The west is becoming more subservient to this kind of stuff.  If you are relating the US as "the west", then take a look at how many supporters Bernie has gotten in the last six or so months.  People are liking the idea of big government, and who is to say that he won't support something like this if China looks to become more "patriotic".  People don't really research anything anymore, especially including "the west"... so if they get benefits from it, that's all the people will really care about.

Plus think about it this way, Bitcoin is definitely a global economic tool... if people in China ban it for the mainstream to adopt, then it will definitely hurt the bitcoin economy.   

But what makes you think that China will be the only nation to implement something like this? I know that this is a huge leap of speculation... but if there becomes more of a "big government is a good thing" type of attitude, where socialist thinking is widely accepted, then this type of implementation can be used in any country if China gets good results from it.  People tend to not care any more if their rights are being trampled on, because as long as they remain a good little citizen, then they have nothing to fear. 

I mean shit, this is like some Hunger Games type of authoritarian protocol that's going to be implemented... but the fact that the government will give them "benefits" if they remain loyal, and accept this type of credit score to happen early on is scary as fuck to me..

So, we all know that we live in a world where politicians, or any type of authority figures for that matter, have some form of control on what we do in everyday life.  What China is ready to implement and make mandatory in 2020 could revolutionize how authoritative figures can maintain that power without the fear of a rebellion.

http://theantimedia.org/china-just-launched-the-most-frightening-game-ever-and-soon-it-will-be-mandatory/


Now, this could mean huge implications of what happens to Bitcoin in the future. If major nations like China start implementing this system, then they could force opinions down the throats of citizens, and the citizens won't mind because they get benefited from it.  This definitely is something people in Bitcoin should be worried about, because if the state decides that you shouldn't talk about, watch videos, or better yet just use Bitcoin, then that will mean that if you do then your "sesame credit" will go down and you won't have the benefits of those that do have a higher credit.

To make things even worse, if you do post stuff that goes against what the government wants you to post, then your friends and loved ones will have the incentive to "de-friend" you in a way... because if you are friends or acquaintances with someone on social media and that persons "sesame credit" is low, it will bring down your credit as well.  

Yikes.  

Edit: I suggest people watch the video in the quote above... that video pretty much sums up everything and is pretty easy to digest.

I just don't understand how countries could come up to the conclusion that they can issue a "national" cryptocurrency that is issued by the Central Banks... I mean, technically they can increase and decrease inflation at will and don't need to expend the cost of printing out notes derived in their national currency, so I guess that's a plus for them...

I just don't understand how they are going to run nodes, mine, etc. that's even close in comparison to bitcoin?  It's like trying to reinvent e-mail to people just inside your country, or internet just inside your country, it's pointless... politicians still to this day fail to realize how the internet works, in that it's global and everyone can use it... so to have just their own cryptocurrency is not very smart.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if people just follow along with any thing the government tells them to do this day in age... People are such pushovers now and days.

I'm definitely wanting to bet on the political election, but as of right now, I'm not quite sure where to with bitcoin.  I definitely would consider doing that if I find somewhere that offers that capability. Plus, since no party has elected their candidate they want to run officially, I bet that the odds are pretty good right now to pick someone to win the whole thing. 

Hillary, IMO, has no shot.  It seems that even her true feministic supporters are starting to loose that drive to get her elected. People have down played Bernie for a long time... but the matter of the fact is, is that he has tons of supporters from the far left and even all the young voters.  Note, that it was pretty suspicious during the final Republican debate when the candidates where all talking about how they must defeat Hillary as if she was destined to win her Democratic ticket. 

People are so geared for some reason that Hillary is going to win the ticket just because she's a woman... which I don't really understand.

But, the 2016 elections have the possibility to be one of the funniest of all time if Bernie and Trump were to be running against each other. 

Hardcore Socialist  vs.  Hardcore Capitalist

God help us all

I don't think any politician is going to willingly listen or read up on detailed information about bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies as of right now.  There is just no need for it yet.  A good majority of politicians are backed or corrupted by the Central Banks in every nation in some form or fashion.  I mean hell, the Central banks just dropped the gold standard completely about 50 or so years ago (not quite sure of the exact date)... so this all is still kind of relatively new territory in an economic sense.

If/when there ever comes a time where the inflation the Central Banks create skyrockets, then there is no other choice than for the politicians to do something about it.  So it makes sense that politicians are trying to ban it, especially politicians from France because they have to seem like they are trying to protect their citizens from the nasty terrorist organizations that "use it" to fund their operations...

