Author

Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 644. (Read 2032266 times)

hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
December 02, 2014, 05:29:40 PM
for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?
Lots of advantages in reliability and assurances.  More fundamentally it obsoletes some functions of auditing and government along with the associated costs to society.
It automates many of the administrivia of corporation management.

If you have ever run a public company, the advantages are more immediately apparent.

the pt that i was getting at is that until Bitcoin fulfills Satoshi's visions as a generally accepted and large enough form of currency or money, there will be no such trust or confidence given by the masses or larger financial institutions to embed asset derivatives into the blockchain as the "legal" ledger.

what will drive Bitcoins growth is a maintenance of its Sound Money function along with transactional growth which we are fortunately beginning to see w/o a doubt.  once it becomes a generally accepted global and apolitical public good as money, then it might be used to embed more riskier assets within the blockchain as with CP.

otoh, the blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money.  in which case, all those speculative assets may just be bought and sold with BTC as they will become denominated as such with the records continuing to be maintained by those organizations responsible for enforcing those contracts.

if we use Bitcoin to win the Money Game, we win Everything.  that is where the problem lies.

Yes Yes...
This is why I would like to see SPV side chains implemented on some altcoins.  
In matters such as these, it is not as important to see how things work, as it is to see how they fail and under what circumstances.


i would prefer NOT to see the spvp implemented, period, for all the reasons i've already made ad nauseum.  let them experiment on federated servers.

i'm not even sure how you'd bring an altcoin into a SC with spvp since the monetary properties of such altcoins are usually so divergent and non-sensical to most Bitcoiners it wouldn't be worth anyone's time or effort.

I'm quite sure NL was referring to a SPV proof trial test on an altcoin before merging it into Bitcoin.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 05:28:52 PM
i'm also going to claim that it's being driven by the commoditization of hardware as indicated by the leveling off of the hashrate.  prices have plunged 10-fold allowing more and more smaller pools into the game.  this was predicted here long ago:

The leveling off of the hash rate is almost certainly due to the 70% drop in price. You had huge investment pouring into mining, now you don't. What new gear is going into service is being balanced out by older unprofitable gear coming out of service.

That may in turn have some effect on pool concentration, but the effect is not clear to me, other than the obvious of say ghash not spending a lot on expanding the in house cloud mining right now.

I agree with Greg Maxwell as quoted in that tweet. The issues of mining decentralization have not been solved, as far as I can tell. I don't understand what you are talking about in terms of nash equilibrium so maybe you could expand on that so I can learn something.



yes, you're absolutely right about the price drop also plateauing mining HR along with commoditization.

i don't agree with Maxwell or the other doomers about mining centralization.  here's where i talk about Nash:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.10175;wap2
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 05:24:18 PM
for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?
Lots of advantages in reliability and assurances.  More fundamentally it obsoletes some functions of auditing and government along with the associated costs to society.
It automates many of the administrivia of corporation management.

If you have ever run a public company, the advantages are more immediately apparent.

the pt that i was getting at is that until Bitcoin fulfills Satoshi's visions as a generally accepted and large enough form of currency or money, there will be no such trust or confidence given by the masses or larger financial institutions to embed asset derivatives into the blockchain as the "legal" ledger.

what will drive Bitcoins growth is a maintenance of its Sound Money function along with transactional growth which we are fortunately beginning to see w/o a doubt.  once it becomes a generally accepted global and apolitical public good as money, then it might be used to embed more riskier assets within the blockchain as with CP.

otoh, the blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money.  in which case, all those speculative assets may just be bought and sold with BTC as they will become denominated as such with the records continuing to be maintained by those organizations responsible for enforcing those contracts.

if we use Bitcoin to win the Money Game, we win Everything.  that is where the problem lies.

Yes Yes...
This is why I would like to see SPV side chains implemented on some altcoins.  
In matters such as these, it is not as important to see how things work, as it is to see how they fail and under what circumstances.


i would prefer NOT to see the spvp implemented, period, for all the reasons i've already made ad nauseum.  let them experiment on federated servers.

i'm not even sure how you'd bring an altcoin into a SC with spvp since the monetary properties of such altcoins are usually so divergent and non-sensical to most Bitcoiners it wouldn't be worth anyone's time or effort.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
December 02, 2014, 05:21:18 PM
i'm also going to claim that it's being driven by the commoditization of hardware as indicated by the leveling off of the hashrate.  prices have plunged 10-fold allowing more and more smaller pools into the game.  this was predicted here long ago:

The leveling off of the hash rate is almost certainly due to the 70% drop in price. You had huge investment pouring into mining, now you don't. What new gear is going into service is being balanced out by older unprofitable gear coming out of service.

