Bitcoin needs fiat to survive and grow. All government has to do is block funds at the source. The banks. The same way they did for online poker. It's not difficult at all. If they really wanted to get nasty, they could make it illegal for businesses to accept it. Mass adoption = dead.
That said, I think they will allow a $500 billion Bitcoin economy because that's a lot of tax revenue to be had. They'll regulate exchanges and any sources of money in and out of the network to get their cut and I think that's a good thing as long as regulations are fair and aren't hindering startups.
Yeah, prohibition without justification has always worked. Certainly not but prohibition was done against the majorities wishes. Bitcoin does not have the majority of the population on its side as of yet. Merely a sliver at best. Hell, at the moment, most are terrified of Bitcoin. Haters gonna hate. It's hilarious. |
|
|
|
Artistic license. Try not to take everything so literally. One beef I have with Ripple is that they are very well funded and very secretive. In fact, they gave early adopters a sweet deal. But that sets off all kinds of trust alarms. It's hard to verify anything they claim. As far as trading goes, I don't do large amounts anymore because the exchanges are much less predictable and there is more stability. If I will accept colored coin vouchers, it will be from someone I have independent verification of trustworthiness that only comes from face-to-face. Reputation systems are better than nothing, but are subject to the long con. If you trade any amount, then you are already dealing in IOU's. The difference between your IOU's and mine, is that mine are liquid and yours aren't. If I didn't trust my wife, I would be dead. That doesn't mean I trust your wife. If you don't see the difference, then this is a lost point to argue. Liquidity is not universally recognized. I can say the same thing: "The difference between your IOU's and mine, is that mine are liquid and yours aren't." Here's where I am coming from. I have learned a lot about small business over the many decades of my existence. I have seen the changes in America and around the world. Some things about human interaction don't change. Technology only makes them more efficient. I would prefer we take the best parts and build something better. I am not against credit itself, it is a necessary evil, but colored coins should be more than ample and efficient to deal with it. If at some point a government or other large asset holder decides to exchange colored coins for their own RippleRapple or whatever color and make it profitable, then the cycle of power abuse will continue. But at least the blockchain will have records and there will be consequences for bad agents.
Hey, I respect anyones right to transact the way they choose. I think Ripple does exactly what you just said, takes the best parts and builds something better. No central clearing and no centralized exchanges. As for RL's and the founders "sweet deal", I personally don't care. They have built something so magnificent and certain to help so many people around the world, that if they can make this all it can be, then they deserve it. I hope they become the worlds first trillion-aires. IMO, they're "secrecy" is justified because they are not pushing for a mass userbase at the moment nor are they seeking to bring in mass amounts of speculators. They are trying to implement Ripple from the top, down. You can't go making all your meetings with payment systems like banks, regulators, market makers and other potential gateways public. The things that are relevant to the community, they do share and are getting better at it all the time. I respect your views and I have really enjoyed chatting with you. I think in time, when Ripple has gotten more time under it's belt and has increased liquidity, gateways and overall utility of the network, someone as smart as you will give it a second look. I don't think you really get it but I'm certain you will in time, I have no doubt. You may still opt for something else and that's cool too...but I think you will at minimum see the brilliance in it. Regardless what you or I choose, we're still on the same team and that's something I try not to forget. We want a better monetary future and we're going to get there. May the best coin win. |
|
|
|
Bitcoin needs fiat to survive and grow. All government has to do is block funds at the source. The banks. The same way they did for online poker. It's not difficult at all. If they really wanted to get nasty, they could make it illegal for businesses to accept it. Mass adoption = dead.
That said, I think they will allow a $500 billion Bitcoin economy because that's a lot of tax revenue to be had. They'll regulate exchanges and any sources of money in and out of the network to get their cut and I think that's a good thing as long as regulations are fair and aren't hindering startups.
