Topic: "Beware of BTC! Not backed by central entity, no security in case of default!" (Read 2458 times)

Hey nestor,

thanks for that long and interesting essay there!

I see. Banks would want to be payed for taking care of the accounting side though. And governments would want to be paid as well. Not sure how they could make that happen with BTC...

Governments have been starting to really cross red lines of responsibility lately, IMO. Check out sites like zerohedge.com, Kings World News, Silver Doctors or the Miles Franklin Blog for more info!

All the best!

If someone cant believe in Decentralized and Global currency then why the fuck someone believes in a single government monitory system?

Bloggood,

as an political economist by education and a bitcoin shenanigan since 2010 I can't close my eyes to the fact that within my daily business environment the attitude towards bitcoins has changed dramatically.

I have to confess that it took me most of 2010 to fully grasp bitcoin and its potential. At the end of 2011 I started to talk to colleagues  and business partners about BTC. Explaining about this new form of collective accounting, the unique public ledger, the block chain as reputation engine and the final proof of the fact that binary strings are of value. You know all this crazy stuff you fall into when you start to understand BTCs. Each and every one confronted with BTC through my ongoing research felt initially only repelled. They considered it unnecessary, complicated and totally over the top. "Look there is no clear "unit of value", hash-strings can represent value, but they never can be of value a priori, ....".

In 2012 my surrounding environment started to realise at least that bitcoins became a kind of new virtual currency, a Linden Dollar for nerds, hackers and pranksters with a touch of shadiness and shabbiness. Potential was now seen for BTCs. But it was all just about a criminal one.

Then 2013 happened and my pals within the financial industry started to consider it a cool new asset class, a commodity they wanted to own, as speculation is always fun to them. People started to question me about mining and how to set up a competitive mining company, etc. Just to be told that it would be more or less too late for this. Beside one has access to chip-makers, .... ;-)
When they were told instead to invest into  BTC as a platform and invest into services for this  "mathematical currency" they became again unwilling to follow.

Despite this, the strongest interest into BTCs I experience stems from people of the financial industry which feel more than they understand that the moment of technological disruption is hitting them right now. Therefor I'm convinced that BTC as a technological solution platform will be embraced by established institutions already in 2014.

Cooperations like the one of German Fidor Bank with Kraken.com will trigger more and more similar projects. The fact that especially Europe with its E-Money regulation framework is actively requesting new e-money implementations to incentivise trade and commerce online will also enable a fast institutional adoption of BTC technology. And one of the most convincing arguments of a new money-technology would be represented by diminishing transaction costs. In a best case scenario transaction costs would converge to zero. A request BTC complies to in a splendid way.

This fact of minuscule transaction cost, the fact of digital assets of real value, the fact of a new form of public ledger, etc... solves many of the most pressing problems of the banking industry. Opposite to the impressions and opinions constantly articulated and communicated most of the time by many, many posters on this  forum financial institutes are eager to look for a way out of the disaster they are approaching. Not the whole industry is GS, RBS, CS, BoA, etc... . They realise very well the they started to lose customers and business, especially they lose with the younger demographics big time. It became pretty tough to offer the 16 to 36 year old Europeans valid banking products and services. It's not going to work out the way it did with passbook and home purchase savings.

What happens in their eyes is called "monetary separation" by their terminology. The disruptive moment of the industry forces them to serve two functions that are independent from each other: the accounting function and the portfolio management function. And all this becoming worse day by day by through the ever increasing speed of money related transactions and the ever decreasing costs of transactions.

The problem is: "Banks could fulfill the accounting function without holding assets or using any medium of payment.
It would be sufficient to have a unit of account. As an uninvolved third party, banks could just keep
records of transactions. the issue of liabilities and the purchase of assets is derived from the second function. In this function banks help individuals to hold their wealth (hard and soft, real and virtual) in a form the desire...."

It's an interesting dilemma. Should banks become indeed pure accounting houses, what would become their sustainable business model and what could be their sustainable unit of account? Bitcoin's block chain offers a perfect solution to this challenge with its unique endless and open ledger character. And the recent months brought many innovations to the bit coin world enabling the block chain to account for "everything". Banks go back to be 'counting houses' instead of fiduciaries, trustees, keeping track of who owes what to whom. All this global scale with a new global standard called block chaining. Would customers and the market like this. Sure, cause the return on money would be higher again for the users of money.

