario.

The most effective way to sabotage Bitcoin is to allow critical portions of the codebase to bitrot and block or delay critical improvements such that an alternative that is more palatable to the establishment would appear artificially viable by comparison.

Did you know, for example, that parts of the script validating code relies on undefined compiler behaviour that effectively makes gcc-specific quirks part of the Bitcoin protocol?

Instead of this being treated as an important bug that should be fixed it's just used an an example of why there shouldn't be diversity in implementations. After a while bugs like that start looking less accidental and more weaponized.

It's also kind of funny that when you collect quotes from the core dev team you find that Bitcoin inhabits a state of superposition between two states: it's simultaneously "just an experiment" and also a "critical piece of code which a lot of money is tied up in" depending on whether you're asking for quality accountability or asking for innovation.

I agree, but there are many problems which haven't been solved yet, some of which are very hard. For example: how do you make changes to a code repository such that you have an agreement of users? the current model is: there is a repo which is sealed by private keys of a few individuals, every since satoshi handed over the keys. it looks some kind of steady state is reached. secondly, how do you distribute hashing power so that alternatives are not vulnerable? new alts can be easily crushed in a PoW scheme.

I think it is critical to recognize the dangerous psychology of groups such as the CFR and the individuals of whom they are comprised.

The Book 'Political Ponerology' explains it well.  As sobering and nasty as this reality may be, we the masses have to figure out a way to protect ourselves / the planet from the present ultra elite, which is devoid of a capacity for compassion / caring and comes from a position of ultra-exceptionalism.

If we can wrest away the money power from them by implementing crypto currency for the masses, that's a great place to start!  The next step is to imprison them / remove them from society, figure out psychological tests against psychopathic / sociopathic tendencies for those holding positions of power (government / large corporations), and get rolling with a much more consensus-based world (possibly driven the technology underlying cryptos).

The path we are on now just has to be changed, but I believe it is very possible, it just starts with good values (which I do believe most of us have) and good tools (fair money for the masses; and psychological tests for those in power).

"Do not seek authority."  paraphrasing Jiddu Krishnamurti
"There is ALWAYS hope."  Aragorn

Question: What do you call a Bitcoin which has the advantage of full compliance but the disadvantage of freezable wallets, fully traceable transactions and black-listable coins?

Answer:  A traditional bank account.


I.e If any change is implemented that effects the principals on which Bitcoin was founded it will just fork and take 80% of it's user base with it.
It will be so obvious it is no longer 'Bitcoin' that it's one of the biggest non-threats I've come across.  
I think what Gavin is doing is very smart, it buys Bitcoin (Which does have some actual weak spots - like  the centralisation of mining) a lot of time to expand & address issues without being curtailed.

In fact I'd encourage him to offer them a Bitcoin that has everything they could possibly want and more to be included in single update with 6 months notice. (Of course this will set him up as Dr. Evil in the eyes of the Bitcoin community but it looks like it's a sacrifice his willing to make.)

Question: Should I stay on the original Bitcoin fork or switch over to Bitchcoin?

Answer: Hmm, such a tough decision...

Personally, my response is, thank you.

Has anybody thought that the Gavin that goes in to the CFR lair might not be the Gavin that comes out?  ;D

"just forking" is not an option. there are very few capable developers and they all are currently working on bitcoin. guess why. principles of which bitcoin was founded - sounds nice, but reality is somewhat more sobering. satoshi could easily fork a version he wants and hand keys to someone, but everyone else would have a very hard time establishing credibility.

Why does the Bitcoin Foundation want to suck on regulation's dick so bad?

Our developers are turning into regulation puppets by mixing in with the politics.

Patel, haven't figured this out yet? Imagine you own, say 10'000 BTC. what will make the price go up? its the natural incentive structure. however we haven't really seen this kind of wealth creation before, so it will be interesting to see if there are other protocols that are possible.

There's at least one good reason to leave it the way it is for a time: keeping the block creating nodes (i.e. miners) on standard code (file under "critical piece of code which a lot of money is tied up in"). Long term stability is important to this system, and the passage of time will do alot to make sure that different miners on different implementations can happily contribute blocks to the same chain. The better that all developers comprehend the system, both for the reference client and any re-implementation, the less likely we are to deal with the mild cataclysm of system-wide block rollbacks. If that means monopolising block creating for a while, then it's possibly not such a bad thing. I'd prefer that it weren't like this, but we have highly capable people working from both sides of the gulf, I've no doubt that the situation is as good as can be reasonably expected (for now).  

And we know that creating a competing reference implementation is more than possible, the resources and are there to make it work, and any number of scenarios where core code is changed could provide the incentives. If the core-developers forced a revolt, then I'm pretty sure some significant minds would be concentrated to the task (including a possible off-shoot of the core team). I'm also pretty sure how aware all concerned are of this type of scenario in advance (especially capable coders with large amounts of coin who disagree with any design decisions. And you can expect that demographic to continue to grow, they're best placed to understand the value of BTC, after all).


Well, they are (core-devs) doing an awkward high-wire act. They're all publicly known, they didn't consider the relevance of protecting their identities to the same extent that Satoshi did. So handling the entire project overall (PR inclusive) must be a daunting task. It's difficult not to contradict yourself when trying to address independently non-discrete problems from a shared domain.

You forgot to add the 'baited with $1000 BTC' part. Then multiply that by the 10 BTC/day one would make with a 60 ghash asic and a 3 million difficulty.

Lest we forget, the great asic easymine of 2013.

 

tl;dr: Software engineering and project planning is hard and sometimes also boring so nobody wants to do it.

+this

Gavin is one of these people.

I think you misunderstood what I meant, I was referring to the big suits at the Council for Foreign Relations. Gavin isn't one of those people, that's why he's the one being invited, and not the one doing the inviting.

Don’t answer with a question. Current and proposed legislation for banks is equally applicable to Bitcoin, in fact Bitcoin offers additional tools for law enforcement through the blockchain these tools are not available from the existing banking & finance industry.

Robo Gavin now able to operate on 2 Quantum Bits a second XD

Good news.  :)

It might be like a Manchurian Candidate situation lol.

Agreed.

You didn't mean to, but you did use a pretty nasty term: conspiracy theories. It's a subconscious reaction to cognitive dissonance. We've been programmed to label out-of-the-box thinking as "conspiracy theory," a label which out-of-the-box thinkers rightly dislike.


Being "crazy" is the norm in nature. The opposite behavior is conforming. If you are afraid of being labeled "crazy," then you are conforming.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - J. Krishnamurti

Like a society in which over 1 billion people are starving because they don't have "money" to "pay" for food.


It's a well-meaning idea in-and-of-itself, but that will not be the end result, as other posters pointed out. As stated in the Wired article quite openly, the end goal is to have "controls in place to regulate [digital currencies] like any other form of money."


I think it's because many of us realize (i.e. have come to the understanding) that the "government's" intention never has anything to do with the public good. Pedophilia, terrorism, communism, etc are boogeymen, tools they use to increase their level of control (or "power").

Larken Rose (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Larken+Rose) is the most powerful voice I have found to help common sense thinkers like myself (and, I suspect, yourself) see things clearly, to understand what is, rather than what we were given to understand throughout our lives. Listening to Larken inevitably shifts one's perspective on the concepts of government and authority. Most of what he says is so common-sensical that it seems illogical to disagree.


I don't understand why you have that attitude ("ain't gonna happen any time soon"). I understand you take a conservative approach and want to remain very humble about what Bitcoin means, but if you're closed to the idea of Bitcoin bringing a revolutionary level of change, then you might unwittingly end up working for the "enemy," so to speak.

Cryptocurrencies are the contender to replace the old, obsolete economic system that no longer serves mankind. Here is the best exposition I've found on how the economic system actually works, completely "conspiracy free":

http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

This explains in precise detail why the economic system is mathematically doomed to collapse/fail. I think crypto enthusiasts will find Chris Martenson's Crash Course most fascinating.

Gavin, you knew Satoshi better than most. What do you think was Satoshi's intention all along? The Genesis Block suggests he believed the current economic system will eventually collapse (then again, many people did at the time and no longer do). The fact that he decided to silently vanish would also suggest that he sees something very, very big coming from his creation. A creation that he left in your hands. (“I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”)

I think all of us in the cryptocurrency community appreciate you greatly, Gavin, in the same way that we appreciate Satoshi and the other founders/developers. Personally, I do not doubt for a moment your integrity and motives.

But to make the right decisions, one has to have as much relevant information as possible. Dismissing out-of-the-imposed-box thinking as "conspiracy theory" (subconscious term for "impossible, too radical to be true") doesn't help make the world a better place. It does quite the opposite.

I would like to recommend a few very important educational videos for all:

Related to the current (old, obsolete, decrepit, primitive) system:

Chris Martenson's economics crash course (http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse) - This explains in precise detail why the economic system is mathematically doomed to collapse/fail. I think crypto enthusiasts will find Chris Martenson's Crash Course most fascinating.

Money as Debt (part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8), part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPtt7JC2TiA), part 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6uuAupT4AQ)) - How is money created? If you can't give a precise answer to this question, watch these important educational videos.

Zeitgeist Addendum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg) - An exposition of the declining economic system and its implications on poverty, wars, inefficiency, unsustainability, sub-optimal products, etc. Explores the idea of a resource-based economy, a fundamentally different, much more logical (hence utopian) alternative, that at the least serves to show how obvious it is that we could do much better. Further info and ideas explored in the sequel Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w).

The Money Masters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfpO-WBz_mw) (1996) - The history of money, central banking, and the international bankers. The Rothschild quote posted above (“Give me control over a nation’s currency and I care not who makes its laws.”) is not just some figure of speech.


Related to the paradigm-shifting emergence of decentralized cryptocurrencies:

The True Value of Bitcoin: What You Really Need To Know (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXLzX9jiqGk) - Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, the largest philosophy talk show in the world, explains some of the implications of the invention of cryptocurrencies, such as how they render obsolete the entire financial services sector (which outrageously make up ~8% of GDP!).

Videos by Andreas Antonopoulos (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Andreas+Antonopoulos) such as this one: Most people are yet to understand how disruptive this technology is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRqgrCrzTJA)

Why Bitcoin May Be More Disruptive than the Internet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJljgM6TSu8) - "Bitcoin is one of the most disruptive inventions in our lifetime. To understand this, we have to take a brief look at monetary history and how the money systems in place today are full of third party risk."

