2013-03-23: Keiser Report episode E422 - Is Bitcoin a ponzi scheme?

[MaxCoins]

Brief discussion with Marc Hochstein of AmericanBanker.com starts at the 12:50 minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eooVb1J9U&feature=youtu.be

[MaxCoins]

Further discussion about Bitcoin starts at 23:00 minute mark.

[cypherdoc]

Way to go max.   He just slaughtered the big banks.

[odolvlobo]

I'm very happy that they discussed bitcoin as payment system. That aspect is usually forgotten because of the price of BTC going up so much, even though it is the most important feature of bitcoin.

[cypherdoc]

Whats exceedingly positive is that this American  Banker editor is so positive on bitcoin.

This is his second interview on this.

That's pretty extraordinary.

[smoothie]

Looks like slowly the concept of bitcoin is getting understood by people. When people bring their guard down a little, do a little reading they then see that bitcoin has its merits.

[Zomdifros]

I'm very happy that they discussed bitcoin as payment system. That aspect is usually forgotten because of the price of BTC going up so much, even though it is the most important feature of bitcoin.

I have to disagree on that one, I believe Bitcoin as a currency has far more value than Bitcoin as a payment service. It's just not convenient enough to be a very practical when you only want to make a payment (compared to services like iDeal for instance) but it's one of a kind when you want to store wealth.

[Ivica]

It's kind of like when you ask people you know - "have you heard of bitcoin" and they answer like...
Case 1) What is somecoin? Never heard of it.
Case 2) Ah, that ponzi scheme?
Case 3) Decentralized digital currency?

I haven't heard #3 from anyone irl yet.

[Vladimir]

Bitcoin is many things but none of those things alone.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is simultaneously:
- Currency;
- Commodity;
- Store of Value;
- "Meta Stock" representing a share in Bitcoin Economy. Imagine that there are 100 000 geniuses not sleeping at night in their garages creating the future of money and you can buy a stake in this "startup" simply by buying bitcoins;
- Payment system;
- Messaging system;
- Accounting system;
- Time stamping system;
- Loads of things that could be built on top of Bitcoin protocol, such as smart contracts/property, for example;
- I might have forgotten something...
 

[smoothie]

Bitcoin is many things but none of those things alone.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is simultaneously:
- Currency;
- Commodity;
- Store of Value;
- "Meta Stock" representing a share in Bitcoin Economy. Imagine that there are 100 000 geniuses not sleeping at night in their garages creating the future of money and you can buy a stake in this "startup" simply by buying bitcoins;
- Payment system;
- Messaging system;
- Accounting system;
- Time stamping system;
- Loads of things that could be built on top of Bitcoin protocol, such as smart contracts/property, for example;
- I might have forgotten something...
 

Care to elaborate on the bold and how that would work in theory.

[Vladimir]

google "smart contracts bitcoin"

Also Mike Hearn did a great presentation on this during London Conference 2012 there should be videos of it somewhere.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Whats exceedingly positive is that this American  Banker editor is so positive on bitcoin.

This is his second interview on this.

That's pretty extraordinary.

Yeah ... I noticed American Banker magazine has been out in front of this for quite some time (a year already?). I guess we now know why, this Hochstein guy is switched on.

Edit: Just watched it right through, Marc Hochstein is excellent. Very encouraging to hear that the ~7000 SME bankers out there are furious with what is taking place in Washington/NY and they recognise financial privacy as essential to a well functioning economy/society. Hopefully a potential lot of allies in the good fight.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Bitcoin is many things but none of those things alone.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is simultaneously:
- Currency;
- Commodity;
- Store of Value;
- "Meta Stock" representing a share in Bitcoin Economy. Imagine that there are 100 000 geniuses not sleeping at night in their garages creating the future of money and you can buy a stake in this "startup" simply by buying bitcoins;
- Payment system;
- Messaging system;
- Accounting system;
- Time stamping system;
- Loads of things that could be built on top of Bitcoin protocol, such as smart contracts/property, for example;
- I might have forgotten something...
 

First secured distributed database technology.

[cypherdoc]

Whats exceedingly positive is that this American  Banker editor is so positive on bitcoin.

This is his second interview on this.

That's pretty extraordinary.

Yeah ... I noticed American Banker magazine has been out in front of this for quite some time (a year already?). I guess we now know why, this Hochstein guy is switched on.

Good one.

You really saw it switch on almost right away during the lehrer interview with Voorhees.

First few sentences were the usual money laundering bullshit then bam, nothing but admiration.

For a minute there I thought Voorhees had done some sort of Vulcan mind meld or something.

[paraipan]

...
- "Meta Stock" representing a share in Bitcoin Economy. Imagine that there are 100 000 geniuses not sleeping at night in their garages creating the future of money and you can buy a stake in this "startup" simply by buying bitcoins;
...

Love it!