Bitcoin Forum

Let's imagine the US government is in real financial crisis. It's aware that it can no longer afford to pay off it's debts and can no longer print more and more currency.

It decides it needs a way out and it sees Bitcoin as the solution. Unfortunately, Bitcoin isn't under it's control so they see this as a risk and not one they're willing to take.

They decide to issue their own digital currency instead - USCoin. It's identical in every way except the government controls the codebase and also accepts USCoin for tax payments.

Would you exchange all your Bitcoins for USCoins immediately and ditch Bitcoin or would you hold on and hope that Bitcoin can also compete as a currency?

I will only trade my bitcoin to UScoin to pay back taxes. That's it. Why I should hold UScoin that can be issued endlessly, as a store of value? Bitcoin is still the way to go.

1.It's impossible to stop printing money . FED is a greedy sucking vampire . They would die if there's no blood to suck
2.Virtual currency 's value is backed by people's trust which based on P2P mechanism , they dont give a fk on FED's UScoin
 

I suspect Bitcoin would lose a tremendous amount of traction and thus value. A panic would ensue and then it would be near abandoned.

Given in your scenario the US govt has just destroyed the dollar (due to excessive printing) and wiped out trillions of dollars held by bond holders WTF would I want to purchase a coin where they are in control of the printing?

It is like saying you have some gold coins and someone is selling turds. Would you trade your gold coins for turds?  Um ... no.

Don't people trust the US dollar in the same way?

What if the vast majority of the public went with it?

USCoin would get the publicity, the acceptance and the volume that Bitcoin can't.

The vast majority of the public with destroyed pension plans, starving seniors (SS destroyed), hyperinflation, and inability to buy hard goods from other nations who want the US dollars as much as the Zimbabwae one.  Yeah I am sure they are going to say "hey you guys who royally fucked up everything and destroyed our standard of living please do it again".

No the US would be like any other failed currency state.  People would hoard ALTERNATIVE currencies and shun anything that has to do with the state.  For some it might be Bitcoins, for others it might be Euros, Canadian dollars, gold, etc.

B4 your what if, i would've gotten a collision and found Satoshi's private key.

My chance is alot higher.

So basically the Gov is going to tell the public:"USD is in trouble! It's in such big trouble that i have to make a Bitcoin copycat, better run from it as soon as possible!"?

Thats a narrow minded view… Your assuming that the US is the only market for BTC..

That is all true now, except for the not being able to print more currency part.

Answer to OP.

Guaranteed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279650.msg3542187#msg3542187).

Almost like we all learnt that the banks are doing evil work we must stop them in their tracks...




I could see that happening.

Let's say the general public, on average, is a bit uneducated on these kinds of things. They see this magic new crypto currency - I could see them all jump on it.

I'm not saying it would be smart - just me having a low opinion of the average person on the street.

It is a little narrow but would Bitcoin be half as large as it was a month ago without US funds?

So rationally, everyone should have moved from the Dollar right? I think people believe that just because the situation is bad or there's a lack of trust in a system that people would abandon it.

Clearly that's not the case otherwise people would abandon the banks that got us in to financial crisis and dropped the quantitatively eased Dollar by now. You might say there's a monopoly position there but so would there be for USCoin.

I couldn't say guaranteed but I think there would be mass adoption.

Sigh most people are so stupid.


Hoarding what was purchased by 0.01% of the population for 1/10,000 the price, means the public is destitute beyond comprehension. It is a dystopian outcome (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=318001.msg3561560#msg3561560).


They can't all jump on it. Their existing assets will be worthless way before 1% tries to buy Bitcoin. Just do some simple math to see that Bitcoin's model can't possibly scale to any other than death and destruction and war.

Goldbugs never seem to learn economics. You must continue to debase the currency, else it can't ever work as a currency. It is simple mathematics.

Kinda hard to take someone serious when they have been around for at least six months and don't have even the "Bitcoin top 10 basic facts" down right.

I was referring to guaranteed that the government will take over Bitcoin. If you read my linked post, I explain why.

What "fact" do you have in mind sir?

Perhaps you didn't read carefully what I wrote about transaction fees and the withholding transactions attack. Also note that debasement rewards will be below 1% per annum by 2033 roughly.

I careless if you take me seriously. That is irrelevant. The objective outcome is coming whether you like it or not.

You mean you couldn't care less.  Kinda hard to take someone seriously when they've been around for decades and still can't figure out how words work.

When all you can do is attack someone's character, because you can't attack the objective facts, then you've lost the debate.

Typos are part of life when we are typing fast.

Can you refute the objective substance? I don't think so!  :P

I'm not a sir, I work for a living. :)  There is only one fact and I quoted it.

