We will need precious & rare metals for industrial purposes, not to store value.
We have a different solution for that. Get on with the program, b.
Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 449. (Read 2032286 times)
full member
Activity: 660
Merit: 101
Colletrix - Bridging the Physical and Virtual Worl
an armada of BitSats encircling the Earth.
and an armada of robotic mining craft returning from the asteroid belt laden with precious metals .... sometimes the future is closer than is imaginable when the theoretical ground shifts ... other times it is father away when engineering is more difficult than imagined too.
Because everyone knows that asteroids, comets, planetoids, moons, etc are primarily composed of gold while containing significant fractions of silver, platinum, and other valuable rare-earth metals as well. I mean, if these elements are rare here on earth they must be somewhere else instead. Logic 101.
If I were an investor, it might occur to me that a guy cannot win for loosing here. That is to say, if one came back with the Nostromo, Rolls-Royce N66 Cyclone thrust engines straining against the mass of all of the gold, and the promise of doing it again and again, the value of gold would likely fall dramatically thus making the investment a loser. And if the chief warrant officer blew the ship up to try to kill an alien, the results for my bottom line would be even more discouraging.
an armada of BitSats encircling the Earth.
and an armada of robotic mining craft returning from the asteroid belt laden with precious metals .... sometimes the future is closer than is imaginable when the theoretical ground shifts ... other times it is father away when engineering is more difficult than imagined too.
talk about robotics. these guys are amazing. maybe they have a future in asteroid mining:
http://geekologie.com/2013/10/boston-dynamics-humanoid-atlas-robot-tac.php
an armada of BitSats encircling the Earth.
and an armada of robotic mining craft returning from the asteroid belt laden with precious metals .... sometimes the future is closer than is imaginable when the theoretical ground shifts ... other times it is father away when engineering is more difficult than imagined too.
on balance, i think it's too late to make Bitcoin illegal or even put sharp restrictions on it here in the US.
mainly b/c it's global and their are too many large, legitimate US investors involved already. think NYSE, NASDAQ, multiple hedge funds, banks, VC funds, and numerous financial luminaries and Wall St folk. just about the entire Silicon Valley wants it as fintech has been irrationally and unfairly excluded from financial innovation forever. this is their time. Wall St has begun to sense the inevitability and are climbing aboard. there are plenty of overt data points and pending signs.
I'm sure glad that there are so few investors that are doing well with the existing fiat system otherwise they might have an interest in making sure Bitcoin did not threaten them.
'on balance', I'm pretty sure that most of these 'investors' want more than anything to see a system which will empower the plebs and give them the tools needed to break out of debt slavery and exploitation by...um...
an armada of BitSats encircling the Earth.
i'm not making the argument with tvbcof that gvt won't enforce unreasonable laws onto Bitcoin. that probably is in Bitcoin's future.
what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's. that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so. thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.
what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's. that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so. thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.
OK, got it.
For a modern day example, they are effectively banning the use of cash. So that everything is electronic and fully tracked in their financial system.
http://mises.org/blog/fighting-war-terror-banning-cash
In theory it should be impossible to enforce a cash ban, after all cash is similar to bitcoin it is not traceable and transactions are permanent, but in practice I am sure most businesses and individuals will voluntarily comply making the ban 99% effective.
I think what tvbcof is getting at is their ability to force major transaction points into their own system, will enable a government to effectively create a 'whitelist' bitcoin economy that is tracked an monitored. Yes, bitcoin will process coin transfers regardless of their whitelist / blacklist status, but what good is that if your employer, grocer, butcher, pizza man, electric, water & internet/phone utilities, etc. go along with the whitelist and only accept transactions from gov approved sources?
If this sounds far-fetched, well I'd challenge you to pay these firms with cash after the gov eventually forbids cash usage and demands electronic payments only. After that ban your cash would be useless, unless you can whitelist it into a bank account.
It's not technically possible to taint/track bitcoin, any more than it is not technically possible to ban cash transfers or gold transfers, yet these things can and still do happen.
on balance, i think it's too late to make Bitcoin illegal or even put sharp restrictions on it here in the US.
mainly b/c it's global and their are too many large, legitimate US investors involved already. think NYSE, NASDAQ, multiple hedge funds, banks, VC funds, and numerous financial luminaries and Wall St folk. just about the entire Silicon Valley wants it as fintech has been irrationally and unfairly excluded from financial innovation forever. this is their time. Wall St has begun to sense the inevitability and are climbing aboard. there are plenty of overt data points and pending signs.
