Topic: 2012-11-17 ftd.de - Financial Times Germany - Front page story (Read 1832 times)

Well, yes and no.
Yes a virus is a bad thing. But ...
Here it's used as an eye-catcher. Need to know all about viruses, don't you?

Let me give another example:
Mich hat der Formel-1-Virus gepackt und ich will den Vettel Sepp jetzt gewinnen sehen.
I'm infected by Formula-1-Virus and want to see Vettel winning right now.
Although it's bad in general to have a virus, it is not in this case. As it is with bitcoins.

btw. Fuck you Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton! He dared to overtake Vettel in this very moment. 

The headline "Das Bitcoin-Virus" seems to be negative to me. Is "virus" a negative word in German? Does anybody know?

What does the "millionaire" tag under your name mean?

Sensationalism is sadly rather prevalent in today's media - even more so in times of economic downturn. I cannot really blame the journalists for that though.

In my opinion, the article is very well written and employs some lines of argumentation that are easily accessible to non-Bitcoiners (fear of inflation, fear of Euro collapse, impracticality of gold in modern commerce,...). The author even makes fun of those that accuse Bitcoin users to only buy drugs and finance terrorists, by stating that, for the time being, he would be content with a burger and a beer

In German if you say something spreads like a virus, that's meaning it's spreading very fast.

It's a play on words since clearly Bitcoin isn't a virus but it's adoption may spread similar to a virus. The article is not negative.

The headline "Das Bitcoin-Virus" seems to be negative to me. Is "virus" a negative word in German? Does anybody know?

Coooool.  Too bad I can't read it though

Coooool.  Too bad I can't read it though

The Bitcoin virus

Comment support terrorists or drug or buy the stuff but just maybe hoard? With the privately issued Bitcoins the dream of free central bank currency got a boost. An essay by Axel Reimann
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  Can be paid in Bitcoins located at 2718 meters altitude Rojacherhütte
As recently Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told of the Micronesian islands of Yap, my assets grew by about the equivalent of a papaya. That was probably a coincidence. Nevertheless, these two events have to do for me a lot in common, even if the evidence of the Correlations of is very difficult. What had happened? In his opening address at the symposium of cash Bundesbank reminded Weidmann fact that even today cash is drawn very differently - on the Yap Islands, stone money would be used, for example, mussels in areas of Papua New Guinea. "There is even a shell bank, which replaced the hard shell money in national currency," the Federal Reserve chairman. Just this exotic examples made it clear that money ultimately constitutes a social convention. Oh.

So far, so unspectacular. If it were not for one circumstance which gives the folk entering an Federal Reserve Chairman for me more weight: For some time I wear around something like Shell or stone money with me - on my phone. No Euro But so-called Bitcoin, electronic coins that have emerged at some point in the last three years on any computer anywhere in the world. Private and decentralized drawn, without the intervention of any central bankers. And now the stuff is stored as a file in my e-wallet with the catchy address 1BkwELDBrytAfaVMEBs96fUMx6kqsvGWL6. Only if the want to write anyone.

At the moment, ranging from my Bitcoins to go out to eat once maintained. The FBI, the BKA, the Federal Association of the Digital Economy, BaFin, even the dear colleagues suspect all, I would probably use it to buy drugs, support terrorists to acquire weapons, child porn pay, wash dirty money, or want to evade taxes. This can be ruled out, of course not, but for a start it would do a beer and a cheeseburger.

It sounds like a new sequence from the previously only conspiracy theorists familiar epic "war of currencies", this time the double episode "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back". Written by Friedrich August von Hayek ("denationalization of money"), and others. In this war, my potential threat to the ruling holds money order with a 4.965 electronic units completely non-political art currency very limited. But the stuff that rests there in my phone could have a longer life than the euro . Because it has properties that make it - make indestructible - almost. It's more of a virus as a currency, and that is now released. I am infected, a bit anyway.

