Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Erdogan]

What continues to be missed by Mauldin and others is that any sound money construct has to be contained wholly within itself with zero external dependencies.

yes, Bitcoin is a Self Contained Financial System

i still think you break that financial system by allowing an offramp to SC's.

The only link to the real world is the timestamps in the block headers, used to regulate the block frequency. Everything else is just numbers.

[Adrian-x]

Now I almost miss talking about Side Chains.

Side Chains are how people like this will engage in Bitcoin, in his evolution of understanding John Mauldin is conditioned and primed to accept a Bitcoin derivative on a SC. The risk is people like him flowed by the Keynesians will form the economic majority during the next growth stage, and there are more of them than there are of us, so there is a lot of change that can happen if we dont keep a tight rein on the Bitcoin incentives.

[hdbuck]

Is Bitcoin the Future?
...

I feel as though I'm watching my own learning curve for bitcoin play out in ultra slow motion as I continue to read articles such as this.  

It's incredibly painful...

More than painful for me - it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand the relationship between the economics and tech of Bitcoin.. which to me is baffling if you believe you're dealing with "one of the most potentially revolutionary developments of the last century." It can't be the case.

I'd venture to guess that most longer term members of this forum were able to grasp economic value-add of Bitcoin at a detailed level in less than few months time..

Thinking in terms of S-curve technology adoption, what are the qualities, dispositions, economic position(?), etc. of Bitcoin early adopters? Certainly classical economic training and technological understanding aren't the only cornerstones.

this is just the regular perks of basic mainstream-slippage.. lazy noobs wanting in at no cost.
but they should still be grateful they get to know bitcoin at this stage.

[Melbustus]

Is Bitcoin the Future?
...

I feel as though I'm watching my own learning curve for bitcoin play out in ultra slow motion as I continue to read articles such as this.   

It's incredibly painful...

More than painful for me - it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand the relationship between the economics and tech of Bitcoin.. which to me is baffling if you believe you're dealing with "one of the most potentially revolutionary developments of the last century." It can't be the case.

I'd venture to guess that most longer term members of this forum were able to grasp economic value-add of Bitcoin at a detailed level in less than few months time..
...

Yeah, I think you're spot on that they haven't taken the time. Whereas most of us obsessed over bitcoin for months (or years) after discovering it, I think most of these guys give it spurts of thought every now and then. Which is, again, just really annoying to watch because their process is so public and influential.

[NotLambchop]

...it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand...

...I think most of these guys give it spurts of thought every now and then...

Another possibility is you're wrong and they're right...  Nah.  Those might be intelligent people, but you folks are mental giants!

[rocks]

Is Bitcoin the Future?
...

I feel as though I'm watching my own learning curve for bitcoin play out in ultra slow motion as I continue to read articles such as this.  

It's incredibly painful...

More than painful for me - it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand the relationship between the economics and tech of Bitcoin.. which to me is baffling if you believe you're dealing with "one of the most potentially revolutionary developments of the last century." It can't be the case.

I'd venture to guess that most longer term members of this forum were able to grasp economic value-add of Bitcoin at a detailed level in less than few months time..

Thinking in terms of S-curve technology adoption, what are the qualities, dispositions, economic position(?), etc. of Bitcoin early adopters? Certainly classical economic training and technological understanding aren't the only cornerstones.

I am beginning to wonder if many of the public proponents of sound money that were promoted as alternative experts many years ago, were nothing but sales men for their own gold products. That they are not adherent defenders of the principles of Austrian economics, but instead are simple promoters and it just happened that sound money was nothing more than words that they found their target customers most responded to. Peter Schiff comes to mind.

If this is the case, then of course it makes sense to try and tie Bitcoin to gold which then acts as a conduit for your gold interests. Overall I think Bitcoin is exposing who is truly interested in changing the current corrupt system vs. who has just been promoters for their own interests (whatever they may be).

[BldSwtTrs]

Is Bitcoin the Future?
...

I feel as though I'm watching my own learning curve for bitcoin play out in ultra slow motion as I continue to read articles such as this.  

It's incredibly painful...

More than painful for me - it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand the relationship between the economics and tech of Bitcoin.. which to me is baffling if you believe you're dealing with "one of the most potentially revolutionary developments of the last century." It can't be the case.

