Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Hey Zangelbert,

I kind of suspect that a lot of people don't really grok the spin off idea. I think there would be a lot of value to a dumb proof-of-concept altcoin that spun off the Bitcoin ledger (with some trivial changes like a confirmation rate of 5 minutes). It would be really interesting to see people's reactions to it... first the usual disdain, and then perhaps a kind of curiosity once they realize that they "automatically" have a chunk of this new coin. Anyway, it would help spread the concept, which is what I think would be the most valuable.

Yeah I'd like to see it done, though didn't Stellar already do it? I think there are still some technical kinks to iron out in order to get a more perfect "snapshot" of the Bitcoin ledger at a given time (Peter may be able to comment), but as an experiment and pedagogical tool it would be neat to try.

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[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This is only a debate because at this point nobody (that we're aware of) has been falsely imprisoned due to mistakes in blockchain analysis. You can mix your coins all you want, but that doesn't mean your money can't be connected to something illegal.

It seems the opposite point is more relevant: no one has yet been caught via blockchain analysis (though someone did put together a plausible-looking connection between DPR and Carl Mark Force IV because he didn't even use a mixer).

This isn't to say that no one will be caught, but that the motivation of the community, investors, devs, etc. to work on and implement more complete/default anonymity is based entirely on conjecture at this point (as, one might add, is the functional anonymity of the anonycoins). You can expect a surge in interest once the first arrest is made using chainalysis, and the problem will likely repair itself through something like JoinMarket.

Ring sigs could end up being a cleaner solution, but again, switching ledgers destroys everything the whole crypto movement is based on (store of value), so if pressed I believe the market will adopt the spinoff solution. Note that a premature spinoff is bad because the snapshot goes out of date, and there is Schelling point consensus to consider, so arguably we shouldn't expect to see a serious spinoff until the eleventh hour.

[TPTB_need_war]

literately

infinitesimal pointnothing

Conflating infinitesimal (spacetime) with vacuous is an error in my articulation, but not in my thought process (my visualization was a mathematical point, i.e. with no extent). An infinite speed-of-light would correspond to nothing, i.e. a vacuous spacetime. An undecidable problem is one where there doesn't exist an enumerable answer. An infinite quantity is innumerable.

My point was that without friction nothing can be observed (enumerated) and thus nothing exists:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=690

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat#Objective_collapse_theories


I tell you what I told CoinCube. I am not focused on this right now and it is not informational for you challenge someone who has requested to not delve into that topic right now because he is (I am) single-handedly programming and running a just launched social network, simultaneously taking on this thread, simultaneously redesigning crypto-currency, simultaneously interacting with a significant number of females (try that!). For you to expect that I simultaneously have the capacity to delve into theoretical physics is absurd unless you relish fooling yourself. I didn't even have enough free time to sleep last night. And right now I am supposedly superimposed 5 hours drive from where I actually am because of losing so much time in this thread today. And hoping to make it up by not sleeping and driving. Oh and let's not forget I have Multiple Sclerosis. Sheesh. Fuck off (because you are not interested in having a discussion but rather you want to take advantage when someone has their back turned and hide behind a sock puppet).

I shall once again leave this forum never to return.

Or we can meet for a boxing match. It would be more informational about decoherence into reality. (I could utilize a human punching bag, that would be useful to me to relieve stress and continue my athletic climb out of the M.S.)

[Adrian-x]

Hey Zangelbert,

I kind of suspect that a lot of people don't really grok the spin off idea. I think there would be a lot of value to a dumb proof-of-concept altcoin that spun off the Bitcoin ledger (with some trivial changes like a confirmation rate of 5 minutes). It would be really interesting to see people's reactions to it... first the usual disdain, and then perhaps a kind of curiosity once they realize that they "automatically" have a chunk of this new coin. Anyway, it would help spread the concept, which is what I think would be the most valuable.

