Why bitcoin is very different from Ponzi/Pyramid/Bubble

[kkaspar]

I believe that a true milestone will be (even a rally startline) when power companies accept payments by bitcoins.

kkaspar I stand behind you

Sadly I think that not many power companies will start using BTC. The main thing here is that the only value that a company will get in accepting BTC is marketing value, not financial value. Starting to accept BTC will get your company free press and you will get new loyal customers from people who are loyal to BTC. But in financial terms, you are actually spending more then you did when you weren't accepting BTC.
I think that the big companies will stay away from BTC because the marketing value can also backfire. People who control most of the BTC aren't mostly known and the market system isn't very transparent. For instance if it would leak that even the biggest markets are presenting falsified data to stimulate trade, then BTC would be called an all out scam by the media. And when that happens then noone want's to be associated with BTC.

Thanks by standing behind me

[dissident]

to those that say it's not a pyramid scheme, I wonder how many of them would still be mining or buying if they knew the currency had a fixed value tied to a modest inflation rate with no huge price runups allowed at all, if such a coin existed.

Most alt coins, not all of them, most of them, are generated solely as pyramid schemes.. they start off with super high block rewards that diminish rapidly rewarding those who find them first. They are pre-mined with the creator of the coin already holding 5-10% of the coins with grand promises about the good uses coin will be used for.... some people have honorable intentions with crypto currency while others are just looking to profit. If all the miners with $20,000 rigs started to find that all the alt currencies had fixed, low reward blocks and low to no profitability with actual inflation rates that kept their coin prices from spiking all over the place, I bet you wouldn't have the interest in crypto currencies.

People are only here because they expect bitcoin to 'go to the moon' and they can lie to themselves if they want, but I'll admit why I'm here... to cash in trading alt coins.. pure and simple. If bitcoin becomes accepted as a currency, all the better, but that's not my primary motivation.

Having been involved with smooth talking people selling pure lies in the past, I can and do know that people will say anything as means to their end. Never trust anybody when they stand to profit from their activities. What's coming out of their mouth or appearing on the computer screen may not be what they are thinking.

I do love the wild west feel to these crypto currencies and plan to stay along for the ride though! I'm just not going to lie and pretend I have noble causes and that I would be here if I knew there wasn't potential for profit.. just like trading any stock. Time is money and there  has to be incentive for time utilized.

The main danger in bitcoin now is that such a small percentage of the users hold such a large proportion of the coins, just like in real life, the top is small and concentrated.... the riches belong to a different subset of the population.. INTJs laying around in 'mom's basement' to coin a phrase who now have the last laugh.. but nonetheless the result is the same.. wealth disparity. By the way, I always hated that phrase 'mom's basement' .. well now at least they can afford to move out.

[jballs]

to those that say it's not a pyramid scheme, I wonder how many of them would still be mining or buying if they knew the currency had a fixed value tied to a modest inflation rate with no huge price runups allowed at all, if such a coin existed.

Most alt coins, not all of them, most of them, are generated solely as pyramid schemes.. they start off with super high block rewards that diminish rapidly rewarding those who find them first. They are pre-mined with the creator of the coin already holding 5-10% of the coins with grand promises about the good uses coin will be used for.... some people have honorable intentions with crypto currency while others are just looking to profit. If all the miners with $20,000 rigs started to find that all the alt currencies had fixed, low reward blocks and low to no profitability with actual inflation rates that kept their coin prices from spiking all over the place, I bet you wouldn't have the interest in crypto currencies.

People are only here because they expect bitcoin to 'go to the moon' and they can lie to themselves if they want, but I'll admit why I'm here... to cash in trading alt coins.. pure and simple. If bitcoin becomes accepted as a currency, all the better, but that's not my primary motivation.

Having been involved with smooth talking people selling pure lies in the past, I can and do know that people will say anything as means to their end. Never trust anybody when they stand to profit from their activities. What's coming out of their mouth or appearing on the computer screen may not be what they are thinking.

