Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Justus Ranvier]

"Even if you write something in stone like "Limited total money supply of 21 million bitcoins". As long as humans are involved, they would change it sooner or later, just like they abandoned the gold standard, in the name of democracy (I guess that decision also passed vote in senate/house)"

You're still trying to take shortcuts instead of following the procedure.

What specific desired behaviour is violated by changing the money supply? Why is that behaviour desired in the first place? What happens if that behavior changes?

It's a lot easier to discuss how to achieve the goal of a limited money supply when everybody is completely clear about why it's a goal.

 

[albin]

Going back to the monetary properties of Bitcoin, there is a reason bitcoin the currency unit is essential that I think in some ways explains the lack of traction / utility in networks like Ripple or user-asset type systems (Colored coins and other meta-layer protocols).

If two banks issue dollar IOUs on a blockchain, those IOUs do not necessarily have the same value on the open market, and will be arbed against each other pricing in perception of custodial risk.

National currency IOUs that are on a blockchain in this manner are not fungible, and so you have really three obvious solutions, which are all fairly outlandish and potentially reprehensible:

1- A consortium of banks get together and join/found a permissioned blockchain system, under an agreement that they will all honor each others liabilities at face value (good luck with that!).

2- Corporate centralization/consolidation creates a mammoth mega-bank that doesn't get broken up which administers a digital currency without any consensus system facing the outside world anyway. They have massive verticals to payment systems that can basically artificially create network effects. This is probably what the JP Morgan patent-trolling idea might've been.

3- National central banks issue the digital IOUs onto some existing interbank consensus/settlement system, where customer currency balances are much like Bitcoin as in not in custody of a bank, but potentially rampant KYC/AML/censorship is done at the clearing level..

Bitcoin as sound money is so necessary it's not even funny, all of this stuff is rickety nonsense.

 

[Norway]

Do anyone know investors? I have this thing. It's all about onramp! How does your mother buy bitcoin the first time?

Jeez, I'm drunk, but I have worked on this very simple idea for months. I've even made a physical prototype.

Long story short: You buy a gift card for bitcoin in your local store. The amount is so low, it's not in the realm of AML or KYC. Like physical cash. And you just go to a website and redeem it!

The backend is even more impressive. Not having the same problems Shapeshift had. Air-gapped communications, with visual bridging between the offline computer with the private keys and the local ledgers. 3D scanners and screens.

EDIT: I forgot to say: Its all about distribution. An investor should have the power to put the product in stores. I'm not just looking for money.

EDIT2: Not 3D, but 2D scanners. Not bar codes, but QR codes. Because it's room for more data.

 

[albin]

Make a cartoon Viking your logo / mascot, that would be tremendous!

 

[Norway]

lol, that's how it works. I was so stupid, I published a graphic picture. And everybody remember the picture. And not what I was reaching out to you guys about...

EDIT: In terms of regulations, it's between Coinbase and Localbitcoins. I think it's a huge market!
EDIT2: Erik Vorhees is a great guy. But he should never ever ever ever trust his co-workers. It's automatically a breach to his security model. Shapeshift has the most important security right. They don't hold the crypto cash. They just convert. I love it, security by design. But the tiny hot wallet was attaced. Oh my god, too drunk now. You deserve better from me. Talk later

 

[johnyj]

You're still trying to take shortcuts instead of following the procedure.

What specific desired behavior is violated by changing the money supply? Why is that behavior desired in the first place? What happens if that behavior changes?

It's a lot easier to discuss how to achieve the goal of a limited money supply when everybody is completely clear about why it's a goal.

When you start to ask WHY, then you have just started the journey towards politics. People don't ask why they can't change the property of gold, since they just cannot

Peter Todd recently claimed this: "Bitcoin's inflation rate is an economic engineering trade-off between sound money and security." So you see, it is "an engineering trade-off". When these engineers think that the parameters of this trade-off might not be optimal (for example could not get them miners' support to implement their agenda), then inflation rate can be adjusted... Anyway, even 25 btc/block forever would still result in a zero inflation rate long term wise... You don't agree? Let's debate on r/bitcoin ...

 

[Zarathustra]

Back to the topic, what is the mechanism to prevent a system from being centralized?

Organized Violence is the mechanism to centralize systems.
Bitcoin (actually and sadly) in the current form is a classic example of organized violence.
Centralized behind the Great Firewall in a totalitarian territory, with the help of corrupted accomplices and vandals in the west. The story took it's worst possible turn (Dürrenmatt**).

The Society (Dunbar's numbers) constitutes itself by Organized Violence (patriarchy/civilization). Being civilized means being patronized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization

Anarchy (the Community) is the absence of organized violence. The question is: Does cryptography enable to construct a big anarchic organization beyond Dunbar's Numbers? It's an open question, but I still doubt it. You can't run a society that enables anonymity where everything is possible. Therefore cryptography has the potential to destroy the society (organized violence). The sooner the better to the planet.

