|
Interesting perspective ... a false dilemma, bad pop music analogy and maybe an attempt to smear (rebellious teenager libertarians vs mainstream 'well-raised' moneyed interests) or at least pigeon-hole, create divisions.
Bitcoin adoption has been anything but 'too slow', so some of the arguments based on that premise seem contrived ... also he has failed to recognised a core group of bitcoin holders/devs/miners who are playing for all the marbles. It is not so much a political position as taking a technological stand on the necessity for a new paradigm and a better way of doing things. Like the separation of money and state.
And I didn't see any references to the economic cost/benefits analysis of traceable versus anonymous monetary systems. Why do so many seem prepared to take on faith that traceable money is somehow a net benefit? (the road to hell is paved with good intentions).
|
|
|
|
this is old topic. just want to add:
no one that does not have bitcoin has any incentive to buy bitcoins to pay with bitcoin. just because 1 place accepts bitcoin means nothing really.
That's wrong. They will want to buy bitcoins because it retains its purchasing power due its limited issuance ... so that when they come to buy something they really want, like food, they can afford the same amount (or more) food than when they got the bitcoins. But if you can't think more than 2 steps ahead in regards to financial decisions then since you aren't going to be likely to have more than 2 btc to rub together .... well, it does meanz nothing really. |
|
|
|
You're selling Bitcoins. MSB regulations apply. This is wrong. For most people who are selling bitcons, MSB regulations do NOT apply. However, if you are selling AND buying bitcoins for fiat (e.g. exchanging) and doing it as a business they probably will, depending on State, blah, blah, extensive legal morass, etc. |
|
|
|
So much dictatorship
So much delusion and spin more like ... most of these guys would run a mile or freeze and crap their pants if they were involved in a live fire exercise ... here they are talking about missiles and battlefields. Edit: also these grand masters of delusion are ignoring the old maxim "when goods no longer cross borders, troops do" ... financial repression will inevitably lead to violence, it is not as benign and consequence-free as Zarate seems to be dreaming about. |
|
|
|
So on that logic, hyperinflation must be a massive net benefit for the economy?
You'll have to quote where you're getting that idea. Hyperinflation is no good since it would erode confidence in the USG's ability to keep things under control. Treasury bonds are still considered by too many as guaranteed safe. If confidence in t bonds drops, this awesome cycle can't continue. It's a delicate balancing act which makes everything work as intended. This is neither the time or the place to get into this but your assertion that inflation is somehow "good" for the economy is entirely unsupported, as much as you try to put the onus back onto someone who says otherwise to prove the negative ... ... i.e. if inflation is a net benefit to the economy, then on a simple linear trend hyperinflation would be awesome (clearly it isn't) so you must then be arguing that the inflation=good functionality is not simply linear but some other functionality that has local maxima and minima with an optimal "goldilocks" value for inflation that is necessary for the economic goodness of inflation to reveal itself ... ... now the onus is on you to prove/show that "inflation goodness" function is not linear and indeed has a local optima that provides just the right amount inflation to produce net benefit to the economy ... go for it, (suggest over in the "Economy" section). Inflation is wiping out the middle classes, as it always does. |
|
|
|
|
The cost of mining does not determine the price of the coins at any time, they are probably not correlated at all ... but it can act as a floor (elastic lower bound) to the price during down swings. This is an important dynamic to keep in mind, so doing the kind of calcs as in the OP are useful (and worthwhile), although doing them properly is becoming ever more complex with hardware evolution (ASICs), decreasing supply/total btc ratio amongst other factors.
|
|
|
|
The problem is, local law dictates me to pay higher amounts using bank transfer while doing business. It is also an offense to decline regime's currency. I think this is similar in many other countries so you could not even legally use cash for greater transactions.
... and one day people wake up wondering how they ended up in a state of financial facism and slavery |
|
|
|
|
So on that logic, hyperinflation must be a massive net benefit for the economy?
|
|
|
|
Think about it: With sound money, it will not be necessary to panic buy houses bigger than you need, people can save to their pension in money, which means that the demand for sound money is bigger than demand for inflating fiat money.