I'd venture to guess that most longer term members of this forum were able to grasp economic value-add of Bitcoin at a detailed level in less than few months time..

Thinking in terms of S-curve technology adoption, what are the qualities, dispositions, economic position(?), etc. of Bitcoin early adopters? Certainly classical economic training and technological understanding aren't the only cornerstones.

I am beginning to wonder if many of the public proponents of sound money that were promoted as alternative experts many years ago, were nothing but sales men for their own gold products. That they are not adherent defenders of the principles of Austrian economics, but instead are simple promoters and it just happened that sound money was nothing more than words that they found their target customers most responded to. Peter Schiff comes to mind.

If this is the case, then of course it makes sense to try and tie Bitcoin to gold which then acts as a conduit for your gold interests. Overall I think Bitcoin is exposing who is truly interested in changing the current corrupt system vs. who has just been promoters for their own interests (whatever they may be).

The concept of money in Austrian economics, ie. money commodity, is somewhat flawed.

Bitcoin makes every body think harder about what money really is and the more open-minded discovered the much more sophisticated concept of money-memory (which afaik, Bastiat was the first to set forth in 1850, but the problem of a lot of Austrians economist is that they think they already know everything and consequently they are not prone to make evolved their ideas. They are unfazed if their prediction doesn't come into fruition, for example they call hyperinflation and if hyperinflation doesn't come they explain it's because the indexes recording inflation are flawed. They deal with cognitive dissonance like cult members.

[cypherdoc]

This is why you can't win :

Fed Leak Tipped Traders to Historic Stimulus Move, Prompted Secret Inquiry

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-01/fed-leak-handed-traders-profitable-tip-prompted-secret-inquiry.html?cmipd=twtr1&hootPostID=4b69b3bec9dcc364dc37034209c4b079

[tabnloz]

This is why you can't win :

Fed Leak Tipped Traders to Historic Stimulus Move, Prompted Secret Inquiry

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-01/fed-leak-handed-traders-profitable-tip-prompted-secret-inquiry.html?cmipd=twtr1&hootPostID=4b69b3bec9dcc364dc37034209c4b079

The opening paragraph of Matt Taibbi's article 'Everything is Rigged: The Biggest Price Fixing Scandal Ever' sums it up:

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything."

Not too much of a stretch to say, with this FedLeak news and the GoldmanTapes, that Libor & ISDAfix weren't the worst of it.

[molecular]

John Mauldin...

The Bitcoin blockchain technology allows for the most secure electronic transactions ever devised. Its adoption and acceptance seem inevitable to me.

Actually the 'security' of transactions is not derived solely from blockchain tech. More essential is asymetric crypthography. PoW is 'just' used to avoid double-spends (find consensus), which in case you're going to back bitcoin with gold anyway can be solved more easily using a centralized ledger (with asymetric crypto to sign transactions).

It will be used to validate everything we purchase: stocks, homes, investments, airplane tickets, etc. It will be a far cheaper and much more secure way to validate your ownership of anything, from your home to your stocks.

Bold claims! We have the same problem as with a gold-backing of tying tokens in the blockchain to the real world. If centralized institutions (courts, police) are necessary for enforcing property rights anyway, why not have the ownership ledger managed by those (or related) institutions, too. If you need mechanisms external to the blockchain to go from 'token control' to 'legal property', I don't see much added value of using a blockchain. (It changes a bit with smart property as envisioned by Mike Hearn (leased car functions only on blockchain ownership proof), but that's a long way to go still and I doubt Mauldin is thinking of this. Also a derivative products can be built on top of blockchain-based tokens more securely than on central-ledger-based ones. Also: paying dividends and holding votes based on stock ownership can be integrated into a blockchain if it is linked to a liquid value-carrying monetary ledger)

So, Mauldin 'getting' those potential applications and 'not getting' the fact that bitcoin is the best (better than gold) sound money we've ever had (w/o backing) seems strange to me. It can probably be explained easily by looking at his portfolio... very similar really to Peter Schiff in that regard.

[cypherdoc]

Really good news:

NCR Silver merchants have continued to gravitate towards bitcoin despite Apple Pay’s bold presence in the market.

