Peter Schiff goes at it again...

[Dr Bloggood]

This time it sounds like he has read one or the other discussion about him here on the forum... Hello, Peter!

Starts at 15:30.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/peter-schiff-on-yellen-bitcoin-the-2014-outlook-for-pms/

[cryptoanarchist]

LOL @ how Peter just tosses logic out the window when bitcoin is the topic.

He really doesn't have a choice. He needs to sell gold.

[davidpbrown]

Bitcoin is the electronic gold, that beats physical gold which comes with the risk that it's plated rust; and of course everything beats paper gold because that's not worth the paper.

[FandangledGizmo]

Schiff is the proto-typical middle aged 'gold-bug.' It's easy to discern he's not particularly intelligent but intelligent enough to understand the benefits of a limited physical commodity that has functioned as money for thousands of years vs. a currency controlled and issued in unlimited amounts by a small elite group.

But even though I LOVE Gold...

The problem is that history teaches us banks will ALWAYS issue more certificates for gold than they have on deposit and governments will ALWAYS issue more currency than they have gold to back it up.

Of course the problem with Bitcoin is that you can always issue more Bitcoin than... Oh wait! You can't issue more Bitcoin than defined by the parameters and anyone can view the transactions on the decentralised public ledger...

The sad thing is, Schiff is caught in a politicians dilemma - even if Schiff eventually 'gets' Bitcoin. Because he lost his clients money in 2013 and caused them to miss out on the 4000% gains of Bitcoin, he will never be able to admit that he was wrong.

[MegaHustlr]

LOL @ how Peter just tosses logic out the window when bitcoin is the topic.

He really doesn't have a choice. He needs to sell gold.

agreed.

[btbrae]

Summary:

1) Bitcoin has no substance, or any of the likeable properties of gold.
2) Early adopters will head for the exit at some point (fear) and the whole thing will crash.
3) Businesses accepting Bitcoin are dumping them on the market which is useless.
4) The round-trip to fiat (spending then replacing) is more expensive than simply using fiat, removing the potential benefits.
5) Governments will crack down on businesses accepting Bitcoins and create compliance headaches, removing the incentive for them.
6) There is no coin limit because of altcoins and copycats.

To be fair he's very candid about not "getting it" and simply sees this as yet another bubble...

[minerpart]

If this well documented looser on the financial markets thinks BTC is worthless then you know we are on to a good thing.

On the IRS he says they will think 'If you (retailer) are accepting Bitcoin, maybe that is a terrorist'. Is this guy from another planet?

[FandangledGizmo]

Summary:

1) Bitcoin has no substance, or any of the likeable properties of gold.
2) Early adopters will head for the exit at some point (fear) and the whole thing will crash.
3) Businesses accepting Bitcoin are dumping them on the market which is useless.
4) The round-trip to fiat (spending then replacing) is more expensive than simply using fiat, removing the potential benefits.
5) Governments will crack down on businesses accepting Bitcoins and create compliance headaches, removing the incentive for them.
6) There is no coin limit because of altcoins and copycats.

To be fair he's very candid about not "getting it" and simply sees this as yet another bubble...

Thanks for the summary, vid wasn't loading on my phone.

1. Wrong gold lets bankers/gov run a simple scam where they issue more receipts than they have actual gold, Bitcoin solves that.

2. Valid. You can buy gold today, go to sleep for 10 years and wake up a happy man. With new technology you have to stay active. Bitcoin solves a lot of problem but if something can do the job much better or Bitcoin/fails then yes people may switch. (Eg. I think POS is better than POW, but hedging BTC position pretty cheap and easy.)

3. False. Businesses create greater & greater demand, even if they dump (overstock though for example isn't dumping all) more people accepting it creates more and more demand for the coins that are dumped. (Also once BTC achieved X liquidity/size then fewer and fewer businesses will feel the need to trade out of it.)

4. False. Bitpay makes the round trip cheaper than accepting payments via credit card.

5. True. But they can be even more successful applying same tactics to gold. See 'E-gold'

6. False. Why are silver, platinum, rhodium etc. not a major threat to gold? Same reason alts aren't a threat to Bitcoin. (Caveat - if something does the job much better it can be a threat.)

[freet0pian]

If this well documented looser on the financial markets thinks BTC is worthless then you know we are on to a good thing.

On the IRS he says they will think 'If you (retailer) are accepting Bitcoin, maybe that is a terrorist'. Is this guy from another planet?

