Bitcoin adoption slowing; Coinbase + Bitpay is enough to make Bitcoin a fiat

[mgburks77]

Anonymity is protection for the individual, decentralization is protection for the network...

quite so!

that's catchy, I like it

[1713921311]

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[rdnkjdi]

I've spent the time to read all six pages - but I do not claim to understand more than 20% of it.  I reserve the right to modify, post more, or retract some off the cuff thoughts.

Your talking effects. I was talking cause. The cause was as always centralization of power, and too much debt. The ill effects of debt is knowledge stagnates and everyone does dumb xerox copy shit. And this monotonicity causes the appearance of resource scarcity.

If everyone is figuring out how to consume and no one is figuring out how to innovate, then it isn't surprising that consumption outstrips efficiencies of resource extraction.

This is my favorite practical quote of this entire thread.  Most of the population owes 50% of their paycheck to central control (Home loan + car loan) not to mention taxes.  Debt is a form of slavery.  Centralized forces are able to create debt with little to nothing and enslave those who owe them.  The amount of wealth (energy) that is generated from middle class is put directly into the debt system is probably close to 50% (& this is outside of taxes).

Separating the ego, the postulating, the theoretical, the practical, the political out of this thread is intense enough to outright depress me in even trying to create a legitimate response on some of my thoughts.  But as someone with an average IQ, average knowledge and reasonable gut senses I'd like to make a few statements that I reserve the right to retract / modify.

1.)  The masses care less than you think they do.  They are perfectly happy to donate 50 - 75% of their life force (energy\time) to the powers that be (debtors they owe + taxes) in exchange for a lifestyle they have been trained to think they want.  My ex gf had a 12% car loan, payed 30% of her salary in rent for a place she didn't need.  And credit card debt to boot.

2.)  The masses are less intelligent than you give them credit for.  Trying to explain the idea of financial independence - or that you'd be happier with a less nice car and less nice house - and two weeks off of every month a year to the AVERAGE person is like trying to explain math to a cow.

3.)  The masses are less creative than you give them credit for.  They WOULD RATHER make Xerox copies all day than innovate.  Innovation involves risk, fear, unknowns that a 9 to 5 job doesn't.

4.)  The masses are not competent enough to take control of their banking.  My first experience with bitcoin was getting scammed.  Second was wasting money on GPU hardware I gave up on because it was a pain in the a$$.  Third was getting my computer hacked and my BTC-E account taken over for two weeks.

If I could summarize.  One of the biggest reasons the government / financial system is able to oppress or enslave the masses.  The reason coinbase + bitpay is taking over is because they take into account the apathetic, unintelligent, uncreative attributes that make up 70 - 80% of the masses.

To further my point - there was a lot of talk about Linux.  Comparing it to Windows - Linux is probably better than Windows in a million different ways.  But because it didn't take into consideration the lack of intelligence, lack of creativity and total apathy of the masses.  Windows succeeded where it did not.  Windows will always be inferior to Linux - but it focused on being a crutch for the masses.  Where linux was unwilling to substitute power for simplicity, security for ease of use, stability for ease of adoption.

Linux/unix probably contributes more to wealth when you look at the servers running it as a back end make up most of our internet.  But that wealth went to those who focused on adoption for the masses (Apple, facebook, Google, etc)

I see the Coinbase/Bitpay as the same situation.  My BTC-E account was hacked because I was a moron - Coinbase didn't let me be a moron so my account was safe.  Until decentralization can take into account the attributes of the masses - which is what centralized forces do - they will not be able to productively harness the energy that comes with controlling their time & energy.  Which in the end - is wealth.

[goin2mars]

A public ledger of transactions if augmented with more info about the transaction will certainly help to have a clearer understanding of where the economy goes. Instant statistics! probably an economist's wet dream.
The transparency of the blockchain will make it more difficult for Politicians to distort the reality. I think it is a great Idea (public ledger) on it's own.
I wouldn't easily discard that notion in searching for anonymity.

Using the example of a business owner, these are probably the most painful words I've ever had shoved in front of my eyes.

How can you expect that a publicly available and accessible blockchain would ever help me out, or be in my favor?

Excluding the grand talk of governments and elites for the sake of this more targeted argument . . what happens when my competition becomes aware of the other businesses I work with to every minute financial detail? Bedlam is what happens.

To willingly put my competition in a stance that would simply allow them to buy-out my suppliers by tracking their transactions with me, compel my customers to work with them instead (by again discovering what they are buying and sell it to them), or uncover private company information relating to proprietary processes (By introducing yourself, an original competitor, to me as a simple equipment supplier that needs to know about my processes in order to sell me the right things). . you're asking the world to burn. You're putting people in the unemployment line, because I'm losing money.

