Mysterious warnings
Block version unexpected
Satoshi 18
#haiku
So interesting Saying "one eight" or "eighteen" it's still a haiku |
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The problem I see with this is as follows. Imagine a scenario where a economical strong country wants to destroy an economy of a bunch of smaller countries, so they buy the colored coins of that country and deposit it into a "Burn" address and effectively destroy the currency of that country.  We do not use colored coins because colored coins can be targeted for whatever reason, so each Bitcoin is the same and no individual or group or country can be exploited or manipulated by actions like this.  In any way, governments want currencies that they can manipulate, so they would rather opt for a option to create their own "GovCoin" that cannot be manipulated or exploited like this.  The only thing buying all of the colored coins would do is stall the conversion to bitcoin at a price of 100 times the bitcoin price. They still have fiat until that fiat is no longer necessary. The key hurdle here, I believe, is technical as opposed to economical. Having a country using colored coins in such small denominations as their cash requires a lot of tiny transactions. This cannot be done on the blockchain as the minimum transaction needs to be around 1k satoshis. It would need to be lightning network based. You would likely need some centralized lightning nodes to handle the transactions because on the Lightning Network you cannot see the source address. So you could send some non-colored coins (bought cheap) to the colored coin network. I have not figured out this technical challenge. |
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If this were to happen a new crypto would have to be created to give everyone a fair shot at the launch. Bitcoin is already massively skewed towards the whales with very few people in the world even own 1/10th of a coin. Barely anyone knew about BTC at the start, may as well call it a premine.
This idea was pitched to Tuvalu with a new coin. That new coin was called Bitcoin. They had a fair shot. |
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Sounds logical but I'm not sure any country would embark on such a project anytime soon.
Probably even if they would be half convinced this is a good thing they will hold a referendum for this and I'm willing to bet that not only now, even if we talk 4-5 years from now people would vote against this.
And now that I think about, I believe a lot of governments would only complete half of the plan, issue the stable colored coins, print as many as they can and use them to cover up government expenses forgetting about the second stage and so the value of 1sat/cent would be achieved by the cent being worthless not the other way around.
Yes, the likelihood is certainly low. But just having one small country try it and become successful leads to a domino affect among all other nations. I just think it would be good to hash out a sound strategy that could be executed if the right government gets put into a position of power that supports crypto. There would really be no way to "issue" stable colored coins. You are issuing 1 satoshi per "coin". That one satoshi may start out with a price of .001 cents, and fluctuate based on the bitcoin value over time. But people will still have satoshis. When the time comes that one satoshi equals one cent...then you can't dictate what the value is. People can now use that one satoshi as a cent anywhere in the world. You're essentially putting bitcoins into the hands of the people. Initially a tiny percentage of your overall money supply. Not enough for anyone to really notice. But as the price rises that percentage becomes larger and eventually dwarfs the value of the fiat in the money supply. Such that the fiat currency becomes irrelevant. This will happen globally but on a longer timeframe. Focusing on one forward thinking nation would boost their economy to the moon. All it takes is one intelligent politician in power (I know, not a likely scenario). |
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Let's say that country X has a total of $100 billion of wealth in its own currency. To have each penny equal to one satoshi you would need 100,000 BTC set aside as colored coins for this nation (however that is done, a big national push, wealthy group, whichever).
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As the bitcoin price rises from $10k/BTC to $1 million/BTC, their satoshis are now equal to one penny.
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It may take years, but the adoption of this method for the nation would push that bitcoin price toward that $1 million/BTC and the same approach can be done for other nations.
