Topic: GoldMoney [FB post]: James Turk in conversation with Félix Moreno de la Cova - page 7. (Read 14827 times)

Is there a quick counter-argument for the "bitcoins are not tangible"?

It should be added to the Bitcoin - Myths, in honor of James Turk.

I liked the interview, James Turk seems reasonable enough. If the "tangible" is the only issue for him to embrace the idea, man, that's easy.

Watched the interview.  de la Cova touched on something which hit me as something of a 'killer app' of Bitcoin within minutes of my having a basic understanding of the solution (and have vocalized on this board off and on since that time.)  That is, as a transfer mechanism for physical gold since both gold and Bitcoin of fungible, divisible, reliable and offer a degree of privacy if one puts a priority on that.

It may occur to Turk that his outfit is potentially very well positioned to capitalize on a need for services here.  That is, if he does not mind relinquishing physical control of his inventory on demand.  And if he does mind doing so...hmmm...

Of course GoldMoney has to put up with all of the regulatory issues so it legitimately may not be worth the hassle to broker physical gold transfers.  Like Bitcoin itself, a much higher degree of questionable financial behaviour would be involved with a population of participants who value the capabilities of the solution.  And I personally am not about to hand over my biometric data to PayPal, Mt. Gox, or GoldMoney even though there is nothing I do which is even remotely questionable...at the present time and under the presently understood laws of the jurisdictions in which I operate at least.

You mean that graph ? :



Still wondering how you can be bearish on gold looking at that  

i like Keen's work very much.  especially his theory about how conventional Western based debt systems depend on accelerating debt.  just a drop off in the rate of that acceleration can lead to havoc which is where we are right now.  when you look at the contracting debt of the shadow banking system, you can understand why Ben has his panties all twisted up.

This is the most cordial interview ever.  Felix is one smooth talker.

Yep, seems to be a big problem in economics. More of a cult than a science, ignoring (or firing) contradition. Fortunately some are getting back to real science (I'm reading "Debunking economics" by Pr Steve Keen these days, this guy looks like a real scientist. Though apparently he doesn't like bitcoin because of deflation)

now there's a novel thought.  we Austrians often get trapped within our theorums and never think to question whether its outdated or just plain wrong.

He's not yet convinced, but he's getting there. He just need time (hopefully for him not too much) to be able to trust Bitcoin.
And Félix is a good speaker, clear and good arguments. Kudos to him.

Tangibility (as in "I can touch it") is clearly not important. He's saying "I can exchange a tangible asset, a silver coin, for a tangible commodity". He can also exchange the silver coin for a non-tangible asset, for example a service. A service clearly has value even if it's not tangible. And fiat money also proved that tangibility is not an issue. Most of fiat is electronic, and that's not the problem.
Problem is the amount of energy needed to expand the supply. USD supply can be expanded with a few keystrokes (basically 0 energy), gold supply can be expended by mining it (non-zero, increasing energy, sometimes not linear wrt time), bitcoin supply is expended by mining too (energy increasing arguably even faster that gold, piecewise-linear wrt time, reaching infinity in around a century if things stays like that)

"Backing" is also a complex term. To me it just means it's something desirable, not something which have another utility. Basically, in the case of money, backing would be desirable property for an object to be used as money.
Clearly bitcoin has desirable property as money :
 - divisible, fungible, verifiable, cheap & fast to transfer, peer to peer (no third party). That would be the good properties for a medium of exchange.
 - limited & predictable supply, decentralized control, and a good medium of exchange. That would be properties for a store of value.

Clearly with regards to these properties (I might have forgot some), bitcoin is superior to every other form of money. All these properties are the "backing" of bitcoin, and make it desirable.
No need to use Mises regression theorem (to me bitcoin is a good proof that this theorem is limited/wrong).

certainly thats part of the equation for Bitcoin.  one really needs to consider the whole concept to effectively understand it.  its no wonder that sunnankar is spending so much time trying to explain why Bitcoin is "tangible" here on the forum.  its b/c of Turk.  i think its somewhat of a red herring anyways.  i'd much more prefer to argue that it has "backing" which is the most common complaint i hear. 

Bah.  It's tangible (imo) because it's effectively irreproducible (just like gold, but simply leveraging different mechanics.)

Interesting thing is that one block chain is as good as another for actually doing accounting.  Similarly, a brick of gold is no better or worse than a brick of lead for knocking someone on the head if that is the goal.  But it's not.  If the very goal is to do reliable accounting, a block of substance with a specific number or protons in the specific number of nuclei, and a balance in the what I call 'blockchain zero' have a very strong similarity.  And both gold and Bitcoin(orig) have the 'mindshare' required to serve their purpose.  For now at least.

yes, but his tone was much more conciliatory and guardedly optimistic than prior.  Trace must be hammering on him.

i was a former Goldmoney holder and the reason i shut down my acct and liquidated my gold holdings was precisely b/c of the centralized fear of it being shut down by a gov't and my gold being seized.  James doesn't even consider this possibility.

on the one hand James says he looks forward to the return of a tangible currency as his vision for Goldmoney but neglects the fact that he is trying to revive his internet based digital gold tx system which is key to its success and which has so far failed and been restricted to Jersey.  this fails b/c it is an abstraction system layered on top of physical gold which can be manipulated or fractionally reserved by James himself.  not that i believe he is dishonest but the threat is there. it is also subject to regulation b/c of its centralization which is why the digital tx system got relegated to Jersey only.

he also neglects the fact that his operation is no better than eGold which was a centralized entity which can be shut down at any moment or forced to abandon its digital tx system as has already happened.  James doesn't understand peer to peer or decentralization which is the antithesis of what he is as Goldmoney.

the Bitcoin network is tangible in my opinion.  it consists of the cables, computers, and ppl involved in backing it.  not to mention all the fiat that has been spent to make these things happen.

Yes, James is not convinced...

Oh, here we go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzHC7Pf2fk

Watching right now..

EDIT: heh James still has problems with tangibility of biticoins, he thinks because he can touch a gold coin that's somehow the reason people all around the world will accept it

EDIT1: well at least he seems to be open to it and wont reject it outright but I'm slightly disappoint, can't be too surprised it's typical of someone a bit older (no offense to anyone, I understand there are many exceptions)

I 100% agree with everything you said, the gold part too

It's called "money".

I think it's important to emphasize the better definition - fiat meaning "by decree." It's a very important term in that sense, to understand a money having value by force. If we want to make a new term to describe money that is "backed by nothing" then we can do so (though I'll argue gold will fall in that category as well )

Understanding Bitcoin Security - Trace Mayer interviewed by VisionVictory

http://youtu.be/OtN9YUvh_XM

There is another interpretation of "fiat = let it be" where it doesn't mean a decree but rather just that it was created out of thin air, you know like how the fairly tale about god creating stuff goes where he supposedly said: "Let there be light." and there was light and it was good bla bla bla...

But yeah I too understand fiat to mean by a decree rather than being created out of nothing.