Yeah, prohibition without justification has always worked. |
|
|
|
|
New York: "Bitcoin? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya"
|
|
|
|
Why don't you trust MtGox IOUs? What makes them any different than Bitstamp aside from a temporary shutdown of services? I don't think anyone know anything for certain yet.  My point is, that Bitstamp may be even worse than MtGox and we just don't know it yet. This is true but I choose to trust them because I want to buy and sell bitcoins. I can't do that if my bitcoins are in my wallet or in cold storage. So what good are any IOUs outside of a very limited market? In Ripple, IOU's can be used in a global market. Through any payment system connected to the Ripple network. BTW, I am not hoping for a Bitcoin world. Color your coins and let me choose which I will cautiously trust. Bitcoin will stabilize in value as the raw materials for colored coin banks, payment systems, frequent flyer miles, rewards cards, etc. They will compete on a global financial battlefield.
Ah, so you do believe in trust. Just "cautiously". Gotcha.  Is that why you didn't answer my questions? Do you buy and sell BTC at any exchange? Do you use Bitpay to buy from merchants? Artistic license. Try not to take everything so literally. One beef I have with Ripple is that they are very well funded and very secretive. In fact, they gave early adopters a sweet deal. But that sets off all kinds of trust alarms. It's hard to verify anything they claim. As far as trading goes, I don't do large amounts anymore because the exchanges are much less predictable and there is more stability. If I will accept colored coin vouchers, it will be from someone I have independent verification of trustworthiness that only comes from face-to-face. Reputation systems are better than nothing, but are subject to the long con. Here's where I am coming from. I have learned a lot about small business over the many decades of my existence. I have seen the changes in America and around the world. Some things about human interaction don't change. Technology only makes them more efficient. I would prefer we take the best parts and build something better. I am not against credit itself, it is a necessary evil, but colored coins should be more than ample and efficient to deal with it. If at some point a government or other large asset holder decides to exchange colored coins for their own RippleRapple or whatever color and make it profitable, then the cycle of power abuse will continue. But at least the blockchain will have records and there will be consequences for bad agents. |
|
|
|
What are credit cards, but lines of credit you already have? They are spendable hard assets. All you are doing is adding additional fees to the lines of credit I already use.
I suppose a gateway could issue a line of credit as an IOU since anything of value can be traded but I'm not talking about credit lines. I'm talking about an actual $100 in the bank or 10BTC in Bitstamp or whatever. Balances backed by actual assets. I am not against anything. I am trying to understand what problem Ripple solves. Their is a global problem with institutional credit like "banks, Paypal, frequent flyer miles, rewards cards, etc." Bitcoin is here to solve those problems. Ripple seems to want to exacerbate the problem by adding another layer of abstraction. IOUs are only balances if the institution is solvent. True and this is where it comes down to who do you trust. I don't trust Gox so their IOU's are worthless to me. But I trust Bitstamp, so I take their IOU's at face value and I've done that since before I even knew what Ripple was because I enjoy trading. Considering that most large businesses are leveraged 40:1 or higher and banks are no exception. Liquidity is a game of arcane prestidigitation. Ripple takes it at face value. Ripple is a quant's dream. It's a junk-bond clearing house on steroids. Forget 40:1, with Ripple you can leverage 4000:1. Line up to get your bank accounts paying 10% interest if you exclusively use our Ripple Card! Who will resist that? Just be sure you get out first before it all collapses. Your rant about banks and fractional reserve is really preaching to the choir. I'm with you there. The rest of it is you simply not getting it. With Ripple, I can always see how many IOU's have been issued from my gateway and if they are transparent, I can reconcile that with the actual assets they have on hand. Like I said. Trust No One.
Then you are one who plans to never use an exchange to buy and sell BTC correct? You never plan to use Bitpay to pay a merchant, correct? If so, there's nothing left to discuss because Ripple is not for you and that's cool. You're hoping for an all BTC world. I can dig it...I just don't believe that will actually be our reality but then again, who knows. Why don't you trust MtGox IOUs? What makes them any different than Bitstamp aside from a temporary shutdown of services? I don't think anyone know anything for certain yet. My point is, that Bitstamp may be even worse than MtGox and we just don't know it yet. So what good are any IOUs outside of a very limited market? BTW, I am not hoping for a Bitcoin world. Color your coins and let me choose which I will cautiously trust. Bitcoin will stabilize in value as the raw materials for colored coin banks, payment systems, frequent flyer miles, rewards cards, etc. They will compete on a global financial battlefield. |
|
|
|
|
I don't think most people will even be trading in Raw Bitcoin except brokers soon. Colored coins will be the normal currency and they will have a Bitcoin size of BTC0.0000543. Unless that minimum dust transaction limit plans to be changed soon, we should have a naming contest for that as it will be the basis of all colored coin creations. I'm still not clear if that is also the bottom for colored coin transactions themselves or not.