And this unrelated one for your amusement: I Think I Know Who Satoshi Is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0) - Seems like the most likely candidate of those proposed so far (http://www.coindesk.com/information/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto/).

(A note for the inevitable nay-sayers: One should not "believe" anything these videos say because they say so. They are helpful in increasing one's perspective. Believe only your sense of logic and intuition. Don't assume anything is true, whether new information or existing beliefs you assumed to be true.)





+1!


+1!

Bitcoin would be better off without the TBF or a listed hierarchy among the devs. Having a central point of communication makes the uninitiated believe Bitcoin is owned by TBF. One organization and one developer should not continually speak for all of the developers and users of Bitcoin. I hope you're telling these groups you're meeting with that when you implement a change the majority of users disagree with Bitcoin will fork and move away from your control. Your chain will become the MintChip of the US government.

Will Gavin tell the elites THE truth?

what is that truth of yours exactly ?

IMO the result will be how it always is with the CFR and who they go after for subversion... if Bitcoin developers "play ball" then they will be enriched beyond their wildest dreams and have heaps of praise, influence and power bestowed upon them.

Also in return for selling us all out and selling your souls to the CFR and the worlds elite,they will "enable" easier BTC<->Fiat conversions and facilitate interaction with existing systems.

... all combined, making their Bitcoins worth much more scratch.

Have any of you ever really wondered why every bank that exists terminates accounts of Bitcoin businesses?

Yes, yes he is one of those people... or wants to be one very badly,

Not political not economic, just a technical explanation of how it works, and how it can be used do things like public records and smart property or contacts.  

Let the observe see allocations.

Just a technical explanation on the blockchain in the nation’s foreign policy discourse ???

Gavin, the conspiracies within the CFR are not theories...


- Richard Gardner CFR member writing in the April 1974 - CFR's journal Foreign Affairs.


- Arthur Schlesinger Jr. - Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995)


- David Rockefeller Member CFR


- Carroll Quigley member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) mentor to Bill Clinton quote from "Tragedy and Hope" 1966


- 1944 Council on Foreign Relations Report


- James MacGregor Burns Council on Foreign Relations member 1984


- Carroll Quigley member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)mentor to Bill Clinton

One World Government, One World Coin?

Totally agree with you.

What Bitcoin is is just a bunch of rules by using Bitcoin you agree to the rules, this is fact this is the truth.
Explaining the rules to eliminate misunderstanding is good interpretation and everything else is subjective and irrelevant when it comes to interacting with the those who would oppose change, or influence it to there benefit.

This may be the most disturbing thing I've read all year. Especially these:

"It has developed working groups that aim to combat a range of illicit activities, to safeguard human rights and to encourage inter-agency coordination and law enforcement."

"The approach will be a balanced view of both the advantages and disadvantages surrounding the digital economy -- a place where people can enjoy the convenience of digital currencies, but where there are controls in place to regulate them like any other form of money."

Where can I read more about this on the Bitcoin Foundation website, are there any further details on the plans for this? Please post URLs anyone, if there's anything relevant. (If not, that's even scarier.)

Gavin, in case you are listening, here's my two cents for your CFR meeting: The rulers in high places are aware of Bitcoin by this point at its potential, and they recognize that the awful service provided by banks is leading inevitably to a shake-up that's going to involve technological improvements based on digital currencies. They accept this. Therefore their next step is going to be a slow noose-tightening. They will act incrementally.

Their number-one concern will be to protect their control over the unit-of-account. Their secondary concern will be protecting KYC/AML. I suggest you take advantage of this and get them on board with colored coins. You can point out to them that dollar-coin, euro-coin, rupee-coin, etc will enable them to protect their control over the unit of account, while simultaneously giving users the other benefits of cryptocurrency technology. Also point out to them that they will continue to have KYC/AML control if they do this, since colored coin issuers will have to by KYC/AML compliant when dealing with bank wires in/out.

I think offering them a way to control the unit-of-account and preserve KYC/AML will be tempting enough that they will see this as an acceptable scenario, which will hopefully make it possible to drop bank opposition to Bitcoin businesses and especially bank opposition to colored coin issuers.

I have reasons for saying this. In fact it will only help us if this happens, by eliminating problems with Bitcoin businesses and colored coin issuers being able to maintain bank accounts. We can obtain this by offering the illusion of control, but for them it will only be a pyrrhic victory. (They will not be able to believe that though, and will be seduced.) The truth is, the cryptocurrency epoch has come. With the above pieces in place, Lex Cryptographia will be a foregone conclusion. (It is anyway, but this will only make it easier.)

One world government is impossible to achieve with one world decentralized currency.

It might be possible, as long as it's non-hierarchical.  ;)

The optimum non-hierarchical government is a government that doesn't exist.

Hey Chris -

Don't get me wrong - I respect the work you are doing with the OT concept. However, I fear you might be looking at the problem from too far back with your OT lenses. I really don't feel like offering up any bone is going to accomplish anything here. What's more, what bone _could_ be offered? Will Bitcoin, the base protocol, sprout colored coin garb? I think the chances are remote. We could offer up the next layer, but to what end? Distraction?

Maybe I'm just missing your point. What do you hope to accomplish, and how?

Good news for bitcoin investors like me. Bad news for crypto anarchists like Amir taaki.   ;D

You may want to mention that most Bitcoin mining machines have lights on them when they are mining.

And with the thousands of mining machines you have

a thousand points of light...New World Currency


but that probably wouldn't be prudent at this juncture

Gavin, here is my advice:

1. Put up a sign with a giant middle finger on it.
2. Say nothing.
3. Leave the room.

Tell the rothschilds to go fuck themselves.

the big wheels of power are turning. wells fargo + US government discussing "rules of engagement". no coincidence that they are using militaristic terms. cryptocurrency community should come up with "rules of engagement" of their own. what a strange coincidence that the CFR has invited the lead developer of bitcoin at exactly the same time. 20 people in a room discussion what the future rules of finance should be - what do you call that? A Q&A session.


http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cf57a59c-7d39-11e3-a579-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2qOoyLijd

Currently anything Bitcoin-related has trouble getting a bank account.

Authorities fear losing control over the unit-of-account, and losing KYC/AML control.

Colored coins give authorities a way to support blockchain technology while preserving their unit of account. (Since colored coins are denominated in dollars, euros, etc) Also they will feel they can control the in/out process since the colored coin issuers will be KYC/AML compliant when sending/receiving bank wires.

This gives authorities incentive to allow colored-coin issuers to maintain bank accounts.

===> Once this is in place, we have many capabilities as a result:

-- Exchanges can operate anonymously and beyond any state control. To have an exchange, you must be able to trade one asset for another, such as dollars for Bitcoins. Therefore we become able to do this without having to send bank wires to the exchange. Instead, we just move Bitcoins and colored coins in/out of the exchange. (Exchange needs no bank account.) That way we can trade Bitcoins for dollars, say, yet without ever having to wire dollars in/out of the exchange. Therefore the exchange itself is now free of AML/KYC and free of the banking system in general. Exchanges can operate anonymously.

-- There is still AML/KYC when dealing with the issuer -- but most users will never have to deal with the issuer, since they can just buy/sell the colored coins from each other. The only users who will ever have to deal with banking regulations will be the ones who wire funds directly to the colored coin issuer -- but most users will never have to do that.

-- Thus: Exchanges free of the banking system.

-- And: Most users free of the banking system.

Well, if Bitcoin had levers of control build into it, it would not be where it is today. It will certainly be less desirable to many people in the future. Would country A use Bitcoin if country B had control over it? (clue: how is the internalisation of the Bitcoin foundation going?)

... and thats not good for investors like you. A strong, secure, trustworthy bitcoin is good for you. :)

but thats taking the topic off on a tangent a bit.

Carry on fellas.

Whilst the old men in power are a little slow on the uptake (if they had any nous, they would have tried to come down hard on Bitcoin by 2011 at the latest), they are not, surely, this stupid :)
Using colored coins at the fiat-crypto interface would be like filling in cracks in a dam with paper. Once the *perception* of value shifts from fiat to crypto, it will be meaningless. You can't point a gun at perception, to botch a well known aphorism.

It's exactly like those recent senate hearings - everyone has a big lovefest and ignores the elephant in the room. What use are the throttles on the entry point once people cut out the fiat middleman and exchange services for bitcoin directly? What use are all the AML and tax laws then? Someone might think, no, don't be ridiculous, peoples activities will still be controlled by the government ... but in the long run, what are they going to do to stop people voluntarily giving each other goods and services? Ban the mail?

Also most of the world (that's even paying attention at all) is still operating under the delusion that "Bitcoin is not really anonymous, you can trace it". The technology is already in place; CoinJoin, stealth addresses, plus about three other ways that can easily yield practical anonymity.

If Gavin wants to talk to people like this (it might be better if he didn't, but OK), why doesn't he just tell them the truth? You could say it would cause panic and uproar, but it's coming anyway ...

The next best thing after not talking to them at all would be luring them into a false sense of security.

Yeah, I believe that's what fellowtraveller is saying too, but really I wonder. It seems a kind of immature approach. My point is that there will be at least some nastiness at some point, but Bitcoin is strong enough now that I don't think it can be killed so why not bring it out into the open. Heck, some NSA guys are probably reading this right now and surely they're smart enough to know what's going on. We can be painted (as a "community" or whatever) as a bunch of deceitful liars if we deliberately try to hide the disruptive effect of this technology. At some point we will be painted very, very black I think. Let's not give them ammunition.

Bitcoin is more fragile now than it was in January 2012. People are looking at the market price as success thinking this is the make or break.

Just explain how it works - if it grows it is individuals in agreement to corporate by the protocol rules. If it doesn't you get an I told you so. The economic and political implications are immaterial, they are dependent on ubiquitous adoption of the protocol.

Let others determine its utility, don't give insights that threaten the status quo.

Bitcoin achieves the new world order just without centralization and this is a threat to those who depend on it.

I also like the cardboard finger idea, that takes balls more than I have.

I still don't get it. Gavin might as well end this hearing by:
"And now I'll give you the keys to control bitcoin, please do as you like", and provide them with a github link.
What would it change?

