Bitcoin Forum

The G7 and Bank for International Settlements took a jab at Bitcoin in their latest report (https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d187.pdf), saying it has "so far failed to provide a reliable and attractive means of payment or store of value."

They seem much more concerned about oversight of stablecoins. The report seems like another nail in Libra's coffin.

Cool, some big governments don't take Bitcoin seriously today, and I'm happy with that, it means there's far less chances that it will get banned or regulated by them, so we can still enjoy our wild west for a while. I remember how not so long ago people here were theorizing that Libra was just a ploy to ban Bitcoin by bringing regulator's attention to cryptocurrency as a whole, but maybe it's actually the opposite - Libra distracted them from looking at Bitcoin, and some officials even praised Bitcoin when it was compared to Libra.

I also am very content with Bitcoin's "failure", there must be something wrong with me ;D

Bitcoiners are the weirdos to get suckered in and pay the price for their believe in something that most banksters in the world tried to combat. Congratz to you all!

So long as banksters and all other nay-sayers *falsely* try to convince you that Bitcoin doesn't work, won't ever work, and is a fraud, you can be assured that they 1) aren't done accumulating, and 2) we haven't even remotely seen Bitcoin's impact on the financial system as we know it.

If central banks do consider stablecoins a threat, which they can be, then it's fantastic that Tether is shifting from Omni to ERC20, which means that Bitcoin will have even less attack surface. Ethereum on the other hand....... Say hi to Vitalik and mr Lubin!

Okay, let's just agree to the assessment of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) that Bitcoin failed miserably as a form of currency and store of value. This is a big good news, actually. Why? Because had Bitcoin succeeded as such in their point of view then they will categorize Bitcoin as a big threat and should be controlled if not entirely blocked and eliminated. So let's just follow along with this evaluation anyway BIS has no pull and influence with the industry and certainly has no effect on Bitcoin's price in any way.

The message of this released statement is quite clear: Bitcoin is fine but Libra is not. How will Libra able to convince member governments of the European Union can be a story to watch and learn. Will Mark embark on a journey to talk to the heads of these governments and explain to them one by one why Libra should be allowed to operate in their jurisdictions or will he group them together, throw a big party, bring in big entertainers from Hollywood and promise them anything they wanted just for Libra to make a launch without hitches?

The most important thing is that Bitcoin is okay, not a threat and therefore can go on developing more of itself as a currency and a store of value.

What failure? They are comparing 2 completely different things. A decentralized currency that was literally made to be unstable and uncontrollable, to future speculative stablecoins that are likely going to be controlled and created by governments.

Central banks are going to get a lot new problems with this new wave of stablecoins. Libra was the matyr and took the blame for everything so now we can see a wave of stablecoins eventually take over. Unlucky Facebook, I really don't think Libra will be getting anywhere when these new stablecoins launch...

Another few years of "failure" like the last 10.75 would be quite welcome.  😂.  

I quite like an appreciating store of value vs one that is having its value inflated away every year like fiat.  Under their definition, fiat has failed as a store of value since you lose value every single year.

If bitcoin is to reach a "stable" value it will do so in the upper six or low 7 figure USD range. Then it will appreciate slower than in the past so it will be still increasing in value vs inflating away.

If Bitcoin doesn't meet the approval criteria of the establishment, that's a win in my book.  If you view it from a fundamentally flawed mindset, of course it's not going to look how you think it should.  But if you understand why fiat currencies inevitably collapse given sufficient time, Bitcoin starts to look pretty damn sensible.

They are saying that Bitcoin failed to become a popular payment method or a store of value, and they are right, but this doesn't mean that Bitcoin is dead, it's an unpopular payment method that grows at its own pace, it's not going to disappear.


There's not much problems for central banks, stablecoins require permissions to operate, otherwise the underlying company will get fined and closed down. Bigger coins like Libra won't even see the day's light, smaller coins can be eventually taken down. Do you remember Liberty Reserve or egold? Stable coins are just like them.

The statements about Libra being a stable coin is a thread to financial-economic blablabla is massively exaggerated, it's nonsense. Libra coin will be pegged to major sovereign currencies to maintain its value, to use it people have to comply with KYC to fulfill AML policy, not a threat to the international monetary systems obviously.
On the other hand, bitcoin is a decentralized system that has been proven successful as a means of payment (borderless) and a store of value (it starts from cents to $8K atm), although it's not attractive like they claim.

remember too that e-gold and Liberty Reserve were USD denominated services, hosted in Central American countries that are officially not US states, but in practice are heavily controlled by the US. It was probably within the US gov's control to shut those 2 down very quickly, but they couldn't afford to do so without revealing exactly how much influence they have in Central America. So simply using them to collect user data wasn't such a bad option for a few years, before they could raid them in a more politically expedient manner (apparently sending in the FBI, to a country foreign to the US ::) )

whatever leverage the US can gain over Bitfinex to shut down Tether, it's not going to be quite so easy. The situation in Hong Kong (where it seems pretty likely that Bitfinex holds it's dollar accounts) no doubt complicates things more...

