It is not quite as bad, but you often see similar things in medical research.  The people doing it don't understand the math and then screw up the analysis.  

This, though, is much worse since it is like saying "Researcher says true could be false."  It is absolute nonsense, but many of these "publications" seem to have the goal solely of creating clickbait content.

The worst thing is the author holds himself out as an expert and is teaching classes about "blockchain":
"Michael lives in New York. He has been working in the blockchain space since 2015, founding, advising, speaking and writing. He currently teaches a blockchain course that he designed for MBA and master’s students at Pace University, and he mentors startups at the Columbia University-IBM Blockchain Accelerator."

His students need at least a partial refund.

There is a difference between funds up to 100K being guaranteed and between funds being taken above a certain limit to pay a country's debts.  A huge one - it is the difference between a bank making bad decisions and politicians doing so.  And if I recall from the thread (it has been quite a while since I read it), he stated later they had the account for working capital - e.g. paying salaries for their employees etc.  Nothing shady, just money used for operations.

And the guy you replied to looks to be a link spammer anyway given the look of his 4 posts.

All true. They will definitely talk their book.  Look at McAfee as an example who admitted it. 

These guys want money and power and are willing to do practically anything to get it.

This group wants (and has currently) power over the money supply via the Fed in the US and similar institutions around the world.  They can surreptitiously steal a few percent of everyone's wealth every year forever and most people don't notice the hidden tax of inflation.  When you are talking about trillions in assets, that adds up quite quickly.  Not to mention, they have the power to create money at will and lend it to favored groups, politicians etc.  Anyone that can be bought and then control a huge government.

This is why bitcoin is critical, it prevents the power-hungry politicians from controlling people and stealing from them.

Many politicians, particularly the ones who are in it for money and power over other people, will do anything within the law or without the law to defeat the people who want liberty.  Look at how far some of the politicians went to defeat Trump in 2016 and then again to delegitimize him after he won.  They were willing to break the law to "unmask" people, attempt to entrap people, lie to the people in public (e.g. Clapper and Brennan - based on the congressional testimony which was opposite what they were saying on CNN/MSNBC etc).  

Perhaps I misread it, but I didn't see him advocating elimination bitcoin, merely stating he thinks some governments will (attempt) to do that. Merely because you see something as a potential event, doesn't mean you necessarily agree with it.    Eg, suppose you saw that because the US Congress legislated that mortgage borrowers could borrow money with a lower credit score there would be a financial crisis.  That wouldn't imply you thought interference was a good thing.

Maybe there was more to the interview showing whether he thought that was a positive or negative.

The title is wrong - it was trademarked, not patented.

At least in the US, you have to specify the area where the trademark applies.  E.g. I could trademark "Apple lawn care" without impacting Apple Inc's trademark for electronics.  I presume it is similar in Spain.

lol.  Those pics are worth 1000 words. 

PayPal getting involved in BTC at this point seems pretty unlikely given the KYC requirements.  While they no doubt do know their customers, the difference between PayPal and, say, Coinbase in the KYC requirements seems huge.  (I haven't had to register for either in quite some time so perhaps that has changed).

My only quibble with that quotation is the no one should want to live under either.  Fascism, socialism, communism, "social democracy", authoritarianism, collectivism etc are all very similar, just substituting who is doing the controlling.  A limited, constitutional republic (with enumerated powers, like in theory the US is supposed to have) protects people's freedoms and rights from tyranny of the majority.

Their answer is: "That is impossible"!  lol. 

How would they hide their corruption then?  How would they hide all the graft?  How would they pay off others to hide what they are doing and retain power?  :-)

So let's get this straight: CSW had no backup, that is no cold storage backup of the private keys.  Does anyone think, given Satoshi's comments about wallet backups on here and elsewhere, that Satoshi (a) had his private keys online, and (b) had no backup?  CSW, yes, he seems like an idiot.  Satoshi, no.

Anyone who believes CSW's BS is just asking to be taken for a ride.

