Topic: I'm a Central Bank trying to keep Bitcoin from being adopted - page 2. (Read 13966 times)

Central banks can't serve their purpose through Bitcoin because Bitcoin cannot be created at will to accomplish policy goals.  If CBs were going to support Bitcoin, they'd already be supporting gold as it provides many of the same balances.   The problem with gold is it's opaque - you have to store it, and it's very valuable so you don't want to let everybody see it.   This provides a way to, even on a gold standard, produce currency in excess to what your "backing" would allow, because nobody checks how much you actually have and lacking that information it's pretty much impossible to determine how much currency should be out there.

Bitcoin doesn't allow that - If a currency were to be backed by it, the reserve address would probably be printed on the money so that anyone who wanted to check what their dollar was backed by could just look up the bitcoin address and see how many BTC there are relative to the amount of the paper currency in circulation. 

So again, please re-examine what purpose central banks actually serve - If you think it's to "keep inflation low" I suggest you re-examine your analysis.

It is to finance government.   The way you finance government when you don't want to tax as much as you want to spend is by devaluing the currency.  Bitcoin would make that impossible, and in being such good money demonstrate to the world what bad money all alternatives are.

I think the gold/silver markets are likely manipulated, for no less a nefarious reason than the money being made on derivatives based on the market far outweighs the cost of moving the price.

However, this does not necessarily lead to that, bitcoin is not metal. It is not subject to the same laws that govern its control. I am not aware of any actions that have been taken by the central banks with regard to bitcoin. The only motives  I assign to the bank is the betterment of its own position in the game.

As for the point of the game - I think we have different games in mind. I have the broader goal of how the central banks might serve their own best interests through the mechanism of bitcoin, whereas you seem to be specifically focused on how best to discredit bitcoin, based on the assumption that this *is* the optimum strategy.

I don't agree with the premise that discrediting BTC is the best action for the banks to take. I think we even agreed that you can't *kill* it you can only mess with it. If it can't be killed, then maybe it can be controlled.

The more I think on the more the 'own the network' plan seems to make sense for the banks. I'd be glad to hear counter arguments to that, as it has me a little worried. I'm really hoping they are stubborn/stupid enough not to.

Hey guys, what about this: banks will start using BTC.

If you can't beat them join them.

everyone knows its open source so not sure what u on about there.
New crypo currencies are created regularly and the creators have no trouble identifying themselves. so the onus is with the satoshi guys to reveal themselves and move bitcoin forward to its rightful place.
i'm happy to add to my bitcoins stack if i know
a: how many persons are behind "satoshi"
b: what was there stack of bitcoins before they went public with it
c: what is there combined mining power

without this basics we are simply sheep on a truck "thinking" to go to greener meadows but really we are taken to the slaughterhouse.
 

I do very much get Bitcoin, and love it. It doesn't matter what price it's at if I'm going to spend it today, but if I don't have confidence that it can retain it's value, I'm not going to let it sit around. Let's not get into whether the current price represents a bubble; it looks like one, and to outsiders that's all it is!

The "bankers" have to control Bitcoin from the shadows - if it's understood that the currency is controlled what's to stop people  from starting a new fork that's the "bankers don't control this version of bitcoin" and then all the people who don't like the idea of bankers controlling Bitcoin would be able to switch.   If bankers controlled bitcoin, it would be because they bought a large portion of the market, which would cause the price to increase quite a bit - so selling out at that point on bitcoin and switching to something new is very plausible.

The options are very limited actually - Nobody is locked in, so bitcoin needs to continue providing advantges in order for it to continue being used.

If the rulers are behind bitcoin, this might be a beta version before they create a crypto currency that is better suited for their purposes. We might be guinea pigs...

I think if the banksters or any government agency were behind bitcoin there would have been endless positive stories in the mainstream media over the last 2 years.

