Topic: rpietila public diary -- Episode II - page 8. (Read 40823 times)

Rampion was correct that $300k did not happen this year. The psychological mechanisms that I outlined are however still there, it just did not trigger yet. I currently consider that 2015-2016 is the time when we cross $300k on our way up. Of course parabolic growth is unsustainable I never said that it would be a smooth ride or that it would not end in a spectacular bubble before finding the stable valuation which takes years.

Maybe my greatest contribution was to actually make the $300k figure mainstream. I remember it was met with suspicion and ridicule back in late April, when I introduced it. Now it seems that everybody is content with the idea.

I disagree on the technology side. It would help tremendously to have Bitcoin ATM's in every corner, and a way for the early adopters to repatriate their gains effortlessly. But the price rise can happen regardless of that, and the ill-functioning infra just steepens the rise, because by restricting the fiat flows it squeezes the exchange rate up quicker than what would happen in perfect market circumstances.

Btw, we were supposed to show our work, and not just the final solution. Yes maybe that would accelerate grading of the very rare case of 100% correct. Not a very compelling argument.

But you would be remiss not to notice that I did not enter that contract on my own free will, thus the terms were not mutually agreed. The system is trying to force down my throat how I should set my priorities.

I think that is a very interesting rebuttal because it illuminates the difference between a socialist (big government) and a minanarchist (small government).

In case that link above doesn't make this clear, socialists want to fix Syria but can't even fix Detroit, because they don't understand relative value. So they think every requirement makes sense, because it is all fair.

Because they fundamentally don't understand that potential energy = degrees-of-freedom.

So yeah I guess I am being arrogant again. How else could I rationally respond?


Does that make you feel better? But this chest thumping doesn't help you because your inability to generate a model sticks out like a blackeye above, or was that just error due to haste?


Good point except I can't choose who replies, when I am attempting to talk seriously with the technologically astute.


9/11 could not have been unorganized, nor performed by a few guys on camels as presented. And anyone who has studied deeply and objectively as those 1000s of architects and engineers did understands it is not what it was presented to be.

Who can deny a master plan to enact the Patriot Act and down the AML, KYC hole we are in now.


I am not a socialist, so I will not bend the important work to be fair to the unimportant nonsense. I know their opinion of me (and it is not all the same).


I was responding with a personal story to a discussion that Risto et al started about the mode of control starting with primary education.

What you are really saying is that you want social control/conformance. Typical socialist you are. You are under their mode of control. You are even parroting it.

Risto (et al), I don't know where you finally settled on in your philosophy about precious metals (ya'll know Risto was/is a precious metals dealer), so I wanted to share the math of where my logic ended up. Seems to have silenced the goldbugs in that thread.

Also hope you saw the goods news that China is accelerating free market reforms, so this bodes very well for the future. China will still need to undergo an adjustment (possibly acute and painful along with global contagion), from a debt-laden fixed capital infrastructure and exports economy to a consumer economy that doesn't repress household share of GDP via several mechanism that Pettis outlined. The above linked reforms are the prescription Pettis has pushed for. Implementation must follow though.

No, he said that we would have definitely seen $300k per BTC by this year (2013), and that denying this was just a "denial of the facts". And he proved it by the kind of maths that show you that the Bitcoin singularity is coming super short term.

My opinion about that was that it ($300k per USD this year) would have NEVER happened firstly and foremost just because the Bitcoin infrastructure (the exchanges, the blockchain itself) is not ready to support that kind of flash-growth (this seems painfully obvious to me), secondly because other circumstances (among which human psychology) make that kind of parabolic growth unsustainable. IMO what we are seeing is almost the optimum "cruise speed" we can reach.

That said, I have to say that I'm enjoying a lot his latest posts and he looks to me much more reasonable

$300k by this year + singularity

Mathematically if you don't know how many months it will stay above trend, then you can't know when you sell whether you will be able to buy back in for a lower price.

