Still it appears contradictory in terms. Supposedly a republic exists by the will of its people, and the government of such nation is thus, by all means, at the service of that people. I presume you agree that holding on inflationary money in the long term is detrimental. This then begs the question as to why an entity sanctioned by the people to care for the people's good figured it should make it more complicated for those who empower it to give it the very substance that empowers it. It doesn't make any sense, from both ends. I hope this wasn't too political.

No. Precious metals, especially gold, can be spread pretty damn thin. Precious metals have been historically used as currency because they fit the bill. They are durable, hard to counterfeit/easy to recognize, internationally accepted AND easy to divide into lesser amounts. If the government wanted to support market liquidity by providing smaller units of exchange, they could have simply minted coins with lower gold and silver content.


One of the ideas behind fiat currency is to force the economy into a debt spiral. The fact that your dollars are steadily losing in value forces you to invest it somewhere. This spurs poor investing practices. The pretense that a deflationary currency would halt economic growth is ludicrous. It would limit malinvestment while switching the economy to a savings basis for investment. Only efficient businesses would be able to raise capital through debt, not to mention the superior buying power of the laboring classes.

This. Deflation would be a catastrophe with a debt-base currency... which is a catastrophe to begin with.

And you wouldn't go out of your way if I went out of mine to whack them. That's the beauty of anarchy. On a more fundamental level, these people have given up on their right to live by forcefully putting the life of another in danger. As such, I have no responsibility to respect their life and a legitimate motive in opposing these people with force. You, on your end, have no motive to stop me from harming them in my attempt to save the child.

Yeah they're so good at it they can't catch laundering done in government fiat currency...

Intelligence services sound like 3 letters governmental agencies to me. The method described here isn't an acceptable proof by any court's standard, it's merely unconfirmed suspicion. Unless said government goes full nazi on you, that material alone isn't enough for them to take action based on it solely.

Yes I agree with your point that Bitcoin isn't some sort of magical solution against inflation, nor does it hold a monopoly on it. My point is that it is a proper store of value, that it has the potential of turning into a currency (so far we don't disagree yet) and that it is better at it than other alternatives (point of dissension).

Compared to stocks and real estate, it isn't coped by the government, compared to gold, it is electronic and easier to secure and traded while remaining decentralized, compared to the options you cited, like bullionvault or everbank, it does not require to go through a middle man that might be subject to governmental pressure.

The government can pressure your bank to freeze your assets. Sure you can have most of your wealth in gold, but you lose the convenience. Two of the major reasons the concept of store of value and currency were created are the need for convenience and security. I think you're too quick to discard how Bitcoin offer these properties: even though there exist mediums of exchange that are more convenient than Bitcoin, they are nowhere as secure. Even though there exist mediums of exchange that are more secure than Bitcoin, they are not as convenient.

I don't think there is a single prohibition in the history of mankind that was successfully enforced.

Alipay is an escrow, Bitcoin is an attempt at a store of value, and hopefully a currency. The implications are way different, that's like apples and oranges. As someone said, you can build implement Alipay over Bitcoin. What you have to compare is Bitcoins to Yuans.


I think you omit a point: It is true that one isn't forced hold fiat, but several circumstances work against that. The first one is chronic poor investment. The grand majority of wealth is denominated in fiat, salaries are paid in fiat, dividends are paid in fiat, stocks are traded in fiat. The need to constantly convert increasing amount of fiat injected into the economy, and the fact that fiat forces you to invest, ends up in people investing it poorly, which in itself is detrimental to the economy as a whole.

Next, none of the alternatives to store your value outside of fiat currency is in itself a currency. Not to mention that those alternatives are kept under close watch by the state, like stocks or real estate. Only gold somehow gets away from that surveillance, but it isn't a currency either, and unlike stocks, it isn't electronic. Bitcoin isn't a currency yet, but it holds that potential and is on an electronic support already.

Lastly, whether you like it or not, you have to go through fiat in your daily transactions. The implication is that, since fiat is controlled by the government, it gives too much power to that government, power that a mere store of value cannot take away. On the other hand, a whole new currency that effectively isolates portions of the economy from the government's reach will have a sensible effect on the economy. That's for the political part. But we're not there yet.

Shouldn't it be omega geek?

The sculpture it is then.

Then what about the metro exit itself. I presume most of us will use it to go there anyways.

Hoarding reduces supply. If anything it helps the price soar.

We could meet at the elevator underneath the arch, narrows it down.

Yes.

I'm expecting ~$10-11 early june.

A sociopath can't care for people, but he can care for a person (difference between public/private relationships)
A psychopath can't care for either.

I don't know in which anarchist "guidebook" you read that the life of a child is considered the property of its parents. The life of a being is its own. If the child makes a case of being poorly treated by its parents and tries to break free, it is the child's right, and if the parents oppose it by force, then there is coercion and concept of defending one's life and protecting a person in danger apply perfectly.

Underneath the arch?

That's when Gox was getting DDoS'd

Well...

