Topic: Jim Rickards endorses Bitcoin - page 2. (Read 6632 times)

G. Edward Griffin likes gold backed government money but says he's open to the free market and private currencies competing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_hBhymFfm8#t=15m22s

In my experience, many many 'goldbugs' are old fossils, completely orthodox thinkers who are threatened by anything new, or both.  A fair number of them are actually just kind of stupid...and a much greater percentage of the silver-bugs fit this description.  There are a few exceptions, and I'm certainly not surprised to see Rickards evaluating Bitcoin critically.  Keiser also.  BTW, I'll bet that Rickards read and understood more about the technical nuts and bolts of Bitcoin in 1/2 an hour than most Bitcoiners will ever know (cypherdoc.)

I could have seen Denninger going either way.  He disappointed me by being close-minded in spite of the fact that he has the technical skills to understand the system readily.

I dunno if Sinclair will ever weigh in, but I'd love to see his read.  I'm afraid I would be disappointed though.

Yeah, maybe that gets at his issue... His stated skepticism is related to government action (at least that's what he articulates) which perhaps stems from a fundamental non-confidence (borne of ignorance) in the technical underpinnings; ie, the fact that gov *can't* actually shut bitcoin down. But being skeptical of new things without being able to firmly and rationally state why is fine. Humans often have an intuition about new things which they can only later explain fully, right or wrong. Unless Rickards is just unreasonably stubborn, he will necessarily fully (and/or grudgingly) come around on bitcoin the longer it exists. EDIT: Since by merely existing for longer, it should provide him with empirical evidence of bitcoin's sufficiently solid technical underpinnings, irrespective of whether or not he's going to go through the effort of fully understanding all the technical components.

altho Rickards ran thru a laundry list of general terms to describe the Bitcoin "he gets", i think he's probably not gone thru the nuts and bolts of hashing algorithms, POW as it relates to the Byzantine General's Problem, and ECDSA analysis.  not being a mathematician or a coder i wasn't convinced until i had a working understanding of how these things work and why they work not only from a mathematical perspective but from an economic incentive.  the key thing that he is probably missing is that Bitcoin is FAIR.  anyone can participate and not be subjected to a minority strangle.  the thing that made it all click for me was understanding that SHA256 hashing is basically a random function.  this makes my miner's guesses equal to any other miner out there with equal hashing capacity.  so if one wants to or is willing to spend the money to buy a machine that guesses faster than mine i see that as fair play.  clearly there is much more to Bitcoin but that one sticks in my mind.  it's tough work to understand how the system works and quite frankly not everyone has the ability to comprehend its complexity.  

this is Bitcoin's Tension.  

I don't know if Rickards really used to endorse bitcoin or not, but his current attitude, in his words, is "skeptical" (see his recent interview: http://futuremoneytrends.com/blog/?p=10062 ). Skeptical of what, I don't know. All he says is that bitcoin users should be aware that government is watching. Well, duh... I don't know why he seems to implicitly think that that's any different than for any type of financial transaction. It's pretty obvious that all financial movements are tracked, be it fiat, purchases of gold/silver, or blockchain transactions.

In my opinion, Rickards thinks very well about the global monetary dynamics in general. China, deflation followed by inflation, etc... His macro view makes him a natural gold bug, but he seems to have something of a block when it comes to accepting that bitcoin is a monetary superset of gold, and that if you're bullish on gold, you logically have to be bullish on bitcoin (unless you're trying to insure against an internet-gets-shutdown scenario).

Maybe it's a generational thing.... Many older gold-bug types ARE starting to acknowledge that bitcoin sports all of gold's good qualities (and then some), but *still* have a mental block when it comes to tangibility that's tough for them to rationalize (because it's irrational). These things take time. They may take a generation.

