The price of stocks (and bitcoin) always decreases on bad news. Even if the bad news is something irrelevent like china illegalizing ICO's or the SEC disapproving a btc etf proposal, traders will always sell. When predicting market behavior, traders always follow the lowest common denominator in determining what will happen. The worst trader in the world will always sell after bad news & that's the worst case scenario precedent everyone follows.

The price decline isn't necessarily a bad thing. For those who were looking for an opportunity to buy btc they might pick it up at 20% discount from where it was a few days ago. Bitcoin price movements have had their ups and downs like this over the last 6 years. There have been much bigger price drops that were much worse.

I would guess bitcoin greatly reduces unemployment by creating more jobs than it destroys.

If it is true that a high percentage of those living in poverty are unqualified to have bank accounts, bitcoin could give those demographics an opportunity to make internet payments and buy/sell electronically. This in turn could create jobs and small businesses which otherwise would not have an opportunity to exist.

There are also likely jobs and industry created through blockchain technology.

Thanks for bringing this up OP. I always wonder what happens to those without bank accounts, under a cashless society, where paper money is outlawed.

Banks refusing to grant the poor accounts could also illustrate a key reason behind bitcoin's growth. Every person that wants a bank account who can't get one is likely to embrace bitcoin as they search for alternatives. There is often an interesting network of cause and effect driving financial and economic statistics. This case may be no different.


I have heard stories of people hiding paper money under their mattress only to have it be devoured by termites. Don't know if that is a true story or a myth invented by banks to encourage customers to deposit more money in their bank accounts. Might want to exercise caution with that method of saving though.

Mining is mainly for those living off grid who generate their own electricity via windmills/solar panels/etcetera or those who have access to a limitless supply of cheap (or free) electricity to power their mining rigs. The difficulty of mining coins is always increasing and so being profitable from a mining perspective is always a battle of diminishing returns where the cost of electricity factors in heavily. When the value of a coin rises, it becomes easier for mining to be profitable. But in most instances a lone miner probably won't be as profitable as simply buying coins and holding them over the long term.

There are a lot of cloud mining turnkey operations which promise the power of cloud mining through a browser interface with only making an account being required. Those have a poor reputation and usually aren't profitable due to the number of additional middle men in the chain who have to make their profit. With cloud mining basic electricity costs aren't necessarily optimized or kept at a minimum which could make it inferior to more independent miners who have access to cheaper energy.

I'm not certain which crypto currency is undervalued at the moment with a good potential for growth. Looking over stats and metrics probably wouldn't be a good bet if you're looking for short term gains. The best one might hope for may be to get in early wherever the pump and dumpers plan to go next & be lucky enough to ride their pump on its way up. Or maybe to wait for the next big fork announcement which could drive the value of btc down & wait for its price to decline before getting in and (hopefully) riding it back up.

Fiat is usually backed by gold. Using fiat itself to back something probably isn't the best idea.

There are many historical cases of fiat currencies crashing and devaluing under hyperinflation.

It would probably be better to use something that has never crashed to back a currency.

Like for example, the price & value of weed has never crashed that I know of.

It might be better to collect and store tons of weed (or something with a stable/appreciating value) to back a currency, since the value of weed has never crashed.

That way people can have confidence there is collateral backing a currency that isn't likely to depreciate.

Questions on cashless society.

#1 How do people sell used cars, 2nd hand goods, have swap meets or yard sales without cash? If everyone needs a point of sale device to sell stuff in their yard, does this not make buying/selling less efficient in turn translates to a weaker economy and lower living standards?

#2 Once paper money is eliminated & banks have a monopoly over currency transactions under a cashless society, what is to prevent them from raising rates and fees & otherwise engaging in some of the exploitive things ISP's could do once net neutrality is gone and ISP's have more of a monopoly over internet service?

#3 What happens to the homeless or poor who can't afford a point of sale device or a smart phone? How do they buy/sell things if cash is outlawed?

The most I earned is 8 BTC around 2011. I won about $100 in fantasy sports and used it to buy some btc. Then through gambling I increased my btc up to 8 coins which was worth around $80 at that time. After that I lost all 8 btc being overconfident and letting my greed influence me into making risky bets that were bad decisions.

At the time, I never would have guessed the 8 btc I held that were worth $80 would someday be worth $40,000. Its amazing to think of where bitcoin was and how far it has come.

One thing about money, it could represent a specific quantity of time, productivity and innovation.

If someone wants 100 houses and 100 cars that breaks down to a certain amount of time, innovation and productivity to construct.

If money is eliminated some other system would arise to fill the vacuum.

Concepts like productivity and time and their relation to money aren't easily tweaked to give everyone want they want all the time. Like some said satisfying essential needs with a minimal & efficient productive effort is the opposite aim of industry.

After decades of television and media glossing over the history of nobility we have two tv series game of thrones and vikings which are historically accurate in terms of many of the ruling class intermarrying and inbreeding to keep political power in the family.

People might be appalled by Jon Snow and Daenerys but the harsh truth is many kings and queens in recorded human history practiced inbreeding for generations. It might be fair to say inbreeding is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to royalty.