I really like LightRider's suggestion, though. ;D

Pardon the pun and the recursion, but do we agree that there's also exploitation of child exploitation? We are living in a cruel world and the real clashes for power, wealth, influence and control are more serious than breaking virtual spears and hurting egos in forums by downvoting or banning - those clashes kill people and make the whole life of many innocent people miserable.

Have you read Rick Falkvinge's "Cynicism Redefined: Why the copyright lobby loves child porn"?

falkvinge.net is down ATM, is this yet another crazy conspiracy?

Another common sense question is why the lead developer of a transparent free software project would agree to participate to a closed meeting? What exactly stops you from telling them something like "if it's not open and transparent, then no thanks, I'm not going there"? That's exactly your best bet for staying safe against kind demands like "Hey Gavin, can you please add a backdoor to the bitcoin client? Of course you are prohibited to tell others that we have asked and if you do it - you end in Gitmo". Why would you refuse such a safety opportunity?

We can occasionally see people pointing fingers at RMS and laughing, calling him crazy and all that stuff. But nobody ever dares to even suspect he has a hidden agenda that's different from his public point of view, because he's straightforward, open and transparent about the things he claims to believe in. Do you think these shady meetings you get yourself involved with contribute to the trust level the [often not enough informed] community has in you as lead developer of Bitcoin project?

And by the way "moderated by somebody yet-to-be-determined" just SCREAMS CENSORSHIP, I really hope that's not your own wording.

Here is a brief history on the origin and purpose of the CFR with some must see quotes from influential members.


Rule from the Shadows - The Psychology of Power - Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8ERfxWouXs&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

That would be hilarious hehe

http://rense.com/general92/always-you-with-that-conspi.jpg

... hmmm, surely you're not suggesting to conspire to herd the CFR and elite establishment into a false sense of security like sheep into a pen?

The conspired upon become the conspirators?  :D

Ya, right.  That would give the evildoers(tm) information then need to escape and ply their evil trades.  You know how it is...we hear it all the time.

Seems that the best way to escape the vise-like grasp of those doing God's work at The Bitcoin Foundation is to become a paying member.  Like TradeFortress.

POLL : Should Gavin stay ... or should he go ??  VOTE NOW ! ;D

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=418110.0

Oh yes, they will love to see how 'Gavin' from some 'Bitcoin foundation' says "..you will continue to have...control.."

Fiat currencies are not going to die, they are the main vehicle for them to 'control' our society. Besides, they won't like/believe anyone saying Bitcoin will destroy the dollar. If they ever think that could happen, they will kill Bitcoin in 1 day.

Bitcoin simply fills some holes that fiat and current payment system are not able to fulfill. Not a threat at all to their money. It's simply another option, it will always be another option. Nobody will ever be forced to use bitcoins. If it gets big, that means it's reliable and has some value for their users.

Then we must uprise and show them who really has the power!  :D

They have everything < /period>

They won't have much if we stop paying their wages. No money = no power.

You guys are all acting like Bitcoin is impregnable.
 
If you sort out the pool mining issues, then you guys can act as cocky as you like, but if you don't take the power out of the pools,


http://i700.photobucket.com/albums/ww2/bigDean636/Lulz/darwinawards.jpg


                             

Good luck with that, You need to earn it and burn it faster than they print it. Politicians are bought and paid for with public propaganda campaigns not tax payers; the tax payers just pay the interest of the idle capital of those who manage the CFR.

What good would the money they keep printing be if we stopped using it?

This was my point. They would never believe that the fiat empire will be destroyed. It's just completely outside of the realm of reality to them.

But they do feel a little funny about AML/KYC, so why not offer that to them? And they have recently voiced fears about losing the unit of account, so why not offer them a way to fix it? "Dollarcoin"! "Eurocoin"! This will be perfect in their eyes. They know that banks suck, and that new technology is coming out, but they want to preserve the dollar / euro. Colored coins give them a way to do these things.

What I say about colored coins isn't said in the spirit of deception. It's more in the spirit of "they would never believe us anyway, so why not offer them what they currently think they want?"

The reality is, cryptocurrencies are here to stay. The fiat empire is doomed. It is too late to change anything about that now. But they will never believe that, will they? In the meantime, let's give them what they want so we can get what we want. It will be easier for everyone.


And how do you propose they will do that, the same way they killed Bittorrent?


"Government" is not some giant monolithic person. It's a sea of competing interests and agencies, all composed of individuals with their own priorities.

"NSA" is not the same as "the banks." Likely the NSA doesn't really give a shit (at all) about the priorities of the banks. Most of them are probably good people who just want to protect the country. Many of them are probably like Edward Snowden -- remember where he was working?

The priority of the NSA is data collection, data mining, and systems penetration. (Not controlling the unit-of-account of our money system.)

Hmm... I wonder. I wonder how they could possibly try kill Bitcoin. It's so hard, I'm really trying, but you're right, I just can't see any glaring weak spots...

http://bitcoinexaminer.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ghash.io-closer-to-51.png

Well, it kind of is deception. I think we've reached a point where there's not much point in not being open. I'm particularly thinking of the anonymity issue, more than the colored coin issue. The latter is somehow neither here or there, as that's a separate kind of architecture (issuer). If we continue to propagate the notion, as was done in the Senate hearings, that "bitcoin is traceable and so AML and tax will be fine", it will be seen as deception by all participants in the discussion, when it's later found that practical traceability is rapidly lost due to coinjoin/stealth/coinswap/mixers etc etc.
If they want to implement Fedcoin or USDcoin within a OT structure, a colored coin structure, a ripple structure or whatever - to me that's an orthogonal issue to Bitcoin. That's just about more elegant ways of centrally controlling an asset (at best - at worst it's a waste of time).
As for the government being one monolithic entity, don't worry, I'm under no such illusion. However those driving policy will be informed (after all they are supposed be information and security agencies) if it becomes clear that there is an unexplained threat from cryptocurrencies.

I think ultimately our disagreement on this point will be very much moot since Gavin does not see the situation at all as we do (as you put it "fiat is doomed").

There is the random thought that Satoshi is a group in the NSA.

They get a ledger of all transactions in the economy, self selected by the very secretive.
It uses their strengths, cryptography.
It gives more data than fiat does.
It is a daunting piece of work, it boggles the mind to think that a single individual pulled it off.

What is all that computational power really doing ?  hmmm ...

1 BTC + 2 BTC = 19,471,315.5946 ghash ???

Carroll Quigley: Our Tragedy and Their Hope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRkCvubUGCM

http://img.techpowerup.org/140116/cfr5.jpg
http://img.techpowerup.org/140116/cfr6.jpg
http://img.techpowerup.org/140116/cfr7.jpg
http://img.techpowerup.org/140116/cfr8.jpg
http://img.techpowerup.org/140116/cfr9.jpg

Could be, but take a look at Nickolas Szabo here http://szabo.best.vwh.net/
maybe with the help of Hal Finney http://www.finney.org/~hal/rpow/
Both of them are capable and much more motivated than the NSA.

This is why solo mining exists, sorry but people far cleverer than you or me have thought about this beforehand and already fixed it.

Hi Gavin, thanks for all you are doing for bitcoin!

When does the project leader change or get's revoted?

Gavin:

I did have one serious question:

I am curious why do the CFR want to speak solely with you specifically? Why not executive director of Bitcoin Foundation Jon Martonis for example or Patrick Murck general counsel, and others or a group of you?

As far as I am aware they would not be experts on cryptography or some of the technical aspects that are your area of excellence, e.g. they are not going to be asking you about intricacies of git s/ware management or multi-sig scrypt code are they?

Well, I admit it doesn't take much to be cleverer than me, but

If GHash.IO + a portion of the 'unknown' mining hashrate is actually a GCHQ/GoldmanSachs owned combo of Asic Farms, some of which haven't even been turned on yet, how does solo mining fix it?

The plot thickens...
Yoda played by: Satoshi
Luke played by:Gavin,
CFR played by: The Empire – lead by Darth Vader

Empire Strikes Back metaphor
Yoda: don’t go you are not ready
Luke: WTF
Darth Vader: Luke join me, I am your farther.

Yoda and Darth Vader are both children of the force. And are opposite sides of the same “coin” so to speak.
Gavin may get to say hi to Satoshi  :P

Now thats the 21 million Bitcoin question !! ::)

edit

LOL !

Gavin, please listen to what Andreas has to say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_yvRVkZWrE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_yvRVkZWrE)

It's only 4 minutes.

Thanks for keeping us informed.  Following

the CFR are scumbags, we should settle on a code so you can clue us into what happened, eg. at the next conference bend over and rub your butt if you've been blackmailed to sabotage bitcoin.

actually I don't think they'll want to kill it, going by all their talk about the NWO in their own publications the corporate members probably love bitcoin, if they weren't behind it to begin with - at the very least they'll find it useful in their drug running and other criminal activity.


wait.. what's this about the Bitcoin Foundation collaborating with the Gates foundation and Brookings Institute?

they wouldn't give a shit about child exploitation, along with the list below Gates is also invested in Nestle who obtain cocoa through child slavery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQvEX2Xait4

http://realnewsaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/20131220-090642.jpg?w=630
http://realnewsaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/20131220-091005.jpg?w=630
http://realnewsaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/20131220-091020.jpg?w=630
http://realnewsaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/20131220-091359.jpg?w=630

about a year ago I'd agree with that but after a lot of research I'd have to say that government IS bad as they no longer serve or represent the people, they have literally been taken over by banks and corporations.  I do agree it's best to work with them in the short term though - we need to reach a reasonable level of adoption before we can take back the power!

And exactly "foreign" to who? Since bitcoin is universal, there is nothing "foreign" to it  :-\

Oh yeah sure, foreign to the "mighty america"  ::) Hello from a foreign, i'm european  ;D

On a side note i don't want to know how bitcoin is related to that "foreign relations" things.

We need to stop confusing groups like the CFR with government. Just like Gavin, they are unelected officials.

We also need to stop confusing the government with elected officials. Ensuring the worst of all possible evils "wins" where it counts, despite actual votes to the contrary, is not a free and fair election system.

Interesting stuff...
So a central Bitcoin figure is about to meet an important part of the "world controllers" / TPTB. Arguably the CFR is one of the most central and dangerous components of the squid.

