I would not mine unless I were willing to put down tens of thousands of USD's worth on a setup.  In this case, I would not wish to risk that kind of outlay on what I consider the very real possibility that the gear would be deemed contraband and subject to confiscation (and I have little doubt that it could be tracked down regardless of the cloaking mechanisms I might try to arrange.)

Beyond that, if I were to get into mining, it would likely be in large part because I anticipate a wide-spread crackdown on mining and confiscation of gear.  That is to say, part of my calculations would be that I may be able to capitalize on an artificial limitation of competition...at least for a period of time.

I have zero confidence in the US court system to come up with any ruling which is not in the interest of corp/gov and little doubt that when the time is most opportune, Bitcoin will be labeled a national security threat and subject to draconian counter-measures.  And furthermore, that the general public will be taken a bit by surprise as to just how prone to attack the Internet is as long as the infrastructure is owned by corporations.  These elements factor into my personal strategies about how to speculate on Bitcoin.

I concur that that is a significant danger.
 

My suspicion (and observation) is that mastering and controlling technology is much more realistic for the rich/powerful than the poor.  In order for the 'poor' to make good use of the information and technology available to them things would have to get pretty bad for them, and a majority probably simply lack the native abilities to do so effectively no matter what their incentive.  Happily it would not take a straight 'majority' to have sufficient impact to produce a reasonable outcome though.


I appreciate your optimism but am dubious that people will leverage their potential to the necessary degree.  If they do, I suspect that doing so within the framework of a 'state' (vs. conditions of anarchy) will be both most likely to produce a good outcome and maximize 'freedom' which is high on the list of priorities for those of a range of political philosophies.

It is also worth noting something you allude to in the quoted above (I think.)  That is, that we are currently in a fairly good spot wrt 'freedom' relative to past times.  It is easy to neglect the rather atrocious conditions present in the not to distant past when it comes to 'freedom' (of speech, thought, information, etc.)  That said, in my society at least various frameworks are being put in place to clamp down on some of these so it behooves us to not let our guards down and rest on our laurels.

You mean the state protects the rich from the poor?

If so, I would say that you are both right.  Without a state, there is a cyclic loop whereby the rich enslave the poor until they've had enough and break out the pitch-forks.  The one thing one rarely sees in such a world is 'freedom' except in the most primitive hunter/gatherer societies (which are deeply 'commie' to their core since that's the most effective survival setup in such an environment.  Your typical Libertarian would last a matter of days in one if he stuck to his principles.)

While I feel that most stated degenerate over time (with mine..the US...being a poster child for the phenomenon) I do see very distinct advantages to having one and having it work as well as can be hoped for...For the good of the poor, the rich, and those in between.  Clearly having a state and having a fair degree of 'freedom' are not mutually exclusive, but it is just as clear that a balance is hard to achieve on an ongoing basis.

I've struggled with the question (in the OP body...not the subject) and have always come down on the side of speculative investing.  Part of it was that I could choose a position which I wanted and just get it done vs. months/years of hoping that the mining investment would pay off and watching mining technology evolve.  Of course hoarding was much more tenable when the BTC price was lower (and I obtained a lot of my position in the lower ranges after the last big peak...grasping repeatedly at the falling knife as it were...)

I could see making a boat-load of profit (temporarily...which may be good enough) if one was set up to mine with highly competitive gear as the price spiked, but OTOH sitting on a pile of BTC such a condition would also be a good strategy.  If BTC values climb at a constant rate which allows existing miners to expand and new ones to get in, I cannot see mining really providing a big pay-day.  A patient speculator would do fine in that scenario though.

For me to take on mining it would require several things:

 - confidence that mining technology was approaching a theoretical optimal state (that is, optimized ASIC gear.)

 - an operating base in a country which I felt was least likely to harass miners (Ecuador seems to be a freedom loving country who does not immediately bow their heads to power.)

