Bitcoin Forum

From the latest 10/21/11 issue of the Elliott Wave Theorist.

Will he analyze BTCUSD in the future?  That would be awesome! ;D

Can you give us a snippet?

Is there a link or anything? I've heard that name before.

"In June, Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) called the brilliant on-line transactional unit called bitcoin “a form of money laundering.”"

this is a paid subscription.  he is one of the worlds most famous market analysts, the father of Elliott Wave Analysis.

last Spring a similar quote was mistakenly attributed to Robert but was in fact from his son Elliott who is a member of this Forum.

this though is the Real Deal.

He is not the father, but he brought back the Elliott Wave. 

sorry, i stand corrected then.

his son goes by BrightAnarchist.

Seems like Prechter has been calling for a 40% correction in gold every year for about 8 in a row now.  It's hard for me to shake the term "Idiot Wave Analysis" from my mind such has been the magnitude of his fail on this one.

in the article, Prechter thinks Bitcoin could be shut down by gov't regulatory bodies simply by declaring it illegal.  i think he's wrong about that too.  there are no regulatory bodies for Bitcoin.

heres the relevant section:

"As noted in the June issue, government can crush any useful service it opposes. One service it opposes is free-market money. In June, Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) called the brilliant on-line transactional unit called bitcoin “a form of money laundering.” In March, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI issued a statement (http://goo.gl/J8Jhz) calling privately minted “Liberty Dollar” gold coins “a federal crime,” an “anti-government activity” and “a conspiracy against the United States.” The U.S. attorney on the case, Anne M. Tompkins, called Liberty Dollars “a unique form of domestic terrorism” that presents “a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.” The federal government says it shut down the mint “to protect and preserve the constitutional currency for the benefit of all citizens of the nation.” In order to get rid of this scourge of precious metals coins, the government seized all of them for itself. Minting money may be treason (so was succoring Jews in Nazi Germany), but the only terrifying acts in evidence here are the government’s threats to ruin anyone who peacefully offers better monetary services. As Tompkins stated, “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”
Another money-of-the-future is James Turk’s brainchild, GoldMoney, which EWT featured in the November 2004 issue. Like any good or service highly desired in a free market, banking with goldgrams is affordable and efficient. In a free society, GoldMoney and services like it would be the premier banking alternative. But the warning I issued about bitcoins applies here, too: Government can crush anything it doesn’t like. All it need do is declare it illegal. This is essentially what a regulatory body in the Netherlands did this year with respect to the service offered by GoldMoney. In January, the Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM), the Netherlands financial regulatory body (shortly after ordering a Dutch pension fund to divest itself of most of its gold holdings), contacted GoldMoney and demanded that it comply with its rules relating to “investment objects,” namely grams of gold and silver. GoldMoney, already overseen by the regulators where it is domiciled, chose not to comply. It has withdrawn its services from the patronage of Dutch citizens, who must close their GoldMoney accounts by the end of this month. You can read about it at these sites: http:// goo.gl/zlcYf and http://goo.gl/TBhrp."

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/09/tbps-30-most-influential-finance-sources/

Prechter is on Barry Ritholtz's list of the top 30 Most Influential Finance Sources.

Posted: http://bitcoin-trader.blogspot.com/2011/10/robert-prechter-calls-bitcoin-brilliant.html

I think he may or may not be right on this one.  It would not surprise me in the least if it was declared illegal in the US to use Bitcoin (all the talk of 'freedom' here being mainly a lot of piffle...)  A cool thing about Bitcoin, however, is that one need not be physically anywhere near where you 'use' it.  So unless all the countries clamp down and clamp down hard on Bitcoin and do so more or less simultaneously, what's to stop me from paying someone to keep a client or even an FPGA miner which I control online in, say, Vietnam?  Or Greece should the Greeks tell the EU to piss up a rope a-la Iceland?  Venezuela?  Or any number of countries which are not completely under the US/EU sphere of influence?

It would be quite interesting to see what happens to BTC demand if Western governments start to crack down on Bitcoin use.  I have no idea really and could see it doing all kinds of interesting things, particularly if it coincided with other shifts asset values, regulations, etc.

  That part right there makes me wonder why I am not mining through ToR right now..............................  *looks around all bugged eyed*

  Granted a huge part of the gov's leverage against LDs was that they were physically minted coins. But how far of a stretch would it really be for them to say, "Oh Bitcoin, its the same thing just digital"?

  

I would like to see any government anywhere try to deny people the use of bitcoin. The fact that you can't use cash anymore in one state is also ridiculous. Combined with the increased fees and impending failure of Bank of America, the old world money systems are on their last leg. Tradition will succumb to technology sooner than later.