**Dürrenmatt's best essay:

The Winter War in Tibet

 

[cypherdoc]

you gotta admit, with this many interested parties attending a Bitcoin conference, you can't afford to not participate; even though Bitcoin may appear at this point in time to be veering off away from what you believe it should be:

[doublepost=1462120749,1462119720][/doublepost]have the miners, like @Jihan & @SysMan, been keeping track of Core devs part of their bargain? as in, verifying that Core guys like Luke, Todd, & Corallo have been writing the code to upgrade to 2MB by July in case SW fails to deliver?

 

[cypherdoc]

interesting:

[doublepost=1462122570][/doublepost]In Denmark, where rates have been below zero longer than anywhere else on the planet, the private sector is saving more than it did when rates were positive (before 2012). Private investment is down and the economy is in a “low-growth crisis,” to quote Handelsbanken. The latest inflation data show prices have stagnated.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-01/world-s-longest-negative-rate-experiment-shows-perversions-ahead

 

[theZerg]

you gotta admit, with this many interested parties attending a Bitcoin conference, you can't afford to not participate; even though Bitcoin may appear at this point in time to be veering off away from what you believe it should be:

[doublepost=1462120749,1462119720][/doublepost]have the miners, like @Jihan & @SysMan, been keeping track of Core devs part of their bargin? as in, verifying that Core guys like Luke, Todd, & Corallo have been writing the code to upgrade to 2MB by July in case SW fails to deliver?

Its pretty awkward for me (and you I'd guess). I mean, I believe a Blockstream settlement-only coin has the ability to appreciate 10x to 100x as it takes market share from international B2B and other large payments, while a everybody-uses coin has orders of magnitude greater appreciation AND is more interesting to me from a social engineering perspective.

So, until Bitcoin limitations provide opportunity for a coin to emerge, and a coin DOES emerge that looks capable of taking on BOTH everyday use AND settlement, bitcoin remains a buy/hold.

This idea, and the forthcoming halving, has essentially defanged the "economic majority" from expressing an opinion in the Great Debate by selling coin.

 

[cypherdoc]

@theZerg

You've expressed my feelings exactly. A settlement coin is far from what I consider ideal but still propel the price into the thousands. Just look at what the stock market has done for generations just based on inflation and corruption. True sound money application of Bitcoin could take it into the hundreds of thousands or more value however.

The real irony of it all is that all the conflicted players are in this to make money one way or the other. What most of them fail to grok is that all they have to do is buy the coin and get out of the way to massively profit.

 

[Dusty]

True sound money application of Bitcoin could take it into the hundreds of thousands or more value however.

More than that, if the Bitcoin Blockchain is used only for settlement this would mean that its usage would be highly centralized and inhibited to normal people.
The luxury to move own bitcoins on the blockchain would be reserved to a few big corporations, like Blockstream.

 

[cypherdoc]

since one year ago, full nodes have grown 14.2%. since one of core devs main arguments against bigger blocks was an increasingly centralizing full node network (#'s decreasing), i'd say a this argument has been debunked/buried by real world evidence.

 

[cypherdoc]

the problem is that most avg investors and even the common man has been taught since birth that their money will devalue with time. thus the ever present push to buy real estate or other assets instead of saving. i'm sure they see Bitcoin as being no different, as in no point holding the coin, since inflation and corruption is right around the corner. and the way it's been looking the last year, they might be right, if Blockstream continues to be able to hold the community hostage by crippling onchain scaling and usage of the coin to advance their proprietary products. same 'ol attitude and corruption could infiltrate Bitcoin. thus, you see all those newbies lining up on stage chomping at their chance to pitch their version of blockchain or offchain scaling. that's what smart contracts and the SW discount enables; consulting fees and the opportunity to tap into tx fees. i mean, you gotta "hire Bitcoin" right?

what's laughable is if you just sit back and ask yourselves, "who's done the best financial-wise in Bitcoin since the early days on a % basis?" it's not the guys who went into startups or even mining. most of those guys are gone now or barely hanging on. of course, there's some successes like the big boys of Coinbase. but over all, it's guys in this thread (and elsewhere) who've simply bought and held the coin while going to the beach. IOW, those who've understood Sound Money. they've won on both ends; appreciation of their coin and efficiency of their time and labor (as in not having to do a thing!).

will this continue? yeah, i think so, given the power of a fixed supply currency and how far UP we still have to go. but we have to fight and we have to stay vigilant.