I do love the wild west feel to these crypto currencies and plan to stay along for the ride though! I'm just not going to lie and pretend I have noble causes and that I would be here if I knew there wasn't potential for profit.. just like trading any stock. Time is money and there  has to be incentive for time utilized.

The main danger in bitcoin now is that such a small percentage of the users hold such a large proportion of the coins, just like in real life, the top is small and concentrated.... the riches belong to a different subset of the population.. INTJs laying around in 'mom's basement' to coin a phrase who now have the last laugh.. but nonetheless the result is the same.. wealth disparity. By the way, I always hated that phrase 'mom's basement' .. well now at least they can afford to move out.

You raise some interesting thoughts, by accident probably but feel I should comment. I agree with you on the last part. I hope someday our culture no longer associates living with one's extended family as derogatory. It's really fascinating, albeit tragic, that the societal imperative implies not only that you should not live with your parents (or grown children), but the implicit that the parents are not together either. I'm not sure why it's funny, to make a class distinction that forces the massively dysfunctional miserable drugged out culture we have today. By all means, perpetuate the stereotype and stigmatize family values, it's totally working out well for everyone. Get out of the house and go into debt to buy a shitbox of your own to flip to the next chump.

Which leads me to your "oh all these coins are pyramid schemes"... but first I will add my mom doesn't have a basement... let me help you grok this. CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME. All of it. You know why stocks boomed from 1950 to the 2000's? Because the world population went from 2 billion to 6 billion. You know why it is crapping out here? Because we cannot extract resources fast enough to downline the 7th billion with the gross excess required to feed the pyramid. Stock market IPOs oar pyramid schemes. Fiat money is pyramid scheme, decaying at fixed rate to guarantee loss to holders. Credit/debt is the ultimate pyramid scheme, requiring exact exponential growth and unavoidable collapse. This is fact. Social security, that's just a ponzi scheme but the differences aren't that significant. There is very little in modern society that is not absolutely dependent on growth. The rate of growth and collapse vary, if it is too short is a disallowed pyramid, if it is long enough it is an allowed pyramid, if it is a genefration r more it is often a legally mandated pyramid.

Think that was all I had to say. Good luck getting out of your shitbox.

[Lloydie]

Which leads me to your "oh all these coins are pyramid schemes"... but first I will add my mom doesn't have a basement... let me help you grok this. CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME. All of it. You know why stocks boomed from 1950 to the 2000's? Because the world population went from 2 billion to 6 billion. You know why it is crapping out here? Because we cannot extract resources fast enough to downline the 7th billion with the gross excess required to feed the pyramid. Stock market IPOs oar pyramid schemes. Fiat money is pyramid scheme, decaying at fixed rate to guarantee loss to holders. Credit/debt is the ultimate pyramid scheme, requiring exact exponential growth and unavoidable collapse. This is fact. Social security, that's just a ponzi scheme but the differences aren't that significant. There is very little in modern society that is not absolutely dependent on growth. The rate of growth and collapse vary, if it is too short is a disallowed pyramid, if it is long enough it is an allowed pyramid, if it is a genefration r more it is often a legally mandated pyramid.

Think that was all I had to say. Good luck getting out of your shitbox.

Cogently explained. And on an inflationary fiat planet, the existence of a deflationary alternative that can't be killed is a good thing. I can only hope that more people will come to appreciate the inherent unsustainability of credit based systems.

[thaaanos]

Which leads me to your "oh all these coins are pyramid schemes"... but first I will add my mom doesn't have a basement... let me help you grok this. CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME. All of it. You know why stocks boomed from 1950 to the 2000's? Because the world population went from 2 billion to 6 billion. You know why it is crapping out here? Because we cannot extract resources fast enough to downline the 7th billion with the gross excess required to feed the pyramid. Stock market IPOs oar pyramid schemes. Fiat money is pyramid scheme, decaying at fixed rate to guarantee loss to holders. Credit/debt is the ultimate pyramid scheme, requiring exact exponential growth and unavoidable collapse. This is fact. Social security, that's just a ponzi scheme but the differences aren't that significant. There is very little in modern society that is not absolutely dependent on growth. The rate of growth and collapse vary, if it is too short is a disallowed pyramid, if it is long enough it is an allowed pyramid, if it is a genefration r more it is often a legally mandated pyramid.

