I stopped reading after the first page.
Leave Bitcoin, as the protocol, as it is.
Write a new client software which implements GAAP.
Solve the trust issue in not having a full copy of the blockchain.
Profit.
Alternatively:
Create a fork which is lightweight and GAAP compatible.
I would suggest to try #1.
Ente
It seems we agree. There are many GAAP compliant software packages. These deal with the unit-of-account issues which are always needed in multi-currency systems. There are losses in currency translations which can be similar to how it deals with bitcoin. The "missing fields" are not the problem of bitcoin, but of the GAAP software, these fields are also missing on dollar bills. So the GAAP software package rewrites which include bitcoin and other alternatives are going to be available sooner or later. It is not an impossible challenge, and needs nothing added to the protocol. |
|
|
|
I was just doing some research on Anarchy, this thread is really an amazing collection of great opinions! Thanks!
if you are looking for awesome resources you should check out the relatively short playlist i made for youtubde intended to serve as a super basic introduction to the concepts. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL93BDC716ED0C525Fsince i care about these ideas a lot, if you watch the whole playlist ill even send you my appreciation in the form of a small bitcoin donation This is really excellent. Am going to suggest it to my kid for viewing together tonight. Viewers are paid to attend to it by the content, even more than by the offer of bitcoin. |
|
|
|
It's definitively not on the radar of the average person, or even the average speculator.
I believed that too, until in April I learned that all my grandparents heard about it, my aunt, my coworkers, my mother's coworkers... These are NOT technical people. Bitcoin isn't walking in the shadows anymore. Had they heard anything positive? Any hint that they might want to ever have any Bitcoin? |
|
|
|
There's a saying that sums this up well:
"An oral contract is as good as the paper it's written on."
Basically, enforcement of that contract is going to be tough. There is one thing you can fall back on though: The discipline of constant dealings. You said you had witnesses to this agreement. That's good, that makes it more than his word against yours. Using the discipline of constant dealings, you can tell him that since he is not going to hold up his end of the bargain, you're not going to ever deal with him again. You're also going to tell the witnesses to the agreement that he reneged on it, and they will cease dealings with him as well.
Now, this might encourage him to play fair and pay up, or it might not. But if it doesn't, he's hurting himself more than he is hurting you.
Taking one for the team. Being the first to trust someone who has no trust established. Those with an established reputation for fair dealing have more to lose by violating it as well as a history of not doing so. "Good Will" is an asset. Lex Mercatoria is the free-market mechanism by which these situations were self governed in ungoverned areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercatoria |
|
|
|
A governments transparency is dependent on it's voters. Most voters are more interested in who rubs which private parts with whom, still I think the alternative without any government would be worse than it is today.
Please tell me that you are not making the false choice between what exists today and zero government, justify your suggestion that government is more productive/better/more transparent/less corrupt etc than private companies? That would be a heck of a false dichotomy. I have nothing against government. I use their services (though perhaps less then most), but neither would I make the claim that they are automatically less corrupt than a private enterprise, and my personal experience bears this out. I do not say that a government is automatically less corrupt, I am saying that they are likely to be less corrupt. Reason is that they need to be reelected by a majority of it's citizens instead of it's majority of shareholders. You cannot 51% a government in the same way as a private company where 1 person may own that 51% Maybe you are right with respect to the subset of governments which are also have democratic institutions, maybe not, however consider this: If we applied this test to Bitcoin, it would likely die. The "voters" of the authoritative block chain are those that have invested their time and their energy and their wealth. They are more like shareholders than 1 person 1 vote democracy. If we put the vote to the general population, Bitcoin, with all the scurrilous press it gets, would be easily 51%-ed. Those with a vested interest in the success of an operation may also be the ones paying more attention to the details that matter. Companies may have strict anti-corruption clauses in their contracts which allow for immediate termination on evidence of corruption, democracies have to wait for elections. People are people, being a government worker (which in many societies are more highly paid than private employees and get better benefits, and have more social power) does not make that person less subject to the things which may corrupt them, and quite possibly the opposite. It seems naive to think otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome |
|
|
|
Most anarchists are now of the Voluntaryist/AnCap stripe. Black and Gold is winning over Black and Red.
