Counter 1: The central banks of the world are honestly too stupid and short sighted to compete with the worlds largest super computer - Bitcoin.
Counter 2: The bank would not be able to use their 51% computer on a new chain using a different algorithm. We could have almost identical blocks on each chain and a hundred different chains/algorithms - they would not be able to keep up.

Final counter 3: Block IPs not trusted; all central blocks would then go into thin air - ONE update.

57% Bitcoin and 43% wind turbine shares. However with the changing rates and my new job yielding lots of new investment money it is changing rapidly. Until very recently I was a poor student so its really less crazy risk taking and more starting somewhere.

I keep as little as possible in fiat.

.. or a permanent block reward of 1 satoshi. This would lead to some equilibrium between the loss rate going up with more coins and the steady creation of new coins. Conceivably a perfect no inflation/deflation economy.

EDIT: On second thought this leads to miner waste, decimal moving is better.

Science is defined by the principle of positivism. And it is two parts, not just emperical testing.

Positivism states that 1. A theory must be logically self consistent. and 2. A theory is false if it does not match reality so much as once.

"Math" is often seen as the strongest science of all - however it contains no empirical testing.
No one has ever ONCE tested if 2+2 does indeed equal 4 - it is simply a result of undeniable logic and mathematical axioms.


Similarly Austrian theory focuses on setting up axioms and from that deriving theory while mainstream economists try to fit simplistic formula down over adapting intelligent agents - and on top they reject empirical evidence.

The Austrian school IS a science and in fact it would also be wrong to say empirical evidence plays no part: One of the first tenents of the Austrian school is that the markets/humans are adapting agents - A new perfect economic theory would immediately be abused by traders and thus rendered false.
This theory is testable in that indeed markets are adapting to change all the time. No one has ever seen a market NOT reacting to massive inflow/outflow of something important like money, resources or energy. Not once.

Ahhh maybe he means "earn" as in real economy/jobs for BTC that kind of thing - not speculation buying.

Yes the whole "fiscal cliff" thing is a pure propaganda term without ANY root in reality and the purpose of it is to serve as excuse for Obama to "cave in" again and give lots of money to his bankster buddies (that he has installed in several major government positions).

The election between Romney and Obama was largely a farce.

You expect too much even from a big improvement in economic efficiency. Sure central banking, large scale bailouts and purposeless wars will no longer exist for prolonged periods, but to imagine you won't need to pay for soldiers/police/firemen/politicians is crazy.

Someone has to put out fires and keep you safe - whether it be a "tax" or "security firm fee". Taxes can also still be levied at gun-point on property values, you can't hide your house on the blockchain

BTC IS cool and WILL change the world, but is not magic.

But by how much? The US basically printed itself 1 trillion dollars for just the Iraq war or something (probably more). According to my calculations that is enough for at least 500 billion liters of gasoline.

Each liter is 36MJ according to my memory of wikipedia or 36MJ*1585/second = 57 GW averaged over the last 10 YEARS.

Of course that stuff is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Start to add in the real money spent on those wars (1 trillion per year not 10?), cars and mansions of banksters, the financial crisis and so on and you will puke.
I heard 40% of company earnings in the US were in the financial sector - which is then basically all waste.

You could definitely be for crypto currency on account of just wanting to "save the planet".

I was aware of both meanings, still they also used the word "threat" with Bitcoin.

It was a cold, objective and serious report from serious and smart people - who are non-the-less still clearly enemies of Bitcoin.

No just trying to make sense of things using the biggest most known values - "A" may also fluctuate wildly, its not a constant and then there's the whole psychological element of what rising prices do to speculators etc. etc..

The buy-in would be part of "A" and the amount of this coin that was sold for $ outside the pure BTC economy would be part of B so it is kinda in there.

However I estimated B to near 0, but if drug trade is a significant part of BTC economy (and this drug trade will likely have dollar costs that MUST be paid) then B is much larger than 0. new_price = (25-S)/(B + C/2) AND B+C = B + 25% so if B is say 10% of total BTC value yearly then new_price = 20/22.5% = 0.888 - a price decrease caused by possible anticipation error of the market "S".

Anyone know the exact size of the drug trade?

If it's not a scam Anyway that is a maximum of 100.000 new coins arriving slightly faster than normal - I think the effect will be close to nothing.
I also assume that these ASICS will not all go online in one day. In fact lots of people will keep going with FPGAs and GPUs so difficulty could be climbing slowly for months.

That would be more A and some more B to match it, but this would be over a longer time - not the ~2 months the halving will affect sharply.

Fact: Markets are made up of many individual humans.

Ergo: In order to be ahead of someone, someone else in the market must be ahead of that person.

Conclusion: Everyone being behind the market would be logically impossible.


In 50 years global oil production will likely have been cut in half or more, yet prices are not yet very high despite oil being rather easily stored. In fact considering we still burn some oil and gas simply for heat suggests the price is very LOW in real terms.

Why is this? Because markets react most strongly to supply and demand and cannot do so until those change. Demand depends on purchasing power and if it remains static while supply cuts in half in a single day prices must climb.