Yeah I'd like to see it done, though didn't Stellar already do it? I think there are still some technical kinks to iron out in order to get a more perfect "snapshot" of the Bitcoin ledger at a given time (Peter may be able to comment), but just as an experiment it would be neat to try.

Stellar had a small time window, which made it rather impractical for the 99% to claim. This bringing up another debated option how long should the claim window be open. I was open to both options; a claim period and open forever.

But it looks like open forever is the way to go. IMO spin-offs have not been tested to any degree of significance.

[cypherdoc]

here we go again.  will we break the $DJT support once and for all?

a bad sign; gold is turning down again:

[TPTB_need_war]

lmao

Were you one of those who said that the 2 times before when BTC was $600s and I said it was going to $300 (first time) and $150 (second time)? If not, get ready to be one of those soon.

Arrogant and correct. Would you prefer kiss ass and wrong? I am as humble as you are. If you want to have a rational, calm discussion, we can. If you want to fight, we can. It is your decision. I am your mirror.

[cypherdoc]

Altcoin investment has always come across to me as pure financial speculation, simply hoping that Altcoin x will rise in price faster than Bitcoin for a given time period. I never get the sense that Altcoin investors want to disrupt the corrupt banking world and replace it with something better, just that it is a way to make a fast buck.

Since this is the hard money thread, I'd like to query the group:

How can one understand that Bitcoin is first and foremost about store of value and still be interested in the idea of an altcoin (alt-ledger) taking over Bitcoin?

To me, accepting the precedent that the ledger gets replaced when the protocol does, means throwing away the entire concept of crypto as a store of value. How would the market value any cryptoledger as a store of value if you had to actively switch out of it every few years (months?) as new protocols came along? Worse, you'd have to pick the winners correctly.*

I'm in the "we don't switch ledgers" club, because I think that's the only one the market will ultimately support. Anything else subverts the entire basis of money. It's pushing the proverbial red button on the whole concept of cryptocurrency. The only time to switch ledgers is when it is absolutely necessary to avoid total catastrophe. It should be a once in several centuries event, or at most once a generation (~30 years).

Perhaps the argument is, "We only do it once, because we just got this bit wrong with Bitcoin. This altcoin is the ideal form. No more changes after that." But to the market, the precedent has been set. Everyone knows what happens when some obscure flaw comes to light requiring another protocol change. Store of value goes *splat* again. The whole concept has been set back decades.

*Lottery ticket investing (Pascal's Mugging investing?) only works when the set of credible lottery tickets (investment candidates) is somewhat limited; if this dynamic takes hold there will be thousands of plausible "next top dogs" because the incentive will be overwhelming to create and cleverly market them.

i agree completely.  

altcoin early adopting devs and their supporters would rather have everyone switch to their "new, improved" altcoin for maximum individual profit at the expense of Bitcoiners losing value from having to be later adopters.  working to improve Bitcoin isn't sexy or motivational enough for most of them despite the fact that any BTC holdings they might have would likely increase in value from their contributions to the Bitcoin protocol.  most of them probably don't even have BTC hence there is no motivation for them to become later Bitcoin adopters (even though it is still EARLY).  

constantly switching to newer altcoins, even if they represent true improvements, is destructive to SOV.  thus, the whole concept of cryptocurrency as a SOV fails miserably.  they fail to see this thus their activities are destructive to the SOV concept.  ideally, they should help Bitcoin improve and keep all innovations on the mainchain so the market can develop confidence.  otherwise, as you say, we could be set back a hundred years.

i think the cryptocurrency market senses this which is why the relative value of all the altcoins to Bitcoin is decreasing.  eventually the losses will pile up and there should be a final capitulation of most altcoin supporters in deference to Bitcoin.

[justusranvier]

Anything else subverts the entire basis of money.

I think you just identified the motive.

[cypherdoc]

i see this as all positive:

"We are now going to use our name, reputation and global index provider stature to provide bitcoin values that the rest of the market can look to," says Tom Farley, who serves as president of NYSE, the venerable financial institution that has come to symbolize Wall Street and capitalism more broadly."

