You're probably right. I, too, have long forgone any evangelism. But this chick does care about her financial future, we've been talking money and stocks for a long time, she seemed so helpless... well, I failed and told her.

I'll be sure to poke her some more at 100k. She does deserve it if she doesn't get any btc and clings to her losing strategy of buying stocks and selling at the first dip wondering why she didn't pick the "really magic stock".

I had another chat with my friend, the gal who likes to discuss savings/stock market with me. Classical weak hands type. I wrote about her a while back, on Dec 7, 2020. Price was around the old ATH @19k . (here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg55770951#msg55770951 )

Today she wrote me and started with a message like "Why is Bit coin rising? The government should ban it cuz launder drug money blah blah".

My first replies were curt.  "Bitcoin: one word or you'll sound like a noob. The primary cleaning agent for laundering is USD by far."

Then she said: "I am afraid, blah blah, so many types of bitcoin, how do I buy blah blah"

I was gentler. "Only one kind, ticker is XBT or BTC. The other 'types' look cheaper because they're junk. Don't touch them."

I went on - You need to open an account at an exchange. Try Bitstamp or Kraken. Avoid Coinbase if you can. You'll need to go through KYC/AML, money laundering my ass. Once you have a bunch, you'll need to make yourself a wallet and transfer them into your own possession. Bitcoiners say "Not your keys, not your coins".

Long story short, I held up to her barrage of questions and gave her a crash course. More than anything, I told her to buy and hold. I spelt it wrong, just like this: hold. She's not advanced enough yet to be taught proper spelling. I said it might go down. I'm pretty sure it will go down and you'll suffer. That is when you have to buy more. That's the difference between happy and sad in the long run.

At the end she said "Oh thank you. But you know, call me chicken but I won't."

I'm pretty sure she'll come around. She'll probably want some at 50k. What could I reply to that?

"Of course you're free to do as you please. Bitcoiners say 'Have fun staying poor' "

Can you see the pattern, gents?

First, Mnuchin & co. try to sneak in a rule (with actual power of law) to mandate disclosure of noncustodial wallets - that's the "your keys" part in "not your keys, not your coins". The personal wallets, d'oh. I reposted an invitation to comment while there's time. The time, by the way, is unusually short and goes against established practice and customs. Here's my appeal repost.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg55991999#msg55991999

Then, all privacy coins get an unprecedented wave of delistings. Not only dubious stuff like zcash, but actual solid coins with a history of actual use. I'm talking Monero, my favorite altcoin personally.

I support kurious's idea of boycotting exchanges that delist legitimate coins without a reason. Were they really served with a gag order? We will likely never know, but the whole thing smells funny. I don't like it a bit.


+1 WOsMerit.

I wish I had some 'boring' smerits to give, but it's not that important. It's important that we act a little, at least to let somebody know we are not pleased with this state of affairs. One day we will be more influent, and we won't forget.

+1 WOsMerit

We pay them with money and privileges so they can help us.
Never forget.

I wish they could be held responsible for f***ing up. I mean criminally and civilly responsible. The only language humans really understand.

And these. Heed Millionero's call, boys!

Can't merit, I'm out.

+1 WOsMerit.

Leave an articulate comment there, bros! I already did.

Arrie... Arrie... your friend shouldn't play with fire if he doesn't know what he's doing (I assume it's a he).

"Never mind the bollocks"  
I just shot some sexist humor at her, after making sure the "humor" part was deserved. As for the NPC sexism... the world is a cruel place, more so if you're an arrogant idiot.

"General pundit"... that bit triggered me. In the quality of a "General" pundit, could you please summarize "General Relativity" for us without using superior math? All right, I agree it's too hard a question. You're allowed to use complicated math if you really need it. 

Oh the BS on twitter...

I can understand Coindesk, often full of garbage. But the Economist?? She really must have hidden skills.

Yes I can see that.


She forgot to mention "arrogant as few".

Someone ought to tell her that's NOT how you're supposed to use a microphone. That's not "singing", madam! Ehmm...
Luckily it was a sturdy MD421. Quite a big mic.

Is she the CEO of something? Maybe an investment fund? Just asking. If so, I can guess how she got there.

I suspect This Time Is Different(TM) in this regard, too: google searches should correlate less than they used to, because most of the public is more aware now than they used to be in the 2017 bull. I might be totally off track, though.

Excellent read, thanks Wekkel.

Echo chamber gung-ho and btc fanatism aside, the scenario portrayed is gloomy but plausible. If all the predictions made in that paper come true, there will be gangs of starving bandits raiding cities and country. The citadel model - à la Snow Crash - cannot hold, unless we develop and deploy atomic guard dogs soon (Boston Dynamics, hellooo?).

I hope he's only half right. Even with bitcoin to the moon, we might be better off in a world that still makes sense.

2021 will be as interesting as 2020. Let's hope it leads us in a different direction.

+1 WOsMerit.

Oops... it's "thank you" in English  

Not even a zero in the hash. Well, one. That node's got problems for sure.

I would do it immediately. As in "right now, or I might change my mind tomorrow." 

I agree they won't be satisfied, that's why I jumped straight to rehypothecation 

The only thing I can think right now, off the top of my head, is moving the coins to a multisig where the original creditor (the first ETF buyer in my example) can veto any movement; for example, a 2-of-2.

Which leads to the logically consequent question - is there anything in the protocol, or some new software layer in the works - that can provide proof of non-hypothecation?

I'm sure that given the ongoing custom - habits are hard to break - most of the traditional finance world won't take "move inflation the other way - to the right of the decimal dot" so easily. They'd rather rehypothecate, as they are doing for gold and for derivatives based on gold (basically paper money). This is as close to double spending as you can get with btc - through a layer of obfuscating paper. Much too close for my taste.

Once TPTB have their hands on bitcoin, they will come up with new and ingenious ways to keep doing old, disingenuous deeds. One way to avoid that would be a simple way to make sure each satoshi is only hypothecated once, if at all.

Example: I buy a bitcoin ETF, "bakt" by the RealThing. Good. Now I want to know the public address of the btc backing my ETF, and be sure it only backs my shares, not someone else's too. And a loan. And some enterprise capital in some other firm. If such information is easy to find automatically, we can be relatively sure that there will be stern laws against re-hypothecation, and they will be inflexibly enforced.

This guy could even be one clever WO-er!