jmdrake
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- Jun 6, 2007
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@ 4:30 Mike Adams says "They will become a good value to buy once the crash has happened Alex." Soooo....why all the "Bitcoin is dead" talk in Mike Adams is (was) actually right?
By this time Chucky Schumer will have it outlawed and the exchanges will be brought down.
I think that's pretty much why we need more exchanges around the world. Bitcoin is a global currency, so if the US shuts down their exchanges, we will still have others in other countries. I admit that it is an unsettling thought though.
@ 4:30 Mike Adams says "They will become a good value to buy once the crash has happened Alex." Soooo....why all the "Bitcoin is dead" talk in Mike Adams is (was) actually right?
Yes but you're not listening to the mother of all crashes will come when Chucky Schumer's PROTECT AMERICA FROM DRUGS IN THE MAIL ACT is announced and going through CONgres
Then your bitcoin will be worth a dollar or less when the big holders panic and bail out.
So why can't the early adopters and big holders use some of their vast fortune to attempt to shut down this act or any legislation for that matter which attempts to make Bitcoin illegal. They obviously have the money to lobby against this. Would it work? Who knows, but I'd love to see the entire Bitcoin community come out against congress to protect itself and scare the politicians responsible.
So to sum up:
Bitcoin is a scam. The miners/early adopters/drug dealers and now Kim all have an interest in seeing it ramp up.
When there's enough suckers around they will dump their bitcoins on the market and crash it. They will keep doing this periodically but the bigger crash will come if the US government legislate and these people panic.
If the US government doesn't legislate the mother of all crashes still comes when they've mined the rest of it and then try and make off with the loot.
It's a circular scam because the early adopters are probably investing in the computers to mine the rest of it... and so on.
It's not private industry paying for their computers and data centers to accomplish their task is it ?
The financing comes from somewhere. Probably from previous gains. They've sold some off and bought more machine power.
Once they've mined the shit out of it and made off with the loot what price will bitcoin be then ?
This is what I mean by suggesting it will "reset".
Or the US government gets in first and shuts them down by taking out the exchanges and their banking relationships. Every exchange tells you what bank account number to send the money to. They're easy for a government to trace and shut down. Too easy!
Who knows what will happen but it doesn't seem good to me.
You trying to get people to dump so you can buy at a lower price?
It may and should in theory at some point once all this crap has been ironed out but by that time the US government will have it shut down.
Do you think they're stupid? We're talking about the most ruthless, biggest and most powerful government probably in history and they're going to come after BITCOIN, MTGOX and every other exchange when they feel like the time is right and they will do it through the international banking system which are all connected to Washington. Any bank that deals with a bitcoin exchange will be threatened.
So your bitcoins will be worthless. You wont be able to cash them out anywhere.
One the legislation is primed and going through Congres the big holders of bitcoin will see the writing on the wall and bail at whatever price they can get. Then it will go back to a dollar or two (or less).
In theory, bitcoins hold two main advantages: supply discipline and counterfeit protection. In theory.
Practice, on the other hand, has the potential to be wildly different. There is no guarantee that the supply of bitcoins will remain constant. All we have is the promise of the Foundation. Humans, being what they are, are prone to corruption, interference, and plain old error. The minute that first extra bitcoin is generated, all bets are off and the discipline advantage falls into jeopardy. As for counterfeit protection, the question in my mind is whether the math upon which generation is based is proven safe or the problem space for counterfeiters is simply np-complete. There is a very big difference between the two. Proven math means there is no possible way to counterfeit a bitcoin.
An analogous example taken from the field of encryption is the OTP (one-time pad), which produces provably unbreakable code. Public-key encryption, on the other hand, relies on the problem space being so humongous that the task of finding a solution is said to be np-complete, meaning that it cannot be found in polynomial time, further meaning solutions being theoretically impossible are practically impossible. A general example of why this is a problem may be seen in the fact that as advances in computing power are made, both in terms of raw hardware capabilities as well as computational methods, problems once considered to be of non-polynomial time complexity become readily solvable. IIRC the four-color problem was one such instance, but do not quote me on that.
If the math makes bitcoins reliable by mere virtue of a large search space, then I submit that their future viability in the longer run falls into serious question because if they become valuable I absolutely guarantee that there will be people out there devoting huge resources toward finding ways of generating fakes.
Beside all this, bitcoins appear to be vulnerable to the same failings that beset any other non-money currency including a few potentially grave risks bitcoin users face. The worst is that they are completely technology dependent, whereas a gold coin or even an FRN is not. Once created, these exist as tangible items with existences of their own. Bitcoins are nothing but patterns on a disk that represents some store of value. As with any other currency, they are useless if they cannot be exchanged. A dollar bill can be handled physically and transported with high availability and reliability, if not always the greatest convenience. A bitcoin can also be transported that way as long as it resides in some memory device, but what happens when such devices fail? What does one do when someone, somewhere removes the network transport capability upon which bitcoins are mostly dependent in order for exchanges to be affected? Currency and money are absolutely worthless if they cannot be exchanged.
In addition, bitcoins are equally prone to market speculation, which has already arisen in the form of mining. Add the risks one assumes in the face of oligarchical control over not only transport but actual coin exchanges and the potential for bad things happening become even more worrisome, and that does not even begin to address the nearly limitless possible hazards that users will face when government gets its hands solidly in the game. Recall the supply discipline advantage. Now imagine Congress taking effective control and deciding that the supply must be increased in order to "facilitate growth" or perhaps to be "fair" to the "less fortunate". Sound familiar?
On top of all of this, were bitcoins to take over and become the defacto standard of exchange with cash going the way of the dodo, then you would no longer even have the option of stuffing your mattress with your assets or keeping cash in your wallet or in a safe. You would be completely at the mercy of those who control transport and exchange. Now imagine you are deemed an "enemy of the state" and your accounts are taken. It can happen now, but not to anyone keeping all cash in a safe place. That option could be eliminated and I am certain that this prospect has Them up all night, stropping for all they are worth. Do you recall laws that made it illegal to horde money, keeping its velocity at zero for extended periods? What if such a law were to apply to bitcoins? Electronic monitoring would be relatively easy to put into place and there goes another advantage: that of anonymity. Imagine your accounts one day mysteriously decrementing by 90% because you were not spending enough. Sounds crazy? Ask the people of Cyprus how far fetched it seems to them.
Therefore, before getting all gushy in the pants over bitcoins, consider these and other risks posed in their acquisition, storage, and use. Bitcoins actually take even more control out of the hands of those possessing them than does the FRN. At the end of the day people are people and any system of currency can be subverted. The only question is which ones provide the greatest resistance to such manipulations and right now the answer is clearly demand-convertible, asset-backed currencies and actual monies, most notably gold and silver.
To my eyes bitcoins should be approached in the same manner as any other security: hold as many as that with which you are willing to part in the same way that one gambles rationally only with that amount of money one is sensibly willing to lose.
Be careful.