First, welcome back! I'm not lurking in the WOT anymore so I wasn't aware you're back:P Now, the first problem with this theoretical approach is the need for such an amount of for collateral coins. Let's talk about a real-life scenario of a pegged currency, Bulgaria, which uses the leva but it's pegged to a value of 1.95583 leva = 1 euro, without the Bulgarian central bank reserve having enough euros to cover all the monetary mass, in their case it's about 1/2 if we consider only m1. Second, it would be that the mere gossip of a country embracing bitcoin would make the price skyrocket and thus dropping the requiring coins for collateral. But, there is a problem with both your scenario and mine. The rate of fiat vs bitcoins or colored satoshi in your case. Once any nations go and plan to do this, the soaring price of Bitcoins will make the transitions very dangerous for the economy, since the growth of 30% of the price in one day since the start of the campaign will make people want to convert their assets first and some will try to avoid the mess and use a different fiat currency for a while, hedging their valuable in euros, usd or something else , exporters avoiding shipping and both employees and employers wondering what to use. In both cases, the bank will have to set a standard value for their fiat against bitcoin, and some will try to avoid this rate as most likely it won't be advantageous for everyone. No matter how many steps you put between btc and fiat, at once a point when you will do the transitions you will have to use a value for BTC for a while, and BTC is not known for keeping value for too much, a 20% swing might either make one's economy rich or send it back to the stone age. So, the use of an intermediary won't solve the problem, it would rather be far more important for bitcoin to achieve itself the goal of a worldwide currency and stabilize on its own due to economic limitations before being adopted for real by countries as their main currency. Oops...ventured into the dirty part of bitcointalk...forgot how it was out here.
NVM
It doesn't sound nice but in BD and Economics section, it's better to use self-moderated topics to prevent two lines of spams. Thanks for the informed response. And for welcoming me back...I am finally in a safe location and feel a bit more comfortable being on the Internet again. I am not sure if we are understanding each other on this. The colored coin would originally be pegged to the national currency. So in your example, the colored coin would be pegged to the Bulgarian leva (which is pegged to the euro). You are correct in assuming that the price of bitcoin would rise quickly once it is announced. So, say the bitcoin price jumps 30% on day one. If it is pegged then the rate will be the same. Nobody will notice the change in the underlying bitcoin. The value of a colored coin is determined by consensus. If the colored coin value is established to be the rate of some national exchange or some combinations of euro exchanges, then it will maintain the peg until 1 satoshi equals a set amount (ie .01 leva). When BTC is worth close to $1 million each then it is very likely that there will be no huge swings anymore. Having competing currencies may work too. I just think it would be wise to strategize how it could possibly done in case some bitcoin friendly government is ever elected somewhere. My friend went to Tuvalu when the price was around $2 encouraging them to switch over to bitcoin as their national currency. They could be richer than the US right now if they had. As for having the money up front to do it...I think if there is a list of addresses used as gateways into the colored coin addresses then one or two exchanges in the country could be used. Instead of having all of the money up front, as people start converting their fiat into the pegged coin it goes to that address. Leva exchanged for euros which are exchanged for bitcoins which are then filtered through that address to become colored coins (colored leva). The key being that over time, it won't matter if they are colored or not anymore as the values would match and the peg would be lifted. |
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Oops...ventured into the dirty part of bitcointalk...forgot how it was out here.
NVM
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I want LN to work but setting up a wallet is not as simple as downloading a bitcoin wallet and adding some funds. Last time I tried it I either had to have a node running that I attach to, or use some service that runs a node for me. And even then, I had a hard time with it. It's a similar problem with OpenBazaar. To buy or sell you need to download the software and run a node or pay for a service. It reminds me of when I was trying to use gold as a currency. You could pay for a service to hold your gold and secure it and then pay a percentage to spend it via a debit card. The whole point of why I like Bitcoin is that you don't have to pay a monthly fee for someone to secure it for you. Is there technology down the pipe that will make LN more user friendly? Is it possible? |
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All of this is assuming cooperation with the nation whose currency you are replacing. They would need to be able to collect taxes, fines, pay for things with this currency.
Also, it would not be necessary for all of the money to be reserved up front as a colored coin. An exchange or the government service could specify the addresses they will use as passthroughs to colored coins and as people convert to bitcoin the colored coins grow until they reach the threshold.
Consider a country like Panama which has no central bank (and whose banks were just put on the gray list so they cannot do international wire transfers), they could easily do the transition without disrupting any powerful organization. The long term benefit is a more valuable currency that has more features than all other currencies while being able to compete globally.
Going this route allows several years of transition which does require a central peg at start but is guaranteed to leave that peg once the value reaches a certain point.
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I have been doing some thinking on how one would gradually convert a national currency to bitcoins.