Bitcoin has the potential to destroy the ability of authoritarians and collectivists - whether socialist, fascist, communist, totalitarian, any of that group - to enforce their will upon people who want to be free.  Look at how it helped some people in Cyprus when the establishment gave depositors a haircut.  Look how it can help people in Hong Kong or Taiwan protect their wealth from the Chinese.  Look at how it can help people in the EU, US etc protect their earnings from huge, controlling governments.

Bitcoin has the potential to help reinvigorate civilization, not destroy it, but destroying the myth that one person has the right to use force to make another provide for them.

People want to be free from the control freaks in charge of much of the world today.  Even the US is/was close to electing an anti-liberty President who wants to control everyone and everything (e.g. fascist, socialist, communist, in short, any form of authoritarian or collectivist). 

It isn't a "form of protest" (per the article), it is just people telling other people to leave them alone and stop trying to run their lives.

As Abraham Lincoln said:
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.” - The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

One group believes they have the right to force others to provide for them and Lincoln was right about it being evil and wrong.

It would be interesting to see/know if 1200 years from now that will still be the case.

Perhaps Hal Finney will be able to find out the answer - https://www.alcor.org/blog/hal-finney-becomes-alcors-128th-patient/

It wouldn't surprise me if it hit between $20,000 and $40,000 within the next 12 months (e.g. June 2021) given increasing demand, the halving, and increasing use cases.   It wouldn't surprise me either if it was double that.  

The thing is that no one knows, if they did, they could short it now or buy it up now and the price would reach the point sooner than they "knew".  It is entertaining to speculate, but that is all it is, speculation as to the future.

The information about Grayscale absorbing 25% of the annual new supply is important.  If an ETF is approved ever, just think about the supply it will need.  It will be a tremendous amount if one or more ETFs are approved in the US, let alone if similar vehicles are approved around the world.  Sure, people can buy individual coins and they do, but if you are sitting at the computer and want to buy $10,000 of bitcoin in your IRA at anything close to the spot price, it is a royal PITA.  And ETF opens worlds of possibilities, so whenever it happens, it will have a big impact.

It is always important to remember that prices are set at the margin, so the halving in new supply plus even a small increase in demand can have an outsized impact on price.

The SEC needs to think about this.  Sure, there could have been (and may still be) manipulation of the BTC fiat price on some exchanges, but ETF demand will dwarf much of the exchange demand and as ETFs come online, the ETF price will be more likely to impact the exchange price than the opposite.  The SEC has it backwards over any reasonable timeframe.

As far as McAfee - Carlton is exactly right.

McAfee and his comments are just idiotic.   "Ancient technology," "worthless," "least used" just shows his own lack of technical understanding not to mention understanding of the genesis of bitcoin.  The rest of the crypto-sphere is extremely centralized, one person (or a very small group) can pretty much control most (perhaps even all) other cryptos.  Look at the ether split from a few years ago.

He just likes trolling people and getting press.

With more use cases, more widespread ownership etc, yes.  It may not occur for another order of magnitude or two in fiat price though.  e.g. It won't be stable at this price.  ETFs and similar vehicles enabling widespread ownership will help.  A need for truly censorship resistant money will help - Venezuela, NK, China/HK are great examples for where it is needed.

As if there was any doubt to this.  The thought that CW was Satoshi was ludicrous on the face of it.

I still haven't seen any confirmation or denial yet regarding the JPM bitcoin stuff, so I'd think that in all likelihood it is true.  Often companies are much more likely to deny false information vs confirm true info.

Regarding the news section of the WSJ, it is quite left-center biased, but you are correct, some of the conclusions should be taken with a few grains of salt.  Often, but not always, the news section is pretty fact based although the news section has ignored facts that have been presented and documented elsewhere in the WSJ.

I wouldn't count on it short term.  Long term, much more likely.

It was nice to see the block pop up on the CLI.  Watching for a block is kind of like watching grass grow, but I've watched all three now just because it is an interesting and perhaps historical thing.

One thing that could provide it *if* the world were in depression is people who want to protect their assets from the insane amount of money printing that would then be occurring.  Heck, it is occurring now, but one suspects it would grow even more in the event of more distress.


However, I think that continued usage and tech improvements along with the halving of new supply is probably sufficient to support an increased price over the longer term.