I'd be surprised if anything positive could come out of that because their script is typically already long in-place and honesty is about the last I would ever expect from such a group.

Whatever the OP does, proceed with extreme (paranoid) caution all the way downto what and where you eat/drink - in this area it's more than justified.

Gavin, the best think you can do is to ease any fears that you wish to take over the World. If you convince these people that Bitcoin has a legit place and a great future they will want to buy a few Bitcoins themselves and thereafter they will not wish to destroy their own money!

One thing is certain, if you treat and look at people as your enemies, they become and act like enemies! We wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove! All the best!

Hi Gavin -

This may be a naive question, but there will come a day when the central banking powers that be, the fed, etc ... will start looking to you guys to create features within Bitcoin that adhere to their wants / needs / requirements.   They're going to quickly realize Bitcoin is just a protocol that can be easily modified.   What will you do when that day comes?  I can't imagine the tremendous pressure that could be put on the Bitcoin core developers in the coming months/years by those who want to make Bitcoin into something its not.  Or may very well force you to do so.  

What is going to happen when that day comes?   Not if ...

Do you bend to their demands, out of fear of jail because you are held responsible for the aspects of Bitcoin which are an affront to our government?   Are you the next Edward Snowden, hopping a plane around the world while continuing to code Bitcoin from a private jet with satellite wifi access?  Does the core dev team go underground?

Will you guys be sitting cross-legged in front of Tanks while fasting and wearing robes?

-B-

Good point

Uhem, I think you're missing something.

Foundation is already trying to corrupt core principles (and in secret -> conspiracy):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334520.0


seriously? currently its exactly the other way around. they even created their own board, to operate in secret. then make jokes about it and talk about conspiracy theorists as lunatics. fucking brilliant. for some reason human beings tend to operate the same way. so this behaviour is no different than bank lobbyists meeting with the fed, and thinking its all just normal. no, this stuff is just sick.

the world doesn't just consist of the United States, and members of other countries see people from the US in a different light. Ask a Iranian, Iraqi, Vietnamese, Nicaraguan, ... bitcoin should be country neutral, not part of United States government and corporate structure.

This might be what happened to Satoshi.....please be careful!

First an invite, then the next thing you know you're chained in a dungeon alongside the infamous Bitcoin creator.

Gavin might enjoy that
He found Satoshi!
Sorry for teasing ^_^

And if you take over the world I want administration of Britannia whistle  8)

Very interesting that they extended this invitation.  Keep us posted.  Congrats.  

arent you a crappy lil poster

How about visiting a council of foreign relations in china or russia? any invitations yet?

Everyone !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fnmhj58o0k

Wouldn't it be nice to see that list?  It might be different from what's expected.  With all the fiat that came from the CFR's forebears, they might ask for something interesting and telling, they've been at this a long time.

Unless something changes, the future leaders of the US Government will be in that room.

They can be expected to believe what they have written here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf
Which they reference here:
http://www.cfr.org/economics/crs-bitcoin-questions-answers-analysis-legal-issues/p32148
It cites some of the more wicked expansions of monetary authority and centralization in US caselaw.

That they are coming to you for your help in these early days is surely interesting, you will take on a bit of their taint in this transaction, and they yours.  

hmm..  

"Unremarked in any of the media coverage of the (Fed) appointments is the significant fact that all four of these Obama nominations to one of the most powerful institutions on the planet are not only members, but high-level operatives, of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the premier U.S. “think tank” promoting world government for the past century."

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/17381-cfr-sweep-at-fed-obama-names-fischer-brainard-powell-to-join-yellen

Wow thanks for the link - Gavin if you are up to it your public comments on any of the topics under consideration would be appreciated.

Can anyone summarise this for others? I haven't got a PDF viewer seemingly.

Here is the (unformatted) text: http://pastebin.com/6ehbDZiY

Thanks! Appreciate it.

More remarkable would be a Federal Reserve Board member that was NOT high up at CFR.  CFR members are a very large percentage of appointments.  The same folks started the CFR as the Federal reserve anyhow.
Are there members of the president's cabinet without CFR tenure?

As to the ridicule of "US Agenda" point raised early, some there may see weakening of the USA as a world authority as a necessary element of engendering war, which is the primary means of assuring all nations indebtedness to banking (Rothchild Formula).¹ (http://archive.org/stream/CreatureFromJekyllIslandByG.Edward-G.EdwardGriffin/CreatureFromJekyllIslandByG.Edward-G.EdwardGriffin_djvu.txt)  The theory being that a single "peacekeeper" national authority might presage decreased war.
Further to that, the banks have enough US debt established so to the extent that the US hedgemon can deter aggression from countries that are not currently in debt, US power runs counter to the bankers interests, as they don't need more war from the US.

From a completely cynical banker-power perspective this might make sense?

For purpose of full disclosure, I take CFR's Foreign Affairs subscription, and read much of what they put forward on many topics, but am not a member of anything related.

Also of interest from the CFR here is their paper suggestion that the IMF perform some regulatory activity in regards Bitcoin by referencing:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2248419
or
http://pastebin.com/xpBHMJMe

Of note, the CFR definitely treat Bitcoin primarily as a currency.

Essentially this shows how they are setting Bitcoin up to take the blame for some future national currency failures.  Section 5 of that paper may be of specific interest:
"V. HOW TO COUNTER THE BITCOIN THREAT VIA THE IMF"
What enforcement mechanism this may take is not determined and the document recognizes it as a problem.  Some of the mechanisms suggested would certainly take the help of someone like Gavin, others such as interfering in FOREX and Exchange markets are things they already do for other currencies.

The paper is bizarre in a number of ways, but what I find particularly odious is the repeated reference to a hypothesized "speculative attack by bitcoin holders". I suppose the author would characterize the 50% (hyper)inflation in Venezuelan bolivars right now as a "speculative attack by dollar holders". What he means by "attack" is voluntarily choosing to hold bitcoins instead of national currency.

To be fair, it *is* possible to short dollars against btc on margin by borrowing them, which of course is easier than it should be due to rigged low interest rates. He worries that raising interest rates would be terrible for national economies (read: terrible for banking cronies printing to QE infinity). That, of course, is us evil bitcoiners' fault.

Maybe it seems bizarre from our perspective?

Take it from their point of view.  These are the descendants of the folks that have created all the central banks.  It is their divine right to govern all the world and hold it to their standard such that any who seek their own liberty are an aberrant evil needing to be quashed.  The contempt sometimes bleeds through the artful rhetoric.  It is all for our own protection, you know.  Law and government are just tools to keep the wayward in line, fat, dumb and happily chewing cud and milked until slaughter time.

OK, that maybe goes a little far, most of them are not at all like that....but there are some few there for which it does not go far enough.

Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and the Council on Foreign Relations stated,


http://www.businessinsider.com/jp-morgans-jamie-dimon-on-bitcoin-2014-1

... in case anyone was still wondering why Gavin was summoned.

And yea, Jamie Dimon is a member... scroll down - http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=D

Oh Jamie, how common of you.  That is the old method.

In response to the government-created problem of too-big-to-fail banks, new regulation was created for all banks.  The new regulation is the same no matter how big the bank so the little ones can barely afford it and have to sell out to the big ones, creating even more too-bigger-to-fail.

Banking regulation is often the use of law/government/force against your competition to ensure your continued capability to charge the highest fee.  It is no surprise that Dimon runs to this for defense.

P2P bitcoin puts this to the lie though.  When we are all our own bank, just how much regulation can be demanded?  It is not as though there is even a way to regulate every individual in this way.  Furthermore we are not asking for "consumer protections" we are asking for the opposite of that:  Protection from your consumer protections through the use of math and code.  Let us then protect ourselves, please.

he's just anti-bictoin cos Max Keiser calls him a criminal and says he'd like to give him syphilis for christmas.

There is a very simple way to deal with this: Just use GNU/Linux instead of Microsoft Windows.

This kind of escapism serves you well when you don't have to interact with the whole Microsoft ecosystem and its dumb users at all, not many people can afford that.

Gavin short comment about government bad, if republic where regulation to regulate government then not bad, if the other way around then bad. I use to think people need to be regulated will I met a congressmen from Texas who explained how it should be. Trust me when I say something is wrong. Just be nice and buy us time most of the evil is financed by central banks I met Ben Still he understands that but he hasn't figured out the solution yet this community is closest to the solution if we don't get crushed somehow so stall be nice but know who you are dealing with the those who fear the people or those who the people fear (tyranny or liberty).

In any case I can't wait to read (or watch,listen) to the report. Good luck!

This article you linked to is titled "Jamie Dimon Goes On The Attack On Bitcoin".
First they ignore you - Check! (6 years of silence)
Then they laugh at you - Check! (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/bitcoin-is-the-segway-of-currency/281625/)
Then they attack you - Check!
Let's list some examples:
"Fed Banker Tries Criticizing Bitcoin"
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/9549/fed-banker-tries-criticizing-bitcoin-ends-perfectly-describing-fed/
Here Francois Velde of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago criticizes Bitcoin.

"The SEC Shows Why Bitcoin Is Doomed"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/did-the-sec-just-validate-bitcoin-no-.html
Here Bloomberg takes the SEC's warning and twists it for their own political propaganda.

"Greenspan Says Bitcoin a Bubble Without Intrinsic Currency Value"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/greenspan-says-bitcoin-a-bubble-without-intrinsic-currency-value.html
Here Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the Fed for 19 years) says "I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from".
He does not understand?  No surprises really!

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/alan-greenspan-bitcoin-comment-reaction-2013-12
When asked by Trish Regan from Bloomberg "Is Bitcoin a bubble?" he responded "I guess so".
YOU GUESS SO??  Is that how you conduct business, by guessing?  It is no wonder the world was subjected to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and World Economic Meltdown.  I guess you guessed wrong?  Sounds to me like you have no idea what you are talking about.  Perhaps you should not be offering advice Alan.

Well it is time to draw a line in the sand my friends.  The Old Guard is being challenged, and they don't like it.
Let me tell you something Mr Alan Greenspan, you better get used to it.

A much better example from Whitehouse chief economic advisor:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/24/austan_goolsbee-on-bitcoins-usefulness-hahahaha-rotfl/

In my honest opinion, he should accept and use that opportunity to invite them to join the open community of Bitcoin. Unconditional help is always needed.