One of the ideas of investing in stock is, as someone said, an inflation hedge. I don't see how that doesn't apply to Bitcoins. With fiat currency you want to generally invest in stocks since it's always getting inflated, but let's say the Fed announces a huge increase in their interest rate, would you want to get out of the market? Maybe you should. Now with Bitcoins, you should get into the stock market when you expect the economy to shrink. If I had bought some stock yesterday at $8.5/BTC, I would have made a killing today at $6.

Bitcoin is a commodity that holds properties making it suitable to store value because:

It is durable
It is divisible
It is easy to identify and takes more resources to counterfeit than it'll grant return
It is easy to send and receive
It is decentralized
It is deflationary

And whatever else I missed. As such, like gold, people will want to store their value in Bitcoins, as opposed to, say, carrots. The government sanctioned currencies are fiat and centralized, as such they contradict 2 of the elements of a proper store of value. It is but natural to expect people to want to store their wealth in gold, silver, or here Bitcoins, instead of keeping it in fiat. The same motivation that drives people to protect their wealth by investing in real estate is at the core of Bitcoin adoption.

My whole argument holds on this point, that there is a more consequent group of adopters that see Bitcoin for what it is and use it as such than day traders. The "takers" are anyone with wealth, and any new wealth produced. If you refute that use, then indeed my argument is moot to you.


"Takers" are a bit ambiguous. But whether you are speaking of speculators or adopters exiting the market, the impact is, assuming no one is willing to replace them, that the market capitalization of Bitcoin will be reduced by the amount these people were contributing. Will it stop the trading of Bitcoins? No. Consider gold. If tomorrow the day traders just drop it altogether, will its price crash? No. Why? Because it has a function as store of value, this why people seek it and this is what makes most of the gold market to begin with.

Fractional reserve banking teaches us that on average, people use 10% of their wealth on a daily basis. People storing their extra profit while others are taking their value out to cover their costs is what makes the market of Bitcoins, not the speculators. The speculators are just a side effect, and technically isolated from the actual market makers.


Coins mining is no different from inflation. Extra coins aren't producing any wealth, they are taking a little bit of the wealth that all the existing coins were representing. The fact the price is maintained or goes up means that there are more people willing to enter the market than the miners are able to sell daily. The service you provided is akin to gold mining back in the late 1800s. Consider that if tomorrow, mining wasn't rewarding coins anymore, Bitcoins would naturally gain 20-30cents in price every day.


Fed printing is erratic, not subject to much logic and the printed money is distributed to people who produce nothing. Bitcoin mining is linear, the inflation rate is known and maintained within bounds by the network, the mined coins are distributed to the people who provide the work securing the network. Also, I don't see how constantly losing valuation is a healthy behavior for a store of value, which is how fiat works.


Only a few people here advocate for the total disappearance of fiat currencies. I personally don't think they'll disappear anytime soon. The goal of Bitcoin isn't to replace them, simply to offer a proper store of value. If people then choose Bitcoin as their main currency, then that is for the better, but it isn't necessary. Also I'd like to know which country you live in so I finally have an example of a country without a rabid printing press as its source of currency.


My point was, take the economy of the USA as of today, and replace government controlled and issued currency by a currency that is a only backed by the good will of market actors, like gold. Then compare gov failure in the first situation vs merchant failure in the second one.


So the only hindrance to a currency that is far superior to government issued fiat in all and every aspects is its rate of adoption? I think you see where this is going.


Do you really think that crisis would have occurred if it wasn't for the Fed's Fractional Reserve Banking and its status as a lender of last resort green-lighting the use of sub prime loans?

There are several reason to be involved in the Bitcoin market. One of them is because Bitcoins are a proper store of value. The fact that day traders and speculators exit the market doesn't imply that Bitcoins won't be traded anymore. The example you present is a case of holders not willing to sell while there are no takers. Technically, the absence of both supply and demand, which is to say the complete destruction of the Bitcoin economy. That would be assuming 2 things: That only speculators are actually trading Bitcoins, and that long term "herders" are immune to price signals. I think neither are true. I think everyone has a price, and that there is a big enough portion of the market comprised of people that entered it to hold on the long term that it should prevent massive crashes in price. The real question is what is the ratio of speculators to long term adopters, which would allow to define base price vs inflated price.

If you are referring to the Sub Prime crisis, I'd say there were several significant Fed policies that denatured the market in such a fashion that it can't compare to the Bitcoin market (read deregulated).


I think the higher the price, the higher the incentive to come up with new uses. And certainly those novelties will serve to reinforce Bitcoin at its actual price, if it they would be enough on their own to revive Bitcoin from a massive crash.


Governments have plenty of failures. They just print some extra money to cover for it. The failure of one merchant isn't the doom of the whole economy. It's just one guy going down. In the grand scheme of things, it's a drop of water in the ocean. Whereas the failure of a government is certainly dramatic, so they patch it through debt and fiat printing. From the stand point of an economy, what do you think is healthier, an all powerful entity that keeps bandaging its failures at the cost of every members' wealth, or a bad business going bankrupt?