We cant still be sure if the government doesn't take bitcoin more serious these days due to the statement made by the G7 and Bank for International which clearly shows they are planning to create some kind of FUD in the market but I believe that the Libra issue was what triggered the gathering.

What are your thoughts on the prospects of that? The apparent focus on stablecoins has everyone thinking about Libra but I'm increasingly wondering about US and Chinese government interest in Tether as its market cap continues to grow, and as they establish their CNH stablecoin.


It seems like they were banking in Hong Kong a year ago (https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-bitfinex-shifts-its-banking-business-to-hong-kong-based-bank-of-communications). The latest I heard was that they were banking from the Cayman Islands (https://medium.com/@ExkrementKoin/bitfinex-seems-to-be-banking-in-the-cayman-islands-8dcca9baee87). I imagine they'll bank wherever they can.

Firstly, I'm not surprised with the words said by the  G7 and Bank for International Settlements because they are always after their own benefit and most of them don't like the fact that cryptocurrency was liberation for the masses which is the reason why they only see the problem cryptocurrency had while they ignore the problem they ought to fix to make the economy better for every individual.

Bitcoin was created 10years ago and have performed beautifully while the G7 and institutions only give us lame excuse about fixing the economic meltdown. So, we shouldn't expect them to say something good about bitcoin and the genuine stable we have in the market.

This is what I don't want about international organizations they conclude on something they really don't even have the whole story yet. You know why not let the people speak for themselves if they have the same views as them that Bitcoin isn't a "reliable and attractive means of payment or store of value" since for all I know the people who are already in the industry and even not part of it are still interested in having other options aside from the traditional payments we have which will most likely have banks, payment processors, and remittances giving people added costs and making this bigger corporations even fatter by the minute. This isn't really a good conclusion for a study if you consider it because they only view it one-sidedly  and obviously it will all just give Bitcoin a lot of negative comments.

I'm leaning towards this interpretation... (so you might be wasting your time listening to me guessing, in other words)

Cryptocurrencies are an intelligence agencies power-grab. Whether they were satoshi or not isn't relevant, they will have been watching/participating in the early cypherpunk movement in the 90's, were almost certainly mining BTC early on and very likely still behind many mining operations and, assuming this is a power grab, they're actually working towards making cryptocurrencies strong, not weakened with backdoors. The reasoning is pretty simple: it's been long speculated that cryptography and computer science could be used to develop currencies like Bitcoin, and the intelligence agencies are world experts in both, cryptography especially. If it can be done, trying to hold back the tide is a waste of time, better to either win the race, or failing that, ride the waves.

The financial industry (and especially the IMF & central banks) are probably highly suspicious of the intelligence agencies right now, assuming I am correct. But what could they do? It all comes down to who is best placed with the big 3 military powers, intelligence or the banks (UK/France etc don't count, or are essentially part of the US military). The intelligence people could conceivably have the upper hand there, either through loyalty or blackmail material. And if I was in the military command, I think I'd choose the scientists and psychologists over the a bunch of crafty bean-counters.


So how could such a powerplay affect stablecoins? Intelligence agencies infiltrate everywhere, that's their job. Playing the right games to keep stablecoins running should be pretty easy, simply tell high-ups at banks and financial regulators that you're setting up an operation to catch some big fish etc etc, just keep coming up with new bullshit until it stops working, then come up with a completely new angle :D How do you think the crypto exchanges have stayed open so long, when it's functionally equivalent to the banks watching their own suicide in slow-motion? The banks like a bit of fair and honest competition, right? ;D



they're doing what?

that would be huge. Without the DPRC giving party approval, that sort thing must be either super difficult or impossible, I am amazed to hear that. Although if Hong Kong banks have kicked Bitfinex out, you've gotta ask yourself exactly who's backing the Cayman Islands. Logically, it's the US, so maybe it is possible that Bitfinex are circumventing Chinese approval, but I somehow doubt it. I think the Chinese gov certainly will need to publicly disapprove of CNY stablecoins, as their public stance otherwise is explicit heavy control of the yuan in every way possible, CNY stablecoins fly in the face of that. But in private, this might (but not in the short term, volumes need to be colossal) be at least one useful scapegoat in the event that currency markets suffer a shock.

crazy, right? tether and bitfinex have a real knack for poking the bear, or in this case poking the dragon. https://tether.to/tether-now-supports-offshore-chinese-yuan-cnh-launches-cnht-stablecoin/

the circulating supply is pretty small right now; only 25,000,000 CNHT have been issued. still, we've seen how quickly that can change. https://etherscan.io/token/0x6e109e9dd7fa1a58bc3eff667e8e41fc3cc07aef


i'm still a unclear on the exact dynamics between the CNY and CNH markets. is offering a CNH stablecoin somehow less threatening to china's public stance?