No he isn't a well documented loser but he does have the blinders on regarding bitcoin. And the gov will regulate bitcoin more than fiat because of the non-existent "terrorist threat", that's how they roll.

[dynodog]

Peter,
What about all of your customers who have been buying the incredibly speculative mining stocks you recommend, who have been clobbered?  Any you're worrying about potential losses in bitcoin?  You know that most of these mining companies are made up of self-serving boards who love to pay themselves and dilute shares through never-ending secondaries.  The underlying commodity (gold) is up 4 to 5 fold since 2003, yet most of the metal stocks you recommend are mostly DOWN.  I don't hear you talking about that.... 

At least with bitcoin, I don't have to worry about self-serving boards, bogus mining reports, and manipulation.  I believe you don't WANT to understand bitcoin bc you don't get to sell your europacific fund and make a commission if you talk up bitcoin.  Think about those who manage a muni bond book - do they talk negatively about their book?  NEVER.  Same applies to your analysis, Peter - all you are doing is talking up your book, which includes talking down those investments which compete with your book.  People may believe that you are giving an unbiased opinion about bitcoin, and nothing could be further from the truth.

[tvbcof]

If this well documented looser on the financial markets thinks BTC is worthless then you know we are on to a good thing.

On the IRS he says they will think 'If you (retailer) are accepting Bitcoin, maybe that is a terrorist'. Is this guy from another planet?

No he isn't a well documented loser but he does have the blinders on regarding bitcoin. And the gov will regulate bitcoin more than fiat because of the non-existent "terrorist threat", that's how they roll.

Schiff flushed his clients funds down the toilet in 2008 by betting on the Euro and other retarded hunches.  Bye-bye to the biggest money-making opportunity in decades*, and they had been in a unique position to capitalize on it.  He's an ignorant loud-mouthed buffoon and loser IMO.

The most annoying thing about Schiff is that he thinks that somehow he wins points simply by talking non-stop over anyone else who he's having a so-called discussion with.  The thing that is really annoying about it as that a certain fraction of those who listen to him agree.  That's why he has a decent sized flock of suckers swallowing his paper gold garbage and other generally ignorant and poorly researched conceptions about basic political and economic issues I suppose.

 -edit:  * Until Bitcoin.  His clients missed that one too, surprise surprise.  Loooooser!

[seriouscoin]

If this well documented looser on the financial markets thinks BTC is worthless then you know we are on to a good thing.

On the IRS he says they will think 'If you (retailer) are accepting Bitcoin, maybe that is a terrorist'. Is this guy from another planet?

No he isn't a well documented loser but he does have the blinders on regarding bitcoin. And the gov will regulate bitcoin more than fiat because of the non-existent "terrorist threat", that's how they roll.

What? if hes not a loser, then i dont know anyone that is.

Only sheeptards would listen to him. Have you ever followed his "gambles" ?
 

[BittBurger]

Peter probably saw my post.

So Ill repeat it, in paraphrase form:

Peter owns a competing company.  A gold company.  Peter has to pretend he doesn't believe in bitcoin.  He's one of those unrespectable types who fakes "hating something" just so others will avoid it.  No different than the people who come on this forum saying Bitcoin will fail, because they hope the price will drop and they can get in cheaper.  Its all dishonesty, at the core.  Peter probably knows exactly what Bitcoin is all about, and why its going to take over the world, and he's terrified.  So he talks trash.  Basically.  In hopes that he will fool stupid people into avoiding it. 

My question for Peter:   Do you really think your comments are going to amount to a hill of beans in the end?   Stop wasting your time faking your Bitcoin pessimism.  Adapt.  Find ways to get people to buy Gold with Bitcoin.  Create a fund or an exchange that allows people to trade across the two.  Better yet:  Make the first website that allows people to *cash out* their bitcoin into gold, so they can "feel better" about their taxes.  There are a couple other sites, but the gold they offer is miniscule in value.

The only companies who will survive the coming wave, are the ones nimble enough to adapt.  If you don't, as Andreas Antonopoulos has said:  You can sit there and watch the astroid coming, and let it demolish your business instead.  Your choice.

Okay so I failed the paraphrase aspect.

-B-

[cypherdoc]

the really annoying thing for me is that when he speaks about Bitcoin he throws together a long, incoherent string of false assumptions based on exactly nothing but an incomplete understanding of the protocol.