If Gavin is worried about not being able to fork after the next potential burst why not apply Justus idea [1], too much coding with not enough time?
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/
Because who pays for that coding? And who can be sure that the proposal, even if completed and tested, will be adopted?
Or if adopted that it would have the desired effect.
I see it as likely collapsing into the same sort of economically-optimized-by-centralization system anyway.
full member
Activity: 660
Merit: 101
Colletrix - Bridging the Physical and Virtual Worl
If Gavin is worried about not being able to fork after the next potential burst why not apply Justus idea [1], too much coding with not enough time?
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/
Because who pays for that coding? And who can be sure that the proposal, even if completed and tested, will be adopted?
Andresen's position seems to be: (i) he takes responsibility for coding and testing a solution that as far as he can see takes care of the issue well into the future (ii) he does this with sufficient time for others to analyze it, so that, whatever else happens (iii) there is at least one safe fall-back option.
Can he guarantee his proposal is optimal? Of course not. It is just quite reassuring for it to be out.
i'm not making the argument with tvbcof that gvt won't enforce unreasonable laws onto Bitcoin. that probably is in Bitcoin's future.
what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's. that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so. thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.
what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's. that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so. thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.
OK, got it.
For a modern day example, they are effectively banning the use of cash. So that everything is electronic and fully tracked in their financial system.
http://mises.org/blog/fighting-war-terror-banning-cash
In theory it should be impossible to enforce a cash ban, after all cash is similar to bitcoin it is not traceable and transactions are permanent, but in practice I am sure most businesses and individuals will voluntarily comply making the ban 99% effective.
I think what tvbcof is getting at is their ability to force major transaction points into their own system, will enable a government to effectively create a 'whitelist' bitcoin economy that is tracked an monitored. Yes, bitcoin will process coin transfers regardless of their whitelist / blacklist status, but what good is that if your employer, grocer, butcher, pizza man, electric, water & internet/phone utilities, etc. go along with the whitelist and only accept transactions from gov approved sources?
If this sounds far-fetched, well I'd challenge you to pay these firms with cash after the gov eventually forbids cash usage and demands electronic payments only. After that ban your cash would be useless, unless you can whitelist it into a bank account.
It's not technically possible to taint/track bitcoin, any more than it is not technically possible to ban cash transfers or gold transfers, yet these things can and still do happen.
Quote
this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...
edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)
i spotted Angelo at a charity event i was attending last year. he's short; and tanned
Quote
this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...
edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)
Problem with insider sales is since a ton of compensation these days is in the form of options/stock, it is hard to tell what selling is due to foreseeing issues in their own business vs. standard selling for portfolio diversification. Insiders always sell more than they buy because of this compensation. (Tech insiders BTW have been selling hard into this latest tech bubble.)
Another problem is insiders are often wrong. The Enron CEO did not sell, and if my memory is right he was actively buying as the stock crashed, all the way to zero. He truly believed in the model and didn't understand how/why it failed.
IMHO the Enron CEO was not a criminal, just an idiot who didn't fully understand his own business. This differs from the Countrywide CEO who knew what was wrong, and milked the system.
Quote
this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...
edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)
bank of america acquired them before bankrupty/bailouts. (then BoA got ~ 50 billion in bailouts?)
Quote
this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...
edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)
A crash is never announced in MSM. I guess it will take a few more years until faith is lost.
... you would be surprised about how many articles, like this telegraph one, I read in MSM before the 2007 seizure in the CDO, CDS markets in august that ultimately led to the 2008 stock crash. No one can say they "never saw it coming", BIS, IMF and others all were warning. I believe it depends totally on your filtering mechanism (read normalcy bias), now that there is so much information available.
It is snippets from the trade floor and signs that insiders are getting out, CEO early retirements, moving to other sectors, etc, that are most valuable. If a room of traders anywhere near the capital markets, i.e. money market funds, MUNIS, corporate paper, T-bonds, gilds, LIBOR, gold, etc is saying they sense something different, pay attention. This is by no means a MSM article anyway, it is a side note by a financial section read by very small percentage of overall population. I suggest you go ask the man-on-street what the mood in the corporate bond market is currently to test your stupid comment if you believe the MSM is spouting this stuff.
