Ethernet just celebrated its 40th birthday and its history is arguably a better analog for bitcoin and the alts than say myspace versus facebook. It was up against Big Blue's token ring and IBM was the Fed of the computer industry at the time. IBM even commissioned professors to write papers suggesting that ethernet wasn't feasible for commercial use, but happily ethernet eventually won over and it marked the first major kick in the nuts for IBM's influence and hegemony (Microsoft and Compaq later took out further chunks). Ethernet was also a decentralized architecture and beyond interacting with the layers below and above it, it didn't care much about anything. It just provided a solid and pervasive framework. Open source didn't really exist back then and ethernet was licensed but it was much cheaper than token ring. The major reason ethernet prevailed was because it was up against only IBM and there wasn't much else in the way of noise. In a way, I think Bitcoin could have benefitted from a more restrictive licensing agreement, whilst still remaining open source. Sidechain developments may indeed be complementary but the alts are mostly an expensive and divisive distraction imo, even though there are some very promising ideas.  

Nice and short presentation from Mike Maloney that shows stock prices heading upwards while volume is decreasing. 

http://hiddensecretsofmoney.com/blog/massive-market-divergence-mike-maloney

International Man: "A Former SWIFT Insider on Financial Warfare, the Fate of the Dollar, and Bitcoin"

To be honest he doesn't say much about bitcoin aside from its potential to be disruptive to the banking industry, but the brief history of SWIFT is well worth reading.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/a-former-swift-insider-on-financial-warfare-the-fate-of-the-dollar-and-bitc

"Tjerk Veenstra: I like to refer to SWIFT as the dot-com of the 1970s, when it was conceived in Europe. Building SWIFT in the 1970s was like building an Internet for the global banking system decades before the actual Internet was available. Back then, communications systems were telephone and telex systems and nothing else."

They shouldn't be called markets anymore.

Yup. It would be an interesting exercise to look at the last seven years of DOW history and work out on days when it was both down and falling at 3.30pm what you would make if you had invested at ~3.35pm and then pulled out at ~3.55pm.

I'm guessing the <CTL> P key on the Fed's keyboard is looking a little worn out. 

That was a nice call on 16K you made earlier. The fed is the only thing between DOW 16k and DOW 3K, where it should probably be about now. I'm pretty sure they'll keep it above 16K today but they're going to be busy tonight wondering what the hell to do in Asia and Europe. Every time the DOW dips, someone is moving significant money out and the fed is pumping money back in using one of its many hidden channels. I wonder where the money that's taken out is being parked.

That was a great read. The USD, which is probably the biggest traded and used "item" worldwide, is manipulated as hell and anything that is traded in USD - which is just about everything - has no real chance of price discovery. I have seen 10+ valid explanations for the drop in the price of oil, but because the world of finance is so fucked up, not a single economist/analyst has suggested it may be simply supply and demand, which could also be a valid reason. I wonder if bitcoins became as ubiquitous as the USD whether things would change.

The article reminded of a something a lecturer said from when I was learning Pascal, many eons ago: "In order to fully understand recursion, first you must fully understand recursion." 

Normally the Fed doesn't allow the markets to end a Friday on a down note. There's not much data around today and after the last three days of panic and after nasty sessions in Asia and Europe the only way the US markets should end is down. The fed has made noises about not interfering and if they don't there's not much to hold the indices up. If the markets start the session heading down and the fed doesn't step in then it could be an ugly day. I can't really believe the fed will keep their fingers out of the pie but we'll know in a few hours.

I haven't been to thailand in 20 years. But I keep seeing condos on offer in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya. Some of them look really nice but I would be suspect about the build quality. If prices take a tumble I may go have a look. People also keep telling me to check out Spain and Croatia too because Spain in particular went apeshit building new properties and then demand fell off a cliff. Soon it may be a great time to have cash in hand.

The bulk of that money is disappearing into the black hole otherwise known as the banks' balance sheets. Which is probably north of $300T so it's only the comparatively smaller chunks that show up in the mainstream economy, causing mild inflation in the US. Some of the inflation that would otherwise show up is being exported courtesy of the Fed, especially to Asia. Frothy real estate markets like Singapore, Shanghai, HK, Sydney are starting to show some cracks at the high end with failed auctions. But high-end art and collectibles are still selling well. Despite what the fed mouthpieces are saying I don't see any way they can end QE(ternity) without a complete collapse, although they may sneak it in via another bs program. I think all we need now is a black swan to really kick things into gear. Ebola?

As a teaching/learning aid for crypto, logic etc this thing would rock. It's a seriously cool idea imo.

Agreed. I thought I would watch the first 10 minutes or so but I ended up watching the whole thing. I wonder if Ben Lawsky will also watch it and what his reaction will be.

"I can certainly entertain the manipulation idea.  And the 35k dump/wall on a Sunday was odd in the extreme.  I do not think that it was eaten by its owner, is all, for the reasons I have stated.  Thanks for this  great thread, btw.   Not sure how it got this big before I noticed it"

This type of discussion/conjecture is damn' useful for recognizing the symptoms the next time it happens.  

Shorting any financial asset is a valid and usually very risky speculative strategy. In the case of gold, it needs a massive amount of money and, in order to negate the risk, zero fear of losing that money. The only entities that are in that position are central banks. But aside from governments and banks, who else would be interested in driving down the price of bitcoin to the extent that it might ultimately kill off the golden goose? And more importantly, who else would have both the money/means and motive to do so? This feels more like a slow and steady attack on bitcoin's core rather than shorting for long term profit. Perhaps I'm being paranoid.

Cypher is a forgiving person and having all your eggs in one virtual basket is always risky.

I read a quote from Eric Sprott the other day that silver from a mine delivered costs $22-25 per oz, with some caveats like recycled silver and silver produced as a by-product of other mines. I'm guessing gold is in a similar situation. Physical PM sales in September were double that of previous months and the sales came from existing stock because the production of coins at places like the US mint is below current demand. But in the PM arena physical demand/supply has no bearing on the paper price. Apple purportedly makes 20-30% profit on each iphone. If they were taking a 20% loss per unit then either Apple would go broke or they would have to raise the price. It would be logical to think that PM miners will need higher prices or face going broke but logic also doesn't play a huge part in financial markets these days. Either way, you could make a reasonable case for silver right now imo.

Yep. We're each responsible for our financial bets. I like silver just for its industrial use but the physical purchase of coins in the last few weeks indicates to me it has some legs.

Cypher, what are your thoughts on short term silver? I want to take a longer term position but short term I'm still worried.

The price of silver got slammed in September, as sales of 1oz American Eagles doubled at the US Mint. Sales of 1oz gold coins went from 21,000 in August to 50,000 in September. 

Sales figures for 1oz Silver coins via the US Mint. The October figures are probably September sales that didn't get reported.
 
July             1,975,000
August     2,007,500
September  4,140,000
October     1,150,000