|
|
|
|
Correct, the gateways themselves will have to be trusted. I think you will have a very difficult time finding people that trust any gateway unless they will insure your transaction 100% from loss. Then you have reinvented the credit card.
No you haven't, you're just allowing people to exchange the balances they already have. Millions of people use banks, Paypal, frequent flyer miles, rewards cards, etc. When you go to the ATM machine, it displays your balance. The balance shown are IOU's from these institutions and hopefully soon, they will be gateways. These gateways can then issue tradeable IOU's based on those actual balances. If you refuse to trust any 3rd party and only plan to deal BTC -> BTC forever, then you're right Ripple is not for you. But IOU's are not credit...they are balances of actual assets being stored by a 3rd party. Who you trust or don't trust, is up to you. What are credit cards, but lines of credit you already have? They are spendable hard assets. All you are doing is adding additional fees to the lines of credit I already use. I am not against anything. I am trying to understand what problem Ripple solves. Their is a global problem with institutional credit like "banks, Paypal, frequent flyer miles, rewards cards, etc." Bitcoin is here to solve those problems. Ripple seems to want to exacerbate the problem by adding another layer of abstraction. IOUs are only balances if the institution is solvent. Considering that most large businesses are leveraged 40:1 or higher and banks are no exception. Liquidity is a game of arcane prestidigitation. Ripple takes it at face value. Ripple is a quant's dream. It's a junk-bond clearing house on steroids. Forget 40:1, with Ripple you can leverage 4000:1. Line up to get your bank accounts paying 10% interest if you exclusively use our Ripple Card! Who will resist that? Just be sure you get out first before it all collapses. Who you trust or don't trust, is up to you. Like I said. Trust No One. |
|
|
|
I didn't mention XRPs. I think I understand the Gateway system. This is just a FUNDAMENTAL questioning of credit. Why should I trust an exchange with PayPal if I have an account with BoA? Why should I trust a Cypriotic bank if I have an account in China, or vice versa? Boom.... and it's gone! The gateway system will mitigate these problems (if it is transparent), but will probably also become a local trading IOU system only like I was talking about originally. TRUST NO ONE. I updated my answer above. Didn't get it before you had responded. Had to read it a few times. In short though, you don't have to trust anyone if you don't want. But if you want something from a gateway you trust: Bitstamp, BoA, whoever...then you have the ability to trade your balances for theirs. Wire transfers...gone. Just trade your balance from BoA -> Bitstamp. Done in seconds and for pennies but it has nothing to do with credit. Correct, the gateways themselves will have to be trusted. I think you will have a very difficult time finding people that trust any gateway unless they will insure your transaction 100% from loss. Then you have reinvented the credit card. |
|
|
|
You just went on this long rant about "credit" and Ripple has nothing to do with credit. I understand if you didn't read every post in this thread, I myself do that when time is short. Ripple is about balances, not credit. I'll just repost this here and I encourage you to read the Ripple primer when time permits. The funds that are reflected in your bank account or Paypal account or Bitstamp or BTC-e or Cryptsy or Visa card or Reward Points cards, etc...are all just balances. What's a balance? It's just an IOU. They "owe you", X amount.