If we assume A: SOME equilibrium exists between positive and negative speculators which is ABOVE the current price ($ inflow), B: people who MUST sell BTC to survive ($ outflow) and C: miners producing new coins (inflation - $ dilution).

1. Assumption A makes sense because if speculator equilibrium was below the current price the price would instantly crash.
2. B and C are both downward pressures and are inflexible.
3. C will halve in 26 days.
(A-B-C = total deflation/inflation rate)
4. How big is B? Not that big - not many people subsist only on BTC that I have ever heard off.
5. How big is A? A must be: A=B+C for a maintained equilibrium. If we can agree B is small A must be about equal to C.
6. C is currently 25% yearly inflation so without it and current levels of $ inflow, deflation A would be the same.
7. When the equation "breaks" it is because money is moving INTO/OUT OF BTC and the is equilibrium shifting.
8. If C is cut in half roughly - total BTC deflation will rise 12.5% until B rises or A lowers.

The equilibrium WILL shift upwards when that equation says 25% = ~0% + 12.5%.

How much?
1. "A" is $ moving in while C is BTC dilution (against $).
2. If price doubles A will no longer be 25% of BTC total value yearly, but 12.5%! (since the $/BTC will have increased while the $ flow would be the same)
3. This would fix the equation to 12.5% = 0% + 12.5%.

Market anticipation:
1. In the summer/spring this was all well known so presumably the market moved all ready cash into BTC - the jump from 5-10+ perhaps?
2. With no further stash to move in current price levels MUST be sustained by NEW money - a constant flow "A" to match dilution "C".
3. If "A" was "Supercharged" (extra $ inflow S -> new inflow = A + S) and then dropped off after the expected halving price increase would be hit though.
4. How big is S? Personally I have boosted my investments perhaps 20% TOPS. So lets say that A = 20 and S = 5 = 0% + 25%. We assume S disappear after the halving.
5. In this case total price increase factoring in market anticipation is: 20/12.5 = 1.6.

1.6 is not a doubling, but I will take it

Wuut? I did that what's wrong with that... three times.. oh well they will thank me later.

- You own Casascius coins.

- You bought your first house after selling 2 pizzas some years back

I think we will see a more p2p-based internet in the future and more mesh-networks. If our smartphones for instance created a mesh-network automatically internet connection could be sustained with a few small solar panels and some smartphones in almost the worst of disasters.

Hologram BTC coins of various sorts could also work nicely in a dedicated community until connection was reestablished.

So having done all of this I am assuming you are rather BTC savvy?

Perhaps you could offer me some hints now and then - you see I am Danish myself and I'm working on a BTC card, but I'm having trouble with some things?

I already plan to make everything open source, but in return for your help I could try to work towards letting your webapp support pure BTC smartcards also.

All I need is a few pointers over PM or skype for instance in weekends now and then or something.

Oh if we are talking regular users I think the 10K would be spot on. I would like to buy my groceries with BTC, but its not happening yet.

50-150k would likely include users who have used it now and then, but not weekly by any means. The estimation becomes very difficult if you include degree of "user".

Even savings/hoarding is a kind of use and the other reason I include them is because they make up sleeper-bitcoiners: In the event of high inflation or other crisis they would be likely to switch to BTC since they know about it and have a client etc..


Also; it may actually be bad the ECB is noticing us so soon. We could be set back a year or two if they crack down hard right now. Dunno.

I think about 1 million people are using Bitcoin based on the valuation that would be 200$ on average which seems plausible.

Some have a lot, others just change from free outlets, but most perhaps 200$ as experimentation or for buying a few drugs.

Myself I have ~10 times that. Even 100k users would mean an average of that (2.000$) which I find hard to believe as many still see this as experimentation and I am from a richer country than most.
An average of 20.000$ as would be implied by 10k users would be crazy. Most of us are normal guys with costs, wives and stuff - we might be able to access that kind of money, but not for an experiment our wives/family don't get/hate

Likewise an average of 20$ is too low as it is troublesome to get so few BTC through a wire transfer without huge percentage costs.

1 mil also kinda fits with the various numbers of users here and there put together and corrected for a couple of double accounts etc..

Also BTC value comes from its usage - 100k or 10k hoarders would not be worth 200 million dollars or generate so much activity I'm guessing.

Bitcoin is there waiting for an opportunity, their ENTIRE fancy plan for 2010-2020 (and beyond perhaps) is adding a more centralized and corporatized EU to their control through the ECB and their printing press first.

They can't control the EU through the euro if people start running to bitcoin.

A "flash crash" is what they fear where overnight fiat currency is obliterated. ONE wrong story goes viral, one case of hyperinflation where Bitcoin is accepted (ANY country) and their power is GONE.


I LUVE this thread!

That's really funny D&Txs.. arhh like Romney not wanting to tell his plans (just make something UP like a NORMAL lying politician!). 

Seriously though is there something better than Mpex and ICBIT out there now that GLBSE is gone? Stock exchange could be a big draw to Bitcoin.

I have only seen bad ideas trampled down - taint very much one of them. Good ideas like decentralized stock exchanges and the like usually gather at least interest.

That's a bit much, lets say 1 BTC and it's a deal - I'm not a (very) betting man;)