Doug Casey on Bitcoin - he just doesn't get it...

[Trader Steve]

Doug Casey just came out with his knee-jerk reaction to bitcoin:

Doug Casey on Bitcoin and Currencies

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cwc/doug-casey-bitcoin-and-currencies

Here is a better analysis:

Bitcoin: A New Commodity To Serve Market Demand

http://economicsandliberty.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/bitcoin-a-new-commodity-created-to-serve-market-demand/

Comments?

[Ruxum]

- never have heard of Doug Casey before this post anyway.
- his negative stance could have something to do with his investment interests

"Frankly, I can’t see why anyone would, when there’s already an electronic digital currency like Bitcoin but backed with gold: GoldMoney. I should disclose that I’m a small investor in the company. But I have to say that I really do like GoldMoney. It does everything Bitcoin does – or did – but is backed by something of real value: gold. "

[elggawf]

Like I posted in another thread that that 'article' showed up in: it's a goddamned press release.

In exactly the same way you shouldn't trust the analysis of Bitcoin by any asshole who's trying to sell you some, you certainly shouldn't trust a guy trashing Bitcoin when he's an investor in a competing outfit.

[Hook^]

Doug is fairly positive about bitcoins.  He is right that the value is swinging around too much to be useful for transactions.  That should settle down in the future though.

[tavi]

Seems like a cool dude with many great ideas.

His sticky points seem to be gold and more visibly (with multiple mentions) last week's Mt.Gox hack(s), viruses/virii, etc.
I attribute the first one to old habbits and the latter one -- to insufficient tech understanding of the network.

Pros:
"More and more people are on the Internet these days. We’ve both seen villagers in Africa with smart phones. It won’t be long before most everybody has one. Anyone with Internet access can arguably deal in Bitcoins, so they could potentially be very convenient to use. That’s a lot more people than the number who will take, say, Russian rubles, Zambian kwacha, or Vietnamese dong.

Doug: I like the fact it’s untraceable and secret. I like the idea that it was trying to be an alternative to the dollar; it’s great to see people trying to get out of the U.S. dollar. The dollar is a state monopoly of the worst kind.

The U.S. dollar has actually become a major weapon in the hands of the U.S. government now. All bank transactions go through the U.S. SWIFT system. Even the Chinese and Russians, who have no love for the U.S. government, have to use dollars for international trade. They don’t like it. Muslims all around the world are coming to feel that they are enemies of the United States, so they don’t want to use the dollar either. And the more regulations the U.S. puts in place about how money is transferred and used – like FATCA – the harder people will look for alternatives. The U.S. government is treating everyone’s dollars as its personal property."

[billyjoeallen]

Doug Casey is a very savvy speculator, but of course I think he's wrong about Bitcoin. His electronic gold doesn't have everything Bitcoin has. It's not decentralized or distributed. It requires third party trust. I look forward to making a lot of money and buying into his anarcho-capitalist gated community in Argentina and building a vacation house just a little bigger than his on the seventh green :-D

[billyjoeallen]

Casey wrote a follow-up to his bitcoin article. He still doesn't get it. http://howestreet.com/2011/06/releasing-oil-reserves/

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

His basic argument is that he can just trade gold instead. The two biggest flaws in his reasoning are:

1) You can't send physical gold over the wire, but if you send paper gold, it requires a trusted third party.
2) Unlike with Bitcoin, there is no limit to how much gold can be mined.

I appreciate Doug helping in keeping the price of Bitcoin down while I am still buying it.

[Gabi]

- never have heard of Doug Casey before this post anyway.

^This

[relative]

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

whoever this doug casey guy is, it might be wise to consider outside voices for once, instead of just dismissing them as "old", "doesn't get it", "bitcoin is something entirely different, you can't compare it to anything!".

not just referring to you...the entire forum has this attitude.

[billyjoeallen]

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

whoever this doug casey guy is, it might be wise to consider outside voices for once, instead of just dismissing them as "old", "doesn't get it", "bitcoin is something entirely different, you can't compare it to anything!".

not just referring to you...the entire forum has this attitude.

I know who Doug Casey is and you don't. I consider his opinion much more than yours and I disagree with it. I could give two shits what you think of my attitude, so, if you have nothing substantive to contribute, GTFO.

[koin]

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

old, and already financially set.

of those with similar political ideology, i generally see an inverse relationship between existing wealth and interest in bitcoins.   fortunately bitcoin's success does not depend on there being a consensus that includes the doug caseys of the world.

[BitcoinPorn]

whoever this doug casey guy is, it might be wise to consider outside voices for once, instead of just dismissing them as "old", "doesn't get it", "bitcoin is something entirely different, you can't compare it to anything!".

not just referring to you...the entire forum has this attitude.