Ripple just allows people to exchange these balances (IOU's) between one another. The trust you put in the places where you have balances (IOU's), is really up to you and has nothing to do with Ripple. Okay, so if I understand this correctly, an exchange issues and IOU represented as Ripple, which you may then use to transfer value elsewhere and cannot be exchanged with another account holder. Each Ripple agent will 100% identify the IOU Ripple holder to transfer the account and Ripple cannot be used for settlements of accounts with any other person. Correct? I'm honestly not sure what you just asked me. No worries...I'll give a scenario and hopefully it will get you and I closer on this. Ripple is a distributed exchange (no central clearing house, or centralized exchange needed) that let's you and I trade anything of value. Peer-to-peer. Ripple allows federating payment networks so let's say: Paypal, Bitstamp, BTC-e and Bank of America are all gateways on the Ripple network. You have a balance at Bitstamp of 100BTC and a balance at Paypal of $1000. I have a balance at Bank of America for $20,000 and a balance at BTC-e of 10BTC. You want 10BTC at BTC-e to take advantage of some arbitrage opportunity. I'm willing to sell you my 10BTC for $5,000 of your Paypal balance. If we agree via Ripple, boom...the trade is made and confirmed in seconds. You now have 10BTC at BTC-e and I have $5,000 at Paypal. So: Paypal.USD -> BTCe.BTC But let's say you wanted to sell 50 Bitstamp.BTC. I'm willing to pay with BoA.USD. But you don't want to deal with banks so no trade is made. You and I have to agree on what we trade. What you're trading for is always listed in the orderbook. So you wouldn't even be looking at a BoA orderbook, if you didn't want to accept their balances (IOU's). The only time XRP or ripples would come into play, is if no direct market existed and then the trade would look like: Paypal.USD -> XRP -> BTC.BTC-e XRP is just a bridge currency to help facilitate trades when direct liquidity does not exist. I didn't mention XRPs. I think I understand the Gateway system. This is just a FUNDAMENTAL questioning of credit. Why should I trust an exchange with PayPal if I have an account with BoA? Why should I trust a Cypriotic bank if I have an account in China, or vice versa? Boom.... and it's gone! The gateway system will mitigate these problems (if it is transparent), but will probably also become a local trading IOU system only like I was talking about originally. TRUST NO ONE. The way I see this Ripple thing is even more ridiculous credit. Now, I am supposed to just accept an IOU on some anonymous person's say-so?
If you are a proponent of face-to-face barter with exclusively physical goods as the only acceptable way of doing business, I can understand how living in a system where accepting IOUs is the norm must feel very frustrating. Nowadays, corner shops that sold you interesting stuff for cash are all out of business, and you have to go online order things and trust the online stores to hold on their delivery promise, and for days you are left holding ridiculous product IOUs from Amazon and the like... Worse, you can't just hold cash under your mastress with all those robbers wanting to steal it from you, so you have to give your cash to a bank and accept in exchange their IOUs, and all you get out of it is monthly statements that remind you how much money you just gave them. And even if you keep the cash under your mastress, it will awake at night and bite your ass because even your cash is IOUs backed by nothing but immediate buying power that keeps shrinking as the issuing government keeps issuing more such unbacked IOUs. Hell, even the butcher at the corner shop is part of the IOU conspiracy: you went to buy 1lb of spare ribs today but he says he doesn't have it right now so you paid anyway, got your receipt, and you have to come again pick it tonight with you receipt. In the mean time you'll have to spend the whole day biting your nail in angst of whether you'll be able to redeem that 1lb spare ribs IOU. So of course when Bitstamp, BTC-E and hell even Ripple tell you that you'll have to trade with IOUs, how can you not laugh at their stupid face! You will *never* accept IOUs anymore. Now you have got Bitcoins, and you will use them exclusively for face to face barter with the farmer next door because their is no other way you can spend them without accepting IOUs, and nevermind it was conceived for pseudonymous global money transfers! I'm not talking about small business, I am talking about localizing credit. Walmart could have credit departments that don't depend on national credit bureaus if regulators would allow. I think Walmart would laugh at a Bitstamp IOU. Large companies would adopt Bitcoin more readily if they were deregulated. They may create their own colored coin credits that could be traded on the open market without the need for a central Ripple authority. Don't count small businesses out yet. Bitcoin is global and transparent. The latter is frightening to large businesses that cut corners for their big executive bonuses. The pendulum may swing back to small businesses that network globally. I hope the days will end when I can eliminate IOUs from my transactions. It is an addiction that society will need to break someday. |
|
|
|
You just went on this long rant about "credit" and Ripple has nothing to do with credit. I understand if you didn't read every post in this thread, I myself do that when time is short. Ripple is about balances, not credit. I'll just repost this here and I encourage you to read the Ripple primer when time permits. The funds that are reflected in your bank account or Paypal account or Bitstamp or BTC-e or Cryptsy or Visa card or Reward Points cards, etc...are all just balances. What's a balance? It's just an IOU. They "owe you", X amount.