At the end of the day there is only two possible ways.
Either the banking cartel controls bitcoins or it does not. If they don't control it they will destroy it its as simple as that.
To get rid of this great concept u only need to use human natures GREED for money and power and it will destroy itself. Up until the beginning of the year bitcoins acceptant s and price where moving in the right direction. Now acceptance is decreasing and price is sky-rocketing because everybody just hoards the coins because on day x there worth a million each. Which is still low as there only ever will be 20 million of them (1 million be lost over time). All the cartel needs to do is throw some blood into the water to intensify the feeding frenzy and then at the height of it raid gox (or any small exchange will do, which ever has got the most favourably jurisdiction) for money laundering or ter******* charges and it will wreck havoc since confidence will be gone. All the people who took out loans, prawned the family jewellery and mortgaged the house to buy bitcoins will try to cash in asap. Then when everyone still trying to figure out what happened the cartel will say thanks for the crypto idea and since it is such a great and wonderful tool we will implemented and from now on u can pay our taxes with it and use it in all major retailers and ….. well, make it part of you.
Now the second scenario.
I know most believe (made belief) Satoshi is this lone hacker writing this marvellous code and hold only a handful of bitcoins himself, really just coded out of kindness. Well few may believe the entity satoshi really holds power (more than 50% of coins). Who the satoshi group is and how many coins they really are in control of we will never find out, so much is certain. Only someone very naïve believes they are smart enough to write this extremely technical code and at the same time are dumb enough to relinquish power being fully aware of the monstrous power of it. No one can argue that on day one they had not control of more than 50% so why give it up? Before early adaptors jumped on board they already had several millions of bidcoins mined, so having this great hashing power they mined a fair few since 2010 as well, and of course adding with smart buying and selling since they are in control of it since day one. (you will never be able to prove otherwise). There is no logical reason for satoshi not identify himself. Bitcoin will exist without him just as well from now on. There is nothing illegal releasing a open source code nor is his use otherwise every user is guilty too.
As a banking cartel if you would try to introduce a “one world currency” the traditional way people would revolt and fight to the end, yed if u come in at an arse about way from behind the people trip over each other to get in on the action, once it is widely accepted its game over.
The fast majority (billions) will never posses a full coin at most a fraction of it and only few (thousands) will hold the fast majority of wealth. No different to the current fiat system.
The power of belief, yes just look at religion to what extremes some go because the "believe". As an atheist only facts can convince me, so u will have a hart time argue.
Which of the two ways it is, time will tell. so far the money involved is only small change for the powers to be, 1000 merchants accepting it worldwide no reason to act upon at this time and no reason to hurry after all, all transaction are forever available!

What do you think the point of this game is?  It isn't to make everybody love bitcoin

You seem to be prescribing motives to players that don't really match their actions - Do you not think the Gold and Silver markets are manipulated to keep the price from running away and causing a panic into the "safe haven"?

It's not about "getting" bitcoin, it's about the price increases having both a push and pull effect on new buyers.  Using mBTC will be fine, but not when people are expecting to use BTC.  It's about expectation management, specifically with new users who as you say "really don't get bitcoin"

Wait until it comes out at the shareholders meeting that you spent all their money on your operation.  You will be lucky to get a job as shift manager at McDonald's.

From what I can tell there area lot of people looking to get into Bitcoin or even start accepting it who are waiting for more realistic prices. A drop in price could take Bitcoin mainstream.

I doubt the central banks *want* a crippled economy, what they want is not to lose their position as your lord and master!

Buying up or mining a significant amount the coins would not necessarily cripple the Bitcoin economy.

People would simply use what is left in circulation.

We sort of already have that situation now with lots of the coins from the original miners being forgotten or lost.

I think they can, as seems to be their specialty, kick the can further down the road. It seems to me though that they cannot stop the tide.

I think their best bet would be to try and capture as much of the bitcoinmarket as possible. Buying up coins now is the short term method. The real key though, I think, is to invest in hashing power (whilst their dollars are still worth something).

In the medium term you then capture most of the mined transactions. In the long term you start to ream in the transaction fees.

In this endgame, nobody has enough BTC to buy up hashing power to compete. Transacation fees become the new 'tax'. Welcome to the future! It's the same as before

 The  scenario described seems quite realistic,  the same  risk was described in a zerohedge headline today.
 With bitcoins huge coverage lately  I'm surprised it has not been more demonized in the MSM,  I would have thought that would be the first defensive reaction of those who would like to see bitcoin fail.
The possible defenses that I can think of are
a)  back bitcoin with reserves ( of gold probably), like a central bank, just enough to put some sort of floor on how far the price   could  fall in the case of a crash.  I can't see this happening,  who would pay for it?
b)  more exchanges,  somehow supporting more graceful price drops when demand is low.
c)  access to more btc  denominated  assets,  allowing current btc holders to cash out without going through exchanges.

The key is to  get money flowing within the bitcoin economy, and providing a wide range of exits to try and avoid panic selling when the price does fall.

From the other thread

Both the win and loss aren't well defined outcomes. More importantly, I think they are misdirection.

see https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1734674 for explanation of what I think the real failing of this plan is

Thanks - I had a feeling I wasn't up to date on shorting.
That said, I don't think this exchange is shorting much volume.

BTC trading is getting interesting today. Waiting to see if these "rescue buyers" are ready to sop up more coin at 120...
LTC's break to 5 USD is amazing as well...