[Lethn]

Summary:

1) Bitcoin has no substance, or any of the likeable properties of gold.
2) Early adopters will head for the exit at some point (fear) and the whole thing will crash.
3) Businesses accepting Bitcoin are dumping them on the market which is useless.
4) The round-trip to fiat (spending then replacing) is more expensive than simply using fiat, removing the potential benefits.
5) Governments will crack down on businesses accepting Bitcoins and create compliance headaches, removing the incentive for them.
6) There is no coin limit because of altcoins and copycats.

To be fair he's very candid about not "getting it" and simply sees this as yet another bubble...

I think this is a classic problem of him not having tried it out and actually looked at the function of it, I'm not really a programmer even though I'm messing around with C++ but I've always been able to look at software just by itself and poke around at it. The design behind Bitcoin is clearly very well thought out and it solves the problem Gold/Silver always had of not being easily traded across the world, because you can't very well travel the world with a backpack of Gold and expect a thief to not take an interest, it also gets rid of any control or monopoly anyone can really have over money itself.

Good joke for you guys here too, I once visited London recently and I was paying a visit to a Silver smith, I was pretty inconspicuous with the way I was carrying my silver jewellery because it was just in a backpack etc. but the best thing was when I got off at the train station the person I was going to visit was at and there was a cell phone thief warning sign right bloody in front of me, yeah that made me nervous as hell lol so there are some definite reasons for stuff like Bitcoin when you think about it more carefully.

It's going to be a lot worse when I have to carry around gemstones and gold worth several hundred.

Because his income is closely tied to the gold price and not the bitcoin price he naturally will defend gold and crap on Bitcoin. Simple human psychology.

This too, it's very difficult to see schiff's point of view on this especially when he says quite a bit of stuff about Bitcoin that isn't really all that true, so far I've only seen Ron Paul really come out and say he supports competing currencies.

[smoothie]

Because his income is closely tied to the gold price and not the bitcoin price he naturally will defend gold and crap on Bitcoin. Simple human psychology.

[Melbustus]

Did Peter ever respond to Erik's open letter?
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rxmk3/my

[Dr Bloggood]

This too, it's very difficult to see schiff's point of view on this especially when he says quite a bit of stuff about Bitcoin that isn't really all that true

At least the argument "And who guarantees that it will only be 21 million coins anyways" is missing this time - he might have learned something since the last interviews...

Anyways, apart from his statemants about BTC, I really respect Schiff, he is a very smart guy.

[Melbustus]

At least the argument "And who guarantees that it will only be 21 million coins anyways" is missing this time - he might have learned something since the last interviews...

Well, now he just prattles on about alt-coins being supply dilution. I'll grant him that it's a far more reasonable argument than doubting the 21M supply of bitcoin itself, but it's just his new big debate crutch. He doesn't really acknowledge network effect dynamics, nor the fact that his beloved precious metals market demonstrates these characteristics (gold primary, silver a distant second, etc).

Anyways, apart from his statemants about BTC, I really respect Schiff, he is a very smart guy.

I used to think he was a smart guy. Then I saw an interview/video/post/whatever where he said that bitcoin's divisibility represented dilution. That's actually a decent litmus test for raw intelligence in these matters. You can't think that for more than a split second (certainly not long enough to publicly state it) while having above-average powers of logical deduction. Given that he thought it long/strong enough to publicly make that assertion, I'm ruling out random temporary misconception. He's either *not* a very smart guy, or he's sooo emotionally blinded by the threat to gold represented by bitcoin, that he becomes a fool on this topic specifically.

[Dr Bloggood]

At least the argument "And who guarantees that it will only be 21 million coins anyways" is missing this time - he might have learned something since the last interviews...

Well, now he just prattles on about alt-coins being supply dilution. I'll grant him that it's a far more reasonable argument than doubting the 21M supply of bitcoin itself, but it's just his new big debate crutch. He doesn't really acknowledge network effect dynamics, nor the fact that his beloved precious metals market demonstrates these characteristics (gold primary, silver a distant second, etc).

Yeah, it's really the next ridiculous argument in line there, it sticks out as especially lacking of logic from this interview...

Btw, I do think that he is right with his statement about the great first day of BTC-sales by Overstock, etc.. this really came from BTC holders wanting to encourage other businesses and reward Overstock.

nor the fact that his beloved precious metals market demonstrates these characteristics (gold primary, silver a distant second, etc).

Well, I can't agree to that, because the amount of alt currencies is potentially limitless and new ones are cheap and to bring into existance.

Schiff is just blind when it comes to BTC, and like the first poster says, he loses his logical abilities when it's about BTC. For whatever reason.