I'm still interested in the possible consequences of the G7 report and the Bank for International Settlements. Does this mean that the legalization of decentralized cryptocurrencies will now drag on? If this happens, the process of regulating the activities of the ICO will also be delayed. I’m just waiting for a definition of the general approach of states to registration and possible licensing of ICOs, which will dramatically reduce the level of fraud among ICO projects.
It is also interesting that this report almost did not affect the price of bitcoin. Its price has only slightly fallen and this is even possibly not related to such news.

that's nuts

from the way I understood it (which is clearly dated, i.e. I missed the memo that offshore CNY trades with the CNH ticker symbol :-\ ), CNH is traded exclusively in Hong Kong through banks the Chinese Central Bank can control. This arrangement allows controlled movement of capital in/out, and provides an FX fig leaf to allow the Chinese gov to claim that CNY is available on markets to foreigners, but that CNH trading is still puppeteered by Beijing to prevent divergence from the official CNY rates (which are essentially entirely notional, CNY trades only 1:1 against CNH).

By allowing CNH to be used to back a stablecoin... it seems like that would risk the marketplace finding a real price for CNH against other currencies, exposing the 1:1 peg between on/off shore yuan. So if they want to continue to control capital flight and ultimately the yuan's value, relinquishing control of the CNH market is the wrong way to do that.

But the details are important of course, such a small CNHT supply makes for an illiquid market that cannot have a significant effect on CNH overall. Still, it's loosening the policy, and that leads in only one direction IMO.

They are retards who traditionally see a store of value as something that doesn't change value and bitcoin to them is a failure because it gains value. If you offer me government bonds that will remain relatively stable or bitcoin that can go up by 200% in one month I'll always take Bitcoin.

It doesn't matter that it can also lose some value in the short term. The important part is that in the long run it goes up.

Agreed! Bitcoin is a success in its own way. However, they are describing failure in a traditional sense. According to them, bitcoin has failed as a store of value because it is not stable or cannot hold value. Also according to them, it has failed as a medium of exchange because it does not scale. Both not lies.

Exaggerated. Never have they said that bitcoin has failed, but rather they mentioned that bitcoin 'failed to provide' a good 'store of value'.

Which in itself is absurd. I think that they are way more focused in the short term volatility of bitcoin that disguises its long term properties as a store of value in their statements. It's obvious that BTC fluctuates drastically in the short run, but in the long run its intrinsic value should make it a safe haven asset.

Besides, are they really just going to ignore the fact that bitcoin transactions is at an all time high, and still call bitcoin not as a viable form of payment?  ::)

The number of transactions (https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.html) has been steadily declining the last 6 or so months.

The decline can be attributed to Tether re-issuing its tokens on Ethereum, more services batch their transactions nowadays, Lightning use picking up, etc. I expect the number of transactions to dip further as there generally is less demand for anything related to crypto when the price is trending down for a prolonged period of time.

Most naysayers will however say that there is no one using Bitcoin for anything, which is why it's so important to educate people on what causes the number of transactions to actually decline.

This doesn't make any sense. They have full control over whether systems like that live or die. Libra has shown us that something that comprehensive and ambitious will NEVER be permitted to exist in the form proposed unless they're at the reins.

If they decided the existing stable coins needed to go then the compliant ones would be gone the same day and Tether would be hunted down and murdered shortly after.

It's likely a psychological/rhetorical device: state that stable coins are threatening, leave it unsaid that unstable coins are not. Which demonstrates exactly how weak their position is, they have to exaggerate something that poses zero threat in order to implicitly attack a genuine competitor :) Don't forget that it's a joint G7 statement agreed on and produced by all 7 treasury departments working together. Did no-one in all 7 notice that this conclusion makes no sense? ;)



Now that Tether is backed in The Caymans (instead of Hong Kong), you'd think that was possible. But there's now an offshore-yuan Tether coin, maybe that will be permitted to survive :D Who knows quite how crafty Bitfinex's Cayman Islands move was, they've had enough time to get something very cunning set up. They'll probably fold tomorrow now I've gone and said that ;D

Chances are, it's simply authored by someone without the necessary clout and this is their thinly-veiled message to the real decision makers in charge that they ensure such systems are not permitted.  Give the cogs some time to turn and we'll probably see the end result being a tightening of restrictions.

