Topic: Another reason bitcoin will succeed: US to target Putin's $40 billion stash - page 4. (Read 5841 times)

I don't think there's anything to worry about.  Volatility will continue to decrease as adoption widens.  Volatility is actually caused by TOO FEW
big speculators being allowed to push the price around wildly.  More traders means higher liquidity and lower volaility.

btw, look the anonytroll is back, and he's up to 4000 anti-bitcoin posts. nice.

OK I just read that zero hedge article.  Theres no way to know whether or not Putin has $40B in a Swiss Bank account.  I couldn't find any articles that theorized how he would have amassed this fortune.  I'm curious to know if anyone have any links.  The only source I found is attributed an interview where some guy claims Putin "controlled" 37% of the oil company Surgutneftegaz and 4.5% of natural gas monopoly Gazprom.  The $40B is the price of the stake -- NOT cash.  Putin brushed this off as rumors when asked about it.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-17/vladimir-putin-the-richest-man-on-earth

But regarding rich people parking their money in BTC.  How did they become a billionaire in the first place?  Maybe they founded a company and hold stock, or maybe they are some type of dealer.  The point being, these people wouldn't view money as simply cash.  Makes no sense for them to hold cash beyond the amount they need for operational expense.

If we assume that these rich people view money as investments.  What motive would they have for holding large amounts of cash?  They could diversify their portfolio in stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate & cash.   The only reason for holding cash is for liquidity.  BTC has little liquidity so it's not a good substitute for cash.

Also, the main incentive for using Swiss Banks is because Swiss Banking laws allow for secrecy.  Can the US govt freeze Swiss Bank accounts?  I don't know their banking laws enough to say. 

Can any govt freeze your BTC account?  If they can't then you have a legitimate case for using BTC to hide money from govts.  That means Karpelles can steal your BTCs and runaway to non-extradition countries

If Putin does indeed have a Swiss Bank account of $40B, and he's worried about the US .gov freezing it.  I don't see why buying BTCs solve his problem.  Wouldn't he buy gold and hide it in a vault in Siberia?

It's volatility keeps it from being a store of value, keeping it unpredictable. I guess the term "community" is a bit much. The greed of the few is what keeps BTC in this long term status. Most have no interest in making BTC into a store of value, because a store of value isn't susceptible to such short term fluctuations in value. This is primarily because those few are only interested in continuing the profits. As long as profits are the end result, BTC is no different than most of the multinational corporations that people on this forum deride. Look at the never ending parade of ideas to "increase the value of Bitcoin". This illustrates my point. The idea is not to stabilize Bitcoin it is to increase it's value.

Problem is Bitcoin isn't anonymous and the mining is 51% controlled by two pools and few major holders of ASICs.

Care to explain this argument?

The only difference I see between 'investment vehicle' and 'store of value' is volatility.

Edit: and longevity.  But I don't think that is in question.

So you're basically agreeing with me, BTC would not be a good idea because it is not a store of wealth. The situation you're speaking of is a fantasy right now. Could the future hold that very situation, well of course it could, but it most likely will not. Why because the greed of the community will force it to maintain it's investment vehicle status.

I have a feeling we're on to something.


Bryant: bitcoin's market cap has increased by a factor of 10 and its generalized user base by a factor of √10 since talk of the Cyprus confiscations began.  I think your statement "nothing good has emerged" is false.  



If you think they would be investing, you missed the point.  Bitcoin represents a useful way to store and move wealth outside the western financial system.  



Is it possible to store value in the western financial system any other way?  If you have USD, euros, pounds, etc., in any bank account anywhere, I believe they are at risk due to the US's influence over the western financial system.  This question is above my pay grade, but I believe that unless you have physical US $100 bills, your wealth can be "sanctioned" by the US's influence over SWIFT, the IMF, and in part due to US dollar's role as reserve currency.  



That wasn't the idea.  The idea is that the elite begin to move small portions of their financial wealth into bitcoin, due to its useful properties as a store of value.



Vladimir's personal wealth is estimated as high as $70 billion.  $40 billion could be the component stored as financial assets.  




Imagine that tomorrow everyone knew for a fact that bitcoin would no longer increase in value.  But they also knew that it would no longer decrease in value.  1 BTC would forever buy the same basket of goods.  What would happen?  Aggregate demand would increase simply due to bitcoin's useful properties as a store of value.  But of course if aggregate demand increases, so must the price.  