Yes, if they are that interested, there is always work on the wikis and attending bitcoin meetups to be done ...

Do they pay you any expenses (like travel and accomodation) ?

This quote was deleted I guess because the comment didn't save. Just another part of the problems happening with the forum lately I guess. Anyway, what does this have to do with Gavin going to CFR? All companies have weird connections. 

well, that's an interesting development. CFR invites Gavin and by pure chance, a foundation members gets arrested 1 week earlier. now we've learned something about conspiracies.

What? Who got arrested?

Now that meeting is going to be so much more interesting. I'm not quite sure what Shrem is accused of, but they seem to have used internal communications (congrats NSA).

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/about/board


Charlie Shrem
Vice Chairman

Currently serving as CEO and co-founder of BitInstant, one of the largest, earliest and well known alternative payment companies, Charlie used his position in both the old banking world and new alternative currency world to help pave the way for the Bitcoin economy to emerge in early 2011. Known in the Bitcoin and old hacker communities as 'Yankee', he is also founding member and current Vice Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. Along with Gareth Nelson, he found the need for a more secure, fast and convenient way of transferring funds between and within payment networks around the world and leads BitInstant through the complex compliance, licensing and regulations of the worldwide banking system

http://www.businessinsider.com/report-ceo-of-major-bitcoin-exchange-arrested-2014-1

Wow, I didn't know that. I guess it's true that the US government is coming after Bitcoin. Their just going to come through the back door. You can't keep going to Washington and poking the beast without eventually getting attacked.

question is: how did law enforcement get those private communications? was that legal? the complaint is basically an email dump.

Thanks for the link. That made me laugh so hard. I love the fact that the Winklevoss douches are caught up in this. haha

I'm sure they got them from the Silk Road seized computers. They had a warrant so the info was legally obtained. I think a lot of the former SR users have a little anal probing in their future.

If the Feds can triangulate between SR and BitInstant...  Ouch!

Probably the garden variety junkies, tweakers, etc have nothing to worry about, but I'll wager that a lot folks higher up on the food chain utilized Shrem's services since in the earlier days (at least) he was one of the only games in town.

I personally think that the whole 'war on drugs' is a sham and a scam, but it is the case that the larger operators were not doing their thing out of the goodness of their hearts.  They were in it for the money, and the money was there because of the stupid drug laws.  If they end up paying the price, that is how the dice landed...and they voluntarily picked up the dice to have a role in the first place.  I'm not shedding a lot of tears for them personally.

The American drug war will go down in history as the greatest wastes of national wealth of any country that ever existed. You could say that Christians jailed Charlie in their war against anything they don't agree with today. Moralizing by the American government is a ridiculous farce considering how many women and children have been killed and raped in "police actions" and wars by the American military.

That said, I still believe if someone knowingly commits a crime they have no one to blame but themselves. If they don't get caught that's great but if they do I can't feel sorry for them. Charlie could have started his company in a country that's not controlled by a bunch of Christian nut jobs. The moralizing will continue as the American Gestapo will use the seized computers to go on a crusade against SR heretics across the country.

One Week Server Time Till Gavin will visit the Council on Foreign Relations  ;)

And
 

This is what Gavin will be discussing. The question is what can the TPTB (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_powers_that_be_(phrase)) bring to the table for this type of cooperation, remember legislation can be "heavy-handed".  

I think offering this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4wMcugkSGc) is more than enough, they can choose to participate at will. Starts 20 seconds in.

In fact Sarah Meiklejohn (http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~smeiklejohn/files/imc13.pdf) should be on the panel for security and law enforcement. Listening to her one understands Bitcoin is a godsend for law enforcement. The only regulation necessary is large players putting names KYC to public keys at the point of sale.

Have fun Gavin.

The CFR on bitcoin at 23:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQj9sWawXBg&feature=c4-overview&list=UUL_A4jkwvKuMyToAPy3FQKQ

The whole video is worth watching to see how scumbags they are

CFR are the intellectual and philosophical descendants of the Federal Reserve and the IMF.

Their plan includes using the IMF to regulate Bitcoin according to their published documents.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2248419

One mechanism for that would be to get Bitcoin to be legal tender for one of the member nations, that would allow the IMF to get involved.

Legal Tender is wicked law.

Not real big on individual liberties, self-determination and free markets are they?

Who let these guys near the reins of power, they are downright dangerous, not to mention unelected.

More like "pre-elected".  Both main US parties draw heavily from the ranks of the CFR to fill their tickets.  The CFR is like the training ground for US politicians.

With only a few more days to go before the meeting, I here by declare my opinion poll, a resounding success. :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=418110.0

While it may appear that we, who oppose this collaboration with these indignants, have lost, we have in fact won !

WE ARE THE 33% ! .. and counting.. ;)

WE represent the 90% of the world's population who do not have the resources and/or the capability to participate.

WE represent the enslaved, war torn peoples of the world.

WE, the real majority, WILL DEMAND JUSTICE !

VERITAS AEQUITAS !

So be it.

pEACe

Kudos. I never heard this term before, but it's spot-on.

Say "hi" to Commissioner Gordon.

Yeah, it was quite the eye-opener for me too when I first checked it out.  

In case you're interested, here's a bit more on that:


Article:  http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.ca/2012/08/twilight-of-psychopaths.html

Two Hour Radio Show (heavy duty):  http://radiofetzer.blogspot.ca/2012/04/daniel-noel.html
-just click on 'Daniel Noel' at the top
-they get to the Ponerology topic later in the show (jump to 1:36)

Great article.  But this analysis is missing one element, even though it was obliquely mentioned later in the article:


Drugs.  No modern civilization can produce the energy and food required to sustain millions of people in dense cities without the aid of pharmaceuticals.  Modern governments rely on medicinal plants that grow in marginal soils, and whose products are easily-transported, in order to maintain both social control and a relatively productive population of citizens.

It's no happy coincidence that drugs also help to "brainwash" the populace, and to create armies which can then be sent into the provinces to guard valuable pharmaceutical crops.  Why is this vital element not openly recognized?  Is it, perhaps, as Hillary Clinton said, because "there is just too much money in it" (http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/07/hillary-clinton-we-cant-legali)?

Surely Bitcoin can survive one Gavin Andresen visit to the CFR behind closed doors?  The protocol needs to be tested in every way if it is to become a global currency.

Bitcoin will survive but Gavin may be scarred for life.

Aside from it being used to lure the sheeple into doing their dirty work, the money excuse is there to keep up looking in the wrong direction.

All these people care about is creating more misery and chaos, from every conceivalbe angle. They feed off of it.

Ponerology at work..

Kids for Cash
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/4/kids_for_cash_inside_one_of

Heros
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Gj43SXxBk

damn, I was about to mention how I read that 30-40% of congress are pedophiles so are easy to manipulate / blackmail.
thought I'd google the specifics then found this headline.. Congress passes 'Pedophile Protection Act'.

oh and there was an interview with an animal rights activist earlier, he said Bush passed a bill that would label them terrorists if they did anything that would hurt the profits of corporations, eg. protesting.
combined with Obama's bill that enables anyone to be detained indefinitely without charge or trial if suspected of ties to terrorism, it's just insane.

Really? How so, exactly?

Is it because they are a powerful bunch? The Mafia is also a powerful group of people; if they invited Gavin to speak, would you consider that an "honor and a milestone for the bitcoin community"?

Or is it because you believe they are nice, honest people?

having aljazeera there as press brings alot of suspicion. knowing their agenda and who they work for..

Al Jazeera has come a long way and is, in fact, a respected news organisation. I'd be less concerned with their agenda than, say, that of Fox News. ;D

I wouldn't call meeting the CfR an honor.. but I would call it important.
No matter what you think of them, if you ever want to have any influence in this world, and don't intend to use violence/force (and you'd need a massive army for that), you need diplomacy.

Use diplomacy to gain trust and reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
Don't fight the CfR, gradually become the CfR.
And when you are the CfR.. you have the influence to accomplish change.

Gaining the trust of the CFR is nice and all that, but is orders of magnitude less important than holding onto trust in the Bitcoin community.

Gavin had the ability to demand transparency even if it isn't the playbook that the CFR normally follows.  He could easily have just said that his interactions with them would be transparent and publicly documented.  Period.  Take it or leave it.  Bitcoin is strong enough to command that kind of respect...for now...and it is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate position.  I don't see that it ever even occurred to Gavin.  By all appearances he is simply not a very original thinker.

Rest in pEACe, Mr. Chaplin.

http://youtu.be/jYMnUSvU_oc

Gavin does not appear to be under the illusion that there was a choice, or that this is anything other than what it is.  Meeting in secret and getting CFR taint, or no meeting.  The CFR do seek to end what they see as a threat, and have openly published their plan to do so.  They are not going to be persuaded otherwise as a group, but there may be individuals there that may get a glimpse of what it is like to be in the presence of an honest freethinking person who is working for the common good at great personal risk.
http://www.cfr.org/economics/crs-bitcoin-questions-answers-analysis-legal-issues/p32148?cid=rss-economics-crs__bitcoin__questions,_answe-010614

That the CFR is opposed to everything Bitcoin is and represents is no secret.  Whether they use the events surrounding this meeting to exert overt coercion or try to win some points with charm and displays of wealth and power remains to be seen. (carrot or stick?) Whatever the outcome, another day, another bitcoin.  I wish him well, he has done much good and I will not hold this against him.

Well, it means they are taking note, regardless of their true intentions.

What is their agenda and who do they work for?

Going with the Star Wars meme

Yoda played by: Satoshi
Luke played by:Gavin,
CFR played by: The Empire – lead by Darth Vader

There will be taint
Luke : I feel the good in you
Darth: join me...

... Risking his life sure but he just loses a hand in the end.

I meant Aljazeera lol.

Indeed. Any organization that would hire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Jane_Gliha isn't the worst out there.

I don't think that anyone was asserting that they do shoddy work. However, when there is a group who _conspires_ (in the true sense of the word) to rule over the vast majority of their fellow humans, I'd rather they not be particularly good at it. Vast skill in doing evil is certainly NOT preferable to bungling while attempting evil.

straw man down

The countdown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U)

OMFG !! They're gonna launch a coin ! :P

How do you know this? Is this FUD? My humour detector is not very good.

