Posted on 11/11/2017 2:52:31 PM PST by davikkm
Bitcoin, along with many other cryptocurrencies, has recently taken the world by storm. Bitcoin’s devoted investors believe that the blockchain technology behind the currency will usher in an era where currencies are free from government manipulation. However, large governments of the past and present have not taken kindly to competitors of any sort. A competitor to the government’s greatest mechanism of power (currency issuance) is a threat the government will not ignore.
There are numerous examples of the US government going to great lengths to make sure the US dollar is the most used currency in the world. If the US dollar is the most used (I.e. Global Reserve Currency), it allows the US government to print large amounts of money and run very large deficits. The power of the Global Reserve Currency allows the US to maintain its world hegemony. The US government has attacked Iraq, Libya and Syria to protect its currency, and it doesn’t plan to stop there. To learn more about how US foreign policy is related to protecting the US dollar, you can visit this article that I wrote: The Only Reason The US Goes To War.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
What happened the last couple days?
I know a guy who got ripped off bad with bitcoin. He bought 15K worth when it was 800 then put them in some worth of multiplier scheme. It was supposed to be worth 670K by now but instead it’s worth zero. I asked why he doesn’t still have the 18 coins he bought for 15K. He says “I gave them to the wrong people”. He apparently didn’t retain ownership of the coins. He still thinks the bitcoin multiplier programs are legit.
The worst part is he put the 15K on credit cards.
Fear and greed is what drives it all.
True enough. FUD is the driver. That’s a sad story. Particularly the part about his not learning from his expensive post-secondary education.
I got in early because of the concept and practically free and kept the crypto myself. It really does seem like it is going to implode at some point. Especially with the whole BTC vs. BCH right now.
I’m sure there is still money to be made. A sucker’s born every minute.
Bitcoin went from 7800 to 6300 with lots of room to drop. A lot of money vaporized.
Fiat money?
Most cashed out and went from Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash (they’re different although share the same core, Cash having forked from Bitcoin). Wherever the money goes, it appears to me recently it is worse than fiat. At least a fiat currency has national backing.
In addition to the 22 million cap on bitcoins being discovered by miners, each new coin discovery requires greater and greater computer processing power.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Most here who are strongly pro-cryptocurrency tend to rant about “fiat money” and I’ve tried in the past to explain that it’s even less concrete and accountable than that, but it fell upon deaf ears. Somebody made a lot of fiat money off of this, but I suspect it’s not the smallholders, never is.
Would that be deflationary?
Actually the blockchain technology that is the foundation of Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies is where the govt is heading - digital money instead of paper and coins. It will still be a fiat currency with no assets tied to the value, it will just be digital. Instead of a bunch of investors creating and trading digital money, it will be the govt taking control of digital money
Imagine, the govt being able to track all your transactions, make sure it collects tax from every business transaction - sales, income etc. Billions of dollars in the black market, in the under-the-table market trading hands in the current paper system all disappears. They are salivating at the chance to institutionalize digital currency.
So to the degree that Bitcoin and others now might seem a threat to govt control of money, that will change, and what Doug Casey called the “Fedcoin” will become the digital currency based on blockchain technology.
Google blockchain technology and the US govt, it’s already being set up for numerous applications, digital money will soon follow.
I personally think it was a good idea to begin with, but like anything that has potential, it usually gets taken over by the bad guys. It appears cartels have formed amongst the miners, regulation is coming soon, outright banning of markets for some is occurring.
You are right, someone made a lot of fiat money, and that money can buy Ferraris, Mansions and Yachts.
One thing I am amazed about (maybe I’m just a disillusioned former believer), is the speed with which it seems to have been corrupted and the ease with which it appears it is being manipulated. That’s how the world turns when money is concerned!
For the love of money is the root of all evil... I Timothy 6:10a
Exactly what I’ve been telling folks blockchain tech will lead to. It will make it awfully easy to shut down commerce with those who won’t toe the line. I think I read about that somewhere...
Less than a 20% drop so far...BTC did over a 30% drop in Sept. to $3542., and was back up to $7500. by the 1st of Nov....volatility is to be expected in a asset with a smaller market cap ($105 billion or so). Money was streaming into Bitcoin over the last month due to the anticipated “SEGWIT2X” fork (almost 2x your money) but it got called off, so money is now flowing back out to other alt-coins.
Money was created as a ponzi scheme from the very beginning, allowing goldsmiths to knowingly issue more certificates than their reserves ...
“The US government has attacked Iraq, Libya and Syria to protect its currency”
nonsense. Iraq etc. are economically irrelevant to the $US as a global currency.
