Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[rpietila]

Could that have anything to do with the fact that bitcoin is used mainly to commit various flavors of crime?  I mean, Bitcoin Foundation's Vice Chairman is doing time for money laundering

Crime against the State. Such crime never existed before Tyranny. Cf. Drug laws or laws forbidding protecting yourself. The actual free country is found where such do not exist.

I am not sure but perhaps even Libya under Gaddafi did have drug laws, so - no free countries here.

ADD: For those who do not know history - until 1970s, none of these laws existed in the United States, only in countries where the administration held sway over the people. In the 1800s, hardly any country had any of these.

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[rocks]

Mined coins (either new or fee based) have no history and are completely clean and untraceable. If you create a new pool ID and mine behind tor you are about as secure as I can imagine.

Not if Coinbase gets their way:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-seeks-details-us-bitcoin-mining/

That's simply Coinbase being trapped by KYC laws. If these miners want to sell through coinbase then coinbase has to get documentation on the source of the coins.

Mined coins on P2P or a pool outside the US that are directly donate to snowden don't face this issue, because Snowden probably isn't going to utilize their services for very obvious reasons.

[sporket]

...
most ppl still have not caught onto the idea that Bitcoin is fundamentally about honesty and hope...

Could that have anything to do with the fact that bitcoin is used mainly to commit various flavors of crime?  I mean, Bitcoin Foundation's Vice Chairman is doing time for money laundering

There is better evidence that almost all of the activity is still speculative and it makes sense that "most ppl" are not speculators.

Not sure, what do you mean?  That Bitcoin speculators are above crime & money laundering *cough* MagicalTux Sherm BTCKing Ukyo TradeFortress?

[Anotherthing]

Could that have anything to do with the fact that bitcoin is used mainly to commit various flavors of crime?  I mean, Bitcoin Foundation's Vice Chairman is doing time for money laundering

Crime against the State. Such crime never existed before Tyranny. Cf. Drug laws or laws forbidding protecting yourself. The actual free country is found where such do not exist.

I am not sure but perhaps even Libya under Gaddafi did have drug laws, so - no free countries here.

ADD: For those who do not know history - until 1970s, none of these laws existed in the United States, only in countries where the administration held sway over the people. In the 1800s, hardly any country had any of these.

You're right, my totally-not-insane friend--we were both born too late.  We should discuss this in greater detail @ my upcoming Supernode Summit.

BTW, I think your account might have been compromised.  My post was inexplicably deleted from your self-moderated thread.  Here it is, in its entirety:

A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by the starter of a self-moderated topic. ...

Hello everyone!
I spent a long time feeling really butthurt that OP had a castle and I didn't.  It just seemed so unfair--he had one and I didn't.  And then Fortuna smiled down upon me.  I've made a shrewd investment in a castle of my very own, even more lavish & fortunately situated than OP's!  
  
Join Us at
2015 Detroit Supernode Summit
--enjoy the finer things in life; let's be fabulously wealthy together!

Satoshi Manor (currently undergoing renovation):
http://s13.postimg.org/lemrdia87/Capture.jpg

Slave Quarters (perfect as-is, they'll be fine here):
http://s17.postimg.org/57rog3mgf/Capture.jpg

[brg444]

did pantera just launch the paypal killer

 

https://aligncommerce.com/

[rpietila]

Don't worry about the troll. I will not post here so often any more to incite more wrath.

Probably it is programmed to find any truthful exercise of free speech towards its employer and post random pictures as a result.

If they could not spare the programming cost, it might be a human as well, $1 per hour.

I have nothing against earning a living, but since I gave the responsibility of mine to God, fabulous things have happened

[smooth]

...
most ppl still have not caught onto the idea that Bitcoin is fundamentally about honesty and hope...

Could that have anything to do with the fact that bitcoin is used mainly to commit various flavors of crime?  I mean, Bitcoin Foundation's Vice Chairman is doing time for money laundering

There is better evidence that almost all of the activity is still speculative and it makes sense that "most ppl" are not speculators.

