Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[justusranvier]

Bitcoin represents a fundamental change in the very fiber of the social order from which regimes are woven. I and I'm sure several other people have been predicting this for quite some time: incentives to ally oneself with the state break down when you can hold and transact money with complete secrecy.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-rugged-individualism/

[1501094908]

1501094908

[iCEBREAKER]

Unbelievable

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/nyregion/silk-road-case-federal-agents-charges.html?referrer=

Awesome.  The Bitcoin virus infects the King's Men of Babylon, even as the Ancien Régime rages and demands something Be Done to eradicate the perturbance...   

[cypherdoc]

Bitcoin represents a fundamental change in the very fiber of the social order from which regimes are woven. I and I'm sure several other people have been predicting this for quite some time: incentives to ally oneself with the state break down when you can hold and transact money with complete secrecy.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-rugged-individualism/

I didn't check but I assume this is the article where Daniel says even gvt officials might already be co-opted into the Bitcoin community. I agree.

[cypherdoc]

Bitcoin represents a fundamental change in the very fiber of the social order from which regimes are woven. I and I'm sure several other people have been predicting this for quite some time: incentives to ally oneself with the state break down when you can hold and transact money with complete secrecy.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-rugged-individualism/

I didn't check but I assume this is the article where Daniel says even gvt officials might already be co-opted into the Bitcoin community. I agree.

Actually I guess no. Here it is :

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-shroud-of-subtlety-and-allure/#allure

[iCEBREAKER]

Bitcoin represents a fundamental change in the very fiber of the social order from which regimes are woven. I and I'm sure several other people have been predicting this for quite some time: incentives to ally oneself with the state break down when you can hold and transact money with complete secrecy.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-rugged-individualism/

I didn't check but I assume this is the article where Daniel says even gvt officials might already be co-opted into the Bitcoin community. I agree.

Actually I guess no. Here it is :

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoins-shroud-of-subtlety-and-allure/#allure

The cumulative breakdown of official "vertical" relationships into informal ad hoc "horizontal" ones (IE grey/black/shadow markets) is enormously corrosive to calcified Late Empire structures of coercion.  The most spectacular recent example is the fall of the Soviet Union:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900922&slug=1094485

Saturday, September 22, 1990

Soviet Union's `Shadow Economy' -- Bribery, Barter, Black-Market Deals Are The Facts Of Life

By David Remnick
Washington Post

MOSCOW - While the Soviet Union's legislators and theorists ponder the vistas of a revolutionary economic-reform program, the people of this country live like hunter-gatherers in a real-world economy that is half desert, half medieval bazaar.

The official structures of the Bolshevik experiment are collapsing with such finality, the state-run shops are so barren, that nearly everyone now must participate in the immense ``shadow economy'' of speculation and petty bribery, barter deals and black-marketeers.

President Mikhail Gorbachev has proposed sweeping economic change to a form of market economy - a measure the Supreme Soviet is scheduled to vote on Monday. But that's the future; for today, life for the average Soviet citizen is a struggle for survival.

The demands of the ``shadow economy'' trace a Soviet lifetime. A child comes into the world with the mother paying a 200-ruble bribe to the maternity nurse for a sterile needle and an anesthetic. When a Soviet citizen dies, relatives are overcome not only with grief but with the knowledge that they must pay thousands of rubles in bribes to the mortician, the coffin maker and the gravedigger.

The law and its protectors are also involved in the web of survival. A few months ago, a Soviet traffic cop waved down a Western correspondent. The officer said the correspondent had been driving too fast and had to pay a 10-ruble fine on the spot. Using a time-honored method, the reporter collapsed into pidgin Russian and feigned incomprehension.

``Well, that's OK,'' said the cop, reaching into his coat pocket. ``Would you like to buy some good black caviar?''

There is nothing new about the black market in the Soviet Union. There have always been shortages - and then illegal dealers to fill the gap for the right price. The Soviet economy has never worked efficiently enough to put black-marketeers out of business. But talking about the black market was taboo. When Konstantin Simis, an attorney and professor of law until he emigrated to the United States in 1977, was working in Moscow on an early draft of his book ``U.S.S.R.: The Corrupt Society,'' the KGB confiscated the manuscript.

What was once heresy is now the conventional wisdom. In the text of presidential adviser Stanislav Shatalin's 500 Day economic-reform program, a section on the ``shadow economy'' admits that to some degree the black market has been a ``necessary adjunct'' to the old ``administrative-command'' system. It estimates that the ``shadow economy'' accounts for 15 or 20 percent of the gross national product.

