Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

who's the next Fed idiot to come out and whisper, "QE".

have to say this: QE is much better than this 80% lost bitscam scheme

got in late did ya chump?

I did my first purchase up in the $16-ish range on it's way down to $2.  I had to wait a fair bit of time before I even got into the black.  I'm not saying that the current crop of 'suckers' will ever see black.  I simply don't know.  I'd say there is a much better chance that they will see black than there was when I was in the situation, but that's actually not saying much.

I do have high confidence in two things:

1)  anyone who put in more than they can walk away from at any point in Bitcoin's lifetime would probably have been separated from their wealth by some means or another anyway, and

2)  liquidating at a loss turns the potential for a loss into the certainty of a loss.

[Erdogan]

This supports the idea that fractional reserve banking, and money substitutes, and even storing money for safety reasons, will not be demanded as much as it was with gold:


"... customers, most of whom aren't interested in having third parties manage their bitcoin holdings."



http://www.coindesk.com/falcon-global-fund-closure-sign-declining-bitcoin-demand/

[marcus_of_augustus]

This supports the idea that fractional reserve banking, and money substitutes, and even storing money for safety reasons, will not be demanded as much as it was with gold:

"... customers, most of whom aren't interested in having third parties manage their bitcoin holdings."

http://www.coindesk.com/falcon-global-fund-closure-sign-declining-bitcoin-demand/

yes, or else bitcoin would just be PayPal2.0.

So much VC money is going into the wrong paradigms because they misunderstand the fundamental technological advantages of Bitcoin when applied to the social science of money .... the intersection of understandings in these two critical areas is still tiny, imho.

[cypherdoc]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/microsoft-partners-with-bitpay-to-accept-bitcoin-payments-Co2fBb3_REu6ZYOYzLfo5A.html

[molecular]

This is gonna be fun... When you buy one of his books on his site, you can get a "custom inscription" which it sounds like Jim personally hand-writes on the book. So I'll be buying one with a personal inscription regarding bitcoin that'll be utterly painful for Jim to write.

I'm taking suggestions. It can be up to 150 words.

lol, I'll get one with "Bitcoin to the moon!" if they ship to Europe affordably.

I'm going to make him write something about how bitcoin is the future of money since it solves gold's tangibility bug. It'll be a fun 150 words.

So I bought Rickards' book with bitcoin. I specified the following as the "personal inscription":

"This book was purchased online with bitcoin - the future of money. Modern money needs the properties of gold, but with native electronic portability. May the death of fiat money give rise to an ideal money system for modern times: Bitcoin."


Got the book today. Here's the actual inscription:



"This book was purchased with Bitcoin - a new kind of money. "Money" can be anything that gains confidence as a store of value, possibly including Bitcoin. May the best form of money win!"

Thanks for letting us see this.

I can agree with Rickards: May the best form of money win!

[cypherdoc]

Currency Dangers

While unwilling to draw up a blacklist for now, he says exchange rates reveal emerging-market dangers. Russia’s ruble, Brazil’s real, Mexico’s peso, Turkey’s lira, the South African rand and Indonesian rupiah have all hit the skids.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/this-hedge-fund-manager-who-remembers-1998-says-prepare-for-pain.html

[rocks]

This supports the idea that fractional reserve banking, and money substitutes, and even storing money for safety reasons, will not be demanded as much as it was with gold:

"... customers, most of whom aren't interested in having third parties manage their bitcoin holdings."

http://www.coindesk.com/falcon-global-fund-closure-sign-declining-bitcoin-demand/

Even under the gold standard, bank notes were significantly more useful than physical coins in terms of the ability to transfer and move money around (that is provided the bank did not fail). Under the gold standard banks could provide useful value-add functionality and services, and this is what drove some demand into holding bank notes over physical gold. Yes lots of people still held physical metal directly as "cold hard cash" for security, but there was demand for both mechanisms.   


With bitcoin none of this applies. Bitcoin has built into its protocol all the functionality anyone could need for transacting directly with the base asset. With bitcoin you can transfer funds anywhere instantaneously. If you need services beyond the base protocol, you can run software on your own computer/phone.

I think this is what Satoshi meant when he said bitcoin enables "individuals to be there own bank". Bitcoin enables an individual to have the security of holding physical metal, with the functionality of bank notes and services. It is a killer combination and one that not all VCs into bitcoin understand yet I think.

[justusranvier]

It is a killer combination and one that not all VCs into bitcoin understand yet I think.

It is a combination that is deeply threatening to people whose entire livelihood depends on individuals and businesses not having those capabilities.

[cypherdoc]

“We couldn’t imagine what’s happening in our worst nightmare even a year ago,” Shvetsov, who oversees financial markets at the central bank, said yesterday.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/russia-crisis-hits-pimco-fund-wipes-out-options-as-ruble-sinks.html

I've been warning  about this shit for months now right here.  The charts have been forecasting this. Get yourselves to safety.

[cypherdoc]

this is encouraging from Google and Yahoo:

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/an-update-to-end-to-end.html

[rocks]

I've been warning about this shit for months now right here.  The charts have been forecasting this. Get yourselves to safety.

For close 100 years getting to safety has meant running to the US dollar. It is how the federal government has been able to thrive and grow the way it has. Every time there is a crisis the US government has never lacked for funding because the world runs into its debt, because of this it has been able to fund itself freely during every crisis, without care or worry.

