2013-8-28 Casey Research: Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

[bitcool]

Very insightful.

Similarly, Bitcoin is only the beginning of the crypto-currency industry. It has flaws, to be sure. And predicting Bitcoin's specific destiny is impossible. It's a distinct possibility that the US government will regulate Bitcoin to the point that it's no longer useful to Americans.

But the beauty is that it really doesn't matter what Bitcoin's fate turns out to be. Just like Napster, Bitcoin unleashed an unstoppable idea—that people should be able to send money anywhere in the world, to pay for anything, completely anonymously. That's simply too powerful a proposition for the government to quietly discard down the memory hole.

The US government should take a lesson from the RIAA and learn to coexist with crypto-currencies. After all, capital goes where it's treated best—so any government that fights this burgeoning trend is only depriving its economy of much-needed capital, as this week's guest author, Jeffrey Tucker, will explain.
...

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/bitcoin-is-the-new-napster-and-thats-a-good-thing

[meanig]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

How can finance pundits be so poorly informed about the history of online currencies. If Bitcoin is the new Napster what was E-Gold? Home Taping 

[Singlebyte]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

+1

You got that right!

[Carlton Banks]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

How can finance pundits be so poorly informed about the history of online currencies. If Bitcoin is the new Napster what was E-Gold? Home Taping 

People that say this sort of thing are just in denial about whether they should buy in now.... or kicking themselves that they didn't do so back when we were in the teen $ price range 
"Buy Napster shares? Look how that could turn out"

[Kluge]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

I agree with this. Bitcoin has strong potential to strengthen the surge of the informal economy, which has been very strong since the depression 6-year-recession. BITCOIN isn't being (and cannot be) regulated by governments  -- registered businesses (like LR/e-gold) are.

If the government over-regulates businesses willing to comply, people will simply abandon them, and the government, in such a case, loses all control. I doubt the business would move to Canada (unless you take the likely-necessary additional step of dropping US customers altogether, which leaves you with a relatively tiny market). I think it'd just move to Tor. The Bitcoin Foundation, then, is effectively doing the work of governments, in trying to encourage compliance -- but this is not some exclusively pro-state thing. It's work necessary for the really BIG innovations which reach the masses. You can't have a ten-thousand person corporation hiding behind Tor.

If government doesn't reconsider their aggressive posture, they'll kill off those potential revolutionary innovations while losing more ground to the informal economy. The ball's in governments' court. (of law? Probably a joke in there somewhere... damn I'm tired...)

[bitcool]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

How can finance pundits be so poorly informed about the history of online currencies. If Bitcoin is the new Napster what was E-Gold? Home Taping 

Relax ... don't take the analogy too literally ... the author used Napster as an example for "first of its kind", not for a-failed-experiment-because-it's-not-decentralized-enough.  The reason why it failed while successors flourished was not even discussed.

E-gold was not a crypto currency, it doesn't belong to this discussion.

Those at Casey Research are not regular "finance pundits",  most of them are critical, out of the box thinkers, some sound pure crazy per MSM standard.

[Bitcopia]

E-gold was not a crypto currency, it doesn't belong to this discussion.

Napster was not a torrent service...

[marcus_of_augustus]

He was clearly using 'napster' to mean the idea, the concept that music can be shared freely .... in that sense e-gold did demonstrate the concept of currency outside the prison(m) but was nowhere near as widespread in providing recognition of the novel idea/concept as bitcoin has been.

The article after the intro by Jeffery Tucker is an absolute cracker.

He makes a great point about the Stockholm syndrome "please regulate us as soon as possible" but I think he missed one key point in that there is a whole "free-market" industry of lawyers, lobbyists, etc that live off regulatory and compliance actions. They have sprouted up around bitcoin like a plague and are driving incessantly the thrust toward regulation because that is how they make their living ... off others. Ignoring the material benefactors from "compliance management" as drivers for regulation misses an out-growth (as perverse and malformed as it is) of the free-market response to the mere willingness of legislators to meddle. Anywhere you spread manure weeds will grow faster than the crop ...

[flix]

This gem from Tucker:

It's so bad that Bitcoin advocates are reduced to Stockholm-like begging: "Please regulate us as soon as possible." They figure that even draconian regulators are better than the current fear-and-loathing environment that has so vexed the crypto-currency community.

..and this

I don't believe a word of it. If Bitcoin really does become a threat to the dollar, and the dollar were displaced, the world would be better off as a result. Money would be returned to the market whence it came, and would abandon the grasping hands of the political and financial elite who use their monopoly to exploit the rest of us.

No more inflation. No more business cycles. No more multitrillion-dollar bailouts. Money would be private property, with a complete separation between money and the state.

[zeroday]

You can regulate only bitcoin-to-fiat flow but regulating bitcoin itself is impossible as regulating sex.
Just imagine a new government "regulation" prohibiting oral sex. To enforce it they would need to install surveillance system in everyone's bedroom.

[smoothie]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

How can finance pundits be so poorly informed about the history of online currencies. If Bitcoin is the new Napster what was E-Gold? Home Taping 

+1

[xxjs]

You can regulate only bitcoin-to-fiat flow but regulating bitcoin itself is impossible as regulating sex.
Just imagine a new government "regulation" prohibiting oral sex. To enforce it they would need to install surveillance system in everyone's bedroom.

Watch out for new regulation in this area...

[Carlton Banks]

You can regulate only bitcoin-to-fiat flow but regulating bitcoin itself is impossible as regulating sex.
Just imagine a new government "regulation" prohibiting oral sex. To enforce it they would need to install surveillance system in everyone's bedroom.

Watch out for new regulation in this area...

It would stop all illegal activity on the internet dead in it's tracks. Well, unless you're part of a politically protected child porn distribution ring, but for god's sake, think of all the vulnerable victims that could be saved 

[18RATTT]

Bitcoin Is the New Napster… and That’s a Good Thing

Wrong! E-Gold and Liberty Reserve were Napster. Bitcoin is the BitTorrent of money.

100 points to GRYFINDDORRRR