Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

They definitely won't make it illegal, I'm sorry if that's how what i said came across

Of course you can still use bitcoin, this is the land of the free. However, to stop money laundering and save us from terrorists, drug dealers and sex traffickers everyone has to use this government issued wallet software to transfer bitcoins, which enables tracking of all whitelist coins.

Yes bitcoin will still confirm any transaction, but if you ever transfer one of your whitelist coins from coinbase or your employer to a non-whitelist coin by using your own wallet software, you go to jail. If you own a blacklist coin and try to pay any business, they flag the transfer and you go to jail. Technically bitcoin still works and is still legal, but it has been co-opted. The above scenario also isn't that hard to implement, we already have it with banks and cash.

Yesterday it was the same with gold, they didn't outlaw gold per se, instead they said you had to transfer gold to the gov who gave you an equivalent amount of dollars that were the same as gold, that they could now track within the banks.

Today it is the same with cash, they are not outlawing cash, but any amount or transaction above a nominal amount has to be kept in electronic form in bank accounts, enabling full tracking and ownership by the government, this is today. They could easily legislate this for bitcoin.

The only thing that stops that from happening is a large enough percentage of the population saying no. It sounds that many here think there will be enough who say no, my fear is there isn't.

Also, if this is how it plays out, we'll all be rich as sin. Provided of course that we whitelist our coins and pay our due (taxes). If not, you go to jail. Given this choice I'm sure many here will choose to whitelist their coins and retire.

The point I've been trying to make for a long time now is that 'quality' is vastly more important here than 'quantity'.

If native Bitcoin were used almost exclusively by entities who had some immunity to the problems than can vex an individual of the masses then the system might have a chance.  Of course the system would also need to be defensible, and being a tiny system like our current 7 TPS implementation goes a long way.  Operators who are highly proficient and motivated could probably maintain a functional system without use of the global internet at all, or at least uses it in such a way as to be undetected and thus more difficult to attack.

This has nothing to do with being 'elite' or whatever.  The beauty of sidechains with it's two-way-peg would be that it would spread the brute strength of native Bitcoin around to a multitude of sidechains users of all varieties.  I'd anticipate many sidechains 'playing ball' with the authorities and being as invasive as the govt demands.  Fine.  I don't give two shits if Uncle Sam knows that I bought a burger at Mon Mar 23 22:40:30 PDT 2015 with McDonaldscoin which I acquired from Bob on Tue Apr 29 12:15:56 PDT 2014.  When I want privacy I'll use a sidechain which is more focused on that problem or native Bitcoin itself.

A very valid argument is that if the government could mandate whitelisting for one-size-for-all Bitcoin they could do so for native Bitcoin used primarily as a balancing and backing currency as well?  My theory is that with 'power users' forming the mainstay of the userbase in this case they would be less susceptible to coercion and better prepared to defend against it.  And again, the smaller the system core can be, the more options it has to hide.  'Small' in this case is, if anything, inversely proportional to value since the real value would be the ability to remain autonomous of coercive regimes.  The value would be effectively the summation of the value of all presently active sidechains.

I would point out also that currency systems are quite empowering in a number of ways.  That's why governments try to monopolize them and why other entities regularly try to create their own.  The interest in coupons and gift cards and such exemplify this to some degree.  A ready-made sidechain solution which an entity could adopt which rides on a proven and valuable backing store (hopefully Bitcoin) would be a juicy morsel for all manner of entities and some of them quite large and powerful.  If these types could be enlisted in support of native Bitcoin (knowing that govt subversion of it would ruin their sidechain value) then they make potentially powerful allies.  Much more so than some number of individual plebs even if that number was fairly large and it is highly questionable that it ever really would be.

[1714058164]

1714058164

[1714058164]

1714058164

[majamalu]

Yesterday it was the same with gold, they didn't outlaw gold per se, instead they said you had to transfer gold to the gov who gave you an equivalent amount of dollars that were the same as gold, that they could now track within the banks.

Today it is the same with cash, they are not outlawing cash, but any amount or transaction above a nominal amount has to be kept in electronic form in bank accounts, enabling full tracking and ownership by the government, this is today. They could easily legislate this for bitcoin.

