Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[iCEBREAKER]

there's no way any of the ETF's will allow settlement for retail investors with the underlying, be it gold or BTC.

Sprott's bullion trusts (EG PHYS) trade at a premium over paper-backed ones because they feature settlement in underlying good.

Perhaps a BTC trust may become available as well.  Easier to audit them than counting bars in a vault!

Must...resist...buying...Hecla...at...52 week...lows....

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[marcus_of_augustus]

there's no way any of the ETF's will allow settlement for retail investors with the underlying, be it gold or BTC.

This is why any retails who buy a Bitcoin ETF are fools.

All they'll accomplish is give Wall Street their money so somebody else can have bitcoins.

Is that what you mean? Not everyone has a lot of cash to buy bitcoins. Instead they have funds locked into tax shelters and a Bitcoin ETF might be a good option.

1. Set up a Self-Directed IRA
2. Have the IRA transfer funds to an LLC of which you are the manager
3. Buy bitcoins (take possession on behalf of the LLC)
4. Store securely via your preferred method.

EDIT: For clarification, the IRA would invest in the LLC by buying all the shares/units. The LLC then, in turn, invests in bitcoin and takes possession.

We need a s/ware template that can do this all electronically out of the box, like a digital asset trust. Maybe even issue the shares on the blockhain.

[justusranvier]

Most people I know believe money can only be defined by a government and only functions if it is "managed" by a central body with the power to "expand supply to grow with the economy". (Nevermind this is never actually implemented in practice.) And so refuse to trust in anything else.

Most people know more about how electricity works than they understand how money works (this includes the people who issue and control the money).

We know that electricity works in spite of how few people understand it.

Bitcoin will be the same. It will be adopted because it works long before people really understand how and why it works.

[smooth]

there's no way any of the ETF's will allow settlement for retail investors with the underlying, be it gold or BTC.

This is why any retails who buy a Bitcoin ETF are fools.

All they'll accomplish is give Wall Street their money so somebody else can have bitcoins.

Not necessarily fools, it just depends what they are trying to accomplish. If they are trying to track the price of Bitcoin, the speculative asset, with a convenient mechanism for liquidity, custody, accounting, tax reporting, etc. then the ETF may work quite well, and someone buying it for that purpose is not a fool. If they are trying to insulate themselves from severe financial crises, it likely doesn't, and someone buying it for that purpose is a fool.

[marcus_of_augustus]

All of financial history is littered with powerful demonstrations of how capital seeks the best form of money necessary to route around friction, capital controls, bad laws, regulatory overreach and capture. The crescendo of complexity of all these friction-inducing factors building in the current financial system makes Bitcoin inevitable. In fact, the harder they try to stop it the more desirable it will become to the market.

In the same way that they are trying to outlaw privacy on your computing devices, such that any sane individual becomes a criminal, then an effective outlawing of financial privacy will make all users of good money criminals. At that point, nobody has anything to lose by disregarding the financial regulations and bitcoin is the most frictionless way to route around a damaged, overly-complex failing system, to date.

[brg444]

"The Blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money".

I think you can make an even stronger statement:

"A distributed consensus ledger can only survive if it is successful as money."

Note that Bitcoin did not solve the Byzantine Generals Problem because that problem is unsolvable. Bitcoin made it so that any successful attack is uneconomical. That only works if bitcoins are valued as money.

This means anything that tries to replace Bitcoin's functionality will either do so by being better money or else won't be a distributed consensus ledger.

Most early Bitcoin adopters agree that Bitcoin's properties make it money and that "BTC as valuable money" is necessary for the blockchain to function.

An issue for the next phase of adoption though is the next set of adopters do not agree with this largely due to different political views on what constitutes money. Most people I know believe money can only be defined by a government and only functions if it is "managed" by a central body with the power to "expand supply to grow with the economy". (Nevermind this is never actually implemented in practice.) And so refuse to trust in anything else.

The argument that Bitcoin is money is not going to drive adoption, that only served to kick start adoption with politically aligned individuals.

Instead Bitcoin's usefulness as money will have to be the next driver for adoption. Either people find it easier to use online, or merchants offer BTC discounts, or people use Bitcoin to engage in illegal forms of trade, or automated services (bots) find BTC useful to trade, etc. This is where Bitcoin as a superior technology over fiat (a hundred year old technology) becomes a dominate factor.

I have to disagree for a couple of reasons.

The pool of potential adopters that understand the value of a limited supply assets as money is far from saturated (see: gold market)

This next set of adopters you are referring to certainly are in the dark as to what constitutes money but most of them are familiar with concepts of store of value that can appreciate with demand like gold and other precious metals.

Now, for numerous reasons this mainstream audience, a whole generation really, has not had much interest investing into these assets considering the general bear market they have been in and the inconvenience of investing into them.