"New technology does not intimidate us, it excites us," Farley says, effectively summing up the new mindset of NYSE. Bitcoin in particular excited him, both because of the interest in the currency and the blockchain technology behind it, which serves as a transaction database. "It was that curiosity and also... let's not wait for this to fully evolve; let's get a seat early on and see how this matures."

http://mashable.com/2015/05/19/new-york-stock-exchange-bitcoin/

[cypherdoc]

this is actually inspiring that all these divergent opinions still have the maturity and willingness to break bread together in the same room. i'm sure all their differing views were aired and hopefully some positive consensus will arise:

[TPTB_need_war]

I must thank all of you for the latest comments. Indeed this explains your angst against altcoins.

Since you have shared frankly. May I also without offending you?

The Knowledge Age cares about meritocracy more than it does for non-active knowledge workers to accumulate stored claims on the knowledge of those workers. The Industrial Age required your stores-of-value due to the economy-of-scale required for large fixed capital mass production. We are moving away from mass production towards individualized production and direct sales of knowledge to consumers of knowledge, thus economic decoupling of production from the requirement for stores-of-value.

Most of you stopped following Armstrong right at the time he told you gold would decline from $1600 to $1150 (as a first stop on the way to < $1000 probably $850ish). That was right about the time he started to ridicule hard money followers as tinfoil hats. You tuned him out because you didn't want to hear that your concept of money is all wrong.

Money is what ever society values most in the quality of money. It has never been the case that there was one exclusive store-of-value in the universe. I don't know in what absurd bubble of unreality you all could even fathom such a hypothesis?

Even the dollar has not been a universal money and store-of-value, although it has been a dominant one (but not forever). The NWO one-world reserve currency will not be the only store-of-value nor money used on earth.

You are conflating store-of-value with legal tender? Or what? Goldbugs spew so much nonsense it is exhausting to disentangle their delusions (especially when I am sleepy).

Edit: a shared unit-of-account is important when liquidity is paramount, profit margins are small, and fixed rates of return dominate. National currencies sufficed because direct B2B and B2C international trade has been insignificant. In a knowledge investing economy, there may be other attributes of money that are more important, such as the inability of money to interfere with freedom-of-production and meritocracy. I assert Bitcoin is losing this fundamental tenet, and as that becomes clear to the knowledge workers, they will leave Bitcoin for money which delivers the qualities they demand.

[hdbuck]

i see this as all positive:

"We are now going to use our name, reputation and global index provider stature to provide bitcoin values that the rest of the market can look to," says Tom Farley, who serves as president of NYSE, the venerable financial institution that has come to symbolize Wall Street and capitalism more broadly."

"New technology does not intimidate us, it excites us," Farley says, effectively summing up the new mindset of NYSE. Bitcoin in particular excited him, both because of the interest in the currency and the blockchain technology behind it, which serves as a transaction database. "It was that curiosity and also... let's not wait for this to fully evolve; let's get a seat early on and see how this matures."

http://mashable.com/2015/05/19/new-york-stock-exchange-bitcoin/

I stop reading @"NYSE, the venerable institution..."

Seriously why do bitcoiners keeps on sucking up them masters arses?! Bitcoin is not here to save wall street's minions. Its here to bypass them.

PS: i dont want bitcoin to be linked in any sort with their reputation

[rocks]

The 6-7 properties of money were written thousands of years ago, people. Technology, including "anti-money" technology, has come on a little since then. Privacy is a property of money since at least some point in the 20th century.

Furthermore, cryptocurrency brings a whole new set of (so far) necessary properties. There's no need to compartmentalise "classical money" properties from those which have been added during it's subsequent evolution.