I know who Doug Casey is and you don't. I consider his opinion much more than yours and I disagree with it. I could give two shits what you think of my attitude, so, if you have nothing substantive to contribute, GTFO.

Wow, I wonder how you would have replied if he WAS just referring to you lol

[relative]

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

whoever this doug casey guy is, it might be wise to consider outside voices for once, instead of just dismissing them as "old", "doesn't get it", "bitcoin is something entirely different, you can't compare it to anything!".

not just referring to you...the entire forum has this attitude.

I know who Doug Casey is and you don't. I consider his opinion much more than yours and I disagree with it. I could give two shits what you think of my attitude, so, if you have nothing substantive to contribute, GTFO.

thanks for proving my point.

[ribuck]

It takes time for new ideas to become widely understood, and then it takes even more time for them to become widely accepted.

Just give Doug Casey some time. He already understands many of the problems that Bitcoin solves. In five years Doug will be proudly telling everyone how he has been involved with Bitcoin since 2011.

[DC3]

Probably talking up his book while perhaps liquidating GoldMoney shares and nobody is buying... tough titty Doug. Better luck next time.

[YoYa]

http://howestreet.com/2011/06/releasing-oil-reserves/

1.  Bit­coins pro­vide an alter­na­tive cur­rency to the dol­lar. This makes sense, but the ques­tion is whether this is the best alter­na­tive. For exam­ple, I can hedge my dol­lar risk with euros, Swiss francs, yen, etc. Fur­ther­more, those options can pay inter­est. And one doesn’t need to choose a sin­gle cur­rency but can choose a bas­ket of them.
Then there’s also gold and sil­ver, the tra­di­tional play against a declin­ing dol­lar. If one is try­ing to hedge against the dol­lar, these options are more than ade­quate. I don’t see Bit­coin as hav­ing an advan­tage here.
2.  Bit­coin can be secretly trans­ported across inter­na­tional bor­ders. OK, sure, that seems like an advan­tage. There’s just one prob­lem: I have no need to trans­fer large amounts of cash across inter­na­tional bor­ders. Though this fea­ture is often praised by Bit­coin sup­port­ers, how many have actu­ally uti­lized it to cir­cum­vent inter­na­tional laws? Yeah, prob­a­bly close to zero.
3.  Bit­coin allows for anony­mous trans­ac­tions online and helps avoid taxes. Sounds nice, but per­son­ally, I have noth­ing to hide regard­ing my online trans­ac­tions. Maybe if I was oper­at­ing an online busi­ness, this would be great, but as a reg­u­lar con­sumer, I don’t see any advan­tages here. After all, I already avoid sales tax by shop­ping online; and I’m not going to vio­late tax laws.
On top of this, my favorite online retail­ers don’t accept Bit­coin; so why exactly should I start using it?
How­ever, if one is doing some­thing ille­gal, then Bit­coin would seem to be more use­ful. As has been reported, Bit­coin has been used to sell ille­gal drugs online. Now, Bit­coin sup­port­ers claim that this is over­hyped and that these illicit deals are giv­ing Bit­coin a bad name. In real­ity, I see this as the only com­par­a­tive advan­tage of this cur­rency. Sure, one can still be tracked with Bit­coin, but it would be harder than a trans­fer from a credit card or bank account.
But since I have no inten­tion of buy­ing drugs online or off, the cur­rency is worth­less to me. So what’s the point?
4.  Bit­coin is free-market money. Since there are few prac­ti­cal rea­sons to use Bit­coin, the sup­port­ers grab onto the idea that it’s free-market money. Hence, we’re some­how sav­ing the world by using it. That’s a big rea­son that the sup­port­ers get so upset when any­one crit­i­cizes Bitcoin.
But here again, Bit­coin doesn’t offer any­thing unique. If I want to invest in free-market money, I can buy gold and sil­ver — a store of value rec­og­nized around the world for centuries.
Unless I’m plan­ning some ille­gal trans­ac­tion, Bit­coin just doesn’t seem like a use­ful prod­uct to me. For every­thing Bit­coins offer, other, bet­ter alter­na­tives already exist. Bit­coin is an inter­est­ing idea; I just don’t find it useful.
For the rest of the issue, the Casey Research energy team will dis­cuss the release of the Strate­gic Petro­leum Reserve. Then, I’ll pro­vide a few links as usual.

Instead of defending bitcoin.....how about we listen instead?

This is about as balanced a criticism we are going to get.

He's essentially saying that bitcoin is not yet functional enough to offer an advantage to everyday users, and essentially this asks what are we going to do in the name of innovation to change this.

