Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[justusranvier]

Since when Wall Observer thread became Politics & Society?

Wall Observer thread is secretly the forum lounge thread.

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[romneymoney]

How does one calculate and mitigate external impact in a free market without some governing body and regulations?

It is more profitable for a widget factory to dump the chemicals and other waste they produce into a river than to pay to have it hauled away.  However there is an impact on everyone downstream from them, maybe worldwide if they happen to destroy a Salmon fishery or some other critical thing.
There are plenty of examples of similar basically everywhere you see regulation.
I'm not saying the current systems are right or fair or the best way to do it, but we ended up here because the free-for-all wasn't working out so well for actual people.

[xyzzy099]

You may have discussed some of these principles with someone on this forum.  It was not me.

I see it exactly the opposite way from you:  The regulations you believe are necessary for a free market (ironic, if you think about it) are always and everywhere used to subvert market forces, and give preference to whichever entity has the most political control over the 'regulators'.

Yeah, sorry, it must have been in some other thread.

The "free" in capitalism's "free market" does  not mean "free from regulations", but rather that "suppliers and customers can freely choose each other, and new suppliers and customers can freely enter the market if it seems advantageous to them". Thus, even a highly regulated market can be free as long the regulations do not prevent the entry of competitors.  Theory says that such a free market will tend to achieve a fair price -- cost plus a small percentage of proft -- that makes it as profitable as any other market.

However, a strong government and proper regulation is necessary to keep a market free; because otherwise the leading suppliers will use their position to keep competition away, e.g. by dumping, controlling the supply of raw materials, false advertising, lobbying for exclusive laws, etc.. Without adequate antitrust and consumer protection laws, every market quickly becomes  a monopoly or oligopoly, that converges to a price that will maximize the suppliers' net revenue -- usually much higher than the fair price of a free market.

I think the point I am failing to convey to you is that government and regulation pose EXACTLY the same threat that you ascribe solely to the market participants.  Yes, it is theoretically possible for a regulated market to be a free market, but we need only to observe the real world we live in to see that that never really happens.

I believe that we live in a world that is not painted purely in swaths of black and white.  The truth rarely lies in absolutes at either end of any spectrum.

I agree with you that bad actors in the economy would subvert free markets if allowed to do so, BUT so will their agents, the government, if empowered to do so.

Total freedom in the sense of absolutely no restraint, is certainly never desirable...  My need for individual liberty does not demand that I have the freedom to coerce and murder, and economic entities should certainly be held to the same standard.  THAT is the problem that needs to be solved: how do we prevent the players in the game from bending the rules in their own favor, thus cheating the other participants?  The answer is surely not as simple as government regulation - that is just another cheating mechanism.

I don't claim to know what the ideal answer is.  I imagine that there probably is no ideal answer, really.  But I do know that empowering regulators is just arming the enemy.

We need to find the sweet spot...  We need to cut through the vast web of regulations that have become the worst part of the problem, while still requiring the players to play fair.

It's not a trivial task, and the answer is not going to be something you can put on a bumper sticker or into a sound bite.  And it won't be yet more government regulation either.

[xyzzy099]

The blockchain, is that entity, it is public open and imitable, you voluntarily adhere to the rules and reap all the rewords of corporation in the market,  or you don't.

I definitely agree with this - this is the fundamental basis of my interest in Bitcoin.

[aminorex]

The eventual approval of the COIN fund is obviously likely to increase the price.  However, the magnitude of the increase does not seem so easy to predict.  Some complicating factors:

(1) I expect that, at first, the fund will buy the bitcoins that it needs from the Winklevosses and other investors like Tim Draper (and the eventual DPR  coins auction).  That is presumably why the Winklevosses are after that fund.  So the demand on the exchanges is likely to be indirect, from people who expect the price to rise because of the ETF, rather than from buys by the ETF itself.

