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If we're discussing money burning. No one burns more money than governments. Examples.
-The united states burned more than $6.5 trillion dollars on a war in the middle east that accomplished nothing. A case could be made for war in the middle east increasing the number of terrorists in the world which in turn made the world a more unstable and violent place.
-The united states burned more than $1 trillion on an economic stimulus plan which created 1 job at a cost of between $150,000 to $300,000 to taxpayers.
-The united states burned more than $1 trillion on its affordable care act program which were funded by 20 tax hikes that ultimately made healthcare far more expensive and unaffordable.
-NASA burns billions of dollars only to accomplish less than Elon Musk and Space X which had near to 100x smaller budget.
-The per student cost of some public schools in the USA rivals the tuition cost of Harvard tuition.
There are many real cases of money being burned in the world & the media never mentions any of them.
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The digital currency bitcoin rallied by over 300 percent since the start of the year and has recently surpassed the $4,000 mark. Unsurprisingly, many financial markets pundits consider such a sharp rally the creation of an asset bubble. In all fairness, the returns that bitcoin and its digital peers in the crypto assets space are experiencing have not been seen since the day and age of the internet bubble in the late 1990s. However, Bitcoin has very different fundamentals than early internet stocks and a much more promising growth trajectory. 1. The Growing Acceptance of Bitcoin as Legal Tender
One of Bitcoin’s biggest challenges so far has been acceptance by lawmakers and financial regulators due to its decentralized nature and its unfortunate association with criminal activities carried out on the dark web. However, Bitcoin’s “official” acceptance is on the rise.
In April 2017, Japan announced that it would officially begin accepting Bitcoin as a legal payment method, which immediately boosted the price of bitcoin and has led to a substantial increase in merchant adoption across Japan.
In the Philippines, citizens have been increasingly using Bitcoin to send and receive low-cost remittances. This has not gone unnoticed by the country’s central bank, which announced in February 2017 that it will regulate Bitcoin so that the digital currency can be used as an officially accepted remittance system and, thereby, granting it full legal status.
Countries such as Australia and Russia have recently made similar statements that could lead to Bitcoin becoming a fully accepted medium of exchange in their respective countries. This is a trend that is likely to continue, given the growing demand for Bitcoin as an investment as well as an online payment system.
2. Increasing Merchant Adoption
In the early years of Bitcoin, merchant adoption was limited to a few brave ecommerce stores, usually run by early-stage Bitcoin enthusiasts. This, however, has changed substantially as leading tech companies and ecommerce platforms have chosen to accept Bitcoin as a payment method. Microsoft, Rakuten and Overstock are three of the largest companies to accept Bitcoin payments.
With bitcoin’s sharp price rally, increased media coverage and newfound acceptance in places such as Japan, Bitcoin merchant adoption is on the rise and this trend will likely continue.
The arguments for online merchants to accept Bitcoin are actually very strong; fees are lower than for credit card payments, chargeback fraud is entirely eliminated, new customers can be reached in underbanked regions and a new, tech-savvy consumer base can be attracted.
The more that merchant adoption increases globally, the more there will be regular and stable demand for the digital currency. And given the current low rate of merchant adoption, there is a substantial room for upside.
3. Bitcoin Is Increasingly Acting as a Store of Wealth in Distressed Economies
Another reason why Bitcoin is most likely not a bubble is that is has a much-need real world application in economically distressed countries. In places such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Zimbabwe, for example, bitcoin has been acting as a store of wealth and as an alternative spending currency as local currencies are weakening into worthlessness. This can be witnessed by increasing bitcoin trading volumes that are negatively correlated with the performance of local currencies and economic growth in distressed regions.
Bitcoin also allows individuals and businesses in countries with strict capital controls, such as Venezuela, to receive much-needed remittances to stay financially afloat. In other words, wherever there is economic distress, Bitcoin demand will likely rise and Bitcoin adoption will grow.
4. Bitcoin Has Only Just Gone Mainstream
You could say that 2017 has been the year in which Bitcoin has finally gone mainstream. Five years ago, if you would have asked the average person on the street what Bitcoin is, they would have most likely given you a bewildered look. Today, most people have at least heard of Bitcoin and many even know that one bitcoin is worth more than an ounce of gold.
