Topic: ECB paper on Bitcoin and virtual currencies - page 6. (Read 16899 times)

this. decentralized vs world. but still a good introduction paper

translates in the ECB paper to virtual, type 3 ; )

I found it...


...but I think it's wrong. Off by many orders of magnitude in fact. Hopping over to that thread.

Actually, somebody on this board explained it as a chance that is even billions less than that (i) you life for 80 years, (ii) from the moment of your birth, lightning strikes your head 200 billion times per second (iii) for the rest of your entire life. He got the numbers behind it and it makes completely clear how small that chance is.

I cannot find that thread just now

again  PLEASE design your terms. 

Is legal tender a "law" enacted by congress or parliament or is it a "regulation" defined by a Federal/National Government Agency or is it a "ruling" or "interpretation" defined by a high court.

"Legal tender" laws are nothing more than regulation. As regulation always protects the incumbents, it's easy to see how legal tender laws, despite their claimed purpose, have the actual effect of eliminating competition.

Thanks!

I think they didn't forget about that, you have it on page 23...

So then the operative word for bitcoin must be "decentralized" currency.

You raise a good point.

The way I put it generally is "cyberthieves are billions of times more likely to break your bank account information and passwords than to break your bitcoin private keys."
It works.

I am afraid I have to stand by what I said: the distinction is NOT along the "virtual" line as bankers would like to make people believe but along the centralized vs decentralized divide.
Bitcoin is a decentralized P2P currency while the Euro belongs to the same "centralized" category as Linden Dollars, Frequent Flyer Miles or Facebook credits.
The word "virtual" is meant to hide the fact that central currencies are backed just by the people using them, like any other currency.

Well...actually no. People "hoard/save/speculate" Bitcoins because they can't be debased. I believe that the ECB paper was discussing Bitcoin purely as a payment system. For which, inflation doesn't matter since in theory the Bitcoins are held for a brief enough duration that fluctuations in purchasing power are effectively nil.

well spoken, sir.

you really got me, I was _this_ close to quoting "The Creature from Jekyll Island" once again before reading on .

On the matter: Bitcoin doesn't really need credibility, because it's "advertising" doesn't tell you anything that can't be fact-checked. Now of course there's the problem that average Joe can't read the sourcecode and/or as I've come to believe: understand the basics of the system.

I'm not sure the ECB-authors have dug in deep enough to have the bitcoin-aha-effect.

That's why it's possible that people actually think we might be telling them lies: our facts are complicated. And, well, to be honest: "It's very very very astronomically unlikely that someone accidentally finds the same key" is a shitty fact to tell someone in a conversation that tries to assure him his money is safe, no matter how many "very"s you put there! Even if you tell them something like: "It's like rolling 100 dice and they all come up '6'", they'll still think it could happen at some point because, well: they've seen 5 dice come up '6' and that's only 20 times more and there's a lot of time in the future and people generating addresses.

The analysis we're talking about here can help a lot because it's understandable and doesn't feature any of the technical details. It's really a good introduction to bitcoin. I especially like that libertarian austrian economics in-a-nutshell "grey box".

^Thank you, had a good laugh and realized how misguided most people are.

Good point. I mean, it's not like the founders of the current monetary scheme, er... I mean "system" cloaked their activities in secrecy and used pseudonyms when they got together and planned it at Jekyll Island. What's that? Oh, they did? Yeah, ok, but that was years ago. Still, you gotta admit that the current operations and decision-making process of the Federal Reserve is a helluva lot more transparent than some open-source software that absolutely anyone can review or modify. Right?
 
Edit: And of course, that comparison is really unfair to Satoshi. The planners of the Federal Reserve tried to keep their involvement anonymous to deceive the public. My guess is that Satoshi simply wanted to preserve his privacy and/or avoid becoming the target of violence from the assholes whose racket is rightfully being challenged by Bitcoin.

Although I don't quite know who wrote what, I pretty much agree my usage of the terms is not fit to communicate with the masses.
I also agree with that last sentence.

@ Grinder  this is continuation:

bitcoin is way more real than FIAT money.

I wouldn't use "virtual" at all, because it implies "not really existing, just hot air".
** I dont' agree as virtual just means it exists but not in a physical sense. 

the Euro is  neither "real" nor is it "money".
*** this is where I have a problem  You can make that statement but unless you clearly and simply explain it the "average Joe" is going to think you are a "neerdy Bitcoin Supporter".  As far as they "average joe" is concerned their dollars and euros may be devalued by inflation, but they can still use them to PAY TAXES and buy stuff. 


There is no way you're going to be able to convice average Joe about this, though, and it's not really important at all.

Nitpicking on issues like this will make Bitcoin supporters look unnecessarily nerdy, and lower the chances of convincing the public that Bitcoin is a good idea.
***Again I'm not nitpinking, I'm saying we have to clearly and simply define our terms so as the a broader media and public discovers Bitcoin we have a clear defininton of:

1.  what it is
2.  How is it different

Or else those terms will be defined for us by a misinformed or even hostile media/governments


Instead we should just use terms like this in the way other people are most likely to understand, and focus on what Bitcoin can do better than other currencies.
***YES!

They also forgot another positive side... users use Bitcoins because they can't be debased through inflation

If they were SMART they would have offered BITCOIN as a payment option!

Here you go:

http://downloads.payloadz.com/217507/fsn2012-1031-1-matonis.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=012NFZM3D44FSG20CP82&Expires=1353426926&Signature=6%2BbqHxlKBDW9T9OReXOi4SnDLzc%3D

Looks at my end to be guarded by a US$ paywall - ironic, much?

Jon Matonis,

Gives a great interview about bitcoin and contributes to the discussion of "defining" bitcoin and identifying how is it distinct from other "electronic" or "digital" currency.

http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2012/10/31/jon-matonis/bitcoin-crypto-currency-is-digital-gold-the-future-of-money