Think that was all I had to say. Good luck getting out of your shitbox.

Cogently explained. And on an inflationary fiat planet, the existence of a deflationary alternative that can't be killed is a good thing. I can only hope that more people will come to appreciate the inherent unsustainability of credit based systems.

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

[Lloydie]

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

That's right if Elistic Capitalism did not already exist, Bitcoin would have a flatter wealth distribution. The advantage of Bitcoin is that it will be difficult for people to perpetuate their financial advantage via asset price inflation by creating extra monetary units via fractional reserve banking.

[mestar]

From wiki:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  An economic bubble: A bubble is similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant (until inevitable collapse). A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, or tulip bulbs) where prices rise because buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the case of bitcoin, the "subsequent participants" must pay both the old participants, as well as miners electricity bills.

Since the bitcoin transaction are still mostly free today, value created by those transactions is not directly captured by the system.

[thaaanos]

From wiki:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  An economic bubble: A bubble is similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant (until inevitable collapse). A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, or tulip bulbs) where prices rise because buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the case of bitcoin, the "subsequent participants" must pay both the old participants, as well as miners electricity bills.

Since the bitcoin transaction are still mostly free today, value created by those transactions is not directly captured by the system.

They are by giving up FIAT for bitcoins. If Fiat is irrelevant then why all the fuss about bitcoin getting higher? Higher relative to what?

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

That's right if Elistic Capitalism did not already exist, Bitcoin would have a flatter wealth distribution. The advantage of Bitcoin is that it will be difficult for people to perpetuate their financial advantage via asset price inflation by creating extra monetary units via fractional reserve banking.

I am reading it over and over again, and I can't get a thought straight, your arguments keep me derailing and shortcircuiting.

[Lloydie]

From wiki:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  An economic bubble: A bubble is similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant (until inevitable collapse). A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, or tulip bulbs) where prices rise because buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the case of bitcoin, the "subsequent participants" must pay both the old participants, as well as miners electricity bills.

Since the bitcoin transaction are still mostly free today, value created by those transactions is not directly captured by the system.

They are by giving up FIAT for bitcoins. If Fiat is irrelevant then why all the fuss about bitcoin getting higher? Higher relative to what?

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

That's right if Elistic Capitalism did not already exist, Bitcoin would have a flatter wealth distribution. The advantage of Bitcoin is that it will be difficult for people to perpetuate their financial advantage via asset price inflation by creating extra monetary units via fractional reserve banking.

I am reading it over and over again, and I can't get a thought straight, your arguments keep me derailing and shortcircuiting.

Re point 1: I believe Bitcoin appreciating relative to fiat indicates the expansion of the Bitcoin economy.  Even if Bitcoin is the dominant financial system, it would still make sense to price Bitcoin relative to other fiat currencies. 

Re point 2: Elitist Capitalism (and vision) is what allowed the Winkelvii to acquire 1% of existing bitcoins in the first place.  Without their financial advantage, that acquisition would have been a lot more difficult.  So, Bitcoin will be relatively unequal to start with.  However, over time the Winkelvii cannot maintain their financial advantage without spending monetary units of Bitcoin.  Whereas under a debt based fiat system, they could take out a loan and invest in ever appreciating asset prices, and thus perpetually maintain their financial advantage over ordinary workers.

[thaaanos]

From wiki:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  An economic bubble: A bubble is similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant (until inevitable collapse). A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, or tulip bulbs) where prices rise because buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the case of bitcoin, the "subsequent participants" must pay both the old participants, as well as miners electricity bills.

Since the bitcoin transaction are still mostly free today, value created by those transactions is not directly captured by the system.

They are by giving up FIAT for bitcoins. If Fiat is irrelevant then why all the fuss about bitcoin getting higher? Higher relative to what?

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

That's right if Elistic Capitalism did not already exist, Bitcoin would have a flatter wealth distribution. The advantage of Bitcoin is that it will be difficult for people to perpetuate their financial advantage via asset price inflation by creating extra monetary units via fractional reserve banking.