When to buy has the same problem. There is only one exception I can think of. If you just obtained the money or ability to buy and you notice the price is below trend, then you are lucky and should buy immediately.

The only mathematical reason to sell is when you are ready to exit. And for larger holders, that should be sufficiently long duration before the expected final peak price and market cap saturation.


There are some factors that I can afford to lose.

1. Losing all my money because I lose the keys or they are hacked. Considering how busy I am, and health issues, etc.. I have to make choices about where to put my limited time. I lost $75,000 in 2012 because I was out-of-mind I was so near death.

2. Losing a lot of the money because of getting caught in a pincher again where I can't execute a sale for various reasons as I explained above. I am not sitting in a first world country with all status all perfectly in compliance as you all  may be. I have an ex to deal with too, which complicates, etc..

3. The times where I made big money is where I did not spend any time on money, and all my time programming. I believe this will be the case again. I might forsake a 10X gain only before I will turn some code into a $1 billion in 2014. As if I really need that much, I wouldn't even know what to spend it on.

4. What I need most is about $2-3 million and anonymity so I can live my life in peace. I don't need more potential points of failure in my life right now, I have too many issues that can go awry already. K.I.S.S.

5. I have seen in my life I was forced to sell short-term by factors. Selling short-term into a correction is painful.

From your perspective yes, because that is the only opportunity you have. I am special. Sorry to say. This has presented me a huge opportunity just fell into my lap.

Nevertheless if I have not succeeded by Jan 1, I might buy some Bitcoin, perhaps up to $40,000 or so. Especially it might be below the trendline by then or Feb. which would reduce short-term risk of a holding.


It is not greed of 10X of a little. Rather the issues above.

Thanks for your concern.

I remember my high school Trigonometry teacher who marked me down from a perfect test score because I didn't draw a box around the solutions at the end of each derivation. She was really protesting that I almost never came to class and could so effortlessly ace the tests without being controlled. (I almost never attended class at the university level and achieved a 4.0 GPA)

I really hated sitting in class it was slow, boring, and couldn't go off on the creative tangents that were potentially interesting. I was often staring out the window, dreaming of doing some sports or calculating something in my head.

I went to the principle and demanded my grade be restored to 100%, else I would quit the Track & Field team. I appealed to how the low grade would impact my ability to be accepted into a top university. Since I was the top 800meter and miler for our high school (4:25 on the mile), and since I was liked so much by the principle, I won.

That was my first conscious lesson on two things:

1. I am my own master when I leverage my brain.

2. I win politics by making people dependent on me and be sure the important people like me. Appealing to directly to the majority based on personality and individual judgments (e.g. via speech) is a can-of-worms and inefficient. Appealing to the majority via protocol, algorithm, or strategy is very efficient.

It seems lately I have allowed myself to fail a lot, particularly by involving myself with too many people who can't keep up. Where I succeeded greatly is where I burned my own path at my speed.

But I really like interacting with people of different stripes. Yet it can be frustrating.

Excellent advice that I tend to follow from day 1 - I would add that the only purpose of daytrading should be to increase one's stash of coins, making a USD profit is trivial and pointless when dealing with an asset that appreciates so much against the USD as is BTC.

I do trade during a very specific time - bear markets that follow bubble pops, as it happened in 2011 or April, 10th this year. Catching the very top and the very bottom is just a matter of sheer luck, but on the contrary is pretty easy to spot a bubble pop and the subsequent bear market that usually follows. In a bear market the confidence of the weaker hands is seriously hit, and one can do some effective analysis and assume that the price will decline at least for a few months (as it happened from April 10th to October 15th aprox.)

I do think that mid term the bear markets will be shorter and the price decline less steep - in the first bear market in 2011 BTC lost 94% of its value (from $32 to $2), in the second bear market only 75% (from $266 to $50, and the very bottom was visited very quick just after the pop), I believe that unless something disruptive happens bear markets will be less and less relevant in the mid term because every subsequent "pop" will be seen by more and more capital just as an opportunity to buy and not a potentially catastrophic event that could lead the price to 0.

