Posted on 01/30/2021 4:35:29 AM PST by Kaslin
An interesting story on the John Batchelor Show the other night. It seems the Chinese are helping the Iranians mine Bitcoin as a way to evade sanctions. One side effect that has the Iranian people angry is that these Bitcoin farms use a lot of electricity, which is already in short supply.
I recently read Bernal Diaz de Castillo’s 16th century account of the conquest of Mexico. He was part of Hernan Cortez’ small army.
Aztec society had never been touched by the West - and yet it also highly valued gold and silver (it also had traditional gender roles, but that’s another story)
There are things about humans and human nature which cut-across time and history.
I agree, but I can’t see statists/socialists/central planners in Washington accepting this long-term. It seems a fundamental contradiction to their desire for control, and keeping the USD Ponzi debt-pile from collapsing. If little people hold it, they can ignore or smash us, but if other elites and insiders are holding Bitcoin for wealth, there will be too much political opposition. I can’t yet see how this will play out.
And yet Central Banks around the world are holding tens of thousands of tons of the stuff. In many countries, gold holdings are even a state secret. It seems there are many “smart” people and people in power who want to hold a lot of this “door stop.”
Why is that?
Or maybe not.
You can hold gold in your hand. Bitcoin is merely numbers floating around in the cloud where one click on a computer and poof! it all disappears.
Same reason a lot of people hold bit coin. It is a useful medium of exchange and store of value that people have confidence in.
The price of gold also goes up and down based on this confidence, despite it having no practical value.
Which makes me want to own nothing but hard assets like real estate and commodities.
Until, someone defines a new range of bits to get prime numbers.
Exactly. People have an irrational belief that their bank balance is “money” when it’s just digital currency.
You can buy it now on PayPal.
Beanie Babies are going to make a comeback. By them now.
Keep telling yourself that.
Make sure you never forget your passwords.
Clutch your bitcoins oh, you can’t.
Bitcoin is capped at 21 million bitcoins that can be mined. There are currently 18 million bitcoins in circulation. I suspect there will be another big spike when the cap is reached.
People seem to think their bank balances are actually there at the bank instead of loaned out sometimes in bad unwise loans, thank you Fanny and Freddy Mack, and senators Frank/Dodd. Banks loan out I believe 85 percent and only have about 15 percent reserves actually on hand. A collapse of the economy, or any currency crisis or any crisis causing a run on the banks would collapse the banking industry like a house of cards.
If the banks don’t have enough digital currency on hand to satisfy a run on the banks then the Federal Reserve will just magically create more to satisfy the need.
Just like they always do.
War with China and a few high atmosphere nuke detonations and crypto turns to zero. Lead and brass will become sought after commodities then.
I think you would have to take out every miner server in the whole world, not just over one or a few countries with EMP weapons.
A Carrington Event solar storm replay might do it though...
If a nuclear war happens, everyone is fked anyway.
The lucky ones will be the ones in the cities that are vapourised instantly instead of dying from radiation sickness or starving to death during the subsequent nuclear winter.
I don’t see the point in planning for this worst case scenario tbh.
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