BitCoin: an alternate currency

From my libertarian, anti-fed home place,I found this to be pretty fascinating. We may be looking at the emergence of an alternate currency:

The Link

 

Sounds like a great way to launder money.

 

The value here I see is someone who went out and actually invented a currency not dependent on the a government sponsored and manipulated currency. But why have they set a cap on the amount in ciculation?

If the U.S. Dollar continues to collapse under the weight of intentional centralized socialist redestributive inflation, I would think playing the Diversity card would be a great way to advocate alternate currencies and thereby start to save the U.S. economy.

There was a time when silver dollars from many different countries served as the currencies of commerce here in this country.

 

Bitcoin is about $180 away from being worth more than gold.
That's never happened

 

From my perch with the other buzzards and crows, we don't see anything of substance; just the desires of the alternative counter-culture reveling in being "outside the grid" along with the usual speculators. It seems to have some sort of market-making type support but there is no intrinsic value and when the music stops what happens? Confidence is its only friend. And from what I understand it can easily be stolen if you don't know what you are doing.

There are some vendors in the US who claim to accept bitcoins but if you follow the trail they are merely providing a link on their website to an exchange site so in reality they are making it convenient to convert it to hard currency which is then forwarded to them to complete the transaction. I believe that is the story with Dell. They do not take a risk by holding the bitcoins themselves for normal transactions.

At least that was the story last time I checked up on it.

 

So much promise, decline has been steady.

 

Anyone still long BTC?

Bitstamp BTC/USD Charts - BitcoinWisdom

 

The 2 month Bitcoin Hash Rate vs Difficulty Chart, the BTC/USD Biffinex, and all of the Fibbonacci charts clearly show ...uh....

This could be the dumbest, most fraudulent idea ever perpetrated in the financial realm. I mean really, WTF!!!

 

As good an answer as any I guess

 

That reminds me of the need to put a label on KY Jelly indicating it should not be taken orally because people apparently thought you should eat it on toast or something before sex.

 

Those crazy Kentuckians!

 

It really is funny in a sad sort of way. People are really messed up...

You know, the government can never change that. They have to want to do it themselves. It seems all the government can do is enable it and possibly make it honorable. I know some folks truly need our help and I support that 100%. But so many slip through that wall of need and make it a way of life.

 

It can help though by stop letting in the lowest IQ, poorest, worst educated immigrants from the entire world. Or, at minimum, at least puting on some type of restriction on this inflow.

 

If I'm hearing the vision coming from the Left, the demographic they wish to see is as follows:

Feminist, secular, green, educated and fully embracing gender identity/sexual orientation.

Is that what we are seeing from south of the border or from the ME? It's just a question.

This probably belongs on another thread but if the answer is what I think it is, then that is evidence of a modern day plantation: "We will allow you to live your culture as long as you vote for us." It's a quid pro quo arrangement. They will receive scraps and political cover in return for keeping the patron in power. It's not slavery; but it's similar in the sense of them living in a part of the field away from the elites who give them just enough to exist in order to quell an uprising.

 

Bitcoin's problem is that not many people accept it for payment. Part of the reason for that is people's reliance on and faith in government "printed" money. Part of the reason for that is the government set up rules around its use to reduce it's acceptability for payment, it is seen as more of an investment asset than currency, and government propaganda painting Bitcoin (and other crypto) as only useful for criminals.

 

I dont know if we distinguish the Left from Democrats or not, but the latter wants a permanent underclass. They need it. They want and need a regular influx of people dependent upon assistance and, thus, upon them. This is what they see when they look at the pics and videos of the barbarians at our gates. They dont see humanity, they see re-elections and a chance for future political dominance.

It is Occam's Razor applied to politics. The simplest explanation for their change of heart over the last decade and a half is they are doing what they think is the best for their own self-interest. Go back and watch their statements in illegal immigration. From Barbara Jordan through both Bill & Hillary to Chuckles & Obama -- all of them. They all used to all agree on the dangers of unchecked illegal immigration. What changed? At some point, they realized their message was not convincing enough. That the country was too prosperous to ever give them the type of majorities they seek. They realized they needed a giant voting block of uneducated, low IQ simpletons in order to succeed in politics. It is all about one thing and one thing only -- what is best for them.

