When you defend a concept and/or give examples, it's best not to sound like a ShamWOW and other "As Seen on TV" hucksters.
Let's try these, far more realistic everyday scenarios instead:
You're at LAX/LAS/MIA/ORD/JFK/LGA/SEA/etc. with a 3oz checkbook in your pocket that has $100,000.00 on account. What do you suppose the TSA is going to do with it?
Same airport(s), this time with an AmEx Centurion/"Black" Card, and BoA/Merrill Lynch Accolades card, and Citi's Chairman (Private Bank) card, and Stratus Rewards Visa/"White" Card (by recommendation and invitation only), and Coutts World card (QE II is a client). What do you suppose the TSA is going to do with it?
Same scenario, but you have a smartphone/tablet/computer which can access your business and/or brokerage accounts containing in excess of $5,000,000.00 in funds and/or credit lines, as well as Paypal, Square and free wire services, which are biometrically and multi-layer password-protected and can transfer funds immediately converted on deposit into A$, BP£, C$, €, S$, ¥ etc., at no additional cost. What do you suppose the TSA can do about it, NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING!!!!!
This is power and freedom
since well before Western Union, actually right around Renaissance (read about Banco de' Medici [1397-1494], for example). heretofore never known to man
It is called a paradigm shift.
Seriously? What paradigm shift? Bitcoin didn't invent electronic transfers and e-payment, nor was it first in encrypting financial transactions, nor did it make your unit of account and store of value more convenient or secure than accepted fiat currencies - quite the opposite, in fact (see Bitcoin is Gold 2.0: But how can it be regulated? - FR, post #22, 2013 December 28
Plus, you very likely be getting something in return for using your credit card and banking services, like the 'rewards'/'points' and the interest on deposits... Oh, do you earn any interest on your b1tc01ns in the decentralized Bitcoin "bank"? Could you ensure or hedge your bitcoins, if need be?
And if people think that they are getting the bitcoin transfers "for free" (i.e., cheaper than credit cards) then they have been seriously misled. As it turns out, Bitcoin e-payment fee structure** is generally more expensive than major credit cards (which typically charge about 2%-3% of transaction amount).
Which means it's much more beneficial for bitcoin miners - who are getting these transaction... er, "mining" fees - to have the BTC valued at USD$1000.00 than at USD$10.00 - in other words, have the BTC economy 100 times larger in generally accepted fiat currencies would likely get about 100 times larger "commission" fee.
So claiming that there is no interest on anyone's part in manipulating the value/price of bitcoin "currency" is quite false. Bitcoin's finite structure alone is, in itself, a manipulation of bitcoin value. Oh, and what happens where there are no more bitcoins to "mine"? The finite limit on the total amount of bitcoins issued makes it, by its very own definition, a FIFO (First-In-First-Out) pyramid scheme - where generally, the first one in wins the most and the last one out loses the most.
** Bitcoin Is an Expensive Way to Pay for Stuff - BL, by Matt Levine, 2014 January 02
Anyway a claim that is sometimes made about Bitcoin is that it is a way to send money without incurring transaction fees. ..... < snip > ..... Like so many financial innovations, part of what makes Bitcoin clever is its method of, let's say, naming transaction costs. Transaction costs are basically the money that is paid to someone for doing the bookkeeping work of transferring your dollars or Bitcoins or whatever to someone else ..... < snip > ..... As of today miners took home about 3.5 percent of the value of transactions that they processed.3 Which is more than credit card companies! Though maybe less than Western Union, I don't know. Now there are some important differences between this mining profit and credit card transaction fees. One is that this isn't a transaction fee, in that it isn't paid by the buyers or sellers. Which is true; it's paid by the users of Bitcoin generally ..... < snip > ..... The second is that this isn't a transaction fee, in that it's not paid to miners to process transactions. It's paid to miners for mining. ..... < snip > ..... The "mining" is not in itself a valuable activity. The reason miners are part of the Bitcoin ecosystem is to reward them for confirming that transactions are valid. That is the service they provide, so it stands to reason that that is what is being rewarded with their 3.5 percent profit. ..... < snip > ..... Bitcoin, as a transaction mechanism, is actually pretty expensive! It's just that it's clever at hiding its costs. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... A cruel generalization you could make about financial innovation is that it consists in large part of disguising transaction costs. Because the product provided by the financial services industry basically is transaction costs, sheer efficiency-based cost reduction can't really be the goal of the people in that industry. But you've got to compete somehow. So if you can find a way to charge for something but call it "free" then that's pretty much the ideal.