The reason the $US is the global currency is because there is $20 trillion in US dollar borrowings outside the USA, that has to be repaid in dollars. That establishes a huge international demand for dollars.
A second reason is foreign exchange transactions. The reason the $US daily foreign exchange vol is so huge is that the “crosses” don’t really exist for commercial size transactions. That is, to convert Argentine reals or astrals into Thailand bhat in commercial quantities, you first convert the real to the $US, then $US to the bhat.
Every non US dollar FX actually has two US dollar transactions - hence the huge volume.
It’s going to be a long time before there is 20 trillion in bitcoin borrowings, or 2 trillion a day in bitcoin FX transactions.
At least gold has a long history as a store of wealth.
Bitcoin = tulip bulbs as a store of wealth or stable unit of account.
I guess I’m just having trouble seeing the value of it these days. I’ve got some Litecoin and Ethereum, but still I am very much a novice. Did you notice that 40% of the activity on Bitcoin Cash originated in South Korea. I wonder what that was all about. As far as going to the others, my LTC and ETH is going up a little back to where it was prior to the run on BTC.
“Would that be deflationary?”
I’m far from an expert in economics, but I think the mathematical design of Bitcoin is intended to avoid the inflation caused when governments (or international bankers) decide to print more money.
Because the rate of discovering new Bitcoins is predictable, I would assume that the expectations based on this are built into the valuation.
So, my intuitive answer is, no, Bitcoins avoid inflation or deflation by design. However, they are subject to the possibility of price manipulation. And the possibility of permanently losing access to a percentage of Bitcoins might be considered deflationary, but that is no different than traditional currencies being destroyed, for example, in a fire.
The value of Bitcoin is driven by speculation, scarcity, the efficiency and autonomy of transactions, and the willingness of many entities to accept it as a form of payment.
What stabilizes the value of traditional currencies is the willingness of governments to accept them as payment for the taxes which MUST be paid.
We all must pay taxes either directly or indirectly to our respective governments. And, therefore, we are forced to use the currency accepted by our government, even if we must convert from some other type of currency first.
I believe it is inevitable that financial transactions will transition to using cryptocurrency as the dominant mechanism. They are more efficient than traditional digital currencies and will eventually become more safe. And paper and coin money will become too expensive to make, as anti-counterfeiting measures require techniques that cost too much of the value of the money.
“Big Government Is Bitcoin’s Greatest Obstacle”
Yep, “Big Government” has also cracking down on tulip bulbs and “investment-grade sardines” lately as well, both of which would really take off if “Big Government” wasn’t such an overwhelming obstacle ...
“Bitcoin Cash” is backed by ASIC miners in Asia...currently being “pumped” by them. “Bitcoin Gold” is next...starts in a few hours and is “Bitcoin w/o the China miner centralization” (can be mined by regular people with GPU’s (PC video cards).
Bitcoin has a lot of “value” to Venezuelans these days as their life savings are inflated away to nothing by the corrupt government. Blockchain cryptocurrencies serve multiple purposes....a means move move money across continents instantly relatively fee-free. As an alternate payment method. A hedge against inflationary fiat like the $. A way for “sovereign-citizen” type people to poke the Fed in the eye. And what most people see here on FR, a speculative “penny-stock”/day trader type “investment” with wild price swings. A lot of “FUD” (Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt) in Bitcoin threads here on FR. I think blockchain tech has a lot of value, but you have to do your research (a lot) and find the crypto “gems” among the “pump & dump scam coins”. Some I am looking at/investing in are “Monero” (privacy orientated), “Publica” (a way for authors to avoid big house publishers and make more money from their works). “IOTA”...blockchain tech w/o the “blockchain bloat” and others. If you are into helping out with Stanford’s “Folding@Home” or Berkeley’s “BOINC” there are crypto-reward coins offered for working on those (Curecoin, Foldingcoin, Gridcoin). All in all, blockchain tech is a much larger tech discussion than just “Bitcoin”.
“Big Government Is Bitcoin’s Greatest Obstacle”
Indeed. Instead of just rising by 600% in 2017, bitcoin would have risen by a hundred bazillion percent IF ONLY “Big Government” hadn’t been such a gigantic obstacle ...
“There’s a 22 million max.” Maybe not. If someone creates a bit coin bank and issues secured loans on set interest rates, then the money supply increases. The value of bit coin stabilizes and maybe drops in value.
When everything comes crashing down, the banks holding the collateral becomes filthy rich property owners. Much like the crash of ‘29.
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