That may in turn have some effect on pool concentration, but the effect is not clear to me, other than the obvious of say ghash not spending a lot on expanding the in house cloud mining right now.

I agree with Greg Maxwell as quoted in that tweet. The issues of mining decentralization have not been solved, as far as I can tell. I don't understand what you are talking about in terms of nash equilibrium so maybe you could expand on that so I can learn something.

There's still a ton of investment going into mining companies  Huh

Better guess is they are in R&D mode right now (apparently the case for KnC) and are not putting any significant rig setup online lately

I also disagree with the "commoditization of hardware" argument. We are nowhere near this scenario IMO.
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 1198
December 02, 2014, 05:13:58 PM
i'm also going to claim that it's being driven by the commoditization of hardware as indicated by the leveling off of the hashrate.  prices have plunged 10-fold allowing more and more smaller pools into the game.  this was predicted here long ago:

The leveling off of the hash rate is almost certainly due to the 70% drop in price. You had huge investment pouring into mining, now you don't. What new gear is going into service is being balanced out by older unprofitable gear coming out of service.

That may in turn have some effect on pool concentration, but the effect is not clear to me, other than the obvious of say ghash not spending a lot on expanding the in house cloud mining right now.

I agree with Greg Maxwell as quoted in that tweet. The issues of mining decentralization have not been solved, as far as I can tell. I don't understand what you are talking about in terms of nash equilibrium so maybe you could expand on that so I can learn something.

legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1002
Gresham's Lawyer
December 02, 2014, 05:13:20 PM
for those assets, what are the advantages of decentralization?
Lots of advantages in reliability and assurances.  More fundamentally it obsoletes some functions of auditing and government along with the associated costs to society.
It automates many of the administrivia of corporation management.

If you have ever run a public company, the advantages are more immediately apparent.

the pt that i was getting at is that until Bitcoin fulfills Satoshi's visions as a generally accepted and large enough form of currency or money, there will be no such trust or confidence given by the masses or larger financial institutions to embed asset derivatives into the blockchain as the "legal" ledger.

what will drive Bitcoins growth is a maintenance of its Sound Money function along with transactional growth which we are fortunately beginning to see w/o a doubt.  once it becomes a generally accepted global and apolitical public good as money, then it might be used to embed more riskier assets within the blockchain as with CP.

otoh, the blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money.  in which case, all those speculative assets may just be bought and sold with BTC as they will become denominated as such with the records continuing to be maintained by those organizations responsible for enforcing those contracts.

if we use Bitcoin to win the Money Game, we win Everything.  that is where the problem lies.

Yes Yes...
This is why I would like to see SPV side chains implemented on some altcoins.  
In matters such as these, it is not as important to see how things work, as it is to see how they fail and under what circumstances.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 05:13:07 PM
oh Lordy.  from our favorite Bitcoin economist  Roll Eyes

https://twitter.com/TheScottRob/status/539895264807378945

he's been crying about this for years.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
December 02, 2014, 05:13:01 PM
this sounds pretty amazing.  anyone see any holes?

http://blog.choosecase.com/

Yeah I'm impressed, plus the founder is super hot.  Grin

Hole #1 : no working unit yet. still a prototype so let's see

I'm also curious about how the entropy and how they generate randomness. Even though I own a trezor I'm always kind of on the fence about using third-party hardware to generate my private key.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 05:09:19 PM
i'm also going to claim that it's being driven by the commoditization of hardware as indicated by the leveling off of the hashrate.  prices have plunged 10-fold allowing more and more smaller pools into the game.  this was predicted here long ago:



furthermore, now that money has appeared to slow to a crawl into the mining "bucket", i think it's now time for that money to flow into the BTC price "bucket".  so hold on.

http://www.coindesk.com/btc-chinas-new-pool-mines-3325-btc-five-weeks/
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 05:04:40 PM
i'm gonna argue how nicely mining is decentralizing based on this recent chart.  the nice Nash Equilibrium is equilibrating nicely.  the biggest growth is in the smaller pools:

legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
December 02, 2014, 04:58:22 PM
this sounds pretty amazing.  anyone see any holes?

http://blog.choosecase.com/
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
December 02, 2014, 04:43:09 PM
what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.

Quote
Place your gold or silver in secured and bonded custody to receive your digital tokens.

This looks no better than paper gold.

yes but it seems somewhat more transparent and decentralized.
It could be a good compromise for who wants to trade frequently and stay liquidity if it works.

Of course who wants to hodl forever does not need it.

Decentralized?

The gold is sitting in one vault.