A public ledger isn't one of the greatest contributions that bitcoin has provided, it's the biggest weakness. It's where Satoshi stopped in my eyes.

Software may be open source, but the processes by which Quaker Oats or Wellbutrin are created are not. It would be insane to ask that it would ever be.

You may use the example of 3d printers to refute this, but there are and always will be processes that are in competition due to something crucial that printers can never provide.

Things like plant seeds or pre-grown plants, bred animals, pharmaceuticals, that specific taste to your food that's not like everything else, and knowledge inside my head (and how it gets there) will never be be able printed by sheer definition of what they are - unique. These are just a few examples, but they're endless.

You can print a fork but you can't print the uniqueness in these examples (though you can still print unique things). You can open source software, but as I read before in this thread -- it's always changing. To this effect, uniqueness is preserved.

You can, at some point, make the processes open source due to their relative value decreasing, but the mind through which they were introduced can never be open sourced. New uniqueness will eventually replace the old. It can never be a completely open door though, because for every one mind . . there is another with different ideas about the same thing.

You telling me that these types of things don't matter and are actually a good thing -- by having a public blockchain -- is totally wrong. To say otherwise is piercing holes in anything that can, or ever has, held value. Without some form of privacy . . the value just leaks out. There's no incentive to adopt. Provably so, with the three main parties involved with bitcoin today being a small consumer base, one man shops that are desperate for an edge, and investors. The former two are not particularly concentrated sources of value, so this leaves little for investors to play on.

The next step is real business money. The only way to invite this, I see, is by allowing privacy from competition.

[mgburks77]

I've spent the time to read all six pages - but I do not claim to understand more than 20% of it.  I reserve the right to modify, post more, or retract some off the cuff thoughts.

Your talking effects. I was talking cause. The cause was as always centralization of power, and too much debt. The ill effects of debt is knowledge stagnates and everyone does dumb xerox copy shit. And this monotonicity causes the appearance of resource scarcity.

If everyone is figuring out how to consume and no one is figuring out how to innovate, then it isn't surprising that consumption outstrips efficiencies of resource extraction.

This is my favorite practical quote of this entire thread.  Most of the population owes 50% of their paycheck to central control (Home loan + car loan) not to mention taxes.  Debt is a form of slavery.  Centralized forces are able to create debt with little to nothing and enslave those who owe them.  The amount of wealth (energy) that is generated from middle class is put directly into the debt system is probably close to 50% (& this is outside of taxes).

Separating the ego, the postulating, the theoretical, the practical, the political out of this thread is intense enough to outright depress me in even trying to create a legitimate response on some of my thoughts.  But as someone with an average IQ, average knowledge and reasonable gut senses I'd like to make a few statements that I reserve the right to retract / modify.

1.)  The masses care less than you think they do.  They are perfectly happy to donate 50 - 75% of their life force (energy\time) to the powers that be (debtors they owe + taxes) in exchange for a lifestyle they have been trained to think they want.  My ex gf had a 12% car loan, payed 30% of her salary in rent for a place she didn't need.  And credit card debt to boot.

2.)  The masses are less intelligent than you give them credit for.  Trying to explain the idea of financial independence - or that you'd be happier with a less nice car and less nice house - and two weeks off of every month a year to the AVERAGE person is like trying to explain math to a cow.

3.)  The masses are less creative than you give them credit for.  They WOULD RATHER make Xerox copies all day than innovate.  Innovation involves risk, fear, unknowns that a 9 to 5 job doesn't.

4.)  The masses are not competent enough to take control of their banking.  My first experience with bitcoin was getting scammed.  Second was wasting money on GPU hardware I gave up on because it was a pain in the a$$.  Third was getting my computer hacked and my BTC-E account taken over for two weeks.

If I could summarize.  One of the biggest reasons the government / financial system is able to oppress or enslave the masses.  The reason coinbase + bitpay is taking over is because they take into account the apathetic, unintelligent, uncreative attributes that make up 70 - 80% of the masses.

To further my point - there was a lot of talk about Linux.  Comparing it to Windows - Linux is probably better than Windows in a million different ways.  But because it didn't take into consideration the lack of intelligence, lack of creativity and total apathy of the masses.  Windows succeeded where it did not.  Windows will always be inferior to Linux - but it focused on being a crutch for the masses.  Where linux was unwilling to substitute power for simplicity, security for ease of use, stability for ease of adoption.

Linux/unix probably contributes more to wealth when you look at the servers running it as a back end make up most of our internet.  But that wealth went to those who focused on adoption for the masses (Apple, facebook, Google, etc)

I see the Coinbase/Bitpay as the same situation.  My BTC-E account was hacked because I was a moron - Coinbase didn't let me be a moron so my account was safe.  Until decentralization can take into account the attributes of the masses - which is what centralized forces do - they will not be able to productively harness the energy that comes with controlling their time & energy.  Which in the end - is wealth.