Not sure, what do you mean?  That Bitcoin speculators are above crime & money laundering *cough* MagicalTux Sherm BTCKing Ukyo TradeFortress?

Every example you gave involves speculation. In other words, the criminals and scammers are a subset of the speculators, and the speculators (criminal and otherwise) are almost the entire thing. At one time the original Silk Road was criminal but not speculation (and indeed the closest Bitcoin has come to mainstream adoption) and that would support your premise, but dark markets are only a shadow of that at the point. Now we are back to criminal and non-criminal speculation.

[jmw74]

Mined coins (either new or fee based) have no history and are completely clean and untraceable. If you create a new pool ID and mine behind tor you are about as secure as I can imagine.

Not if Coinbase gets their way:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-seeks-details-us-bitcoin-mining/

That's simply Coinbase being trapped by KYC laws. If these miners want to sell through coinbase then coinbase has to get documentation on the source of the coins.

Mined coins on P2P or a pool outside the US that are directly donate to snowden don't face this issue, because Snowden probably isn't going to utilize their services for very obvious reasons.

Even if you do mine on a US pool, unless you give them your real identity, it doesn't matter much what they tell coinbase. Last I checked, mining pools do not ask for any identifying information.

Of course, you may need to obscure your real IP address from the pool, but that's about it.

[smooth]

Mined coins (either new or fee based) have no history and are completely clean and untraceable. If you create a new pool ID and mine behind tor you are about as secure as I can imagine.

Not if Coinbase gets their way:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-seeks-details-us-bitcoin-mining/

That's simply Coinbase being trapped by KYC laws. If these miners want to sell through coinbase then coinbase has to get documentation on the source of the coins.

Mined coins on P2P or a pool outside the US that are directly donate to snowden don't face this issue, because Snowden probably isn't going to utilize their services for very obvious reasons.

Even if you do mine on a US pool, unless you give them your real identity, it doesn't matter much what they tell coinbase. Last I checked, mining pools do not ask for any identifying information.

Of course, you may need to obscure your real IP address from the pool, but that's about it.

Where this is likely going is Coinbase declaring coins from pools that don't play ball to be "high risk" or alternately declaring all coins of unknown origin to be "high risk". High risk means they won't process transactions involving those coins (will require you to send them back or possibly just seize them) or will close your account if you try to do so.

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

This is not satoshi's Bitcoin any more.

[rocks]

Mined coins (either new or fee based) have no history and are completely clean and untraceable. If you create a new pool ID and mine behind tor you are about as secure as I can imagine.

Not if Coinbase gets their way:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-seeks-details-us-bitcoin-mining/

That's simply Coinbase being trapped by KYC laws. If these miners want to sell through coinbase then coinbase has to get documentation on the source of the coins.

Mined coins on P2P or a pool outside the US that are directly donate to snowden don't face this issue, because Snowden probably isn't going to utilize their services for very obvious reasons.

Even if you do mine on a US pool, unless you give them your real identity, it doesn't matter much what they tell coinbase. Last I checked, mining pools do not ask for any identifying information.

Of course, you may need to obscure your real IP address from the pool, but that's about it.

Where this is likely going is Coinbase declaring coins from pools that don't play ball to be "high risk" or alternately declaring all coins of unknown origin to be "high risk". High risk means they won't process transactions involving those coins (will require you to send them back or possibly just seize them) or will close your account if you try to do so.

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

This is not satoshi's Bitcoin any more.

And this is exactly what I was arguing a few weeks ago that will probably happen, where the governments of the world can attack bitcoin by requiring traceable coins or possibly even 3rd party approved wallets that green address everything.

Yes people can operate outside of that, but no established business will accept coins from non-compliant address or send to non-compliant addresses, for the simple fact that the government would shut them down. And sure you could transfer your green coins out of that sub-system to non-compliant addresses or tumblers, but if doing so is illegal and easily traceable to you, then you really can't.

I think this is a very real and possible future for bitcoin. Now the flip side is complete government traceability of money will go a long way towards identifying real corruption in government agencies, etc. But it will also make it easier to seize assets from individuals/businesses at will.

