Bitcoin press hits, notable sources

[silversurfer]

http://gizmodo.com/5803124/what-is-bitcoin

What Is BitCoin?

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[proudhon]

http://gizmodo.com/5803124/what-is-bitcoin

What Is BitCoin?

Awe snap!

[stic.man]

its gone gawker, ruh roh!

[silversurfer]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/19/136461839/what-should-we-invest-in

I'm guessing they won't get involved in Bitcoin, given they don't understand why gold has value...

[MoonShadow]

Here's an interesting one:

     The Information Policy Case For Flat Tax And Basic Income
     http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/19/the-information-policy-case-for-flat-tax-and-basic-income/

Focuses on bitcoin, and discusses rethinking taxes and welfare in a cryptocurrency world.

That's really interesting, indeed. What he predicts is still unethical and bad for the economy, but definitely much less worse than what we have nowadays. Let's hope that's the path governments choose to take, instead of just stupid brute repression à la war on drugs.

I still don't really think that a VAT tax is going to work very well for long, either.  There is too much incentive for manufacters to cheat by selling directly onto the dark markets online.  There is already, as reports suggest that Greece's dark (and largely untaxable) markets are roughly 40% of the GDP.  There is no way that Greece, as a nation, can repay their foriegn debts if this trend continues; but in a Bitcoin future with governments dependent upon a VAT tax in Europe, the first real recession and half of the population will  turn to the dark markets just to make ends meet.

[MoonShadow]

its gone gawker, ruh roh!

Link?

[JohnDoe]

its gone gawker, ruh roh!

Link?

Probably meant the Gizmodo article. Gizmodo is part of the Gawker network.

[speeder]

Here's an interesting one:

     The Information Policy Case For Flat Tax And Basic Income
     http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/19/the-information-policy-case-for-flat-tax-and-basic-income/

Focuses on bitcoin, and discusses rethinking taxes and welfare in a cryptocurrency world.

That's really interesting, indeed. What he predicts is still unethical and bad for the economy, but definitely much less worse than what we have nowadays. Let's hope that's the path governments choose to take, instead of just stupid brute repression à la war on drugs.

I still don't really think that a VAT tax is going to work very well for long, either.  There is too much incentive for manufacters to cheat by selling directly onto the dark markets online.  There is already, as reports suggest that Greece's dark (and largely untaxable) markets are roughly 40% of the GDP.  There is no way that Greece, as a nation, can repay their foriegn debts if this trend continues; but in a Bitcoin future with governments dependent upon a VAT tax in Europe, the first real recession and half of the population will  turn to the dark markets just to make ends meet.

Brazil 50% of the economy is underground and do not pay taxes, and the government although bothered by it, even helps it anyway (for example building areas where you can setup your informal shop of smuggled or illegal stuff... only do not attempt to sell drugs or weapons there, this will cause the other shopkeepers to even kill you, to prevent you from attracting cops)

[MoonShadow]

Here's an interesting one:

     The Information Policy Case For Flat Tax And Basic Income
     http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/19/the-information-policy-case-for-flat-tax-and-basic-income/

Focuses on bitcoin, and discusses rethinking taxes and welfare in a cryptocurrency world.

That's really interesting, indeed. What he predicts is still unethical and bad for the economy, but definitely much less worse than what we have nowadays. Let's hope that's the path governments choose to take, instead of just stupid brute repression à la war on drugs.

I still don't really think that a VAT tax is going to work very well for long, either.  There is too much incentive for manufacters to cheat by selling directly onto the dark markets online.  There is already, as reports suggest that Greece's dark (and largely untaxable) markets are roughly 40% of the GDP.  There is no way that Greece, as a nation, can repay their foriegn debts if this trend continues; but in a Bitcoin future with governments dependent upon a VAT tax in Europe, the first real recession and half of the population will  turn to the dark markets just to make ends meet.

Brazil 50% of the economy is underground and do not pay taxes, and the government although bothered by it, even helps it anyway (for example building areas where you can setup your informal shop of smuggled or illegal stuff... only do not attempt to sell drugs or weapons there, this will cause the other shopkeepers to even kill you, to prevent you from attracting cops)

Brazil is a completely different culture.  Particularly one that doesn't have nearly the faith in, or co-dependency with, their federal government.  Europe's social service programs are terriblely expensive, but they are popular enough for Europeans to put up with the high taxation required.  I would say that Brazilians wouldn't suffer that kind of taxation, no matter how it was presented.  I'm saying that Bitcoin could undermine that faith in governments by collapsing the social services for lack of funding, and make Europe more like Brazil.

[edd]

Banking to Get the Napster Treatment

[molecular]

Brazil is a completely different culture.  Particularly one that doesn't have nearly the faith in, or co-dependency with, their federal government.

Maybe a people using bitcoin would also have a completely different culture. Particularly one that doesn't have nearly the faith in, or co-dependency with, their federal government.

[Anonymous]

http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-20063349-10.html

Bitcoin on cnet's buzz out loud podcast.

Molly Wood says she is obsessed by bitcoin.

 

[SlaveInDebt]

http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-20063349-10.html

Bitcoin on cnet's buzz out loud podcast.

Molly Wood says she is obsessed by bitcoin.

 

Start @ 19 minutes

[zby]

Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/20/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of-currency/

Reposted in Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of-currency/2011/05/20/AFFoWd7G_story.html  I wonder if this will go to print or is this online-only?

[FreeMoney]

Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/20/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of-currency/

Reposted in Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of-currency/2011/05/20/AFFoWd7G_story.html  I wonder if this will go to print or is this online-only?

Bleh, advertisement for Ven. Wtf do people think? A private currency pegged to a bunch of government currencies, gross and boring imo.