This would most welcome news indeed if it were true. do you have a source? dunno if it's true, but we are certainly more vocal in the last couple years! oh yea, we are growing much faster than they are, im sure of that. the big question though is do we outnumber them right now? i would be VERY interested to know that. Anarchy is not a democracy.  |
|
|
|
And they would stay transparent without an enforcing government?
Who knows? We're not likely to ever have the opportunity to find out. A governments transparency is dependent on it's voters. Most voters are more interested in who rubs which private parts with whom, still I think the alternative without any government would be worse than it is today.
Please tell me that you are not making the false choice between what exists today and zero government, justify your suggestion that government is more productive/better/more transparent/less corrupt etc than private companies? That would be a heck of a false dichotomy. I have nothing against government. I use their services (though perhaps less then most), but neither would I make the claim that they are automatically less corrupt than a private enterprise, and my personal experience bears this out. |
|
|
|
There are already quite a bit of corruption in the world as is. If private firms were to supply the same services, they would also be corrupt and even more so.
My experience is different from your assumption. For example, I have had more items stolen from USPS than from FEDEX or UPS. The assumption itself seems counter-intuitive. If power corrupts, and governments have more power than private firms, why would you not expect the government to be more corrupt than the private firm (having also courts, police, armies, and the monopoly on the use of force). Are people magically transformed by virtue of government employment to be more saintly in the part of the world where you live? Sounds like a very nice place, but I've never heard of it. It's mainly that a companys goal(generally) is to make as much profit as possible, and don't need to be transparent. A government is more likely to be transparent and to consider other aspects than pure economics. Weird place that you live in. It sounds almost unbelievable, we should all go there. Most of the planet companies have transparency requirements that the government enforces, but government does not enforce on itself. On the issue of profit. In what way is this different in a bad way? It seems a net positive for citizens that share the currency in which the private company operates. Governments spend as much as possible, which is profit to them, but inflation cost to all those who use their currency. At least if a company profits, they either spend the money back into the economy, or hoard it (increasing the value of the money used by others). But the company profit does not inflate the currency. If they make too much profit, this encourages competition which then generates improvements in quality. Government has no competition if it decides it doesn't want it, so no innovation. |
|
|
|
|
What this would do is create a price ceiling, but not a floor.
(They would trade among users for less but never more than the price they could get them from the source)
Better would be a smoother move-up rate. Jumping an order of magnitude at a time would not be as good as a continuously smooth progression. This avoids the motivation for rapid world-wide price inflation as soon as a move-up occurs.
|
|
|
|
There are already quite a bit of corruption in the world as is. If private firms were to supply the same services, they would also be corrupt and even more so.
My experience is different from your assumption. For example, I have had more items stolen from USPS than from FEDEX or UPS. The assumption itself seems counter-intuitive. If power corrupts, and governments have more power than private firms, why would you not expect the government to be more corrupt than the private firm (having also courts, police, armies, and the monopoly on the use of force). Are people magically transformed by virtue of government employment to be more saintly in the part of the world where you live? Sounds like a very nice place, but I've never heard of it. |
|
|
|
right, and im sure the wealthy celebrities and athletes in the world also remain anonymous with their wealth
that is a completely irrelevant side of anonymity
unfortunately crime is so rampant that its impossible to say being anonymous is really a "good" thing from a government and LE position. from our position yes im sure all of us would like to remain anonymous regardless of what we do with it
Celebrity has many costs. It is also a currency, but one that depreciates rapidly. Governments also use anonymity. Much of what governments do is kept secret. I don't know that crime is so rampant as you suggest. Most people don't commit crimes with any regularity, maybe 3%? Those that do get a lot of attention so it seems more rampant than it is, and many of those are the non-violent type without victims. |
|
|
|
Credit is a hard concept in the Bitcoin economy. That being said, lending isn't that terrible. Go back to the basics -
If a bank uses only Bitcoin, then this is how it will make money: through a spread between savers and lenders. That's how traditional banks are supposed to make money too. People deposit their Bitcoins in the bank for safekeeping and they get some rate of interest. If you're borrowing Bitcoin from the bank to start a business, say, then you need to pay back a higher number of Bitcoins. The bank keeps the difference for taking that risk. Same concept as traditional economy.