... and the crypto-penny dropped. Where have all these asset bubbles come from? The monetisation of all other asset classes as the "money" itself is destroyed by the monopolist banksters ... there is much wealth and value hiding in stocks, property, bonds, etc that has no right to be there but nowhere else to run ... until now that is. |
|
|
|
Put people in imaginary boxes, exaggerate and attack things that aren't there. It's a classic approach.
From my point of view, the author's comments reveal the most:
"The fact that dollars lose value makes you spend or invest them. That is what drives economic activity"
I think a lot of Bitcoin enthusiasts got ahead of this old way of thinking. If depreciating dollars would drive activity, our economy would be booming for the last 30 years non-stop.
Good luck holding on to your dollars (and shaky ideas), Sir!
(Not going to read any article with "MySpace of money" in the title, but...) If the USD stopped inflating, the US would be completely fucked. Can you even imagine the implications of houses without that strong upward pressure on nominal value, and loans actually costing money? The housing market would tank from all the new underwater housing loans, setting off an economic shitstorm. The global economy would falter and possible enter a global depression for a decade or more. USG default would be unavoidable if the USD quickly moved from being inflationary to deflationary. We'd lose all that effective revenue from devaluing our national debt, so it'd probably be necessary to cut off the vast majority of welfare, and while it might be nice that the price of bread isn't increasing a few % each year, they won't be buying any bread with no job, decreasing equity in their house, and no welfare. The USD isn't popular just because it's legal tender. Huge USD loans are practically free, often value-generating for consumers and businesses. A BTC-denom mortgage might sound cool, but it'd be a flat-out stupid choice by the lendee, and that's why I doubt BTC will ever successfully kick a fiat currency out of any country without an ideological uprising. Parents Against Inflationary Numismatics? ETA: liberatarians love to talk about inflation and the national debt separately, but tend not to connect the two. Our national debt is right around $17t. In FY2012, we paid ~$360b on that. If we achieve 5% annual inflation, that $17t debt devalues by $850b. The USG would effectively generate $490b by having issued a shit-load of debt while inflating the currency and still maintaining confidence in that currency and the USG. The USG debt GENERATES REVENUE, and we make other countries pay for it. That's the most awesome Jew-fu out there. Your whole analysis is flawed since it is based on the assumption that inflation appears to be a net benefit to the economy. It is not, it is a net cost. (Not the least of which because it increases wealth and income disparities.) You cannot print your way to prosperity .... dyodd. |
|
|
|
At one point in the conversation I brought up CoinJoin and what it makes possible and his immediate reaction was, "That will have to be stopped."
They can't even be distinguished. Short of a complete lockdown (and a total failure of the system) there is no way to block the activity or even reliably measure how much of it is going on. I don't think this actually presents much concern to authorities— they manage to survive in a world where cash and other asset transfers leaves few records already. When tax authorities question you to make sure you're paying your taxes, they'll ask to see your books same way it works with anything else... and nothing in this thread will protect someone there, at least in the US the responsibility is on the taxpayer to show they paid their taxes. But in any case, the political debate is moot... just due to the technological inevitability of this: I've tried to think of a way to prevent it, and I cannot. Precisely, the political debate is moot. Because the technology is economically superior and demands this solution, it is inevitable. In fact, I would not be surprised to see a successful CoinJoin functionality implemented in an alternate client before the end of the year, e.g. as coderrr's coin selection patch was. And this will only be Gen 0 for anonymising tools ... The modern State needs to abandon their utopian panopticon matrix ambitions and go back to doing proportional policing relevant to a free society, for many reasons too numerous to mention. Besides, this is a Development & Technical section ... suffice it to say, CoinJoin and other anonymising tools are inevitable ... just like Judgement Day. |
|
|
|
In an attempt to conceal his ignorance he indulges in way too many bad analogies, allegories and mixed metaphors. Insecure, techno-phobe no doubt. The style is designed to invite controversy while adding nothing of substance. Notice how he juxtaposes libterteers with criminals in his kindergarten pie-chart ... Statist money stooge protecting his lunch money, the longer these kind of guys are out of bitcoin the better. Suck it up chumps, we ain't going nowhere.  (NB: he'll be buying in at the top ... and worrying all the way up that he missed out on the biggest step change in monetary usage in 3 centuries.) |
|
|
|
So he's going long on bitcoins  |
|
|
|
I intended it as "make a proposal, do work, receive some baconreward". Obviously, if people want to appear with fully formed solutions they should get rewards too. My main criteria is that work done be actually usable by someone for something, we're awash with ideas around here (myself included): so show me the code. I am very much in support of the spirit here of just getting some stuff published and getting people trying it... this means both simple tools that don't implement a more complete vision, and more powerful ones too. The whole idea is to flow some funds from people who want to see this exist to people who are working on making it exist and everyone leaving happy, and so I think exposing a lot of really exacting procedural requirements isn't a grand idea. (Also, it's likely the case that I didn't foresee all the things that needed to be done in my post. Please: solve problems I didn't know existed too.)
