It is a truism that people are more inclined to accept something they don’t like if it comes from someone they consider to be a friend.
Or at least not an enemy.
Will people who like and trust Trump be more accepting of digital money if it comes from Donald Trump?
Trump has said things that suggest he likes the idea of digital money and he has teamed up with Elon Musk, who also likes it. Elon Musk also likes grift, though he now acts as if he doesn’t. Probably because he’s already gotten his grift to the tune of many billions – so what’s the loss of that $7,500 per device tax-kickback grift?
He also says he likes free speech but we know he likes shekels more, having agreed to suppress the speech of people in Brazil that the Marxist thugs-in-charge demanded be suppressed. It is also true that “X” – the new name for the speech suppression platform formerly known as Twitter – continues to marginalize the reach of people whose speech triggers the algorithms that still control what people are allowed to see.
You are, of course, free to post whatever you like.
Digital money would work similarly. You’d be allowed to possess it – in the sense that your device (which is already under their control) could be used to purchase things, with them knowing every detail of each transaction, down to the digital penny. And them having the ability to control what you’re allowed to spend – and on what. All of that controlled by an algorithm that determines what you’re allowed to spend – and on what – so long as you are obedient.
Perhaps according to the size of your carbon footprint.
It is worth a mention here that Elon Musk has stated publicly that he favors a tax on “carbon,” which you ought to understand means a tax on energy consumption. If you have consumed too much energy this month – them deciding how much is enough – next month your digital money will not be available to buy more.
See how that works?
Or – rather – how it could work?
Imagine how it could work during the next “pandemic,” i.e., the next contrived mass-panic event that will be far more effective than the last one if money is digitized because it will be much harder to question let alone defy the “guidelines” and “mandates” emanating from the government-corporate tag team, which craves nothing more than total compliance for the sake of total control.
During the last manufactured mass-panic event, they had much less control, which is why the “pandemic” did not last forever.
One could easily ignore their “guidelines” and “mandates” because the engineers of the mass panic didn’t yet have control over our ability to buy life-necessities using cash money. They tried mightily to frame cash money as “dirty,” pushing what was styled (and continues to be styled) contactless transactions. Just wave your device – i.e., your “smart” phone – at another device and pay that way.
It so much safer. So much more convenient.
Indeed, it is. For them.
Cash money is fundamentally out of their control. You have it in your physical possession but no one knows it is in your possession. It cannot be taken away from you absent physically taking it away from you – and that requires the sort of overt thuggery that cannot be soft-sold as some other thing. People tend to resist being physically relieved of the money they have.
Much more relevant – as regards thuggery – is that cash money is anonymous money. More finely, it allows anonymous transactions. The government-corporate tag team does not know, as a for-instance, that the country store down the road allowed you to buy food from the owner of the store – whom you know and who is willing to accept cash – even though you are not wearing what they styled “your” mask. Even though you have not presented – via your device – proof that you have been “vaccinated.”
That kind of mutual defiance of thuggery becomes much more difficult when the only money is digital money and those in control of it can fine-tune and micromanage every transaction as well as know about each one in real time.
It is all very creepy.
So also the opacity of digital money. The fact that no one can explain in simple terms the source of its value – or even why it has any value at all. Other than people agreeing it does. That’s weird but what’s scary is that cannot be used without a device – i.e., a phone or a computer – connected to the Internet. Who controls these devices? Not you, certainly.
And that suggests that whoever or whatever is behind this nudging toward digital money that will likely become a shove may not have our best interests in mind.
Donald Trump, perhaps.
The narrative accepted by many is that he won the late election because he was able to overcome the cheat many suspected occurred last time. Maybe so. I certainly hope so. Because the alternative explanation – that he was allowed to win, in order to quiet down the growing outrage over election processes (and results) that smelled very fishy to many – and to further what’s been started by quieting down what otherwise might have been firm opposition to it is creepier than discovering that late Queen of England really was a shape-shifting reptile, per David Icke.
Is Trump?
Were the factors that facilitated the cheat last time really absent this time? How did Trump expect to win this time if he believed he really won last time?
Keeping in mind Trump was also the one who declared – but never ended – the “emergency” that legally empowered the pushing of drugs on people, a crime he has yet to atone for.
But if he was allowed – if he was anointed – to win the late election because it has been decided he’s the one – a “businessman”! – to sell digital money to the people as he tried to sell “vaccines” to the people, it will be a crime without precedent because it will enable the ultimate crime: The total subjection of formerly free (or at least, sort-of free) people by establishing an invisible but inescapable digital-financial panopticon in which everything we’re allowed to do is under their control because they will have control over everything we’re allowed to do.