I am reading it over and over again, and I can't get a thought straight, your arguments keep me derailing and shortcircuiting.

Re point 1: I believe Bitcoin appreciating relative to fiat indicates the expansion of the Bitcoin economy.  Even if Bitcoin is the dominant financial system, it would still make sense to price Bitcoin relative to other fiat currencies. 

Re point 2: Elitist Capitalism (and vision) is what allowed the Winkelvii to acquire 1% of existing bitcoins in the first place.  Without their financial advantage, that acquisition would have been a lot more difficult.  So, Bitcoin will be relatively unequal to start with.  However, over time the Winkelvii cannot maintain their financial advantage without spending monetary units of Bitcoin.  Whereas under a debt based fiat system, they could take out a loan and invest in ever appreciating asset prices, and thus perpetually maintain their financial advantage over ordinary workers.

If you don't treat bitcoin as currency, then you self defeat. It would make sense to price goods at bitcoins, if you are not going there then you are going nowhere.

Nope that was pure speculation, but I am not arguing that there is no elitist capitalism, I am arguing that bitcoin is designed to distill it and crystalize it, not Kill it.

[spyro]

I'd love to speak with someone who said it IS a Ponzi.

[Lloydie]

If you don't treat bitcoin as currency, then you self defeat. It would make sense to price goods at bitcoins, if you are not going there then you are going nowhere.

Nope that was pure speculation, but I am not arguing that there is no elitist capitalism, I am arguing that bitcoin is designed to distill it and crystalize it, not Kill it.

I'm sure Btc or derivation of will eventually be dominant. At present it is not, but it's no big deal.  Things can be priced in baht and I pay in USD or Btc, no one is getting defeated there.

As I see it, debt based fiat is the real problem. Btc will go a long way to fixing that due to it being deflationary and strongly so over the next few years. Get on board Thaaanos before you get really left behind!

[Undone]

From wiki:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  An economic bubble: A bubble is similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant (until inevitable collapse). A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, or tulip bulbs) where prices rise because buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no single person misrepresenting the intrinsic value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the case of bitcoin, the "subsequent participants" must pay both the old participants, as well as miners electricity bills.

Since the bitcoin transaction are still mostly free today, value created by those transactions is not directly captured by the system.

They are by giving up FIAT for bitcoins. If Fiat is irrelevant then why all the fuss about bitcoin getting higher? Higher relative to what?

But thaaanos, we can calculate the cost that transaction fees add to the price paid for goods & services. And it's not really that much. Someone will certainly chime in and claim that it is - but it's not.

So the potentially newest buyer of bitcoin (let's call him buyer n + 1) has to ask himself why he's willing to be buyer n + 1. He's only going to trade his fiat for bitcoin if he believes that bitcoin will be worth more later than it is now. Higher relative to what, you ask? Define it however you want - it just has to be more.

The idea of trading your dollars for bitcoin won't go mainstream unless bitcoin proves that it is a competent & safe store of value. And it better continue to do that really quickly, specifically by convincing new fresh cash to pump into the buy side of the market. If this doesn't happen, the "value" of bitcoin either stays the same, or goes nowhere. If it goes nowhere, will people trade their fiat for bitcoin simply because bitcoin promises, let's say, roughly 3% in gains from no/lower transaction fees? It's possibly, but incredibly unlikely.

[Lloydie]

But thaaanos, we can calculate the cost that transaction fees add to the price paid for goods & services. And it's not really that much. Someone will certainly chime in and claim that it is - but it's not.

So the potentially newest buyer of bitcoin (let's call him buyer n + 1) has to ask himself why he's willing to be buyer n + 1. He's only going to trade his fiat for bitcoin if he believes that bitcoin will be worth more later than it is now. Higher relative to what, you ask? Define it however you want - it just has to be more.

