Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[justusranvier]

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]).

I agree.

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

I'm not sure the format has been decided yet.

[NewLiberty]

for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?

Lots of advantages in reliability and assurances.  More fundamentally it obsoletes some functions of auditing and government along with the associated costs to society.
It automates many of the administrivia of corporation management.

If you have ever run a public company, the advantages are more immediately apparent.

[Melbustus]

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.

+1

[cypherdoc]

for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?

Lots of advantages in reliability and assurances.  More fundamentally it obsoletes some functions of auditing and government along with the associated costs to society.
It automates many of the administrivia of corporation management.

If you have ever run a public company, the advantages are more immediately apparent.

the pt that i was getting at is that until Bitcoin fulfills Satoshi's visions as a generally accepted and large enough form of currency or money, there will be no such trust or confidenc given by the masses or larger financial institutions to embed asset derivatives into the blockchain as the "legal" ledger.

what will drive Bitcoins growth is a maintenance of its Sound Money function along with transactional growth which we are fortunately beginning to see w/o a doubt.  once it becomes a generally accepted global and apolitical public good as money, then it might be used to embed more riskier assets within the blockchain as with CP.

otoh, the blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money.  in which case, all those speculative assets may just be bought and sold with BTC as they will become denominated as such with the records continuing to be maintained by those organizations responsible for enforcing those contracts.

if we use Bitcoin to win the Money Game, we win Everything.  that is where the problem lies.

[cypherdoc]

moving up nicely. 

this is it, boys.  stay on it.

[Fabrizio89]

Swiss just decided to not hoard gold and to decline the proposal "Save Our Swiss Gold" that would have seen banks increase their gold position from 7% to 20% of their total reserves. It may be not a good sign for gold.

[rocks]

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.

Yes, this.

There are numerous examples of what you describe, where foundations are formed over many decades and then come together in a manner that both appears sudden but also has continuous expanding impact. Take the internet & mobile computing for example, there were numerous advancements in many fields, network theory, computing, radio communications, displays, etc over many decades prior to the mid-late 90s. Then all of a sudden they came together to form global internet connectivity with mobile devices. The change appeared fast, but only to someone not involved with the foundational advancements. I don't even know how I'll describe to my kids what life was like before the internet and smartphones.

There was a semi-famous Russian scientist (forgot who) who complained several years ago that Apple/Steve Jobs didn't really create or invent anything and that the iPhone/iPad were nothing. What he was really saying is Apple simply packaged together a bunch of existing technologies, and was receiving out-sized credit & reward compared to the foundational work that came prior.

Satoshi similarly brought together a large mix of existing technologies to form Bitcoin (in a very elegant fashion). For example, could bitcoin work without mobile internet connected devices? Probably not since I'm not sure how cash style transaction could easily be performed. The list of things that need to be in place is quite long.

[cypherdoc]

once again, we have a really good opportunity to form a Dow Theory non-confirmation.

given the huge, straight up nature of both indices over the last 2 mo, and the depth of the drop in the $DJT yesterday, i'd say it's almost certain we'll get the beginnings of one if the $DJI can go up to a new high in the next day or so.  then the question will be whether or not it can confirm itself.  high alert in equities:

[cypherdoc]

well, with this last ramp 30 min ago, we now have a Dow Theory non-confirmation in place already.  the next few days will be crucial for the $DJT to demonstrate whether or not it can also set a new high in the short term.  somehow, i doubt it:

[cypherdoc]

this is big:

Online Poker: PokerStars and rumors about Bitcoin

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pokerfirma.com%2Fnews%2Fpokerstars-bitcoin-poker%2F274522&edit-text=&act=url

[Odalv]

this is big:

Online Poker: PokerStars and rumors about Bitcoin

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pokerfirma.com%2Fnews%2Fpokerstars-bitcoin-poker%2F274522&edit-text=&act=url

:-)  PokerStars can be built as SC(managed by bitcoin protocol) so we can audit it and enforce btc payments.

Edit:
PokerStars will be SC. And it can be SC managed by bitcoin protocol.

[Erdogan]

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?

Other uses of blockchain technology (and not the bitcoin blockchain, it is easy to construct blockchains with less security) is where the good is only information, for example the right to access a theater (a ticket). You can show up at the entrance with a ticket "coin" (a better word needs to be invented) and send the ticket to the ticket office for admission. It could be done with an association of theaters where each theater runs a miner, and no block reward is necessary.

[brg444]

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?

Other uses of blockchain technology (and not the bitcoin blockchain, it is easy to construct blockchains with less security) is where the good is only information, for example the right to access a theater (a ticket). You can show up at the entrance with a ticket "coin" (a better word needs to be invented) and send the ticket to the ticket office for admission. It could be done with an association of theaters where each theater runs a miner, and no block reward is necessary.

I fail to see why you would need a blockchain for that though... Any centralized server model could do.

[Erdogan]

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?

Other uses of blockchain technology (and not the bitcoin blockchain, it is easy to construct blockchains with less security) is where the good is only information, for example the right to access a theater (a ticket). You can show up at the entrance with a ticket "coin" (a better word needs to be invented) and send the ticket to the ticket office for admission. It could be done with an association of theaters where each theater runs a miner, and no block reward is necessary.

I fail to see why you would need a blockchain for that though... Any centralized server model could do.

That is what we have, but this one would have tickets which are transferable, and the uptime of a distributed system. Ticket sale could therefore be distributed without the need for agreement for the distributor (he just buys tickets and resell them).

[Melbustus]

this is big:

Online Poker: PokerStars and rumors about Bitcoin

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pokerfirma.com%2Fnews%2Fpokerstars-bitcoin-poker%2F274522&edit-text=&act=url

English only, at the tables, please!
(Translate not working, and all I can find in English is: http://gamblingcompliance.com/premium-content/news_analysis/bitcoin-push-gathers-strength-pokerstars-interested)

Anyway, Bitcoin has been an obvious fit for the poker-world for years. That was one of my first thoughts in 2011. Especially after Black Friday, but even before, dealing with sketchy fiat intermediaries to fund/withdraw-from poker sites was always awful for people.

Furthermore, if PokerStars integrated bitcoin, it would be a hopefully-fatal blow to this nonsense: http://www.coindesk.com/stakes-high-star-backed-bitcoin-gambling-site-crowdsale-stumbles/ Brocoin....wtf.

[Torque]

Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/

[wachtwoord]

Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/

Then they fight you.

They've been at it for a while. When do we win again?

[conspirosphere.tk]

what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.

[brg444]

what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.

Place your gold or silver in secured and bonded custody to receive your digital tokens.

This looks no better than paper gold.

[Erdogan]

Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/

It is a bit like kids and horror stories. Frightening, but titillating.