I think its also a good advice to take some profits when you have been in for long and the price has been going parabolic too quick, or has been above the trendline for too long - for example, if you already have a x100 unrealized profit I'd recommend to sell 20% of your coins and thus recoup your fiat investment in full while cashing in a nice profit, I think that helps most people to be more rational and thus to have stronger hands.

My friendly advice to AnonyMint: distopian future or not; world reserve currency or just "the mother of all bubbles"; disruptive community effort or trojan horse, I'd say that you just cannot afford to lose the opportunity of being into BITCOIN. Just throw at BTC the money you can comfortably afford to lose, historically it never let down those that took that choice. Do not be fooled by your greed that will tell you "x10 of a little is still a little", because if BTC realizes its potential the exchange rate will grow by many orders of magnitude - quickly.

Excellent synthesis on the actual mechanisms of control.

And now for something simple buying and selling advice:


ADD:
[Re: trading based on trendline] With this methodology it is easy, because the datapoints are monthly weighted averages and new points are added only once per month. December target based on Jan2009-Oct2013 is $404.

I do not suggest anyone to buy above $700 this year, it is likely a bubble and you can likely buy cheaper next year if you just wait. Furthermore, I have pounded the table extremely hard from about $195 (the only time I pounded so hard before was February), and everyone wanting to enter in based on my advice should have done it by now.

But do not speculate - unless you intend to permanently start lowering the number of your bitcoins, do not sell.

Yes of course eventually savers need to invest outside of Bitcoin-the-asset so the coins must circulate.

But the key point which you may be missing is that the coins don't necessary have to circulate to the masses. In fact, they only circulate to the masses if Bitcoin is the currency used by the masses.

It is a chicken-and-egg problem. That is why the above quote does indeed show a very astute understanding.

You see if I invest my BTC in a business, I can't pay my employees in BTC unless BTC is already being used by them.

This is why widespread distribution is critical.

Risto you are not going to fix this without my altcoin. You will just have to accept that I am going to be richer than you

(this is inside joke because he knows and I know we are both more concerned about the right outcome than our personal wealth)


If you can sell the majority long calls as they are rushing in at the blowoff top, then the minority can exit selling puts.


My take on that is more conspiratorial. I think you would need permission from the "controllers" who will put up the options markets. In other words, I think you will need to sell your soul to the elite. Thats another reason why I've been concerned about what you are doing here. But maybe I am batshit crazy on this one.


Agreed.

I am hoping you can trade your BTC for an altcoin that has the correct long-term properties.

Hey at least I spiced your diary for this week  

The above shows absolutely no understanding of self-adjusting mechanisms (like markets).

I appreciate your point concerning the blow-off top which comes in 18-36 months, and that the current structures (continuous harassment by banks, capital gains tax, flybynight exchanges, fear to disclose holdings) do not support the distribution of coins from big stashes to small. Therefore both the majority will be trapped with no opportunity to buy coins (statistical majority - each individual can buy as much as he wants), and the minority will have a difficulty in diversifying/unloading.

If for example I smell the top when USD/BTC is $194,538 and want to sell a paltry BTC3,582.64 for $696,900,000, there are many kind of hassles. I would not regard it as realistic for any large holder to sell near the top unless they are willing to take the risk and employ leverage in conjunction with actual selling of bitcoins.

Not so sure about that. Store of value is based on trust and "intrinsic" value . Gold is used as store of value but also in industry + it has historical "trust".  Bitcoin as a store of value only doesn't seem possible in the long term.

Right now Bitcoin acts as a store of value more than a medium of exchange and it's not necessary for Bitcoin to ever be a medium of exchange to reach much higher valuations. Gold is a good example which has a very high valuation despite not being used a medium exchange since the gold standard.

Wow, that was one of the fastest switcharoos I've seen in a long time. Just 24 hours ago bitcoin was going to hit a million bucks (but the owners could possibly be damned) , now bitcoin is doomed.  Actually bitcoin owners are doomed in both your scenarios.

