Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[MatthewLM]

@miscreanity: I guess my idea of piano certificate money wont kick off then? I was going to call them keys and 88 keys would equal a piano with 88 keys redeemable for one piano.

[1713857033]

1713857033

[1713857033]

1713857033

[tvbcof]

Chief among these is that I could wash up on a random foreign shore with nothing but the shirt on my back and have a pretty good potential to be able to access whatever value I have 'stored' in Bitcoin.

Where do you keep your wallet.dat's?  I guess I should put an encrypted copy online someplace, lol..  Just in case I have to wash up on a foreign shore with nothing but the shirt on my back (can I have a USB stick in my shirt pocket??)  

I'm not sayin anything, but...

If one encrypts their wallets, they can be put in a public place.  If one embeds the encrypted wallets in a commonly downloaded asset (known as stenography) then the download would be difficult to trace to a single subject of interest.

The data which would need to be accessible in order to decrypt the wallet.dat(s) would be relatively short depending on how strong a passphrase one wished to use.  Short enough to be transmitted by a number of fairly primitive technologies, or memorized by someone with a good memory.

[silverbox]

Chief among these is that I could wash up on a random foreign shore with nothing but the shirt on my back and have a pretty good potential to be able to access whatever value I have 'stored' in Bitcoin.

Where do you keep your wallet.dat's?  I guess I should put an encrypted copy online someplace, lol..  Just in case I have to wash up on a foreign shore with nothing but the shirt on my back (can I have a USB stick in my shirt pocket??)  

I'm not sayin anything, but...

If one encrypts their wallets, they can be put in a public place.  If one embeds the encrypted wallets in a commonly downloaded asset (known as stenography) then the download would be difficult to trace to a single subject of interest.

The data which would need to be accessible in order to decrypt the wallet.dat(s) would be relatively short depending on how strong a passphrase one wished to use.  Short enough to be transmitted by a number of fairly primitive technologies, or memorized by someone with a good memory.

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

[SkRRJyTC]

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

Silver/Gold bugs always bring this up.  Being a Bitcoinbug myself, I dont think we will ever see an event in which the entire global "grid" goes down for any significant amount of time.

Is there a general consensus among goldbugs on how likely an event like that is to happen?

How likely do you think an event like that is to happen?

[silverbox]

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

Silver/Gold bugs always bring this up.  Being a Bitcoinbug myself, I dont think we will ever see an event in which the entire global "grid" goes down for any significant amount of time.

Is there a general consensus among goldbugs on how likely an event like that is to happen?

How likely do you think an event like that is to happen?

In my remaining life?  I only really care about the US grid.  I give it about a 20% chance to have a larger scale grid outage that lasts more then 2 months.

If you look around in the US, you will notice that almost every city and county municipal complex is putting in solar panel farms in/on or near themselves.. I haven't looked closely at the switching gear around them, but they are likely to have solar storm disconnect protections in place.. Makes you wonder

A Carrington event in modern times would take the world wide grid down and keep it down for years.  No one really knows the frequency of events of this strength, but one occured in the 1850s.. If its the type of event that happens every 1-200 years..  The grids of the world in their current form will go down and stay down for years.

[silverbox]

Notice the lights being off in the Northeast.  This was an accident.. Not caused by a solar storm or terrorists or anything else.  Just the grid getting f'd up thru no act of nature or malicious act of man..

[tvbcof]

...

If one encrypts their wallets, they can be put in a public place.  If one embeds the encrypted wallets in a commonly downloaded asset (known as stenography) then the download would be difficult to trace to a single subject of interest.

The data which would need to be accessible in order to decrypt the wallet.dat(s) would be relatively short depending on how strong a passphrase one wished to use.  Short enough to be transmitted by a number of fairly primitive technologies, or memorized by someone with a good memory.

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

It may have seemed this way to you because you did not read or comprehend some of the earlier content.  Like I said, a relatively small fraction of my nest-egg is 'stored' in this manner.  This is both because the chances of my needing to use it in this manner are remote, and also because as I've made fairly clear, I see a number of potential failure modes of Bitcoin.

It might be worth remembering that at least in the US, any law enforcement official can probe the rectum of any citizen, and in practice just about whenever they feel so inclined.  Also, there are body scanners popping up like mushrooms, and not just at the borders any more.

Although I try to temper my paranoia, I think that there are usually there are reasons for such events.  The stripe search thing in particular was politically costly to codify, and although there was some clear suggestions of pork in the full body scanner growth, there would probably be easier ways to dole out taxpayer money to friends.

As I've said before, if some of these tools end up being used to enforce economic and other conditions on the citizens of the US, 98% of people will have one main question:  "How on earth did we not see this coming since it was so obvious that the framework was being put in place?"

[silverbox]

As I've said before, if some of these tools end up being used to enforce economic and other conditions on the citizens of the US, 98% of people will have one main question:  "How on earth did we not see this coming since it was so obvious that the framework was being put in place?"

It'll never get all that bad, the people won't stand for it .

They can pass as many oppresive laws as they want, but if they enforce them on the populous too harshly it will all come crashing down.

In 100-150 years when the US is finally full it might come to what you intimate , but not in our lifetimes..

So long as the agricultural output exceeds the needs of the population, things probably won't get all that bad.. 

There is a reason why the US is the fattest nation on earth.  Its not even close to being full.. 