Remember currency is just the medium of exchange. The total wealth of the world can keep increasing irrespective of the currency.
You did not understand the problem. If deflation is 20% a year you cannot lend from bank for anything under 20% in real terms. Such high interest would cause demand for credit to be very small and without demand there is now way bank can profit from lending. It was a good answer to the original poster's question: 'How do banks pay their lenders?' The OP seemed to be under the mistaken impression that a specific business (a bank) needs to increase the stock of money to to pay the interest off loans. The truth is that profit can pay the interest. Also, if the currency is increasing in value 20% per year, think about why that is. It's because of economic growth. If you can't have economic growth with the currency appreciating that much, then the growth slows, and the currency increases in value at a lower rate. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to say. If you say that the units of currency are fixed, then with economic growth, the value of each of these unit will increase proportionally. The reason that doesn't happen with fiat currency is essentially inflation (inflation defined in terms of increasing the supply of currency, not CPI based inflation). In a Bitcoin economy, the value of 1 Bitcoin will be 1/21 millionth of the size of the economy. The economy grows irrespective of the currency units. This is not accurate, as you are discounting the existence of credit-money, which is the essence of the question posed here. Lenders / Banks which own Bitcoins may lend the right to them out as credit-money, letters of credit, or other instruments useful in trade. The bank may charge some interest on this credit-money. This is what happens today with fiat currencies. It is the same mechanism. It doesn't matter that the quantity of Bitcoin is fixed to an absolute number at any given moment. Credit-money may expand the amount of circulating money beyond that fixed amount. This is the same way that the amount of printed serial numbered paper dollars is different from the amount of "money" being used in commerce. Much of it is a secondary ledger held in a bank accounting system and not physical paper fiat currency. This is not a real problem, or rather it was a problem solved several thousand years ago, and really very well re-solved by Italian Banking to end the "dark ages". The world was using gold and silver, also a fairly fixed quantity, with only tiny amounts of inflation/mining/discovery. As well as plenty of losses in shipwrecks and such. The only reason this is even a question is because folks have become so accustomed to inflationary fiat currency that doing without them is outside imagination. But we used to all do without them very nicely. |
|
|
|
Credit is a hard concept in the Bitcoin economy. That being said, lending isn't that terrible. Go back to the basics -
If a bank uses only Bitcoin, then this is how it will make money: through a spread between savers and lenders. That's how traditional banks are supposed to make money too. People deposit their Bitcoins in the bank for safekeeping and they get some rate of interest. If you're borrowing Bitcoin from the bank to start a business, say, then you need to pay back a higher number of Bitcoins. The bank keeps the difference for taking that risk. Same concept as traditional economy.
Remember currency is just the medium of exchange. The total wealth of the world can keep increasing irrespective of the currency.