Extreme Conjecture:

1) The elite are conscious of the threat of being one decentralized paradigm-shift away from losing control. Let's hope I will prove to be prophetic "before Christmas".

True anarchists don't waste their time talking, they implement and disrupt, so we (few lurking amongst you all) serve no such useful PR purpose for them.

The internet listening device lacked a tracking of all money trails. Bitcoin provides it.

2) They control a money supply they can't efficiently track the interlinking trail to the personal id level. Too many financial instutions, accounting ledgers, etc.. This AML, KYC stuff is just a stopgap measure to leverage up the single public blockchain economy-of-scale. Remember large wealth needs economy-of-scale. Small shit is a waste of time for large wealth.

3) Agreed and that was integrated into my point. Don't know why you didn't think so.

---

Fact:

I am becoming technically convinced that Bitcoin is broken and will devolve into chaos (probably not tomorrow though):

http://hackingdistributed.com/2013/11/08/fairweather-mining/#comment-1126388907

Also the media is picking up on Bitcoin's dystopian future and why it can never be a currency:

http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/11/bitcoin-news/


Mildy Extreme Conjecture:

Sorry but the more I contemplate this, I think Bitcoin is doomed. Now could possibly be the blowoff peak for Bitcoin price.

Although I think it is much more likely 1 - 3 years from now due to inertia on all factors. Much can come to light in that intervening time. If the core Bitcoin devs surprise me and fix Bitcoin, then my outlook would change. But they can't change the long-term supply curve, although that particular problem is decades away as Risto pointed out.

The elite will likely abandon their Trojan if it is proven to be technically broken. Surely they have competing strategies in play.

Interesting debate. My replies to your points:

1) exactly for these kind of statements you seem naive to me. The elites don't give a shit about their "anarchistic enemies", because the elites won for good a long time ago. There is no war going on, its total domination. Their "anarchistic enemies" are not a threat for the elites, and on the contrary have a clear purpose in the system - to perpetuate the illusion of freedom of thought, and to create the false hope that "the people" has something to say. In the perfect totalitarian regime everything has a purpose, and precisely the dissidents are crucial because just by existing they are giving legitimacy to the system.

The elites need no honeypot. You are willingly wearing a "chip" (Internet) that scans your brain and transmits everything on it to those willing to listen, you are willingly wearing tracking devices (your mobile), you are willingly using their banks to pay for your bills and so on and so on. The endgame for "the people" arrived decades ago, the slaves are happy to be slaves, and for the ones who won there are no enemies left to destroy.

2) the financial elite already controls the money supply, which in a capitalistic society means ruling the world. I don't see how BTC can give the elites a better edge, unless all the early adopters are part of the old elite. In that case we could say that a few dozen persons would possess at least 30% of the total money supply, which is quite an edge. But I tend to think that for the elites is crucial to manipulate money supply, which in BTC is not possible by design.

3) Governments are just a tool for the elites, and the only goal of the elites is to amass more capital - that's capitalism. Money = power. The wealthier, rules. Governments are just proxies, the wealthier already rule, no need for a Trojan horse.

I appreciate your appreciation and respect and I accord you the same. Hey I don't actually think everyone is an idiot, I was just driving a beachhead through the groupthink so I could reach the readers' individual consciousness.

The core theory in my blog writings is the value of diversity and decentralization. So how could I then think everyone is an idiot. I value everyone when they think individually. When they think as a group, that is when they lose their effectiveness. Discussing as a group is good, thinking monolithically is not.

It can appear that someone is naive, because you don't know eveything that is their mind. And you think you have a way of viewing the situation which that "naive" person hasn't thought of.

But with high IQ individuals, there is a higher probability they have thought of what you are thinking about  (not always, I very much value input and discussion and I love absorbing information from others) so it is wise to at least ask under presumption they will be honest and credit you when they didn't realize. I try to always admit my mistakes. Etlase2 caught me in a logic error a few weeks ago and I immediately credited him in public and thanked him.