Reggie Kimble, the point-of-sale company’s product manager, mentioned that users are constantly asking about the cryptocurrency and how they can incorporate it in their business.

Kimble admitted in an interview that the company was first hesitant in offering bitcoin. NCR’s strategy was a slow, low risk approach that involved deep research and market observation, similar to other large brands and governments.

But now that merchants are responding in a positive manner, the company has begun increasing its activities in bitcoin-related campaigns

https://paymentweek.com/2014-12-1-ncr-silver-merchants-more-inclined-to-use-bitcoin-over-apple-pay-6168/

[cbeast]

Really good news:

NCR Silver merchants have continued to gravitate towards bitcoin despite Apple Pay’s bold presence in the market.

Reggie Kimble, the point-of-sale company’s product manager, mentioned that users are constantly asking about the cryptocurrency and how they can incorporate it in their business.

Kimble admitted in an interview that the company was first hesitant in offering bitcoin. NCR’s strategy was a slow, low risk approach that involved deep research and market observation, similar to other large brands and governments.

But now that merchants are responding in a positive manner, the company has begun increasing its activities in bitcoin-related campaigns

https://paymentweek.com/2014-12-1-ncr-silver-merchants-more-inclined-to-use-bitcoin-over-apple-pay-6168/

I wonder if they will advertise since they have such a positive response.

[Peter R]

John Mauldin...

The Bitcoin blockchain technology allows for the most secure electronic transactions ever devised. Its adoption and acceptance seem inevitable to me.

Actually the 'security' of transactions is not derived solely from blockchain tech. More essential is asymetric crypthography. PoW is 'just' used to avoid double-spends (find consensus), which in case you're going to back bitcoin with gold anyway can be solved more easily using a centralized ledger (with asymetric crypto to sign transactions).

It will be used to validate everything we purchase: stocks, homes, investments, airplane tickets, etc. It will be a far cheaper and much more secure way to validate your ownership of anything, from your home to your stocks.

Bold claims! We have the same problem as with a gold-backing of tying tokens in the blockchain to the real world. If centralized institutions (courts, police) are necessary for enforcing property rights anyway, why not have the ownership ledger managed by those (or related) institutions, too. If you need mechanisms external to the blockchain to go from 'token control' to 'legal property', I don't see much added value of using a blockchain. (It changes a bit with smart property as envisioned by Mike Hearn (leased car functions only on blockchain ownership proof), but that's a long way to go still and I doubt Mauldin is thinking of this. Also a derivative products can be built on top of blockchain-based tokens more securely than on central-ledger-based ones. Also: paying dividends and holding votes based on stock ownership can be integrated into a blockchain if it is linked to a liquid value-carrying monetary ledger)

So, Mauldin 'getting' those potential applications and 'not getting' the fact that bitcoin is the best (better than gold) sound money we've ever had (w/o backing) seems strange to me. It can probably be explained easily by looking at his portfolio... very similar really to Peter Schiff in that regard.

Great points, Molecular.  Crypto 2.0 applications like stock certificates and property-title transfers are often discussed in the abstract where they may appear like the natural evolution of blockchain technology.  However, upon delving into the details, the concept is not as enticing as it may first appear due to the "messiness" of the link between the blockchain token and the property that exists in the outside world.  

Like you pointed out, there's a fundamental difference between the transfer of a bitcoin, and the transfer of a token that represents a claim on some external-to-the-blockchain property.  In the latter case (asset-backed tokens), all that is transferred is ownership (and ownership is really a social construct, valuable only to the extent that one's society is willing to enforce property rights [as control of the property in question remains a physical problem]).  In the former case (bitcoin), what's transferred is control itself.

[KLmoney]

Like you pointed out, there's a fundamental difference between the transfer of a bitcoin, and the transfer of a token that represents a claim on some external-to-the-blockchain property.  In the later case (asset-backed tokens), all that is transferred is ownership (and ownership is really a social construct, valuable only to the extent that one's society is willing to enforce property rights [as control of the property in question remains a physical problem]).  In the former case (bitcoin), what's transferred is control itself.

Thank you. This is brilliant stuff.

[thezerg]

John Mauldin...

The Bitcoin blockchain technology allows for the most secure electronic transactions ever devised. Its adoption and acceptance seem inevitable to me.