The idea of trading your dollars for bitcoin won't go mainstream unless bitcoin proves that it is a competent & safe store of value. And it better continue to do that really quickly, specifically by convincing new fresh cash to pump into the buy side of the market. If this doesn't happen, the "value" of bitcoin either stays the same, or goes nowhere. If it goes nowhere, will people trade their fiat for bitcoin simply because bitcoin promises, let's say, roughly 3% in gains from no/lower transaction fees? It's possibly, but incredibly unlikely.

N + 1? More pseudo maths from economics. Frankly just annoying when you could have easily said "new person". GTFO!

Moreover, the analysis itself is crapola: the "Bitcoin Bet" is as follows - will more people want to transact directly with one another without relying on a third party? Yes or no? If yes, Bitcoin economy expands then all the above pseudo analysis is total rubbish, as is most of economics itself because the assumptions are totally unrealistic. GIGO!

Further, bitcoin is deflationary. No one can make more bitcoins so it will always appreciate relative to fiat as long as the bitcoin economy keeps expanding. And why will it expand? Because of the Bitcoin Bet.

[jballs]

Which leads me to your "oh all these coins are pyramid schemes"... but first I will add my mom doesn't have a basement... let me help you grok this. CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME. All of it. You know why stocks boomed from 1950 to the 2000's? Because the world population went from 2 billion to 6 billion. You know why it is crapping out here? Because we cannot extract resources fast enough to downline the 7th billion with the gross excess required to feed the pyramid. Stock market IPOs oar pyramid schemes. Fiat money is pyramid scheme, decaying at fixed rate to guarantee loss to holders. Credit/debt is the ultimate pyramid scheme, requiring exact exponential growth and unavoidable collapse. This is fact. Social security, that's just a ponzi scheme but the differences aren't that significant. There is very little in modern society that is not absolutely dependent on growth. The rate of growth and collapse vary, if it is too short is a disallowed pyramid, if it is long enough it is an allowed pyramid, if it is a genefration r more it is often a legally mandated pyramid.

Think that was all I had to say. Good luck getting out of your shitbox.

Cogently explained. And on an inflationary fiat planet, the existence of a deflationary alternative that can't be killed is a good thing. I can only hope that more people will come to appreciate the inherent unsustainability of credit based systems.

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

Two parts to that, the first part is there is a lot of delusion that bitcoin will solve all the evils of the world. I find it interesting, Marx and Lenin believed if the bourgeois class were replaced by working class all would be equal and well with the world. Instead they got Stalin and mass starvation and world wars. Not so easy to figure these things out in advance.

On the other hand, what we have now is a tiny group of people with absolute power and infinite wealth. There are some (many) good things that arise from this but also serious abuses and in the big picture we are all stuck working for them like plantation slaves without the chains. I don't know that bitcoin can change that, but maybe it is a step in that direction. As it is, the real power wants to buy an army to topple a democracy, they write a check. They want to take over and exploit a natural resource, write a check. They want a law passed to give them anything they want anywhere in the world, they write a check. And the more checks they write the more debt there is and the more powerful they become, because they wrote themselves the laws that said they would be the creditors, and all others would be the debtors.

A little known open secret swept under the rug in 2008. When oil clipped $140 a barrel, the few central banks who own the system decided to break the market. They shut down letters of credit to somewhere between 80-130 countries, literally overnight. Now you cannot call Kuwait and order a supertanker full of crude cash-on-delivery. they won't send it. Letters of credit work like escrow through the banking system and all nations are stuck with it (by gunpoint, mostly). So overnight 2/3rds of the world's oil buyers were locked out of the market and a few months later the price of crude was trading in the 30's.

Not to say bitcoin would prevent the concentration of power either. But as is these creditors own money, the idea of money, and have granted themselves infinite resource. It will end badly and if there is an alternative to playing their game, I will take it, on principle, because fuck them.











 

[Undone]

But thaaanos, we can calculate the cost that transaction fees add to the price paid for goods & services. And it's not really that much. Someone will certainly chime in and claim that it is - but it's not.

So the potentially newest buyer of bitcoin (let's call him buyer n + 1) has to ask himself why he's willing to be buyer n + 1. He's only going to trade his fiat for bitcoin if he believes that bitcoin will be worth more later than it is now. Higher relative to what, you ask? Define it however you want - it just has to be more.

