Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[sidhujag]

I think it has something to do with what the thinking was at the time... no human is smart enough to see that many steps ahead or even care about tha tmany steps ahead.. in general people are dumb. especially those in power who didn't study math or don't understand basic logic (alot of them)... they do whats best for them at the time. So at the time there was a scare for war.. and knowing that they wouldnt be able to fund it.. they had to get off the standard so that they can print money to fund a war if it happened. Didn't France ask for their gold at the time and that pretty much precluded the event since they couldn't satisfy their request without pretty much using most of their stash?

[Bagatell]

Interesting piece on this topic.

http://www.theautomaticearth.com/wealth-inequality-is-not-a-problem-its-a-symptom/

[sidhujag]

I think there is a more simple yet subtle explanation for any company, city, country going into a prolonged bear cycle: http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations/transcript?language=en

"What we do is, as we grow and we approach the collapse, a major innovation takes place and we start over again, and we start over again as we approach the next one, and so on. So there's this continuous cycle of innovation that is necessary in order to sustain growth and avoid collapse. The catch, however, to this is that you have to innovate faster and faster and faster."

Did we see an innovation to take us out of our last collapse, or are we at our super cycle peak? QE is not innovation. I'll call this one the financial revolution.

[TonyT]

I think there is a more simple yet subtle explanation for any company, city, country going into a prolonged bear cycle: http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations/transcript?language=en

Your man Geoffrey West below.  He did discuss a good rule though, the 15% rule, for every doubling of a city's population.

TonyT

"Now these are my comrades in arms. This work has been done with an extraordinary group of people, and they've done all the work, and I'm the great bullshitter that tries to bring it all together. " - Geoffrey West in his TED talk on cities.

[Wekkel]

Perhaps it could be said that Fiat has experienced its 'overshoot'.

[sidhujag]

I think there is a more simple yet subtle explanation for any company, city, country going into a prolonged bear cycle: http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations/transcript?language=en

Your man Geoffrey West below.  He did discuss a good rule though, the 15% rule, for every doubling of a city's population.

TonyT

"Now these are my comrades in arms. This work has been done with an extraordinary group of people, and they've done all the work, and I'm the great bullshitter that tries to bring it all together. " - Geoffrey West in his TED talk on cities.

He conveys a simple message, sorry if you're simple mind cannot comprehend the message. I don't think you picked on his subtle sarcasm, you SCAMMER.

[TonyT]

He conveys a simple message, sorry if you're simple mind cannot comprehend the message. I don't think you picked on his subtle sarcasm, you SCAMMER.

Hey, there's an "Ignore" link next to each poster... I think I'll use it now for the first time! :-)

[cypherdoc]

I just love this slow grind  higher.

Sneaking out the door...

[BldSwtTrs]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

It's not gold backed. All BitAssets are backed by BTSX.

At the endgame it will allow to speculate and hedge without counterparty risk. People will also be able to earn interests on their savings while having their purchasing power store in any asset of the economy they wish, without counterparty risk. But yeah, it's just a fad.

The way it reads it would seem that there is a systemic counterparty.  Also significant complexity risks.  

For example, When and if an asset fails, it is redeemed in the Bitshares used as collateral.  These Bitshares may then be sold, driving the Bitshares price down, possibly causing another collateral failure in a different asset, and so on.  Once it starts, there will likely be a rush to the exit and cause cascading, yes?

There is a systemic risk indeed, but this is by no mean a counterparty risk. Bitcoin has a systemic risk too, but we can't really call that a counterparty risk.

If the BTSX price fall 50% or more so rapidly that margin calls don't have the time to be trigger, then the BitAssets will be unbacked and probably worthless. But we are talking of a black swan type of event.

[BldSwtTrs]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

It's not gold backed. All BitAssets are backed by BTSX.

At the endgame it will allow to speculate and hedge without counterparty risk. People will also be able to earn interests on their savings while having their purchasing power store in any asset of the economy they wish, without counterparty risk. But yeah, it's just a fad.

bitBTC is not backed by btsx... you can buy bitBTC without btsx and get back out after earning interest... if you want to "short" bitBTC you need collateral in btsx to ensure you have sufficient margin to cover a loss.

You create a bitAsset  (including bitBTC) by shorting it (assuming there is someone willing to take the opposite side by buying it). And in order to short it, you need to collateralize some BSTX within the blockchain.

But to buy a bitAsset you don't need a collateral, it's only the person who is shorting who brings the collateral on the table.

[thezerg]

When bitshares was just starting I spent hours proving on this forum why it wouldn't work.  I think things have changed since then based on my input I hope..  For example the original formulation had no oracle.  Goldshares was supposed to track gold just because of its name.  But at that time the devs were not really capable of doing a theoretical analysis of the system to prove it would work.  So I STRONGLY recommend you do your own diligence or hire someone who can before putting value in the system.

[inca]

I just love this slow grind  higher.

Sneaking out the door...

You done jinxed it

[cypherdoc]

I just love this slow grind  higher.

Sneaking out the door...

You done jinxed it

Told ya. They key off me.

Cheap coins.

edit:  this one took less than 1 min.

[cypherdoc]

I just love this slow grind  higher.

Sneaking out the door...

You done jinxed it

Told ya. They key off me.

Cheap coins.

edit:  this one took less than 1 min.

Wee!  there you go Pruden!

[HeliKopterBen]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

It's not gold backed. All BitAssets are backed by BTSX.

At the endgame it will allow to speculate and hedge without counterparty risk. People will also be able to earn interests on their savings while having their purchasing power store in any asset of the economy they wish, without counterparty risk. But yeah, it's just a fad.