Furthermore, both Bitcoin and gold are fungible.  If you can find someone 'here' who wants to get their gold from 'there' to 'here' (once you are on-site 'there'), Bitcoin could make it safe and easy to transfer gold as well.  Each person would need a trusted party on the opposite side, though, to carry out their wishes.  Possibly this would be a good related business for someone doing escrow.

Agree.  If you are the guy in that vid, sunnankar, then it was really well done in my opinion.  In my opinion your explanations were clear and solid and the general tone was just about right for my liking.  I would rate it near the top of any presentations and discussions I've seen on the subject.

BTW, you (again, if that's you) look a lot like that guy in Fargo.

Chumping Gerald Celente is one thing.  Chumping GE is quite another.  Anyone with a modicum of thoughtfulness can keep that asset safe...and although you don't want to hear it, they can also convert it to other forms of wealth without a great deal of effort.  (Voice of experience, BTW.)

Actually it would probably be somewhat more difficult for a corporation to keep their deep storage gold safe given that they need to comply with laws and that they would likely have a big enough pile to go after.  I've a sneaking suspicion that the entities who run ETF's are going to find that out.  But I consider the wisdom of keeping one's gold at an ETF to be only slightly higher than keeping one's BTC with pirateat40.

Yes, it sounds like a tall tale, but I have about as much respect for Sinclair's insight, knowledge, motives, and all around decency as anyone I can think of in the space.

Though I don't have personal experience as a shareholder (since I dump all such assets immediately if I end up with them) I would expect that shareholders want the best return they can get and expect the corporation to deliver.  If parking some reserve in gold is a good way to whether a storm (and recent history demonstrates that ain't a half bad strategy) then it does not seem to me that shareholders would care that much...but for the 'unorthodoxy' which we've all been conditioned consider gold reserves as being.

Accd to Sinclair, large corporations are already or soon will be taking almost exactly the same actions I am personally.  That is, keeping a portion of their reserve in the form of gold.

Works well to a point.  I habitually keep as few USD as possible.  To some degree I buy things that I may or may not if I were not wanting to unload rapidly declining USD denominated assets in risky entities (e.g., anything quote/unquote 'regulated' by those retained by our political leadership for that purpose.)  A fair fraction of the excess goes into PM's however, and for a time a chunk of it went into Bitcoin.  As more and more people turn into PM/Bitcoin 'weirdo's like myself, I would expect a shift in strategy.  Until then I figure that QE will keep on keepin' on.

Please stick around.  Libertarians have some fantasy that Bitcoin (and a lot of the more decent of the belief patterns that they pretend to hold) are somehow their baby and they have a monopoly on them.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I sense that a lot of the more effective movers and shakers in Bitcoin-land don't consider themselves Libertarian nutters and reject some of the more repulsive philosofantasies of that group.

You? Or Cypherdoc?

The distinction vis-a-vis numeraire is a good point to make.  I consider money to be exclusively debt (for now at least, and as long as Bernanke and his managers are defining things) and figure that as long as the debt can be pawned off on someone who will not unload it or require to much by way of interest payments, there is enough flexibility in the system to march along.  To quote Dick Cheney, "Deficits don't matter."

Perhaps trading new debt for various derivatives mis-calculated by the nature of the shell games which define them would help various large institutions with their books and in return they will absorb as much debt as necessary debt at 'favorable' terms?  Since the health of their books are highly dependent on how the laws are written (and/or enforced) and that is the job of the government, the government who needs a sink for the debt is well positioned to sweeten the deal.   So, at the end of the day (or this day at least) I consider myself in the 'inflationist' camp.  Again, though, it is because I ignore all numeraire saved debt instruments (which I assume due more to conventional wisdom than true understanding must continue to grow to stave off collapse.)

The common case in the real world is that one side of an argument does indeed have 'consensus'.  More often than not 'consensus' indicates a more solid argument.  Sometimes not, but in the cases of the generally spherical shape of planet earth and anthropomorphic climate change it is pretty clearly true.