TL;DR: There needs to be a need for Bitcoin before politicians want to accept it.

Yeah, ultimately the best course of attack is to hold your bitcoins.  There are multiple ways of doing this, whether getting a cold wallet (trezor), paper wallet, or possibly buying into some physical bitcoins where you can store your coins.  Physical bitcoins may pan out to be the best plan for storing your bitcoins, because they add in value as a collectors item that people are willing to pay a premium for (i.e. Casascius coins).

If you're looking to purchase things that are necessary for your everyday life, I'm not quite sure if there are ways to pay bills with Bitcoin directly.  Maybe you should look into getting a bitcoin debit card which allows you to pay anyone using a Visa which is "backed" by bitcoins and pays out the amount of fiat upon purchase.  So any place that accepts Visa (I would imagine everyone that you deal with currently) can be able to take that form of payment, and the Debit card company takes out the exact amount of bitcoins from your stash and pays out to the company in fiat.

Also, just curious... what did you do exactly to earn you $4,000 in bitcoin? Seems like a pretty tough thing to do, and I wouldn't imagine you did business with someone here on the forum.

I mean people can debate about the anonymity and security of bitcoins in general.  You can see these debates coming up all the time here on this section of the forum. But I suggest you to go look at some of the posts by people in the Economics section, and you will see the bigger picture bitcoin tends to tackle when it comes to how it can affect the economics of everything.  Bitcoin tends to have a way to leveling out the playing field for everyone and not become a slave to the Central Banks who control inflation rates as they seem fit. I know this seems kind of silly to think of it this way, because the dorks who watched Bitcoin grow into becoming a contender for a world currency will probably become rich off of this (and probably you too in the long run), but this is beside the point because it solves a lot of problems the Central Banks tend to create.

Everything with Bitcoin has been pretty much planned out by Satoshi since day 1... that there will be a supply curve that tends to level off after a good number of years have passed, which is controversy in itself, because there are block size debates and that sort of thing and how long should miners "mine" a block at a given time.  The fact of the matter is, is that the number of Bitcoins that are going to be produced is fixed at 21 million.  There will never be any more or any less produced (even though you have a couple million coins already lost by early miners accidentally "throwing away" tons of bitcoins because they didn't see the value in them, or they might have lost their private keys to their wallets that contain a lot of BTC.

This is an extremely valuable tool, because the first time in human history, we have the first "digital gold" if you will that can be mined by any one at any time... Though there are problems of the barrier of entry now, since in order to be profitable at mining now, you need an extreme amount of electricity and hashing power on hand to even have a chance of competing amongst the big time mining farms that are now up and running.

Another thing that I personally think makes Bitcoin extremely revolutionary, but hasn't really made it's way is the fact that if this currency were to be accepted world wide, then that means that everyone will be playing on the same "playing field" in a way, in that everyone who produces a certain good can value their good or service in Bitcoins, regardless of how much Bitcoins go for in their fiat currency system that's prevelant in the nation their in

Example: You have someone in India making jewelry, but the reason why they are still poor is because they only deal with local people who want to buy them, and they only pay in rupees.  If they were to expand their business and try marketing themselves online and selling their goods and services across the globe, as well as locally, then they could probably get the same amount of money value they would for a good or service that someone in Europe or the US would if they produced the same exact product.

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All of this is not to say that Bitcoin doesn't have major flaws, it obviously does have a ton of flaws... but the thing is that there are so many people hopping on board now and making it easier and more accessible to people every where.  The biggest thing we need to be worried about now is not necessarily the anonymity aspect of bitcoin, because now we all know that bitcoin is and always will be pseudonymous and is very public in transactions; but rather it should be about the block size debate and how we should look at how we should give a better incentive to miners to mine.  Without hashing power and people willing to dedicate resources to continue mining, the security of transactions will severely drop and everyone will not want to use Bitcoin any more.

Honestly it depends on how much coinage you have, IMO.  If you have a good bit, then I suggest maybe putting them into cold storage or paper wallets.  But honestly, I think the best way to do this and "gain interest" litterally, is to buy some type of physical coin which you can load your coins there.  Something that you can hold on to, and more than likely they will pan out to have a pretty high premium later on down the line in the future when physical bitcoins coming out from this decade will be highly sought after.