I think it is important to determine what you "have" to have in a money instrument vs. what is "nice" to have vs. what "derives" from other properties. When arguments on which altcoin might be better start, the differences in opinion seem to often come down to this. I don't think the properties of ideal money have changed just because we are using a digital medium now. I also think with the right "have to have" properties, that you can layer on top of that the "nice to have" aspects. Anyway the market will decide.

So, new innovations in anti-money tools don't change the fundamental characteristics of money itself?

My personal view is I do not believe so.

The reason is I have not seen any anti-money tools that are not defeated by the six main properties working together.

Gold was attacked by anti-money tools (bank notes) because it was not very portable, and as a result people stopped using it directly and governments were able to circumvent gold over time. Bitcoin is very portable and perfectly fungible, this makes anti-money tools harder to deploy. For anything I can imagine they will throw at Bitcoin, it seems trivial to layer additional usage mechanisms on top of the protocol as needed. If bitcoin wasn't portable, fungible, divisible, etc this wouldn't be the case.

@ bolded: I would argue that intangibility and being cryptographically driven are far more important properties for cryptocurrencies to counter anti-money technology. Intangibility is definitely a new development in money (people remembering doesn't necessarily count, figuratively and literally ), and it is not derived from the original 7 at all.

It will be interesting to see how the opinions of monetary theorists of this century will eventually settle on this issue (I have no doubt it will become a relevant debate, even if the conclusion is against an expanded group of properties)

I agree with intangibility being a benefit, we might have different definitions here though, how are you defining this?

A problem for gold as money was always that most people did not seem to understand that physical gold was simply a means to a global ledger. Instead many thought gold as money derived it's value through some sort of value gold had in itself (i.e. as jewelry or metal), but this was wrong. An intangible ledger makes it very clear exactly what money is and separates it from any other forms of value. Money is simply and honest stable mechanism to keep score, it has no value other than that which we place on it.

[TPTB_need_war]

Anything else subverts the entire basis of money.

I think you just identified the motive.

Justus, you are so spiteful and disingenuous. Rather we prefer freedom to choose over "one size fits all". Your 0 entropy world is hell.

The knowledge age is going to kick slavery money to the curb. That is precisely what we are trying get rid of.

Zangelbert, where did you get your concept of the entire basis of money? Yes the basis for money has been to support usury, fixed rates of return, accumulation by capitalists of stored claims on fungible labor and fixed capital infrastructure (which results in an Iron Law of Political Economics collusion with the State, which the masses enjoin because there is no alternative). Isn't that the non-meritocracy the Knowledge Age and non-fungible knowledge production is killing?

[cypherdoc]

i see this as all positive:

"We are now going to use our name, reputation and global index provider stature to provide bitcoin values that the rest of the market can look to," says Tom Farley, who serves as president of NYSE, the venerable financial institution that has come to symbolize Wall Street and capitalism more broadly."

"New technology does not intimidate us, it excites us," Farley says, effectively summing up the new mindset of NYSE. Bitcoin in particular excited him, both because of the interest in the currency and the blockchain technology behind it, which serves as a transaction database. "It was that curiosity and also... let's not wait for this to fully evolve; let's get a seat early on and see how this matures."

http://mashable.com/2015/05/19/new-york-stock-exchange-bitcoin/

I stop reading @"NYSE, the venerable institution..."

Seriously why do bitcoiners keeps on sucking up them masters arses?! Bitcoin is not here to save wall street's minions. Its here to bypass them.

PS: i dont want bitcoin to be linked in any sort with their reputation

but why would you want to deny them their rightful participation in a new form of money they might actually believe in?  afaict, they aren't trying to change anything about Bitcoin; they just want in.  that can be beneficial for the space.

[tvbcof]

For example, even with non-reused addresses, compliant participants may report their addresses to a risk-scoring service. If you go outside that "system", boom your coins risk score goes way up.

This is not sustainable in the long term.

All that's required is that users put one non-reporting entity between every transaction between reporting entities. A non-reporting entity could be anyone or any business.

