Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 646. (Read 2032266 times)

Great points, Molecular.  Crypto 2.0 applications like stock certificates and property-title transfers are often discussed in the abstract where they may appear like the natural evolution of blockchain technology.  However, upon delving into the details, the concept is not as enticing as it may first appear due to the "messiness" of the link between the blockchain token and the property that exists in the outside world.  

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.

I wonder if they will advertise since they have such a positive response.

Really good news:

NCR Silver merchants have continued to gravitate towards bitcoin despite Apple Pay’s bold presence in the market.

Reggie Kimble, the point-of-sale company’s product manager, mentioned that users are constantly asking about the cryptocurrency and how they can incorporate it in their business.

Kimble admitted in an interview that the company was first hesitant in offering bitcoin. NCR’s strategy was a slow, low risk approach that involved deep research and market observation, similar to other large brands and governments.

But now that merchants are responding in a positive manner, the company has begun increasing its activities in bitcoin-related campaigns

https://paymentweek.com/2014-12-1-ncr-silver-merchants-more-inclined-to-use-bitcoin-over-apple-pay-6168/

John Mauldin...


Actually the 'security' of transactions is not derived solely from blockchain tech. More essential is asymetric crypthography. PoW is 'just' used to avoid double-spends (find consensus), which in case you're going to back bitcoin with gold anyway can be solved more easily using a centralized ledger (with asymetric crypto to sign transactions).


Bold claims! We have the same problem as with a gold-backing of tying tokens in the blockchain to the real world. If centralized institutions (courts, police) are necessary for enforcing property rights anyway, why not have the ownership ledger managed by those (or related) institutions, too. If you need mechanisms external to the blockchain to go from 'token control' to 'legal property', I don't see much added value of using a blockchain. (It changes a bit with smart property as envisioned by Mike Hearn (leased car functions only on blockchain ownership proof), but that's a long way to go still and I doubt Mauldin is thinking of this. Also a derivative products can be built on top of blockchain-based tokens more securely than on central-ledger-based ones. Also: paying dividends and holding votes based on stock ownership can be integrated into a blockchain if it is linked to a liquid value-carrying monetary ledger)

So, Mauldin 'getting' those potential applications and 'not getting' the fact that bitcoin is the best (better than gold) sound money we've ever had (w/o backing) seems strange to me. It can probably be explained easily by looking at his portfolio... very similar really to Peter Schiff in that regard.

The opening paragraph of Matt Taibbi's article 'Everything is Rigged: The Biggest Price Fixing Scandal Ever' sums it up:

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything."

Not too much of a stretch to say, with this FedLeak news and the GoldmanTapes, that Libor & ISDAfix weren't the worst of it.

This is why you can't win :

Fed Leak Tipped Traders to Historic Stimulus Move, Prompted Secret Inquiry

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-01/fed-leak-handed-traders-profitable-tip-prompted-secret-inquiry.html?cmipd=twtr1&hootPostID=4b69b3bec9dcc364dc37034209c4b079

The concept of money in Austrian economics, ie. money commodity, is somewhat flawed.

Bitcoin makes every body think harder about what money really is and the more open-minded discovered the much more sophisticated concept of money-memory (which afaik, Bastiat was the first to set forth in 1850, but the problem of a lot of Austrians economist is that they think they already know everything and consequently they are not prone to make evolved their ideas. They are unfazed if their prediction doesn't come into fruition, for example they call hyperinflation and if hyperinflation doesn't come they explain it's because the indexes recording inflation are flawed. They deal with cognitive dissonance like cult members.

I am beginning to wonder if many of the public proponents of sound money that were promoted as alternative experts many years ago, were nothing but sales men for their own gold products. That they are not adherent defenders of the principles of Austrian economics, but instead are simple promoters and it just happened that sound money was nothing more than words that they found their target customers most responded to. Peter Schiff comes to mind.

If this is the case, then of course it makes sense to try and tie Bitcoin to gold which then acts as a conduit for your gold interests. Overall I think Bitcoin is exposing who is truly interested in changing the current corrupt system vs. who has just been promoters for their own interests (whatever they may be).

