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Centralized banks versus decentralized banks.
Which paradigm is better?
I think we can agree each model has its pros and cons. Advantages and disadvantages. Historically, attempts at breaking down the fundamental differences between these two systems do not exist. Academically, this isn't a topic anyone pursues to my knowledge.
It could invoke free markets, monopolies, protectionism, competition and any number of abstracts that are commonly touched upon. Even if the topic isn't addressed directly we might infer some analysis via analogy.
Anyways, long story short. What's your take on this? Share your $0.02.
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Here's a textbook depiction of some of the typical phases a bubble transitions through.  Here's a chart of ethereum as of june/july. Note how the chart of ethereum near perfectly matches the textbook chart of a bubble.  There's a possibility ethereum is a bubble. The reason eth bubble hasn't popped could be bitcoin's price rising from $2,500 to $4,000 & dragging eth into stability with it. |
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Brazil is close to being run by communists now. Similar to venezuela but not completely taken over by socialism/communism like venezuela has been. I wonder what use communists might have for blockchain? This is interesting. Working alongside global tech giant Microsoft and ethereum-focused startup ConsenSys, Brazil's Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management is piloting a blockchain identity application. The term "blockchain identity application" could imply this will be used to do away with passwords. It could invoke an alternate model of internet standardization where instead of typing in a password a person would have the government authenticate their identity on websites. This type of system was proposed in the united states previously. There is a push for an end to anonymous bloggers. This could ultimately be an attack upon the anonymous nature of the internet. |
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The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced at a conference in Lagos that it intends to issue its own cryptocurrency. Musa Jimoh, the Deputy Director and Head of Payments System Policy and Oversight at the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) has announced the Bank’s intention to develop and eventually deploy its own cryptocurrency, according to a report by The Guardian, a Lagos-based, Nigerian-owned newspaper unaffiliated with the British publication of the same name. Speaking at a recent cryptocurrency conference in Lagos, he explained the motive behind the decision, relating that the CBN “cannot stop the tide of waves generated by the blockchain technology and its derivatives. Currently, we have taken measures to create four departments in the institution that are looking forward to harmonise the white paper on Crypto currency.” The CBN had reportedly been wary of cryptocurrency until recently because the technology offers “an outlet for personal wealth that is beyond restriction and confiscation,” a feature that is presumably problematic because it can allow bad actors to securely warehouse ill-gotten money. Conference attendee and Information Security Society of Nigeria president Dr. David Isiawe opined that Nigerians must accept cryptocurrency whether they like it or not. “We cannot wish this reality away. It is made worse when we realise that we are still grappling with current challenges of e-commerce and other electronic payment systems but technology development and advancements are not waiting … Nigerian must be proactive rather than reactive by considering how these technologies would affect and influence our lifestyles and business operations and channel, and thus fashion our rules of engagement for their adoption.” Also in attendance, the cybersecurity firm Digital Encode’s CTO Oluseyi Akindeinde remarked that, in addition to revolutionizing money, the blockchain offers solutions in other sectors, such and land deed registration and stock trading. This was not the CBN’s first public statement on cryptocurrency. This past January, it issued a circular to banks and other financial institutions, instructing them, among other things, not to “use, hold, trade, and /or [sic] transact in anyway [sic] in virtual currencies.” The letter closes with the admonition that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “are not legal tenders in Nigeria, thus any bank or institution that transacts in such businesses does so at its own risk.” That same day, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission issued a notice advising members of the public “to exercise extreme caution with regard to digital (crypto currencies) as a vehicle of investments.” Parts of africa, like nigeria, have economies which revolve around using cellphones as a primary means of executing currency transactions. It makes sense for them to adopt crypto as a substantial portion of their economy and consumer base is already electronic based. Looks like africa could be a test bed for mainstream crypto adoption if nigeria rolls out its blockchain program before other nations do. |
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If FIAT currencies are also replaced (which, let's face it, eventually they will be), there will be over 1000x growth.
If crypto replaced fiat, markets would become centralized. A decentralized market where crypto and fiat exist simultaneously would be preferable and provide greater options, value and efficiency to the public. Fiat has its place. An exchange of paper money is more efficient and convenient than an electronic transaction. Buying/selling without point of sale devices, cellphones & accessories being obligatory is an important paradigm to ensure the right to buy/sell never reaches a point where it becomes unattainable to those living in poverty. There are blurring lines between crypto and fiat. Ethereum with its undetermined supply of coins is little different from fiat which can be printed according to whatever subjective and arbitrary mood swings seem like a good idea over the short term. Core principles upon which bitcoin was founded shouldn't be cast aside nor abandoned for the empty promise of "a few bucks more". This is where algorithmic supply has a huge advantage over arbitrary and subjective money printing. It ensures stability which leads to long term value. |
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See news report here.His point that governments will never allow Bitcoin to take off, which would mean their loss of monetary power, is reasonable on the surface, even to seasoned finance professionals. Is fiat losing monetary power is relevent to a state? Governments do everything in their power to raise deficits higher. This reduces confidence & kills monetary power. A governments existence in the modern era is typically defined by spending as inefficiently and wastefully as possible. This also kills monetary power. Judging by actions governments universally support raising deficits and spending tax revenues as wastefully as possible, with their end goal seemingly being to lose monetary power and destroy the value of their own wealth. After more than 50 years of the united states federal government supporting policies which ensure loss of their own monetary power, one might be certain they will support bitcoin as it seamlessly meshes in perfect lockstep with everything else they've done for the past century. |
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Bankers are filing hundreds of patents to claim ownership of blockchain technology.