Upwards to 40-50% of "9-5 jobs" will be replaced by automation or software by 2030.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/

The point you are missing is that the security that the masses crave is an illusion. The promises made by the G20 nations represent a massive amount of unfunded liabilities that are going to have to be covered. The USD is backed by the "faith and credit" of the USA. If the tax base is unemployed and added to welfare rolls that are unfunded it is easy to see that what backing USD has is going straight out the window. There is no real security there. It's a lie and a house of cards.

The thing you aren't seeing is the masses will have to change their perspective if they want to survive. Also, they will need the right tool for the job.

[DieJohnny]

Are you not interested at all in crypto-currency? Just curious.

Looks like i have some reading to do, thanks for your linked posts.

I do think that bitcoin-like exchange of assets represents the future of transactions, however, it is not what makes Bitcoin valuable, primarily due to the very things you bring up. The masses simply won't use it and have no incentive or even easy way to do so.

Bitcoin will always have its primary source of value be in a speculative asset, my opinion here is strongly on the word ALWAYS right now. Again, primarily for reasons you outline. Customers want convenience and speed with their transactions, not just rage-against-the-machine motivations.  

Do we really think that banks won't respond to the Bitcoin phenomenon of instantaneous, secure, low-cost transfers? Nobody that has a reasonable point of view seriously believes that current systems won't respond to the features that bitcoin provides. Yes it will probably include trusted services, but as you have pointed out Bitcoin cannot accomplish any sort of convenience without trusted services, so Bitcoin enthusiasts are again delusional thinking these services are the killer features of Bitcoin.

The ONLY reason Bitcoin has the value it has is because of its scarcity and its untouchable nature. It is the first of its kind and will likely have serious value 50 years from now precluding world war. I don't think anything about Bitcoin tells me it would survive a world war.

There will be some alt-coins that will survive, but again not because they present any sort of transaction-like competitive advantages. Traditional banks will win this transaction war, there is no doubt in my mind that Bitcoin will not win a transaction war. Banks, PayPals, Amazons, Apples all won't sit idly and watch crypto-like currencies eat into their mainstream revenue. In five years, transactions for banks will be good-enough that the average consumer moving into bitcoin won't make sense for their financial systems will be good enough.

Bitcoin will only become mainstream when everyone owns one simply to hedge against their own countries currency, not because they want to buy something fast with it (the exceptions would be niche purchasers like Porn).

So I buy Bitcoin only as a speculative play. I do like its transaction capabilities, I have bought a lot of stuff with Bitcoin, but only because I chose purchasing stuff over selling to reduce my holdings risk.  I have had enough conversations with "normal" people that I know these txn features have limited drawing power. If I ever have had a friend buy a Bitcoin, it has only been because I created a small glimmer in their eye that it might be worth $10k some day.

Bitcoin does not need mainstream adoption, it doesn't need even a fraction of the general population to be wildly valuable. Bitcoin will grow on greed and speculation alone for a long time to come. It is enough for penny stocks, internet boom 1.0, precious metals, and countless other speculative assets, it will be enough for Bitcoin. Transactions only serve as the ultimate excuse for governments to allow it to live. Transactions are only the secret protection that allows Bitcoin to live wave after wave of speculative bubble.

Greed and speculation alone are enough to propel Bitcoin to 250 billion dollars or more. It has happened to countless stocks in companies that hit the speculative mother load, how many people do I know that own Apple stock, or Microsoft, or Cisco, or GE. In all reality very few of my entire circle own any stocks via direct brokerage purchase. Maybe a lot via their 401k or their mutal fund, but they wouldn't even know if those investements used any shares of Apple. Bitcoin will be no different, worth 500 billion and you may know 10 people that own them.

[AnonyMint]

Eric presented his refutation and I replied. This pretty much cements it for me.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5558&cpage=1#comment-480217

> For Rifkin’s predictions to come true it would not suffice for knowledge creation to rise in value. For his predictions to come true, material goods would have to fall to zero marginal cost. That will not happen, because atoms are heavy.

Mea culpa I haven't read the book. I indicated in my linked refutation, that I wouldn't agree with any Communist basis and agree with Eric's critique on that aspect. For the conceptual idea to scale, there must be symbiosis between individual gain and collective gain, per the Eric's Inverse Commons in the Magic Cauldron.

