Ok, I'm not going to debate what the powers that be may do or not do, but Visa is still worth something, yes?
If Bitcoin, in any form, effects the sort of large scale change on the financial system that it is capable of, even to the point of grabbing any substantial market share whatsoever from traditional payments people, Visa, PayPal et al, that is still going to be worth a good pile of cabbage.
I am not arguing that Bitcoin won't go up in price (although it is remotely possible it could be entirely defeated by an altcoin, the more likely future is Bitcoin prospers while an altcoin might also due to a bifurcation on the principle of strong anonymity).
I am arguing that we will lose our decentralized currency and anonymity.
Well I can't disagree. They have the tools, and they'll use them, no doubt.
And I agree it's utter bullshit, although I do not see anything whatsoever that can be done about it.
Not adhering to laws results in bitcoin going underground. If that happens, people may think it will still retain value/use, but I am not one of them. If it is not an accepted medium of exchange now it is no more likely to be so after some financial meltdown or Mad Max situation.
If bitcoin is not widely adopted, and the financial system melts down, it isn't worth anything. Then it's gold, silver, the normal things. Stuff. If it is widely adopted it may well be a great hedge against exactly that sort of thing; and on a financial level and with enough ease of access, that a lot of people could afford to squirrel away some amount, but only if they know it exists, know how to use it and have a realistic expectation that it will have value that will be portable and insulated from fiat meltdown.
Widespread adoption is basic to use in any future scenario, including a global meltdown, which I'm not going to argue isn't going to happen, as I'm as amazed as anyone with what I see going on in that department. To allow for adoption that you have to follow the law, even if it sucks because you know damn well half of it was written so governments can stick their noses in places it doesn't belong, behind the guise of the greater good, whatever the hell that means anyhow.
It's not a matter of not understanding anything, I don't think, it's a difference of opinion on what actually has the better chance at any sort of real success.
Why The Only Solution is TechnologicalBy the time you realize I am correct, you will be behind the others who realized earlier. Most people are still on the Titantic rearranging the deck chairs (see
quote of Hoover). This is why the USA is actually booming until 2015.75, because
capital is now fleeing into the USA from the emerging (peripheral) markets where the riots first manifest. But this ends up at the core reserve currency at the end game 2016ish. We can see how
regulation appears to be a very loving and correct direction (listen to her charming speach). She is head of the IMF that is proposing 10% confiscation (termed "financial repression") of bank account balances across the EU to bring debt back to 2007 levels (i.e. not a solution and they will have to come back for more and more).
My opinion is that anything that does not circumvent law (which can be a legal activity, e.g. see the
"Don't follow me, I'm the 5th car") is going to end up destroyed just like that dramatic
upthread chart of the population of Rome falling from 1.3 million to 30,000 (because everyone fled the government). Apparently the-powers-that-be in the USA government are
moving towards totalitarian allegiance analogous to recent events in the Ukraine. The entire premise of the
Economic Devastation thread is that the
Ineptacracy of socialism
can't stop until it kills everything or until one of the following occurs:
Note the
people rising up as in Ukraine is not a solution, because they have no economically viable technology to remain decentralized. They will
fall right back into the power vacuum of democracy with escalating chaos with Egypt as a recent example, because the fundamental problem is economic bankruptcy due to peaking socialism and debt (the people are not ready to embrace the decentralized Knowledge Age and the end of a public welfare and retirements system). Only a dictator or a technological solution to the power vacuum is a solution at this time (the contentionism has swung to anarchy because the time to make new social constitutions is not now for reasons stated).
And the benevolent dictator is also not sustainable, e.g. Rome continued to destroy itself after the vested interests of socialism killed Caesar. This is why only technology is responsible for sustainable gains in the lives of the people.
Note CoinCube and I have postulated that in the theory of contentionism (a new term we invented) the top-down order (with socialism being one form) plays a role in the organization necessary to spawn new entropy, e.g. decentralizing technology.Thus the only popular thing left standing will be the one that is impervious to government.
Gold and silver hoarding leads to a feudal Dark Age (which historically typically have long durations, e.g. 600 years), because the velocity-of-money (V in the Quantity Theory of Money) collapses. V is already down -50% since 2008. Capital is already running and disappearing into hoards. This will accelerate (as more frogs wake up from their blissful ignorance of what is going on and jump out of the boiling pot) if we don't have technological solution very soon.
And I have good news for you.
I've had an additional epiphany recently that I have not written about publicly. I am becoming uber confident that Bitcoin is not the future of commerce, finance, and business. And become more confident I see (all the economic and algorithmic details of) the future technology in my mind's eye. Stay tuned, it won't be too long now. Commerce, finance, and business will never go back to centralized again. This changes the order that had existed since Mesopotamia.
So this isn't about crossing a crisis and coming back to the same notions of the way things are today. This is leaving the old ways behind forever.
P.S. Three prominent forecasters (with not such stellar prediction performance as
Martin Armstrong who predicts the same, yet all with a correct model) are
predicting "economic devastation" ahead. CoinCube do you think they read
your thread and got that quoted term from you? (your thread in in the top 3 listings at Google for that quoted term)
P.S.S. W.r.t. to Bitcoin becoming government compliant, there is this problem that there isn't just one global government (yet), so its global fungibility will be pecked away by the discordant nation-state vultures. And as the recent
Mt.Gox fiasco exemplifies, there isn't anything the government touches that doesn't get bloated and less efficient.
"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications." - Lazarus Long.
Disclaimer: I am not providing legal nor tax advice. I am not a professional adviser, please consult your own. I am merely sharing my thoughts and anything you do after reading my thoughts is your own responsibility.
Update: there is a
new thread on anonymity which is quite astute and exemplifies the evolving improvement in the knowledge of the community.