Actually the 'security' of transactions is not derived solely from blockchain tech. More essential is asymetric crypthography. PoW is 'just' used to avoid double-spends (find consensus), which in case you're going to back bitcoin with gold anyway can be solved more easily using a centralized ledger (with asymetric crypto to sign transactions).

It will be used to validate everything we purchase: stocks, homes, investments, airplane tickets, etc. It will be a far cheaper and much more secure way to validate your ownership of anything, from your home to your stocks.

Bold claims! We have the same problem as with a gold-backing of tying tokens in the blockchain to the real world. If centralized institutions (courts, police) are necessary for enforcing property rights anyway, why not have the ownership ledger managed by those (or related) institutions, too. If you need mechanisms external to the blockchain to go from 'token control' to 'legal property', I don't see much added value of using a blockchain. (It changes a bit with smart property as envisioned by Mike Hearn (leased car functions only on blockchain ownership proof), but that's a long way to go still and I doubt Mauldin is thinking of this. Also a derivative products can be built on top of blockchain-based tokens more securely than on central-ledger-based ones. Also: paying dividends and holding votes based on stock ownership can be integrated into a blockchain if it is linked to a liquid value-carrying monetary ledger)

So, Mauldin 'getting' those potential applications and 'not getting' the fact that bitcoin is the best (better than gold) sound money we've ever had (w/o backing) seems strange to me. It can probably be explained easily by looking at his portfolio... very similar really to Peter Schiff in that regard.

Great points, Molecular.  Crypto 2.0 applications like stock certificates and property-title transfers are often discussed in the abstract where they may appear like the natural evolution of blockchain technology.  However, upon delving into the details, the concept is not as enticing as it may first appear due to the "messiness" of the link between the blockchain token and the property that exists in the outside world. 

Like you pointed out, there's a fundamental difference between the transfer of a bitcoin, and the transfer of a token that represents a claim on some external-to-the-blockchain property.  In the later case (asset-backed tokens), all that is transferred is ownership (and ownership is really a social construct, valuable only to the extent that one's society is willing to enforce property rights [as control of the property in question remains a physical problem]).  In the former case (bitcoin), what's transferred is control itself.

Yes but there are still advantages to decentralizing the transaction even if redemption must be centralized, because redemption happens rarely.  Also,  if stocks, bonds or mortgages are directly offered on the blockchain (as opposed to representing certificates stored in a vault) they simultaneously represent something but also are themselves property.

[cypherdoc]

John Mauldin...

The Bitcoin blockchain technology allows for the most secure electronic transactions ever devised. Its adoption and acceptance seem inevitable to me.

Actually the 'security' of transactions is not derived solely from blockchain tech. More essential is asymetric crypthography. PoW is 'just' used to avoid double-spends (find consensus), which in case you're going to back bitcoin with gold anyway can be solved more easily using a centralized ledger (with asymetric crypto to sign transactions).

It will be used to validate everything we purchase: stocks, homes, investments, airplane tickets, etc. It will be a far cheaper and much more secure way to validate your ownership of anything, from your home to your stocks.

Bold claims! We have the same problem as with a gold-backing of tying tokens in the blockchain to the real world. If centralized institutions (courts, police) are necessary for enforcing property rights anyway, why not have the ownership ledger managed by those (or related) institutions, too. If you need mechanisms external to the blockchain to go from 'token control' to 'legal property', I don't see much added value of using a blockchain. (It changes a bit with smart property as envisioned by Mike Hearn (leased car functions only on blockchain ownership proof), but that's a long way to go still and I doubt Mauldin is thinking of this. Also a derivative products can be built on top of blockchain-based tokens more securely than on central-ledger-based ones. Also: paying dividends and holding votes based on stock ownership can be integrated into a blockchain if it is linked to a liquid value-carrying monetary ledger)

So, Mauldin 'getting' those potential applications and 'not getting' the fact that bitcoin is the best (better than gold) sound money we've ever had (w/o backing) seems strange to me. It can probably be explained easily by looking at his portfolio... very similar really to Peter Schiff in that regard.

Great points, Molecular.  Crypto 2.0 applications like stock certificates and property-title transfers are often discussed in the abstract where they may appear like the natural evolution of blockchain technology.  However, upon delving into the details, the concept is not as enticing as it may first appear due to the "messiness" of the link between the blockchain token and the property that exists in the outside world. 