The one positive outcome of such a scenario though is (provided mining remains distributed and outside of government control) then at least the 21M cap will exist and governments will be forced back onto a sound money standard. And after the coming fiat explosion the public just might demand that too.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

did pantera just launch the paypal killer

 

https://aligncommerce.com/

Whoah, I get it. I get what's going on here. They're backdooring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

Connect the dots:

1) No mention of Bitcoin on Align's website, except in the press section headlines, even though they use it. Only ever mention "the blockchain" and "blockchain technology."

2) Somehow this has escaped mention on /r/Bitcoin and elsewhere, even though it's gigantic news. They've deliberately not associated with "Bitcoin" overtly. It seems at first strange, because they could have had a bunch of easy customers from the Bitcoin community, as well as its support. Think: Overstock's Bitcoin acceptance launch where they got a bit of a sales boost. But it makes perfect sense when you realize they're gunning higher. The old paradigm is to offer service for the Bitcoin community; the new paradigm is to offer services that use Bitcoin and include no reference to it, because customers don't need to understand it, know how to secure it, or deal with it at all.

2) The recent trend of, "We don't know about this Bitcoin thing, but blockchain technology is the future" is turned on its head by Align's strategy. What was a sort of backhanded dismissal becomes a Trojan horse. Bitcoin quietly becomes the payment rails for better bank wires, stigma intact but irrelevant because no one knows they're using Bitcoin.

3) The general sense among some thinkers in the space that "when Bitcoin succeeds it'll be because people don't even know they're using it."

The implications for investment are obvious, but users of Align's service are completely removed from that. Investing in Bitcoin, to them, would be like investing in Cisco because they like buying books on Amazon.com. But Cisco still did very well because it was needed for the backbone infrastructure and investors recognized that.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

In that scenario, Coinbase would find themselves a relatively useless niche company, a bit like AOL. They would be the ones cut out of the greater loop of the burgeoning Internet of Money. You can posit that regulators would jump on board this and restrict the US Bitcoin economy to that little niche, but it'd be like if they did the same with AOL in 1995. The vast possibilities of the Internet would have moved to other countries, leaving the US behind. How long would that have lasted? How long can they take the pain of seeing that tax revenue stream grow overseas?

[cypherdoc]

did pantera just launch the paypal killer

 

https://aligncommerce.com/

Whoah, I get it. I get what's going on here. They're backdooring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

Connect the dots:

1) No mention of Bitcoin on Align's website, except in the press section headlines, even though they use it. Only ever mention "the blockchain" and "blockchain technology."

2) Somehow this has escaped mention on /r/Bitcoin and elsewhere, even though it's gigantic news. They've deliberately not associated with "Bitcoin" overtly. It seems at first strange, because they could have had a bunch of easy customers from the Bitcoin community, as well as its support. Think: Overstock's Bitcoin acceptance launch where they got a bit of a sales boost. But it makes perfect sense when you realize they're gunning higher. The old paradigm is to offer service for the Bitcoin community; the new paradigm is to offer services that use Bitcoin and include no reference to it, because customers don't need to understand it, know how to secure it, or deal with it at all.

2) The recent trend of, "We don't know about this Bitcoin thing, but blockchain technology is the future" is turned on its head by Align's strategy. What was a sort of backhanded dismissal becomes a Trojan horse. Bitcoin quietly becomes the payment rails for better bank wires, stigma intact but irrelevant because no one knows they're using Bitcoin.

3) The general sense among some thinkers in the space that "when Bitcoin succeeds it'll be because people don't even know they're using it."

The implications for investment are obvious, but users of Align's service are completely removed from that. Investing in Bitcoin, to them, would be like investing in Cisco because they like buying books on Amazon.com. But Cisco still did very well because it was needed for the backbone infrastructure and investors recognized that.

sounds like the Coin.ph model except for businesses only.

[cypherdoc]

Ripple, Jed, and Bitstamp back in the news:

$1 Million Legal Fight Ensnares Ripple, Bitstamp and Jed McCaleb

http://www.coindesk.com/bitstamp-court-1-million-dispute-ripple-jed-mccaleb/

[cypherdoc]

Grinding higher.