Now that Bitcoin has become mainstream, the buying potential from new investors is immense, especially as institutional investors have started to open up to the idea of investing in bitcoin and other digital currencies.
5. Bitcoin’s Supply Is Limited
Finally, one of the key reason why Bitcoin has become so valuable is that its increasing demand is met with a fixed limited supply.
Because of the way Bitcoin was created, only 21 million coins can ever be mined. Furthermore, the rate at which new coins are created slows down over time, which means the increasing demand for the digital currency is not only met with a limited total supply but also with a continuously slowing supply.
The discussion of whether Bitcoin is a bubble or not will likely continue indefinitely, but the comparison between Bitcoin and early internet stocks does not hold true due to the fundamental differences between the two asset classes. * * * As CoinTelegraph notes, countering no shortage of criticism from traditional financial circles that Bitcoin’s price had grown too quickly and would inevitably crash, the new-found faith in Bitcoin and its maturing as a medium of exchange has become apparent in its increasing resilience to ‘FUD’ or other bad news. Mainstream forecasters now predict further upward momentum for prices, with TradingView eyeing a new all-time high of $6,800 for November despite the uncertainty surrounding the SegWit2x hard fork. ... This is a good flipside to the "bitcoin is a bubble" stories the media has spammed us with since forever. Another good case for bitcoin not being a bubble due to its high projected future growth can be found in this thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2281270.msg23152743#msg23152743I think the article above addresses some of the points economists and finance analysts have glossed over. Bitcoin's growth in relation to its fundamental metrics are what will likely determine whether bitcoin is a bubble. Thus far none of the experts have addressed that topic. There's zero acknowledgement made of bitcoin's adoption in countries like japan, the philippines, russia or australia and crypto's transition towards becoming more mainstream. No commentary on whether those effects on bitcoin's elevated price could be sustainable. It is possible that we will never see anything resembling legitimate analysis of bitcoin from the media. They have a long history of sweeping relevent and key points under the nearest rug. Out of sight, out of mind. Over the long term this could create opportunities for independent media to rise if indeed nature abhors a vacuum. Is bitcoin a bubble? What are everyones thoughts on this?  |
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Based on my limited experience, it seems as if payment processors like paypal which are regulated and have KYC checks are less reliable than payment processors which lack KYC/regulation.
Coinbase could be a decent example of this. I don't remember hearing anything bad about coinbase until after they became regulated and implemented KYC. Now there are stories of coinbase witholding funds for months for no apparent reason. Funds being lost or confiscated. I can't vouch for whether these stories are true. But the timing does seem suspicious.
I would be interested to know if others have similar impressions about KYC/regulated payment processors / exchanges being less reliable with checks and regulation in place.
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DRIP (Dividend ReInvestment Plans) could be worth looking into. There could be documented cases of people retiring early off of them. Can't say I'm the most knowledgeable person on the topic. Don't know what their performance against inflation looks like or what the average ROI or statistics relating to success or failure are. I get the impression they're one of the most underrated trading strategies over the long term. It might be fair to compare DRIP to long term buying and holding btc. Definitely something I need to look into and research more.
Roth IRA's may be another go to over the long term with decent annual interest yields.
I don't know if there are any decent trading bots or entry level HFT algorithmic based trading. If there are any decent platforms they could be worth looking into. Competition in fiat investing could be too high for average investors. That's not a topic I know much about.
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In this day and age where convenience and fast transactions reign supreme, precious metals lack the type of rapid deployment, lightning transaction model which might allow it to be competitive with credit cards, paypal or bitcoin.
Gold needs a reboot. Some type of update that will allow someone to buy goods/services electronically with the convenience of a click of a mouse button. Carrying a 0.5 kilogram gold nugget and using that to buy things probably won't work out well. Ditto with storing 3 kilograms of gold in your home in case of emergency.
Precious metals need more applications and utilities which would give them more real world application. The majority of people wouldn't know what to do with 5 pounds of gold if it fell out of the sky and landed in the street in front of them. There's no real application or utility to increase the demand and volume of precious metals, which would in turn boost their price.