Staying alert is important.
Most especially when you believe you’re safe.
. . .
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Tomorrow will be another day of fighting and fussing and making sure it is more miserable no matter what.
Purdy cool, Bibi knows how to do it like crazy.
One million Satoshi equals one BitCoin.
Didn’t BitCoin begin with dark web transactions? Seems I remember something about that.
One other thing about the rest of the week:
It’s gonna be Jews all week long.
Jews on Monday!
Jews on Tuesday!
Jews on Wednesday!
Jews on Thursday!
Jews on Friday!
Jews on Saturday! (After sunset)
Jews on Sunday!
No matter what the day, it is always Jew Day.
For the hopelessly naive who continue to argue Bitcoin transactions are “anonymous” and that the blockchain is somehow impervious to the prying eyes of government, ask ChatGPT the following question: “Are bitcoin transactions traceable?” I won’t bore you with the details, but you’ll get a very detailed answer which explains that yes, government entities and law enforcement can (and do) regularly trace the real-world identities of anyone who uses crypto. And while certain privacy-enhancing techniques can make it more difficult to track transactions, in ChatGPT’s words, “regulators and authorities increasingly monitor and scrutinize these methods.”
Hi Jason,
Yup. And what’s inarguable is that Bitcoin – any digital currency – requires you be chained to a device and that device is not under your control.
Hmm, “anonymous” or chained to a device, it doesn’t really matter much either way in this neck of the woods as there are not any: gas stations, grocery stores, farm & hardware stores, or auto repair shops which accept Bitcoin as payment, it might as well be a box of rocks, the purchasing power is the same.
If Bitcoin were untraceable, then it would also be impossible to prove that one owned any, since it is not a physical commodity which one can hold or bury. People who believe that it is untraceable fail to see the logical dilemma such a statement would entail.
WRT cryptocurrency,
First point, if the internet goes away so does cryptocurrency and everything based on blockchain. If this happens we will all have much greater problems even surviving.
Second point, Bitcoin specifically and cryptocurrenies in general do not equal to CBDC. This all relates to theories of money. Von Mises specifies that money is essentially a medium of exchange. Money is whatever people decide it is. Bitcoin has some interesting concepts and one of them is the limit of 21 million coins that can ever be mined. That means that as opposed to anything like a fiat currency it can not be inflated by creating more.
Third, Bitcoin is not a government plot but it does have some technology issues, one of which is lack of privacy. Another is speed of transactions….it is probably more appropriate as a reserve rather than an actual transactional currency.
Having gold and silver on hand is a great approach but if there is really a SHTF situation, food and ammo will be worth a lot more. My concern is that the loons in the pooper’s administration will provoke a nuclear conflagration just to keep Trump out of power. If that happens we are all toast and such matters will be irrelevant.
“Money is defined by Mises in Theory of Money and Credit as a “universally employed” medium of exchange”.
https://mises.org/mises-daily/mises-basics-money
Is Bitcoin, “universally employed”?
Seems that many people have difficulty seeing value in or desiring Bitcoin because it has no use outside of its function.
Bitcoin cannot: be used to start a fire, is not a component in industrial creations or agriculture tools, and is not even suitable as a door stop. Perhaps, that is the part of the reason Bitcoin is not, “universally employed”?
By no means am I a Mises scholar, but I cannot thinkg of a form of money that is “universally employed.” Money is whatever willing buyers or sellers agree upon – a commoditiy like any other whose value is not necessarily intrinsic, but imputed. International travelers and investors may impute high value to bitcoin because it exists everywhere and at the same time within the internet, in the same sense that that electricity exists in a field within the grid. Once a transaction is completed, bitcoins bought in Thailand for example are available in Chile, or anywhere else the internet is intact. Unlike for physical metal or paper cash, there is no need to worry about confiscation or reporting requirements when crossing borders. .
“…Bitcoin is not a government plot but it does have some technology issues, one of which is lack of privacy.”
BTC can be used anonymously, peer to peer. If the buyer and seller deal directly with each other – that is to say, if no third party such as a commercial exchange service is involved, then no private or personal information need be revealed. I’ve done it. The seller and I, the buyer, even agreed beforehand not to disclose our “real names” to each other. You have to very careful about saving your securing your private passcode where no one else can access it (preferably in your brain, but that would be a bit much for most of us.).
Hi Homeless Mark,
I agree on that and that approach assumes two parties who are willing to make such arrangements. Most people go to something like Coinbase to get Bitcoin. An alternative would be something like Monero which is designed for privacy. I had a bunch of interaction with the Monero folks at Porcfest earlier in the year…..really nice people. It remains to be seen on the future of crypto…..it does have a lot of appeal in some respects but as Eric points out, in a SHTTF scenario, it could become rapidly worthless. OTOH, I’m not certain that in such a scenario old farts like me would survive for long, nor that survival would be particularly desirable.
Hi Giuseppe!
I do not want money that is dependent on my having/using a device because that means I am tethered to devices that are controlled by others. This seems self-evident (and dangerous) to me.
Old Ted had some valid points about “technology.”
Shit-coin is faker money than the green pieces of federal reserve toilet paper in your wallet and bank account. ALL cryptocurrency is a skim-sham flim-flam ponzi theft scheme. Only gold or silver, PM’s, are real money. Everything else is fiat currency, period.
You can take that to the Bank, LOL….
And plan accordingly….
YMMV….
Hey, get real! Gerald Celente endorses BitCoin, so listen to what he has to say.
I say, suspect, Celente bought BitCoin at a very low price because he could and then wants you to buy so he can profit.
Amirite or amirite?
Change my mind.
If you have never seen the Grand Canyon, make a bee-line there immediately.
You won’t be disappointed. The Chinks are there in droves, good for them. You can hear Russians speak Russian there. It is Austria all over again, Austria is the original multi-cultural society, the Grand Canyon Multi-cultural Center!
Spanish is spoken too, as you work your way around the complex.
Hope is a great word, like Hopi and stuff, use it.
It can work.
We’re all in this mess together, ain’t no getting out of here alive, that is not going to happen.
Bibi should wake up and smell the napalm in the morning, he apparently loves it. He will definitely fall dead one day, that day can’t come soon enough.
The only thing crypto is some filthy, no good rotten worthless vicious murdering Jew.
They don’t get it.
Jesus is my friend.
Hebrews don’t know what the word hope means.
Time for more beer.
I have commented on this site about this very topic (Bitcoin & crypto-currency in general) on a past occasion.
I will now submit the below and will not do so again, because the arguments here are the same they were at Zero Hedge some 12 years ago (and are still being repeated by many there, despite being wrong for so many years), when those terms were known only to a few enthusiasts, and when Bitcoin was worth in the hundreds, rather than the almost $100,000 it is now.
If you think that ‘cash’ is freedom, think again. Government-issued fiat money, the supply of which can be increased at will, is tantamount to slavery. It can, and is, being confiscated by deliberate inflation even if it sits hidden inside your mattress. It can be cancelled tomorrow, like what happened in Eastern Europe when the communists took over: You may be allowed to convert a maximum of $1,000 into the new North American peso, and the rest of your stash becomes toilet paper. That is what ‘legal tender’ laws imply.
If you think Bitcoin is, apart from being ‘digital’, in any way similar to Central Bank Digital Currency, then you may be interested in a very nice bridge in Brooklyn that’s available for a never-to-be-repeated price.
If you don’t know what gives Bitcoin value, ask yourself what gives anything value? Even gold’s value is subjective – if you were lost in a desert with ten pounds of gold coins, would you or would you not swap those for a gallon of water and a compass & map?
If you don’t believe the future is going to be increasingly digital, do check out discussions covering this topic where the majority consists of young people. That would be those who do not even carry a plastic card and instead use their phones to pay for things.
Technology, like anything else, can be used for both good and bad.
The likes of CBDCs can certainly be used toward taking away what little privacy we have, but the good news is that the opposite is also true. There are some amazingly smart people out there, coming up with ways to preserve our fundamental liberties.
Decentralized internet is THE idea behind this. Sites that cannot be banned, because they do not sit on a centralized server. Assets like Bitcoin, held by you solely, and not by a ‘trusted intermediary’ like a bank, where you cannot be stopped from paying someone else and where your money cannot be confiscated, unless the government goons beat your seed phrase out of you – always a possibility, alas, but still better than the alternatives.
Or privacy coins like Dero, or the better known Monero, which use high-level cryptographic techniques so they do offer full anonymity. The fact most here seem to doubt that this is possible only displays lack of relevant knowledge, not that this is not so.
Progress is named that because by definition it is change. In fact, those two are interchangeable.
You either learn enough to at least understand the basics of what’s going on, or you become a bitter grandpa reminiscing about ‘the good old days’.
Smart people also diversify their various exposures. NOTHING is 100% ‘safe’ or even government-proof. But some things are more so than others. Bitcoin certainly qualifies.
RE: “at least understand the basics of what’s going on”.
Tulips, & turtles, all the way down. …With a splash of Mississippi Bubble, too.
You prove my point perfectly.
Thank you.
How so?
Re-read what I wrote above, about the bitter grandpas who deny what they don’t understand.
Or about the same arguments being used at ZH for over a decade – and still very wrong.
Hi John,
When I speak of cash, I mean physical money – not fiat currency. All your points are valid in re that and I do not contest any of them. But gold and silver are different. They cannot be rendered worthless by the arbitrary decree of any government. It requires physical confiscation to take them away from people. They have physical value that paper does not have.
I see Bitcoin as a stalking horse for CBDC as they are both the same thing, fundamentally. That is, digital money that requires and so makes you dependent on devices; i.e., a smartphone/app and computers. Connected devices that are intrinsically out of our control, begging the question: Who does control them?
Oh, yes. “Decentralized block chains.” I’m not buying it.
I do not want to be pushed into having to use a device connected to the Internet (which is as centralized a thing as imaginable) in order to buy or sell. Which will inevitably lead to us having to be chipped to buy and sell because – as “technology” progresses, that will be feasible touse a chp rather than a device to “connect” and then it will be effectively forced. Just as people are effectively forced to have and carry around a personal tracking device – the smartphone.
Yes,I am aware that kids like this crap. They have been conditioned to. And they are young – and the young are frequently foolish.
It doesn’t make it a thing to sigh and submit to as an inevitability – else be cat-called as a “bitter grandpa.”
Hi Eric,
The great thing about technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies is that adoption is voluntary. One need not participate and a rational approach is to diversify across potential commodities for potential means of exchange. Gold and silver have a long history as use for means of exchange. I see no reason for name calling on any side of the issue. We are all, I suspect, sort of live and let live types here.
The issue of CBDCs is a real threat but this kind of threat has existed before and the market actually adapts. Since according to Von Mises, money is simply a commodity that parties use for exchange, the market will adapt by creating black markets. You can observe this by traveling around Europe and seeing the street markets.
Honestly, I am much more concerned with the potential that the Biden administration will provoke Russia into a conflagration.
BTW, an interesting take on currency debasement is When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany.
I am increasingly turned off by Trump II. The legitimization of bitcoin and his family in talks to buy a bitcoin company remind of Trump Casino stock and what he did to shareholders at least twice. The asset bubbles being front-run right now are scary and will not end well.
I can justify the run up from 2020-2022 when they printed $8 Trillion and no one had anywhere to spend it but equities, nfts and crypto. The massive selloff after was just as justified, but now we’ve had two years of market mania with fudged economic numbers that are less believable than a used car salesman.
Meet the old boss, same as the new… I said 8 years ago that Trump was the perfect carnival barker to preside over the last act of the biggest Ponzi ever, it really seems that is what is coming.
In the meantime those lucky or in the know will be rewarded but all but those in the know will be punished when this Hugest Ponzi Ever does what ponzis always do.
Bernie Madoff at at national level seems likely.
When I say cash, it means all precious metals. Gold silver, copper, lead and a priceless brain and brain stem.
This is the folly of voting. We know that there is a shadow global power structure, and that anyone allowed to get remotely near state or federal offices are beholden to or otherwise controlled by that power structure (Otherwise they’d never get the media support they need- like Ron Paul); and that the BS politicians say for the cameras is just play-acting for the dumb masses. So it’s foolish to say “Trump has said this and will do that” or “Kommie-lala supports this and will do that”.
Regardless of who i8s elected (even if the elections were fair) the one sure thing is that they will do what their bosses tell them to do, in order to further THEIR agenda. If you know what their agenda entails, then you know what the politicians(actors) will do.
Their agenda includes being able to minutely control us via digital currency. Guess what? We’re getting digital currency. Under shose admin is just a matter of time. We came close under Bidet’s, but I think we’ll actually get it under Trump’s, not because either one of those bastards are for or against it…but because it is likely the time for it, according to the real rulers.
Ditto the EV and “autonomous car” nonsense. We know the real goal of the “global warming” charade is to destroy capitalism, and to destroy the average person’s ability to drive, so that most will be forced filthy cities. Well, the car companies are starting to drop like flies- so mission accomplished. No need to the $7500 credits anymore, since no one wants an EV now anyway, now that even the most retarded among us realize that they are not viable. But don’t expect Trump to create an auto utopia by rolling back most of the onerous regs. He may do something signatory, like he did with the Obamacare tax, but nothing that will allow the good old cars we loved to be manufactured again. And in fact, when his tariffs are implemented, the few remaining functional (imported) ICE cars will become expensive.
There’s no fixing this massive evil. And especially not by voting FOR one of their actors! Resistance and non-participation on a mass scale could do it, -so, in other words: No fixi9ng it, because if even Libertarians are willing to participate in their charade, then how can we expect the masses not to? WE are the last line of defense, and the sad reality is that instead of being picked-off, many of us are abandoning the ranks and helping the other side by participating in their most sacred ritual, i.e. voting, and giving your consent to one of their evil beasts, and formally agreeing that the outcome of elections entitles the winner to rule over you; and that you believe in “democracy”.
Well said Arthur.
I think that for many folks reality is a hard pill to swallow.
Most good souls just wants to live their life in peace and not deal with such things.
But.. all it takes for evil to rise is for good men to do nothing.
Norman Finklestein says Trump will be a disaster.
Keep cash at home.
Banks, fail. Bitcoin can too.
No electricity, bitcoin will be a problem.
Warren should turn his 328 billion in cash to bitcoin.
Sure he will.
In the past few years, Bitcoin has ricocheted between about $7K and $100K. Kind of makes the dollar look more stable than iron by comparison.
The dollar is bad enough, as unstable as an earthquake. Digital currency is far worse.
[Keeping in mind Trump was also the one who declared – but never ended – the “emergency” that legally empowered the pushing of drugs on people, a crime he has yet to atone for.] Article
No atonement required so long as the poison is pushed on the goy population.
The Antisemitism Awareness act passes the House 320 – 91. From what I gather,,, any infraction will result in loss of Fines,,, Federal Assistance (Student Loans, etc),,, loss of citizenship,,, possible incarceration.
A note of interest.
Upon violently seizing power in the coup of 1917, Lenin issued his first executive order making “antisemitism” a capital offense punishable by execution without trial.
So those in US corpgov are proudly following the founder of the Soviet Communist Party rather than the founders that wrote the American Declaration. Only requires a senate vote and signature of dementia president to become “law”.
The value of most crypto currency is ability in it’s use in circumventing centralized banking/credit systems. Because sending cash through the mail is risky and slow.
The “who or what” behind crypto is a decentralized network, and no one person or organization controls this network.
This is its point. I’m not sure how to more simply state this. The block chain can be used for other purposes, like “smart contracts” we etc, but mainly, it’s about giving the finger to the Man.
>tax on “carbon,” which you ought to understand means a tax on consumption.
Wrong. A tax on your “carbon emissions” is a tax on your existence, because every breath you exhale produces carbon dioxide.
The “I” in this old song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs
will be Uncle Sam. The total surveillance state is their objective. Total surveillance, and total control.
Did you pay your breathing tax this month, citizen?
Yeah, I’m sorry but I just don’t believe that our elections are real anymore. When so much money and power is at stake, people will do whatever they can get away with to make things “go their way.” It’s human nature.
It is quite clear that Trump does not have any amount of “owning up” to the atrocities put upon us during the covid hoax. Or conversely (if he’s that deluded) he thinks that he *is* “owning up”… to a great success back then. Oh those beautiful vaccines.
Besides, from my point of view, it has never been disproven to my satisfaction that Trump wasn’t the “double-double cross” back in in 2016 against Killary who was and remains widely hated. Not that she was any better, indeed she is worse AFAIK.
But what about Rand Paul? Remind me why he was so quickly discarded?
It wouldn’t surprise me one iota if the RFK jr thing didn’t end up happening. Or if he was JFKed by Big Pharma or the CIA. Or something in between, like doesn’t actually do anything to meaningfully change anything.
Digital currency is different than crypto. But I think both are a highly manipulated scam. People say “so is the dollar!” like that is an apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not. That’s the controlled opposition that is shilling for the banks.
IIRC our government had been “beta testing” a digital currency that they were saying was to be “rolled out” right on the heals of covid hoax. That surely is the continuation of their tyranny that went into overdrive with the plandemic. No matter what it is, no matter how it sounds, it is poison. Just like those beautiful vaccines.
RFK is NOT an ally, any more than Trump is. He’s not anti-vax. He just wants “safe” vaccines (an oxymoron) and has even rather recently advocated forced vaccination ….just as long as they are “safe” of course…..
I mean, think about it: Why would Trump (The enabler of the clot-shot and best friend the pharmaceutical industry ever had) appoint someone to such an office, if they oppose what Trump considers to be his greatest “achievement”, and would be an enemy to Trump’s friends (Like Mssrs. Johnson and Johnson…).
Why would Trump appoint RFK to office?
Because RFK has the trust of the Goy. If RFK said a vaxx was safe and effective most would believe him and line up.
If RFK had any self respect he wouldn’t have taken any position offered by a person now responsible for millions of deaths and more to come.
In 30 seconds RFK destroyed all credibility he garnered over 30 years.
Great points, Ken!
The Republican party has just about finished turning into what used to be the Democratic party, and the Democratic party of late has turned into what used to be the Communist party. I’m sure RFK feels right at home with Trump and all the RINOs.
That’s a good point right there Arthur! Yeah, fucken “safe” vaccination is NOT what we need. We need freedom from medical tyranny, i.e., the ability to choose what we want or not. And to address other points about RFK, first of all don’t think that I trust him, I don’t trust any politician.
Historically, inflation runs high when one wing of the Uniparty grabs across-the board control of the House, Senate and presidency. Both Bitcoin and gold have ripped higher, sniffing that this RINO trifecta is going to borrow, spend and print fiat dollars like’s no tomorrow.
Trump and his RINO partners love their ‘big beautiful military,’ which is going to get more trillions showered on it, despite being unable to pass an audit. An actual America First president would close every overseas base (starting with the THAAD unit in IS-ruh-uhl), exit NATO, and chop the military budget in half. But there’s too much grift for that to happen.
Bearer assets = freedom. Bitcoin and gold are hedges against RINO f*cktards going on a spree. Something has to give, and the dollar is the weak link. As I’ve said before, Trump’s unpublished election slogan was:
Death to the dollar.
‘the opacity of digital money. The fact that no one can explain in simple terms the source of its value and no one seems to know who is behind it’ — eric
Satoshi Nakamoto’s classic paper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, published on October 31, 2008, is posted here. It’s only nine pages, but it changed the world.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
The blockchain is based on total transparency: as Nakamoto describes on page 3 under the heading Network, ‘New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.’ Transparency is the fundamental means of combating fraud.
Bitcoin’s value derives from its scarcity. Only 21 million can ever be minted, whereas fiat currency is issued without limit. The total volume of dollars in circulation has gone up by a couple of orders of magnitude since it was delinked from gold (another bearer asset, like bitcoin).
Both Bitcoin and gold fundamentally are means of exchange, not investments. Their apparent investment value derives from the massive, worldwide criminal conspiracy of central banks, in which they ’emit’ unlimited quantities of unbacked fiat currency.
Unlike publicly-traded companies, means of exchange such as gold and Bitcoin have no growth mechanism. They do serve as bearer assets and as hedges against currency depreciation, as ALL central banks, in every nation, are engaged in a vast consensual fraud. Limited-quantity means of exchange such as gold and Bitcoin are not subject to this fraud.
RE: “Bitcoin’s value derives from its scarcity.”
Skunks are scarce in some places. Does that mean skunks have value in those places?
There’s nary a single alligator up here in The Northland, must be because they are so valued down South?
… There is a limit on how many skunks & alligators can be produced. Is that also why they are so valuable?
OMFG, I got a great belly laugh out of that one! So true! And I’m so stealing that from you Helot! You win the Internet today.
Cool. Just tryin’ to understand, in simple terms, the source of its value.
I imagine, Bitcoins value is mostly just as Martin Armstrong describes his difference with Austrian Economics, the strength of the Dollar is not from an increase in the money supply, rather he thinks it’s due to a decrease in confidence The People have in the goobermint. [Idk. Why not both?]
So, it seems with Bitcoin, a huge number of people have confidence in the Blockchain. Is that the sole underlying source of its value? Idk.
The only value behind Bitcoin is in the minds of the peop0le who believe in it. It has no intrinsic value because it is not even physical. The rules dictating it’s creation are totally arbitrary. One can not even truly possess it because it is not physical. This is why it’s “value” can ricochet between $7K and $100K over the course of 2 or 3 years. Those who can manipulate public opinion control the price of Bitcoin (Notice I said “price”, no “value” because Bitcoin is intrinsically worthless).
When the power is turned off and or the internet dies, how could one even prove that they own any Bitcoin? How would Mr. Bitcoin Owner’s string of numbers be any more valuable than a random string of numbers I just spew off the top of my head? And why would I take that in trade for wheat or tobacco, when I can just make-up my own numbers? Just because his numbers adhere to some arbitrary rules, how does that make them more valuable than my randomly-generated numbers?
I like your hat. I would be willing to give you 758 for it. (Not $758…just the number 758). O-K? I give you an electronic receipt showing that I created 758 (I used a green crayon!).
Excellently said, Arthur!
You are absolutely right. We’re suppose to believe that Bitcoin cannot be conjured in limitless quantity because of an assertion made that it won’t be. Gold and silver are by no means free of problems. But it’s damned hard to just conjure gold and silver coins, isn’t it?
Man, are you guys saying that at least during The Dutch Tulip Mania/Bubble a person could hold a tulip in their hand in The End when the value crashed?
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp
…Did the price of the tulips blossom for the very same reasons Bitcoin does today?
You haven’t put in the work to learn enough about that which you are critiquing.
I strongly suggest Jack Mallers’s keynote address in Prague called “there is no second best”.
Real, physical work/energy manifested in digital form. This is proof of work. This will be the future.
No, you can’t conjure Bitcoin. The program is open source. Do the work — learn more about it.
-still a loyal reader
There is NO such thing as ‘intrinsic value’.
All value is subjective.
Economics 101.
I see this fallacy being regurgitated on supposedly ‘libertarian’ sites and it makes me feel very, very sad.
As far as being ‘physical’, does ‘love’ have any value?
You dollars in the bank account are not physical.
Do they have value? Can you buy things with them?
Software is not physical. Why is Microsoft, or worse, Facebook, worse trillions?
Bitcoin has value because the consensus of the majority who buy it says so.
Like everything else.
Sheesh…
OK, but I can hand you a lump of gold and you can hold it, touch it, put it in your sock drawer, or go exchange it for something else. And that would specifically NOT be “broadcast to all nodes”. And although gold is a physical thing with known limits of its abundance, they still can manage to manipulate its price! Silver, platinum, copper, etc., on and on, as well.
With something so seemingly simple as gold ought to be, and still so manipulated, how can any of these ephemerous currencies be any better?
Say for example, something really bad happened, like a major war or even a mega-sun spot or whatever, and the internet could not operate outside of the military. Or at all. Like some EMF bomb hit, etc.
Sure, “as soon as its back up” (which we’ve all heard, countless times, at this point), everything will be restored. What if that “soon” is weeks, months, or never? Poof!
“Sorry folks! Turns out that after the EMF bomb, and then everything finally came back up, all the Bitcoin exchanges were somehow destroyed. The CIA absolutely had nothing to do with it.
Have a nice day!”
Per my limited understanding, gold and silver are for holding wealth, and bitcoin is for transferring wealth. Gold and silver are scarce, portable, durable, anonymous, and highly fungible. Bitcoin is all those except durable, but vastly more portable. Bitcoin is the new and improved money order/travelers check.
It is obvious to everyone who has paid attention that the dollar is dead and the US is bankrupt. The elitists plan to deal with both is a massive swindle, a traceable digital dollar which will be the new plantation/company town scrip. It’s actually a very elegant, if evil solution for the control freaks. The problem is, it is not in their power to destroy gold and silver, though they will surely try.
“Bitcoin is all those except durable.” My understanding is that bitcoin isn’t anonymous, either.
Hi Jason,
I do not understand how anyone can seriously assert that anything online is anonymous. It strikes me as ludicrously, embarrassingly naive.
That’s only because you clearly do not understand things like encryption, or, let’s face it, most IT-related things.
No offense meant, but this is obvious to anyone who DOES have some background in those areas.
“The obvious is obviously wrong.” [Joe Granville]
Do you know anything about cryptography, Jason?
Hi John,
That’s true, I do not understand encryption. But I do understand that digital money requires devices. I do not want to be effectively forced to carry around a device – a smartphone – connected to the Internet – to buy a sandwich. Or anything else. Are devices secure? Do you believe he government-corporate nexus will not be able to know and so control – everything we do financially when everything is connected to devices? Will your digital money be available to buy when your device is “locked down” via an “update” from the government?
When a person is paid cash money for a thing, no one else knows about it. He can avoid taxes in this way. He can avoid government in general this way. Physical money is freedom. Digital money is serfdom. So says I – and I think we’ll find out who’s right.
I’ll go with Warren Buffet’s description of bitcoin – “rat poison squared”. As far as I can tell it’s nothing but vaporware.
What other elements on the Periodic Table will be subject to an arbitrary tax in the future?
This is insanity writ large. Substances that occur naturally, irrespective of human existence, were put here for our use, not our restrictions. It’s this type of god-like authoritarian thinking that is driving humanity over a cliff.
As far as “digital currency” (scare quotes to denote its lack of actual existence) it has probably taken a big hit with the recent hurricanes. People now realize that without the infrastructure of a modern society, digital anything is less than worthless.
Cash is still King.
It seems even a child would know better than to play with invisible worthless currency.
Yet alone anyone who considers themselves an intelligent adult.