 This one could hurt.

[smooth]

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

In that scenario, Coinbase would find themselves a relatively useless niche company, a bit like AOL. They would be the ones cut out of the greater loop of the burgeoning Internet of Money. You can posit that regulators would jump on board this and restrict the US Bitcoin economy to that little niche, but it'd be like if they did the same with AOL in 1995. The vast possibilities of the Internet would have moved to other countries, leaving the US behind. How long would that have lasted? How long can they take the pain of seeing that tax revenue stream grow overseas?

Bear in mind that AOL ended up buying a large media company and is still around (recently or soon to be spun off into a standalone company again, I'm not sure which), so that is not necessarily an outcome that would be considered a failure. They didn't stay on the leading edge of technology (though that was never really their model anyway).

In fact the analogy between AOL and Coinbase is fairly close. Both were created to make a new technology more accessible to the masses in a watered down form.

[ssmc2]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/04/02/how-bitcoin-will-end-world-poverty/

Posted by Steve Forbes himself.

[cypherdoc]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/04/02/how-bitcoin-will-end-world-poverty/

Posted by Steve Forbes himself.

there's that blockchain again!

[brg444]

did pantera just launch the paypal killer

 

https://aligncommerce.com/

Whoah, I get it. I get what's going on here. They're backdooring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

Connect the dots:

1) No mention of Bitcoin on Align's website, except in the press section headlines, even though they use it. Only ever mention "the blockchain" and "blockchain technology."

2) Somehow this has escaped mention on /r/Bitcoin and elsewhere, even though it's gigantic news. They've deliberately not associated with "Bitcoin" overtly. It seems at first strange, because they could have had a bunch of easy customers from the Bitcoin community, as well as its support. Think: Overstock's Bitcoin acceptance launch where they got a bit of a sales boost. But it makes perfect sense when you realize they're gunning higher. The old paradigm is to offer service for the Bitcoin community; the new paradigm is to offer services that use Bitcoin and include no reference to it, because customers don't need to understand it, know how to secure it, or deal with it at all.

2) The recent trend of, "We don't know about this Bitcoin thing, but blockchain technology is the future" is turned on its head by Align's strategy. What was a sort of backhanded dismissal becomes a Trojan horse. Bitcoin quietly becomes the payment rails for better bank wires, stigma intact but irrelevant because no one knows they're using Bitcoin.

3) The general sense among some thinkers in the space that "when Bitcoin succeeds it'll be because people don't even know they're using it."

The implications for investment are obvious, but users of Align's service are completely removed from that. Investing in Bitcoin, to them, would be like investing in Cisco because they like buying books on Amazon.com. But Cisco still did very well because it was needed for the backbone infrastructure and investors recognized that.

Once again I agree with you on most points.

This and Abra Global are two beautiful ways of abstracting Bitcoin out of the picture for the benefit of commercial and mass consumer adoption.

They seem to have a great team and equally impressive backers.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

In that scenario, Coinbase would find themselves a relatively useless niche company, a bit like AOL. They would be the ones cut out of the greater loop of the burgeoning Internet of Money. You can posit that regulators would jump on board this and restrict the US Bitcoin economy to that little niche, but it'd be like if they did the same with AOL in 1995. The vast possibilities of the Internet would have moved to other countries, leaving the US behind. How long would that have lasted? How long can they take the pain of seeing that tax revenue stream grow overseas?

Bear in mind that AOL ended up buying a large media company and is still around (recently or soon to be spun off into a standalone company again, I'm not sure which), so that is not necessarily an outcome that would be considered a failure. They didn't stay on the leading edge of technology (though that was never really their model anyway).

In fact the analogy between AOL and Coinbase is fairly close. Both were created to make a new technology more accessible to the masses in a watered down form.

I could buy that scenario. Since there's such a massive gulf between pure Bitcoin and pure Fed money, we might end up with several shades of gray trying to operate simultaneously for a while.