(And yes, I need to pay out some bounties to the work done by people so far ... I'm afraid that it's probably going to wait until this weekend before I can try out the tools and talk to the other signers! (and feedback from donors and other people who've tried the stuff out!))
This just the right sentiment to get us moving forward .... without wanting to pee in the OS punchbowl (forewarned is forearmed), it is also probably worth keeping in mind that there is likely a rather large pot of funding waiting in the wings with an eye towards commercialisation of the CoinJoin tech (or similar), whether it be through proprietary s/ware packaging or fees for a pay-per-tx models or whatever. |
|
|
|
|
If it goes to $1000 it most surely will not stop there.
Soon after we broke dollar parity people were talking about $10 as being inconceivable ... and then it went to $32 peak.
... then talk of $100 seemed inconceivable ... and it went to $266 peak.
On that logarithmic pattern any talk of $1000 will be conservatively wrong by about a factor of 2-3 ... i.e. $2500-$3500 is likely the range of the next peak (if we ever get another one).
|
|
|
|
Its funny how JPM is now long PM's leading up to Syrian crisis, how convenient! This is why I'll never go back to trading Forex or Stocks, seriously regulated by manipulating bastards. I hope more people would see this as then JPM wouldn't have anyone to leech off of.
honestly i think it is more to do with currency fail in places like India and Brazil. that is a train wreck waiting to happen. ... and yet they have an unbelievable ability to be on the right side of massive geo-political trades every time ... almost like they are pulling the strings of the known puppets, which they undoubtedly have the phone numbers and leverage over ... don't ya think? |
|
|
|
|
I wonder if this could be added to regular Electrum client as an optional extra module (with extra dependencies libbitcoin, sx) ? Python, client/server ... seems closely aligned.
|
|
|
|
|
"Can't think of a gift for that special billionaire in your life? .... there is always bitcoin!"
|
|
|
|
|
Great work ... of course there are lots of ways one can talk about to do this but getting a product on the market is the only way to actually DO IT.
Well done Kris, wish you the best in your ventures. As to spurious concerns about 'regulation' at this early stage (whoTF are these people that go around tinkering with computers always wondering "what will my government think if I write this s/ware?" whilst wetting their pants in fear) ... you could always encrypt all through traffic by default and use plausible deniability protections ... way off in the future besides.
|
|
|
|
|
He was clearly using 'napster' to mean the idea, the concept that music can be shared freely .... in that sense e-gold did demonstrate the concept of currency outside the prison(m) but was nowhere near as widespread in providing recognition of the novel idea/concept as bitcoin has been.
The article after the intro by Jeffery Tucker is an absolute cracker.
He makes a great point about the Stockholm syndrome "please regulate us as soon as possible" but I think he missed one key point in that there is a whole "free-market" industry of lawyers, lobbyists, etc that live off regulatory and compliance actions. They have sprouted up around bitcoin like a plague and are driving incessantly the thrust toward regulation because that is how they make their living ... off others. Ignoring the material benefactors from "compliance management" as drivers for regulation misses an out-growth (as perverse and malformed as it is) of the free-market response to the mere willingness of legislators to meddle. Anywhere you spread manure weeds will grow faster than the crop ...
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