They were able to introduce paper dollars because these are, in many ways, better than gold coins; then they were able to introduce electronic dollars because these are, in many ways, better than paper dollars. But this works as long as the new system reduces friction in payments. Now the game is over.

[sickpig]

If Gavin is worried about not being able to fork after the next potential burst why not apply Justus idea [1], too much coding with not enough time?
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/

Because who pays for that coding? And who can be sure that the proposal, even if completed and tested, will be adopted?

Andresen's position seems to be: (i) he takes responsibility for coding and testing a solution that as far as he can see takes care of the issue well into the future (ii) he does this with sufficient time for others to analyze it, so that, whatever else happens (iii) there is at least one safe fall-back option.

Can he guarantee his proposal is optimal? Of course not. It is just quite reassuring for it to be out.

All you said is correct independently from the adopted solution. The chief scientist is in charge and he's doing what he think is the best compromise between techinal and political aspects to get the changes accepted. i got it. All come down to accountability and feasibility.

And I want to underline that I really do appreciate the way is moving both on the technical and political ground.

What I think is tha Justus' proposal has solid theoretical economic background, a brilliant way to introduce a price discovery mechanism for the P2P network and, more to the point, it kills to birds with one stone introducing an economic incentive for people to run full nodes.

[sickpig]

JR,

what's up with Odom leaving Monetas?

I only know one side of the story right now, so I can't really say.

Why aren't more people talking about this? OT was supposed to be huge for Bitcoin, it was Chris' baby for a long time now...

well i tried

https://github.com/FellowTraveler?tab=activity

Ok got it. Almost one year of inactivity on the OT pub repo. So it started long ago it's not that all of sudden he decided to leave monetas (or have been "fired" fwiw).

[uki]

here is just quote of the ex-CEO of Credit Suisse, actually linking both gold and Bitcoin and not putting them in the two opposite camps:
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113441/ex-credit-suisse-ceo-invest-in-gold-and-bitcoin-long-term-not-fiat

[WhatNow44]

No "Gold collapsing, bitcoin UP" today?


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CA3qO7HVIAAEhtm.png

[ssmc2]

http://news.yahoo.com/feces-contains-gold-worth-millions-224632128.html

Do NOT flush!   

[hdbuck]

No "Gold collapsing, bitcoin UP" today?

bulltrap

[justusranvier]

Almost one year of inactivity on the OT pub repo.

There's been quite a bit of activity in the OT repos recently:

https://github.com/Open-Transactions/opentxs/commits/develop

[sickpig]

Almost one year of inactivity on the OT pub repo.

There's been quite a bit of activity in the OT repos recently:

https://github.com/Open-Transactions/opentxs/commits/develop

I've looked at

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/commits/master

I was somewhat tricked by the mobile version of github.

[justusranvier]

Almost one year of inactivity on the OT pub repo.

There's been quite a bit of activity in the OT repos recently:

https://github.com/Open-Transactions/opentxs/commits/develop

I've looked at

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/commits/master

I was somewhat tricked by the mobile version of github.

The Open-Transactions repo was split up into several modules and is deprecated. opentxs is now the primary OT library repo.

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/opentxs/commits/develop

[iCEBREAKER]

More whining and FUD from the buggy-whip making Luddites:

Bitcoin’s lien problem

Part of the BitcoinMania series

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/24/2122678/bitcoins-lien-problem/

At cryptocurrency and fintech conferences, FT Alphaville often hears Bitcoin enthusiasts make the assertion that Bitcoin is superior to fiat currency because it eliminates debt from the monetary system.

But this, of course, is a fallacy.

Bitcoin may have the potential to create a fully-funded reserve system, but it certainly doesn’t eliminate debt from any system.

At best, Bitcoin’s public ledger records a transfer of digital access rights in the eyes of the clearing network. It does not, however, record or see the terms and conditions of that transfer...

[cypherdoc]

More whining and FUD from the buggy-whip making Luddites:

Bitcoin’s lien problem

Part of the BitcoinMania series

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/24/2122678/bitcoins-lien-problem/

At cryptocurrency and fintech conferences, FT Alphaville often hears Bitcoin enthusiasts make the assertion that Bitcoin is superior to fiat currency because it eliminates debt from the monetary system.

But this, of course, is a fallacy.