1. A means to corral, identity, and destroy most of their anarchistic enemies in one honeypot.

2. A viral way to bring about a global digital currency to avoid problems with vested interests within their lower ranks (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, central banks, national governments, etc).

3. A means to worsen the coming implosion to add to the chaos, which they will offer to solve with their world government resolutions, currency resets, Brenton-Woods type of consultations and reorganizations of the financial system.

Power brokers have to do creative destruction too, to clear the path of all the friction they created. They are smart enough to realize they can't accomplish sweeping change top-down within their own rigor mortis.

Many here tend to view only the inept lower ranks and become very boastful about how decentralization destroys the lower ranks, without considering how the upper elite might be using decentralization too.

Also realize that most things in life are not black and white and thus I of course also recognize the benefits Bitcoin brings along the way of potentially the horrific end game outcome I presented. And that is why I also presented a theory in my prior post that perhaps "Satoshi" planted a "[good] Trojan inside a [bad] Trojan" (credit this quote to someone who PM'ed me before reading my prior post).

Any way, it is all conjecture and fun exercise for the mind.

Enjoy!

P.S. so now where is that overgrown adolescents party? I don't want to miss the fun Too bad I stopped drinking, I had some great parties through the years. Still love socializing.

Anonymint: some people is saying that you are a paranoid, but it looks painfully obvious to me that you are quite the opposite: extremely naive (no offense intended, I enjoy your posts because they are intelligent and interesting).

You are depicting Bitcoin as the ultimate "freedom killer", which is simply ridiculous because your freedom was already killed for good a long time ago. No need to kill something that is already dead.

You are giving away your privacy evert day by using cell phones; by using the lnternet; by using the money THEY mint.

The world is already owned by the elites. The elites finance the rulers who are just proxies, the elites have total control of your bank accounts and thus they already know everything about you. They can tax you to death, they can confiscate your wealth by freezing your bank accounts and if you happen to have a bunch of cash under your mattress they can simply confiscate that wealth too by the means of inflation. Just as they have been doing for decades.

So... How is that Bitcoin is the ultimate power tool for those who already have absolute power?

I'm not saying BTC is not a trojan horse - it could be, and it would be stupid to rule that option out. But IMO your logic does not stand, financial elites rule the world de facto and there's not much more for them to gain from BTC, best case to support your theory is that they are "changing things so everything stays the same".

I accomplished my goal which was to get readers (especially Risto since I observe him to be a capable, empathetic, level-headed leader in the community) to think more seriously about the necessity of an altcoin. It could be orders-of-magnitude more efficient and effective than giving Bitcoin away in gifts.

I accomplished my Steve Jobs "Reality Distortion Field" marketing ploy.

Now I want to share a theory I have about how brilliant Satoshi might have been.

I am imagining this guy (or group) that was tasked by the NSA to create a honeypot to trap the goldbugs and anarchistic hitech millionaires.

I cite again the self-claimed 155 - 165 IQ Eric S. Raymond, the creator of "open source":

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3335


So in my mental sketch Satoshi designs this Bitcoin with the flaws I have outlined, knowing full well this appears to hand the world to the elite. But he could have realized that he was actually outsmarting his bosses. He probably would have faith in his "tribe" (i.e. hackers) that there were at least a few astute hackers who would see the flaws soon enough and fix them to create a competing altcoin.

Perhaps he was so clever to make the initial coin supply appeal to the hard money folks, while also pitching it to his bosses as being the perfect way to bring the dystopian outcome. Yet knowing in his heart, the hackers would rise to the challenge before the end game comes to Bitcoin by 2033 or so.

We will probably never know... yet it is a noble way to pay honor to the "person" who gave us the key technological insight and breakthrough...

...maybe anything I or others (who beat me to it) might create was what he really wanted to create but couldn't at the time...

...what sucks is we can't reuse such a good name "bitcoin" in a better altcoin...

I suggest also reading Eric Raymond's short Engineering History article.