For example, one could argue that any initial start-up cost for a creation couldn't be offset by the knowledge network value of incremental edits because the initial creator is not directly receiving the return on investment. My counter logic is there may be business models dealing with modularity or diminishing trail of appreciation (citation) that when combined with micro payments can route remuneration backtracked to the creators. Moreover the non-monetary square law scaling of the Inverse Commons applies in that participants gain the return of the creations and incremental improvements of their brethren. It is a mesh topology N-highway of sharing. My belief is that according to gift culture Eric outlined, the community is aligned towards acknowledging sources especially when the act of doing so is only an insignificant (automated) micro payment or other remuneration models the ingenious may develop. Insignificant micro payments then aggregate to the creators at the rate of the participants squared. The squared law seems to be so powerful and at the heart of why the Inverse Commons is the "only known positive scaling law of software engineering" as so eloquently and astutely noted by Eric. That audio of Eric is permanently imprinted in my primary consciousness. I can never forget random "monkeys beating on the code" can outperform the cathedral of closed source (which I want to extend to vertical integration in general).

Also I noticed in the Bitcoin and now especially in the Dogecoin community, there is much more tipping and donations than I know about in the fiat world. The participants understand that to make their ecosystem grow, they need to reward participation. That is not Communism because it is an individual decision, no Max Weber central authority is holding a gun to each of our heads. You can see in my linked discussion thread, the participants are rallying the concepts and refining them perhaps better than I could, or at least differently and scaling requires diversity.

Atoms are heavy but that is lacking information. How heavy? Relativity is all the matters here. I never wrote zero, I wrote relative value is trending asymptotically towards zero.

> You are just as wrong as anyone who around 1900, observing the steep fall in marginal cost of manufactured goods, predicted that food would become effectively free.

In fact food declined from say a third or half of someone's income to something on the order of a tenth now in the developed world. The third world didn't industrialize so was devalued. The industrial economy was more valuable than the agricultural economy, and to survive the agricultural economy had to move to higher economies-of-scale and automation, thus significantly lowering relative prices.

And now the Knowledge Age economy is devaluing the Industrial and Agricultural age economies. Food is maybe a hundredth of my income and that is the future.

[pungopete468]

I'm confused... How can the atomic mass of an atom determine the value of the element? How much is radioactive waste worth? The heaviest atoms in the periodic table are the least valuable...

The argument about food costs in the 1900's isn't an argument at all. Firstly because some food actually is free, secondly because the current methods of food production aren't necessarily an accurate representation for the methods of food production at a future point in time. Modifying variables will alter the product of any equation.

I don't understand the inability to grasp that the world and everything in it is subject to change. When food becomes effectively free; it will be a direct result of decreasing the relative difficulty of obtaining the types of foods that one might want and the difficulty of obtaining the source of those food types... 

Oh well...

[AnonyMint]

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5558&cpage=1#comment-480286

> We’re still a long way from solving the shortage of skilled labor, as anyone who has ever needed a plumber can attest.

I am in the Lazarus Long camp that says there is nothing the government can't unimprove if it can touch it. Plumbing is not an extremely highly skilled activity, at least without the kafkaesque, labyrinth of building codes that must be navigated in some jurisdictions. Of course I am not arguing that building best practices aren't a good idea if done in the free market. I strongly suspect the supply of plumbers is restricted by the onerous licensing requirements which mismatch the education level of someone who wouldn't be bored out their freakin' mind to pursue that career. I was an autodidact plumber when I was 5 years old. Currently it is difficult to find a plumber in the post-BRICs NICs portion of the developing world, because the debt was driven sky-high by the Fed's ZIRP carry trade and uneconomic construction is going full tilt (to implode globally 2016 in a massive conflagrapocalypse).

I expect the discussion will likely digress to the usual pissing politics, so I won't participate further unless there is a solid refutation of my salient point about knowledge networking scaling faster than vertical integration.

[AnonyMint]

Anonymity is protection for the individual, decentralization is protection for the network...

quite so!

that's catchy, I like it

Agreed that should probably be adopted as a slogan.

And both posts were astute, eloquent, and added understanding for interested readers.

This is high knowledge (quality) community.

[AnonyMint]

I think it would be interesting to write an essay about some of these issues, to get everything together in one place.

If anybody wants to contribute some thoughts, I have just corrected my Bitmessage contact details in my profile. I didn't realise before, but the address had been cut short when I tried to paste it in...

Corazon79 has experience interfacing with established mass media.

[rdnkjdi]

I've spent the time to read all six pages - but I do not claim to understand more than 20% of it.  I reserve the right to modify, post more, or retract some off the cuff thoughts.

Your talking effects. I was talking cause. The cause was as always centralization of power, and too much debt. The ill effects of debt is knowledge stagnates and everyone does dumb xerox copy shit. And this monotonicity causes the appearance of resource scarcity.

If everyone is figuring out how to consume and no one is figuring out how to innovate, then it isn't surprising that consumption outstrips efficiencies of resource extraction.

This is my favorite practical quote of this entire thread.  Most of the population owes 50% of their paycheck to central control (Home loan + car loan) not to mention taxes.  Debt is a form of slavery.  Centralized forces are able to create debt with little to nothing and enslave those who owe them.  The amount of wealth (energy) that is generated from middle class is put directly into the debt system is probably close to 50% (& this is outside of taxes).

Separating the ego, the postulating, the theoretical, the practical, the political out of this thread is intense enough to outright depress me in even trying to create a legitimate response on some of my thoughts.  But as someone with an average IQ, average knowledge and reasonable gut senses I'd like to make a few statements that I reserve the right to retract / modify.

1.)  The masses care less than you think they do.  They are perfectly happy to donate 50 - 75% of their life force (energy\time) to the powers that be (debtors they owe + taxes) in exchange for a lifestyle they have been trained to think they want.  My ex gf had a 12% car loan, payed 30% of her salary in rent for a place she didn't need.  And credit card debt to boot.

2.)  The masses are less intelligent than you give them credit for.  Trying to explain the idea of financial independence - or that you'd be happier with a less nice car and less nice house - and two weeks off of every month a year to the AVERAGE person is like trying to explain math to a cow.

3.)  The masses are less creative than you give them credit for.  They WOULD RATHER make Xerox copies all day than innovate.  Innovation involves risk, fear, unknowns that a 9 to 5 job doesn't.

4.)  The masses are not competent enough to take control of their banking.  My first experience with bitcoin was getting scammed.  Second was wasting money on GPU hardware I gave up on because it was a pain in the a$$.  Third was getting my computer hacked and my BTC-E account taken over for two weeks.

If I could summarize.  One of the biggest reasons the government / financial system is able to oppress or enslave the masses.  The reason coinbase + bitpay is taking over is because they take into account the apathetic, unintelligent, uncreative attributes that make up 70 - 80% of the masses.

To further my point - there was a lot of talk about Linux.  Comparing it to Windows - Linux is probably better than Windows in a million different ways.  But because it didn't take into consideration the lack of intelligence, lack of creativity and total apathy of the masses.  Windows succeeded where it did not.  Windows will always be inferior to Linux - but it focused on being a crutch for the masses.  Where linux was unwilling to substitute power for simplicity, security for ease of use, stability for ease of adoption.

Linux/unix probably contributes more to wealth when you look at the servers running it as a back end make up most of our internet.  But that wealth went to those who focused on adoption for the masses (Apple, facebook, Google, etc)

I see the Coinbase/Bitpay as the same situation.  My BTC-E account was hacked because I was a moron - Coinbase didn't let me be a moron so my account was safe.  Until decentralization can take into account the attributes of the masses - which is what centralized forces do - they will not be able to productively harness the energy that comes with controlling their time & energy.  Which in the end - is wealth.

Upwards to 40-50% of "9-5 jobs" will be replaced by automation or software by 2030.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/

The point you are missing is that the security that the masses crave is an illusion. The promises made by the G20 nations represent a massive amount of unfunded liabilities that are going to have to be covered. The USD is backed by the "faith and credit" of the USA. If the tax base is unemployed and added to welfare rolls that are unfunded it is easy to see that what backing USD has is going straight out the window. There is no real security there. It's a lie and a house of cards.

The thing you aren't seeing is the masses will have to change their perspective if they want to survive. Also, they will need the right tool for the job.

I understand the idea of technological unemployment.   The issue I see is the relationship the masses have with the centralized powers that be.  The masses give those that hold centralized power their bite.

While economics may weaken the masses.  It doesn't take away the fact that they have a sayso in the direction the world goes.  Confiscation of wealth, etc.

So perhaps we are back at square one.  I'm understanding better the term opt out as opposed to taking away or interference with centralization powers that be directly.

Still.  To an extent does the idea of money not come from it being acknowledged by all people as such?  Gold, clamshells, fiat, or bitcoin?  Until now bitcoin adoption (&speculation) is what has driven the value.  

Even if you are knowledge wealthy - it doesn't translate into personal wealth.  In fact - often the biggest contributors to global wealth ... or increased global efficiency / energy are not monetarily rewarded in any way.  

Did anybody see that the Mozilla CEO - guy who invented javascript was fired for donating money to politically incorrect initiative?

The masses may be contributing less and less to global wealth.  But they are able to make paupers out of the men who have created massive knowledge wealth for the entire world.  They are still able to dictate who deserves financial and status accolades for their perceived contributions to society.