Train for the apocalypse

The story so far: For years, fighting a small, changing but growing band of rebels against the omnipotence of government money monopoly. With so far, let's put it gently, moderately successful. The private competition currencies, they are now called Chiemgau or Liberty Dollar, exhaust themselves either as regional occupational therapies or are even completely cleared by court decision out of the way. At the same time, the advocates of private money competition, Euro-rebel Frank Schaeffler (FDP) for example, or U.S. Tea Party icon Ron Paul, in the public perception rather freak status. And indeed the whole issue of alternative currencies in sometimes suspected to be cultivated mostly by people bunkering also canned foods and exercise for the Apocalypse. Still, as a pure spinning can no longer dismiss the private currency ambitions.

What the whole thing slowly becoming a subject of serious consideration of policy making, I am not the only one who plays with such controlled by any central bank in the world of money. Some take this Bitcoins (and other private currencies) so even really seriously, so seriously that they build entire business models out - from the point-of-sale infrastructure to own Bitcoin credit card.

Because with Bitcoins currency rebels since 2009, a weapon that is far more dangerous than anything that circulated previously as cash alternatives: There is no central issuer of currency, no one of the "responsible" - and you can take by the state in the duty (or set ) could. Only an open source computer, programmed by an unknown person, maintained by a few volunteers. The Bitcoins even flow but in a network of thousands of computers. Who's computer infrastructure available to get, occasionally a few of the electronic coins automatically assigned by the network. Who does not want to acquire, Bitcoins just like any other foreign currency: by exchange, trading platforms or the sale of products and services. The electronic coins are tamper-proof in the current situation, anonymous, and everyone will know that their number is finally up to a maximum just below 21 million units will grow (by the year 2140). Payments - even across continents - cost nothing and are almost as fast and easy as copy-and-paste. Even the frequent reports of thefts Bitcoin and market manipulation, and the warnings that Bitcoins would be used primarily for illegal transactions have, not the currency permanently harmed. After all - what critics usually overlooked - theft, fraud and illegal transactions are not a unique feature of privately issued currencies. But it is certain also: Bitcoins (or any other private currency) may always be so legally, as the law allows.

More coupon as hedge

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the whole thing yet so interesting that this phenomenon has now devoted a study ("Virtual Currency Schemes", October 2012). Threatened the monetary authorities feel it yet, but the risks must be well now regularly take a close look. The growth of the art currencies will continue for several reasons - more Internet use, more e-commerce, more demand for anonymous payment options, desire to lower transaction costs and faster settlement of liabilities.

A reason that did not contribute significantly to the continued interest in central bank money alternatives that ECB researchers suggest, however: Some might now be giddy at the big money pressure Sause who hold the banks to save the world. There was still something to the store of value function of money, at least in theory, to say the skeptics - and looking for alternatives to fiat money by the central banks.

Gold is - because not in endless supply - a standard response, but one that does not really fit into a time in which one computer with a few clicks you can buy around the world products. For how to send no central switching, clearing or depository institution and with the lowest possible transaction costs, say, 0.083 grams of gold for an e-book download to a seller in the U.S.? Using the peer-to-peer currency Bitcoin all this is no longer a problem.

But where, pray tell, the private Nothing gets on my phone its value? One wonders just who alone on central bank magic or - alternatively - like trust the supposedly everlasting gold. In reality, and has always been: ". Money is what money does" And the more people with nowhere to start something on my phone can, the more it resembles money.

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This is the utility as cash for even the biggest hurdle for the Bitcoins. Unlike the more illegal activities, it is still a bit difficult to find uses for the private currency. The number of restaurants, for example, which can be paid for Bitcoins is in Germany still relatively clear: one. And who wants to pay for even one night with Bitcoins, must ascend go to Kleve-Keeken or Rojacherhütte at Sonnblick in Austria, probably highest point of acceptance for Bitcoins.

While in the real world but still lack of acceptance, at least I can on the internet for the Arts money now for some selected dealers wine, cheese, black, baby clothes or handmade natural soap get. But I heard my dear few Bitcoins - more than coupon on an experiment with an uncertain outcome as a hedge against monetary doomsday. The stuff on my phone is probably simply more valuable if more central bankers of stone money mikronesischem tell.