Another possibility is you're wrong and they're right...  Nah.  Those might be intelligent people, but you folks are mental giants!

Yeah, I think you're spot on that they haven't taken the time. Whereas most of us obsessed over bitcoin for months (or years) after discovering it, I think most of these guys give it spurts of thought every now and then. Which is, again, just really annoying to watch because their process is so public and influential.

this is just the regular perks of basic mainstream-slippage.. lazy noobs wanting in at no cost.
but they should still be grateful they get to know bitcoin at this stage.

Side Chains are how people like this will engage in Bitcoin, in his evolution of understanding John Mauldin is conditioned and primed to accept a Bitcoin derivative on a SC. The risk is people like him flowed by the Keynesians will form the economic majority during the next growth stage, and there are more of them than there are of us, so there is a lot of change that can happen if we dont keep a tight rein on the Bitcoin incentives.

The only link to the real world is the timestamps in the block headers, used to regulate the block frequency. Everything else is just numbers.

More than painful for me - it's confusing - these are not dumb people making the "blockchain not Bitcoin" argument. It's almost as if they haven't taken the time to thoroughly understand the relationship between the economics and tech of Bitcoin.. which to me is baffling if you believe you're dealing with "one of the most potentially revolutionary developments of the last century." It can't be the case.

I'd venture to guess that most longer term members of this forum were able to grasp economic value-add of Bitcoin at a detailed level in less than few months time..

Thinking in terms of S-curve technology adoption, what are the qualities, dispositions, economic position(?), etc. of Bitcoin early adopters? Certainly classical economic training and technological understanding aren't the only cornerstones.

It's incredibly painful to watch these guys go through this process....in public, with massive audiences, and massive influence.

Someone should just turn this thread into a book and mail it to them all.

Bitcoin definitely gaining on Ruble:

That seems to be the core disagreement, and I don't believe that SC's do break that aspect. Jumped back in after switching to silent observer for a while since I thought we were taking a break from SC for now. But if not then I'll try to reply on this tonight. Day job is killing me recently.

yes, Bitcoin is a Self Contained Financial System

i still think you break that financial system by allowing an offramp to SC's.

Very well stated, thanks.

What continues to be missed by Mauldin and others is that any sound money construct has to be contained wholly within itself with zero external dependencies. The problem with "backing" is the backing mechanism (whatever it is) becomes the weak point which must be trusted. For example, the FED originally was sold as a trusted entity that would back paper dollars with gold, however by 1932 the amount of FED paper liabilities was so far beyond physical actually held, that the FED was forced to default on it's obligations. Backing Bitcoin with gold is no different than backing paper dollars with gold, it doesn't work.

There is a reason we have the phrase "cold hard cash", it came from many generations learning to not trust "backing".

When Mauldin argues to back bitcoin with gold what he is really saying is "I want the world to use my version of sound money (atoms of gold) and not your version of sound money (Bitcoin ledger), but since physical gold is too difficult for your average person to use now I need your technology". However if Mauldin wants to recreate the gold standard, then the hurdle is to get the majority of the public to use physical gold (not paper products based on physical), this is a difficult hurdle.

The brilliance of Satoshi's Bitcoin is he designed the hurdle for your average person to directly use a sound money system to be very very low, lower than any sound money system we've ever had access too. That is proving to be a level of understanding real world economics that is beyond the vast majority of today's economists.

confusion continues to reign:

"As London-based consultancy Z/Yen put it earlier this year: “For many people the big story is not Bitcoin, rather it’s the blockchain technology that makes tens of crypto currencies work. Working since 2009, forged in a global furnace of libertarian money, trade, avarice, criminality, espionage and law enforcement, Bitcoin and other crypto currency experiments provide increasing confidence that blockchains are robust in harsh environments and have a bright future.”

http://www.bankingtech.com/249752/next-out-of-the-block/#.VF_H6C3PelU.twitter

this is how you tell we are NOT in a bubble.