(2) Granted that SMBIT and PBP are less glamourous than COIN, but they do not seem to have had much success, or much effect on the price.  SMBIT holdings have grown only 2000 BTC, from ~105 BTC to ~107 BTC, over the last two months.  They grew ~30 kBTC from December to April, but the price dropped almost 50% in that period.   

(3) Bitcoin's only intrinsic value is its utility as a method of payment.  Its value as an investment depends entirely on that utility.  Bitcoin is a high-risk invstment because no one can tell what the demand for that use will be, and there is a positive probability that such demand (and therefore its value) will go to zero at some point.   Approval of the ETF will not affect the expected demand for that use, nor that probability of failure. Therfore COIN shares will be just as risky an investment as bitcoin itself.  If large institutional investors do not trust bitcoin now, why would they trust COIN?

Jorge jumped the shark again boys.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Which is the pertinent entry on Jorge's CV?

1.  "Frequently cited expert in international cryptocurrency economic forums."

2.  "Respected contrarian in world of digital commerce."

3.  "Regional strong man protecting the vulnerable from off-shore financial predators."

[JorgeStolfi]

Someone noted that COIN will be insured against theft.  Do they already have an insurance arrangement?

It would be interesting to know the premium and the safety procedures that were/will be required by the underwiter. 

The precautions that an individual should take to guard against theft of his personal coins seem to be well understood and adequately safe.  It is less clear what a company can do to guard against insider theft (technically embezzlement, right?), which could be committed by anyone, including its chief officer(s).

The unique features of bitcoin seem to make the risk of theft from the firm's cold wallets more severe than the risk of theft of ordinary money from its bank accounts.  All it takes is to get copies of the private keys.  Even Trezor-like hardware wallets could have secret factory-istalled backdoors or be swapped for malicious counterfeits...

[solex]

Which is the pertinent entry on Jorge's CV?

1.  "Frequently cited expert in international cryptocurrency economic forums."

2.  "Respected contrarian in world of digital commerce."

3.  "Regional strong man protecting the vulnerable from off-shore financial predators."

None of the above.

He's an indefatigable fudster who can't stand to see other people grow rich when he was too late to get in before the train choo choo'd.

[JorgeStolfi]

Which is the pertinent entry on Jorge's CV?

4. "The single most popular topic of posts in the Wall Observer thread"

[nanobrain]

Which is the pertinent entry on Jorge's CV?

4. "The single most popular topic of posts in the Wall Observer thread"

Glad to see you're still here Jorge, keeping the cultists fresh

[adamstgBit]

tell your friends they can get bits on facebook

[seleme]

It's hard to read this one definitely... lot of failed attempts to rally and price is too close of recent tops to think about this as accumulation. But in same way the support is holding pretty well.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[aminorex]

The unique features of bitcoin seem to make the risk of theft from the firm's cold wallets more severe than the risk of theft of ordinary money from its bank accounts.  

Hey Fonzarelli - get off that shark: M of N signatures.

Given your CS credentials, and your long exposure to BTC, it is beyond inexcusable that you should not be aware of the central technical features of BTC - it is evidence of bad faith.

[jl2012]

Someone noted that COIN will be insured against theft.  Do they already have an insurance arrangement?

It would be interesting to know the premium and the safety procedures that were/will be required by the underwiter. 

The precautions that an individual should take to guard against theft of his personal coins seem to be well understood and adequately safe.  It is less clear what a company can do to guard against insider theft (technically embezzlement, right?), which could be committed by anyone, including its chief officer(s).

The unique features of bitcoin seem to make the risk of theft from the firm's cold wallets more severe than the risk of theft of ordinary money from its bank accounts.  All it takes is to get copies of the private keys.  Even Trezor-like hardware wallets could have secret factory-istalled backdoors or be swapped for malicious counterfeits...

There is no perfect solution.

Putting money in bank account may protect you from ordinary theft, but it allows the bank and the government to rob you, LEGALLY.

Paper wallet is always the best way for cold storage. IMHO it is just too risky to use hardware wallet, basically a black box, to store a huge amount of bitcoin. It is much safer to use an offline generic computer with open source software to handle a long-term saving account.