I didn't dispute or quote that.


Well no, the "objective outcome" is only a prediction.  When you make mistakes on the very basics of the initial distribution it is hard to take your "objective" stance seriously.  I mean it would be like someone saying they solved a complex Physics proof and on the first line they had a basic math error (1+1= pineapple).  There isn't much point in reading further, although I did in this case and I disagree but I won't say your opinion is wrong, it is your opinion.  However the quote above is a fact and it can only be correct or incorrect, and in this case is incorrect.

Your idea has been tried. You are describing MintChip, Canada's virtual money. Ever heard of it? ... exactly.  ;)

So stop acting like a pompous ass then.

Your quote was "coin rewards stop 2040". And that is true because of transactions can be withheld by a cartel.

So what fact do I have incorrect?


Yes you did, because you quoted out-of-context and tried to imply that I don't know that transaction fees are awarded to miners indefinitely. The problem I explained is that transactions fees can be withheld by a cartel (e.g. Amazon.com) which offers 0% fees to whomever will send their txs to them.



It is an unavoidable outcome of the economic design.


You have not shown any such mistake.

The rest of your blahblah is thus irrelevant.

How Bitcoin transitions to a government coin is entirely different.

Simple coin "rewards" (generation) don't stop in 2040.

Clearly you can see (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply) that the debasement rate as of 2040 is 0.2% (0.002) per annum, i.e. roughly 41,000 / 21 million.

If I offer to pay you a pension which you are solely dependent on of $1 a year, did I stop the pension or not?

You've just wasted my time, the time of readers, and caused the thread to be cluttered with useless nonsense. Why can't you argue the actual substance of the discussion?

Do you really expect me to bore the readers of the post you quoted with endless minutia about how the miniscule token coin rewards continue on but it is irrelevant any way.

That is different. However any change in the protocol would mean a fork. At that point it would no longer be bitcoin. It would also not likely be adopted. Are you willing to burn up your home wiring to generate money for the federal reserve?
Also what would keep China from then creating the lion share of the coins and charging Americans a premium. If it is not open source and beyond manipulation, then it has zero appeal.

Stupid analogy.  What will 41,000 BTC a year be worth in 27 years?  It is entirely possible it will be worth more than the block reward is now.

And that statement shows a complete lack of understanding of economics and basic math of relative value, which is what I expect from a low IQ person.

If Bitcoin is worth the required 100X more than it is now, then Bitcoin will be a significant portion of the real economy. Thus the profit motive  for a complete takeover of Bitcoin (by cartel) will have increased by at least 100X too.

So thus you spend 100X less relatively speaking on mining. Thus as I said, the cartels can take over.

Do you have more 60 Hz noise to add to this discussion?

"Can",  I thought it was guaranteed?

Cripes man. Do you have anything intelligent to say other than trolling?

You haven't really thought this through.

Hold onto the bitcoins
Because then bitcoins value would be in gold because they are limited, unlike US Coin that would be just another form of fiat
The uniqueness of BTC is their limited number

It would not be the first thing I said without thinking. But I'm not sure here what I am missing. If anyone changes the protocol, it will not be bitcoin. What was outlined earlier is the government creating an alt-coin. Which would have no value to me.

The demise of the US Empire in all of its forms, (military, financially, politically) began a decade or 2 ago. It is now in full swing.

If the gov announcement of USCoin follows a collapse, no one will ever have a reason to trust the US GOV again.  As the colapse ensues, bitcoin explodes!

If they announce PRIOR to a collapse, it may have a chance...

Plan accordingly.

Yes .. but since the US is printing money like it's Monopoly money, this trust is fading. The Chinese Yuan is well on it's way to replace the US dollar as a Global Reserve Currency.
Bitcoin is gaining ground everywhere, so in due time .. who knows, bitcoin might become a Global Reserve Currency.

The very thought is blasphemy for the most part of this forum ;D

Highly improbable but they are going to try

Dinosaurs are not in the habit of standing by idly while birds replace them

Birds didn't replace dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs which managed to live up to the present day ;D

I need to be honest and point out that all the posts that I've read in this thread (up to this point) other than mine are batshit stupid nonsense. Sorry guys, but the elite are just laughing at you because you are such dumb cows and so easy to fool. Now let me try to explain to you, and hopefully you will slow down and try to grasp this. If not, you will have proven that the elite are correct about you and your deserved future.