If those patents succeed, it won't matter if blockchain replaces SWIFT, bankers will still "own" it. At least in the united states.
China doesn't care about honoring intellectual property, copyrights nor patents. Russia doesn't care what bankers think they own the patents to. Internationally, everyone knows those patents are bogus and no one is likely to abide by it, even if banks find someone to rule in their favor.
Blockchain isn't the biggest threat to SWIFT. The biggest danger to SWIFT are probably those who own the SWIFT system that made an error in believing SWIFT gave them a irreplaceable monopoly over international exchange. Their strongarm & bullying tactics are the biggest variable contributing towards SWIFT's systemic demise.
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I don't know though that Claudia has cardio issues. But it was evident in round 2 as @Hydrogen have said. Andrade’s pace and output were too much for Gadelha to handle as the bout wore on. Andrade just took advantage as Claudia has no resistance as all. She was just like standing there. It was really a setback for her because she is aiming to fight for the belt once again but Andrade derail her plans. I like Claudia Gadelha a lot. She is a great woman. Although I like her, people should know Amanda Nunes, Jose Aldo and Claudia Gadelha's cardio issues could be from abusing steroids. They aren't the only ones. Many MMA fighters with cardio issues could have done the same. I'm not typing this to say bad things about people. I hope that people won't make the same mistake of abusing steroids and ruining their cardio/body. It might also mean they can never fix their cardio issues, they can only try to fight at a slow pace the way Amanda Nunes did the last time she fought Valentina Shevchenko. |
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Compare the value and supply of cryptos.
Litecoin total number of coins that will be issued: 84 million.
Bitcoin total number of coins that will be issued: 21 million.
Dash total number of coins that will be issued: 22 million.
The reason litecoin's value is a fraction of dash's value could be litecoin's total supply being so much higher.
That's the issue with printing money. Greater supply typically equates to lower value.
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Many of these economic theorems are pre internet and pre global markets.
These theories no longer apply due to global markets and the internet changing circumstances relating to how the world does business and what is possible, versus what used to be impossible.
An example of this is the internet being used to outsource many jobs to china and india. Only a few decades ago, that would have been impossible. Now its a de facto standard. These types of changes break all of the old rules and the old observations made about markets and the fundamental principles surrounding them.
We need new perspectives and ideas relating to how the world works as many of the old ones are obsolete and no longer apply.
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If a small startup is successful, the most likely scenario is owners selling their business for a much larger sum of money than they invested to initially found their startup.
Few do what snapchat did and file for a stock market IPO (initial public offering).
Converting a business to shares means giving up leadership and having others take over some of the decision making process. Those who buy shares are entitled to have a certain degree of influence & decision making in how a company is run. While there is money in IPO's there are also disadvantages.
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I think brave might have a program to pay users bitcoin for viewing ads. Its listed here: Step Three: Brave Pays You
Replacing ads means our users get a share of the gross ad revenue. Brave will pay users 15% of gross ad revenue. This is the same amount of money that we make from those ads (the rest goes to publishers and ad content partners.) And if you are feeling generous, you may route your earnings back to the sites you browse, and even add more through the use of a Brave wallet, administered through BitGo. In exchange for your generosity, we will block all of the ads on the sites you choose to pay.
https://brave.com/about-ad-replacement/I still try to visit these three sites a few times everyday. They're similar to faucets. http://moonbit.co.in/http://moonliteco.in/http://moondoge.co.in/They don't payout much, but for a few minutes everyday its not a bad deal. |
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It is true that a million dollars isn't as much money in today's economy as it used to be only a few decades ago.
The buying power of fiat currencies have declined significantly as inflation tops 10% per year and most nations buy the currencies of foreign countries to boost corporate export profits(at the expense of individual consumer buying power).
The united states redefined how inflation is calculated years ago to transform a real 10% inflation rate into a 3% inflation rate. Similar to how unemployment was redefined to paint economic statistics in a more favorable light.
