Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 318. (Read 2032265 times)

When considering the general deflation, don't underestimate the different ages of the capital. Low interest skews projects towards long time projects, which happen to be oil, iron and other metals. Oil is 30 years from start of investment (surveying) to finished consumer goods. That is now why the products from oil and other long time, capital intensive industries are too plentiful compared to actual demand. When capitcal cost is zero, any project is profitable, as long as sales pay for daily expenses.

First off, miners can't spend your coins, they can only deny that you spend them.  So counterparty risk is so significantly diminished as to warrant a different term.  And so is trust.

Second, if you don't like what miners are doing (presumably denying your transactions), you (or more likely a group of similarly minded people) can pool your money and buy your own miners.  (This presupposes that the miners can even identify your transactions which is a necessary step before one can even think about granting permission) Your miners can join the network (without permission) and so some % of blocks mined will be what you want them to be, unless the majority of other miners collectively choose to ignore your blocks at a potential economic disadvantage to themselves.  In which case you can continue on your own fork if you really want.  So again so much less permission is required as compared to traditional payment networks that is does not make sense to claim that bitcoin requires "permission".

I agree but not in the senstionalist sense that you like to put it.

What counter party risk?

I agree.  However, I would use the terms 'trust-minimized' and 'permission-minimized' instead of trustless and permissionless.  

Nothing is completely trustless.  If we used a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being completely trustless and 100 needing full trust, then bitcoin is much closer to 0 and fiat currencies are much closer to 100.  

Sorry for the OT, but anyone want to do (what I believe is) a simple JavaScript task for some coin?  Place a bid here.

This is not true, and people keep repeating it at a concerning rate. The reality isn't quite so snappily summed up, but it's wildly different from this presentation, and that makes it very dangerous misinformation.

There is counter party risk

There is permission

There is trust

And all three are vested in the mining network, and everyone happily sweeps this under the rug at every opportunity. Until someone comes up with a way to decentralise mining (or remove the miners ability to choose which transactions to include), I will not allow people to repeat this misinformation unchallenged.

Nice. A sections for endorsers would be cool, too.

tptb driven...asunder

Assume some or all of the individuals in this list are saboteurs instead of defectors.

What types of attacks can they carry out?

What countermeasures are available to defend against those attacks?

In my scan of this morning's 'gold collapsing, bitcoin up.' thread, I sense that, true to form, the anticipated contingent feels that maybe Summers thinks he can make a ton off Bitcoin and there is a hope from some that they can ride his coat-tails as he surfs the wave.  My 'conspiracy theory' is that Summers has had ample opportunity over his career to amass as much wealth as he desires and he has no need of Bitcoin to help him in this (likely long ago achieved) endeavor.  Summer's track record seems to be one of engineering methods of financial control over the masses (and other lesser states) which is typical off many of those among us who have 'made it' and are interested mostly in moving on-ward and up-ward.  To the run-of-the-mill Bitcoin hodler:  Good luck riding Summer's coat-tails.

On a different topic which is only related to the quoted text, here's one amusing conspiracy 'theories' that I thought of recently:

Say someone finally figured out a mildly workable distributed crypto-currency solution and it passed some bar needed to partially prove it's mettle.  Helping fund Wikilieaks in the face of a block by the mainstream financial system, for instance.

Say this raised Bitcoin to the attention of those who engineered this mainstream financial block and they considered it a viable threat.

Say that the early participants in Bitcoin were a conglomeration of what were mainly losers and it included one unemployed engineer who was bored enough to set up a faucet and thus garner some attention in the community but who clearly loved big brother.

Say TPTB realized that they could easily take out the originator who was something of a lone-wolf and had been fairly careful to preserve his identity to the extent needed to throw off the masses investigative efforts, and install their more more favored 'leader'.  If said 'more appropriate' leader claimed this happened just because 'Satoshi' changed an e-mail address, most of the Bitcoin fanatics would buy the story hook, line, and sinker.

Although well below the bar of 'theory', this hypothesis has some explanatory power.  In particular, if Satoshi is simply no longer among the living it would explain why he's not been heard from and why his quasi-pre-mine have remained static.  More than anything it would explain why Gavin is intent on destroying the solution but in a careful way which seems to exceed his native abilities.

Seems like rats fleeing a sinking ship, or at least hedging against it. You'd have to be a special person not to see the what a mess the intertwined global political/financial landscape is in right now. Politico types will go wherever they smell money and opportunity.

so true

Given Mr Summers past achievements and business associates, I too, have to ask where his allegiances lie.

feel free, to add to it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16eHxzLoJk5GnkqNBCrVfBRbXm82-QJRqMq1BStVKDOw/edit?pli=1#gid=0

Gavins latest.

So hot right now 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37bvuy/analysis_paralysis_gavin_andresen/

i used to enjoy the tinfoil hat aspect to so many bitcoiners, but these days it is just sad & annoying.

Summers is a trojan horse

eh, disagree. summers' involvement is tptb driven. nothing more. nothing less.
you are actually calling "intelligent" people that spend the last 20+ years centralizing power (money) and disconnecting the economy from reality.

good job!

It's almost as though the comments from Hock, Reed and Summers were scripted:


^ One could interpret this as a subtle critique of Central Banks' "command and control" monetary policy, in favour of a modern decentralized approach.


^ This is a straightforward acknowledgement of the "Money is Memory" thesis.  There is no better ledger than The Blockchain.


^ Bitcoin is powerful because it is borderless and permissionless.  

Huzzah!

Agreed.  There is no conspiracy here.  It's just intelligent people one-by-one coming to realize what's happening, and then making rational decisions for their own self-interest.  I see Summers' involvement as an acknowledgement of bitcoin's potential.