You did not understand the problem. If deflation is 20% a year you cannot lend from bank for anything under 20% in real terms. Such high interest would cause demand for credit to be very small and without demand there is now way bank can profit from lending. If you are lending Bitcoin, you charge interest in Bitcoins. There is no problem provided the lender is making sound judgement in assessing risk. Perhaps you are considering the foolish bank which might lend Bitcoins and charge interest in fiat currency. Don't deposit or buy shares in that bank. |
|
|
|
anonymity is bad when most financial systems are exploitable
if the world was a very secure place then we wouldnt need things like social security numbers and forms of ID
I remain in the not good / not bad grey areas with respect to anonymity. It is a tool, it has purposes and uses. Just like a hammer, you can build a house or hit someone in the head, just don't blame the hammer. Arguably there are ways to not need things like social security numbers and forms of ID even in an insecure world. Anonymity is not necessarily meaning you have something to hide, it may also mean you have something to protect Consider the plight of the wealthy bitcoin hoarder. They do not want to be a target for evil hacking, so they choose to do most transactions anonymously and use multiple wallets, tor to hide IP addresses, and other means to obscure their wealth. |
|
|
|
Thank you for the summary, kjj.
An "account" could be just an address/keypair. I think there could be some reduction in storage since the last block could include a ledger with all "account balances" removing the need for the whole merkle branch until coinbase for proof of inclusion of an output. Well, this would only serve for something like trust levels (ultimate compression algorithm), since some nodes will still want to validate the whole chain from the beginning.
Also "script per account" instead of "script per output" sounds like saving, although I guess this depends greatly on "account reuse" which is discouraged for privacy and security.
I believe that this may have been discussed to death, but a I'm not sure if in the context of "trust levels". Anyway, a link to an old thread would probably help to read the most common arguments and their refutals.
The GAAP criticisms are tiresome, but every problem someone has (especially if 99 different folks have it) is an opportunity. This one is pretty big from the first-mover advantage point of view. Programmers who make a BTC client which has exportable GAAP compliant translations in XML for quickbooks and other small and medium business software applications are going to make some fast cash. This will also remove some barriers to adoption and make your own bitcoins worth more as more folks will want them. The pieces of GAAP that aren't in bitcoin already can be left for the accountant to fill in in the XML or in the destination application. Since it fills a need, it could even be a non-free client wallet addon to one of the other software packages. |
|
|
|
Being anonymous is quite fine in itself, however when someone is caught wiping fingerprints from a crime scene, they are in hot water. So, anonymity in general is bad because the whole world is a crime scene? I don't know where you get these ideas, but they aren't from me. You even chose to ignore the first half of the sentence in order to get this free education. So here it is: Anonymity is neither good nor bad. Anonymity is not necessarily done because you have something to hide, it may also be done because you have something to protect. A person can do something anonymously or publicly. However, when someone is committing a crime, and they chose to do so anonymously, and take steps to do so. This can be used to show intent in court, which is an element of most financial crimes, and all of the serious ones. To find someone guilty of one of these crimes in a court of law, two things need to be proven. 1) The bad act 2) The guilty mind The guilty mind is typically the harder one to show unless there are statements on record to show it, or actions that indicate it. The prosecuting attorney will certainly bring up the fact that there was an attempt to act anonymously as evidence indicating the guilty mind. A defendant facing a jury of random people who can show that either everything they do is anonymous and that everything they do is legal may have a good defense against this, however proving you do all those legitimate things anonymously is also going to be difficult without revealing a lot of things that you might rather keep private. This is the challenge the LR folks are facing currently. |
|
|
|
yes but this examples doesnt factor two things:
- cheaper country which have way less officials
- different economy that is free from taxes
besides i dont know what they were doing with money they printed... bought stocks?