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The bolded portion here might give away potential answers: If you increase the price of the good that you are selling, your total revenue increases, but your total profit decreases. Supposing that your demand has not changed, what do these two facts imply for price elasticity of demand and your cost structure One answer could be volume. An example of this is, let's say that general motors makes a profit of $1,000 per vehicle sold. Under these circumstances GM's profit may be dependent upon the number of units they sell moreso than it is their total revenue. Imagine a scenario where cars manufactured by GM cost an average of $5,000 and they raise the price to $7,000 (or another arbitrary number) with their profit per vehicle remaining $1,000. There could be a scenario where their gross revenue increases while their net revenue decreases off of a diminishing number of total cars sold. Also if the price of their cars was $5,000 and it was raised to $7,000 with the profit per vehicle remaining $1,000 that could imply their cost structure was scaled in a way where liabilities and price were strongly correlated due to fundamental business model, etc. |
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Can you show us these studies?
This site compiles every positive steroid test result in MMA with correlation to the win/loss result of the fight they tested postive for. There is more detailed info at the source, I didn't post it all it would be too long. According to them the official record of confirmed steroid use in MMA is 22 wins to 25 losses. Too bad the original owners of cagepotato sold their site. Before it was sold it was one of the best MMA sites in terms of content. |
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Hello guys,
Actors like Google cloud or Amazon Web Service control most of the computing market today and charge us ridiculous prices. We think it is time for a user-friendly platform that charges you the right price : the price of the computing resources you have used.
What do you think ?
On paper, both google cloud and amazon web services could be impossible to compete with. There are reasons for this. #1 Both google and amazon receive tax breaks & other benefits on their cloud centers. In some cases, the construction costs of the buildings which house their server rooms and other liabilities are paid for by the state. #2 Both google and amazon buy their hardware in very high quantities to take advantage of lower wholesale prices. A small business with less than $1 million to spend which lacks the above advantages could have a difficult time competing with either google or amazon in terms of cloud computing. It could be cool if someone could do it. I would definitely support that. Not the easiest goal to accomplish, however. |
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According to TheNational.ae, bitcoin adoption in Zimbabwe is seemingly skyrocketing as the country’s economic situation looks bleak. So much so, that one bitcoin is trading at nearly $10,000 on the Golix.io exchange, while the global average is, at press time, of $5,642.00. I haven't exchange traded in years. Does anyone know if its possible to arb on the golix.io exchange if indeed btc was trading there at an all time high of $10,000? The implications of btc trading as high as $10k on some exchanges could show demand is strong enough for btc to trend over $6,000. It could mean btc will reach $10k in 2018. Will be interesting to see how good/bad of an indicator this is over the long term. Also in regard to some saying bitcoin miners in venezuela couldn't buy anything in venezuela with crypto, I don't know the answer to that. I they cross the border into neighboring columbia and spend their crypto there. Venezuelans cross into Colombia to buy suppliesThousands of Venezuelans have been crossing into Colombia to buy food and medicine after the opening of five pedestrian border crossings. Venezuela and Colombia opened several "provisional" border crossing points on Saturday for pedestrians for the first time in nearly a year as part of a progressive reopening agreed on this week. As of 6am local time, the authorities opened a total of five crossing points in the Venezuelan towns of Tachira, Apure, Zulia and Amazonas. During three temporary border openings last month, some 150,000 Venezuelans - suffering from their country's severe economic crisis - poured into Colombia to purchase food, medicine and other basics. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/venezuelans-flock-colombia-buy-supplies-160814042335562.html Of course, there are other methods they might use. |
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Lastly, he argues that bitcoin has no fair value right now, which is why he doesn't own it. That's a good point. Bitcoin is a new technology. We lack decades of past financial data with crypto currencies to project what an accurate picture of bitcoin's future might look like. One reason climatologists have difficulty with global warming projections involves a lack of sufficient data to accurately predict what effect cloud formations have upon weather patterns. IIRC, scientists didn't record data on cloud patterns until around the 1950's. So while we have temperature data going back 200+ years, our records on cloud formations isn't as deep which makes weather prediction more difficult. Crypto could be similar in that we lack historical data to generate precedents and so it being a new technology makes it difficult to quantity what normal price patterns or expectations for crypto might be. |
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Food for thought. Amazon's stock price has jumped from $18 per share to nearly $1,000 per share.  Warren Buffett's berkshire hathaway stock has gone from $290 to being worth $284,570.  Here we have examples of tremendous growth being sustainable in the financial world. I think that the area where economists have trouble is, they don't make an effort to differentiate between bitcoin's growth and the growth of stocks like amazon and berkshire hathaway. There aren't many economists who have real world experience trading or applying economics principles in a way that is reliable or consistent. |
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Usability, safety and ergonomics of most cryptocurrency products is brutally substandard compared to any other software.
