Topic: A voluntary hanging? My tin foil hat. - page 2. (Read 2090 times)

That's settled a fear that I had about the US wanting it dead. I'd like to see two things in the next year or so...

1. A strong stance from the Bitcoin devs that if any outside entity tried to mess with the protocol it wouldn't happen. Even if the US pump billions into it they won't have a say. Any changes would be made purely for performance gains over the network (faster Tx etc.).

2. Adoption by some mass consumer entity, such as the McDonalds teaser that appeared on the forum today. Someone like McDonalds might "cheapen" the image of Bitcoin or have thousands of non-tech types losing coins from bungled transactions but it could be just what Bitcoin needs.

Me too. I rode out a lot of those companies and also got lucky with moving coins out at the right times. Took a few hits as well. The regulation is needed, I support it as well, but like yourself, having been around from the beginning, it's just sad to see it will go that way. Who knows, maybe I had a a view too starry-eyed to begin with.

I've been around since the early days, I've seen Zhou tong and bitcoinica, and pirate and the btcst and vircolux and gox and bfl and mintpal that newer people may not know about and i think it's fair to say we need insured btc exchanges and services

We tried it for 5 years without the regulations and it led to scam after scam so basically we need this.... Even if means giving up some anonymity or paying some tax or a 0.25% on transfers.... Its just inevitable

The community cannot trust another gox.... I think it's the lesser of two evils at this point so I support regulated exchanges although I will Always be my own bank, even if exchanges are fully insured, my coins will only stay within my  cold storage....  Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

IMO, trading is a net zero for BTC as a big picture. Yes, there are winners/losers, but until BTC is heavily regulated (in the future), it serves no action on the price. Bitcoinland needs massive fiat injections to bolster the price. This requires the user base per capita fiat injection to increase. The massive volatility is most likely from the buying and selling of coins on the customer level. People get scared and they dump. People get excited and they buy.

I don't think the US authorities want to destroy it, they want to see it through. In fact, I believe the front running of legislation/regulation before the infrastructure is even available supports this idea. The US stands to make a lot of money through the taxation and regulation of BTC. This could also be a new way to open commerce on a digital level. New loans/credit lines can be extended to banks and lenders and the UST can sell bonds to the Fed in exchange for worthless and overly inflated fiat to pump into its governmental programs that support digital currencies as well as commercial banks.

All of this will come full circle when BTC customers en masse adopt it through their own acceptance (an naivety) of what this technology should do versus what it could do. So far, BTC is being run through the same economic grinder, but everybody keeps yelling " it's an awesome way to pay for stuff," or "I'm a libertarian and this is freedom," or something of the likes.

People need to make BTC less personal. It wasn't meant for them specifically. It doesn't represent the masses or some new age thinking or invented to buck the man. It represents a way to do business in the future when historical methods of economic transactions are dying (fiscal policy was meant for 100 years).

Blame push over Gov. Pataki.

Yeah, I do agree with you that the tech is good enough.

Do you think that trading is bad for Bitcoin? That somehow the US authorities have thought about how to destroy it and have struggled to come up with a better idea than "let the greedy trade it to death through volatility"? Just a thought.

Nothing is stopping this, but it won't happen with BTC. The people want to see BTC succeed. The wealthy elite want to see it succeed from a control/power/fiscal angle. My point isn't to dump money into alts or get rich quick elsewhere. I'm trying to point out a larger picture issue that on a singular level (customer) isn't readily recognizable and is indifferent to most people.

The tech is solid; always has been. What isn't is the infrastructure to implement its widespread usage and this is where the the customer will interact with the tech.

So what's stopping a break off into "bitcoin 2.0" then? Copy the software and modify it, eabling everyone to dump it for an alt in the time it takes to log in and out of an exchange.