There are several levels of the ``shadow economy,'' ranging from the pure exploitation and manipulation of shortages by party bureaucrats to the ``half-legal'' workers who provide services that simply cannot be obtained on the legal, state market, from construction work to auto repair.

Imagine if they had Bitcoin instead of rubles!  Communism would have been dead in less than a year.   

[cypherdoc]

Dratel should have worked to postpone the case until this info came out.  it could have influenced the final verdict.

[iCEBREAKER]

Dratel should have worked to postpone the case until this info came out.  it could have influenced the final verdict.

That's only the case if Dratel GAS about due process.

If he only cared about running a show trial and hanging DRP ASAP, he'd let the govt get away with anything they want.  IOW, exactly what happened.

[Chef Ramsay]

These guys that worked this case and/or investigated for it had to learn a thing or two about bitcoin and probably encountered many smart people that gave them some pointers. I'm sure most of these agents are fairly well off buy probably have an idea that having some coins is a great enhancement to their pensions and 401k as they know a finite amount of something is a groovy thing.

[cypherdoc]

These guys that worked this case and/or investigated for it had to learn a thing or two about bitcoin and probably encountered many smart people that gave them some pointers. I'm sure most of these agents are fairly well off buy probably have an idea that having some coins is a great enhancement to their pensions and 401k as they know a finite amount of something is a groovy thing.

good money is starting to drive out bad.

[cypherdoc]

some would say SR started the rally of 2013.  perhaps it starts the rally of 2015?

[cypherdoc]

i really like the look of these:







and silverbox's favorite at 1/10 of where he was touting it:

[Fabrizio89]

DXY is starting to go down but won't do it without a fight as we're seeing. Good chance this will affect Bitcoin too. Markets will turn around pretty soon I think.

[cypherdoc]

My gaud;

The government’s considerable efforts at keeping this monumental scandal from being aired at Ross Ulbricht’s trial is itself scandalous. In addition to keeping any information about the investigation from the defense for nearly nine months, then revealing it only five weeks prior to trial, and then moving to keep sealed and secret the general underlying information so that Mr. Ulbricht could not use it in his defense at trial, and then stymying the defense at every turn during trial when the defense tried to introduce favorable evidence, the government had also refused to agree to the defense’s request to adjourn the trial until after the indictment was returned and made public – a modest adjournment of a couple of months, since it was apparent that the investigation was nearing a conclusion. Throughout Mr. Ulbricht’s trial the government repeatedly used the secret nature of the grand jury investigation as an excuse to preclude valuable defense evidence that was not only produced in discovery, independent of the investigation of Mr. Force, but also which was only at best tenuously related to that investigation. In that manner the government deprived the jury of essential facts, and Mr. Ulbricht of due process. In addition, the government failed to disclose previously much of what is in the Complaint, including that two federal law enforcement agents involved in the Silk Road investigation were corrupt. It is clear from this Complaint that fundamentally the government’s investigation of Mr. Ulbricht lacked any integrity, and was wholly and fatally compromised from the inside. Also, it is clear that Mr. Force and others within the government obtained access to the administrative platforms of the Silk Road site, where they were able to commandeer accounts and had the capacity to change PIN numbers and other aspects of the site – all without the government’s knowledge of what precisely they did with that access. In light of the information provided in the Complaint, it is now apparent to all just how relevant some of the issues raised by the defense at trial were, including the payment by Dread Pirate Roberts to a law enforcement agent for information about the investigation, the ramping up of the investigation of Mr. Ulbricht in mid-2013, soon after that paid information began flowing, and the creation of certain evidence at trial, such as the 2013 journal that conveniently begins – again – in Spring 2013, after the corruption alleged in this Complaint ripened. As the evidence at trial – particularly from the government’s law enforcement witnesses – demonstrated, the Baltimore investigation and agents were inextricably involved in the evolution of the case and the evidence, as well as with alerting Mark Karpeles that he was under investigation, and meeting with his lawyers and exchanging information. At Mr. Ulbricht’s trial, knowing full well the corruption alleged in the Complaint made public today, the government still aggressively precluded much of that evidence, and kept it from the jury (and had other similar evidence stricken from the record). Consequently, the government improperly used the ongoing grand jury process in San Francisco as both a sword and a shield to deny Mr. Ulbricht access to and use of important evidence, and a fair trial.

[cypherdoc]

I don't know how anyone reads this SR shit and fails to feel unease. How safe are we really?