There are billions of smart & talented people on this planet.

How people choose to harness and apply the talent and smarts they have is what makes a difference.

Intelligence and talent are not unique traits. Those by themselves may not be enough for most to achieve their goals.

I can't remember specifics although I do remember the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) you mention having a bad reputation from how it handled Hurricane Katrina & other past natural disasters.

There are a lot of people livestreaming humanitarian and relief efforts related to Hurricane Harvey on youtube & other media sources. Its amazing to see so many people contributing out of their own pockets and their own time to help americans in need. I think everything will be ok. The damage doesn't look to be as bad as other hurricanes and the flooding should recede on its own as long as houston isn't below sea level, etc. I think everything will be cool. The government seems to be doing a good job bringing in DEA and basically whover they can find to help with relief efforts.

The media may be exaggerating the damage and blowing everything out of proportion a bit.

I still think this is caused by recent calls to illegalize cash & paper money.

Methods to restrict and destroy the value of paper money are intended to herd people towards embracing electronic payment & exchange.

This may be similar to gold/silver being banned in buying/selling roles for merchandise/services by governments in past eras to force them to embrace paper money & cash.

Said increase in poverty is caused by large increases in wealth & wage inequality.

Here is a great example.



It isn't capitalism that is responsible for poverty increasing over the last few decades, it has more to do with how wealth and wages are distributed and the trend towards them being distributed unfairly.

Years ago, venezuela's socialist government tried to nationalize (take over) toyota's operations in their country. The socialist government wanting to take over and control many different private sector groups like toyota chased large corporations out of the country which killed many jobs and destroyed venezuela's economy.

Its difficult to imagine a country determined to have every aspect of life and the economy controlled by the government accepting bitcoin.

Maybe those in power are desperate now that they know Donald Trump is considering military action to stabilize venezuela. They are afraid and so they may do this to try to curry favor with the public.

The article labels it demonetization.

It might be more accurate to say central banks in india are waging a war against cash/paper money by placing restrictions on their use and destroying wealth denominated in fiat, to encourage people to embrace electronic money which central banks have complete control/monopoly over.

Placing arbitrary restrictions on the usage of cash restricts innovation & economic growth, it reduces the efficiency with which people are able to buy/sell/invest and otherwise decreases standard of living. If the goal is to strengthen the economy and raise standard of living a better goal may be to empower people to have more freedom and more options in the way they use their wealth rather than imposing harsher rules and regulations which tend to cripple growth.

Most who say btc is a bubble fail to take into account the degree to which btc/crypto are growing in terms of transaction volume, end users, support in different countries & other areas.

Bitcoin's price uptick is mirrored by grown and expansion in many markets and geographic areas across different demographics occurring internationally. A mainstream media economist might break this down by saying: "the fundamentals of the bitcoin economy are growing substantially" to justify the increase in price/value.

That's the most neglected area of the debate made by those who claim bubble status. Not addressing the fundamental metrics and failing to acknowledge crypto/btc growth.

I like blockchain a lot.

But for things like birth certificates a paper system may be preferable to a blockchain as it can be more difficult to falsify a paper document than it is to falsify a digital one.

Governments pressure companies like apple to remove cryptographic encryption from devices from iphones.

States don't do well when it comes to software development/electronic engineering/internet technologies. Australia's internet censorship program is the reason many aussie ISP's have extremely high pings and poor connectivity. China has the same problem with its great firewall of china. When the US government built a healthcare reform website it costed taxpayers $1 billion dollars and didn't work properly. There were many issues in the Donald Trump vs Hillary election due to voting machines having glitches and not performing well. There have also been many demonstrations on how easy it is to hack said voting machines.

For whatever reason, government programs involving software/internet do not do well and I would guess digitizing birth certificates won't be an exception to the rule.

I know some wall street traders go so far as to compile data on average price movements for monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday to get an indication on which days are the best and worst to buy/sell. The same for months of the year and other timeframes for which trading can be broken down.

It may be defined as educated guessing. But there is a lot of statistical and data analysis that goes into it. At least there is with serious traders operating at high levels. There's also a lot of mathematical analysis and theoretical projection work involved.

One example of this, in some previous years bitcoin's price has peaked towards the end of the year during the holidays. Whether this trend will remain true for 2017 is anyone's guess. But based on past data we're now entering a time when bitcoin's price often peaks.

I wish schools & the media wouldn't promote safe spaces.

Its difficult to know pros & cons of capitalism or socialism when discussion and debate on those topics is stifled.

It is difficult for people to be educated, informed or support the correct stance when information on these topics is censored.

If we're to create a better world, these things are important.

Mike Santiago fought on Dana White's Contender Series 7, which was about a week ago. He might be in very good shape despite taking the fight on very late notice.

Happy to see some MMA back on after Mayweather vs McGregor wiped out about 3 weeks of MMA activity.

Not many household names on this card. Stefan Struve is so tall I swear he always looks like a video game character in the cage, he's so tall it doesn't look real.