Bitcoin may have the potential to create a fully-funded reserve system, but it certainly doesn’t eliminate debt from any system.

At best, Bitcoin’s public ledger records a transfer of digital access rights in the eyes of the clearing network. It does not, however, record or see the terms and conditions of that transfer...

paywall.  how bout posting the article?

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

Does anybody know what happened to the Chicago Sun Times accepting BTC micropayments?

I would certainly pay 0.0005 BTC for reading that FT article.


EDIT: Incredibly, this is being discussed today on /r/Bitcoin, with people from the WSJ and CST chiming in.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/302q8s/can_wsj_please_allow_bitcoin_microtransactions_to/

[cypherdoc]

what a bunch of whiny bitches:

In particular, Mr Browne pointed to virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, which he said had raised concerns about money laundering, since Bitcoin companies are not subject to the same anti-laundering legislation as banks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11490145/Banks-vulnerable-to-liquidity-squeeze-as-digital-shift-hastens-capital-flight.html

[cypherdoc]

[rocks]

Yesterday it was the same with gold, they didn't outlaw gold per se, instead they said you had to transfer gold to the gov who gave you an equivalent amount of dollars that were the same as gold, that they could now track within the banks.

Today it is the same with cash, they are not outlawing cash, but any amount or transaction above a nominal amount has to be kept in electronic form in bank accounts, enabling full tracking and ownership by the government, this is today. They could easily legislate this for bitcoin.

They were able to introduce paper dollars because these are, in many ways, better than gold coins; then they were able to introduce electronic dollars because these are, in many ways, better than paper dollars. But this works as long as the new system reduces friction in payments. Now the game is over.

Agree with you, that is why I am here and invested. But I'd characterize bitcoin as "having a fighting chance" because the system reduces friction, not that "the game is over". It will be a long battle, and they haven't even started to use the various tools at their disposal.

[majamalu]

Yesterday it was the same with gold, they didn't outlaw gold per se, instead they said you had to transfer gold to the gov who gave you an equivalent amount of dollars that were the same as gold, that they could now track within the banks.

Today it is the same with cash, they are not outlawing cash, but any amount or transaction above a nominal amount has to be kept in electronic form in bank accounts, enabling full tracking and ownership by the government, this is today. They could easily legislate this for bitcoin.

They were able to introduce paper dollars because these are, in many ways, better than gold coins; then they were able to introduce electronic dollars because these are, in many ways, better than paper dollars. But this works as long as the new system reduces friction in payments. Now the game is over.

Agree with you, that is why I am here and invested. But I'd characterize bitcoin as "having a fighting chance" because the system reduces friction, not that "the game is over". It will be a long battle, and they haven't even started to use the various tools at their disposal.

If they didn't destroy Bitcoin is not because they never wanted to, but because they can't. Look at what they did to centralized monetary systems far smaller than Bitcoin.

My guess is they are silently migrating their own wealth to Bitcoin before full legalization. But you are right: there's no way to know for sure.

[cypherdoc]

Yesterday it was the same with gold, they didn't outlaw gold per se, instead they said you had to transfer gold to the gov who gave you an equivalent amount of dollars that were the same as gold, that they could now track within the banks.

Today it is the same with cash, they are not outlawing cash, but any amount or transaction above a nominal amount has to be kept in electronic form in bank accounts, enabling full tracking and ownership by the government, this is today. They could easily legislate this for bitcoin.

They were able to introduce paper dollars because these are, in many ways, better than gold coins; then they were able to introduce electronic dollars because these are, in many ways, better than paper dollars. But this works as long as the new system reduces friction in payments. Now the game is over.

Agree with you, that is why I am here and invested. But I'd characterize bitcoin as "having a fighting chance" because the system reduces friction, not that "the game is over". It will be a long battle, and they haven't even started to use the various tools at their disposal.

If they didn't destroy Bitcoin is not because they never wanted to, but because they can't. Look at what they did to centralized monetary systems far smaller than Bitcoin.

My guess is they are silently migrating their own wealth to Bitcoin before full legalization. But you are right: there's no way to know for sure.

sometimes it's hard for ppl to recognize that which sits right before their very faces.  step back and look to those far corners of the Earth where Bitcoin has spread.

[silverfuture]