Basically, I think you wrong and you will lose money because of it.
this was one of the clearest things going on in early 2007 that caused me to put on a huge stock short in Oct 2007 starting with New Century:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/countrywide-ceo-continues-unload-stock
A crash is never announced in MSM. I guess it will take a few more years until faith is lost.
... you would be surprised about how many articles, like this telegraph one, I read in MSM before the 2007 seizure in the CDO, CDS markets in august that ultimately led to the 2008 stock crash. No one can say they "never saw it coming", BIS, IMF and others all were warning. I believe it depends totally on your filtering mechanism (read normalcy bias), now that there is so much information available.
It is snippets from the trade floor and signs that insiders are getting out, CEO early retirements, moving to other sectors, etc, that are most valuable. If a room of traders anywhere near the capital markets, i.e. money market funds, MUNIS, corporate paper, T-bonds, gilds, LIBOR, gold, etc is saying they sense something different, pay attention. This is by no means a MSM article anyway, it is a side note by a financial section read by very small percentage of overall population. I suggest you go ask the man-on-street what the mood in the corporate bond market is currently to test your stupid comment if you believe the MSM is spouting this stuff.
Basically, I think you wrong and you will lose money because of it.
Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?
Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?
Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?
Just make people register. That was Yifu's angle as a principle at CoinValidation. UTXO's which are not registered to a known user or entity (e.g., Coinbase or blockchain.info) would halt a transaction from being valid. Very easy to justify in the name of 'fighting terrorism and child exploitation' and whatever. You can go before congress and argue all kinds of economic mumbo-jumbo about fungibility and freedom and what-not if you like. Good luck with that.
Sharp eyed viewers might notice that if one does not register, one cannot pay one's taxes. And there are well established ways to make people pay their taxes in almost all but the most failed of states. I'll register my stash the day I'm mandated to do so (which is why my conception of the best strategy is to avoid a mandate ever being practical rather than to resist compliance after it is been mandated.)
As a function of my Coin Validation service, I'd also run a service for miners so that they can ensure that they don't waste their time mining unvalidated UTXO's as inputs and their transaction set thus remain clean. If the choice is between taking this easy and popular step of using my government chartered service, and facing shutdown of their network support and confiscation of their gear, it will be a fairly easy decision in most cases. It seems to me that the new inverted bloom filter thing it could be remarkably efficient for a miner to ensure that they are not wasting their time with transactions which are going to be legally invalid because they contain unvalidated inputs. A side benefit of using a sorted transaction set.
I also find your suggestion that the likes of Russia and China are going to change their policies and welcome crypto-currencies with open arms to be laughable. And in case you have not noticed, piss-ant countries without nukes pretty much do what they are told by whoever's sphere of influence they fall under. Sure, there is a chance that your rosy dreams about totalitarian countries suddenly discovering the joys of individual freedom and geo-political power politics will come to pass, but I'm not betting a huge percentage of my financial statement on it.
this is exactly the sort of drivel i'd expect from your socialistic mindset. "i'd just mandate it be so".
notice that there is no depth to your assertions as they just represent your lips flapping once again. let me spell it out for you. the working assumption here is that there will be mass disobedience of your pronouncements as most ppl who are even remotely familiar with how the protocol works understands that it is impossible to "taint coins" as there is no such concept in reality. the trick for you is how to enforce your pronouncements. there are just inputs and outputs which get split & joined constantly giving "coins" that are ever lessening shades of grey as time goes by. and w/o a mechanism to identify owners of whatever unit you choose to monitor be it addresses or UTXO's, there is plausible deniability at every hop. the only way to prove someone guilty of a theft is to catch them with the private keys on their computer used at the time of the theft.
I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.
There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.
Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.
Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.
It's not super simple. There is a reason why you do not pay tax when you buy firewood from your neigbor. He and you say no. There is a reason why they can not say: You to can not have sexual intercource, how could you think that, here it is WE who decide who is to have sex and not to have sex. But the people says no, no way. There is a reason they can not say that you have to go to church every sunday. Everybody say no, no way, basta! This is also what people will say to the blacklists or the whitelists. They will say, no, not a chance, basta, the coins are mine. Mine! Get out of my face. That is what everybody will say. Not super simple at all. Without support, they can do nothing. Whitout you giving them resources, they have no resources. Bitcoin will make that clear to a lot of people.
That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.
No.
Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?
Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?
Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?