The course of open source is obvious.
If you do not leave your code open source you gain no trust.
If you do you risk being forked with an one-liner, so what is the point?
That is why billion plus projects like Neo, Ether do not have a decent wallet.
That is why Neo which is supposed to be the next best thing to sliced bread displays your private key and saves it unencrypted in a file.
That is why Mycelium can not implement Segwit addresses for months under HD wallets which probably requires two lines of code.
This is why there is no decent Android bitcoin wallet and the list goes on.....
Is there a way out of this curse?
Studies I've seen which compared open source products like mozilla firefox to proprietary closed sourced analogues such as microsoft's internet explorer concluded open source software, on average, contain fewer software vulnerabilities with oftentimes higher levels of innovation and new features. Maybe of the "new" and "exciting" contained in closed source products like microsoft windows are things that were developed in open source software which microsoft "borrowed". Without veering too far off track there are many open source projects which represent good quality work. Open source is where many new ideas and features are implemented. If you're criticizing software projects associated with ethereum, it might help to remember that ETH is affiliated with microsoft, JP Morgan and other large closed source entities. The same might be said of those other things you mentioned. Ethereum Enterprise Alliance Adds 86 New MembersThe Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, an initiative to standardize a business version of Ethereum that launched in February, announced that it has added 86 new members, including heavyweights such as the DTCC, State Street, Infosys, Deloitte, MUFG, Toyota Research Institute and Broadridge. They join original members Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon, Intel, UBS, Accenture and others, bringing the EEA’s total membership to 116. A number of blockchain startups that have so far focused on public blockchains such as BlockCypher, Etherisc, have also joined, perhaps reflecting members’ desire that private blockchains eventually connect to public ones, which would help each side build its network effect. The Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, which launched the privacy coin Zcash, also joined. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/05/22/ethereum-enterprise-alliance-adds-86-new-members-including-dtcc-state-street-and-infosys-and/ |
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BJJ Scout released this clip of Demian Maia vs Colby Covington grappling/wrestling analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_fq-2nRkp8The betting line shifted in favor of Demian Maia shortly afterward. BJJ Scout has some of the best analysis for grappling/wrestling in MMA that I've seen. His material is worth watching for anyone interested in the finer points of wrestling/grappling which is one area most of us don't know much about. Not many notes on this card, here are a few. -How well Derek Brunson does in the stand up could depend on whether he's training himself in his own gym or working with JacksonWink coaches. If anyone noticed the changes in Brunson's kickboxing those came with him starting his own gym and training himself out of it. -Lyoto Machida hasn't done well around the time he tested positive for steroids. He's coming off a suspension from a positive test. Many of the guys that trained at blackhouse gym in california have also tested positive. Anderson Silva, Kevin Casey, Lyoto Machida, Brian Ortega, Rafael Cavalcante and maybe a few others I can't remember right now all trained in the same gym as Lyoto and all tested positive for steroids. Steroid use could have a detrimental effect upon the careers of MMA fighters. Gilbert Melendez, Chael Sonnen & others have suffered losing streaks after testing positive. Statistically there have been studies done on this and most of the time those who test positive for steroids lose their fights in MMA. |
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In some cases: yes. Wars and terrorist attacks can have an impact on markets and investments. Here's a massive Dow Jones dip after the september 11th 2001 bombing of the WTC towers.  As time has passed, people have become increasingly apathetic towards war and terrorist bombings. To a point where it probably wouldn't have much of an impact unless something very severe happened. Looking at bitcoin's price chart, major terrorist attacks over the last few years appear to have zero effect on price. There was a major mass shooting on october 1st 2017 in Las Vegas USA. Doesn't appear to have much of an effect.  |
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Most mansions that are priced @ $6.5 million only cost $200,000 to $500,000 to build.