The way it reads it would seem that there is a systemic counterparty.  Also significant complexity risks.  

For example, When and if an asset fails, it is redeemed in the Bitshares used as collateral.  These Bitshares may then be sold, driving the Bitshares price down, possibly causing another collateral failure in a different asset, and so on.  Once it starts, there will likely be a rush to the exit and cause cascading, yes?

You cant short below 10% of the median price feed

It remains to be seen how the system will react to volatility.  A 50% move in price in 1 hr or less could result in more assets available to be sold than there is a counterparty to cover.

[hdbuck]

I think it has something to do with what the thinking was at the time... no human is smart enough to see that many steps ahead or even care about tha tmany steps ahead.. in general people are dumb. especially those in power who didn't study math or don't understand basic logic (alot of them)... they do whats best for them at the time. So at the time there was a scare for war.. and knowing that they wouldnt be able to fund it.. they had to get off the standard so that they can print money to fund a war if it happened. Didn't France ask for their gold at the time and that pretty much precluded the event since they couldn't satisfy their request without pretty much using most of their stash?

yup Charles de Gaulle went to NY with warships to claim our gold back, in the mid 60s.
As opposed to germany, which still failed at doing so lately: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/german-gold-stays-in-new-york-in-rebuff-to-euro-doubters.html

FED is a gigantic gold blackhole. They hate gold as it is the only thing that value is not fully compressible. It is somehow the last rempart before their fiat paper domination system.
They hate it, but they control it.. so that's that.

But then bitcoin came along..

[pa]

http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/9/25/6843509/income-distribution-recoveries-pavlina-tcherneva

my my..

impressive

Yes.

It might be interesting to note that this process started to accelerate when Nixon took the dollar off gold.

Sound money is peoples money.

This is a very interesting chart. It begs the question "Why?" Why has inequality steadily increased?
I think the reason is that in an unbounded monetary system the people who have first use of new money benefit the most. They benefit because the inflationary impact of the new money does not appear immediately. So banks, big business which get priority on loans, and the wealthy who can leverage their assets do so before the inflationary impact occurs. Ordinary people are using the new money after the inflationary impact. For the middle class this is a financial death of a thousand cuts.

The gold standard was weak long before 1971, so the chart reflects this, but the trend goes ballistic in a fully fiat system. Cue Supertramp, because this is the true crime of the century.

Great point. But it's been going on much longer than the past century.

[Melbustus]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

...You will always be able to exchange one bitgld for one ounce of real gold.

Similar to how this was supposed to always be redeemable for real gold?



...that is, until the guys in charge of the gold vault said they weren't gonna do that anymore.

Who is in charge of bitshares?

Doesn't matter. The point is that there necessarily has to be some centralized management of the physical to virtual connection somewhere, be it the guy at the gold vault, or an Oracle (or set of Oracles) providing a price feed.

This is not really a problem with Bitshares so much as "backing" is simply a stupid idea to begin with.

I perhaps shouldn't say "stupid"; it was a somewhat reasonable stopgap for a century or so, but now we can do credible digital scarcity natively, so the backing hack (and monetary use of PMs) is no longer necessary at all.

Why the hell are we trying to replicate the folly of backing in the very blockchain idea that fundamentally makes backing unnecessary?

[cypherdoc]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

...You will always be able to exchange one bitgld for one ounce of real gold.

Similar to how this was supposed to always be redeemable for real gold?



...that is, until the guys in charge of the gold vault said they weren't gonna do that anymore.

Who is in charge of bitshares?

Doesn't matter. The point is that there necessarily has to be some centralized management of the physical to virtual connection somewhere, be it the guy at the gold vault, or an Oracle (or set of Oracles) providing a price feed.

This is not really a problem with Bitshares so much as "backing" is simply a stupid idea to begin with.

I perhaps shouldn't say "stupid"; it was a somewhat reasonable stopgap for a century or so, but now we can do credible digital scarcity natively, so the backing hack (and monetary use of PMs) is no longer necessary at all.

Why the hell are we trying to replicate the folly of backing in the very blockchain idea that fundamentally makes backing unnecessary?

yep, he's got it upside down.

the concept is a total anathema to what this whole thread has been arguing in the first place.

[BldSwtTrs]

For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency

What..

...You will always be able to exchange one bitgld for one ounce of real gold.

Similar to how this was supposed to always be redeemable for real gold?



...that is, until the guys in charge of the gold vault said they weren't gonna do that anymore.

Who is in charge of bitshares?

Doesn't matter. The point is that there necessarily has to be some centralized management of the physical to virtual connection somewhere, be it the guy at the gold vault, or an Oracle (or set of Oracles) providing a price feed.

This is not really a problem with Bitshares so much as "backing" is simply a stupid idea to begin with.

I perhaps shouldn't say "stupid"; it was a somewhat reasonable stopgap for a century or so, but now we can do credible digital scarcity natively, so the backing hack (and monetary use of PMs) is no longer necessary at all.

Why the hell are we trying to replicate the folly of backing in the very blockchain idea that fundamentally makes backing unnecessary?

Blockchain doesn't make backing unecessary. Are you really thinking that blockchain technology end the need to make credit?
If I put some BTC to collaterize an IOU that I issue in exchange of funding, then that IOU become a lot more valuable on the free market.

Blockchains allow digital scarcity. Digital scarcity gives value. In order to back something you need someone valuable.
So the only logical conclusion you can make is that blockchain tokens are great to back promises. And the usefulness of making promises won't go away with Bitcoin.