[AnonyMint]

It's the breakout

The shape of the low on April 3 would qualify as a U shaped bottom as I had called for. However, I was expecting a U with a much longer duration say weeks.

So I am not convinced this isn't another bull trap.

Any way, as you know it doesn't matter for me, because I showed with the log-logistic curve fit that Bitcoin will be drastically underperforming certain altcoins. The only reason for me to invest in Bitcoin is for diversification, but I diversify right into the coin which is tracked by my friendly Obama and I have no idea how bad what he has on tap against people of net worth. I heard from Armstrong that high-level sources say 70% taxes. That wouldn't be as bad as the totalitarianism that follows after imploding the economy with 70% taxes. I just offer this thought, "you didn't build that".

Still waiting to hear from Risto in a private message. His opportunity is slipping away.

[goin2mars]

Upwards to 40-50% of "9-5 jobs" will be replaced by automation or software by 2030.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/

The point you are missing is that the security that the masses crave is an illusion. The promises made by the G20 nations represent a massive amount of unfunded liabilities that are going to have to be covered. The USD is backed by the "faith and credit" of the USA. If the tax base is unemployed and added to welfare rolls that are unfunded it is easy to see that what backing USD has is going straight out the window. There is no real security there. It's a lie and a house of cards.

The thing you aren't seeing is the masses will have to change their perspective if they want to survive. Also, they will need the right tool for the job.

What defeats your rebuttal in this case to me is that the 50-60% implied rate of continued success is still "good enough" based on his original argument.

This is telling me, as part of the masses in this one, that in a decade and a half I'll have a 50-50 shot at losing my job . . so in the very least only half the illusion is fake. Note the wording there . . no pun intended.

Coupling this with the idea that most things (like food) should have a significant loss in relative value (thus becoming more affordable as per prev. discussion in this thread) . . then I would logically conclude that my government would just increase taxes . . successfully allowing our game to continue.

From this standpoint . . I'd need more to be able to agree with you, because if 50% lose their jobs, taxes double, and my ability to get food and live in a home becomes increasingly lower (like to the point where I can afford double taxes) then I'm still missing your point because it still appears as if nothing would be too damning (even though I personally share your opinion).

Maybe we could expand into a more detailed breakdown? Do you have any more examples?

[CoinCube]

I am still stunned that the Metcalfe model so accurately corresponds to the actual market cap over 4 years and over 1,000,000% growth in market cap.  The plot confirms for me that the value of bitcoin comes from the network of people who use it.  If we keep finding new ways to use bitcoin, the rest will take care of itself.  

I am not sure if bitcoin's adoption is slowing yet, but as cryptocurrency's values seem to follow Metcalfe's it seems sure to do so in the near future. Bitcoin's deflationary nature causes holding not spending. The new tax implications from the IRS and relatively high costs of replacing spent coins on an exchange will further exacerbate this trend. If Metcalfe's law holds this will progressivly slow the use of the currency and thus hold down its value.

The stage seems set for a more nimble competitor to arise solve these priblems and eventually take the crown.

[AnonyMint]

But as someone with an average IQ, average knowledge and reasonable gut senses...

Your observations are correct and clearly stated.

1.)  The masses care less than you think they do...
2.)  The masses are less intelligent than you give them credit for...
3.)  The masses are less creative than you give them credit for...
4.)  The masses are not competent enough to take control of their banking...

Yup. We know that. I know I said that before and even recently.

That is why I said anonymity is about opting-out of the collective madness.

I don't expect everyone under the Bell Curve to use a smarter currency (at least not at the start), rather I am expecting the smartest to use such innovations if they come to reality and since the rest will destroy themselves, then eventually everyone who wants to survive and prosper is forced to learn and come over our way (or perish).

[AnonyMint]

In the following quoted post which comes from upthread, I had written about the need for perpetual debasement to fund mining (because transactions fees is broken design for several reasons):

To understand the symbioses more algorithmically, please read this summary I wrote yesterday:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=400235.msg6060440#msg6060440

I think that was fairly well written. One of my better posts. Please click to read it.

The upside is a 0 transaction fees design is a very attractive feature for consumers and merchants. And with a cpu-only coin, the debasement is going right back to the users of the coin any way. And it enables such a coin to be obtained autonomously without any other party nor exchange necessary. Even Bitcoin is being debased by 11% annually now. Of course exchanges should still be available, but they should P2P decentralized. No more Mt.Gox!

In addition to the explanation at the above link inside the above quote, perpetual debasement is not a problem if there are no taxes as follows.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/05/lagarde-part-ii/

Increasing the money supply will NOT be inflationary when you are offsetting that by raising taxes. If the total money supply is $1,000 and I tax you 20% leaving you $800, increasing the money supply at $1,500 and raising taxes to 50% is still deflationary for you end up with less – $750. Absolutely everything is balanced. This is why the cause and effect scenarios fail every time – it is a bell curve in everything.