I for one support this view, just because bitcoin is an innovation in itself does not guarantee success!
So! Let's work to innovate!

And remember...innovation is not about moments of inspiration, it is an iterative repetitive process of analysis and design. Bitcoin is our framework to provide the solutions we tout bitcoin as solving, the only problem is that if we don't innovate to make these solutions a reality, then the true value of bitcoin will never be realized!

Google trends shows interest as waning, what are we going to do that the next time bitcoin shows up in the popular media the news is of innovation?

[Anonymous]

I stopped listening when he said goldmoney was the same as bitcoin.

[DC3]

1.  Bit­coins pro­vide an alter­na­tive cur­rency to the dol­lar. This makes sense, but the ques­tion is whether this is the best alter­na­tive. For exam­ple, I can hedge my dol­lar risk with euros, Swiss francs, yen, etc. Fur­ther­more, those options can pay inter­est. And one doesn’t need to choose a sin­gle cur­rency but can choose a bas­ket of them.
Then there’s also gold and sil­ver, the tra­di­tional play against a declin­ing dol­lar. If one is try­ing to hedge against the dol­lar, these options are more than ade­quate. I don’t see Bit­coin as hav­ing an advan­tage here.

Yep, there are dollars, rubles, euros, franks,  Mongolian tugriks, gold, silver, and yep now bitcoin. Some of them are even paying interest (though at the time it is effectively negative one). What's your point here Doug? Never seen a principally new asset class yet? Than check correlation of all those fiat currencies, metals, stocks, bonds etc... Compare with bitcoin. This lack of bitcoin's correlation to other asset classes alone makes it worthwhile to have bitcoins in any balanced investment portfolio. You should know this, Doug.

2.  Bit­coin can be secretly trans­ported across inter­na­tional bor­ders. OK, sure, that seems like an advan­tage. There’s just one prob­lem: I have no need to trans­fer large amounts of cash across inter­na­tional bor­ders. Though this fea­ture is often praised by Bit­coin sup­port­ers, how many have actu­ally uti­lized it to cir­cum­vent inter­na­tional laws? Yeah, prob­a­bly close to zero.

Ever tried to send 100$ to your mama in Mexico? Nahh probably not.

3.  Bit­coin allows for anony­mous trans­ac­tions online and helps avoid taxes. Sounds nice, but per­son­ally, I have noth­ing to hide regard­ing my online trans­ac­tions. Maybe if I was oper­at­ing an online busi­ness, this would be great, but as a reg­u­lar con­sumer, I don’t see any advan­tages here. After all, I already avoid sales tax by shop­ping online; and I’m not going to vio­late tax laws.
On top of this, my favorite online retail­ers don’t accept Bit­coin; so why exactly should I start using it?
How­ever, if one is doing some­thing ille­gal, then Bit­coin would seem to be more use­ful. As has been reported, Bit­coin has been used to sell ille­gal drugs online. Now, Bit­coin sup­port­ers claim that this is over­hyped and that these illicit deals are giv­ing Bit­coin a bad name. In real­ity, I see this as the only com­par­a­tive advan­tage of this cur­rency. Sure, one can still be tracked with Bit­coin, but it would be harder than a trans­fer from a credit card or bank account.
But since I have no inten­tion of buy­ing drugs online or off, the cur­rency is worth­less to me. So what’s the point?

Yep Doug, use that credit card of yours and you will be fine. Do not use cash though, because you know, it can be used for drugs and such...

...Bit­coin doesn’t offer any­thing unique....

Right... I suppose you can teleport gold at will, Doug.

[Gleb Gamow]

https://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2011/12/21/why-i-moved-to-dougs-gulch-in-argentina.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20110627031744/http://www.dollarvigilante.com/galtsgulch



I say Doug Casey understands Bitcoin pretty well. Just ask his friend Chris Eyerman aka Jack Freeman, the City Clerk of Sonny Vleisides' Laissez Faire City.

http://www.erissociety.org/eris99.html

Conference Chair: Vernie Kuglin

Wednesday, August 4

Opening Session, Welcoming Remarks Vernie Kuglin, Doug Casey
Karl Hess, Jr. Ph.D., An Anarchist's Life
Paul Rosenberg, Optical Fiber, the Internet, and the Private Economy
Michael H. Hart, Ph.D, A View From the Year 3000: A Ranking of the 100 Most Influential Persons of All Time
Wes McKinley, The Rocky Flats Grand Jury
Liah Kraft-Kristaine, Brain Power for the 21st Century
John Landgraf, Ph.D. and Jack Freeman, Laissez Faire City: The Cyberspace Economic Community
Richard Panek, Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens

Guess who chaired Casey's next meetup.