Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[foggyb]

Peter Schiff: Talking dollar collapse and looming black hole. (spoiler: he thinks Gold is the answer) (second spoiler: not one mention of bitcoin anywhere)

http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/190800-economy-dollar-financial-armageddon/

Nobody wants to jump on our sinking ship

You can call it that if you want.. I won't. I wouldn't mind if Schiff doesn't mention bitcoin - he was staunchly anti bitcoin all along.
He had made one or two concessions recently towards bitcoin but he is still a Goldbug pure and simple.

The takeaway point here is that QE and the dollar are fucked. At least he sees that!

Bitcoin is very dangerous to trade. Its sensible for Schiff not to recommend it. Smart money figures it out on its own anyway.

[cypherdoc]

ok, again, reality check.

are Bitcoiners, like goldbugs, irrationally skeptical of the incumbent fiat system?  i don't think so:

This sort of thing occurred often enough -- Fed regulators denying what had been said in meetings, Fed managers asking her to alter minutes of meetings after the fact -- that Segarra decided she needed to record what actually had been said. So she went to the Spy Store and bought a tiny tape recorder, then began to record her meetings at Goldman Sachs, until she was fired.

I don't want to spoil the revelations of "This American Life": It's far better to hear the actual sounds on the radio, as so much of the meaning of the piece is in the tones of the voices -- and, especially, in the breathtaking wussiness of the people at the Fed charged with regulating Goldman Sachs. But once you have listened to it -- as when you were faced with the newly unignorable truth of what actually happened to that NFL running back's fiancee in that elevator -- consider the following:

1. You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.

2. The only reason you know is that one woman, Carmen Segarra, has been brave enough to fight the system. She has paid a great price to inform us all of the obvious. She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes

[cypherdoc]

it's heroes like Carmen Segarra that make me want to buy Bitcoin like hell.

[boumalo]

This is pretty huge.

The Danish gvt invested in Coinify:

SEED Capital is partly supported by Vækstfonden, the Danish government’s fund for creating growth in new companies. “This must be the first time government funds are invested in a Bitcoin company,” Olesen commented to CoinTelegraph.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112607/coinify-seals-multi-million-external-funding-backed-by-danish-govt

It's a fun fact

gold getting smacked again.  Bitcoin stable.

This year Gold is in positive and Bitcoin lost 50%

[cypherdoc]

This is pretty huge.

The Danish gvt invested in Coinify:

SEED Capital is partly supported by Vækstfonden, the Danish government’s fund for creating growth in new companies. “This must be the first time government funds are invested in a Bitcoin company,” Olesen commented to CoinTelegraph.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112607/coinify-seals-multi-million-external-funding-backed-by-danish-govt

It's a fun fact

gold getting smacked again.  Bitcoin stable.

This year Gold is in positive and Bitcoin lost 50%

that's true when you cherry pick.

i can do that too; look at the 5 yr chart

[wachtwoord]

This is pretty huge.

The Danish gvt invested in Coinify:

SEED Capital is partly supported by Vækstfonden, the Danish government’s fund for creating growth in new companies. “This must be the first time government funds are invested in a Bitcoin company,” Olesen commented to CoinTelegraph.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112607/coinify-seals-multi-million-external-funding-backed-by-danish-govt

It's a fun fact

gold getting smacked again.  Bitcoin stable.

This year Gold is in positive and Bitcoin lost 50%

that's true when you cherry pick.

i can do that too; look at the 5 yr chart

And looking at something's eternal lifetime (so for both gold and Bitcoin and annualized), might not be considered cherry picking too. 

[cypherdoc]

This is pretty huge.

The Danish gvt invested in Coinify:

SEED Capital is partly supported by Vækstfonden, the Danish government’s fund for creating growth in new companies. “This must be the first time government funds are invested in a Bitcoin company,” Olesen commented to CoinTelegraph.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112607/coinify-seals-multi-million-external-funding-backed-by-danish-govt

It's a fun fact

gold getting smacked again.  Bitcoin stable.

This year Gold is in positive and Bitcoin lost 50%

that's true when you cherry pick.

i can do that too; look at the 5 yr chart

And looking at something's eternal lifetime (so for both gold and Bitcoin and annualized), might not be considered cherry picking too. 

Ok, go back 3y then

[cypherdoc]

Skim this report, not one mention of Bitcoin. They're talking about a triple bottom in gold despite silver having broken down out of its consolidation pattern. Big mistake. Not only that, but all the masturbation around mining companies.

We are nowhere near a bubble in Bitcoin, as the gold bugs have yet to come (literally) :

http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/16271

[boumalo]

This is pretty huge.