How are you going to get people to do that? Joe Sixpack either buys coins from Coinbase or gets paid in those coins by his employer using a compliant payroll service, those coins go into his coinbase or circle or other compliant wallet. He spends those coins at Overstock or some other retailer using a compliant payment processors.

There is zero incentive for any of these parties to put a non-reporting entity in the middle of their transactions. At best it adds inconvenience and extra cost for no gain. At worst it impairs the acceptability and therefore the value of their coins, which is actually an incentive to not do it.

Coinbase et al. may attempt to keep their users inside a walled garden that is only allowed to transact with other people in the same walled garden, but they won't get away with it in the long term.

I'm not so sure. That's certainly now how things are going now.

Here's how to do tainting.  I won't even charge a consulting fee.  Start with a statement like this:

"We (govt), in our long tradition of honoring innovation and freedom, are excited about the possibilities of the revolutionary development of 'smart money'.  In order to overcome some of the deficiencies which hold the solution back, our programs are designed to produce a margin of safety necessary for every citizen to enjoy the benefits Bitcoin with confidence."

UTXO's are considered either tainted or not ('addresses' are meaningless.)  The formula is very simple:  If all inputs were untainted, so will be the output.  The definition of 'taint' is simply that whether a transaction was performed by someone who has properly registered the outputs they control (which can be accomplished automatically by using the services of certain proven entities(e.g., Coinbase.))

We (govt) issue charters to entities who have demonstrated the technical prowess to maintain the information needed.  An entity such as Coinbase already maintains the high precision and legally enforceable identity information and would have a big leg-up.  They also may simply supply this information to a partner entity who maintains a government charter.

A tainting authority has the legal authority to 'untaint' outputs.  They can do so, under procedures subject to the pleasure of the state, as a service to their customers.  Individuals who have a legacy stash can easily untaint it by simply documenting the origin with a reasonable degree of precision.  This service will probably be completely outsourced to chartered entities.

Individuals who wish to deploy Bitcoin autonomously ('dinosaurs') are perfectly free to do so provided that they appropriately account for any outputs they produce.  If they fail to do so their outputs will be considered tainted.  Even by this time a majority of users have evolved from the dinosaur phase into a mammalian form (fluffy, bleating) who run 'lightweight' clients on their smartphones.  Such wallets can be easily adapted to cross-check a proposed 'spend' (collection of inputs) and decide whether the output will be accepted (based on whether the inputs are acceptable) prior to payment.  Since networks are fast this validation only adds a second or two to a transaction.  Most people who would object to such a common sense solution are probably criminals and/or dangerous in other ways.

---

Although a mere mortal like me (tvbcof) shouldn't be challenging the immense wisdom of an economic guru of Justus's caliber, I would submit that an untainted BTC with the flexibility to be used, un-discounted, at a not unheard of site like Coinbase would command a larger value than it's less flexible cousin.  But what do I know?

edit: spelling

[rpietila]

Anything else subverts the entire basis of money.

I think you just identified the motive.

Hey guys - you are in my TOP-20 bitcoin theorists. Both. Considering this, the latest replies have been lame.

I have presented a mechanism that may dethrone Bitcoin without asking the majority, the exact same way as it has always happened during monetary transformations in the history (leaving the majority holding the bag), and the same way as Bitcoin gained its valuation, which you and I are not ashamed to enjoy.

I am interested in hearing analytical criticism that could invalidate the theory. What I hear instead is moral criticism that the entire basis of money is subverted if such happens. Fiat subverted the entire basis of gold. Bitcoin subverted the entire basis of fiat. Resisting the change caused losses among the slow adopters, and heaped riches among the early ones. That's the way it goes, and Bitcoin is the archetype of that.

You wish that the world would freeze just because you got it right once and feel entitled to enjoy it forever. I also wished the same up until a year ago, but it is possible to wake up before it is too late.

Moral indignation that the entire basis of my wealth-effect gotten wealth would evaporate the same way it came. Sheesh.