To prevent insider theft, the insurance company may require COIN to use an M-of-N multi-sig address. N chief officers will generate private keys privately and independently. Each chief officer will physically sign a statement like this:

I, <name>, am the generator of the private key for <public key>. The private key is stored in the vaults of <bank A> and <bank B>. Except the copies in the said vaults, there is neither physical nor digital copy of the private key.

In case a theft occurred without breaking the vaults, these chief officers would have civil and even criminal liability.

So the only problem left is the physical security of the vault. The risk is actually much smaller than storing gold in vaults because it is impossible to have M-of-N multi-sig gold.

[JorgeStolfi]

The unique features of bitcoin seem to make the risk of theft from the firm's cold wallets more severe than the risk of theft of ordinary money from its bank accounts.  

Hey Fonzarelli - get off that shark: M of N signatures.

Given your CS credentials, and your long exposure to BTC, it is beyond inexcusable that you should not be aware of the central technical features of BTC - it is evidence of bad faith.

Yes I know about M of N signatures.  They can be stolen too.

[jl2012]

(3) Bitcoin's only intrinsic value is its utility as a method of payment.  Its value as an investment depends entirely on that utility.  Bitcoin is a high-risk invstment because no one can tell what the demand for that use will be, and there is a positive probability that such demand (and therefore its value) will go to zero at some point.   Approval of the ETF will not affect the expected demand for that use, nor that probability of failure. Therfore COIN shares will be just as risky an investment as bitcoin itself.  If large institutional investors do not trust bitcoin now, why would they trust COIN?

No, this is not true. A significant portion of bitcoin value comes from its utility as a storage of value: an asset that is scarce, non-confiscatable, exceptionally carriable (cf. gold), pseudonymous, uncorrelated to any traditional asset, and more.

Even for its utility as a method of payment, the approval of COIN will make bitcoin looks much more legitimate, and it will certainly attract more merchants to accept and even hold bitcoin.

[BitChick]

Since when Wall Observer thread became Politics & Society?

Fuck the wild capitalism.

I have offered in the past to add religion to the topics discussed on here but everyone seemed untied against that!  

Jesus is awesome!

[JorgeStolfi]

Putting money in bank account may protect you from ordinary theft, but it allows the bank and the government to rob you, LEGALLY.

We are talking of assets of an investment fund (or some other enterprise) that are to be insured against theft.  Some of your comments about paper wallets etc. apply to personal funds,  I have said that safety there is "solved problem" in theory.

I can't think what could be a "legal theft" of a company's assets by a bank.  Loss of deposits due to bank failure is a definite risk, but insurers presumably know how to evaluate that.  And funds should not leave their assets in bank accounts anyway.

"Legal theft" of a fund's assets by the government must be seizure because the fund did something wrong.  In that case they can seize bitcoins just as easily. (Refusing to hand over the keys to legally seized cois would be stealing government's property.)  Or are you thinking of "haircuts" on bank deposits? Again, funds should not leave their assets there.

To prevent insider theft, the insurance company may require COIN to use an M-of-N multi-sig address. N chief officers will generate private keys privately and independently. Each chief officer will physically sign a statement like this:

I, <name>, am the generator of the private key for <public key>. The private key is stored in the vaults of <bank A> and <bank B>. Except the copies in the said vaults, there is neither physical nor digital copy of the private key.

In case a theft occurred without breaking the vaults, these chief officers would have civil and even criminal liability.

The key could be be stolen as it is generated, without the officer knowing it. (Think of N non-nerd financial managers who get their wallet software installed by the same Chief Security Officer.) Therefore the officer cannot meaningfully sign the last part of that statement.

I suppose that, each time some coins have to be taken out of cols storage, the affected addresses would have to be completely emptied, due to the risk of the private keys being captured at that time; and any remainder would then be transferred to a new cold address, previously generated.

It will be interesting to see how that works out (if we get to know it).