Better to have coins just sitting in a hot wallet idling, where they could be easily stolen.

You have to think though, at the same time when a lot of devs were issuing out new altcoins during 2014, they were just simply renaming bitcoins "code" in a way and branding it with something stupid (i.e. dogecoin). Sure they may "change the rules" with the block and how many coins are distributed, but that doesn't mean that they pioneered anything legit.

The only thing that I have seen that has any real potential is the coins that are in the cryptonote field that gives users more anonymity than bitcoin.  Even though some coins are more sketchily produced with premines, there are some out there that actually have a chance in terms of gaining traction and users.

There was another "coin" that I saw that was eMunie, that doesn't necessarily use a blockchain, but rather a block"tree" if you will.  It allows insanely faster transaction per second speeds and is currently still under development.  I don't think they are even going to release the coin for adoption, until they get transactions going at the current speeds that visa or any other brand name card system has.

There are actually apps where you can web browse through tor on any smart phone device.  So essentially, people who live in countries who are restricted by laws to gamble can gamble online either on laptops, desktops, or even on phone now by using apps that run tor. 

I don't know how safe these apps are and if they can make the IP address going through LTE devices show up on another IP address, but as of right now, I think this is the safest and most realistic alternative than trying to make apps for phones that allow you to gamble.  I don't think apple or android would ever allow actual gambling apps that's run through online gambling sites (especially with bitcoin) because of the legal consequences that follow them.

You're right about altcoins that have the same generic code as Bitcoin, but you have to consider that these coins inherent a totally different code, which is cryptonote. Coins that just adopt the same concept of bitcoins are destined to fail, but since the coins we are talking about are genetically different in every way possible with ring signatures and what not, makes it a contender to actually market to more privacy oriented people who want to really remain anonymous during their transactions. I feel that there is always a need amongst bitcoiners to remain completely anonymous. I mean hell, that's how Bitcoin became famous anyways... Through the use of dark web sites like Silk Road.

I guess this kind of thing relates to what you believe will happen after you die.  Will you die and your soul will shoot up in the clouds where gumdrop fairies and unicorns frollick and play? Probably not.  Will you die and because that there are no more neurochemical connections taking place in your brain, there will be nothingness and no more you in general? Possible, but not what I would like to believe in.

Could there be a realistic way where people are given eternal life by maybe "downloading" your conscious somewhere and then after you die you can "reprogram" it into something else which allows you keep living even longer?  Given that science and technology has gotten extremely complex, I think that this is possible as well. 

...

Getting back on topic though, we're getting back to being dangerously close to that .001 mark. I'm getting to the point where I think that even though this has been the point of major resistance for a long time, I think that if bitcoin were to spike in price right about now, we will see prices go below that I think, so I'm still waiting to get some more coinage. Do you guys think were going to be sinking below this mark?

Well that was a heart wrenching story OP... but I'm going to agree with everyone on here that you shouldn't be blaming bitcoin one bit.  What you should be blaming is genetics, because more than likely you have tendencies to addiction. Are you now drinking more heavily to "forget" about this whole thing while still frequenting here and reading up on Bitcoin ALL the time? My instincts tell me yes.

Also, it seems like you could just be addicted to the thrill of just "winning" anything... like if you were to go to a gas station and bought some scratchers and won maybe $10, you would put $100 more into scratchers... and then if you would win $100 with that you would put $1,000 into scratchers and then loose it all, which drives you into a deep depression and wishing you have never tried such foolish things in the first place.

I know how this feels, because I'm prone to addiction as well.  I have a better feel for seeing when I'm becoming to involved with something and need to take a break.  Like if I were to go online gambling, I force myself to only allow X amount of coins to be lost, and once that happens, no matter how hard it is, I would get up and leave and try to find something else meaningful to do with my life (IRL).  Go outside OP, find a hobby that requires you to get out of the house, you may feel that it's not worth it at first, but after a couple days of doing that you will probably feel a lot better than you do currently.

Well, I think a majority of people wouldn't know what to do (especially what you just described) if all of this were to go down.  The fact is, is that there will be no more miners to confirm transactions to another party you are trying to send bitcoins to, and there for the security of transacting bitcoins to get a good or service when the internet is down is down as well.

