Bitcoin does not even qualify as a sideshow in the global economy show.  At best it is an informal crap game out in the parking lot.

I would say that Bitcoin has a 'potentially significant' upside (which differs notably from 'significant potential' for a meaningful upside) if it even manages to sneak a peek over the fence.  Were that to happen I don't have much doubt that the security personnel would show up quite quickly and beat the shit out of us transgressors.

Agree.  The crown has changed hands.  (In terms of the cracker though, it seems most likely to me that he's a run-of-the-mill criminal...and second most likely that he's a invention.)

Now, if Mt. Gox can pocket all the BTC they control and Mark can wander off smelling like a rose I'll consider him to have out-ZhouTong'd Zhou Tong.

The point is that you would probably do better to have shares vs. something someone on the other side of a naked short gave you in lu of a share.  The differences in how these two distinct items are treated in the years of lawsuits which would follow an implosion of your broker (in the hopeful case that we have a functional justice system to adjudicate such things) could well be significant.

But do as you will.  I'm not yet to the point of even wishing to play with jr miners even though, as you say, it's getting pretty damned tempting.  OTOH, it's been tempting for many years and I have yet to regret not 'jumping in it.'

It'll be chopped down by some means or another.  A glance at the stock market shows the intensity of the pain it is producing and the US is still very much the hedgemon of most aspects of global macroeconomics.  I'd be the happiest guy in the world if the situation with the USDX continued (or worsened) for another several weeks when I am anticipating a wad of USD but doubt that I'll be so lucky.  On the other hand, creating a hole now to be dug out of as we get into the heart of the election cycle makes some sense so I might be so lucky after all.

In the mean time this is one of those situations where 'every squirrel finds a nut sometimes.'  You get to bask in the glow of being right-ish for a while even if you are clueless about the reasons.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

Toss them at someone on the other end of a web-cam to get them to do specific things to their bodies while you milk yourself dry.

---

Actually, when I had this problem, I choose to give them to ~goat (new name now) who had some involvement with an organization in Thailand aimed at helping out kids who drew short straws in life.  You might try something like that to if that's more your thing.

One of particular note:  Political leaderships vs. the populations.

It is not a stretch in my mind to imagine the political leaderships of many important nation states finding that they have more in common with one another than they find with their own increasingly unruly underclasses...and much less to fear.

I'm not predicting this as a forgone conclusion, but it is something which would not surprise me.  We are in fact more of a 'global community' than ever before in human history, and we are also facing some very interesting 'peaks' on a variety of fronts which are also new territory.  The only thing I expect for sure is that we will see things in the future that we have not really seen in the past.

General Comment: Thanks, cypherdoc, for reminding me to do an update via your edit above.
As projected, the USDX ratchets back and forth while gold ratchets up.  It's easily predicted by fundamentals...no subscription required.

Another Score:  5/22/12
          year ago    now       delta mult
BTC     6.30         5.09       + 0.81
Gold    1512         1560      + 1.03

--------------------------
ref (for future updates):
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#czsg2011-05-08zeg2011-05-08ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv  (change date)
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html  (hist cgi at bottom)
mult=now/year_ago

day           ya-btc  btc  mult    ya-Au  Au    mult
2012-05-22  6.30  5.09  0.81    1512  1560  1.03
2012-05-21  5.90  5.10  0.86    1514  1590  1.05
2012-05-18  7.50  5.12  0.68    1497  1592  1.06    
2012-05-17  7.80  5.09  0.65    1480  1574  1.06            
2012-05-16  7.40  5.09  0.69    1495  1533  1.03
2012-05-15  6.80  5.03  0.74    1492  1545  1.04
2012-05-14  8.50  5.00  0.59    1495  1555  1.04
2012-05-12  5.40  4.95  0.92    1505  1580  1.05
2012-05-11  5.00  4.95  0.99    1505  1580  1.05
2012-05-10  3.82  4.90  1.28    1510  1593  1.05
2012-05-09  3.75  5.03  1.34    1510  1590  1.05
2012-05-08  3.64  5.03  1.38    1497  1605  1.07

  I didn't say I was an owner of a significant chunk of the global network infrastructure.  It's more than I have some sense of the layout coupled with some intuition about these sorts of things complements of my vocation.

But if you want to lay a big bet on my being wrong, I can't stop you...  Chances are we'll never find out for other reasons (though they would be equally good at souring your bet unfortunately.)

Watch and learn then.

To the extent that it would not support a reliable Bitcoin network operating at scale and under attack by the owners of significant chunks of the global network infrastructure...it's almost a certainty.

Seems to me that a human is not going to be troubled by a 5 second or so lag time to get through a captcha, but a machine which is trying will be.

Why not have the site enterer download a bit of code (with zero effort) which needs to do some bitcoin mining then relinquishes a key proving it has tried before being allowed to proceed.  Once in a blue moon the code will actually hit paydirt (and the site operator becomes a happy camper.)

With such a solution I would welcome multi-threaded robots hammering at my door.

All of these enumerated problems and many more can go out the window with a well regulated cashless one-world currency and adequate biometric and individual tracking solutions.

I'm looking forward (with horror) to these selling points to be massively popular with a majority of my fellow peeps.  And those who are in need of corp/gov assistance for their basic necessities of life probably won't even need to have an opinion on the matter.

Ya.  In my dream fantasy-land, a multitude of crypto-currencies are constantly growing, shrinking, being born, dying, and most importantly, evolving.

The peeps choose freely what they want to uses.  Cornering and abuse of a particular crypto-currency would hasten it's demise into the dustbin of history, and the a-holes who ruined it would be out whatever it cost them to get in in the first place.

Merged mining could tie the crypto-currencies together tightly enough so that they all realized certain benefits complements of the group, but not so tightly than any one really effected any other in a tangible way.

This is the picture I was trying to paint with the 'bakcoin' idea.

In a nutshell, yup.  That would be at the root of the problems I would expect.

I dis-agree.  In a reasonably tight 'one world' solution a lot of the problems the EURO has (or pretends to have) would vanish.

The Euro was specifically NOT a 'one world' currency.  But it's very possible that it is working out exactly as planned...

Economic blocks such as the BRICs and various pesky S. American states could throw a stick into the works.  What bothers me is that a truly global solution through which all economic transactions are checkpointed is a pretty compelling solution to most nations of modest size and that trend is likely to steepen as we start running out of cheap resources.  It might even be the only possibility for retaining the reigns of power in a lot of countries so the pressure to cooperate here may be overwhelming.

For the record, I'm down with chodpaba and cypherdoc on this one.

My love/hate relationship with gold has a reasonable significant 'hate' component because I fear the potential for gold to be used even more distructively than our current fiat regimes.

I will state again that I like distributed crypto-currency solutions along the lines of the trail blazed by Bitcoin the best from a theoretical point of view because it can fail if it is abused by those who have achieved the power to do so.

From a practical standpoint, a publicly owned banking system run as a service to the citizens of a political state seems the most tenable near-term solution.  I 'one world currency' with no cash alternative is, I fear, the most likely near term outcome however.

A good way to get exceedingly wealthy is to trade millions of personal tragedies (cancers, birth defects, etc) distributed throught a large population for a concentrated reward that ends up in the pockets of you and a small group of similar friends.  For an added bonus, reduce down the tax burden (aka 'financial violence') to zero, or even better, get the plebs to subsidize you with their taxes.  Such a sweet deal, when achieved, is well worth fighting to maintain.

The Pauls give every indication of believing everything they say.  It's some combination of laudable, amusing, and pathetic.


Whether accident or design the end result is the same.