There are big profit margins in the real estate industry. A person could own that same mansion by paying $20,000 for an affordable plot of land and another $100,000 - $200,000 for the actual mansion to be built.
Those high priced mansions are extremely overpriced. Its like buying a desktop mac where you pay an additional $100 to $200 for the plastic case. There's no way a mansion should cost that much unless its on prime real estate on a beach or in an area that is in very high demand.
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Economic and financial policy in this era is puzzling. Apple is sitting on $256.8 billion usd: What happens to apple's $256 billion if the federal government defaults on its $20 trillion dollar deficit and the value of the dollar plummets? Bitcoin/crypto could well be a safer investment than either the dollar or the euro at this point. It is possible that as deficit and default fears grow big corporations like google, apple, microsoft and others will seek to transfer their holdings to denominations of crypto as it may be more reliable than fiat like the dollar or euro. |
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The article OP's link leads to. Steve Wozniak (aka the ‘Woz’) thinks Bitcoin is better than gold and the U.S. dollar, which he called “phony,” because the government can always print more. On Sunday, October 22, 2017, the co-founder of Apple Computers shared his thoughts on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies at Money20/20 in Las Vegas where he was interviewed by Deirdre Bosa, technology reporter at CNBC. The conversation was around artificial intelligence, but the topic of Bitcoin emerged as well. Wozniak feels a currency is more “stable” when it cannot be diluted and, while Bitcoin has a fixed future supply (only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined), the same cannot be said about government-backed fiat currencies.
“There is a certain finite amount of bitcoin that can ever exist,” Wozniak said in explaining that the U.S. government could wind up printing more dollars for political reasons. He described the U.S. dollar as “kind of phony” in that sense, while describing Bitcoin as more “genuine and real.”
Similarly, he said, gold does not necessarily have a fixed supply either, because humans will continue to find more efficient ways to dig it out of the earth.
“Gold gets mined and mined and mined,” Wozniak said. “Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but Bitcoin is even more mathematical and regulated and nobody can change mathematics.”
He compared owning Bitcoin to owning a house. “Your house has value. And if it is a house today, 40 years from now, it still is a house in value,” he said, even if the price goes up and the government draws more taxes out of it.Mathematical Appreciation Wozniak said he “admired” Bitcoin when the digital currency was first presented. “I looked at it as a form of currency,” he said, adding that initially he did not understand the underlying blockchain technology but now he does. He said, initially, he had a tough time buying bitcoin because that required setting up a special bank account. The process, he said was “so awkward, it kept me from getting early bitcoin.” When he finally was able to buy bitcoin, he said the price immediately dropped in half. But those kind of numbers don’t mean so much to Wozniak. “I am not financial,” he told the crowd, admitting he never followed the price of bitcoin, nor the price of Apple stock but said he was drawn to bitcoin because it was based on mathematics. “My wife and I, we judge a hotel room more by the number on the door than what is inside the room. We are both mathematicians,” he said. Countless Opportunities for Blockchain Technology Wozniak also touched on Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology, and its importance in allowing people to transparently track things, like minerals.
“Right now, there is conflict with minerals in the world, and you don’t want to buy conflict minerals. Well, how do you avoid it?” He continued by explaining how companies will usually buy gold from different countries and smelt it together, so there is no way of knowing where it all comes from. With blockchain-based solutions, however, tracking where that gold comes from is now possible.
“They are applying the technology where all the payment can only go to the good, legitimate sources that don’t have conflict minerals,” he added.