The only possible way to transact bitcoins in a secure way if everything were to shut down, in my mind, is to have a cold wallet storage that you can see how much bitcoins is on there, in which you can transact physically... not by some broadcast function of what you said.  Though, if this were the case... I don't think people would even want to transact with bitcoins, because Bitcoins economy would essentially be shut down... it's inevitable that Bitcoin is tied to the internet.

For the normal family, I feel that Bitcoin is a beneficial (and risky) way to maintain and potentially grow your storage of wealth.  Personally I feel that Bitcoin will inevitably grow in price and user adoption in the long term future, 10-20 years from now, and this could be taken advantage by the normal family to invest buying some bitcoins when they can afford it and store it in a cold paper wallet for long term holding.  For the average joe to benefit using Bitcoin, doesn't mean that he has to go looking for merchants to accept Bitcoin and spend it, it could just simply be an investment strategy like holding gold in their safe (which honestly is probably the safer method of doing this kind of thing).

It's going to be no shock to people on here and a lot of people in the real world when the US debt and inflation is going to reach a point where it collapses the economy again like in 2008... So holding your wealth by simply putting your dollars in a bank is not going to do the family any good if your essentially holding "shit"... rather than precious metals or, I guess, precious "digitalized metals".

I'm confused though... Wouldn't this not likely happen if Monero (and let's be fair) or if Dash fills the role of the true anonymity coin of the future?  I just feel like if one of these coins were to gain real traction and known for giving users true anonymity, then the others that are competing for that spot would essentially fade away.

I know that Monero and Aeon are tied together in some aspects with developers, but from what I have gathered, it just seems that Aeon is more of a "test" coin, so devs like Smooth will implement successful coding into Monero after everything looks good.  Am I reading into all of this wrong? Because honestly that's what it looks like to me.

Honestly, I can confirm that after talking to my SO and people like my mom in my family, they thought that I was into dealing drugs or something, which I laughed and explained to them my concept of wanting to invest into bitcoin in the first place.  My SO was understanding, and tries to understand my philosophy of wanting to use a digitalized currency that doesn't rely on the bullshit the central banks do.  But my mom, on the other hand, holy shit... she thinks that I'm some anti-christ devil worshiper now, because of what the Bible says; that having a one world currency is a sign of the upcoming "rapture".  So I tend to stay away from that topic now with people in my immediate family.

As for trying to find women in general that know about bitcoin around me, I think this is a pretty obvious "never gonna happen for me" type of thing... since I live in an area of the US where people don't give a shit about the concept of economics or technology, and have one of the lowest test scores coming out of high school in the nation... and that's in the US for crying out loud! So yeah, I'm looking at places for me and my SO to move too when we are thinking about starting up a family.

So I like reading up both on Monero and Dash, and personally just like Monero better than Dash... but seriously, can we just stop it with these reoccurring threads that are the same exact topic over and over again? In all reality it's terrible for both sides of the spectrum, because it seems to piss of people that regularly check the altcoin section of the forum which are people who are the most likely to invest in either coin.

I say this is what should be done. Let the well known members of both coins give concise reasonings and explanations for their opinion on which is better. It would be beneficial to add links or images pinpointing what they are talking about, and other people can look into it later when they get the chance.  Then after a couple of days when everyone has had their piece about which one is better, the OP should then post up a "pro vs. con" chart for each coin and then let people decide for themselves, rather than bickering and name calling like 9 year old school girls.

This other opinion of mine could be up for debate... but I feel that once the above has been achieved, it should be stickied, with the notion that no other threads like this will come about ever, and the only threads that should be allowed to be in this section of the forum are the main speculation threads for both coins.  If any other threads are to be created, it should be deleted by the Mods... no exceptions.

So what do you guys think about this? I feel this would ease tensions between both parties, and allow for a more reasonable discussion on substance rather than name calling.

The thing is... is that you are completely right. Food, drink, protection (guns), energy sources (gas/oil) will be huge if something were to happen that made the internet completely useless and made a hostile environment around them.  Though this is a possibility, the chances of this sort of thing happening are slim to none without a major revolution happening.  What you are saying is that we should be worried about only the things that we can "eat" or "use" in a sense.  So, what would happen if you run into other people that need to the meet the needs that you have that they can't satisfy their selves? You think that there won't be anything you could ask for that would influence you to give them a good or a service? No, gold has always been that median where you could exchange something for something else, and I think that if the internet were to completely disappear, then exchange of goods and services would have to inevitably revert back to the oldest way of handling business... which is with gold.