The Danish gvt invested in Coinify:

SEED Capital is partly supported by Vækstfonden, the Danish government’s fund for creating growth in new companies. “This must be the first time government funds are invested in a Bitcoin company,” Olesen commented to CoinTelegraph.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112607/coinify-seals-multi-million-external-funding-backed-by-danish-govt

It's a fun fact

gold getting smacked again.  Bitcoin stable.

This year Gold is in positive and Bitcoin lost 50%

that's true when you cherry pick.

i can do that too; look at the 5 yr chart

And looking at something's eternal lifetime (so for both gold and Bitcoin and annualized), might not be considered cherry picking too. 

Ok, go back 3y then

Obviously Bitcoin has more potential than Gold and performed better last few years but Bitcoin is more risky and Gold can benefit of the upcoming fall of the USD and western financial system too so it's a great asset to have for us who know what is coming

When you said Gold is getting smacked and Bitcoin is up it is indeed ery relative to the time frame And you know that cypherdoc (cool name BTW)

[cypherdoc]

Scary stuff:

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/09/26/the-status-quo-playbook-beyond-2014-regulation-by-corporations-professional-politicians-and-the-strip-mining-of-sovereign-assets/

[tvbcof]

Obviously Bitcoin has more potential than Gold and performed better last few years but Bitcoin is more risky and Gold can benefit of the upcoming fall of the USD and western financial system too so it's a great asset to have for us who know what is coming

In my mind it's most likely that distributed crypto-currencies will benefit from a lose of confidence in fiat systems much more than gold.  The simple reason for this is that they are new and starting from a lower position relative to gold and silver.

I see gold, and to a larger degree, silver, as being something to have should a loss of confidence in fiat systems result in war, famine, totalitarianism, etc.  Such outcomes are not unusual in times of economic collapse and I don't think that any country is immune from them.  It would be much easier for authoritarians to limit realistic normal use of something like Bitcoin which requires a reasonably well-working and free global internet and in times of strife I find it almost inconceivable that such a thing would go unchallenged.  It would still be worth having some private keys with assigned value, but mostly to hold on to for better times and/or to use in operations which are already quite risky anyway.

[cypherdoc]

I found this quote interesting in light of Ethereum:

A robustly engineered program should intersect with bash, or any other Turing-complete system, at as few points as possible, and in as constrained a format as possible.

https://www.veracode.com/blog/2014/09/misfeatures-strike-again

[tvbcof]

I found this quote interesting in light of Ethereum:

A robustly engineered program should intersect with bash, or any other Turing-complete system, at as few points as possible, and in as constrained a format as possible.

https://www.veracode.com/blog/2014/09/misfeatures-strike-again

Took four words and a symbol to total fail:

  "Bash – the Unix shell – came out ..."

If anything is 'the unix shell' it is bourne shell.  I've had to devise systems occasionally which allow some user input to a shell or other program but it is rare and I aggressively limited the input.  In fairness, however, it would be possible for a regex engine (which does the discrimination)  to harbor some hidden bug as well, but relatively unlikely;  many of these ancient systems are quite small and simple and have been extensively analyzed over the past decades.  The changes are small so a lot of eyes will be looking at the deltas.

IMHO, the best way to achieve security is to build on very simple solutions and try to make one's own system very limited.  Even more critically, don't be lazy when it comes to installation (esp, which user executes which operations.)

[cypherdoc]

I found this quote interesting in light of Ethereum:

A robustly engineered program should intersect with bash, or any other Turing-complete system, at as few points as possible, and in as constrained a format as possible.

https://www.veracode.com/blog/2014/09/misfeatures-strike-again

Took four words and a symbol to total fail:

  "Bash – the Unix shell – came out ..."

If anything is 'the unix shell' it is bourne shell.  I've had to devise systems occasionally which allow some user input to a shell or other program but it is rare and I aggressively limited the input.  In fairness, however, it would be possible for a regex engine (which does the discrimination)  to harbor some hidden bug as well, but relatively unlikely;  many of these ancient systems are quite small and simple and have been extensively analyzed over the past decades.  The changes are small so a lot of eyes will be looking at the deltas.

IMHO, the best way to achieve security is to build on very simple solutions and try to make one's own system very limited.  Even more critically, don't be lazy when it comes to installation (esp, which user executes which operations.)

yeah, i knew  it was a cheap shot when i wrote it.  was waiting for someone to call me out on it.

but still, for a system that is supposed to hold and secure all sorts of valuable assets, i know i'm not the first one to bring up the concern regarding infinite loops due to Turing completeness.