Armstrong forgets to make the point that increasing the money supply can increase the general price level causing income, capital gains, and VAT taxes to be higher, while there no net gain in purchasing power.

Thus increasing the money supply even while holding taxes constant, actually eats purchasing power. Whereas increasing money supply with no taxes at all, would not harm purchasing power.

[AnonyMint]

I understand the idea of technological unemployment.   The issue I see is the relationship the masses have with the centralized powers that be.  The masses give those that hold centralized power their bite.

While economics may weaken the masses.  It doesn't take away the fact that they have a sayso in the direction the world goes.  Confiscation of wealth, etc.

So perhaps we are back at square one.  I'm understanding better the term opt out as opposed to taking away or interference with centralization powers that be directly.

Still.  To an extent does the idea of money not come from it being acknowledged by all people as such?  Gold, clamshells, fiat, or bitcoin?  Until now bitcoin adoption (&speculation) is what has driven the value.

[snip]

Although I agreed in No Money Exists Without the Minority, but consider that not everyone on earth has to use the same type of money, e.g. each country has its own independent currency and (hopefully but I doubt it) independent central banks.

I posit a major advantage over national currencies of such a smarter currency used by the smartest who want to opt-opt of the sinking Titanic, is that is straddles all borders, doesn't require the weak to pollute it, and could within years (based on Bitcoin experience) have the same or greater population of a smaller country. Given those differences and the cleverness of those who use it networked on the internet for more powerful network effects than physical currencies, it can I hopefully work as a liquid unit-of-exchange and store-of-value (but not an heirloom, please use gold for that function when you need it).

Cpu-only coin may not suffer from Bitcoin's log-logistic declining rate of adoption and may instead take on the usual technology logistic adoption wherein the adoption rate accelerates until reaching 50% adoption.

Why? Because who doesn't think it is leave your computer on while sleeping and receive some technobabble money. Even Grandad might get a kick out of that. They wouldn't even notice any significant change to their electric bill because other household appliances consume much more than their computer.

However, making a cpu-only algorithm has escaped all those who tried, as far as I know. I have studied many algorithms that attempted to accomplish this and they all fail in some way. The closest I found was the Cuckoo Cycle by tromp. The problem it has it that it only requires memory. And memory can be scaled along with a lower cost processor cores such as the Atom or a custom ASIC that has a DRAM interface for each processing core. Cuckoo Cycle is really only GPU resistant. Also the Cuckoo Cycle white paper admits it is runs faster on multiple threads, even if slightly sublinear when doing so, thus the specialized Tilera CPUs for servers should kick ass on the cpus we use on our computers on a hash rate per $ and per Watt basis. Also I am not confident that some algorithm couldn't subvert the Cuckoo Cycle hash because it is ordered setup. For example, I envisioned using bit strings in place of empty memory locations.

[AnonyMint]

Upwards to 40-50% of "9-5 jobs" will be replaced by automation or software by 2030.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/

[snip]

The thing you aren't seeing is the masses will have to change their perspective if they want to survive. Also, they will need the right tool for the job.

What defeats your rebuttal in this case to me is that the 50-60% implied rate of continued success is still "good enough" based on his original argument.

[snip]

Coupling this with the idea that most things (like food) should have a significant loss in relative value (thus becoming more affordable as per prev. discussion in this thread) . . then I would logically conclude that my government would just increase taxes . . successfully allowing our game to continue.

[snip]

Maybe we could expand into a more detailed breakdown? Do you have any more examples?

Short answer: ask the Wiemar subsequently Nazi Germans how it worked out for them.

Longer answer: taxing over the Laffer limit during an economic downturn is not an equilibrium. Capital is hoarded, it spirals downward into an abyss, and everything grinds to a halt. See the prior post I made which had a link to a blog post by Martin Armstrong which elaborates on that. The 47% technological unemployment predicted by Oxford U, can have multiple outcomes.

• Govt dissolves itself, we radically increase knowledge networking, everyone finds a new job. Yahoo!!
• Govt gets involved taxing, we use anonymity to dissolve govt and radically increase knowledge networking, everyone finds a new job. Yahoo!!
• Govt stays involved but not higher taxes, we don't figure out how to accelerate knowledge networking for most, so 47% unemployment.
• Govt gets involved by taxing, capital goes into hiding, the unemployment goes to 80% (other 20% work as thugs for the govt) and we euthanize everyone.

The range of outcomes is some where between those in varying degrees.