The idea of trading your dollars for bitcoin won't go mainstream unless bitcoin proves that it is a competent & safe store of value. And it better continue to do that really quickly, specifically by convincing new fresh cash to pump into the buy side of the market. If this doesn't happen, the "value" of bitcoin either stays the same, or goes nowhere. If it goes nowhere, will people trade their fiat for bitcoin simply because bitcoin promises, let's say, roughly 3% in gains from no/lower transaction fees? It's possibly, but incredibly unlikely.

N + 1? More pseudo maths from economics. Frankly just annoying when you could have easily said "new person". GTFO!

Moreover, the analysis itself is crapola: the "Bitcoin Bet" is as follows - will more people want to transact directly with one another without relying on a third party? Yes or no? If yes, Bitcoin economy expands then all the above pseudo analysis is total rubbish, as is most of economics itself because the assumptions are totally unrealistic. GIGO!

Further, bitcoin is deflationary. No one can make more bitcoins so it will always appreciate relative to fiat as long as the bitcoin economy keeps expanding. And why will it expand? Because of the Bitcoin Bet.

It's basically impossible to disagree with the bold; Bitcoin also has that going for it.

But the exchange rate, both history and future, will most likely decide whether or not the average person trades his fiat for bitcoin. And the exchange market has some incredible hurdles to overcome - but it could happen.

Also, I really love the way you use those fun acronyms.

[Lloydie]

Two parts to that, the first part is there is a lot of delusion that bitcoin will solve all the evils of the world. I find it interesting, Marx and Lenin believed if the bourgeois class were replaced by working class all would be equal and well with the world. Instead they got Stalin and mass starvation and world wars. Not so easy to figure these things out in advance.

On the other hand, what we have now is a tiny group of people with absolute power and infinite wealth. There are some (many) good things that arise from this but also serious abuses and in the big picture we are all stuck working for them like plantation slaves without the chains. I don't know that bitcoin can change that, but maybe it is a step in that direction. As it is, the real power wants to buy an army to topple a democracy, they write a check. They want to take over and exploit a natural resource, write a check. They want a law passed to give them anything they want anywhere in the world, they write a check. And the more checks they write the more debt there is and the more powerful they become, because they wrote themselves the laws that said they would be the creditors, and all others would be the debtors.

A little known open secret swept under the rug in 2008. When oil clipped $140 a barrel, the few central banks who own the system decided to break the market. They shut down letters of credit to somewhere between 80-130 countries, literally overnight. Now you cannot call Kuwait and order a supertanker full of crude cash-on-delivery. they won't send it. Letters of credit work like escrow through the banking system and all nations are stuck with it (by gunpoint, mostly). So overnight 2/3rds of the world's oil buyers were locked out of the market and a few months later the price of crude was trading in the 30's.

Not to say bitcoin would prevent the concentration of power either. But as is these creditors own money, the idea of money, and have granted themselves infinite resource. It will end badly and if there is an alternative to playing their game, I will take it, on principle, because fuck them.
 

I really enjoy reading your posts Mr jballs.  They are informative.  

Are we delusional about Bitcoin?  Perhaps.  However, in my view, Bitcoin offers the possibility of a hard currency + capitalism.  You know, like Germany through the 70's and 80's as it was rebuilding its economy.  Even now, the Euro is technically still a hard currency zone, though Draghi is trying his best to subvert that.  Germany's response is that you cannot breed a competitive economy based on bailing everyone out.  They have a point.

You're also right that Bitcoin is perhaps a step in the direction we all want to head towards.  One of the key features of Bitcoin that I favour is the transfer of seigniorage away from corruptible human entities to a predictable protocol.  Therein lies the hope and of course the fantasy of a better world.  And you're right, we can't go on in a world where central banks have the power to control money and direct it towards political purposes (whether good or bad).  They can't help themselves, which is why a trust less system, such as Bitcoin, is required.

Humans now have the potential to move forward based on decentralisation and agreement on open protocols to prevent the kinds of corruption that occurred in the past.

