Is the fed inflating bitcoin to crash it?

[Qoheleth]

If an established capital-holder (NSA, Joe Billionaire, whoever) really wanted to kill Bitcoin, there would be far better ways to do it. For instance, they could build a supercomputer to execute 51% attacks and difficulty fluctuations, making BTC transfers uncertain and eroding confidence in the core premise of the technology (that honest nodes can outvote a conspiracy) while using the generated coins to short like mad.

Trying to kill Bitcoin by "moving the price around" is ridiculous when so much of the usecase doesn't even care what the price is.

[Piper67]

Also, since the exchange in China seems to be leading the charge for the last few days, the Fed is either not involved or into some weird cloak and dagger shit.

[zarl]

If an established capital-holder (NSA, Joe Billionaire, whoever) really wanted to kill Bitcoin, there would be far better ways to do it. For instance, they could build a supercomputer to execute 51% attacks and difficulty fluctuations, making BTC transfers uncertain and eroding confidence in the core premise of the technology (that honest nodes can outvote a conspiracy) while using the generated coins to short like mad.

Trying to kill Bitcoin by "moving the price around" is ridiculous when so much of the usecase doesn't even care what the price is.

51% attacks , does this mean they need to have 51% of the excisting coins.. to do that ?

[DeathAndTaxes]

No. This is not what the feds do. Imagine the firing if it came out that tax dollars were used this way.

The Federal Reserve has as much to do with the Federal government as Federal Express.
Funny how many people don't realize that the Federal Reserve is a private cartel of banks which operates completely outside the control of the US government.
The Federal Reserve doesn't use taxpayer money to buy assets, they simply magic new money out of thin air and buy "stuff" with it.  When the Federal Reserves says they are buying $85B worth of MBS each month it means they magically created $85B and exchange that newly created money for the MBS they are buying.  


An idea of the scale of printing we are talking about ...



Yup $2T created out of think air and used to buy assets (to drive prices up and yields down).

[Qoheleth]

51% attacks , does this mean they need to have 51% of the excisting coins.. to do that ?

No. It means they need to have 51% of the computing power used of mining.

I'm not sure how much of the technology behind Bitcoin you understand, so I'll try to explain it simply. The big feature of Bitcoin is that when you send someone your coins, the transfer is unambiguous and impossible to undo. But the reason that works is because of Bitcoin miners, who make their computers do busywork in order to "vote" on the order in which they saw transactions occur. Thus, in order to fork the blockchain, or undo a transaction, or stuff like that, an attacker would need enough mining power (computers doing busywork) to outvote everyone else. Under normal circumstances, it's reasonable to assume that this would be infeasibly hard.

But if you have an attacker who is willing and able to sink huge amounts of money into an ASIC-based supercomputer before the honest miners have adopted ASICs themselves, they could break that assumption.

[zarl]

ok .. not i not understand the complex tech behind it
Thanks for explaining .. Qoheleth

[RodeoX]

No. This is not what the feds do. Imagine the firing if it came out that tax dollars were used this way.

The Federal Reserve has as much to do with the Federal government as Federal Express.
Funny how many people don't realize that the Federal Reserve is a private cartel of banks which operates completely outside the control of the US government.
The Federal Reserve doesn't use taxpayer money to buy assets, they simply magic new money out of thin air and buy "stuff" with it.  When the Federal Reserves says they are buying $85B worth of MBS each month it means they magically created $85B and exchange that newly created money for the MBS they are buying.  


An idea of the scale of printing we are talking about ...



Yup $2T created out of think air and used to buy assets (to drive prices up and yields down).

I do know that the reserve is not a gov agency. But nor are they divorced from the federal gov. I'm just saying that they would not be involved with some kind of "crush bitcoin operation". Especially by printing money at a loss to taxpayers.

[crazy_rabbit]

I normally don't go in for conspiracy theories like this, but this isn't the first time I hear this rumor. That said, when I heard it, the name mentioned was the ECB, the fed seems like they don't care. The ECB on the other hand has a reputation that is spiraling out of control.

[deadweasel]

No. This is not what the feds do. Imagine the firing if it came out that tax dollars were used this way.

The Federal Reserve has as much to do with the Federal government as Federal Express.
Funny how many people don't realize that the Federal Reserve is a private cartel of banks which operates completely outside the control of the US government.
The Federal Reserve doesn't use taxpayer money to buy assets, they simply magic new money out of thin air and buy "stuff" with it.  When the Federal Reserves says they are buying $85B worth of MBS each month it means they magically created $85B and exchange that newly created money for the MBS they are buying.  


An idea of the scale of printing we are talking about ...



Yup $2T created out of think air and used to buy assets (to drive prices up and yields down).

I do know that the reserve is not a gov agency. But nor are they divorced from the federal gov. I'm just saying that they would not be involved with some kind of "crush bitcoin operation". Especially by printing money at a loss to taxpayers.

they might actually...  but not yet.