[marcus_of_augustus]

I don't know how anyone reads this SR shit and fails to feel unease. How safe are we really?

... well you got to wonder about the Judge for sure, and probably higher ups too. Having money in a seizable bank account makes little sense at this point given the wanton disregard of rule of law all about the place.

[rpietila]

Is there a common law precedent that a reasonable foreknowledge of the lack of the rule of law and possibility of a fair trial in the country, gives you the warrant to disregard existing laws to the extent when obeying them would only endanger you and other people to and in the hands of the unlawful system?

Or is this the very definition of being an outlaw?

Actually, there is. Christians (among others) were outlaws in The Third Reich. Bonhoeffer took the sword against the system. v. Moltke did not. Both were martyred. But the evil actions by the government were later condemned, and perpetrators put to death as well.

I would strongly advise Christians to physically depart from the United States now, and quit participating in the evil actions of their usurper government, lest you fall with them. God's patience is long but not infinite; He has promised to judge evil, and will do so.

[justusranvier]

Having money in a seizable bank account makes little sense at this point given the wanton disregard of rule of law all about the place.

On that same subject, it's worth taking some extra precautions with your bitcoins too.

Have some btc savings locked up in multisig outputs which you can not spend without the cooperation of friends (who are scattered across multiple independent legal jurisdictions) so that at least some of your money is safe even if you are physically incapacitated.

[markj113]

This is where BTC goes tits up, when someone pulls the plug -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-31/massive-blackout-hits-turkey-grounding-planes-stopping-subways-terror-not-ruled-out

Holding some wealth in physical form always recommended.

[cypherdoc]

there's alot of suspicious evidence that the USG intentionally, or unintentionally due to its corrupt actions, took down mtgox:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/162503556/Mt-Gox-Wells-Fargo-Seizure-Warrants

[iCEBREAKER]

My gaud;

The government’s considerable efforts at keeping this monumental scandal from being aired at Ross Ulbricht’s trial is itself scandalous. In addition to keeping any information about the investigation from the defense for nearly nine months, then revealing it only five weeks prior to trial, and then moving to keep sealed and secret the general underlying information so that Mr. Ulbricht could not use it in his defense at trial, and then stymying the defense at every turn during trial when the defense tried to introduce favorable evidence, the government had also refused to agree to the defense’s request to adjourn the trial until after the indictment was returned and made public – a modest adjournment of a couple of months, since it was apparent that the investigation was nearing a conclusion. Throughout Mr. Ulbricht’s trial the government repeatedly used the secret nature of the grand jury investigation as an excuse to preclude valuable defense evidence that was not only produced in discovery, independent of the investigation of Mr. Force, but also which was only at best tenuously related to that investigation. In that manner the government deprived the jury of essential facts, and Mr. Ulbricht of due process. In addition, the government failed to disclose previously much of what is in the Complaint, including that two federal law enforcement agents involved in the Silk Road investigation were corrupt. It is clear from this Complaint that fundamentally the government’s investigation of Mr. Ulbricht lacked any integrity, and was wholly and fatally compromised from the inside. Also, it is clear that Mr. Force and others within the government obtained access to the administrative platforms of the Silk Road site, where they were able to commandeer accounts and had the capacity to change PIN numbers and other aspects of the site – all without the government’s knowledge of what precisely they did with that access. In light of the information provided in the Complaint, it is now apparent to all just how relevant some of the issues raised by the defense at trial were, including the payment by Dread Pirate Roberts to a law enforcement agent for information about the investigation, the ramping up of the investigation of Mr. Ulbricht in mid-2013, soon after that paid information began flowing, and the creation of certain evidence at trial, such as the 2013 journal that conveniently begins – again – in Spring 2013, after the corruption alleged in this Complaint ripened. As the evidence at trial – particularly from the government’s law enforcement witnesses – demonstrated, the Baltimore investigation and agents were inextricably involved in the evolution of the case and the evidence, as well as with alerting Mark Karpeles that he was under investigation, and meeting with his lawyers and exchanging information. At Mr. Ulbricht’s trial, knowing full well the corruption alleged in the Complaint made public today, the government still aggressively precluded much of that evidence, and kept it from the jury (and had other similar evidence stricken from the record). Consequently, the government improperly used the ongoing grand jury process in San Francisco as both a sword and a shield to deny Mr. Ulbricht access to and use of important evidence, and a fair trial.

That's fine.  These intolerable acts signal and hasten the end of our current "awkward stage."