The only reason the price of bitcoin isn't much higher is because people believe it could also be a lot lower.



Why would anyone necessarily know which addresses are controlled by Putin?  For all we know, he could control certain addresses now (although I'm not suggesting he does).  
 

Nobody can really force this. How would you know which addresses are his? He could mix this up beyond tracking.
Storing money in a bank is less safer than storing it in a wallet file.
I don't however understand what Obama think he will achieve with this? This won't stop Putin, nor does he care at all.

Putin wouldn't put his money into Bitcoin because more than likely his address(s) would be blacklisted by mining pools, which will be enforced by governments.

Whoa your amazing statistical analysis has proved your awesome intelligence. Typical thinking, why reply with reason when you can attempt to put someone else down instead? That always works... don't worry you proved you were in the 7% with your reply.

Sorry, but that's a stupid comment. There are MANY rich people (mostly software entrepreneurs) who know little-to-nothing about finance.

A true statement.

I'm not sweating anything, I went all-in on Bitcoin long before China did. Financially speaking, I'm WAY ahead, and I'll hold like I've always done.

You should also know that, statistically speaking, there is something like a 93% chance that I'm smarter than you.

Don't lie, it's not good for the world. The Iraqi invasion had nothing to do with Iraq changing currencies. You and I both know that Iraq doesn't decide anything when it comes to monetary policy. Saddam was a CIA stooge... I suspect though that you've never even been to Iraq and are relying purely on what others tell you to form an opinion.

The idea that Putin or any other elite will go into bitcoin is at best a fantasy. BTC is used primarily as an investment tool not a store of wealth. Anyone who is using BTC as a store of wealth is sweating bullets right now, and obviously no one who has that kind of money can possibly be that stupid. BTC has to stopped being used as an investment tool if it ever hopes to become all of the things you people are talking about.

I've witnessed some crazy pumps in pennystock land but nothing as outrageous as bitcoin land.  This idea of Putin moving his $40B into BTC is just nuts.

Usually when someone is said to be worth $40B.  It's probably the net of their assets.  Not a pile of cash sitting in a bank somewhere.  It's probably distributed in stocks, bonds, real estates, cash.  If someone has $40B in the first place then they most likely know a thing or two about finance

Very true.

However, let us bear in mind that governments aren't the only ones with big money. As much as we all love to hate transnational corporations, the fact reamins: These entities have no real incentive to store all their wealth in nation-state fiat, and very soon they will have an abundance of reasons NOT to store their wealth in nation-state fiat.

so much relevant truth in one post

EDIT: however consider that in the end, the government really has no say in what is used as money by the population. If they extract labour from the population under decreasing living conditions for too long, they might wake up, come to their senses and exert the power they have. A dangerous game they play. Also a dangerous game the US specifically plays, by the way, misusing their exorbitant privilege like that (for those who don't know the Charles de Gaulle speech from '65, it's a must watch)

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense - why would Putin keep his stash in a country where the US could get to it?

I find these kinds of rationalizations to be hilarious.  Bitcoin will succeed on it's own merits, not because "zomg wall street/putin/buffet/gates/justin bieber" are going to discover bitcoin and invest in it.

As long as governments benefit more from modern slavery (which is what fiat money truly is), than from a form of money than is immune to outside control, they will not adopt BTC.

Russia or even places like Iran or Venezuela may have their problems with outside powers, but even for those countries fiat is still essential in extracting labor from their citizens.

On top of that Uncle Sam would probably "find" some weapons of mass destruction real quick if a country adopts BTC as a currency. Heck, look at Iraq, when they tried to adopt another fiat than USD (EUR).  

But nothing good has emerged from the Cyprus hair-cuts... At that time, a lot of people here were posting about how Bitcoin will become hugely popular there. What happened? Bitcoin remains in the shadows in Cyprus.

Yup. There's supposedly ~$30T (yes, "Trillion") stored as "offshore" (ie, hidden) money globally. With Swiss banks no longer maintaining secrecy, Cyprus, and the IMF publicly making noise about the potential need to haircut all EU depositors, it should already be obvious how much store-of-value potential bitcoin has.

Every crises, seizure, government over-reach, capital control, and "haircut" will make this more obvious to more people.