I'm soo SERIAL !

Hillary is in on it.

Behold ! SNUKEcoin. ;D

I hope he gets back from there today and with some good news.  ;D

I hope he gets back from there, period. lol

It’s live
http://www.cfr.org/economics/voices-next-generation-gavin-andresen-bitcoin/p32339

It's actually quite the opposite: Only the uneducated use the term "conspiracy theory."

I question your premises:

Can you explain what exactly makes CFR members "some of the nation's top researchers"?

Can you elucidate what exactly constitutes a "professional and comprehensive" analysis of geopolitics?

Can you explain to me why you are holding these people as honorable authorities?

I think you're the one who's being extremely naive. Can you show us an example of their "quality work"? Are you into empire building, war-mongering, grand-scale mass murder (aka war), creating Big Lies, wealth accumulation, resource stealing, predatory lending...? Is that what you're calling "quality work"?

This level of cluelessness in a Bitcoin forum is surprising.

the CFR - reminds me of this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCOqF8gZeh8

I missed the first 10 minutes so if anyone finds the video please list it.

All in all Gavin did well, he wasn't the guy to challenge TPTB on the merits of Austrian economics, but did a great job of expressing illustrating Bitcoins decentralized nature.

I think my take away is Bitcoin is supported buy a bunch of nutters who would rather give money to poor people than fund regime change, or encouraged corporate resource extraction for "mutual benefit " "the greater good" monopolistic profit.  

I don't think he emphasized enough, the blockchain as a tool to track money in crime is superior to cash and unlike other records "corporate fraud" you can't burn the records.

No value here, it's a flawed system trying to disrupt PayPal rent seeking, central banks weren't challenged.

regime change even through apparent revolution is nearly always based on lies..

That the bitcoin blockchain is open and unencrypted is part of why governments are as complacent about it as they are.

The session was recorded to the CFR youtube channel.
You can watch it again and again if you like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U

This was wise for everyone.  Maybe they read enough of this thread to sort of "get it".  The CFR has an interest in making their group less scary to people, even though many of their ideas and goals are very wrong headed¹, they do engage in debate and this stuff gets discussed even if their innate sense of entitlement and assurance in their knowledge of "the way things ought to be" leads them down so many dead ends.

If you want to know the CFR better, I'd recommend reading their public magazines and publications.  Like any group the members are fairly diverse, but overall have a particular slant.  Theirs is very much slanted for TPTB.  Maybe the CFR should come out with "compliancecoin" complete with central bank keynesian adjustments at all the wrong times and directions and beholden to political forces just like the central bankers use.


¹That their members are openly proud of money backed by military might and float extraterrestrial asteroids as justification for this is sufficient evidence in just this one video.

You and the other 90% of the World.

Big thanks goes out to everyone who participated in my poll / debate.

Final tally : (BOOOO!)--> ACCEPT 184 + (YAAAY WOOOT WOOHOOO !)--> DECLINE 85 =  8) Things are not as grim as I once thought. ;D

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=418110.0

pEACe
HT xD 

just finished it.

fantastic performance by Gavin. he comes across as measured, thoughtful, caring, and with the right principles. he also hit on many important points and answered questions appropriately.

couldn't have been better. this is why we have Gavin as the Chief Scientist.

I followed someone's link the other day to the front page of their website.  Of the 6 articles I saw on was by Elliot Abrams and another by Max Boot.  That's enough to convince me that the organization is yet another nest of neocon wankers.  Yawn.

Not even _that_ sophisticated. Just calling 'em as I see 'em.

Just watched. I agree completely. Nice job, Gavin!

I was really envious, though, when the question or suggestion rather came up of the role and benefit of people manipulating the inflation rate, and forced incentive to spend money (inflation/deflation etc.). At home all I could do was grit my teeth. If it was me in the chair I probably would have let them have it. Gavin was unbelievably controlled, almost hospitable to their advances. I don't think the meeting could have went better. Probably good that it wasn't me  :D

+1

There were a lot of tricky questions. Gavin did a great job for addressing them all.

So the eye of Mordor has noticed that Frodo has the ring......

This is going to get very interesting.

Since Mayer-Amschel's times the power of finance has resided in few hands . These are the people that create revolutions and wars so that they can finance both sides and decide who wins. Kingdom consolidation anyone??? And no, I am not a Jones fanboy. I just like to be inquisitive enough to persevere until the light of truth tells me I am at the root cause. Anybody ever researched the true meaning of the Queens annual door knock at the City ? What actually happened when Wellington won Waterloo? And so on and so on.


There are two options imo:

1. Tell them to get fkd

choosing this option is the only honorable one but it means war & underground subsistence for those that dare to resist & persist with such recalcitrant behaviour. Expect accidents & suicides / various unfortunate events and laws and bans and regulations. This is not like pirating movies or music. This is a real threat but these kids are smart and will try turn the threat into opportunity. Bringing me to option 2 and a likely scenario for the reasons of the invite:

2. Obey and see bitcoin / whatevercoin become the hip global thing that all want to join at first then have to join shortly after.

No more cash is the goal which is still the true anon coin if executed well. And of course no more national currencies. Watch the USD show any moment now....

This will let digital currencies shine as a model of global cooperation (and taxation) under their full control, as is one of their stated goals. Allowing bitcoin to operate in this realm is only going to happen if we choose to co-operate. I sometimes wonder if we are just being used as an alpha test for readiness to accept such subjugation plus do some initial marketing & PR on the concept on the side. Ie they let us reach critical mass. Then ban. Intern the alleged leaders. Burn them on the 'stake' figuratively speaking and openly admit ' that it was conceptually a great idea but obviously needs central control & regulation' and now will be offered by your favorite UN ' just think of the children, the environment / insert whatever fluffy bs here' bureaucracy


It is an interesting crossroad we find ourselves standing at. It was always going to be reached if p2p currency conceptually was solid and poses a threat. Which it obviously is.

So now what ?

Only the thoroughly educated believe their government.

You did good Gavin.  Just don't let us catch you conspiring with global oligarchies ever again young man.

+1

It is a pitty that the myths of money policies and necessity of central bank intervention were left in the air as they were. I wish all the cumbersomeness of the economic theories was shown and made more apparent to rather fall apart.

Also I regret that our community could be seen like a corporation with which governments could negotiate which is definitely not the case.

Governments may indeed compromise our project and create us all sorts of difficulties but in the end they are not going to succeed in diminishing the dream of cryptocurrencies and would do a much better job in embracing this technology.

Bitcoin is the separation of Money and State. Something only comparable to the innovation the printing press and the Internet brought about.

It is the way for the end of fractional reserve banking and speculative markets.

It is the most disruptive step towards a brand new order in the world of finance for a society relying on really democratic and for the people principles based on a sound decentralized and non-hierarchical foundation. (in communications, in law, in production and in finance...)

Please let us bring about a world of prosperity and abundance to our world right at the verge of an unprecedented technological singularity.

As an end note, I think that being Satoshi Nakamoto and/or being a guy with such eloquence that worked for Silicon Graphics to bring forth the future of VRML and now leads the bitcoin project must only be comparable to being 'Dire Straits' on stage.
I definitely want my MTV...  :P
 

Just watching it now. Was surprised that it was filmed. I was under the impression it'd be all secretive and shit lol.

Fixed that for you.

Public scrutiny has forced them to create a public facade.

This is only what they are allowing us to see.

Regardless of what you conspiracy nuts say, the video of Gavin at the CFR confirm yet gain that Gavin is one our our BEST advocates out there. 

agreed but i'll settle for when Gavin in response to the interviewers diatribe about the benefits of central banking, crinkled his nose and said (i paraphrase), "yeeeah, i don't know."  he then went on to highlight the problems with Zimbabwe and said that most Bitcoiners think the central bank has done a "horrible job".

there wasn't time for much more.

Who was the guy interviewing Gavin?

Douglas A. Rediker,
Visiting Fellow,
Peterson Institute for International Economics;
Former Member,
Executive Board,
International Monetary Fund
Who was the guy interviewing Gavin?

'Our' is a meaningless statement in this context.

I did watch the presentation last night and was by-n-large impressed with it.  If Gavin gives a complete and believable de-briefing of any and all other interactions he had there, I'll be fairly satisfied with his performance.

---

I thought the dis-connect on the shoe topic was most telling.

I'm pretty sure that what Gavin meant by 'how can we stop people from buying shoes' was how can we make an ethical justification for it which is acceptable to a population who has some degree of freedom.

The moderator totally didn't see that at all.  To him it was completely a question about whether such a transaction can be controlled, and since it is a physical commodity that would be relatively easy.  He is clearly envisioning a totalitarian framework which is based on the physical mechanics of keeping the plebs in line.  Ethics don't enter into the equation.

Gavin didn't pursue this, but I don't necessarily hold it against him.  Not sure what I would have done in such a situation.

Our == the virtual currency community at large.

My point is that my own conception of 'good advocacy' and yours are substantially different because we pretty clearly envision different end states as ideal.

I'm not making a values judgement about who's vision of an end state is good or bad or right or wrong.  Just that they are different.

Watched it earlier. Surprised it was only an hour long though. Should've been at least double. Gavin definitely seems like a decent guy and spokesman for Bitcoin. I don't like his David Brent goatee though haha.

True that.

Part of me wants to find this humorous, but a bigger part doesn't really think it's funny any longer.

Can you ask them to pressure Russia, India, etc to leave BTC users and exchanges alone, please?

Is there a youtube link or something that I have missed?

I was unable to "do it live" in the words of Bill O'Reilly.

http://www.cfr.org/economics/voices-next-generation-gavin-andresen-bitcoin/p32339

I'll leave this here in the context of helping to understand the problem that fractional reserve banking poses and the necessity for the separation of money and State.
https://www.youtube.com/user/PositiveMoneyUK (https://www.youtube.com/user/PositiveMoneyUK)

It wasn't that exciting really. I thought it'd be more in depth, so you're not missing much.

IMF. He seemed alright, but clearly he is the devil in disguise  :D.

i am more interested in CFR member's opinion on bitcoin than to hear gavin's rehashed, monotone story again

also, live viewer in the comment said only 300 ppl were watching. #fail majeure

It is not the content (anyone in bitcoin knows and understand that) as much as the humble diplomacy with which Gavin explains to the establishment how this technology just makes sense.  And it it not fire and brimstone.  His best answers are the entirely truthful:  "I don't know" because as we all know the potential of this technology is limitless.