Enter Bitcoin. For the first time in history, gold is available in digital form at the click of a button and can be purchased with a credit card (Circle).

Political ideologies or usefulness is not required to drive the next adoption phase. All we need is greed. All we need is for Bitcoin to get close to ATH again and we are off to the races.

[zeetubes]

The price of silver got slammed in September, as sales of 1oz American Eagles doubled at the US Mint. Sales of 1oz gold coins went from 21,000 in August to 50,000 in September. 

Sales figures for 1oz Silver coins via the US Mint. The October figures are probably September sales that didn't get reported.
 
July             1,975,000
August     2,007,500
September  4,140,000
October     1,150,000

[justusranvier]

All of financial history is littered with powerful demonstrations of how capital seeks the best form of money necessary to route around friction, capital controls, bad laws, regulatory overreach and capture. The crescendo of complexity of all these friction-inducing factors building in the current financial system makes Bitcoin inevitable. In fact, the harder they try to stop it the more desirable it will become to the market.

In the same way that they are trying to outlaw privacy on your computing devices, such that any sane individual becomes a criminal, then an effective outlawing of financial privacy will make all users of good money criminals. At that point, nobody has anything to lose by disregarding the financial regulations and bitcoin is the most frictionless way to route around a damaged, overly-complex failing system, to date.

...and that's the difference between people who are in this to make a quick buck, and people who are in this to build the tools that serve the future in which we want to live.

[tabnloz]

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. - Alan Greenspan

hmmmm...

[marcus_of_augustus]

Political ideologies or usefulness is not required to drive the next adoption phase. All we need is greed. All we need is for Bitcoin to get close to ATH again and we are off to the races.

... thus the powerful forces now aligning against any expansion in future Bitcoin price expectations.

[tabnloz]

More ecommerce bullion dealers taking on bitcoin integration

http://www.maxkeiser.com/2014/10/largest-precious-metals-comparison-site-integrates-bitcoin/

“It’s clear to me that Bitcoin will become a staple of eCommerce bullion dealers. Paying with Bitcoin often enables the consumer to enjoy immediate shipping (no need to wait for checks to clear or bankwire fees), while ensuring that the dealer always receives their payment. When bullion dealers integrate Bitcoin as a payment option, consumers enjoy the fastest service as there is no need to wait for payment to clear, and gold and silver dealers eliminate the need for a ‘market loss policy’ by collecting payment upfront.”

[cypherdoc]

All we need is greed. All we need is for Bitcoin to get close to ATH again and we are off to the races.

you beat me to it, altho it doesn't need to get to the ATH.

all that is needed is for the price to start rising again.

[cypherdoc]

this made me laugh.  but it's true and quite clever.  Daniel is the only guy with any substance at the Nakamoto Institute:

Every government agent has the opportunity and incentive to be an early adopter today, and the greater the incentive, the more likely is it that any government attack will be sabotaged by an early adopter among the agents carrying out the attack.

http://bitcoinist.net/bitcoins-obscene-wealth-disparity-is-a-feature/

i think it is amusing when thinking about a gvt led 51% attack in mining.

[cypherdoc]

since we spent some time talking about the blockchain today, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to compare the costs of global accounting with the Bitcoin market cap, given that the blockchain is just one big ledger.  i didn't do much other than google the top 100 accounting firms in the world and eyeball add what appears to be their networth.  the top 10 total approx. $6 billion in value which is more than Bitcoin's $5 billion at this point.  and that's not counting all the other global firms and types of accounting at corporate and small business levels.  if someone wanted to do a more in depth analysis, it would make for a great study:

http://www.brw.com.au/lists/top-100-accounting-firms/2013/

[cypherdoc]

we're gonna get a long awaited gold bounce for the gold bugs, maybe up to the resistance level as drawn:



the mirror image of this should be a drop in $DXY down to its support level:

[zeetubes]

Cypher, what are your thoughts on short term silver? I want to take a longer term position but short term I'm still worried.

[cypherdoc]

Cypher, what are your thoughts on short term silver? I want to take a longer term position but short term I'm still worried.

Silver moves with gold. Short term up but beyond that, down.

[zeetubes]

Cypher, what are your thoughts on short term silver? I want to take a longer term position but short term I'm still worried.

Silver moves with gold. Short term up but beyond that, down.

Yep. We're each responsible for our financial bets. I like silver just for its industrial use but the physical purchase of coins in the last few weeks indicates to me it has some legs.

[sidhujag]

we're gonna get a long awaited gold bounce for the gold bugs, maybe up to the resistance level as drawn:



the mirror image of this should be a drop in $DXY down to its support level:

I think we head up for awhile now on gold...lets see

[hdbuck]

good sum up of the market's current situation: http://btccharts.everdot.org/bullbearsept2014.pdf