If as you all hope (with gold rush fever preventing you from clearer logic) that Bitcoin will be the only viable crypto-currency, i.e. the theory that network efforts will amass to the first coin and thus it will dominate, then if Bitcoin mining (and thus the currency) is designed (as I have explained upthread) to be taken over by cartels due to the lack of funding when cartels (e.g. Amazon.com) withhold transactions from smaller miners as coin rewards become minuscule by 2033 (<1% and <0.2% by 2040), then it follows that you can't successfully fork Bitcoin because the inertia of the masses will already be invested (all those network effects and inertia) in that Bitcoin which is then controlled by the cartels. You won't have another option and you won't be able to create one if you believe the network effects dominance theory. You can't have it both ways, either you don't believe in altcoins and you get this dystopian outcome, or you do believe in altcoins.

Inertia is impossible to overcome by asking the broad population not to use the system that is most convenient (i.e. the most network effects), just try to go now and talk to every person in the world and convince them to stop using dollars. Hahaha. No chance. Only paradigm shifts can move inertia, as Bitcoin is doing now to dollars. When that paradigm shift has played out and everyone is in Bitcoin, then you can't fork any more (if the network effects dominance theory is correct).

The cartels can change the protocol and as long as the system still processes transactions for the masses, then the masses will not be complaining except for those 350,000 purists that are in Bitcoin now, and that is such a small percent of the world population. We complain now about the dollar, but the masses do not listen to us.

I hope I don't have to explain inertia and network effects.

I don't believe in the "there can only be one crypto-currency" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279650.msg3495695#msg3495695) network effects dominance theory. Thus I don't think we will reach the dystopian future outlined above and the other dystopian outcome due to Bitcoin's egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322058.msg3562010#msg3562010), but this depends on better altcoins competing with Bitcoin. If I am wrong, then we are doomed.

P.S. And Bitcoin is going to put most of us 350,000 in jail (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279650.msg3523415#msg3523415), so we will all be silenced by then, although that is not necessary to my point above.


Goldbugs destroy themselves by trying to impoverish the rest of the world with their egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve. The actual curve of wealth distribution in society is 3% power-law and 97% gas diffusion (because knowledge and initiative is not randomly distributed in the top 3%, as I am demonstrating to you now given I am in the top 3%). If you don't match your supply curve to reality, then you end up with dystopian outcomes or war as society resists what can not be.

The elite know very well they can feed the "gold rush fever" every time and fool the cows to take their money and cause society to have a big problem. Then they come in and fix it with a fiat every time after the goldbugs have destroyed society.

I think you talk too much with too little modesty (though I personally agree that Bitcoin's future is rather uncertain on a world scale)

News from the year 2020:

This week a local Detroit man was arrested on suspicion of running an unlicensed bitcoin mining operation. Several ASICminer USB sticks and and a x486 computer were seized in the operation that took 40 agents 6 weeks to bring to an arrest. "We are all aware of the dangers of allowing unlicensed bitcoin creation, such bitcoins cannot be regulated and could be used for terrorism, child porn, drugs, or gambling." said Detroit's top cop. The mining operation allegedly used so-called "legacy" computers, which were produced before the FATAL act. FATAL required all computers to be fitted with monitoring chips to prevent cybercrime in 2016, and although most obsolete machines were turned in, some appear to have been withheld by criminals for uses such as mining.

The still unidentified man will likely face the death penalty, however his true fate will not be disclosed in the interest of national security.

In other news, Iceland has agreed to lend the struggling US economy 250 BTC to purchase much needed food supplies from Russia, in return for all of the mineral rights to the mostly abandoned state of Alaska.

This is interesting - can you explain why the Gold Standard would impoverish the rest of the world? I'm interested because I do read that it doesn't work but I've never heard a compelling reason as to why this would be the case.

Please correct me as my understanding is this: There's not enough gold in the world. Can't pricing be flexible now that we have computers and the Internet? I suspect the solution will require technology of some sort.

When I talk modestly, you don't pay attention. When I talk forcefully, you don't read and then try match your beta-male ego to my alpha-male. So what do you expect us elite to do? We have no choice but to manipulate you because you are not rational.

How old are you? ;D

I don't have time to write carefully... this will be sloppy...

Start at the following linked post and then read forward in the thread. You may also want to read backwards in the thread for more context. And follow some of the links in the posts for more explanation and data.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195275.msg3350891#msg3350891

The basic point is that capital sitting in a hole FOREVER is theft from production and new knowledge creation. Savings and delayed gratification are important, but they are not so important that capital should grow in value FOREVER for doing nothing but sit in a hole.

Debt plays into this as this is how society forces the capital to move, even it can't get its hands on it. Because the optimum increases in knowledge and production won't occur if capital has all the power.

Yet debt also causes misallocation of capital, so there is ying and yang. Goldbugs want only the yang and want capital to be absolute.