The idea being that colored coins are used to peg the currency to the national currency for a specific amount of satoshis.
The amount of satoshis would need to equal the amount that the specific nation could handle as the smallest value that can be used as a currency.
Let's say that country X has a total of $100 billion of wealth in its own currency. To have each penny equal to one satoshi you would need 100,000 BTC set aside as colored coins for this nation (however that is done, a big national push, wealthy group, whichever).
For simplicity let's say the current BTC price is $10k/BTC. $1 billion would be needed to set this up.
Each colored satoshi will be given the value of .001 cents at the current conversion rate, and follow the rate of the nation's currency either through some sort of smart contract or centrally controlled ("trusted" sources) method.
People then use these colored coins in their day to day transactions, setting up payment terminals, lightning network payments, etc. It's just a new payment method with their same currency using a back end network that they need not understand.
As the bitcoin price rises from $10k/BTC to $1 million/BTC, their satoshis are now equal to one penny.
It is at this point that the moniker of their old currency is dropped and they use the satoshi as the smallest denomination, 100 satoshi as their main currency. They can now interact with this currency with the full Bitcoin network.
It may take years, but the adoption of this method for the nation would push that bitcoin price toward that $1 million/BTC and the same approach can be done for other nations.
TL;DR Smallest currency denomination is pegged to colored satoshis until one satoshi equals the smallest currency denomination and it is no longer colored.
Thoughts?
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What'd I tell you guys. These next few days will be the last time anyone will ever sell bitcoin above $10,000.
Edit: Confirmed
I agree. Nobody will ever sell bitcoin after the next few days. Convert and spend. Do not sell. Elwar!! Welcome back.  |
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OT: Y'know... the MSM is always blabbering on about how volatile Bitcoin's price is. Have they even fkn looked at Chipotle's 10 yr price chart? Holy smokes. Talk about not understanding its valuation! I wouldn't touch that stock with a hundred foot pole.  I was so close to buying Chipotle stock when they IPOed. I likely would have done better than putting $40k into SAIC. |
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That's pretty much what I wanted to hear. Will seriously consider this for my settlement once I take care of some other things first.
Can't wait to visit the restaurant for starters. Do you have any timeline for it?
And probably my last question about seasteading in general. How likely is it that your boat would get rekt and what do you do in such a situation?
Likely timeline for the restaurant is a matter of months. I'm in for a busy summer (people keep asking if I get bored on the seastead...). The likelihood of our seastead getting rekt is very minimal. I think we've seen the biggest winds for the year while we were out there our first few weeks. We woke up every morning expecting some damage but it was just fine. The production version will be extra safe. The interior of the spar will be completely void of any holes (seacocks/valves/etc). So in the very worst case scenario you can close off your spar and hunker down like going into your basement. Or you have the option of staying in your platform which is also a life raft. The two are not connected so if the spar sinks, the platform stays up. If the platform falls off (or something happens to it) you can go into the spar. But most likely if the storm of the century is coming through...you go to one of the nearby islands and wait out the storm. We are building the seasteads to withstand 5 meter waves. Where we are located the highest wave we should see in 100 years is 5 meters. High but rare. Average is about .5 meter waves. |
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Thanks a lot for the response. Suppose one was eyeing some 100sqm of space, would ~$2.5m be sufficient plus additional expenses for vanity furniture and inventory?
If you count the floors down inside the spar as living space as well as the deck on top then you get close to 100 sqm with just our $150k seastead. But we certainly do not plan on keeping them that small. We just want to keep the costs down. But we have big plans for business and mansion setups with underwater bedrooms that look out into the water. With the restaurant we are doing a 10m diameter underwater room. That one room is close to 80 sqm. How hard would it be for someone to mess with you if you pull up the ladder? I had not considered that even entering could be prohibitive for someone already in your waters. Unless they brought their own means of getting onto the seastead it will take them a long time to get up and likely risk destroying their boat in the process. Right now we have to moor our boat, lower the dinghy, take the dinghy to the ladder and climb up. We could literally watch any "pirates" for about 10 minutes as they prepare for their grand caper. For those that don't care to fight, just lock yourself inside the spar and wait for them to leave. Are you running any aquaponics for veggies, herbs and fish? My gf keeps trying to grow sea grapes (seaweed) but the fish keep eating it. Or it dies before we get it into the water. Haven't gotten around to growing anything yet since we have plenty of food from the grocery store. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to leaving my quarters, so the general idea would be having enough "property" around to keep me entertained within my living space hence the perhaps odd questions.
