Bitcoin Forum

Do you think this whole bitcoin thing of ours is an actual Movement, a Social or perhaps Economic Movement? Or could it become a Movement, does it need to be a Movement?

Personally I think no, I think it's fine as a mere trend, and soon meme, working its way diligently towards becoming a mainstream convention.

What say you?

Its a revolution without needing to fire any bullets or break things.

I think at the moment it's mostly a fad among tech-savvy participants.  However, as more instances occur where people are unable to make the transactions they want (in other words, the more Wikileaks-type incidents that happen), the more publicity it will get, and the more legitimate it will become.

My long-term prediction, without any real backing to speak of, is that Bitcoin will eventually become an equal player alongside such entities as PayPal and the major credit card agencies.  I don't realistically expect it to surpass them or become the "one currency to rule them all" or anything. 

I think that its greatest potential it as a medium for international transfers.

For example, at the moment something like 60% of international trransfers are in USD.

See for a good article from earlier this week: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132170181013248.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132170181013248.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read)


Using Bitcoin as a "global reserve" currency makes sense, because no govt can control it. And whiles it nice to think that competition coming from the Euro and perhaps the Yuan in the future will remove the risk to a certain degree, where does that leave Africa, Sth America and importantly India?

A whole subculture will develop within the bitcoin community.


Eventually, bitcoin as a currency will goes mainstream, but the bitcoin subculture will thrives.

I see individuals who want their money to be free. The more individuals with this mentality, the more a supposed movement will grow.

I thought you said we don't know how society works.   So how would we know a social movement when we see one?  Bitcoin is useful to me because it is a disruptive technology and I like to disrupt things.  ;)

No, not a movement, that is politically driven typically (or sometimes just simple hunger.) It is a technological development.

A new form of money is not a technology that updates very often, think favour economy to metal tokens to backed paper notes to centrally-cleared fiat digits took thousands of years.

Decentralised verifiable electronic tokens requires quite a few layers, electronic hardware, network layers, OS and crypto IT ... quite a bit of tech. to get to this point.

So not a movement, a tech., like karma credits that come back and bite you on a lazy, scheming bankster's ass. Crypto-currency is to paper cash like the car was to the horse and buggy.

I would call it a technology achievement demonstrating that technology in itself can produce wealth in the same sense that technology itself can search the stars such as in the program SETI@HOME and the various of other multicomputer technologies programs.

It's a technological development created by libertarians and objectivists, and nobody else would have started to use it if it wasn't for this political branch. I think that makes it part of a political movement.

A very specific set of libertarians who are known to be part of the libertarian/hacker/extropian tribe.

I don't think so.  There are many reasons to prefer bitcoin as a medium of exchange.  I hope forum discussions can focus on the "medium of exchange" issues and less on philosophy X, Y or Z.  Remember that other bitcoin users may not have world-views aligned with you and they don't have to in order for bitcoin to succeed.

I agree, I'm not a libertarian or an anarchist but I think the bitcoin idea is really great.

What i can say is that when Bitcoin succeeds in mainstream, the world will switch to reverse gear.
The ones who are now on top (banksters), will become at best middle class, and hackers/IT specialists will be on top (as early adopters).

I sure think that would be a better world.
So Bitcoin has the potential to fix the world, at least partially.

BitCoin in my book is an invention. It's kind of like an invented currency in a computer game except that it's not being issued by the game but by the players but under very strict rules which they players know not one of them can break.


I actually wish BitCoins were initially used in a very popular online game and then eventually people would find the benefit (or not) of trading it outside of the game. Maybe it's not too late for that kind of an approach :)

Lol, Marxist Dialectic very much? :)

I think that as bitcoin already rests on so many layers of technology, it must connect back with the 'immediately real world' as directly as it possibly can. One of the problems with "big finance" that led to the 2008 crisis was the level of abstraction. Trillions up there in the blue sky, utterly disconnected to the realm of bricks, mortar and working people, and yet weighing down on them like the curse of demented sorcerers.

Bitcoin certainly will have many interesting applications in terms of online games and network services etc (hell, it is a network service), but economics and values are primarily a matter for the 'real world' we shouldn't forget that again. Can you imagine a war in some massively popular online multiplayer game causing some sort of economic crisis that leads to the price of actual food going up? Nightmare, don't want bitcoin to end up making that kind of mess.

Not very much, I'm a Libertarian/Minarchist and i believe in the power of free will and free act. Marxists wanted to change everything using force, while i trust in the natural market choices made by free people.

Banksters are running this world far too long. It's time for change.

Actually marxism is merely a criticism of capitalism, with a rough theory of capitalisms eventual failure but no suggestion as to what should come after. That's where leninist/trots and stalinists come in.

Anyway, turns out Marx was wrong.

