Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Justus Ranvier]

this is what we have talked about here in this thread for over 4y now. the only major economic competitor to the US, China, has been trying to unseat the dollar for over a decade w/o success. they can't even get the yuan to elevate to an on par status with the dollar as they have been rebuffed many times

The point I guess I didn't make well enough is that none of the existing players in transition currencies is going to welcome the transition to neutral money - they'll hate every step of the process of getting there - yet it's the inevitable outcome since everybody knows that nobody can be trusted.

From their point of view, the one and only thing more terrible than a level playing field is an unlevel one tilted toward someone else.

 

[solex]

The IMF has postponed the inclusion of the Chinese yuan in the reserve basket of currencies.

I think that this is very naive of the IMF. What harm would it do to give the yuan a few % of the SDR? It would actually help to tie China into the Western financial hegemony. Instead, they reject China's application. And what is the first thing anyone should know about Oriental cultures? The importance of saving face. China's government has been insulted by this decision and they will not forget such a loss of face.

 

[Peter R]

Here's Vitalik on the block size limit debates (he thinks it should increase):


When I read these software whiz kids talking about economics, incentives, or philosophizing in general, I can't help but smile at the naiveté of it all (Bitcoin could decrease the block size to target the market for digital gold??). It's always seemed strange to me how the people who appear to be viewed as "authorities" on Bitcoin tend to be programmers (and often very young programmers at that). However, knowledge of programming and the bit-level details of the Bitcoin protocol is perhaps only a quarter of what Bitcoin is really about. Someone like Gmax--who paradoxically thinks we need a centralized block size limit forced upon us against our will in order to keep Bitcoin decentralized--shows that he's never really understood what Bitcoin is about.

There's a reason Revalin's quote is famous: "Bitcoin is the Devil's way of teaching geeks economics." Out of all the bright people involved in Bitcoin, I think the people who contribute to this thread have some of the best understanding of "Bitcoin in its totality." Between the code, the economics, the physics, the sociology and the politics of it all, I think we've got it covered!

 

[Zarathustra]

Yes, the kids (gmax, theymos, Buterin, Todd et al.) got too much weight in the bitcoin community.

There's a reason Revalin's quote is famous: "Bitcoin is the Devil's way of teaching geeks economics."

Only Laplace's demon knows the future, but I guess their overweight is collapsing right now.

 

[AdrianX]

@Peter R there is definitely a lot of good stuff that has been discussed in this thread and it's predecessors.

It's just the debate needs readership, and I think that's the reason the precious thread was closed down. If I recall cypher mentioned an astonishing number of daily views and then the next day - poof. And now we are here.

 

[sickpig]

This guy again.


(snip img)

Disagreeing with people who call themselves scientists = "attacking scientists" = "being anti-science" = "being a jerk".

Could he be any more transparently dishonest and childish?

You don't call someone a "jerk" instead of "incorrect" when the facts and logic are on your side.

it seems that this guy will partecipate to a debate between gmaxwell, mike hearn, vbuterin, adam back @ montreal consensus 2015:


is it me or he does not qualify?

 

[cypherdoc]

Great post by someone who has enumerated many of the concepts in this thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3k6i8c/bip_101_kiss_keep_it_simple_stupid/

 

[cypherdoc]

Adam freaking out on Twitter again. Wasn't he the one complaining about sound bites on social media platforms last week?

So which is it? Is bandwidth latency a bad thing or a good thing? Or is it just all bad?:

 

[cypherdoc]

it seems that this guy will partecipate to a debate between gmaxwell, mike hearn, vbuterin, adam back @ montreal consensus 2015:


is it me or he does not qualify?

Loud mouth egotistical academics like him don't qualify.

SMA's? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

 

[sickpig]

Thank you for the notes of support everyone! It is very much appreciated. The program committee yesterday offered me a $1,000 travel bursary and to directly book my flights and hotel, which was nice given how last-minute everything became. [I still don't know how long I have to speak though.]

it seems you need to be real quick, only 15 minutes Peter!

https://scalingbitcoin.org/montreal2015/#schedule

 

[Peter R]

15 minutes seems to be the average talk time. It's actually a good length to cover all the main ideas and implications of the fee market paper. I just can't get too deep into the math. But PowerPoint presentations aren't very good for that anyways (blackboard lectures are better).

 

[Aquent]

The schedule seems packed. I was expecting Gregory Maxwell to be presenting though. Has he stated whether he is actually attending?

 

[cypherdoc]

i'm pretty sure ALL Blockstream devs will be there.

 

[cypherdoc]

we need to prepare for an unpredictable future:

“The future is going to bring more stuff that I can’t really describe,” Gurnani said. “We can’t possibly envision the full range of disruptive products and services. But we have some possibilities.”

The unprecedented speed has been hinted at in the past, but Verizon has some hard data that makes 5G sound even more appealing than it already was. According to the Verizon’s tests, 5G is 30 to 50 times faster than 4G, which is even higher than what the elusive Google Fiber offers its customers."

http://bgr.com/2015/09/08/verizon-5g-wireless-service-2017/

 

[cypherdoc]

Today Samsung Electronics announced that it has started mass producing 12Gb LPDDR4 RAM chips using its 20nm process technology, being the first company on the globe to achieve the feat. As Samsung itself notes in its press release, this will allow the creation of smartphones with 6GB of RAM.

http://cbnreport.com/news/samsung-announces-new-lpddr4-chips-expect-6-gb-of-ram-in-smartphones-soon/

 

[cypherdoc]

Gold collapsing.

looks like i closed out my DZZ short prematurely (31% gain) but i'll take it. i won't chase this one b/c that's how you get burned. the fact that gold is failing so soon after a counter trend bounce means it's even weaker than i thought. that's good news for Bitcoin:

 

[Mengerian]

That's a hypothesis I've brought up here many times and I think is quite plausible.

Adam admitted he didn't get into Bitcoin until mid 2013 (I'm still astonished that was 2.5y after I did). There's a high possibility he is way under water with his coin investment, if he made one during the run up.

I remember reading one of Adam Back's first posts to Bitcointalk in 2013:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15672.msg1873483#msg1873483

I think this post provides a little window into his psychology. He mentions not owning any coins, regrets at not mining early on, and feelings of "ignominy" (shame, humiliation) at being treated as a newbie and not being accorded higher respect due to his history as inventor of hashcash and other cryptographic endeavours.

 

[Peter R]

Thanks for posting, Mengerian. I was hoping to see you here.

The crazy thing is that Adam could have (and possibly still can) become a very significant and respected contributor to Bitcoin. I don't understand why he is fighting so hard against the "invisible hand of the Bitcoin market." In doing so he just loses the respect that so many of us felt for him by default as the inventor of HashCash.

Adam (I know you and Greg read this): get on the right side of history here. Your accomplishments and skills ideally position you to do great things with Bitcoin over the next decade.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

feelings of "ignominy" (shame, humiliation) at being treated as a newbie and not being accorded higher respect

According to the stories I've heard, this is an accurate description of the corporate culture of Zero Knowledge Systems, which all indications point to being replicated at Blockstream.

I don't understand why he is fighting so hard against the "invisible hand of the Bitcoin market."

Understanding and working with a free market requires a degree of humility that does not come naturally to everyone, especially to those who are recognized experts in their field.

It's very easy for someone who knows more about a particular subject than most people on the planet to make the jump from "I'm an expert in field X" to "I know what choices other people should make."

Market economics ruthlessly punishes such attitudes and rewards those who understand that wealth creation is about serving other people, even those one may view as inferior.

That may be one reason why academics are so hostile to markets. Markets provide an objective measurement of their value to other people that is completely indifferent to credentials or posturing.

 

[cypherdoc]

$DJI making a run for it: