I generally agree, although I would point out that there's still some risk.  I don't know all of BitPay's terms and conditions (or Coinbase's), but I'm guessing that they can't guarantee the exchange rate if they have technical difficulties.  On the surface, this would seem like a very minor issue that would likely have little impact, even if it happened, as it would likely be short-lived.  However, the greatest chances of having such problems usually occur during times of exceptionally high volume, such as during a crash.

As time has gone by, I've become more and more convinced that bitcoin is here to stay as the main cryptocurrency.  Some of the alt coins are already better in a lot of ways, but they aren't even close to dethroning bitcoin.  If anything, it seems more likely that alt coin improvements will eventually be integrated into bitcoin to make it better.  But of course I could always be wrong.

Then who's going to build and maintain things like roads and bridges?  Or create and enforce building codes?  Or create and enforce laws that control pollution?


Do you really believe that if companies were completely free to do whatever they want that the best companies, products, judgement, etc. would be the winners?  That wouldn't be true at all.  The winners would be the biggest cheaters, bullies, seducers, etc.  If you were to take away all regulation, companies would do nothing but play dirty, and all the rich would take away any wealth that the middle class and poor have left.


This may generally be true, but there are a lot of people that run companies and financial institutions that don't care if their firm crashes and burns tomorrow, as long as they can make a lot of money today.

Things like communications skills, writing skills, a whole host of technical skills, networking with people, and even personal growth can be very beneficial.  Despite getting solid engineering degrees, I probably learned more about myself and other people than the subjects I studied.  I also formed some of the best relationships of my life.  I don't think that would have been possible without being in a setting where I was surrounded solely by other people my own age.

The block explorer has been having some issues for the past couple days (http://www.spartancoin.org/blockexplorer/index.php).  Block Count, Difficulty, etc. aren't displayed.  Could someone please take a look when they have a chance?

How about gift cards?  One could argue, however, that gift cards are similar to cash but often more restrictive.  So they wouldn't be a particularly good way of storing value, but they could work.

Which country or countries are you talking about?  In the US, I think the estate tax exemption is over $5M.  So unless you own more than $5M in assets when you die, you don't have to worry about it anyway.  Afaik, the point of such a tax is to keep "dynastic" wealth in check.

Wow.  Just wow.  I couldn't believe this so I had to look it up.  They actually get a few million dollars a year in gift money.  Who actually believes this does any good?

Be very very careful about investing in alt coins.  If you hit one right, you could indeed make a lot more.  But for every alt coin that succeeds at least somewhat, there are many more that utterly fail (both as coins to mine and coins to trade).

Interesting article.  I'm having a hard time imagining the advantages and disadvantages of cryptosecurities, but I guess there are still a lot of details to be fleshed out.  So I'm really not sure yet what issues it would solve.  But, as he points out, it would eliminate high-frequency trading...at least probably.  I could see someone figuring out a way to do it anyway, but it would probably be very difficult.

It does seem like housing may be getting into bubble territory again.  But what's a lot scarier, IMO, is the bubble in US treasuries.  If/when that sucker pops, interest rates will spike, and the US will be screwed.  We've been borrowing many trillions on the assumption that we get to keep financing all that at a couple percent.  If interest rates go up 2-3x or more, the extra drain on tax money or loss of government spending will probably throw us into a nasty recession.

Because companies are self-interested and always trying to maximize profit (usually above all else), they do not self-regulate well in most cases.  This is especially true when short-term results are emphasized over long term and/or the people making the decisions benefit from short-term successes and don't suffer the consequences of poor decisions.  Ideally, financial institutions would look at the risks they take with the idea that too much risk could cause the company to fail, and that that's something that should be avoided at all costs.  But the people running those financial institutions get paid well to take too much risk because it usually pays off well in the short term.  And then when the whole thing comes crashing down, they leave with "golden parachute" plans that guarantee that they'll get paid well, even if they drove the company into the ground.  So there's no way you can let companies regulate themselves.  They have to be regulated.  The government would probably do a better job regulating them if it weren't filled with people that are all buddies of those in charge of the companies.

Expenses don't scale linearly.  Houses may be cheaper in places with a smaller minimum wage, but that doesn't make them more affordable for those who are making minimum wage.  Cost of living matters for things besides houses, of course, but those making minimum wage are going to be spending most of their money on food, clothing, gas, etc.

Passing on a college degree is a gamble.  You can certainly do better than those with college education, but the odds are against you.  Sure, there are some without degrees that have made it big, but they are few and far between.  Even if you have great ideas for businesses, inventions, etc., there are a lot of things that you can learn in college that will help you succeed at your endeavors.

Ok.  I tried a quick search but couldn't find it either.  I agree that crimes in the financial sector have become systemic.  But that's the problem: they're systemic.  No one in power tries (or wants) to stop them.  Many are ignorant of them, true, but a lot of people do know about them.  The problem is that they can't do anything about it.  Better transparency or not, I think they would still exist.  So if bitcoin becomes as mainstream as other major currencies, I'm not sure how it won't be used for a lot of similar things.  Bitcoin would prevent some types of manipulation, but not all.

Could you please explain to me why this would be true?  If people are buying bitcoins to spend immediately, then their net effect on the market is pretty much price neutral.  Someone buys bitcoin and the price ticks up, then they spend it and the merchant sells it, and the price ticks down (if the quantity is large enough).

If we can hold 600 for a while, then I'd say yes.  Argentina's default a couple days ago may also be playing a role.  Now we just need to break 685....

I'm not saying I disagree that there are many crimes taking place in our current financial system, but what crimes was he talking about?

It won't just be one technology.  It will have to be several.  Solar only works well in some places.  Wind only works well in some places.  The same is true of hydro and geothermal.

My personal opinion is that algae will eventually be one of the biggest sources.  Unused land like deserts with lots of sun would be great for growing algae.  It's supposed to be very energy dense (it doesn't take a lot of land to grow a lot of algae under the right conditions; it would be much more efficient that growing corn or other crops for fuel), and you can feed it sewer waste.  As the algae matures, you harvest it and squeeze the lipids out of it, and voila!  You have oil.  I think they're even trying to genetically engineer algae strains to produce end products like diesel fuel.  Cost has been the biggest problem, but time and research keep bringing it down.

Total market capitalization ($60B with $5k/BTC) is not the amount of money that's been pumped into the market.  It's simply a multiplication of the coin value and coin price, which is useful for little more than comparing with other markets (e.g., market cap of gold, stocks, etc.).  It takes much less to actually move the market.

Also, there are hedge funds out there with hundreds of billions of dollars under management.  If there were enough interest, if a few funds each threw in, say, $10B, you could easily have $60B+ invested in bitcoin.