[cypherdoc]

All this makes me want to weep:

    In her ruling on Wednesday, Abrams also rejected a move by Stengle for greater disclosure by the judge about her husband's relationship with Goldman Sachs. Abrams disclosed on April 3 that she had just learned that her husband, Greg Andres, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, was representing Goldman in an advisory capacity.
    Stengle said at the time she would not seek Abrams' recusal, the judge said, and went ahead the next day with scheduled oral arguments on the defendants' bid to dismiss the case.
    But on April 11, Stengle made a written request for a "more complete disclosure" of Andres' relationship with Goldman, and Abrams' own working relationship with another defense lawyer.
    Abrams said that was too late, given that Segarra by then would have had a chance to "sample the temper of the court" and perhaps anticipate she would lose unless Abrams recused herself. "The timing of plaintiff's requests suggests that she is engaging in precisely the type of 'judge-shopping' the 2nd Circuit has cautioned against," Abrams wrote, referring to the federal appeals court in New York. "Such an attempt to engage in judicial game-playing strikes at the core of our legal system."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-26/how-goldman-controls-new-york-fed-475-hours-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes-explain

[cypherdoc]

I don't want to spoil the revelations of "This American Life": It's far better to hear the actual sounds on the radio, as so much of the meaning of the piece is in the tones of the voices -- and, especially, in the breathtaking wussiness of the people at the Fed charged with regulating Goldman Sachs. But once you have listened to it -- as when you were faced with the newly unignorable truth of what actually happened to that NFL running back's fiancee in that elevator -- consider the following:

1. You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.

2. The only reason you know is that one woman, Carmen Segarra, has been brave enough to fight the system. She has paid a great price to inform us all of the obvious. She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes

[justusranvier]

but still, for a system that is supposed to hold and secure all sorts of valuable assets, i know i'm not the first one to bring up the concern regarding infinite loops due to Turing completeness.

I'm satisfied that they can fix infinite loops by paying per cycle.

What's more concerning is that nobody has bothered to do many actual use case evaluations and cost/benefit analysis.

Etherum is supposed to be, fundamentally, a blockchain-based computer.

Because it's a global blockchain, the cycle times need to be somewhere on the order of minutes to ensure synchronization.

Cycle times in the minutes means a clock frequency in the millihertz range.

The processor in your smartphone operates in the gigahertz range.

That's not quite a fair comparison - each tick of the Ethereum computer can do more useful work than a single tick in an transitional CPU. How much more work? Maybe about a million times more work.

This means Ethereum is a computer with an effective clock speed in the kilohertz range. (The Intel 8086 processor released in 1976 had a minimum 5 megahertz clock speed)

Sure, it's Turing-complete, but the kinds of applications you're going to run on a computer with kilohertz-scale cycle times and access latencies measured in minutes are going to resemble the kind of programs that used to be written on punch cards more than they'll resemble Windows 8.

Oh, and how about the cost?

Let's assume there really are applications that are appropriate for the Ethereum computer. Not only are there applications, but the market demand for these applications is great enough that the transaction fees will pay for the operation of the Ethereum network (no network can pay for itself via currency printing for ever, after all).

Computations performed on the CPU in your PC only need to involve the transistors in a single chip, and are generally only performed once.

Computations performed on Ethereum need to be duplicated by CPUs all over the world and broadcast all over the globe.

Running your applications on Ethereum (absent any currency-printing subsidy) is going to be millions of times more expensive than running it on a local CPU.

Certainly there will be some applications that absolutely require what Ethereum does and will be willing to pay six orders of magnitude more than other alternatives in order to get it, but will there be enough of those applications to pay for the operation of the Ethereum network?

[sidhujag]

we are seeing us equities enter bubble territory as a base here as usd rises with equities... we are back to pre great recession correlation instead of usd acting as a safe haven its becoming an indication of US economic performance.

[cypherdoc]

we are seeing us equities enter bubble territory as a base here as usd rises with equities... we are back to pre great recession correlation instead of usd acting as a safe haven its becoming an indication of US economic performance.

interesting theory.  could be.  we'll see what happens Monday.  the pick up in volatility would suggest otherwise.

either way, bad for gold and silver.  i still think Bitcoin disconnects from the pm's and heads back up from here.

[Melbustus]

I love that Xapo is really getting behind the "Bitcoin is ideal money" thesis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP0jCjyrew8

^ Watch the whole thing; it's only 5 minutes. Directly challenges both fiat and gold. Big credit to Xapo here - I don't see any other mass-market bitcoin company being so explicitly/publicly bullish on the currency itself.