 

[sickpig]

Anyone with their finger on the pulse of world economics care to comment on the new yuan?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/china-says-no-dollars-for-new-yuan/5520618

fwiw, gold and silver are spiking to their best levels in more than a year

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-silver-spiking-best-levels-131113160.html

 

[Melbustus]

Its pretty awkward for me (and you I'd guess). I mean, I believe a Blockstream settlement-only coin has the ability to appreciate 10x to 100x as it takes market share from international B2B and other large payments, while a everybody-uses coin has orders of magnitude greater appreciation AND is more interesting to me from a social engineering perspective.

So, until Bitcoin limitations provide opportunity for a coin to emerge, and a coin DOES emerge that looks capable of taking on BOTH everyday use AND settlement, bitcoin remains a buy/hold.

This idea, and the forthcoming halving, has essentially defanged the "economic majority" from expressing an opinion in the Great Debate by selling coin.

Agreed, well said.

I count this situation as another* case of hidden opportunity cost. eg, what *could* have been. It's particularly obnoxious that if we do get another huge rally while following Core's roadmap, basically everyone outside this thread (and /r/btc) is going to view that as a validation of Core's path and "stewardship". Nevermind the fact that that path stalls out a couple orders of mag sooner than ours.


* I consider the current levels of taxation and longrun fiat-inflation in developed-world countries as similar examples. People point to advanced economies and the incredible standard-of-living advances of the past 100 years and conclude that high-tax, fiat economies must therefore be good. What they miss is that they could very likely be much better without the high taxation and without the inflating money supply. Classic correlation/causation problem. Heck, tax *compliance* alone in the US is estimated at 3% of GDP....compounded over 50+yrs, just that alone is a civilization-changing amount of productivity... </rant>

 

[cypherdoc]

yeah, and it could be a necessary awkward step-wise process where we have to go thru a Blockstream stimulated initial rally which stalls out in a couple of years before the free mkt realizes that a true sound money system cannot be controlled by a group of financially corrupted developers and kicks them out to stimulate the next big rally.

otoh, the whole thing could just stall out now and fail. but as i stop and look around the space, interest in "blockchain" has never been higher and there is widespread significant commitment going into this area. that's a positive in my book for Bitcoin long term. it's another awkward step forward, imo. and smallish indicators like that pic of 1500 chairs for Consensus this weekend. i met a few of you back in San Jose 2013 and there was nothing like this attendance back then. interest in the space is clearly continuing to advance and large monies have a huge vested interest in making this all succeed. hopefully, eventual realization that Bitcoin has it's highest utility as a sound money will come to the forefront. given the increasing failure of negative interest rates and currency devaluation, Bitcoin should benefit.
[doublepost=1462138649,1462137541][/doublepost][doublepost=1462139146][/doublepost]behold the failure of traditional finance. tomorrow is shaping up to be a doozy:

It is becoming increasingly clear to us that the level of yields at which credit expansion in Europe and Japan will pick up in earnest is probably negative, and substantially so. Therefore, the ECB and BoJ should move more strongly toward penalizing savings via negative retail deposit rates or perhaps wealth taxes.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-30/deutsche-bank-unveils-next-step-qe-has-run-its-course-its-time-tax-wealth

 

[johnyj]

Its pretty awkward for me (and you I'd guess). I mean, I believe a Blockstream settlement-only coin has the ability to appreciate 10x to 100x as it takes market share from international B2B and other large payments, while a everybody-uses coin has orders of magnitude greater appreciation AND is more interesting to me from a social engineering perspective.

So, until Bitcoin limitations provide opportunity for a coin to emerge, and a coin DOES emerge that looks capable of taking on BOTH everyday use AND settlement, bitcoin remains a buy/hold.

This idea, and the forthcoming halving, has essentially defanged the "economic majority" from expressing an opinion in the Great Debate by selling coin.

I think only look at the exchange rate is just short sighted. No central banks look at the exchange rate of their currency to decide their monetary policy, money is only one of the tool to facilitate certain activities

I even think letting the free market decide (e.g. everyone seeking maximum profit from their own point of view) is not going to help

Just look at the example of classic mining fund: you can rent hash power to mine classic blocks. And one of the chinese miners openly said if you pay 2000 btc they will assign 10P to mine classic blocks. So miners just discovered a new way to make money: Create political conflicts in the community and assign hash power to the highest bidder

You can see, following this route how corrupted the whole bitcoin ecosystem will quickly become. Without regulation for market participants, everyone will invent a way to make money by utilizing the system weakness of the market, and try to change the rules to benefit them more

I think blockchain qualifies as a innovation in transaction technology, but it does not qualify as a means to solve the centralization and the following corruption problem. In fact it might evolve into the most corrupted place in the world since there is no regulation

 

[cypherdoc]

great debate:

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

what is the mechanism to prevent a system from being centralized?

Fork arbitrage.