Sergio's post at the end of page 3 hit the nail on the head. Gmax and D&T have a massive horse in this race and are in no way objective about this. He (gmaxwell) is using the same argument he used with me some 2 years ago in IRC. "ohh but the but the processors were so slow in 2009 there's no way it was just satoshi" even though the facts pretty much fly in the face of this. It's not like that crypto mailing list is very active. The bitcoin release had what, 15-20 replies from about 5 different people? Difficulty of 1 is 7MH/s and the average power between blocks 1-32k was less than 7MH/s because the avg. block time was 13 minutes or so. The block time is fairly consistent from the beginning of that period to the end, indicating that about the same number of people who mined bitcoin from the start were the same group mining until a few more started coming on in around blocks 32-36k.

Arguing that satoshi had a lower bound hashrate of 14kh/s in 2009 based on the first two or three blocks? Incredibly naive for someone who has a deep understanding of bitcoin. I'd argue the intent of that post is entirely to deceive.

el oh el

Not really the whole point, especially considering it's not the part that bitcoin uses-- non-repudiation

Then perhaps you should read before making judgment? Just a thought. Mining and tx security are separate. If you do something bad in regards to tx security, you lose your deposit. No trust is required, proof is by digital signature.

I've already described in detail a system that does not require proof of work at all for network security in my signature. Instead of it being based on a weak PKI infrastructure, those who wish to create blocks put a large chunk of money on the line as collateral that they will not create more than one block or do anything else nefarious or they will lose their deposit. In return, the tx fees are split among those who perform the network security. It is also based around confirming transactions every 10 seconds rather than minutes.

this'll be pretty hard to do unless you help.. like say does v2 mean "version two"?

methinks the lady doth protest too much

It's called SolidCoin and/or Microcash. Current number of people using it: probably about 3.

I'm not sure how I could've written a more sarcastic post considering it had already happened... 

Yes, it was, because it was in the opinion of some of the founding fathers that it should be illegal for the federal government to issue credit-based money. That is why the three post-constitution central banks of the United States were all set up as "private banks". The federal government has the right to coin money, but the right to issue credit money was actually intentionally scrapped from the constitution. This information is historically available.


Hardly. It was within a couple of years of the constitution's ratification that the first bank was born.


Credit money is created in banks. Base money is created by the federal reserve. Without an increase in base money, credit money cannot expand, therefore the federal reserve has ultimate control over how much the money supply can expand--ergo it ultimately is in charge of issuing money. Since congress is in charge of determining whether or not the federal reserve is performing its capacity at an acceptable level and has the ability to dissolve it in favor of a new system, congress is ultimately in charge of the monetary system.


In other words, politicians are corrupt, yada yada yada here's a currency that is primarily issued by the wealthy, join up, we're less corrupt I promise

I think you mean odolvlobo has the post that most closely agrees with the agenda you want to promote in this thread--that being stupid shit like risk of US default. The US is a sovereign nation with a sovereign currency and cannot default unless it fricken damn well wants to. Otherwise there is absolutely no chance. The crap about the debt ceiling is just the latest political toy that you obviously let the media spoon-feed to you, and with relish, without critically thinking about any of it. Stop being the exact reason why we have such a shitty system in the first place.

Abolishing the fed would not be a default. Read more on how the fed interacts with the treasury--the government can not default to the fed. The debt owned by the fed is just a matter of account, it is of no actual consequence. This information tends to get lost in the sensationalization of the federal reserve system.

No, it does not. That is a laughable presumption; congress can abolish the fed whenever it so chooses.

Please It does exactly what the federal government needs it to do--it most certainly will not allow for a default. The general policy decisions may be up to vote, but do not mistake this for being independent of the federal government. It is not and was never intended to be.

You have a big misunderstanding of how the US monetary system works.

Option B won't happen because the Fed isn't some independently operated private bank, it is a private bank run by the federal government. A stupid distinction from a public central bank, but a necessary one due to the constitution. Option C is what already happens on a regular basis.

Politicians do not need to do diddly squat about addressing the national debt. The more they spend the more resources of the economy are diverted towards the government's interest. Whether or not people are willing to put up with what the government thinks is the best way to shape society is a political problem, not a monetary one.

You can be sure that the government and the fed will do what it takes to keep the money system running smoothly--so this sky is falling shit is getting silly. The CNN article you linked aptly points out that all this is is a PR problem, there is no danger of anything relevant happening.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's a monetary scheme, but thanks for reminding us about Pirate because that would have been obscure otherwise.

feel free to take a look at the link in my sig, although the ideas have evolved a decent bit since then too

Carefully read what I wrote and try again. I am trying to neutrally define a term without any accompanying effect, not deny an effect happening.

From your OP on money supply deflation:
"so you have sort of a "deflationary effect" in the value, as long as more exchange occurs for BTC at a rate which is faster than that set generation rate."

You are doing the same thing as the keynesian definition but to the opposite effect.

*I* am not claiming that money supply inflation has an effect one way or the other. *I* am defining a term without judgment or predilection. Before you can determine a value or a change in value, you need to know the demand or change in demand. The terms "money supply inflation" or "money supply deflation", in the clearest sense of the words, can only mean an increase or decrease in the money supply. That's the whole point of writing "money supply" in front of the words. Unfortunately and less clearly, "money supply" can mean the total number of individual undivided units (including the money multiplier for most measurements), or it can mean those units in circulation (this one, more often than not).

Either way, it is not a measurement of value. An example of the "right" way to use these terms:

The Fed expanded the money supply by 3.6% last year. That money supply inflation is believed to have caused most of the 3.1% price inflation over the same time frame, leaving 0.5% to real growth.

See how clear and direct that statement was? That's because cause and effect are clearly portrayed, and they can also be clearly argued for or against if necessary. The sentence asks, "do you have better data to refute this claim?" not "what kind of fuzzy logic can you come up with to confuse the average joe?" like what happens when the words inflation and deflation are tossed around naked.

To top this off: there are plenty of periods that actually exist in history where you could make this statement "The fed expanded the money supply by x% last year. That money supply inflation is believed to helped encourage the x+1% growth over the same period." Maybe they're not as common, maybe it's a sign of a bubble, but the fact remains that you cannot say for certain that the same cause always has the same effect. There are WAY TOO MANY VARIABLES. In the same vein, you can't be sure the same effect has the same cause. So the cause has to be separate, without bias and analyzed on its own merit.

By separating out money supply inflation/deflation vs. price inflation/deflation, your goal should be to clearly and simply define those terms--then use them to make the statement that you want to make (and make an attempt at being unbiased--do not make guarantees), not make your statement within the definitions. It is dishonest otherwise, but perhaps just misguided.

Fed pays profit to treasury.


I'm sure you can figure out something worthwhile to google. When all else fails, wikipedia:

"The U.S. Government receives all of the system's annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid, and an account surplus is maintained. In 2010, the Federal Reserve made a profit of $82 billion and transferred $79 billion to the U.S. Treasury.[22] This was followed at the end of 2011 with a transfer of $77 billion in profits to the U.S. Treasury Department.[23]"


But you can't remove the government spending element. When the economy goes bad, governments spend money like it's going out of style. Even if 50% goes to the top 20% and 50% goes to the bottom 80%, that bottom 80% received a much larger boost to its bottom line. Economies can't function well when the rich have too much money, but the rich seem to keep forgetting that. If the government wants to stay in power, it won't forget for too long.

And that is what I said and you denied it as if gold is any different. It's not.


No, the problem now is that banks lent recklessly. Housing does not lead to real growth, housing bubbles caused by the all too easy flow of money from the banks into housing leads to a monetary growth bubble and collapse. There's a reason why I used the word innovation several times. Stop thinking so narrowly. While the internet bubble and burst was a bubble, it still changed the world as we know it for the better. The sting was mild, and the innovative players shone through. The housing bubble was nothing but a wealth transfer.


It's an oversimplification and doesn't prove anything. You seemed to have missed the whole point I mentioned where government spending is putting "loan-only" money into society with a loan it pays interest on mostly to itself. Keeping this out of the equation makes your scenarios flawed. If the creditors get frightened, the government can always (well, almost, as long as the money is sovereign, lol europe) spend more to ease credit crises. Yes the cycle continues, but politicians are essentially paid to keep it that way by the powerful.

It may be an accounting trick, but it absolutely expands the money supply when two or more people can claim the same gold. Gold just puts the brakes on government spending, it doesn't solve personal debt that you worry so much about.


Not expand continuously, expand ever. If you ever want innovation from someone other than the rich, you need to expand the money supply when the need arises, or there will be no class movement at all. The "continuous growth" of modern economies is primarily a fiction that is encouraged due to the nature of fiat and governments. That doesn't mean that there are not periods where growth is real, and the money supply needs to respond to it.


It is a system that works reasonably well as long money flows, and flows to reasonable areas, something banks are supposed to be good judges of. That is, after all, why we are supposed to be giving them the privilege of holding all of our money and earning interest. It is the banks abusing that privilege that causes the system to shock, not the fact that debt exists. And it is the politicians that are so easily bribed into doing things that are favorable to the banks. This again is not an issue of debt, it is an issue of corruption of the monetary system. The fact that the system is corruptible is a big problem, but what do you expect when you give that sort of control to a few people?