Actually, i do not criticise capitalism. I criticise the current state of things, which is far from capitalism or free market.
The reality is that banksters are ruining free market using inflation, central banks and repetitive cycles of development and crisis every 40 years (1929, ~1970, 2010 - notice a pattern ?).

Free market is currently an illusion, it doesn't exist because of tremendous manipulation done by the banksters using fake money. Bitcoin can restore the natural order of things, because it is the perfect currency - independent, impossible to manipulate and free from inflation tax.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying you're a marxist, but when you posted this..


it reminded me of the Marxist dialectic.

Thesis / Anti-thesis -> Synthesis.

Lords vs Serfs -> Republic
Capitalst vs Workers -> Communism
Banksters vs Libertarians -> Bitcoin.

Or something like this, which sprang to my mind at the time. Anyway the thought amused me.

I get the Marxist aroma there too. The problem with "Banksters" is how they work with government. There is no fundamental problem with banking in a free market, at least I wouldn't anticipate any. Nonetheless, there is a lot of work to be done even on the theory (topics like punishment or full reserve banking come to mind), besides the whole "movement" or real daily activities toward establishing more prominent decentralized currencies.

Really though I reject calling it a movement. Way back in time, the adoption of shells or whatever as money was a paradigm-shifting technological advancement. Civilization flourished as it went beyond primitive barter economies. We like to think that we live in a "modern era", but most people are still clinging to very primitive collectivist notions, usually associated with the unquestioned acceptance of states and statism. Chanting down one dictator in the capital square just brings about another. The real chink in a state's armor is the money. Bitcoin is the type of technological advancement necessary for the shift to a genuinely free society.

Is there clearly a radical libertarian ethos guiding a lot of people here? Sure, but people of all sorts of political ideologies use and benefit from bitcoin. Would you call the first group of people who decided to use shells as money, rather than continuing to use direct barter, a "movement"? I wouldn't. See here for more on the mistaken notions behind a market anarchist movement: The Revolution Will Be All Business (http://www.anti-state.com/kennedy/kennedy4.html).

Yeah perhaps it sounded alike. Anyway that's not what i intended. Mea culpa.


There is a fundamental problem with fractional reserve banking, and i don't think it should exist at all in a free market.
Fractional reserve is simply cheating. In a truly free market, you cannot have more money than you have, otherwise it is not a fair competition.

Banks simply add numbers to their accounts when they loan money. I find it very similiar to printing money, which breaks the currency.
With Bitcoin, this system will be destroyed and we will not be robbed by banks anymore. Also the large crisises will disappear because there will be no more baloons to pop.

Fractional reserve banking is a bluff, everything goes along fine until someone calls the bankster's bluff.

A free market doesn't bail out bluffers and losers with tax-payer extorted loot ... we could all go to Vegas and get Barney Frank on the line when we're in the hole for a few hundred billion.

Few hundereds years ago "fractional reserve" would be simply a crime. Well, it was a crime actually (punishable by death i think).
But of course later they legalised it and made it the foundations of the current system. No wonder it fails so often.

If enemy banks think you're bluffing, they will try to spread rumors in attempt to shut you down. So the more fractional reserve banking you did, the more likely you will get shut down by a bank run.

Wait... Won't the FEDs supply you with missing cash to keep you running in case of a bank run ?
I thougth that's the point of the reserve.

Also, there is the "too big to fail" thing.

I believe this was before the time there was a FED.

No way... so what are central banks and fractional reserves for ? Aren't they supposed to supply a single bank with money in case of a bank run ?

Second that, noagendamarket. Governments are not going to roll back taxes and create tax-free zones, because it's more in their interest to grow and to expand.  The forces on the side of liberty periodically attempt to rein in the government but it merely has the effect of only slowing its rate of growth. This is unfortunate.

The bitcoin economy will grow and prosper precisely because it has the potential to facilitate a parallel economy that can also operate beyond the scope of taxation. All types of transactions will be attracted to a taxation-free zone because throughout history no- to low-tax zones have always thrived against their counterparts (Hong Kong, US in the 1800s).  This parallel economy will know no political borders so it will not even be clear which taxation authority has the jurisdiction over the economic participant(s).

Even if the proper jurisdictional taxation entity could be reasonably determined, they would still be faced with applying a tax to a reusable proof-of-work 'puzzle'. Firstly, how do you tax a mathematical puzzle without giving it monetary legitimacy?  How do you determine the political borders of the recipient key (if recipient is careful)?  How do you determine the total amount to tax if bitcoin laundries and mixers are used?  Today, an individual can work for bitcoin in anonymous fashion from an undetected geographic location and then spend bitcoin or anonymously trade out of bitcoin.  I don't really see that changing. I'd be more worried about an authoritarian shutdown of the IRC network.