 

Inflationary money printing/devaluing and central bank-issued fiat says hi
Debt-drowning and over-leveraged global economy on line 1
But please do tell us more about this dumb crypto fraud

Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency may or may not be the long term answer but existing financial systems are badly broken

Fractional reserve banking continues to lend (read: create) money that doesn’t exist and everyone knows it while hoping they won’t ever need to get at all their money because it is not there

Wall St is a predatory creature and I doubt the captured regulators have done much to change that

QE and other inflationary acts of money creation are actively devaluing the dollars we earn and save right now - it is a form of theft that benefits the money creators at the expense of the earners

We have seen what governments and banks can do, now we are finding out what a distributed and decentralized software protocol and cryptography can do

Bitcoin price was about $850 at the time of this post ^
Here’s the steady decline he mentioned
up 400% in the 2 years since the post
up 900% in 3 years
Price volatility is expected in an emerging asset class

Yes
BTC history has been bull/bear several times, bears are eating now
2014/15 market ran a lot of people off, buyers/holders were rewarded, short-termers punished. This market is nothing new
It is a long game

That is changing but it will take time. Any new form of money has to establish as a store of value (SoV) first before it becomes a medium of exchange (MoE) and then a unit of account (UoA). Bitcoin is highly speculative now and this is a form of price discovery towards the SoV stage, and there is already some limited MoE use

This narrative is losing steam. There was a recent quote, I think from someone at the DOJ or SEC, that the US dollar is and will remain the best currency for criminal activity because it is harder to trace cash than crypto. Some criminals have been caught because they used bitcoin and their transaction movements were tracked on the open blockchain, which is not as anonymous as some think. In any case criminals have always been early adopters of technology, and if they are using your tech that is probably a sign that it works

Also consider that institutional money will soon be coming into the crypto markets - pension funds, insurance cos, banks, hedge funds, etc

• Bakkt - run by Intercontinental Exchange (parent company of the NYSE) is launching in January a new global platform to "buy, sell, store, and spend digital assets." Bakkt is the first to provide large institutional investors exposure to crypto, including bitcoin
• Fidelity Digital Assets - Fidelity has over $7T in assets and will also be offering digital asset custody solutions to institutional investors
• Harvard, Stanford, MIT endowments invest in crypto funds

Cryptocurrency is not going away

Interesting times folks, stay tuned for the next 10-20 years

 

1) What makes bitcoin immune from the abuses of predators? Everything we do seems to be subject to abuses.
2) A run on bitcoin has no bottom. At least fiat currency has the understanding and need for calm given FDIC insurance. There were S&L failures in the 80's and everybody was paid. I'm not saying a total run wouldn't bring everything down but I don't get how bitcoin would improve the situation.
3) It seems to still be too easy to steal or be subject to "exit thefts."


I guess I'm not a visionary. I don't understand the value of a light on my computer with no intrinsic value AND without the backing of the full faith and credit of our government.

 

******* idiots, everyone knows chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows.

 

Blue sky smiling at me, nothing but blue sky do I see.

 

Someone let me know when I can but a whataburger with bitcoin. In the meantime, it may be a good investment to buy some when it bottoms out.

 

Cryptocurrencies have shed almost $700 billion, down more than 80% since its January peak.

Cryptocurrencies have shed almost $700 billion since January peak

 

They can help by screwing up education less.

A large part of it is that it's not simple enough for the average person to use for regular transactions.

 

The early crypto scene reminds me of the internet in the early 90s — a potentially promising tech that lacks the infrastructure and user-facing tools for broad adoption. There is a lot of interesting development going on now in crypto though, including “Layer 2” solutions like the Lightning Network to enable scaling for high transaction volumes.

If you mean like a run on the bank, this is different because you are the bank, assuming you control your own private keys.

 

Interesting...

Pay Ohio business taxes with bitcoin at ohiocrypto.com
This is the first state to do this, it is bitcoin only at this point
They are converting to USD so not holding BTC

OhioCrypto.com

What is OhioCrypto.com?

Under the leadership of Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, taxpayers are able to pay their state business taxes with cryptocurrency for the first time anywhere in America. Ohio has become the first state in the United States, and one of the first governments in the world, to accept cryptocurrency. From mom and pop coffee shops to Fortune 100 companies, businesses now have the ability to pay their taxes with OhioCrypto.com.

 

Is OhioCrypto owned by the state government? If so, that is why.

 

Difference as I see it is there was a good excuse for that lack back then. The will existed, but the ability to do it and do it right took a while (well, for a given degree of "right" anyway). But today the power is all there, but the will is not.

 

Banks and insurance companies will be "coming into" the crypto markets? I don't think so. Not as investors. Those institutions are highly regulated as to the investments they are able to make.

In Portsmouth, Ohio, oxycontin pills were used as currency for quite awhile, and still may be in some areas. That doesn't mean that oxycontin is an acceptable substitute to represent the value of other assets.

You can attach all the fancy charts, descriptions, bells, and whistles to this fad that you want. Just don't buy any unless you have the funds to lose.

Signed,

Salty Old Man

 

A new communications network presents a very different cultural dynamic than a new currency. An alternative form of money is a far more powerful threat to vested interests.

That being said, big banks are now exploring how to make money on crypto in the event that it becomes a real asset class. They would be foolish not to.

 

Citizens should reject any crypto coming from big banks. If we don't we are stupid and will be manipulated the same as with the current money. It would be better to use oxycontin pills as currency in my opinion.