Wozniak pointed out that, currently, there are so many applications popping up using blockchain technology that are so different than what people initially imagined, and it will take time to get used to. He also likened the introduction of smart contract platforms, like Ethereum, to when computers first came out and suddenly people were writing “tens of thousands of programs” nobody had ever thought of before. Smart contract platforms open those same doors of opportunity. “There is a lot more to this cryptocurrency than just the Bitcoin,” he said. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/money2020-wozniak-thinks-bitcoin-better-gold/ Steve Wozniak makes several good points here. I tried to bold text the best parts. Very good analysis by him. His point about more efficient methods of mining gold being developed making gold inferior to btc's cryptographic supply limitations could be some of the best points made about btc in a long time. Wozniak seems to confirm he bought bitcoin around 2014 when the price dropped from $1,000 down to below $500 after silk road was shutdown and china banned exchanges. Also for those who don't know who Steve Wozniak is. He created both the apple operating system and the hardware architecture it ran on. He is very underrated when it comes to his skill and intelligence. Steve Jobs gets most of the credit for apple's success but Steve Jobs would never have been anything without Steve Wozniak. |
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Venezuela’s worsening economic collapse has created something of a social experiment in the use of a digital currency as a de facto currency - a phenomenon that’s also playing out in troubled Zimbabwe. According to TheNational.ae, bitcoin adoption in Zimbabwe is seemingly skyrocketing as the country’s economic situation looks bleak. So much so, that one bitcoin is trading at nearly $10,000 on the Golix.io exchange, while the global average is, at press time, of $5,642.00.
According to a local trader, bitcoin isn’t just being bought by individuals, but by businesses with bills to pay. The country adopted the U.S. dollar back in 2009 as its fiat currency, as the Zimbabwean dollar had lost nearly all its value.
At press time, LocalBitcoins Zimbabwe has people buying bitcoin at the global average, and some buying the cryptocurrency for cash for well over $10,000 in the country’s capital. Bitcoin, as every bitcoiner would expect, is helping people in the country survive times of economic uncertainty, as Zimbabwe has been embroiled in a crisis for years. And as inflation in Venezuela has spiraled further out of control - by one estimated, it peaked above 2,400% in September - more Venezuelans are resorting to mining bitcoin, litecoin and other digital currencies as a means of coping with the country's out-of-control hyperinflation and surviving in a country where staples like food and medicine are scarce. "Venezuela was one of the richest per-capita nations in the world... but now, hyperinflation is a very difficult thing to understand until you have to buy lunch..."
"The country has not yet dollarized... but there's not enough dollars in Venezuela for that to have happened..."
"Venezuela is becoming a cashless society... we are starting to see in Venezuela, the first bitcoinization of a sovereign state." However, while cryptocurrency mining isn’t explicitly illegal, the country’s Sebin intelligence service has been known to raid establishments that show a suspicious spike in electricity usage. Electricity is heavily subsidized by the state in Venezuela, making mining a particularly lucrative prospect, despite the risks. Bitcoin mining consultant Randy Brito estimates that about 100,000 Venezuelans are "mining," although it is impossible to have an exact figure because many are protecting themselves by using servers in foreign countries, AFP reports. According to the LocalBitcoins portal, transactions in bitcoins amounted to $1.1 million in Venezuela in the last week of September. One local who spoke with AFP said her mining rig is producing 20 to 25 litecoins per month. "Each litecoin is worth $46, that's $920 a month," said Veronica - a fortune in a country where the minimum monthly salary is 135,543 bolivars ($40), supplemented by a voucher of 189,000 bolivars ($56). AFP visited one office building in Caracas that has been converted into a clandestine mining operation, with more than 20 computers hard at work performing the cryptographic calculations necessary to unlock valuable blocks of digital currency. Caracas (AFP) - Inside a locked room in an office building in Caracas, 20 humming computers use their data-crunching power to mine bitcoins, an increasingly popular tool in the fight against Venezuela's hyperinflation.
In warehouses, offices and homes, miners are using modified computers to perform complex computations, essentially book-keeping for digital transactions worldwide, for which they earn a commission in bitcoins.
While practiced worldwide, Bitcoin mining is part of a growing, underground effort in Venezuela to escape the worst effects of a crippling economic and political crisis and runaway inflation that the IMF says could reach 720 percent this year.