Is the light bulb starting to come on? I hope so!
Yes, I hope so, too, for the sake of those who might be taken in by the slick bitcoin "counter-culture freedom" selling campaign. Educating about potential and risks of the speculative investment in a digital commodity (sans Ponzi/pyramid element) is one thing, promotion of expensive e-payment mechanism as a "freedom" "currency" as an alternative to the "fiat currency" by miners who benefit from increase in transaction volume and/or transaction value is quite another.
If there is strength in numbers, then the next cryptocurrency should make it really big, I suppose:
Kanye West-inspired currency 'to launch soon' - BBC, by , 2014 January 03
..... Various alternatives to Bitcoin have sprung up, such as Litecoin, Namecoin and PPCoin. Virtual currencies are often linked to the purchase of illegal items, namely drugs, thanks to transactions being extremely difficult to trace. ..... < snip > ..... They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned. ..... < snip > ..... The makers of Coinye West have lofty ambitions for the currency which they described as a "cryptocurrency for the masses". Speaking anonymously to music site Noisey, they said: "I can picture a future where Coinye is used to buy concert tickets, with cryptographically verified virtual tickets, and other ideas I can't give away just yet." They said they planned to give away a number of Coinye to early users when the currency launches on 11 January. "It will get people who are on the fence interested and help them to start using the currency, and we hope they'll share it with their friends, too." ..... < snip > < snip > ..... It will follow in the footsteps of "Dogecoin", another virtual currency based on the popular Doge meme. ..... < snip >
Hurry up, there is still time to get in on the freebie Coinyes:
If you want it anytime I can give it Did I hear you say that there must be a catch? If you want it, here it is You'd better hurry 'cause it's goin' fast... If you want it, here it is
Come and get it m-m-m!
Make your mind up fast
But you better hurry 'cause it may not last
Will you walk away from a fool and his money?
Come and get it
But you better hurry 'cause it's goin' fast
I do some very minor stock trading, basically now just occassionally selling some small company stocks I bought before the recession. I took out the money I put in long ago so anything I accrue is like free money. Two of those stocks matured nicely and pay dividends. A handful of others are companies still hanging on, but not worth selling.
That seems to be a more rational kind of money from online transactions. The stocks are based on something real. I can write a check on the dollar balance in the stock account and the bank will hand me cash. Nobody's going to stop me from carrying the checks. I pay capital gains taxes when I sell, but as I said, all of the money I originally put in I've taken out.
One real good verbal exchange in The Wolf of Wall Street was about how the trick to ammassing wealth is to convince everyone not to cash out, just sell and buy again. Isn't the bitcoin a bit of that?....the bcs go back and forth and goods are transacted and those who thought it up collect transaction percentages, but nobody can actually have a bitcoin.
I just don't see that kind of attachment to reality with bitcoins. It seems that if people didn't trust current banking, going in the opposite direction would make more sense. That would be amassing goods that could be traded in barter, and make good deals to increase value.
Please keep your money in the bank. Dodd Frank is planning a holiday for you in the form of a haircut. Who do you think is going to pay for this massive debt. That checkbook you’re carrying will do nothing for you. You don’t get it but thats okay.
Western Union as a business model is dead and the official funeral will be very soon along with predatory credit cards ( even the one’s that are invitation only and super duper impressive).
Interesting that you bring up BOA/Merrill Lynch. Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider had a little talk with David Woo titled ( and this may sound like Vince of SHAM WOW) THIS IS, QUITE SIMPLY, THE BIGGEST ENDORSEMENT THAT BITCOIN HAS EVER RECEIVED.
Heres the link, read it, don’t read it, makes no difference to me.
http://www.businessinsider.com/david-woo-on-bitcoin-2013-12.
With all the impressive financial instruments you rattled off I wouldn’t be surprised if you were heavily leveraged in the record breaking, federally pumped market. Better get your money out of there, you’re about to get your head handed to you.
Don’t but Bitcoin, leave them for me,thank you.