A propos Liberty Dollars - this has been discussed many times here - the language used by the prosecutor is crazy but NotHouse was exactly pure innocence.  He tried to pass his coins into circulation as a replacement for USD coins, they were similar but their face value was less then the value of the metal that they contained.

what do Bitcoins look like?

at first i was a bit disappointed that someone i sort of admire used Bitcoin as an example to prove his theory of State regulation to accomplish what they wish.

its important for everyone here to realize that Prechter is the quintessential example of what you'd call a PermaBear when it comes to Society, State, and the stock market.  he thinks the Dow is going to 400.  yes, thats right.  400.  3 digits.  He thinks we're going to repeat the Great Depression on a much bigger scale and that cash USD's will be the best performing asset for the next 5-10 years.  he is the Bear's Bear and has a wide following who paraphrase his theories all the time.

but using a centralized example, GoldMoney, to support his argument of the ability of the State to control a decentralized form of money demonstrates to me a misunderstanding of Bitcoin.  what are those Dutch investors going to do?  pull their gold out of GM and stick it in their safes.  during the GD when the US called in all the citizens gold only perhaps 20% complied.  are you kidding me?  who here would let the US gubmint just confiscate their money?  no one.  and it would be worse today b/c most US citizens are armed as in guns.  no one is going to walk up to my front door with the intent to confiscate my money w/o risking their lives.  most sophisticated analysts also don't think this is a reality today. 

Bitcoin makes all this danger talk go away and even further emphasizes my point.  which is why i sold most of my gold in exchange for Bitcoin.

 That depends on the observer..

 Maybe; http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRFolAdttXSUmhM6KjGAl-IGcVp4AfV6rzHcllSlf2KdLWH6l2S
or; http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTrJmFa6ObH2KpfIdcvNjHI2Vc3WYAHvOP_rOIoPtWeL2YzQtq0SQ
or; http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZYHDLRavLfGnuefTAnl5dA9wDJp_-qDvG4yIt6QR9Upo44G_9TA
Possibly; http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSVK_cHOrEj7SnD36Emj-D_Y8pQc1pdLPeElSvFOS90hHAG-mwwxg
 ; http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRtnb0mL27-lHcDlPmM0jB5p1tfRWraXdAfCVt01zhdBr4PYi2o
 ; http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnc5WzbR8Cg4nUbY5KZSu03QNCsiFY4WeveQZ5bQQ8RDsUhEJk

i know Prechter's writings and the way he thinks since i've been a subscriber for years.

there's an inconsistency in his thoughts here.  one of the main tenets of his societal collapse theory and a return to the GD is that he thinks the Fed and gov't will lose control of the markets thus facilitating a long spiral downwards.  well, if they lose control, how will they have the time, wherewithal, resources, and technical ability to enforce an illegalization of Bitcoin?

Bump and cross-link to Elliott Wave Educational Video Series (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49462) - a seminar of Prechter's from "more than 15 years ago".

biological son

I run my fund using Elliott wave principle in trading and Robert Prechter contributed A LOT to make ideas of Mr. Elliott popular.. I would highly recommend "A Comprehensive Course On The Wave Principle" by him... You can read no further beyond this book to profit from markets consistently...

To all the haters:

1. It does not take you to read this book once to become millionaire.. multiply on years of hard work and patience.
2. It does not matter how many times he was right and how many wrong - what matters how much money do you make when you are right and how much do you lose when you are wrong.

Good luck!

Common misconception but private money isn't illegal in the US.  There are various forms of privately issued currencies that have existed for decades.

What IS illegal is attempting to make your private currency look like US currency, attempting to indicate or imply it has any connection with or is backed by the US federal government, or indicating it is "legal tender for all debts public or private".

  Agreed, I have reconsidered my previous assertions to, "how far of a stretch" it would be. My knowledge of the orginal LD issues were almost non existant before reading into it after making such an unfounded statement. It should be noted that I retract such statement but do not wish to go delete or edit it and pretend I was any wiser at the time. Thanks for the clearification, m8.

  Sincerely,
     Derek

No problem.  I wasn't sure of your assertion but I do know many people think any private currency is auto-illegal in the US and that is simply a misconception.

As an example here is a private private currency which has been issued and circulated in NY for roughly two decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours

Ironically both the US Mint and FBI supported Liberty Dollars indicating they were not counterfit and didn't violate federa law.  However IIRC the language of the website, the claims of adopters, and changes in later year mintings all became increasily close to indicating some connection to US government and that is what they creator was indicted for.

If Bitcoin was US Bitdollars that might be a problem but luckily it isn't.  Bitcoin users should always be sure to avoid any connection to US dollars, indicate any partity, or guaranteed exchange.  Always indicate to potential users that Bitcoins are a free floating currency and the value relative to other currencies (including USD) varies based on supply & demand.

Anything which could be remotely stretched into 'terrorism' is auto-illegal in the US as soon as it is convenient to make it so.  Bitcoin certainly could be called a 'unique form of domestic terrorism'.  In fact it probably has already, but so have just about every other damn thing so I've lost track.

"In fact it probably has already, but so have just about every other damn thing so I've lost track."

How many people do you know who have been arrested for terrorism?  Since just about every other damn thing is a terrorist act you must know hundreds if not thousands of terrorists.  Right?

Possibly, but it's that would be 'secret' which is vital to 'national security.'

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/terror-watch-list-counter-million-plus

Seems like an onion article, but it's apparently not.

All this stuff is such an obscene joke I cannot believe that people take it seriously.  I hope someday people wake up and realize what is happening to them, and why, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's the threat of arrest (or worse) that is the problem, not actual arrest.