Like you pointed out, there's a fundamental difference between the transfer of a bitcoin, and the transfer of a token that represents a claim on some external-to-the-blockchain property.  In the later case (asset-backed tokens), all that is transferred is ownership (and ownership is really a social construct, valuable only to the extent that one's society is willing to enforce property rights [as control of the property in question remains a physical problem]).  In the former case (bitcoin), what's transferred is control itself.

Yes but there are still advantages to decentralizing the transaction even if redemption must be centralized, because redemption happens rarely.  Also,  if stocks, bonds or mortgages are directly offered on the blockchain (as opposed to representing certificates stored in a vault) they simultaneously represent something but also are themselves property.

for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?  other than the one-offs we hear from Patrick Byrnes enabled by unsound money, when have you had stocks, bonds, or insurance contracts reneged upon?

[justusranvier]

for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?  other than the one-offs we hear from Patrick Byrnes enabled by unsound money, when have you had stocks, bonds, or insurance contracts reneged upon?

If you want to turn those kinds of contracts into bearer instruments, representing them as tokens on a blockchain improves the ability to transact in those bearer instruments.

Many people have a problem conceptually separating the need to trust a counterparty to fulfill a contract, and the need to trust a ledger system to accurately record ownership information.

It's possible to make the latter arbitrarily small, but there's no technological solution to the former as it's inherent to the problem space.

[NewLiberty]

this is interesting.

to get a domino effect going to the downside in equities, we need bond defaults of some kind.  could energy be it?:

Energy companies, the fastest-growing segment of the high-yield bond market in recent years, account for nearly 18% of all outstanding high-yield bonds, up from 9% in 2009, according to J.P. Morgan.

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/12/01/falling-oil-prices-could-lead-to-massive-junk-bond-defaults/

More likely we'll see a consolidation in energy companies with M&A activity to absorb any defaults.  The big players will use this advantageously.
Energy is too large of a cost input on other industrial production to be a downside default catalyst from price depression, even though there are a lot of bonds floating, there is also a lot of money floating.

[NewLiberty]

Now I almost miss talking about Side Chains.

Side Chains are how people like this will engage in Bitcoin, in his evolution of understanding John Mauldin is conditioned and primed to accept a Bitcoin derivative on a SC. The risk is people like him flowed by the Keynesians will form the economic majority during the next growth stage, and there are more of them than there are of us, so there is a lot of change that can happen if we dont keep a tight rein on the Bitcoin incentives.

QFT

What most people fail to realize when they see what appears to be the insanely fast price appreciation of XBT over the last few years, is how many years went into this before 2009, and how slow the revolutionary change has been... and still is.

We're like the folks in the 1860's marveling at the wonders of the first production quality internal combustion engines.  We are saying things like "think of how this will change the railroads" the societal impacts are vastly more complicated and far reaching.

The changes to come over the next couple hundred years from these innovations are outside the imagination of most anyone.  It is easy to be judgmental.

[Peter R]

Yes but there are still advantages to decentralizing the transaction even if redemption must be centralized, because redemption happens rarely.  Also,  if stocks, bonds or mortgages are directly offered on the blockchain (as opposed to representing certificates stored in a vault) they simultaneously represent something but also are themselves property.

I agree that decentralizing the transactions of stocks, bonds and mortgages may have advantages.   I guess I'm just slightly annoyed by the meme that "currency is only the first app of blockchain technology."  What needs to eventually be understood by the media is that:

(1) Currency is the foundational application of blockchain technology; without a valuable currency, no other apps are possible.
(2) The native blockchain units (bitcoins) are the only asset with no counterparty risk.

Many people have a problem conceptually separating the need to trust a counterparty to fulfill a contract, and the need to trust a ledger system to accurately record ownership information.

It's possible to make the latter arbitrarily small, but there's no technological solution to the former as it's inherent to the problem space.

Yes, well said.  We need to stress the distinction between trust of the ledger system and trust of the counterparty (and then point out that bitcoin is fundamentally different as it has no counterparty [or perhaps the counterparty is the ledger system itself]).  

Justus, I see you're giving a talk via telepresence in Vancouver on Thursday.  What will you be speaking about?