[thaaanos]

Two parts to that, the first part is there is a lot of delusion that bitcoin will solve all the evils of the world. I find it interesting, Marx and Lenin believed if the bourgeois class were replaced by working class all would be equal and well with the world. Instead they got Stalin and mass starvation and world wars. Not so easy to figure these things out in advance.

On the other hand, what we have now is a tiny group of people with absolute power and infinite wealth. There are some (many) good things that arise from this but also serious abuses and in the big picture we are all stuck working for them like plantation slaves without the chains. I don't know that bitcoin can change that, but maybe it is a step in that direction. As it is, the real power wants to buy an army to topple a democracy, they write a check. They want to take over and exploit a natural resource, write a check. They want a law passed to give them anything they want anywhere in the world, they write a check. And the more checks they write the more debt there is and the more powerful they become, because they wrote themselves the laws that said they would be the creditors, and all others would be the debtors.

A little known open secret swept under the rug in 2008. When oil clipped $140 a barrel, the few central banks who own the system decided to break the market. They shut down letters of credit to somewhere between 80-130 countries, literally overnight. Now you cannot call Kuwait and order a supertanker full of crude cash-on-delivery. they won't send it. Letters of credit work like escrow through the banking system and all nations are stuck with it (by gunpoint, mostly). So overnight 2/3rds of the world's oil buyers were locked out of the market and a few months later the price of crude was trading in the 30's.

Not to say bitcoin would prevent the concentration of power either. But as is these creditors own money, the idea of money, and have granted themselves infinite resource. It will end badly and if there is an alternative to playing their game, I will take it, on principle, because fuck them.
 

I really enjoy reading your posts Mr jballs.  They are informative.  

Are we delusional about Bitcoin?  Perhaps.  However, in my view, Bitcoin offers the possibility of a hard currency + capitalism.  You know, like Germany through the 70's and 80's as it was rebuilding its economy.  Even now, the Euro is technically still a hard currency zone, though Draghi is trying his best to subvert that.  Germany's response is that you cannot breed a competitive economy based on bailing everyone out.  They have a point.

You're also right that Bitcoin is perhaps a step in the direction we all want to head towards.  One of the key features of Bitcoin that I favour is the transfer of seigniorage away from corruptible human entities to a predictable protocol.  Therein lies the hope and of course the fantasy of a better world.  And you're right, we can't go on in a world where central banks have the power to control money and direct it towards political purposes (whether good or bad).  They can't help themselves, which is why a trust less system, such as Bitcoin, is required.

Humans now have the potential to move forward based on decentralisation and agreement on open protocols to prevent the kinds of corruption that occurred in the past.

Protocols MUST evolve, so who will take up the task? You are exchanging politicians/bankers to developers, that may sound nice but it is the same thing. Power corrupts.

You assume that code is crystal : Logical, Hard and Transparent, No code is Art: Emotional, Fragile and Ellusive.

If you have not already noticed, bitcoin is already under fire, there is a technical bubble with a burst waiting to happen, greed has been used as a virus, to expand the bitcoin network, but it is also its fatal flaw. Because there are others who understand Greed better and can weaponize it for fun if they choose so. And Who can destroy a thing, can control it. Isn't that right?

[Lloydie]

Protocols MUST evolve, so who will take up the task? You are exchanging politicians/bankers to developers, that may sound nice but it is the same thing. Power corrupts.

You assume that code is crystal : Logical, Hard and Transparent, No code is Art: Emotional, Fragile and Ellusive.

If you have not already noticed, bitcoin is already under fire, there is a technical bubble with a burst waiting to happen, greed has been used as a virus, to expand the bitcoin network, but it is also its fatal flaw. Because there are others who understand Greed better and can weaponize it for fun if they choose so. And Who can destroy a thing, can control it. Isn't that right?

I'm in agreement. I see a future where we shall have governance via protocols. People will design the best protocols and all these protocols will compete until the best survive.

It is not a situation of no regulation. It is a situation where the free market will determine the regulation that it wants. I know you're not going to agree entirely.