Also, as many others already noted, the SeaBnB idea is fantastic, especially with the underwater restaurant. I'll certainly come visit one day. I think the key to the seastead that people miss is the awesome opportunity for SCUBA divers. I am working on growing coral on the outside of my spar which will also protect the steel from rusting. There are an insane amount of fish already swimming around down there. With coral there will be more. There is a lot of SCUBA tourism in the area. We will likely be a new destination for them. The restaurant should be pretty big. It will bring people out to see the seastead for themselves. |
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Since you're already active in that area, would you mind answering a few questions regarding seasteading for me? The responses can be however brief since this won't be immediately relevant for quite a number of years to me, but I'd like to sketch out some future options regardless.
Is it plausible to create a small seasteading property on which you could have some sort of outdoor space, or at least indoor garden or small park?
Small is easy. We're selling our DIY seasteads for $45k. This includes just a spar and a 7 meter wide steel plate that you can then customize as you wish. Perhaps an inner courtyard type setup with or without a roof that may or may not be opened and closed? When thinking of seasteading start thinking in terms of boats instead of vast lands. The more open/empty space, the more the price. Is it possible to get a per square meter cost estimate (excluding inventory)? Excluding everything, that barebones DIY will cost you about $108/sqft or $1169/sqm. You may consider that your "land" price. On top of that we build a fully self reliant home with solar electricity and fresh water (which brings the price up considerably). How do you go about acquiring "sea" (land/property) for something like this? Surely you can't just set up whatever arbitrarily? We set up whatever, arbitrarily. As long as it's over 12nm out we can put our seasteads there. But that comes with big waves which requires engineering to keep you above the waves. Is this possible in areas where you don't have to worry about pirates or rely on guns? (I don't have a problem with guns, but I'd prefer it being an option as opposed to a necessity if that makes sense.) While we do not plan on building off of the coast of Somalia where there are pirates... A pirate is defined as theft on the sea. If you're trying to find a place in the world where there are no thieves...good luck! Being a long boat ride where everyone can see you coming for miles is probably discouraging to most thieves. Also, us pulling up the ladder is likely better than a gun. |
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Maybe you can have 2 or 3 seastead apart from the set of owners, just to rent. On a platform like airbnb, it may be another form of profitable, probably always have reservations. I just had a group come out here last week to visit the seastead. One of them wants to do exactly that. He wants to set up a SeaBnB on a few of these and get about 10 people to go in on one to split the cost/profit. He's figuring a 65% occupancy rate over 3 years pays for itself. The configuration would be just a bed and bathroom instead of the standard which comes with a kitchen. We also have a big investor that wants to set up an underwater restaurant. People visiting the restaurant will want a place to stay the night. We're figuring a capacity of 40 high end customers. |
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I'm setting up my own BTCPay server for payments from people buying seasteads. It's actually not too difficult if you go the LunaNode route (An ISP has integrated all of the packages for you with an easy to use configuration page). So that took me a few hours this morning (Originally I was setting everything up on my computer but decided, screw it...I'll take the easy route). As a special tribute to the dollar, we're doing our Initial Seastead Offering (ISeaO) on April 15th. Protest the income tax by putting your 1% downpayment on buying a seastead. https://ocean.builders/april-15th-initial-seastead-offering/ |
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A lot of people still use fiat. They're in for a big surprise. |
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Knowing the people involved in this, I assume that this "UN roundtable discussion" was a few people gathered around a table at the UN building in New York. They may have had one employee of the UN with them. They discussed seasteading. Then marketed it as the UN wanting to build a floating city. |
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That Chad guy in the videos has a wonderful, humble look to him. Is that you?  That would be me. Chad Elwartowski...hence the nickname 'Elwar'. |
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