From another angle, should they decide to become instead the innovative portfolio manage institutions? Then it would all be about  issue of liabilities and the purchase of assets. In this function banks help individuals to hold their wealth (hard and soft, real and virtual) in a form the desire. Emphasis on "any form". This would "lead us into a free banking asset-money world where commodity baskets compete against commodity basket; receipt issuer against receipt issuer, trustee- underwriter against trustee underwriter and will lead probably to new forms virtual barter." From the point of view of bitcoin technology it would just take some alternate block chains pegged against "real commodities"

So the technology is in place, the demand is given, the industry has opened its mind. Therefor I'm sure the converging process of the contemporary bit coin world with the world of financial institutions will has already started and will manifest itself already in 2014.

Feels weird being unplugged from the matrix.

when a government say it is a risky investment and not backed up by any issuer and you will invest on your own risk....well like we didn't know that like we were insured before, but what they are trying to say is hint: "bitcoin is awesome but we just cant say it directly because we are neutral"


a bit off-topic but by regulation they mean fighting money laundering, illicit use and terrorist acts.... well I don't think regulation is bad, would you like to hear that Bitcoin is used mostly for child porn and terror, smugglers... the government want to make sure when you exchange that fiat to Bitcoin and vice Versa, so they want to enforce this message "if  you are criminal we are watching you and we will get you cant hide behind Bitcoin"

there is the privacy that people are seeking which is cool and I agree with, but there is the problem of the definition of the freedom when sometimes there is no red lines and many people mix a certain kind of  privacy with the total freedom, how? if you are a decent guy that has nothing to hide why would you care about your government knowing when you buy/sell bitcoins ?  unless you are hiding something ? for example a killer seeking for "privacy" so people wouldn't know what he did !!  the act that he did is from him believing that he has a "total freedom" of taking a life, which is what we all have to work to not tolerate.

it doesn't matter whether it is Bitcoin or anything else, some authority is necessary, BTW think of it this way, the bitcoin protocol works the same way.. your client has to play with the network rules... you have to play by your government rules , is your government bad ?  than it is not about Bitcoin, it is about your government and than Bitcoin is one of the many things that your government is bad at.


I know I went off-topic, I couldn't gather my thoughts around this but I think you understand what I mean...

trust your government unconditionally. with governments you are completely insured

until you aren't

you are insured for however much we decide. remember Cyprus?

They may restrict the use of fiat but not BTC. Right now people use it either as a commodity, to speculate or buy mining equipment. If we had a big online shop simmilar to ebay, people would be less worried about the exchange prices. Also if you sell your old stuff you don't need to register or pay taxes. The more goods you can buy with BTC the more stable it becomes. If somebody was interested in seting up a business like that I would be glad to help.

well the government has always been like this.
even the police have slogans such as "to serve and protect" yet if you call them about being attacked they take upto an hour to turn up. but if you call them to inform them of a theft from a business or a cop being shot, they arrive in minutes..

to serve and protect themselves.. is the missing word in the slogan

and the banks have similar slogans

I don't think they will ever push people into BTC, as long as they can't control BTC (which they probably won't be able to). I would be very surprised if governments didn't come out with some restrictions, one by one.

But if by "embrace" you mean "acknowledge and restrict" then yes, within the next years, depending on when BTC gets big enough to really threaten them...

What do you think?

It will be as exciting as interesting to observe when the tide will turn. Then,instead of warning people about the danger of bitcoins they will start to push them into the bitcoin game. What's your guess? How long will it take them to completely embrace the new money technology - 2 to 3 years?

Talk about protection and vote for bail-in at the same time. We protect your money because in reality it's our money.

you can answer by a question :

- do you trust the government to save people ? (or save us only ...)

...     then, trust BTC instead ... 

The response is, "Beware of fiat currency!  Not back by anything except force, guaranteed to lose money over time!"

They usually do. A smart person will say "Sorry for the inconvenience!" while bending you over and fucking you in the ass.

It just makes you feel a little bit better about it.

They say "please"?

And then bend over. 

Please say "Thank you".

We scare you. We protect you.

Every day I read about some government warning about BTC (today it's the Indian one).

BTCs value is not guaranteed by the central planners! Absolutely no financial protection for you by your daddy, nation XYZ! If your bank goes bankrupt, we care about you, but just imagine something happens to BTC, there is NOWHERE TO TURN TO! Our absolutely safe fiat that we created just for you will protect you, and in case something happens, as you see, FED and ECB will keep you warm and sheltered because they care. Hey, they even print new money for you as much as they can. So don't come running if something happens to BTC, because we warned you!

This is ironic beyond anything imaginable: They tell us that they are protecting us from BTC - when in reality, BTC is an attempt to protect us from them..

Just hillarious. Of course, the masses buy it...