I don't believe bitcoin is a bubble. The adoption rate is less than 2 million souls and real money hasn't even poured in yet. Bitcoin represents the ability to transact without relying on third parties. I see that people will want this technology. In fact, I see it being the dominant and pervasive means of wealth transfer.

Those that have a moral objection to the early adopters and their hoard of btcs are always welcome to design an alternative protocol. However, one must also abide with the judgement of the markets if that protocol is rejected by open markets. What we individually find just may not be what the market wants. Satoshi understood that and designed a system to encourage early adopters.  You can't fight hard money capitalism Thaaanos.

[thaaanos]

Which leads me to your "oh all these coins are pyramid schemes"... but first I will add my mom doesn't have a basement... let me help you grok this. CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME. All of it. You know why stocks boomed from 1950 to the 2000's? Because the world population went from 2 billion to 6 billion. You know why it is crapping out here? Because we cannot extract resources fast enough to downline the 7th billion with the gross excess required to feed the pyramid. Stock market IPOs oar pyramid schemes. Fiat money is pyramid scheme, decaying at fixed rate to guarantee loss to holders. Credit/debt is the ultimate pyramid scheme, requiring exact exponential growth and unavoidable collapse. This is fact. Social security, that's just a ponzi scheme but the differences aren't that significant. There is very little in modern society that is not absolutely dependent on growth. The rate of growth and collapse vary, if it is too short is a disallowed pyramid, if it is long enough it is an allowed pyramid, if it is a genefration r more it is often a legally mandated pyramid.

Think that was all I had to say. Good luck getting out of your shitbox.

Cogently explained. And on an inflationary fiat planet, the existence of a deflationary alternative that can't be killed is a good thing. I can only hope that more people will come to appreciate the inherent unsustainability of credit based systems.

What I just fail to see is the "Revolutionary" part of bitcoin, it would be more honest to claim bitcoin crystalizes Elitistic Capitalism

Two parts to that, the first part is there is a lot of delusion that bitcoin will solve all the evils of the world. I find it interesting, Marx and Lenin believed if the bourgeois class were replaced by working class all would be equal and well with the world. Instead they got Stalin and mass starvation and world wars. Not so easy to figure these things out in advance.

On the other hand, what we have now is a tiny group of people with absolute power and infinite wealth. There are some (many) good things that arise from this but also serious abuses and in the big picture we are all stuck working for them like plantation slaves without the chains. I don't know that bitcoin can change that, but maybe it is a step in that direction. As it is, the real power wants to buy an army to topple a democracy, they write a check. They want to take over and exploit a natural resource, write a check. They want a law passed to give them anything they want anywhere in the world, they write a check. And the more checks they write the more debt there is and the more powerful they become, because they wrote themselves the laws that said they would be the creditors, and all others would be the debtors.

A little known open secret swept under the rug in 2008. When oil clipped $140 a barrel, the few central banks who own the system decided to break the market. They shut down letters of credit to somewhere between 80-130 countries, literally overnight. Now you cannot call Kuwait and order a supertanker full of crude cash-on-delivery. they won't send it. Letters of credit work like escrow through the banking system and all nations are stuck with it (by gunpoint, mostly). So overnight 2/3rds of the world's oil buyers were locked out of the market and a few months later the price of crude was trading in the 30's.

Not to say bitcoin would prevent the concentration of power either. But as is these creditors own money, the idea of money, and have granted themselves infinite resource. It will end badly and if there is an alternative to playing their game, I will take it, on principle, because fuck them.

I am sorry to say that as long as they can legislate they are unfuckable, writing checks is the easy way, they have other ways as you described to fuck markets and people.
The only threat to their domination as they perceive it is Religion, not because they can print money but because they can legislate too
Bitcoin is a toy for them, hell they can even (mis)use it as they use gold right now, fix exchnges, create IOUs, heck they can build a whole new market on top of it, to shamelessly steal more people globally, with minimum fee.
Wages would shrink every year (cause it's deflationary see mate?) while the bitcoin Bonds would inflate at will. and nothing really change except we would be stuck with en even harder currency that freaking EURO.