Let me ask you something. If you could pull an infinite amount of money from your wallet, every purchase could be covered just by reaching into your pocket, would you voluntarily limit the price and quantity of things you bought? Or would you have a gold-plated toilet, just because you could? this is true but the difference is that printing powers would be in government hands who spends on your education or health centres, hospitals etc. you have to trust them like you are doing now that they will do it taking responsibility for their actions. there is no system that stupid people cant break down. look at governments now and how much debt they have and rising, or hospitals debt etc. who is going to pay for this? Today, inflation+tax pays for it. In the end game, the poor. They pay because they are those who have the least choice in what currency they are holding when someone has to be left holding the bag. They won't have gold, land, or hard assets. They will have a lot of paper currency. Paper currency are debt instruments. So the holders of them are owed a debt. The debt is only payable in more debt, and so they trade these debt notes around for what they need to live. |
|
|
|
What if government would just stop collecting taxes. Imagine how simpler life would be. No bureaucracy, no vat, way less officials, nobody fighting money laundering, way simpler economy and businesses without traps. In exchange government would simply print as much money as they need and spend for education, health care and everything they wish. Its that simple. What do you think? What about inflation? (Zimbabwe, they printed too much money) well they are printing anyways? now they have more public debt and they are fighting people who avoid taxes, if there would be no taxes then nobody would have to avoid them and inflation would hit everybody equally everything can be calculated: how much it cost to collect taxes, how much is lost because people are avoiding them and what inflation printing would make Inflation never hits everyone equally. Inflation hits those furthest from the currency issuer the hardest, always. The first person to spend a newly created unit of currency spends it into an economy that has not adjusted its prices to accommodate that new unit of currency. The second person to spend that newly created unit of currency, if they spend it anywhere other than with the creator, is also spending it into an unadjusted economy. But as this progresses, out and away from the currency creator the economy adjusts. |
|
|
|
It arguably takes willful effort to create anonymity, which can be used to point to intent, or knowledge if these methods are uncommon. So, a willful effort to create anonymity is a crime? Hmmm, very interesting. No, but willful misunderstanding should be one. There are elements of crime. To be guilty, all of the elements must be proven. In the realm of tax fraud, there are innocent mistakes which get things like late fines, and there is willful fraud, which gets things like jail time, and multiples of financial damages. The difference here is the provability of intent. Some examples may illustrate: Al Capone and Heidi Fleiss both ran criminal enterprises according to the government in which they resided. Both were caught and charged for tax fraud. They were not able to claim it was an innocent mistake because of the evidence of willful intent, they took steps to separate the money transferring from their taxable identity. The wisdom of the founders of bitcoin is evident in that they did not themselves take the steps to separate taxable identity from the transactions. In fact it provides some very strong logging that does precisely the opposite. They left that step to others. So bitcoin has survived and will survive this legal test. Individual users of bitcoin may not fare so well depending on their behavior. Being anonymous is quite fine in itself, however when someone is caught wiping fingerprints from a crime scene, they are in hot water. |
|
|
|
The problem with the gold standard wasn't the gold, but the standard. Any attempts to "fix" the market, whether by trying to set a price or manipulate the amount of currency, is doomed to failure. Simply allow free trade and the market will balance itself out. FYI, you might not be aware of my Shire Silver cards, which complement bitcoins pretty well. They make everyday use of gold and silver much easier than with traditional bullion products, eliminating the need for any sort of backed notes. [The reason Americans used paper notes during the gold standard era was because using traditional bullion is a pain.] But to address your concerns about the supposed need for flexibility in the currency market, the exchanges and market price will alleviate most such concerns, and layers on top of the base currencies will handle the rest. To explain, you can think of bitcoins as being the M1, and things like Ripple can build the M2/M3 supply. Its good to see you here. Shire Silver is a very nice bullion product, and I support it. We should do some trades for the New Liberty Dollars. And I agree with your point on the Standard being the problems. There were many different gold standards. I think what our interlocutor is looking at is the Gold Price Standard, and working to understand it. The question 1) Why buy gold if the price is attempting to be fixed. It is a durable, stable, store of value. Your house can burn down and your gold will still be there if the firefighters didn't steal it. You paper money will be gone. Your hard drive may be destroyed, but the gold wire in your Shire Silver card will remain, and can be extracted from the residue. The second question of a "moving desired price" is essentially what we have today. Gold price is heavily manipulated by central banking. It has some free-market elements, but since is it traded for a controlled commodity (fiat currencies), it can be the victim of trading manipulations. There have been some very extensive publication on this matter by the Gold Anti-Trust Association ( Gata.org) |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