[em3rgentOrdr]

Center For a Stateless Society (c4ss.org) today (May 20, 2011): "Bitcoin: More Important Than You Realize" by Kevin Carson

Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age” was set some years after encrypted currencies and e-commerce removed most economic transactions into darknets beyond the government’s capability of monitoring and regulating, and thus caused tax bases around the world to implode.  This followed, in short order, by the collapse of most nation-states.

Encrypted currencies and darknet economies have been promoted as a real-world model for resilient communities, in the impending age of hollow states, by such thinkers as Daniel de Ugarte and John Robb.

So you can imagine my reaction to recent news of Bitcoin, “a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”

Jason Calacanis and his colleagues at LAUNCH describe it as “The Most Dangerous Project We’ve Ever Seen” (May 15, 2011).  Not only is it “the most dangerous open-source project ever created,” but “possibly the most dangerous technological project since the Internet itself.”  It “could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband.”

The beauty of it is there’s no central server network to shut down. Just as with file-sharing, Bitcoin is traded from one desktop or mobile device to another via public key encryption.  So short of catching and prosecuting end-users with harsh punishments, there’s no way to stop it.  And we all know how well that’s worked out for the proprietary content companies.

There are currently 6 million, with a total value of $40 million.  Bitcoins are generated by a complicated algorithm, with the total number to top out at 21 million.  After that, increases in exchange of goods and services will be offset by the appreciation of bitcoins in value and the deflation of bitcoin-denominated prices.

This fixed upper limit and the requirement for price deflation thereafter is one ground on which Bitcoin has been criticized.  Another is that, since it’s not demoninated in a familiar unit of measure like dollars, it’s confusing as an instrument of exchange for the average person.

As an alternative currency geek, I’d add you can only engage in bitcoin-denominated exchange if you’ve already obtained bitcoins from previous transactions.  This is definitely a downside, compared with the kinds of “mutual credit clearing networks” proposed by Tom Greco.  Greco’s mutual credit isn’t a store of value from past transactions — just a measure of value for denominating exchanges of present or future goods and services.  The backing comes entirely from the goods and services themselves.  Even if neither party to an exchange has any credit, one party can incur a debit to her account by purchasing a good or service from another, and then remove the debit by selling a good or service of her own.  The floating bank balance works exactly like a checking account, except the system permits limited negative balances for limited periods of time.  Like the many local barter networks that flourished during the Depression, it’s a system for facilitating exchange even when there’s “no money.”

Despite my reservations, I consider Bitcoin to be grounds for enormous excitement.  Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge calls it “the Napster of Banking” (Falkvinge.net, May 11, 2011).

As Falkvinge argued, it’s usually not the most feature-rich version of a new technology that achieves popular acceptance.  Rather, it’s the most user-friendly.  “…t takes about ten years from conception of a technology, or an application of technology, until somebody hits the magic recipe in how to make that technology easy enough to use that it catches on.”

Technologies for sharing digitized music had been around for ten years when Fanning came up with Napster.  Geeks had been sharing videos for ten years when YouTube came along.  Falkvinge thinks Bitcoin will do the same for encrypted e-currency.  It’ll do to banking what BitTorrent’s doing to the music industry.

Here’s how Falkvinge describes the ramifications:

“The governments of the world are on the brink of losing the ability to look into the economy of their citizens. They stand to lose the ability to seize assets, they stand to lose the ability to collect debts….

“All the world’s weapons in all the world’s police hands are useless against the public’s ability to keep their cryptographic economy to themselves….

“The decentralized, uncontrollable economy where one lifetime employment is no longer central to every human being is something I’ve called the swarm economy, and I predict it will redefine society to an immensely larger extent than the ability to get rap music for free.”

This is vitally important to a central theme in my work:  the emergence of non-state spaces within which the low-overhead informal and household economy can function, outside the state’s ability to impose artificial scarcities  and entry barriers and collect tribute for the usurers, landlords and proprietary content owners.

Bitcoin is monumentally important.  Encrypted currency has been at the Altair stage of development.  If Bitcoin isn’t actually the Apple II — and it may not be — we’re very close to it.

[grdryn]

Another BoingBoing article:

Buy the "Bought This Bitcoins Badge With Bitcoins" badge with Bitcoins
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/20/buy-the-bought-this.html

John Young, co creator of Nerd Merit Badges, says:

 Like many other happy mutants, we over at Nerd Merit Badges have been reading about Bitcoins with interest. ("It's like the gold standard, man, except instead of gold, it's math. MATH!") And of course we wanted to participate in a way that fully embodies the unique qualities and special attributes of this self-referential P2P currency.

    We've made a badge that can only be purchased with Bitcoins, so the act of displaying it proves you've participated in the Bitcoin economy. We call it the "Bought This Bitcoins Badge With Bitcoins" badge.

    Naturally, you can buy the Bought this Bitcoins Badge With Bitcoins badge with bitcoins, and only with bitcoins. So that when someone asks you "Sure, bitcoins sound neat, but what can you, er... BUY... with them?" you can proudly tap your badge, take a deep breath, and tell them.

    This kind of recursive internet jackassery is _exactly_ why Randy and I started making Nerd Merit Badges in the first place. We're very excited about it!

Buy the "Bought This Bitcoins Badge With Bitcoins" badge with Bitcoins (http://www.nerdmeritbadges.com/products/bitcoin)

[matonis]

Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/20/bitcoin-ven-and-the-end-of-currency/

Total link-bait for Ven. Shameful.

[Accursed]

Lifehacker.com "What is BitCoin?"
http://lifehacker.com/5803518/what-is-bitcoin

[ribuck]

Ha! Stefan Molyneux actually mentioned Bitcoin at 40:15 on an interview he gave for Resistance Radio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36kWkB1CD0