A store of value is traditionally something that is stable. If I hold $1.00 of value in a good store of value, I expect to get the value back on $1.00 or very near it with no volatility that will give me a heart attack. Bitcoin is not similar to that, it traditionally behaves more similar to a speculative investment.

I have heard about people using Bitcoin as a store of value in countries such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Bitcoin is volatile (for example, yesterday the prices fluctuated by +29%), but for people residing in these countries their national currencies are even more volatile when compared to Bitcoin. And using gold is not an option, as it is susceptible to seizure and robbery. However personally I would agree with you. Bitcoin is not ideal as a store of value. It can be used, only in extreme cases.

That does make sense, not sure about the second part though. Bitcoin hasn't gotten to be fully mainstream yet and I wouldn't classify it as a popular payment method (still can't use it for irl/microtransactions), but it's definitely been seen as a storage of value, even if it is a very volatile and unstable one.

I remember egold... That was an interesting project. Stablecoins are likely going to replace fiat currencies, and bitcoin will the other cpin lurking in the background waiting to pounce, lol.

• Bitcoin is slightly inconvenient used in-person, so to say you "can't use it" in-person is wrong
• Microtransactions are possible too, and have been for years (even though the good microtx tech is not mature yet)

Where are you getting your information from, the BIS/G7 report ;D



fiat currencies are backing the stablecoins :-\ so that's completely impossible

yeah definitely a failure :) probably the US dollar or any other fiat currency is a huge success , creating debts that cannot be paid and
drawing this world into a never ending spiral of banking theft and exploitation
certainly G7 will  say stablecoins are a threat since they are afraid that there will appear some force to deny them seniorage profits eventually
stablecoins play under the same rules as the fiat money and G7 see a threat in some upstart to take over their scam scheme
bitcoin is not run by a country or a group and they do not feel that it could ever challenge the fiat supremacy
lets wait and see

Traditionally, you said that well. Bitcoin isn't your traditional store of value. If you look at Bitcoin's long term price development, and then mainly the bottom to bottom development instead of the peak to bottom development where people always focus on, it suddenly becomes clear that it has functioned extremely well as store of value for most of the time.

Bitcoin in some areas defies the traditional meaning of the different properties of money, which people have a hard time adapting to. It by no means is a perfect store of value, or one that you should pay attention to if your time horizon is very tight, but when you have a few years to plan forward, it's more likely going to be a great store of value for you.

In the end, people want Bitcoin to be usable as daily currency therefore needs a stable price, but they also want to see the price moon therefore needs a very volatile price. It's very much contradicting.

To me at least the people calling for it to be a currency are a weedy voice warbling in the dark compared to the roar of those wanting mad gainz. And others who do say they want it to be a stable currency eventually will lose all interest if it ever did become that.

All the stuff big bucks is building points purely to it being treated as an asset. Maybe it's a phase that needs fully playing out out, then it becomes a store of value then it becomes a currency, but I reckon it'll always be an asset primarily.

The whole concept of valuing "stable" crypto as a function of fiat is just stunningly naive.  Fiat is anything but stable, it continues to lose value every year, from several percentage points to thousands (or more).   Not to mention it ends up creating a central point of failure, whomever is custodian of the assets backing the so-called stable coin. 

It would be a total repudiation of all economic principles if a very new asset class instantly became a predictable store of value, or an instant currency (unless you're forced to do it, and even then, an instrument like that runs a huge risk of failing and being rejected by those who were the planned subjects of it). It takes time, and a virtuous circle of some use.

But let's simplify things, just get rid of absolute statements of Bitcoin is/is not a this or a that.

• Bitcoin already is a bad store of value (unpredictably increases in value, but it's not losing value long-term)
• Bitcoin already is a bad currency (not much use compared to others, but increasing in usage and transaction capacity, slowly)

I hope that helps :)



hmmm, your reasoning appears to be "I reckon"? Not sure if that classifies as useful analysis :-\

That is a good argument. However, the way bitcoin's price and volatility is and the way how people use it today, it is still more a speculative investment than a store of value. Traditionally.

One day maybe bitcoin will find stability and be a real store of value without the moon math.

Well' you had point on that, libra get the attention of the government while bitcoin is free to exist and continue to circulate to the as currency being anonymous crypto currency to enjoy while the focus of the government official is in libra because they scared it as threat in the economy.