Most sane organizations would never consider creating the massive number of obligations the US government has, obligations the must continue to be paid no matter the current environment. This includes a massive global military presence that requires funding every day, a massive welfare state that requires funding every day, a massive number of unfunded social liabilities that require funding every day. Without continuous funding our military overseas would stave for oil in a matter of weeks and over a hundred million in the US would suffer dramatically.

If at some point the market does not run to dollars in a crisis, the US government would find itself is a horrific situation from which there is no escape. A situation that was of it's own making but one it is completely unprepared to handle.

Luckily (or unluckily) I believe this end point is still a ways away. The Keynesian central banking model still has more tricks to utilize and I suspect the next upcoming crisis will play out the same as in 2008/09, the central banks will first allow the markets to crash, then create money out of thin air at public demand, then give that money to their own first to buy up assets cheap, then create more money and let that trickle into the economy so the public can re-buy at higher "recovered" prices.

So the question is which "safety" have you run to? Bitcoin, dollars, hard assets, Pb?

[grappa_barricata]

For close 100 years getting to safety has meant running to the US dollar. It is how the federal government has been able to thrive and grow the way it has. Every time there is a crisis the US government has never lacked for funding because the world runs into its debt, because of this it has been able to fund itself freely during every crisis, without care or worry.

Most sane organizations would never consider creating the massive number of obligations the US government has, obligations the must continue to be paid no matter the current environment. This includes a massive global military presence that requires funding every day, a massive welfare state that requires funding every day, a massive number of unfunded social liabilities that require funding every day. Without continuous funding our military overseas would stave for oil in a matter of weeks and over a hundred million in the US would suffer dramatically.

If at some point the market does not run to dollars in a crisis, the US government would find itself is a horrific situation from which there is no escape. A situation that was of it's own making but one it is completely unprepared to handle.

Luckily (or unluckily) I believe this end point is still a ways away. The Keynesian central banking model still has more tricks to utilize and I suspect the next upcoming crisis will play out the same as in 2008/09, the central banks will first allow the markets to crash, then create money out of thin air at public demand, then give that money to their own first to buy up assets cheap, then create more money and let that trickle into the economy so the public can re-buy at higher "recovered" prices.

So the question is which "safety" have you run to? Bitcoin, dollars, hard assets, Pb?

You may want to look up in these matters:
  - Nixon's shock and aftermath
  - so-called petrodollar system (not limited to oil)
  - US bonds flows (or the lack of)

It will be very interesting to you.

[solex]

Oh well, always next year...

[Melbustus]

Oh well, always next year...

It's too bad the 2013 rally didn't start 2 months later than it did. Then the bubble would've been entirely contained within 2014 and we'd be talking about how bitcoin is UP over 50% during the year...

But whatever. The media can spin a 2500% 2yr ROI however they want.

[HeliKopterBen]

“We couldn’t imagine what’s happening in our worst nightmare even a year ago,” Shvetsov, who oversees financial markets at the central bank, said yesterday.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/russia-crisis-hits-pimco-fund-wipes-out-options-as-ruble-sinks.html

I've been warning  about this shit for months now right here.  The charts have been forecasting this. Get yourselves to safety.

"He said the surprise interest-rate increase in the middle of the night, a 6.5 percentage-point move that failed to stem the run on the ruble yesterday"

This proves that central banks cannot control the value of a currency.  Eventually the USD should have the same fate.

[cypherdoc]

“We couldn’t imagine what’s happening in our worst nightmare even a year ago,” Shvetsov, who oversees financial markets at the central bank, said yesterday.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-16/russia-crisis-hits-pimco-fund-wipes-out-options-as-ruble-sinks.html

I've been warning  about this shit for months now right here.  The charts have been forecasting this. Get yourselves to safety.

"He said the surprise interest-rate increase in the middle of the night, a 6.5 percentage-point move that failed to stem the run on the ruble yesterday"

This proves that central banks cannot control the value of a currency.  Eventually the USD should have the same fate.

they certainly do seem to be able to bully it around for certain time periods; often longer than we can imagine.  but you're right, every once in a while they do lose control and things get ugly.  i find it very suspicious that Bitcoin popped up organically in 2009, right after the crisis.  it sure seems like it is poised to radically change the game.

[smooth]

i find it very suspicious that Bitcoin popped up organically in 2009, right after the crisis.

Suspicious how? Satoshi's rhetoric (right down to the genesis block quote) was clearly directed right at the heart of the crisis. Whether that was really a motivation for the project or opportunistic marketing is unclear though.

[cypherdoc]

i find it very suspicious that Bitcoin popped up organically in 2009, right after the crisis.

Suspicious how? Satoshi's rhetoric (right down to the genesis block quote) was clearly directed right at the heart of the crisis. Whether that was really a motivation for the project or opportunistic marketing is unclear though.

suspicious in the sense of "fate".  or, as in, perfect timing. 

[smooth]

obligations the must continue to be paid no matter the current environment.

This is false. The only question is where is the breaking point (and how close to it we are), not whether there is one.

"Trends that can't continue, won't"

[marcus_of_augustus]

obligations the must continue to be paid no matter the current environment.

This is false. The only question is where is the breaking point (and how close to it we are), not whether there is one.

"Trends that can't continue, won't"

... too much of a good thing will never be good for you.