Why does the government involvement matter on who finds a new job in high tech? Because for as long as the government will give you everything for free, why should the masses be bothered!

This another reason there aren't more plumbers. No one has to do unglamorous jobs, because Obama and Europe and Canada provide social safety nets. Heck in Europe you only have to work 35 hours a week, you can't be fired, and you get 1 or 2 months paid vacation a year. And in some countries, they sleep in the office lounge chair in the afternoon or go to meetings at a fine restaurant.

Meanwhile lately I'm working 14-18 hours a day, haven't had a shower in 2 months, haven't shaven, wearing the same stinky short pants for past 3 months since my washing machine isn't at this location, and eat tuna fish sandwiches so I don't have to leave the cave. I am a managing to get my jogs and sprints in, and still seem to attract the ladies when I do out to eat looking and smelling like a stinky caveman. Thank God I am in a country where the women love to eat stinky dried fish. I swear it seems they can't even smell it, whilst my odor is intoxicating me while I am trying to move away ("stay back, this cave dwelling beast is not fit for human consumption at this time").

[AnonyMint]

I want to encourage everyone to present alternative points-of-view. Groupthink will not serve us well. We need to check and re-check our rationality and supporting data.

[snip]

There will be some alt-coins that will survive, but again not because they present any sort of transaction-like competitive advantages. Traditional banks will win this transaction war, there is no doubt in my mind that Bitcoin will not win a transaction war. Banks, PayPals, Amazons, Apples all won't sit idly and watch crypto-like currencies eat into their mainstream revenue. In five years, transactions for banks will be good-enough that the average consumer moving into bitcoin won't make sense for their financial systems will be good enough.

Banks' technical capabilities might reach global reach (but I very much doubt that too), but they have an insurmountable problem. The governments are going to institute capital controls in order to trap wealth and tax it to death as the global economic implosion proceeds. Ditto war is rising and trading with the enemies' citizens will not be allowed on the official banking systems (note the recent sanctions against Russia). Here look how bad it is getting already with HSBC.

And I see they have no prayer of supporting the volume of tiny micro payments any time soon (VISA only sales to 6000 txs per second now), nor getting significant penetration into all NICs emerging markets. Here where I am, if someone in the grocery lane is holding a card instead of cash, I run to the next queue because it adds about 5 minutes delay to the transaction. The derelict card readers are only at every 3rd register (some broke or don't work or timeout over and over) and it just isn't well integrated into the POS here. And this is at ShoeMart mall, which is the largest and one of the most modern mall chains in the country which also has malls in China. Hong Kong has a very efficient electronic swipe payment system used by most of the population there. But this is not in every country in the world.

You can argue this doesn't affect the mainstream, but who is left to hold up the F.U.B.A.R. global economy if we rely on the oblivious n00bs who are sucking the tit of social welfare and hdealth systems.

Possibly the only real economy standing will be ours. Or if the banks can keep 80% market share of that demographic which is 20% of productivity = 0.8 x 0.2 = 16% GDP share. We will take 20% market share of that demographic which is 80% of productivity = 0.2 x 0.8= 16% GDP share.

If the socialism overshoots into the abyss, then the banks can take 80% of 0% productivity.

Also I don't assume we can't do transactions better than they can. We have to learn how to play to our decentralized advantage. I think we will find ways, but my logic doesn't depend on it. For example, how will Paypal ever stop fraud wherein someone reversed the charge on 2 BTC I sold them? Banks don't trust each other, and that fragmentation will get worse not better. As the global economy gets worse, fraud and theft is going to skyrocket. Banks are going to be stealing from their depositors with bail-ins. Who the hell is going to trust a bank? Mt.Gox is an early indicator of what is coming to every bank near you.  

As for transaction speed, I think it is technically possible to get to 30 seconds or lower with decentralized proof-of-work crypto-currency. The technical issue is orphan rate.

[snip]

Bitcoin does not need mainstream adoption, it doesn't need even a fraction of the general population to be wildly valuable. Bitcoin will grow on greed and speculation alone for a long time to come. It is enough for penny stocks, internet boom 1.0, precious metals, and countless other speculative assets, it will be enough for Bitcoin. Transactions only serve as the ultimate excuse for governments to allow it to live. Transactions are only the secret protection that allows Bitcoin to live wave after wave of speculative bubble.

Greed and speculation alone are enough to propel Bitcoin to 250 billion dollars or more.

[snip]

I also estimate around $10,000 is roughly the top for Bitcoin. Might reach $50,000 at most, but that is less likely.

[suchnoob]

With services like these you can't expect Bitcoin to go anywhere anytime soon.

http://www.tested.com/tech/concepts/460601-where-we-went-wrong-buying-bitcoin-atm/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnm4xFC2xNo