Worth a watch if only for an example of how to engage skeptics  - not with fierce opposition and argument but with subtle and engaging charm.

Yes, Gavin handled the tricky questions very well.

I kept trying to picture the scene had Andreas Antonopolous been answering.  He is also an excellent voice for bitcoin but he would have done some serious shredding of some of these agenda-laden questions. 

They didn't seem overly sceptical. I thought it would be a drilling/grilling, but it was far more relaxed.

What are you?  On F*^%$%g glue?

Yes, the interviewer admitted to being a skeptic but the conversation was cordial and informative.  And I'm sure they had cocktails or dinner after with additional questions and conversation.  And the skeptics walk away thinking, here is a smart, articulate family man who obviously believes in this.  Maybe I better take a deeper look.  And it is fear and lack of knowledge for the protocol that is what causes most of the FUD.  You can event witness this in the NYS DFS bitlicense hearings.  Lawsky started off all fire and brim stone comparing Charlie Shrem, by association, with Terrorists, financial criminals and other illicit actors, and with a clear indication that he felt bitcoin was bad. He even invoked the memory of 9/11 stating we are only 100 yards from the WTC where 1000's lost their lives because of terrorists ability to move massive amounts of money illegally (no true actually - they moved most of it legally!).  

But by the second day you could see that he and his colleagues were asking really thoughtful and probing question as they began to understand the value and the potential of the technology.

I only mention this to counter the stance of the crypto-anarchist libertarians who like to say "Fuck the Fed" and other inciting opposition stances.  

My argument is that we make much greater progress in advancing our position by thoughtful and reasonable discourse.

 

Only a$$oles say stupid things like "Only the uneducated believe in conspiracy theories."

I think the term 'conspiracy theory' is used to mock and denigrate now as any legitimate concern is mixed in with all the nonsense claims of aliens and Illuminati crap, but the NSA revelations were just a 'conspiracy theory' up until a short while ago.

Most of the CFR members understand thourougly the mechanics of money and power.  They might get someone like Antonopolous in to do tricks for their amusement, but generally the probably have more important things to do.

It is people more like Gavin who pose a genuine threat to the power structures that the CFR folks have cultivated.  Whether Gavin is actually one of these is less clear to me.

Now it's a conspiracy fact  ;D.

Yeah, being sceptical is fine, but it's when that misunderstanding turns into fear and anger based on nothing but ignorance then it becomes a problem.

Nope. You troll?

No. You are just clueless.

I disagree. This is the group that Runs The World. Central banking is perhaps the sharpest tool they have used to amass the power they now have. They know this. Any diminution of the dominance of fiat currency is a very real reduction in their power. While evil, they are not stupid. Bitcoin (or more properly cryptocurrencies in general) is a very real threat to their hegemony, power, and lifestyles.

This

The more you are close to central banks, the more you have to loose from bitcoin and vise versa.

I watched it and as others have said,  I thought Gavin did a really good job!  

Khadafi and others, were about to start The African Union with the gold backed Dinar and the currency.

We all know what happened to him.

He also used to control the biggest underground plain water resource on Earth.

I watched it and have to say, Good job Gavin

Good job Gavin, on not getting creeped out by that sullen group of people, in that totally somber plain white room.  1984 anyone?

There was certainly kind of a 'let's size this guy and Bitcoin up for possible weaknesses' vibe in the room.

Most of us would have been like..."that time already?...gotta just take a break to grab a coffee and very likely not find my way back to this room any time soon even then."

Very likely these folks are a bunch of bean-countin', globalist agenda-pushin', think tank-promotin', fiat worshipin', rent-seekin', central bank-colludin', war-mongerin', surveillance-lovin', interest-demandin', social security-erodin', middle class-destroyin'...wingnuts.

So kudos for navigating smoothly through the whole ordeal and for getting out of there in one piece.

Andresen = Andrew son = Son of Andrew
Andrew = Man
Andresen = Son of Man (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158873.0)

(credit to Alan Watt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmnX_C2hjYQ))

He did a great job of ELI5ing to our globalist masters. I think he convinced them to corner the market. They will probably start by closing down a major exchange and crashing the price. Then they will indict major Bitcoin personalities on trumped up charges. Then they will start rumors of bans on Bitcoin in major countries. They will continue shock and awe tactics until they shake out every weak hand and buy enough bitcoins to continue their family legacies into the next centuries.

The public interview was not the important part of the conversation.  I for one would welcome Gavin's field report.

You'll be waiting on that one for a while. He starts these news threads then hardly ever returns to them. The only ones that warrant a second look are the ones where he's being attacked. I doubt he really looked at those twice. Most likely someone told him, "hey dude, LukeJr is talking shit about you in your thread" so he responded.

+1 unfortunately. Hooooooooooooodl !!!!

When one is rich enough then risking a tiny percentage of your total wealth on things that might make it big is much easier than if one is so poor that the risk of starving to death precludes participation in it; i.e. the rich get richer and the poor starve.  There is no need to manipulate.  The natural news cycle will work nicely.

Ha, true, but Gavin is hardly an authoritative Dictator here. They could put pressure on gavin, but regardless that's not gonna stop Bitcoin. I think it's a long way off before Bitcoin becomes a threat to them any way, but obviously they see the threat.



He's probably pretty busy / got better things to do, but it's nice that he actually stops by to keep the community updated.

Ibn! (c)

This is was probably one of the most pointless dog-and-pony shows I've ever seen.

The CFR gets a person who is arguably the most technically qualified person in the entire world for an hour, who could've legitimately explained in tremendous depth what Bitcoin really is and how it works, but instead decided to waste everybody's time asking lay questions speculating about economics and political economy.

All the while the narcissist host insists on "pushing back", literally meaning "no matter what you have to say I have a prepared milquetoast rebuttal to what I assume you're going to say".

This.

Looked like the presentation was attended by support personnel and groupies primarily.  At least judging by the Q-n-A.  I'd not really expect so have seen many of the movers and shakers there both because no matter what the content of such a presentation it would be largely dis-interesting to them and obtainable in a more condensed form anyway.


Hopefully if Gavin sees fit to elaborate on this aspect of things (or issue an assurance that there is nothing to elaborate on) someone will note it in this thread.  I, for one, don't spend a great deal of effort stalking him.  He started this thread and it would be fair to hope he'd speak to this aspect of the event as it is obviously an interesting and important to at least a fraction of the Bitcoin community.

This. Was exactly my impression all throughout. Every time they asked a half-assed dumb or menial question, I thought of what Andreas Antonopoulos would have replied. Gavin was extremely soft on them, though that's not necessarily a bad thing.


assorted.goods, if you truly believe your above-quoted statement, it means that you can be fooled into believing pretty much anything that comes from an authority figure.

I should check the thread but I was stalking Gavins posts so the question needs to be asked

How was the Council on Foreign Relations Gavin
http://www.cfr.org/economics/voices-next-generation-gavin-andresen-bitcoin/p32339

The new school is looking alot like the old one.

We must petition Gavin to simply decline the invite. Let them buy a mining rig, if they really want to learn about cryptos !

Guys. Really? Do you really honestly think we have anything on the banksters with our measly 10B market cap / infrastructure / couple of 100k people etc ? They can shut it all down in 24 hours if they want. Fk they can start a world war in that time. Plus getting the finance arrangements for both, the winning & loosing party arranged in time as well.
Lets not kid ourselves: until we get banned and some have the guts to continue to operate & trade regardless we are not even a thorn in their side. Just a curiosity and a vehicle to be used.
The only thing that might happen FOR/with crypto out of this is refining their strategy on how to impose digital transactions only on all mankind. The controlled kind of course. Need something like Dark (DRK) plus a real alternate economy to operate outside their framework to eject from the debt slave system.
I recommend Gary Allen's book as a start.

Legal Tender is wicked law.

Obviousy not. That is kind of the entire point ...

Oh I so hope so. Itll be the virtual light of my life (;-)

Why didn't I see it before !?

Gox is/was the false flag !

"Japan Pushes for International Effort on Bitcoin Regulation"

http://www.coindesk.com/japan-pushes-international-effort-bitcoin-regulation/

(;-) thats the problem with light. Always some shadows....

Sickly accurate, cbeast = nom de plume - Michel de Nostredame  ???

Toss in a little fractional reserve and .... yup.. they are about to fuck us .. again.

"New exchange will put Bitcoin regulation in the hands of Wall Street bankers."

http://www.dailydot.com/news/secondmarket-bitcoin-trading-mt-gox-wall-street/

edit..

First heard it on the corbettreport. See desc. --> http://youtu.be/oUcf1ga5gxc

that's really disturbing, at the very least there will be price manipulation but I'm envisaging worse.

i think you did well!~i was invigorated watching this!!! =)

I agree. Don't forget their most powerful international "tool" the IMF with it's powerful lending/usury trap perfectly laid time and again for decades, around the world.

The thing I can't wrap my head around, as it goes so deep down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, is why is it being said that the powers-that-be are using their tools to now purposeful crash the dollar? I'm mean standing from here, it appears clearly that this, in fact, is the truth. I just can't wrap my brain around why...and it just can't be that they are trying to cause a complete societal collapse so they can put in place martial law and control everything about the human race, making it not really about money at all, but power and having/controlling everything. That is just so far-fetched and sick it borders on the supernatural and alien takeover plots from people I still think are just nuts!

And, I'm still one that will not write off the rumors around organizations like the Illuminati and the more realistic Bohemian Grove sickos. For what it's worth I've discovered recently that the Illuminati is the epitome of disinformation...as you watch this hand focusing on smoke and mirrors, we'll be busy over here stealing every bit of wealth from the mass we can, that we've been doing religiously since 1913, at least in the US. Since Alex Jones, the king of this exact tactic (as you'll notice NEVER shares exactly who the enemy is) but instead has his massive half-awake fan base distracted and chasing ghosts, while they spend every penny they can on preppers stuff and building a bomb shelter in the basement. lol Well it's not really funny, and yes, we ALL should be prepared for future catastrophes as they can come in many shapes and sizes. 