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The main concern with smartphones are them being the weakest link in a chain, from a security and attack vector perspective. It is known that many smartphones may have backdoors built into them which allow for monitoring/data mining/state surveillance. Here is an example of this in action: Pre-installed Backdoor On 700 Million Android Phones Sending Users’ Data To ChinaWASHINGTON — For about $50, you can get a smartphone with a high-definition display, fast data service and, according to security contractors, a secret feature: a backdoor that sends all your text messages to China every 72 hours. Security contractors recently discovered preinstalled software in some Android phones that monitors where users go, whom they talk to and what they write in text messages. The American authorities say it is not clear whether this represents secretive data mining for advertising purposes or a Chinese government effort to collect intelligence. International customers and users of disposable or prepaid phones are the people most affected by the software. But the scope is unclear. The Chinese company that wrote the software, Shanghai Adups Technology Company, says its code runs on more than 700 million phones, cars and other smart devices. One American phone manufacturer, BLU Products, said that 120,000 of its phones had been affected and that it had updated the software to eliminate the feature. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/politics/china-phones-software-security.html?mcubz=3 Here's another example of smartphones not being the most secure platform: An Obscure App Flaw Creates Backdoors In Millions of SmartphonesFOR HACKERS, SCANNING for an open “port”—a responsive, potentially vulnerable internet connection on a would-be victim's machine—has long been one of the most basic ways to gain a foothold in a target company or agency. As it turns out, thanks to a few popular but rarely studied apps, plenty of smartphones have open ports, too. And those little-considered connections can just as easily give hackers access to tens of millions of Android devices. A group of researchers from the University of Michigan identified hundreds of applications in Google Play that perform an unexpected trick: By essentially turning a phone into a server, they allow the owner to connect to that phone directly from their PC, just as they would to a web site or another internet service. But dozens of these apps leave open insecure ports on those smartphones. That could allow attackers to steal data, including contacts or photos, or even to install malware. "Android has inherited this open port functionality from traditional computers, and many applications use open ports in a way that poses vulnerabilities," says Yunhan Jia, one of the Michigan researchers who reported their findings at the IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy. "If one of these vulnerable open port apps is installed, your phone can be fully taken control of by attackers." https://www.wired.com/2017/04/obscure-app-flaw-creates-backdoors-millions-smartphones/ There are other potential issues with smartphones in financial transactions. There's a push for lower smartphone encryption standards by intelligence agencies. There's the potential for cellphone signals being wirelessly intercepted and decoded to mine passwords and other personal data. As usage of cellphone based payment and monetary transactions increase, the number of viruses and malware which target cellphone platforms are also likely to propagate. Smartphones are very convenient. Whether they can realistically be secured is another question. |
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I think Russia and USA are playing games with us. Trying to make it seem like they are enemies to distract from the fact they hacked the election.
AFAIK democrats refused investigators access to DNC servers to do forensics work to determine where the leak came from. All available evidence points to Seth Rich who worked for the DNC leaking the data to wikileaks/Julian Assange. DNC servers weren't hacked from an outside source like russia, the data came from someone who had access to the servers, it was an inside job. Seth Rich was mysteriously shot in the back shortly after the leak. Julian Assange says he has data and can confirm it was Seth Rich who was the leaker but nothing has come of that as far as I know. "Putin hacked the elections" is a CNN media fabrication that has no evidence to support it. That's why the media pushed that campaign for more than six months with nothing to show for it. That's the impression I get anyway. Feel free to agree/disagree. |
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Like the boy who cried wolf, its possible CEO's and analysts will lose credibility everytime they proclaim "the sky is falling" & people look up to realize the sky is still there.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Most of the smart people in the world won't fall for the same trick twice. These CEO's and analysts may only erode their own reputations by spamming the same "bitcoin is dead" paid advertisements repeatedly.
There has been market manipulation to raise the value of bitcoin higher, and market manipulation to decrease the value of bitcoin to create a lower buy in position to set up the next high. They're two sides of the same coin.
Best case scenario is more will become educated as to these economic and financial matters and comprehend the intricacies which drive them. An educated and informed public is yet another thing that could drive the overall price of bitcoin/crypto higher as people are better informed as to the advantages of bitcoin which is more free from market manipulation and scams than most regulated currencies/markets.
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(The American Vagabond) Whether in response to rising scorching tensions with the US, or simply to provide support for the ruble, on Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to approve legislation making the ruble the main currency of exchange at all Russian seaports by next year, RT reported citing the Kremlin website.
The head of Russian antitrust watchdog FAS Igor Artemyev, many services in Russian seaports are still priced in US dollars, even though such ports are state-owned. So, in order to “protect the interests” of dockworkers and their complyees with foreign currency obligations, the government was instructed to set a transition period before switching to ruble settlements.