Absolute capital means Dark Ages, feudalism, dying production, dying intellectualism, etc..

Getting goldbugs to understand this is nearly impossible because they can't load the dynamic game theory in their head. They can only see the static notion of their capital is absolute and theirs. They don't understand that No Money Exists Without the Majority.

It will be quite satisfying if even one reader understands and tells me he does.

Debt is not so bad when the base money can't be turned into a fiat, e.g. in the 1800s there were frequent liquidating corrections (thus self-adjusting without getting too far misallocative and out-of-balance) because no central bank could print physical gold to bailout the private banks which were printing gold receipts which depositors were then spending as money. The problem is these frequent bank runs caused frequent depressions and recessions in the USA in the 1800s and eventually JP Morgan was asked to bailout the nation and thus he got the control to create a central bank in 1913. Now with central banks, the world has gone for decades without a correction and thus the imbalances are grotesque and going to cause a massive global implosion when they are finally liquidated.

It is my hope that if we replaced Bitcoin with an altcoin that is more immune to cartels such as JP Morgan, then we could return to the frequent private banks corrections of the 1800s and live in a minanarchist free market again. But realize society hates this, because they want insurance which they believe is guarantee against catastrophic failure by sharing risk, but mathematically it is guaranteed SYSTEMIC failure later. See Taleb's Antifragility math (http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#Knowledge_Anneals).

If you really want to understand the generative essence of the math, you must really understand why "smaller things grow faster (http://blog.mpettis.com/2013/10/hidden-debt-must-still-be-repayed/#comment-3549)". Degrees-of-freedom is potential energy (proof is some where in the above linked thread). Monolithic capital that is static or only knows how to buy a bond or insurance, reduces degrees-of-freedom, i.e. everything can only move monolithically such as the insurance fund manager's investment decisions.


49

Do you understand that with all that elitist alpha-male attitude you actually look ridiculous? ;D
Should we necessarily know about your inferiority complexes?  8)

Sigh. (He never got the point about the utility of comparing penis length)

He as a beta-male is still following his notion that the alpha-male is the one who the group kneels down to, so he is testing whether I have that political power. He doesn't understand the real alpha-male controls without being seen, because he is more rational and understands the game theory better than the beta-males do.

So what are you doing here? ;D

I suggest he takes some lessons from the 50-something, minanarchist (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984&cpage=1#comment-236051), 160 IQ creator of "open source" Eric S. Raymond as follows.

Ego is for little people (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1404)

A natural contemplates game (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3000)

Facing your inner alpha (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3008)

You told me? ???

The most productive period per annum in the history of mankind was 1871-1913, the time of the gold standard. (Disagree?)

- Money supply was not only bullion, it was augmented with real bills (http://www.professorfekete.com). (Real bills can be implemented with bitcoin, if bitcoin is the quote currency.)
- Debt was kept in check by the natural mechanism as debt was not money, only bullion was (and real bills acted as money without strictly being that).

Actually, it all started in the early 19th centrury and primarily was due to technological advances (electricity, chemistry, railways, etc)

Also, the time period you mention was marked by a train of successive economic crises at the end of each economic cycle, which had finally led to the war in Europe (known as WWI) and Great Depression in the USA. After that the gold standard was de facto dismantled

Wow deisik, you surprised me. Your two most recent posts were astute. Indeed the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. And now we are in the First Computer Revolution which is maturing towards the coming Second.


Exactly. No one could print the bullion for free, thus no one could bailout the private banks. Thus corrections were frequent and thus the system was much more optimized and annealed (less Antifragile if using Taleb's math). Then the central banks were created to deal with the crisis caused from World War I when Europe's socialism imploded, so then the base money became fiat. But the problem with Bitcoin is that it is MUST become cartelized due to the transaction withholding attack and the loss of coin rewards, so therefor the base money (if Bitcoin) will be fiat again as I explained upthread on this page (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=331325.msg3570718#msg3570718).

Note the bullion was not the dominant (most accepted) money. The receipts were (no need to assay). There can't exist widespread expansion of debt with bullion as money (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195275.msg3350891#msg3350891). If capital is absolute, e.g. bullion is the ONLY money, then society declines into the abyss of a Dark Age.

So yes there must be a meaningful (5% per annum at least) expansion of the money supply, not just a (roughly) static number of BTC. It can happen from writing receipts for fractional reserve BTC and using those as money, or it can happen with an altcoin that has an expanding money supply. Or both. Either one or both could help mitigate the dystopian outcome for Bitcoin concerning relative impoverishment of the masses, but neither deals with the dystopia that Bitcoin is designed to become cartelized and thus morph into the government's coin.