Just make people register. That was Yifu's angle as a principle at CoinValidation. UTXO's which are not registered to a known user or entity (e.g., Coinbase or blockchain.info) would halt a transaction from being valid. Very easy to justify in the name of 'fighting terrorism and child exploitation' and whatever. You can go before congress and argue all kinds of economic mumbo-jumbo about fungibility and freedom and what-not if you like. Good luck with that.
Sharp eyed viewers might notice that if one does not register, one cannot pay one's taxes. And there are well established ways to make people pay their taxes in almost all but the most failed of states. I'll register my stash the day I'm mandated to do so (which is why my conception of the best strategy is to avoid a mandate ever being practical rather than to resist compliance after it is been mandated.)
As a function of my Coin Validation service, I'd also run a service for miners so that they can ensure that they don't waste their time mining unvalidated UTXO's as inputs and their transaction set thus remain clean. If the choice is between taking this easy and popular step of using my government chartered service, and facing shutdown of their network support and confiscation of their gear, it will be a fairly easy decision in most cases. It seems to me that the new inverted bloom filter thing it could be remarkably efficient for a miner to ensure that they are not wasting their time with transactions which are going to be legally invalid because they contain unvalidated inputs. A side benefit of using a sorted transaction set.
I also find your suggestion that the likes of Russia and China are going to change their policies and welcome crypto-currencies with open arms to be laughable. And in case you have not noticed, piss-ant countries without nukes pretty much do what they are told by whoever's sphere of influence they fall under. Sure, there is a chance that your rosy dreams about totalitarian countries suddenly discovering the joys of individual freedom and geo-political power politics will come to pass, but I'm not betting a huge percentage of my financial statement on it.
this is exactly the sort of drivel i'd expect from your socialistic mindset. "i'd just mandate it be so".
notice that there is no depth to your assertions as they just represent your lips flapping once again. let me spell it out for you. the working assumption here is that there will be mass disobedience of your pronouncements as most ppl who are even remotely familiar with how the protocol works understands that it is impossible to "taint coins" as there is no such concept in reality. the trick for you is how to enforce your pronouncements. there are just inputs and outputs which get split & joined constantly giving "coins" that are ever lessening shades of grey as time goes by. and w/o a mechanism to identify owners of whatever unit you choose to monitor be it addresses or UTXO's, there is plausible deniability at every hop. the only way to prove someone guilty of a theft is to catch them with the private keys on their computer used at the time of the theft.
I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.
There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.
Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.
Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.
It's not super simple. There is a reason why you do not pay tax when you buy firewood from your neigbor. He and you say no. There is a reason why they can not say: You to can not have sexual intercource, how could you think that, here it is WE who decide who is to have sex and not to have sex. But the people says no, no way. There is a reason they can not say that you have to go to church every sunday. Everybody say no, no way, basta! This is also what people will say to the blacklists or the whitelists. They will say, no, not a chance, basta, the coins are mine. Mine! Get out of my face. That is what everybody will say. Not super simple at all. Without support, they can do nothing. Whitout you giving them resources, they have no resources. Bitcoin will make that clear to a lot of people.
That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.
i'm not making the argument with tvbcof that gvt won't enforce unreasonable laws onto Bitcoin. that probably is in Bitcoin's future.
what i'm arguing is their ability to actively taint tx's, either thru addresses or UTXO's. that's not technically possible for them and also for those they demand to do so. thus, their work will be cut out for them, assuming they need to actually track and enforce against those who disobey.
This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal. It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time. This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.
Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary).
Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary).
Catching up after a week's absence.
So fully agree with this sentiment. The change locks bitcoin onto an automatic 20 year ramp to essentially zero limit. None of us know for sure how this will play out.
The only reason I can think Gavin would want to do this is maybe a fear that after the next jump in price and usage, bitcoin might start to become too large to effectively fork/change, and so it is best to make a change today that locks in future changes to remove the limit as a minimum bitcoin needs.
Gavin's view seems to be that the market will figure it out. I agree it will, but believe it will figure itself out by becoming more centralized with a majority of nodes running in cloud datacenters (I already only run my full node in AWS). So I don't worry that bitcoin will technically break, but worry that the immediate solutions the market finds will make bitcoin less decentralized and easier for centralized governments to attack through regulation. I'd prefer bitcoin stay smaller if that is what it needs to do to remain more decentralized.
If Gavin is worried about not being able to fork after the next potential burst why not apply Justus idea [1], too much coding with not enough time?
[1]https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/
Jump to: