The report itself gives a good brief history on bitcoin, its utility, what makes it valuable, and it provides fact on the concerns about illegal activity and potential pit falls.
I understand there are a lot of nay sayers out there. I get that. This article is not for "you." But, the report itself provides great background and logic. If you want to learn about what this Crypto stuff is, and how it works--find the report and download it.
If anyone wants a link to download the report FrepMail me. It is one of those links where you click it and it downloads directly—not exactly something you want to just toss out there.
It is 108 pages long PDF. Great pictures (sometimes that is the key to understanding this stuff) and legit sources.
The intrinsic value of bitcoin is zero.
And that is why Bitcoin will be going to ZERO in the next year or so. It was and is a crypto nerd's experiment. It has FATAL DESIGN FLAWS that will prevent it from being able to scale out to the size and the high transaction rates required.
The background and ‘logic’ of Blockchain Technology is well-known and available without Citi’s spin on it via MSN.
Central bankers such as Citi are jumping on board with it because drcentralized Blockchain models represent an existential threat to central banking.
Financial historians have followed this development since 2008. We know exactly what central bankers are doing.
You are carrying their water.
I think all the freedom loving folks here will be ready to jump up to support state run fiat currencies.
Much like multiple government currencies, multiple cryptocurrencies will be in use, not just bitcoin.
It's not Petro-dollars vs Euros as the dominant denomination any more.
The move to cryptocurrency is a paradigm shift. Not everyone will be able to change their thinking on this.
Someday I might decide to find out if the 1000 bitcoins I bought back in 2010, then forgot all about, are worth anything or if as some here say they are worth zero.
HOLD ON A MINUTE PLEASE.
So i have been listening to the book by Scott Nations titled A History of the United States in Five Crashes.
One of the more memorable things he has said is that a free stock market crash was precipitated by some new financial instrument. Examples which I can remember were portfolio insurance, mortgage-backed securities, investment trusts (in the 1920s).
My point is that no matter how genius someone is in terms of inventing new financial products/instruments there is no perpetual motion machine.
AND ... what might happen when all these large corporations have bslance sheets carrying billions of dollars of Bitcoin and crypto?
Is crypto going to be the new financial instrument that hollows out the financial system in the next crash? Or the one after that.
I can’t eat gold.
I can’t eat crypto.
I can’t even use crypto all by itself. What do you need to use crypto? A few pieces of technology I guess...
Also, IRS is ramping up reporting requirements for crypto. I know some if you are scofflaws, but do you remember ... back in the 1980s and 90s how people would gave offshore accounts that they could access via debit (or credit?) cards?
Did the IRS get the customer information from those banks ...?
“This is different.”, some may say. My advice would that you be circumspect. Don’t be smug.
Won’t say I am a naysayer but just skeptical. However could we see a future where pensioners demand their pension payments in bitcoin? The reason I ask this is many Americans once retired might want to find a way to escape big government and live off the grid. The main barriers to living off the grid are the comforts of modern society. If there was someway to be invisible to world governments and still get paid.....
bump