That said, and this what my business and our direct selling 'all-bitcoin' business launch soon is all about, every fully-awake person on the planet should be investing in assets, as much as possible not completely controlled by the central authorities. Eventually, and they know it, their grip on the metals markets will be over-powered by the people. Screw them if they think they can make it illegal again, we will continue to buy with BTC and keep it hidden away safe. We are focusing on bitcoin, gold/silver, land, and some non-perishable supplies, oh and we are starting to buy ammunition too. Just another usable long-term asset for JIC.

Peace!

Sorry I got so off topic! I replied to an older post, but came here to see this exact discussion!

I'm pretty educated about all this and been analyzing and buying btc since April 2013...

Any old-timers here have a specific take on what this will mean to the Bitcoin Ecosystem as a whole? Potential price manipulation like nearly all our markets, including metals of course, Forex, etc. could be a big problem, but I guess it could also be good for the buy/hold believers..

And, does this affect other exchanges around the world? I'm afraid to ask.

Thanks for the quick summary.
Nothing to see here, move along........

whats next?  Gavin visits the Bohemian club?

Your prediction (from early Feb) is way too accurate.
The "shock and awe tactics" are just too much...

they aren't deliberately crashing the dollar, they've been propping it up for years - it's a ponzi scheme on its last legs as governments have gotten into more debt than they can ever pay off which is why I believe the DHS has invested so much and executive orders put in place to be able to handle the inevitable crash and potential need for martial law..  

they might deliberately pull the plug when they're ready to transition but most likely they'll want to shift the blame away from the banking sector..  I think they knew full well that Russia wouldn't let Crimea go and probably also knew that Russia might attack the dollar when backed into a corner with sanctions.

the NWO stuff is really about getting rid of trade barriers for profit, we will all suffer for it but the language some use in describing it does make it sound far fetched.. 'enslavement' etc.

"Chip" as in fabricated from silicon wafers, not quite...

The implant is bio-tech based and is "grown". A life-form known as Oomycota has been modified using synthetic nucleic acids to produce functioning nanto-tech devices inside the target host organism. The implant connects to the CNS, LS and the bloodstream whereby it can stimulate the CNS and adjust hormone levels. An RF transceiver allows the device to x-mit the data.

Dr Roger Leir has removed a few of these implants all-be-it with some difficulty as their cilia makes them extremely mobile.

 :-*

I havent read this entire thread, I have my own mixed feelings about this all considering the magnitude of what you are about to experience. However I will give you this forewarning now because I am obliged to remind you now.


You do not speak for all crypto currencies.


What you are about to engage in is an establishment who favors control. Cryptos allows freedom towards the end user and not towards the establishment, and I can not think of a worse establishment than the CFR. Essentially you are walking into the lions den of aristocrats attempting to understand a concept that is foreign to them (pun intended), with their intentions of how to utilize this new technology to their advantage.

Excellent.

http://www.vanityfair.com/dam/style/2009/05/Bohemian-Grove-meeting.jpg

Bohemian Grove
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove

you see this thread? why is this ponzi type scheme even here!!!!>>  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=549485.0

*are you behind this? Why would the Bitcoin Foundation let this stay here? ideas? thanks, your friend BB

What does the bitcoin foundation have to do with that? And under what authority would the foundation tell people what they should and shouldn't do with their money? The foundation advocates for bitcoin, they do not make rules.

http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-901-james-perloff-exposes-the-cfr-agenda/

i think the cfr/cia want gavin there to size him up

cia and cfr are controlled by the bankers who get their power from being able to print fiat
they are obviously anti-bitcoin, no need to persuade them.

just like what the govt did to charlie shrem,
they befriended him and invited him to talks/senate hearings/etc and got him to speak about his associations with silk road
eventually they put him in jail on trumped up charges

becareful when you dance with the devil

FYI: The event is over, not coming up. Other than that your advice and warnings are solid. :)

Council on Foreign Relations? Rockefeller family and much other? Is Gavin Andresen a possible freemason? I hope no.

That isn't a good thing for Bitcoin.  >:(

No, Gavin is a space alien and CIA asset. It would be silly to think that he's a Freemason.

Here is the public side of the event, he defiantly comes across as honest and instills a lot of trust in Bitcoin.:
http://www.cfr.org/economics/can-bitcoin-go-mainstream/p32339

Who knows what happened behind the scenes, anyway, to add to conspiracy theory soon after, Gavin resigned as the Bitcoin Lead developer (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/04/07/bitcoin-core-maintainer-wladimir-van-der-laan/)r.  On that front I’m waiting with bated breath to hear him say something condemning  the idea of modifying the protocol to assist in coin taint or “green listing”.

and then this prediction came to pass.

No, Gavin is a rettilian man. I hope that he isn't a freemason. I know that would be silly, but is better that he won't visit that place.

I think we're being played for fools.

Gavin does a good job of playing the "good cop" by telling the community what we want to hear, knowing that very few people will wait around and see if the speeches turn into effective action.

While he was giving a State of Bitcoin speech extolling the need for alternate implementations, Jeff Garzik and Mike Hearn (the bad cops) were busy on GitHub to blocking every effort developers of those alternate implementations were making to try to make what he was talking about a reality.

See:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2900
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/3982

Wait a minute, I thought he retired from that position? https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2900#issuecomment-45892726

Let's review:

the cfr knows exactly what bitcoin is, they are not stupid

this is more about trying to influence gavin and see what weaknesses they can exploit with bitcoin (trying to centralize certain parts of it)
so they can coop the bitcoin movement and ultimately control it

the CFR is all about control, world domination by any means possible, that includes war and death

I think Gavin underestimates how cunning and evil the forces of darkness are. 

Exactly. I hope that Gavin won't go to the Council on Foreign Relations.. >:(

It already happened  ;)

http://youtu.be/BgFUAhz7h2U (http://youtu.be/BgFUAhz7h2U)

Just realized I never watched Gavin talking to the Council of Foreign Relations
Thanks for the treat something to do between World Cup Matches :)

Uh, what?

No, dude.  This is Gavin-bait.

The stanky stank smell of cryptofiat has been following me everywhere, since that meeting.

Does anyone else notice it ? Or is it just me ? ::)

You're right. That was Gavin-bait. Well David Rabahy it's been six months and still no field report. Maybe next year. lol

Huh what? Field report from my talk at the CFR?

I barely remember it, there were probably 50 people in suits in the audience, nobody I recognized. The whole thing is on video, there were no secret meetings, I got there 10 minutes before my talk and left 10 minutes after (I had a bunch of interviews with DC-based journalists scheduled... and I think that was the trip I had lunch with Jim Harper and got a tour of Cato, although I might be mis-remembering).

Jesus man, how hard was that?

Why you could not have posted this a year ago or whatever when asked by (iirc) many people is beyond me.  And it is also perfectly appropriate for the community to have reasonable requests (chief among them a request for explicit transparency) and serious questions given the nature of both Bitcoin and the nature of the CFR.  Very little 'conspiracy theory' about the CFR is required to provoke such questions.  If you avoided these rather bland and reasonable requests just for shits-n-giggles, one would think (and hope) that you've got better things to do.

Thank you. We just wanted to know how it went. Late is better than never.

This was from January
Well at least someone necroed it back to get a comment
Late is better than never after all thanks.

Thank you; one wonders if the CFR might want a refresher eventually.

The recording in question: http://www.cfr.org/economics/can-bitcoin-go-mainstream/p32339

Yeah, pretty sure I read a transcript of the entire thing somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2U

And here I thought they were gonna use this meeting to figure out how they were going to shake Karples down for some/most of his fat stash of BTC and other ill gotten gains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox


Now lets see those.. "Shut up ! Conspiracy theorist !", like comments fly ! ::)

http://youtu.be/2jyY6rqP_3Q

Gavin Andresen on Bitcoin: "Expect Chaos & Drama". That sounds so CFRish's own "Order out of Chaos".

Btw I wonder how you got named as the Chief Scientist for the Bitcoin Foundation when you don't have a background in cryptography and only came to know Bitcoin later. How did you climbed the ladder so fast Mr. Bell a.k.a Andresen?

Well his background is that he is a computer scientist, that's how. And he worked with Satoshi early on. He's not new at all to bitcoin.

Gavin was working on Bitcoin long before the Bitcoin Foundation was created and I do recall he was the one that made the announcement that they were working on creating the Bitcoin Foundation.

The Bitcoin Foundation is nothing official, just a club with members. I can create the Bitcoin Club tomorrow and name myself Chief of Knowledge.

Here it is for free:

Elwell, Craig Kent, M. Maureen Murphy, Michael V Seitzinger, Library of Congress, and Congressional Research Service. Bitcoin Questions, Answers, and Analysis of Legal Issues (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2013. (updated: January 28, 2015)

It's pretty interesting, just to see how how they understand Bitcoin.

Interesting indeed. So they updated this report after Gavin's debrief or before?

Three words sum it up.

hardfork ... twenty megabytes (this number will go much higher)

after: They updated it January 28, 2015, and Gavin's address was Feb. 2014.

Look, RodeoX is talking on Gavins' behalf again. He loves to do that. Wonder if Gavin likes this or if he is more annoyed or even embarassed for it? Have you ever asked him, Rodeox if it would be ok or appropriate to speak on his behalf; even when he's in the conversation; like the mother of a 6-year-old would do? Effectively incapacitating him to even comment after you without looking a bit foolish? Ever thought about the possibility that Gavin maybe does not like it?
A spineless creature licking my boots and speaking on my behalf would be just about the most embarassing thing for me to have especially when i take part in the conversation. Wonder if Gavin feels differently? Does he actually like it? Ever asked for permission to do this all over the place? Did you even realize you did it? Why is it that you assume it's ok to extend your personality to Gavin? Do you think you are Gavin or can read his mind or know what he knows and know what he would say? Are you maybe mentally not fully developed in some way? Could maybe be too much oestrogen too. Anyways, looking forward to more "i am the mother of gavin and speak on his behalf"-comments. Some great stuff, really.

Maybe if you read it you could briefly answer when you met Gavin the first time, how often you met him overalll, how did you come to study his life and do you share beds too? Just some random questions that come to mind.  ::)

This anti-Gavin sideshow is clearly all just a ploy to divert attention from the real story.

Peter Todd is Canadian. :-X