[smooth]

altcoin early adopting devs and their supporters would rather have everyone switch to their "new, improved" altcoin for maximum individual profit at the expense of Bitcoiners losing value from having to be later adopters.  working to improve Bitcoin isn't sexy or motivational enough for most of them despite the fact that any BTC holdings they might have would likely increase in value from their contributions to the Bitcoin protocol.  most of them probably don't even have BTC hence there is no motivation for them to become later Bitcoin adopters (even though it is still EARLY).  

This is completely wrong in a large number (most probably a majority) of cases. Altcoin developers have generally been motivated by profit, either BTC or fiat profit, but probably BTC profit more often. This pretty much has to be true for the majority of altcoins that have no significant technological value at all (what else would the motivation be). These developers are certainly not people who don't have BTC or late Bitcoin adopters (of course such a thing doesn't exist now).

You really have to ask more about what is the motivation for altcoin investors than developers. For most of the developers, the motivation flows pretty obviously from that. And again in that case I think you are looking at a group of people (the investors) who for the most part just seek BTC/fiat profit.

It is only in very rare cases do altcoin investors or developers think their technology has merit or their coin could possibly be the next big thing (either bigger than Bitcoin or a coexist with the meaningful value). You can probably count those on one hand. Maybe even with missing digits.

Given the relative immaturity and near-total lack of adoption that cryptocurrencies have seen generally I don't really see anything wrong with having a few contenders at this point. If we ever get to the point where a cryptocurrency is widely adopted and you can rationally say it represents something even vaguely resembling a global ledger, then overturning it would likely be very destructive. That doesn't exist now. The closest thing we have to a global ledger is fiat, and overturning that would indeed be very destructive (using the term in a morally neutral sense as in "creative destruction")

[TPTB_need_war]

Suppose we have at least a 10 bagger on the way ... I don't see a reverse wealth effect on Bitcoin as viable at this time, and thus if an altcoin rises too fast it will be taken out by profit taking cashing out to Bitcoin...

The arbitrage factor dominates for as long as Bitcoin is growing and the challenging altcoin doesn't appear to have the oomph to cross the chasm.

No altcoin is going to displace Bitcoin's dominance of the masses (at least not in pure crypto-coin market and on this cycle). Bitcoin has won that. But who wants to? That is they dying NWO system. The Winklevosses et al are going to cash out on the big move of the masses in by giving them accounts on the behemoths. They are selling the masses (chattel) to the NWO.

For those who gloat in joining that morass and the BTC gains that are coming from joining forces with the TPTB in enslaving the masses (under the ideological lie of decentralized banking, etc), I would cognizant that this system is a cancer on itself and it will likely find a way to expropriate and clawback those gains.

I will take my chances (hedge against possible negative outcomes with Bitcoin) on the concept that the true knowledge age will adopt a money system that has the ideological qualities to sustain:

1. Freedom to produce

2. Freedom of speech

3. Personal permissionless property

4. Meritocracy free market thus not malinvestment and destruction of capital

Those who follow the true path won't get to gloat in 2017 when you Bitcoin HODLers are stacking your 10+X gains (though we might be stacking better gains than that already because smaller things grow faster), but we might (hopefully if we achieve our technological goals) still be standing with our 100+X gains when you all have potentially fallen into the abyss with the cancer.

Since no one can guarantee the future, this is what makes a market. Place your bets.

[cypherdoc]

banks starting to consume each other.  retail clients are sure to get hit soon:

“HSBC charges banks for deposits they hold with us in currencies where negative interest rates apply,” the UK-based lender said in a statement on Tuesday. “Banks affected have been notified and we continue to monitor the situation.”
The unusual steps come after the European Central Bank became the first big central bank to announce a negative deposit rate — in effect a penalty on banks parking their surplus cash — last year.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ad3f99a-fe16-11e4-8efb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3aaO1u93p