Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 436. (Read 2032286 times)

Other applications attempting to use a block chain data structure are merely creating an alternative type of db. One that is arguably less efficient unless centralized at which point it becomes questionable whether the use of a block chain is preferable.

Bitcoin's data base is unique in that the information it transmits is scarce and a liquid market exists for it.

You tell that to the lunatics at @Eris (Preston Byrne) 

Other applications attempting to use a block chain data structure are merely creating an alternative type of db. One that is arguably less efficient unless centralized at which point it becomes questionable whether the use of a block chain is preferable.

...

The former without the latter is akin to putting a horse on roller skates.

Centralized ledgers and protocols precede bitcoin, the blockchain is wholly unnecessary for such a system. 

It seems to me that when most people say they are interested in the "blockchain technology" but not BTC, they are focused on the protocol and ledger aspects of the blockchain and not on the distributed security mechanism of the blockchain. These are two separate things.

I like that suggestion.

It seems to me that when most people say they are interested in the "blockchain technology" but not BTC, they are focused on the protocol and ledger aspects of the blockchain and not on the distributed security mechanism of the blockchain. These are two separate things.

It is perfectly possible to have a Google blockchain or a FED blockchain where the 3rd party provides security and maintenance for their own blockchain. These blockchain chains would still have the same protocol, ability for direct transactions, machine to machine micro-payments, etc. They would however lack the distributed security mechanism of bitcoin and rely on trust with the 3rd party. People who say bitcoin's value is the blockchain and not BTC seem to be OK with this scenario.

Bitcoin's blockchain has both "the blockchain protocol" and "the blockchain distributed security mechanism" (which requires the token to have independent value).

We call this "the blockchain" today, but it's really two separate concepts and I think that is what is commonly missed in the general public. If you separate them conceptually, and convince people that the blockchain's distributed security mechanism is valuable and desirable also, then it becomes easier to discuss why the token has to have value. If that person doesn't need a distributed security mechanism and instead trusts the FED, then for them it is just the protocol that has value.

Fine on hand, but on the other it's really annoying when people just say "blockchain technology" because it lets people think that there's a purpose/value to blockchain technology without an independent valuable on-chain asset.

So I suppose we could just start calling the bitcoin blockchain something which cannot rationally apply to anything else. Like: "Secure Blockchain" or something.... eg: "Abra and Align Commerce both utilize the breakthrough Secure Blockchain as rails for cheap and instant global payments."

IIRC Greg Maxwell himself mentioned that Coinbase closed his account.  I think I recall him mentioning it on this thread, or at least this forum.  I don't believe that they appropriated his BTC, but there would be very little to stop them if they were instructed to do by the regulators for whatever reason.

The most plausible reason for Coinbase to do take this action is that Maxwell's coins were mixed, probably with coinjoin which he mostly authored I think.  Certainly the guy has every reason to hodl a boat-load of BTC which he obtained through completely honest means.

I doubt that Coinbase is under any more obligation to tell anyone why they his account than Wells Fargo was when they canceled my bank account.  That is to say, none.  They told me straight up that they had no intention of telling me in writing why my account was canceled, though they did verbally tell me that it was due to my activities with Coinbase.  Coinbase was utterly un-interested in the details which surprised me slightly since they were implicated by name and one would think that such an action if it became a trend could impact their business.

Upshot:  Your projections of the possible future are somewhat off in terms of timing.  The future was already here.  There is room for things to become significantly worse, though, and they probably will.

I suspect that a participant in the Bitcoin ecosystem who is willing to lift the rose-colored classes on occasion and generally keep his eye on the ball will be rewarded for doing so.  At least if they have something non-trivial on the line.  As Gavin guides us gently closer to the alligator's mouth there will be times when it makes sense to take certain evasive actions.

http://www.coindesk.com/bonafide-raises-850k-build-reputation-system-bitcoin/
"Moyer, who started his career doing signals intelligence for the army and later for the NSA, used cash as an analogy for the way bitcoin is right now pretty much anonymous [but right now pretty much not at all].

He said:

“You know if I bring you a million dollars of cash there is something wrong. The reason is, you have no way of knowing where that money comes from [but you definitely do with Bitcoin :malicious grin:].”"

...
This and Abra Global are two beautiful ways of abstracting Bitcoin out of the picture for the benefit of commercial and mass consumer adoption.
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Where this is likely going is Coinbase declaring coins from pools that don't play ball to be "high risk" or alternately declaring all coins of unknown origin to be "high risk". High risk means they won't process transactions involving those coins (will require you to send them back or possibly just seize them) or will close your account if you try to do so.

I can see a situation fairly soon (if not now) where services like Coinbase, etc. will only deal in coins that are something of a closed loop between themselves, Bitpay, and a few others, meaning those services will be available only to customers for whom that is their entire use case for Bitcoin. The rest who trade coins outside "the system" will find themselves in a new version of unbanked.

This is not satoshi's Bitcoin any more.

Yeah I'm beginning to wonder if it's intentional or if they really don't grasp the connection. If the latter, then it truly shows how early days we are and when the undeniable realization does hit, well, hyperbitcoinization here we come.

there's that blockchain again!

This and Abra Global are two beautiful ways of abstracting Bitcoin out of the picture for the benefit of commercial and mass consumer adoption.

Bear in mind that AOL ended up buying a large media company and is still around (recently or soon to be spun off into a standalone company again, I'm not sure which), so that is not necessarily an outcome that would be considered a failure. They didn't stay on the leading edge of technology (though that was never really their model anyway).

In fact the analogy between AOL and Coinbase is fairly close. Both were created to make a new technology more accessible to the masses in a watered down form.

Whoah, I get it. I get what's going on here. They're backdooring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

Connect the dots:

1) No mention of Bitcoin on Align's website, except in the press section headlines, even though they use it. Only ever mention "the blockchain" and "blockchain technology."

2) Somehow this has escaped mention on /r/Bitcoin and elsewhere, even though it's gigantic news. They've deliberately not associated with "Bitcoin" overtly. It seems at first strange, because they could have had a bunch of easy customers from the Bitcoin community, as well as its support. Think: Overstock's Bitcoin acceptance launch where they got a bit of a sales boost. But it makes perfect sense when you realize they're gunning higher. The old paradigm is to offer service for the Bitcoin community; the new paradigm is to offer services that use Bitcoin and include no reference to it, because customers don't need to understand it, know how to secure it, or deal with it at all.

2) The recent trend of, "We don't know about this Bitcoin thing, but blockchain technology is the future" is turned on its head by Align's strategy. What was a sort of backhanded dismissal becomes a Trojan horse. Bitcoin quietly becomes the payment rails for better bank wires, stigma intact but irrelevant because no one knows they're using Bitcoin.

3) The general sense among some thinkers in the space that "when Bitcoin succeeds it'll be because people don't even know they're using it."

The implications for investment are obvious, but users of Align's service are completely removed from that. Investing in Bitcoin, to them, would be like investing in Cisco because they like buying books on Amazon.com. But Cisco still did very well because it was needed for the backbone infrastructure and investors recognized that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/04/02/how-bitcoin-will-end-world-poverty/

Posted by Steve Forbes himself.

In that scenario, Coinbase would find themselves a relatively useless niche company, a bit like AOL. They would be the ones cut out of the greater loop of the burgeoning Internet of Money. You can posit that regulators would jump on board this and restrict the US Bitcoin economy to that little niche, but it'd be like if they did the same with AOL in 1995. The vast possibilities of the Internet would have moved to other countries, leaving the US behind. How long would that have lasted? How long can they take the pain of seeing that tax revenue stream grow overseas?