Maybe we should all ask ourselves this one question.. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYEYJSsZ90A
RE: “Imagine how it could work during the next “pandemic,””
I got a slight reminder of how fast that pops up. The day before, I could walk into a local thrift store in this Red State/County without seeing any demands for compliance on the doors.
Yesterday, Bam! Big bright red stickers on the glass doors greeted me: No dogs, no guns.
“Dirty” dogs, “dirty” guns?
I wondered what drove that to happen, & Who decided it?
…I reckon it’d be like that with Bitcoin, too.
Hi Helot, I wonder what would happen if you walked in with a flame thrower and a pet ferret?
Ha! Good point.
…a cat is ok, too I guess?
My dogs identify as velociraptors. And this is an industrial hole punch. Any more questions?
Vivek Ramaswamy planted the bitcoin bug in Trump’s ear. He’s Vivek addressing Bitcoin 2023 conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bc2jRlBunQ
Elon seems to like carbon taxes.You know who else likes carbon taxes? GovCo!!! Once that camel gets it’s nose under the tent it only goes up. Like the income tax that started over a hundred years ago but just for the rich, I guess everyone is rich now because everyone pays it. Digital currency will make it even harder to live free. What’s next a Value Added Tax like in the UK? Wait until they float that next but only to pay off the debt….
Eric: “Most especially when you believe you’re safe.”
To quote some dead guy “You can be dead but never safe”, or something like that. The more that someone else other than you such as GovCo or the oligarchs and their corporations controls the less control you have over your life.
Depending on where you live lots of people or almost no one has a generator, guess who will still have unspoiled food in the freezer during a power failure? Similarly learn to grow some of your own food, if nothing else it’ll probably be organic and taste better. Learn to repair what you own.
The only way to fight back against outside control is to be in control yourself. It used to be called being an adult, nowadays it might be called prepping. Either way you won’t be going to GovCo on your knees during a power failure or after a storm begging for help.
But how will I bribe politicians without cash?
That Senator in NJ was happy to take gold bars.
Bob Menendez
I thought that, too. But the control a politician can assert on you flows from the top. A briefcase full of cash to bride them works now but imagine the power the intelligence operators can assert on politicians and CEOs with digital money. The middle managers of the tyranny are dumb as a box rocks grifters who can’t see the elephant in the digital money room either. These idiots can’t help themselves with hookers and blow so they always walk straight into the honeypot. They might as well just pre-select the kompromat they wish to be used against them in the future during their first run for public office. Many of them are already too dumb not to use corporate or government credit cards.
In fairness, I find their predilection for hookers and blow to be their only human and redeeming characteristic.
I think digital currency schemes are a nonstarter. The credit card processors are making too much money to let alternatives become widespread.
That said, I think there are a lot of people who see the shiny without understanding the mechanism. So maybe a CBDC is put out there as a better way to conduct electronic business. I don’t think that credit card transaction fees are a problem, Visa and MC are providing a service after all, but I also think that there should be more competition. Maybe a user-friendly blockchain, even if it’s run by the post office, would be that alternative.
People who think Bitcoin is untraceable are disillusioned. The whole point of a blockchain database is to distribute transaction history to as many people as possible. Sure, it’s just a number. So is your IP address. It’s trivial to connect a wallet to an IP address (especially IPv6, where every device gets a true (non-NAT) IP address). And that IP address location is known too. Oh, the feds might not know your name, but they can get enough corroborating evidence to send you a notice. Don’t even need to involve any of the 87,000 new hires at the IRS until the AI spits out the evidence.
All it takes is a miner and access to BGP routing tables. Finding the physical location takes a little more effort, maybe a subpoena (or just an email) to your ISP.
If you’re on the network you’re trackable.
Far too many people believe it’s all magic and don’t get this. If it’s digital, it’s NOT secure. If you put it on the web, you own it, and even though I use multiple handles it is a trivial matter to find me.
And with the ubiquitous adoption of networked solid state cameras in the last 20 years it’s safest to assume there is no privacy. And organizing resistance is logistically impossible because every promising leader will be compromised or destroyed. God is our only hope.
” It’s trivial to connect a wallet to an IP address (especially IPv6, where every device gets a true (non-NAT) IP address). And that IP address location is known too.”
Which is why hardware wallets, like Trezor for example, connect via Tor (also known as ‘the onion router’) as default.
One can also use i2p (see at ‘geti2p dot net’) or a combination of various techniques to hide your IP address. This is rather trivial, really.
Regardless, being a cynic by birth, I’m sure many here will not believe it’s possible, despite having no idea how these things work.
You mean the deep state’s Tor? You are as naive as those you label as such.