It's not just you.  The more the police do their job in controlling the criminal element, the better the news will become.   

no; bitcoin is free market. let the banks or anyone buy into the free market if they choose

Jim Rickards is a great mind. I follow news about him regularly here:

http://jimrickards.blogspot.com

I think I used to fuck your sister, Just Yu. She used to scream, "Just Me! Just Me! Just Me!", but I contributed that to her having a hairlip.

I think any new exchange should completely ban institutions such as banks and funds from purchasing BTC on there site.

The last thing Bitcoin and the community needs is two twin freaks with bags of cash and not a lot of knowledge or a multi billion dollar bank holding assets that at any time can have a significant impact on the market if used in certain ways. Bitcoin is a currency from the people, for the people and I for one am not comfortable knowing that Banks, Funds or any investment vehicle will have any hand in the Bitcoin market. While I understand that there may be many individuals with large volumes of cash and/or Bitcoin who can also influence the market, I'm much happier to put my trust in them than the any big financial institution who have time and time again proven that there lying, cheating, robbing bastards.

We constantly here about country's regulating Bitcoin, maybe its time Bitcoin community created some regulations of its own?

It's just_me








lol

Rickards gives some good and skeptical words on bitcoin at the end of this interview here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVOmVbHtz1k#t=20m30s

Is he really a fan? He certainly is a Statist at any rate. Perhaps he will learn over time.

I just found this on Vimeo (Malka vs Jim Rickards) :

http://vimeo.com/68798254 "DEBATE: WILL BITCOIN BECOME A WIDELY USED CURRENCY?"

Jim's starts off badly with a couple of factual errors :
   02:07: says "Satoshi's paper does not talk about money..." (oh yes?)
   02:21: says "the technologists do not understand money..." (wait, that would be us right?)

Round 2 is for scare tactics :
   04:17: "There have been over a billion dollars of counterfeit bitcoins produced..."
   04:20: "Tens of millions of dollars of stolen bitcoins..."
   04:30: "CP plus gov already shutting this down etc..."

Round 3 :
   09:28: "bitcoin.org / mtGox says do not put more than can afford to lose, not a currency, etc" (i.e. Therefore it is basically no good)
   10:08: Again says "the technologists do not understand money..."
   10:30: Gives good little citizens (or subjects if you a Brit) credit if they choose to pay their taxes.
   11:00: Did you know "the main encryption alg was invented by the NSA" - panic everyone
   12:00: Violating lots of laws... "gov in process of shutting it down".

Round 4 (Jim asks questions) :
   13:20: Mostly "bugs" and theft and hacking talk.
   16:10: Ahh, so it wouldn't work in a world with no electricity? Tsk tsk tsk black mark against BTC right there. Seriously what?!
   16:19: Gold, you see, doesn't need electricity...
   16:44: Deflation "problem"...

Round 5 (Malka asks questions) :
   17:40: Jim says he is not against innovation...  "BTC is up against gov..." "Ability of the gov to destroy things" (have to agree there)

Round 6 (Jim rounds up) :
   21:45: All gloom and doom.

Round 7 (Malka rounds up) :
   24:12: ...

Vimeo search never seems to work well. I find its better to Google it externally this string "site:vimeo.com "DEBATE WILL BITCOIN BECOME A WIDELY USED CURRENCY"

Very true! That's also how you should treat bitcoins in your portfolio and sell it to others.

Like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnbbOG2aFM

Just saw some recent video's from Jim Rickards and he's far from endorsing bitcoin today, he started fighting it

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/malka-rickards-debate-bitcoin-utility-longevity-662IxXXTQl2e~49s0UZNhw.html

Rickards explains the difference between "paper gold" and physical gold. His points are applicable to bitcoin.

Texas Hoarding Gold in Its Own Fort Knox?
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000156375

http://jimrickards.blogspot.com

 

Clearly from the beginning I realized this wasn't an endorsement in the traditional sense based on what he said in the article.

However, if I had asked him personally for one based on bitcoin, I could not have hoped for one better than what he said.