Posted on 11/27/2017 3:02:12 PM PST by bananaman22
Cryptocurrency may be one of the biggest threats to governments, security and the entire financial system that we’ve ever seen. It can help fund terrorism and its anonymity makes it almost impossible to track. Most importantly, it is poised to revolutionize global finance and banking.
But our new Enemy No. 1 can’t be fought; it can perhaps be controlled. Banks have figured that out and are bringing crypto currency into the fold.
The superpowers—U.S., China and Russia--will have to face the new reality. They love to hate it and hate to love it. Regardless, if they don’t embrace it, they won’t be able to control it. An enemy you don’t control is a much bigger threat.
So, welcome to the new balance of power, funded by cryptocurrency.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
“Meet The World’s Most Powerful Bitcoin Backers” - i.e. “people who are just a single errant zero or one away from bankruptcy”.
$9700 right now. $500 the night Trump was elected. $3000 2 months ago. Think about that.
Can some one explain how Bitcoin provides anonymity?
The transactions are tracked using something called block chain. There are ledgers kept somehow within Bitcoin systems.
So how exactly is it anonymous? Aren’t Bitcoin transactions analagous to credit or debit card transactions, in that they are tracked within financial accounts?
I don’t think Trump has much to do with Bitcoin’s rapid rise... most of the buying takes place in Asian countries
And millions of small but well diversified investors who have a very small part of their portfolio in crypto-currency, just as the do in precious metals.....and those who know that every nation’s fiat currency is potentially worthless in an instant.
I find it hard to believe that, within a computerized system, that even though no names or addresses are listed, that someone couldn’t find out who owns or controls a certain Bitcoin account.
$300 Million In Crypto Currency Lost FOREVER Thanks To A Bug In A Digital Wallet
SHTFplan.com | November 8th, 2017 | Mac Slavo
Posted on 11/08/2017 5:25:56 PM PST by 1_Inch_Group
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3603000/posts
“every nation’s fiat currency is potentially worthless in an instant.”
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True, but 10 Franklins in my pocket is a whole lot harder for some 15 year old 4chan troll, foreign hacker or a just a garden variety computer glitch to take away from me.
To each his own, tho.
kimdot com got involved. i remember thinking about it when he tweeted it was going to turn around with whatever he was going to do with it
too bad I didnt follow through
Only the IP is logged which can be easily faked.
As opposed to any bank transactions which now require multiple IDs and verification in most nations.
Also, in the USA any cash transaction exceeding $10k must be reported. As well when moving more than $10k in currency across the border.
You can buy bitcoin. That requires money. Maybe yourself in person or a bank account number. But after that you are not tracked. You can go on line and trade it. Which is the same as laundering the bitcoin. The best thing is that you can move it between countries. You can payoff that guy who kidnapped your daughter. You can buyoff the hacker who locked your computer. You can run from China with your money and buy Aussy dollars instead. Or just leave your thumb drive in a safety deposit box or under a mattress. Wallets don’t need to have your name.
But you can easily lose your bitcoin as well. And some think as many as 4 million of the potential 21 million bitcoin are gone, erased or otherwise lost. So the value seems to be going up. And its the possibility for your coins to be erased or hacked or otherwise stolen that makes me not like them.
Bitcoin is the preferred method of payment among criminals. And that is why governments don’t like it. But it can also take down the US dollar and other currencies as well. And that scares governments.
If you look at the last great recession you saw it was fixed by dramatically printing money. We all used to think that this would cause hyper inflation. But it didn’t. The reason is that all the major currencies did the same thing. They all printed money. So there was just more money in the world. The exchange rates stayed relatively the same because the currencies all grew. But bitcoin can’t really grow. So the theory goes, it will grow in value as the fed prints more money or congress goes further in debt. It could be the thing that makes all money grounded to a value.
Gold was supposed to be that thing. But the US, world fund, and Germany have so much that they can sell it. and lower the price. And now we know they can also short the GLD ETF too. So if Bitcoin gets about 1000 times larger. Then it could be the standard currency. But it could also go down in flames by a really good hack. Or it could be criminalized in major countries too. Either way it would lose most of its value.
“True, but 10 Franklins in my pocket is a whole lot harder for some 15 year old 4chan troll, foreign hacker or a just a garden variety computer glitch to take away from me.”
The Franklins are still only an IOU on paper though. Without banks accepting them, they only useful for writing on, setting fires and wiping your a**.
Most Franklins only exist in the digital world. The moment those are hacked, the banks shut down and everyone finds out, your paper will be 100% worthless too.
Cash does have its uses though and I was able to buy food and feed many people on my block after Hurricane Sandy while power was out. Many people had no cash at all and fully depended on cards!
However, the stores only took the cash because they fully expected the lights to turn back on soon. Once that expectation is gone, it’s just paper...
I’m with you. I’ve also wondered if everything crashes or the power goes out, how do you access your bitcoins? Why are bitcoins valued in dollars? If the dollar goes away what will the value of the bitcoin be? How will it be converted goods or services? I understand bitcoin’s price but I can’t grasp it’s value.
My bitcoins & cryptos are in my pocket and just as secure as my precious metals.
Never leave your cryptos with any one - that’s where the problems have been.......no one has lost any that has held them themselves.
One of my son’s is a computer genius of the highest rank (4 degrees simultaneously, Summa Cum Laude), and VERY conservative in his investments, and has made a small fortune in crypto’s seeing their future when almost no one else did. I’d be much wealthier if I had followed his advice years ago. But even then he warned about the risk. But the risk is NOT in the internet or hacking - if you hold them, they cannot be hacked.
I suggest you do some deeper research on how to buy and hold crypo’s with minimal risk. Biggest risk is they have no inherent value, and if all governments outlaw them, they MIGHT go bust - but they could also go underground and be a black currency of even greater value.
Not necessarily a bad thing. Government manipulation and debasing of currencies is and has always been a major cause of the civilization's ills.
If you don’t understand a given prospective “investment” stay away from it, there’s a good reason you don’t understand it, it doesn’t make sense. To me, this whole cryptocurrency thing is actually worse than the “fiat money” that most cryptocurrency fans love to rant about. It’s far more easily manipulated, it’s nebulous, it’s only got the value that those who are willing to trade fiat currency for it decide that it has, on any given day. It’s totally at the mercy of the internet and the power grid. Have some people made a lot of fiat currency off of the speculative run-up over the past year? Sure they have. How do you make money in cryptocurrency, though? By trading it for that eeeevil fiat money.
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