Ripple just allows people to exchange these balances (IOU's) between one another. The trust you put in the places where you have balances (IOU's), is really up to you and has nothing to do with Ripple. Okay, so if I understand this correctly, an exchange issues and IOU represented as Ripple, which you may then use to transfer value elsewhere and cannot be exchanged with another account holder. Each Ripple agent will 100% identify the IOU Ripple holder to transfer the account and Ripple cannot be used for settlements of accounts with any other person. Correct? |
|
|
|
The crucial difference is interest.
That or trust. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around IOUs. It reminds me of the old adage: "You ask for credit, I no give, YOU get mad. I give credit, you no pay, I get mad. Better YOU get mad!" In early days, appliance stores had credit managers. They would investigate people before approving them for financing. (This was even before Bank Americard and Master Charge became commonly used). Asking for credit was embarrassing and only for necessities. Failure to pay meant they had their appliances repossessed. Later, credit cards and bureaus made borrowing painless. Now credit is at a point of absurdity, especially with identity theft and credit card thefts. It's bad enough that credit ratings are handled by just three centralized bureaus, and they know almost nothing about people other than what is in a database. Judging by the inaccuracies in credit reports, they cannot work well or efficiently. The way I see this Ripple thing is even more ridiculous credit. Now, I am supposed to just accept an IOU on some anonymous person's say-so? Instead, we need to go back a step when it comes to credit. Bitcoin has plenty of potential through scripting and colored coins to create local credit centers using local investigators. If businesses need customers, they will have to be competitive. If someone with a good reputation has rough times, then the local community will take care of their own. Credit cards work well with an inflationary currency because they can be bailed out for bad loans, but as we are seeing now, it is a death spiral for the currency. Still people and businesses will probably still prefer the easy credit rip-offs. Good Times! |
|
|
|
|
The credit cards are doing a pretty good job putting themselves out of business.
|
|
|
|
|
Somehow I think colored coins will determine bitcoin naming conventions as well. They will be able to assign arbitrary amounts of bitdust to represent what will one day be commonly used B^2 currencies.
|
|
|
|
|
I suggest calling 1 full BTC a gallon, 1/4 a quart, 1/8 a pint, 1/16 a cup, 1/128 an ounce, 1/256 a Tablespoon, 1/768 a teaspoon, 1/6144 a dash, 1/12,288 a pinch, 1/24,576 a smidgen, 1/49,152 a nip.
|
|
|
|
Based on the same reasoning (or lack thereof), the amount of Bitcoins in existence is conspicuously not mathematically verifiable either.
I think we're done. I would add in a Gene Wilder voice (Depp was not as intense): "According to all the published source code as well as the performance data from the last five years, it is clear that the Bitcoin protocol is based upon the claimed mathematically provable limit. You would know this if you had done any research first. Also, you did not return the Everlasting Gobstopper. Good Day, Sir!" |
|
|
|
awaiting for someone to make a french joke ... DAMMIT. That's why I clicked this thread. |
|
|
|
I think what you are looking for already exists. nLockTime |
|
|
|
|
Just bring back the practices of down-payments, deposits, and escrows. They are from back before a bank could just print more money and cause inflation. They worked fine. Bitcoin puts them on steroids.
|
|
|
|
As a native New Yorker, I think Texas has always had a bad vibe. I've hated that place since it spewed forth that halfwit George W. Bush.
Bush is from Connecticut. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