The proposal to switch port tariffs to rubles was first proposed by Putin a year and a half ago, but it was mothballed only to pick up speed again in recent days.
Originally, the idea was rejected by large transport companies, which said they prefer to keep revenues in dollars and other foreign currencies due to sharp fluctuations on the volatile ruble. However, the Russian anti-trust watchdog said the decision would force foreigners to buy Russian currency, which would stabilize rates and be good for the ruble.
In 2016, Artemyev’s agency filed several lawsuits against the largest Russian port group NMTP.
”According to FAS, the group of companies set tariffs for transshipment in dollars and raised tariffs from January 2015 “without objective grounds.”
The watchdog ruled that NMTP abused its dominant position in the market and imposed a 9.74 billion rubles fine, or about $165 million at the current exchange rate. The decision was overturned by a court in Moscow in July this year.
While Russia’s stated motive for the unexpected redenomination of trade at some of its largest trading hubs has to do with domestic economic policies, there is speculation that the timing of this decision has been influenced by the recent diplomatic fallout between the US and Russia, the result of which would be an heightened demand for the ruble, especially since it is rather complicated to find alternative sources for Russia’s largest export by a wide margin: crude.
And while it is still early to discuss whether Moscow has launched the “Petrorouble”, Putin’s rejection of the Petrodollar in yet another aspect of economic life will raise quite a few eyebrows around the globe. http://anonymous-news.com/putin-ends-us-dollar-trade-at-russian-seaports/Just one of many examples of the "petrodollar" being dropped in favor of de-dollarization policies internationally. The united states economic attacks on russia may only succeed in forcing it to become stronger and more independent, while undermining confidence in the US on a world scale. Years ago there was an attempt to ban russia from international bankers SWIFT(Society of World Interbank Financial Telecommunications) network which may have been the genesis of russia and many other nations building alternatives to SWIFT. Eventually it could result in SWIFT being dropped internationally. The invention of blockchain which allows for secure international transactions could make SWIFT obsolete altogether. Putin dropping the us dollar at ports is only the latest in retaliation for US economic sanctions. It remains to be seen whether US economic attacks on russia will do more damage to the united states, than its intended target. War in the middle east which costs in excess of $6.5 trillion would appear more damaging economically to the USA than to anyone else. And so perhaps this trend of damaging US foreign policy will continue, and we will see the end of america as a superpower as it abuses its wealth and influence. |
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Bellator 183: Benson Henderson versus Patricky Freire is later today. Two back to back days of MMA. Wtf happened to Claudia Gadelha? I thought she was on her way to challenge the Polish girl for the women's SW belt? And why did she even agree to get this fight on? It's such a risk for her. Anyway, here are the results:  Joanna Jedrzejczyk is scheduled to fight Rose Namajunas @ UFC 217 on november 4th in madison square garden, new york. That's probably why Claudia Gadelha took the fight with Jessica Andrade. Claudia Gadelha has had cardio issues throughout her career. It is possible for her to beat Andrade she needed to slow the pace of the fight down, similar to how Amanda Nunes slowed down the pace when she fought Valentina Shevchenko. If Gadelha couldn't last 3 rounds with Andrade she probably wouldn't have lasted 5 rounds against Jedrzejczyk anyway. It doesn't change anything. Gadelha has to get her cardio issue fixed or find a way to slow down the pace of her fights so she doesn't get tired halfway through. I like Gadelha a lot. It was sad to see her get beat down that way. I stopped watching, it was obvious the fight was over once she got dead tired in the 2nd round. |
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The historical trend being massively in favor of replacing workers with specialized skills with non-specialized labor, strategic is probably the way to go. 50 to 100 years ago, the workforce in any country was much more specialized in terms of skills. Gradually over time, specialized labor has been replaced in the effort to dumb jobs down to a point where those who lack specialized skills are able to do them. This has made employees much easier to replace and it could be said average wages have decreased as a result of the work force becoming less specialized and more replaceable.
A trend towards the workforce being more "strategic" or more specialized would in turn make them more difficult to replace with other workers/employees which in turn would likely translate to higher average wages. Win/win scenario.
Being smart is like a car having an engine that generates a lot of power. Its good to have power but how the power is harnessed or utilized can be more important, sometimes.
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The subjective and arbitrary judgements of china's government may display shortcomings of socialism & some of the systemic weaknesses of having a centralized government make important decisions which affect the lives of millions of people around the world.
China's economy is certain to suffer as a result of btc exchanges closing. Just as china's economy suffers from extremely slow internet bandwidth brought about as a result of china's state based internet censorship program. China has 14 of the top 30 most polluted cities in the world as a result of poor guidelines regarding use of coal to generate electricity. Everyday it seems like china digs itself into a deeper hole as a result of state/government mismanagement, poor leadership and bad decision making.
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