Having no confidence in the bolivar and struggling to find dollars, many Venezuelans, who are neither computer geeks nor financial wizards, are relying on the bitcoin - currently valued around $6,050, or other virtual currencies. As international sanctions have left Venezuela starved for foreign currency, cryptocurrencies have provided one crucial means for the regular people of Venezuela - who arguably have been hardest hit by the sanctions despite marching in the streets and calling for the overthrow of the regime of President Nicolas Maduro - to avoid the consequences of the administration’s economic mismanagement. Now, the question is will Venezuelans abandon the worthless bolivar in favor of relying solely on digital currencies. As we noted previously, one trader, John Villar, Caracas-based software developer, most eloquently stated "Bitcoin is a way of rebelling against the system." While the currency remained a niche form of payment in the country, many users purchased food and goods online through online marketplaces such as Amazon.com, albeit indirectly through gift cards purchased with the cryptocurrency. Noel Alvarez, former president of the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce, stated that “A maximum of one per cent of the population has access to it, but it is very useful in our situation.” Bitcoin’s popularity in Venezuela continued to grow. It became the country’s leading parallel currency. Some vendors even begun accepting Bitcoin exclusively. A popular online travel agency, Destinia, cited that, due to the bolivar’s instability and the trouble many Venezuelans experience when attempting to leave the country, “Giving priority to Bitcoin as a payment method could be of help." While Destina admitted that Venezuela is not a primary focal point for their company, they chose to prioritize Bitcoin payments in the Venezuelan market to facilitate the travel needs of the people in light of the persisting economic downturn. With infrastructure in place, trading and mining becoming more popular, and the crisis escalating, Maduro’s government began to take notice. Maduro’s War on BitcoinThe Venezuelan government began to crack down on the Bitcoin community, with police extorting citizens for “misusing electricity” or undermining the country’s economy. These grievances intensified over time, however, and the attack on miners became more apparent. In the largest raid, two miners were caught with 11,000 mining computers and were charged with cybercrime, electricity theft, exchange fraud, and even funding terrorism. In Feb. 2017, following the incident, Surbitcoin, Venezuela’s most popular exchange went offline. The company encouraged users to withdraw their money immediately as Banesco, the company’s banking partner, was set to revoke the account associated with the exchange. Rodrigo Souza, the founder and CEO of Surbitcoin, noted that "When it was found that there were 11,000 mining computers consuming the energy to power a whole town at a time when there are severe electricity shortages, it triggered a reaction.” Souza went on to say that the company was not contacted by the government, but Banesco revoked their account as it did not want to be associated with such an operation. Surbitcoin resumed operations two weeks following. We suspect it will not be long before Maduro takes further, tougher action against this 'subversive' behavior. Article contains interesting info. I wasn't aware btc was trading at a high of $10,000 on the https://golix.io exchange. It is possible venezuela and zimbabwe are a microcosm of what many nations futures will look like eventually. I wish the media would cover more stories like this. To show the other side of crypto's character, that crypto isn't only used by criminals & how it can bring an elevated standard of living for many. |
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Banks have a history of closing accounts of small business owners & independent businesses. Chase closing accounts of porn stars: ReportChase Bank is closing the accounts of hundreds of people who work in the adult industry, according to multiple reports Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton posted images of the letters reportedly sent to stars in the adult industry informing them of the account closings. Hilton reported that the accounts would be closed on May 11, 2014. https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/26/chase-closing-accounts-of-porn-stars-report.html There are other cases of banks targeting groups of people from having accounts pornstars & workers in the adult entertainment industry are for whatever reason the most public and obvious case. In the united states the tea party was targeted by the IRS for their political views which could imply that large scale targeting against certain stances and belief systems could become a norm. The banking industry being centralized gives banks the power to isolate groups of people from their payment system which they are pushing to become a sole proprietor of transactions under a cashless society. I hope people recognize the danger of this and support paper fiat money to prevent banks from having a monopoly over electronic transactions. |
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The way Darren Till finished Cerrone was a lot like Cerrone's fight with RDA(Rafael Dos Anjos). I don't know what happened to Cowboy but he hasn't looked the same since he fought Matt Brown and has been on a decline for the past 1-2 years. It could be because he had a motorcycle accident and had part of his intestine removed. With IV rehydration being banned after cutting weight, that could be Cerrone at a disadvantage with oral hydration. His intestines are much shorter now which could put him at a disadvantage when his body needs to absorb water after weight cuts. He moved up to 170 from 155. Possibly to mitigate this issue, but it may not be enough and he could still be struggling with that.
Next UFC event is Lyoto Machida vs Derek Brunson in brazil on october 28th. That event looks very difficult from a betting perspective.
Have to wonder if MMA is dying or on a decline. The only fighter people seem interested in is Conor McGregor.
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