Oh, there are already loads of options.

hopefully these antiquated laws dont take years to fix , UFC is still illegal in new york 15 years later  despite many years and millions of dollars of lobbying to get it sanctioned ,,,,,,,,

B.A.S. is right

It could be different (if the community were to realize this), but most likely it won't be different. What I am alluding to is like CoinCidental said; liberty and freedom using this technology. This technology has vast power given correct implementation, however; if the possessors of the power (currently the BTC community) voluntarily give up that power for a quick buck, we will see the technology go the way of centralized banking today. It will be no different, just the medium of payment will change.


This is the conundrum, but in all fairness, I cannot sit and armchair argue these behemoths of capital investors just because they have capitalistic interests. The fact of the matter is that they have the fiat and they are developing the technology. The spoils are in those who do (sad fact of those of us who are not millionaires).

Regarding the limited States it's available in:

My thought is that many States still have antiquated laws regarding property and specifically digital assets so they need to catch up first before companies can operate in them.

Centralised regulated bank insured exchanges owned by wall St investment  is giving away some of the privacy and liberty  of btc but unfortunately I  think it's a sacrifice that has to be made...
Of course is only a matter of time before the big fish own nearly all of it and are operating it in a fractional reserve manner but most people won't care since it will still be a better choice than being goxxed.....

Why is it only available in 24 States  is a bit weird though?
Do they plan to go nationwide or is there something holding it up we don't know yet?

so youre saying that even though the elite already control us via fiat, that if we were to move to bitcoin and they controlled that system too, somehow it would be different?

Because fiat has value too.... And you will need both at least in our lifetimes
Maybe our grandchildren  could like in a totally digital currency world but for the foreseeable future $, €, ¥, £ are not going away anytime soon

This is the devil in the details. Just wanted to air some thoughts on the necessary evils about bringing technology into the world. I'm just as greedy as the next. What I don't want the community to lose sight of is that we collectively possess great power in steering where Bitcoin goes and how it's implemented. Forgoing the greed short term, the use of Bitcoin could be developed for far greater things than as a speculative money maker, but by then, it will be too late to undo what has been done.

Eye opener: most miners are also moved by greed, as everything else is. Saying "let's do this thing to avoid paying to those greedy bastards" just means "let's pay some other greedy bastards".

Also, true bitcoin supporters are usually greedy bastards, too, just so happens that most of them are bitcoin-greedy. So I see absolutely no wrong in having my greed for bitcoin satisfied by a service with a greed for fiat, as long as it's actions are not damaging the community.

So to reiterate - everyone serves their own interest, and bitcoin would be a shitty system and would've failed years ago if it didn't take that into account.

As for cutting out the middleman, sure, localbitcoins to the rescue. What, high margins? Why don't you lower them by buy/selling with no profit?

Because BTC is not replacing fiat, it will merely supplement and expand its traditional uses. Exchanges are making money off of trading, fees, exchanging fiat for BTC, data mining, etc. Additionally, exchanges are using your fiat dollars to buy Bitcoin from miners at a agreed upon rate (that is equal to/or lower than the current exchange price). They then sell you Bitcoin at the "current rate" thus making more money from both the selling of BTC IOUs to the customer and from the purchasing of contracts via miners.

This is all at the customer's expense.

If I have BTC why do I care if "they" have my fiat?

This a call to the community at large to develop an exchange based upon contracts directly from miners in an effort to eliminate the need for regulated exchanges or those who seek to write IOUs of BTC for fiat money.

BTC price increases come from large fiat injections by users (customer base). The huge investments we are seeing today will not effect the price in the least bit. They serve to increase outlets for collecting the community's fiat dollars which in turn will increase the price.

The infrastructure is being built by the financial elite for the elite. Exchanges/trading platforms serve only their own interests in the end.

In the years to come, I hypothesize an increase in marketing and a large push for mainstream adoption. Once the infrastructure is in place (owned by the elite), the last puzzle piece is all of us and our fiat dollars. We as a community will voluntarily hang ourselves by throwing our collective fiat into a system owned and operated by those that already control the economic world.