I prefer the non-fractional reserve, expanding altcoin money supply option, because it is more honest and transparent on the public decentralized ledger. Whereas, private entities (opaquely or via government oversight) printing fractional reserve receipts (IOUs) is inherently unscrupulous.

P.S. 5% per annum coin rewards are not a threat to the coin's appreciation. Bitcoin is at roughly 11% now and the price is rising astronomically fast. With CPU-only mining, you would be getting more people into the coin to match the 97% gas diffusion distribution of wealth in society, thus a large market penetration and better future for the coin.

Go work on the solution then!

Don't really care about your opinion, you just think too much of yourself really... ;D
Also, I didn't say anything new, and if you think that you did... then lol ;D

Just need to jump in here a sec to say, if you think you are sane, and everyone else seems batshit insane to you, how can you be sure you are not the batshit insane one?  ;)

*Pssst*... Not everyone here has a lower IQ than you do. Just saying.

Central bankers now pushing Bitcoin and electronic currencies:

http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on-bitcoin-2013-11

Summers (candidate for Fed, Treasury official, adviser to Presidents) wants to enslave us in negative interest rates on an electronic currency:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=323988.msg3626642#msg3626642

Seems the pre-frontal cortex on Bitcoiners has shut-down due to greed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337291.msg3632324#msg3632324

Surprised to see a comment on the Bitcoin AP thread from Edwin
Vieira PhD JD, constitutional scholar and author of a seminal book on the US
monetary system.  No doubt you remember him from Russo's documentary and countless
interviews and articles on the net.   
Here's Vieira's comment:
Edwin Vieira said..."They" do not have to regulate the BitCoin system itself. They
will regulate the users, by requiring reports on BitCoin accounts and transactions,
for the purpose of collecting various taxes, in the same manner as foreign bank
accounts must be reported, and as FDR required reports on private gold ownership as
the prelude to confiscation. "They" may not have control of the BitCoins themselves;
but they do have control over the people who use them.

Isn't that what "they" do? What was the news here? Except your brainchild that 350,000 earliest adopters will be jailed and more than all the gains will be confiscated after the comsummative bubble... ::) I think the probability of that occurring is so low that I will gladly continue holding my bitcoins and soliciting them to others as part of a balanced portfolio.

AnonyMint I think we all get your point. I'd like to add though that there are other countries than the US. Even if capital controls do become harsher here in the EU I have a hard time seeing your doomsday scenario come true here, in the US or anywhere else. Sure we never know and having a crypto currency that could provide greater anonymity can't be a bad thing. So stop posting and get your programming game on. :)

Oh yeah and what's with calling them Bitcons one day and then now Bitcoins again?

PS. Seems like you put a lot of faith into what Armstrong says. I've been following him for years and although I have to say he has a pretty good track record I think he's pretty far from an all seeing eye and at times seems to be borderline mad. I'd advice you from putting all your eggs in his basket(case?)

PS2. I think your coming coin where normal cpu's can keep mining is a pretty damn good idea. I haven't spent anytime at all looking into other altcoins. Is there any coin that has this feature atm?

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

You are gladly soliciting a ponzi scheme which has been clearly explained to you.

So you have no excuse when the prosecutions come, because you have even stated that you willfully did so.

Having run a silverbank, you will not be able to claim you did not understand the financial vehicle you were investing in.

You know very well the difference between a tangible asset and one that is fabricated out-of-thin-air. And you know very well that the intangible asset has no value if does not have utility as a currency. And it has been explained to you that unless the usership is sufficiently widespread that everyone can use it as an every day currency, then it can't be used as currency to divest without converting to a fiat, thus it is not a currency, but rather what the UK has correctly described it to be.

No where can I see you posting a disclaimer explaining that the asset has certain dubious qualities as described.

It is clearly explained to you that the price is rising too fast for it to be widely dispersed to the masses. And thus when the early adopters want to get out, they either need to start selling now to the masses (and forsake the final gains thus allowing the masses to gain back some of the ridiculous devaluation of their relative net worth), or they will selfishly try to get out at the top and only a few will. Which will be entirely what they deserve. I will try to find a scripture for you on this.

You even have charts in your threads show that it is rising if I am not mistaken at 12X per year. This is simply unheard of in any investment. This can only be a mania.

I have no problem with people destroying themselves investing in mania, but I do believe in telling the truth so that it can only be their fault and not mine.

And under the circumstances, I think it is very unwise to be investing in a ponzi scheme without complete anonymity.

But you are entirely free to take your chances of course.

I am happy that I told what I believe to be the truth. My conscience is clear on this one.