The two annoyances I've had with Wikipedia are when a group of editors were caught red handed trying to color Zionist projects in the Middle East favorably, and when an editor was extraordinarily heavy-handed in making sure that information about strategic failure to deliver (aka, 'naked short selling') was minimized and controlled.  Neither of these are remotely left wing.  I'm a hard core lefty, and most of the Wikipedia stuff seems pretty even to me.  Plus people can challenge info they don't like and readers can make up their own minds.  Usually...I guess...never tried it.

<chirp, chirp, chirp...>

If one has national security apparatus at one's disposal, the easiest thing to do would be to pick up a "terrorist" who has control of a decent amount of BTC (say, an exchange operator) and waterboard the shit out of them until they give you what you want.

The strategy for someone without the nicety of usable state apparatus could take a similar form I suppose.

I thought the vid was rather dopey to be honest.  The tone of the narrator made me want to puke, and I've always felt like dancing makes it appear that a person has some sort of neurological disorder.  Bah, humbug I guess.  My nature is to turn in the opposite direction of any crowd and keep going so such a situation as demonstrated, however illustrative it might have been, was bound to induce a negative reaction in me.


I as well.

On a bullshit scale with 10 being total bullshit, I would say that several of the above lines score a 9.5 and the remaining ones a perfect 10.

I also happen to disagree about 'trust'.  Ideally 'trust' is completely absent in order to make a transaction work smoothly.  That is, the expected things happen with mechanical precision and no possibility for error.  Obviously that is not practical in most situations, but the closer transactions can approach this goal the better.

I'm getting the sense that some people on this forum are trying just a wee bit to hard to cultivate a persona of wholesomeness.  If I were involved in the economic activity at this point I'd be being wary of some of them.  As it is, I'll be following their exploits with interest.

Ah, I recognize that from a recent TYT piece:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojrlX6rmmM

Thankfully I happened across Garrett Hardin instead of Ayn Rand when I was but a whelp seeking unpleasant things to roll around in (intellectually.)

I continue to have a gut sense that you sell him short (though the evidence that he thought he might win his sham bet has yet to be explored...)

With you and the infamous thread, I continue to hold the opinion that I came away with: that he always intended to pay but momentarily forgot that he had no fucking clue about how to even obtain a BTC...though in his mind he knew how to put together a datacenter full of GPU mining rigs...

I think that he probably did have every intention of being a real, valuable, upstanding citizen when he donned the Matthew N. Wright tag and tried (amusingly) to start the Bitcoin Better Business Bureau thing.  Unfortunately for him the reality of our world and neuro-physics smacked him upside the head...within days iirc...

Matthew, like Bruce, has actually done some actually valuable things for the Bitcoin ecosystem and it would be immature to completely ignore these though it does not excuse their various malfeasance.  (Atlas, OTOH, has not done a damn thing of value that I can think of.)

Will Matthew be back?  I could see it going both ways.  If I were a betting man, I...um...wouldn't bet one way or another.  As far as I know he's not banished as Matthew N. Wright on this forum so there would be no reason to use a sock puppet.  For Matthew's sake, I hope he explores some other things before the negative aspects of his condition(s) outweigh the benefits of his energy level.  I suspect that what achievements he had in the Bitcoin world were valuable to him and potentially to others.

It is highly important to me that I give minimal personal info to an organization who's data security I have little trust in.  Enough so that I was about to quit PayPal the other day rather than send them a scan of my photo-ID.  (In trying to quit I found that they didn't need it after all, so I am still a customer of theirs BTW.)  I don't mind providing proof of address and my SSN, but biometric info; not doin' it.  And I happen to trust PayPal's data security much more than any Bitcoin related organization that I can think of.

So, what I miss on that chart is an indication of what kinds of info a vendor requires to remove what amount of cash.  Seems like you (Stephen) take an active interest in the wiki (which I highly appreciate) so I mention it on this thread.  If there were a way to add a column to that chart which could illuminate this aspect of things...and be maintainable...it would be cool.