[tvbcof]

As I've said before, if some of these tools end up being used to enforce economic and other conditions on the citizens of the US, 98% of people will have one main question:  "How on earth did we not see this coming since it was so obvious that the framework was being put in place?"

It'll never get all that bad, the people won't stand for it .

They can pass as many oppresive laws as they want, but if they enforce them on the populous too harshly it will all come crashing down.

In 100-150 years when the US is finally full it might come to what you intimate , but not in our lifetimes..

So long as the agricultural output exceeds the needs of the population, things probably won't get all that bad.. 

There is a reason why the US is the fattest nation on earth.  Its not even close to being full.. 

Everybody (who thinks at all) has their own estimates on the probability of various events.  And they can formulate their own plans for how to deal with the various different eventualities that may or may not pop up.  The only thing I know for sure about my own is that they are not perfectly correct and a lot of them are probably not even partially correct.

I do suspect that you are underestimating what the population would be willing to put up with when a large faction of the population relies on the government for their means of existence, and when the more unpleasant of the penalties are applied to a smallish percentage of 'evil-does'.  I suspect that individuals and groups who are not sufficiently servile would be able to be painted as a threat to the majority.

[ldrgn]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

[foggyb]

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

If the whole US power grid is offline:

1. At least your bitcoin is totally safe!    Its not worth zero, its just....tied up.
2. If you're not already dead, you've got a lot more to worry about than money.
3. You will need those firearms.

[tvbcof]

Another Score:  5/10/12  (kitco down, gold est from INO.)

          year ago    now       delta mult
BTC     3.82         4.90       + 1.28
Gold    1510         1593      + 1.05

--------------------------
ref (for future updates):
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#czsg2011-05-08zeg2011-05-08ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv  (change date)
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html  (hist cgi at bottom)
mult=now/year_ago


Another Score:  5/9/12

          year ago    now       delta mult
BTC     3.75         5.03       + 1.34
Gold    1510         1590      + 1.05


Another Score:  5/8/12

          year ago    now       delta mult
BTC     3.64         5.03       + 1.38
Gold    1497         1605      + 1.07

[cypherdoc]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

BTFD

[silverbox]

You all seemed to have neglected how much of a store of value BTC is if say.. The grid goes down.  Its worth about as much as any paper/electronic assets will be worth in a sustained grid outage, which is basically Zero...  A roll of silver coins and a couple firearms.  They have value even when the Electricity is off..

If the whole US power grid is offline:

1. At least your bitcoin is totally safe!    Its not worth zero, its just....tied up.
2. If you're not already dead, you've got a lot more to worry about than money.
3. You will need those firearms.

Which is exactly why my firearms collection is worth more then my BTC investment

[tvbcof]

If the whole US power grid is offline:

...

3. You will need those firearms.

Which is exactly why my firearms collection is worth more then my BTC investment

If we ever have a situation where having lots of firearms or 'prepper' stuff is desirable, I'll get all I need for either a few silver coins or a fraction of a BTC.  Either is fine with me.

If we don't see such a situation, an arsenal of guns is an expensive waste of time and target for thieves and the old canned food will taste like shit. 

Thankfully my brain doesn't undergo stimulation from guns for whatever reason...I end up being able to deploy the resources elsewhere.  Unfortunately I'm not even interested enough to properly maintain those which I have.

[silverbox]

If the whole US power grid is offline:

...

3. You will need those firearms.

Which is exactly why my firearms collection is worth more then my BTC investment

If we ever have a situation where having lots of firearms or 'prepper' stuff is desirable, I'll get all I need for either a few silver coins or a fraction of a BTC.  Either is fine with me.

If we don't see such a situation, an arsenal of guns is an expensive waste of time and target for thieves and the old canned food will taste like shit. 

Thankfully my brain doesn't undergo stimulation from guns for whatever reason...I end up being able to deploy the resources elsewhere.  Unfortunately I'm not even interested enough to properly maintain those which I have.

If its all that dire, peeps won't trade the stuff you need for coins (even if they are made of gold)..

I enjoy target shooting and reloading, and firearms do appreciate, so to me, its not a waste of time.   Old canned food does taste like shit .  Fresh meat and produce rock!  (livestock + garden) 

Really all you need for long term storage is a super heavy coat of oil and a low humidity environment.

[tvbcof]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

BTFD

I did so yesterday.  I got it for $1650 per Krugerrand.

[silverbox]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

BTFD

I did so yesterday.  I got it for $1650 per Krugerrand.

Last time I bought Krugerrands the premium was like $20 bucks..  Lemme go dig around.. 1650 seems high, are we starting to see a physical to paper differential?

[cypherdoc]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

BTFD

I did so yesterday.  I got it for $1650 per Krugerrand.

Last time I bought Krugerrands the premium was like $20 bucks..  Lemme go dig around.. 1650 seems high, are we starting to see a physical to paper differential?

no, he overpaid.

[silverbox]

last chance to buy Bitcoin under $5.

Is it too early to call this prediction wrong?  If so, how long do I have to wait?

BTFD

I did so yesterday.  I got it for $1650 per Krugerrand.

Last time I bought Krugerrands the premium was like $20 bucks..  Lemme go dig around.. 1650 seems high, are we starting to see a physical to paper differential?

no, he overpaid.

Not by alot, I can't find any cheaper then $1632 with a quick search..  Interesting...