It's funny, that's exactly what we've been discussing for the last couple pages

Like you pointed out, there's a fundamental difference between the transfer of a bitcoin, and the transfer of a token that represents a claim on some external-to-the-blockchain property.  In the latter case (asset-backed tokens), all that is transferred is ownership (and ownership is really a social construct, valuable only to the extent that one's society is willing to enforce property rights [as control of the property in question remains a physical problem]).  In the former case (bitcoin), what's transferred is control itself.

Yes the token system is decentralized but the asset(gold) is not. It is still very much controlled by a third-party and no more transparent then regular paper gold schemes
legendary
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1064
Bitcoin is antisemitic
December 02, 2014, 04:35:42 PM
what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.

Quote
Place your gold or silver in secured and bonded custody to receive your digital tokens.

This looks no better than paper gold.

yes but it seems somewhat more transparent and decentralized.
It could be a good compromise for who wants to trade frequently and stay liquid if it works.

Of course who wants to hodl forever does not need it.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1005
December 02, 2014, 04:33:10 PM
Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   Wink

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/


It is a bit like kids and horror stories. Frightening, but titillating.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
December 02, 2014, 04:25:26 PM
what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.

Quote
Place your gold or silver in secured and bonded custody to receive your digital tokens.

This looks no better than paper gold.
legendary
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1064
Bitcoin is antisemitic
December 02, 2014, 04:19:29 PM
what do you guys think of https://www.digitaltangibletrust.com ?
Anyone using it?
If btc rises much before pm I am tempted to use it.
legendary
Activity: 2324
Merit: 1125
December 02, 2014, 04:12:51 PM
Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   Wink

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/



Then they fight you.

They've been at it for a while. When do we win again?
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 5380
December 02, 2014, 04:10:06 PM
Does it go unnoticed that executives from Citibank can't seem to stop talking about Bitcoin?  Why would they bother if they really believe it has no future?   Wink

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-ross-ulbricht-bitcoins-likely-sell-discount-usms-auction/

legendary
Activity: 1722
Merit: 1004
December 02, 2014, 03:49:51 PM


English only, at the tables, please!
(Translate not working, and all I can find in English is: http://gamblingcompliance.com/premium-content/news_analysis/bitcoin-push-gathers-strength-pokerstars-interested)

Anyway, Bitcoin has been an obvious fit for the poker-world for years. That was one of my first thoughts in 2011. Especially after Black Friday, but even before, dealing with sketchy fiat intermediaries to fund/withdraw-from poker sites was always awful for people.

Furthermore, if PokerStars integrated bitcoin, it would be a hopefully-fatal blow to this nonsense: http://www.coindesk.com/stakes-high-star-backed-bitcoin-gambling-site-crowdsale-stumbles/ Brocoin....wtf.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1005
December 02, 2014, 03:46:30 PM
Yes but there are still advantages to decentralizing the transaction even if redemption must be centralized, because redemption happens rarely.  Also,  if stocks, bonds or mortgages are directly offered on the blockchain (as opposed to representing certificates stored in a vault) they simultaneously represent something but also are themselves property.

I agree that decentralizing the transactions of stocks, bonds and mortgages may have advantages.   I guess I'm just slightly annoyed by the meme that "currency is only the first app of blockchain technology."  What needs to eventually be understood by the media is that:

(1) Currency is the foundational application of blockchain technology; without a valuable currency, no other apps are possible.
(2) The native blockchain units (bitcoins) are the only asset with no counterparty risk.


Many people have a problem conceptually separating the need to trust a counterparty to fulfill a contract, and the need to trust a ledger system to accurately record ownership information.

It's possible to make the latter arbitrarily small, but there's no technological solution to the former as it's inherent to the problem space.

Yes, well said.  We need to stress the distinction between trust of the ledger system and trust of the counterparty (and then point out that bitcoin is fundamentally different as it has no counterparty [or perhaps the counterparty is the ledger system itself]).  

Justus, I see you're giving a talk via telepresence in Vancouver on Thursday.  What will you be speaking about?



Other uses of blockchain technology (and not the bitcoin blockchain, it is easy to construct blockchains with less security) is where the good is only information, for example the right to access a theater (a ticket). You can show up at the entrance with a ticket "coin" (a better word needs to be invented) and send the ticket to the ticket office for admission. It could be done with an association of theaters where each theater runs a miner, and no block reward is necessary.

I fail to see why you would need a blockchain for that though... Any centralized server model could do.

That is what we have, but this one would have tickets which are transferable, and the uptime of a distributed system. Ticket sale could therefore be distributed without the need for agreement for the distributor (he just buys tickets and resell them).

Jump to: