Will the Banksters Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish Cryptocurrencies?

[ThePythonicCow]

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It seems that the Elite Evil Bastards are on a long march (https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Long_March) to populate the earth with themselves, plus enough mostly interchangeable enslaved humans and robotic devices to get done the mundane tasks that the elite want done.

This plan includes building out the Internet and developing sufficient computational, surveillance and control capability to track and control all their slaves and robots on (and off) the planet.

Since there are "too many" humans alive now, perhaps in part as a result of the elites building up human production capacity over the last century in order to create all this infrastructure and technology, therefore most of us need to die, or at least cease having any more children.

As I described in this other thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest...), earlier today, the world's monetary system has changed in recent times, from one that was mostly based on hard currencies, such as gold and silver, with limited extension of credit, such as with 90 day Bills of Trade, to our current system that is a deeply inverted pyramid scheme leveraging many layers of financial shenanigans on top of debt paper that uses real labor and property as collateral.

So ... what does this have to do with cryptocurrency?

Well, it seems to me that the banks, regulators and other main stream financial institutions are in a process much like what I witnessed over the last three decades from Microsoft.

This process is called Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish.

The Banksters are now embracing and extending cryptocurrencies, and soon enough will start extinguishing what they can't make use of, on their own terms.

The Banksters intend for cryptocurrencies to fit within their system, providing far more efficient and pervasive means to surveil and control all the monetary activity of their slaves (us), across the planet.

Here (https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Embrace,+extend,+and+extinguish) is how The Free Dictionary by Farlex defines the phrase "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish":


embrace, extend, and extinguish
Also found in: Wikipedia (https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/embrace%2c+extend%2c+and+extinguish).

A business strategy of implementing a public standard or developing software compatible with it, adding features not supported by the public standard, then marginalizing competition that does not (or cannot) support such proprietary additions. Popularized during the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial as a phrase used internally by Microsoft regarding its own business philosophy.

The global tech giant has seemingly taken "embrace, extend, and extinguish" as its business motto in recent years, sucking up all sorts of various web-based technologies over the years and mutating them into proprietary forms that no one else can hope to compete with.
Many of us who have been involved in various software wars of the last few decades are quite familiar with this tactic, and can sense it coming a mile away.

The Banksters and other such Money Masters have built up, especially since the late 1800's, a powerful, complex, monetary system that layers financial complexity upon financial complexity, several layers deep, upon a foundation of money that is lent into existence, in exchange for the I.O.U.'s (mortgages, loan documents, credit card agreements, corporate and government bonds, ...) that are the raw material from which these layers of financial complexity are formed. I spelled out in more detail some of the financial instruments and machinations used to construct this powerful system in my other recent thread: How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest...)

It is essential, in the view of the Banksters, that they integrate the Web into their monetary system, so that all transactions, from a child's allowance or a tip for the waitress at the lunch counter, to the affairs of the world's nations, be conducted in near real time, using smart contracts that automatically determine the routine details of each transaction, over distributed ledgers such as the blockchain, that no individual corporation or government can control.

This would replace the current system, in which each major player (bank, government, etc) has their own set of accounting books, running on their own computers, communicating using simulations of arcane protocols. This current system is too slow, too fragmented, and incapable of providing the "security" that the Banksters seek. By "security" I mean the ability to monitor and control all activity, all the time, in real time, while keeping anyone else from stepping outside the lines "they" establish, even in the slightest.

Sometime in the 1980's, John Gage coined the phrase: “The Network is the Computer.” That phrase would become the tagline of Sun Microsystems for decades.

Now, both Banksters and freedom loving crypto fanactics agree that our monetary systems need to move from the various isolated and independent main frame computers at each major business and government, to networked algorithms running shared and distributed sets of accounting ledgers, such as "blockchains", across many such computers, according to commonly agreed upon rules.

Such distributed systems are now being developed. They provide accounting books and running across multiple independent computers spread around the world, such that no one or few of these computers can determine the outcome of each update to the accounting books. I am a peer reviewed, published specialist in other parallel, distributed, computing algorithms, and I have spent a modest amount of time reading and studying the algorithms used by some of the current major cryptocurrencies. The algorithms are real, solid, and elegant. Some of them have even been mathematically proven to have the intended correctness properties.

These systems have been under very active development for about the last decade now, starting with Satoshi Nakamoto's seminal 2008 paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf). This is the first major project for many of the young whipper snappers working on cryptocurrencies, and some of them have gotten quite rich, worth millions or even billions of dollars. They are mostly freedom loving coders, wanting to built a system that achieves the dream Satoshi set forth in the very first sentence of his paper:


A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
However ... the Banksters, central banks, and regulators are now getting involved:


Moving money between the crypto-world and the "real" main stream money world is difficult and subject to taxation and KYC ("Know Your Customer") banking regulations that identify and track each participant.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange commision has assumed the authority to decide what sort of securities, stock issuances, futures, and other such financial instruments are allowed in the crypto space.

Cryptocurrency exchanges that support moving between different crypto currencies and between crypto and "main stream" central bank issued currencies are subject to an entangling web of conflicting regulations, that differ nation by nation and in the U.S. even state by state.

"Stable coins" (cryptocurrencies that are setup to maintain a stable value in some specified central bank currency such as the US Dollar) are subjected to disparaging remarks by the regulators and risk "going away" at some time.

Some efforts at cryptocurrencies, such as Facebook's Libra (https://techjury.net/blog/facebook-cryptocurrency/), are virtually hounded out of existence by the bankers and regulators, before they really even get started.

Bitcoin and the other major cryptocurrencies that rely on many computers, world-wide, simultaneously trying to find solutions to complex random number algorithms, use a lot of energy, and (to the dismay of gamers) a lot of computer graphics cards. These algorithms are deliberately inefficient, slowing transaction speeds, raising transaction costs, and opening them up to criticism from the Climate Change alarmists.

There are alternative solutions to these distributed ledger problems that are highly specialized to such distributed consensus problems. But the best of these, Hedera's Hashgraph (https://hedera.com/learning/what-is-hashgraph-consensus), is locked behind patents and proprietary technology, only available to whatever existing major financial institutions control it.


The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
-- Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone of Jul 13, 2009
Either the Vampire Squid retains control, using closed source, patented, licensed, proprietary "distributed ledger" technology to move our monetary systems to the Web, or the upstart freedom loving geeks gain control, with open source, visible to all, technology that ultimately humanity controls, and that achieves Satoshi Nakamoto's dream of a system that allows direct money transfer, person to person, without having to pass through any financial institution.

The vampire squid must die.


https://themooster.net/uploads/default/original/1X/85bcaa65f63d4a92a78170f8a203b53d11e3803a.jpeg

[Mypos]

Very well written with loads of good info! Thx for that.

Maybe there is a 3d option? Both systems working at the same time? In the Vampire Squid system all the people who are ok to be controlled operate. That means people who dont feel the need to peek trough the curtain. And in the Freedom Geeks system all the outcasts, antiVax, freedomlovers and knowledge seekers operate. Its even being mentioned on the website of the WEF in a story that takes place in the future. Most people live "healthy, secure and free" inside the controll system and there are clusters of people who didnt comply living outside the system.

[Vangelo]

Excellent post ThePythonicCow, thank you.

First let me state that I agree with the depiction of the large banks as vampire squid. However, I am less concerned with private banks and more concerned with the Central Banks and Governments. As you state above, the current system has layers and layers of complex inefficiencies which allow the private banks, central banks and govt to control us and siphon off a little fee at each layer for each transaction. The majority of the work in this system is done by the private bank and clearing houses. The Govts and Central Banks are dependent upon the private institutions to do this work for them.

As you so well described above, the blockchain/distributed ledger technology allows you and I to conduct financial transactions directly, bypassing the current financial system, its control, and fees. That means, we are able to bypass the private banks, the central banks and the govt. All three of them now realize this is an existential threat and they have to do something.

Will they try to kill the blockchain/crypto currency system currently in place? No, I don't think so, it is too efficient and it can be used for greater control (see CBDC description below).

Will all three survive? My bet is the government and central banks will try to gain more control and will, in the process, diminish the role of the private institutions.

I believe the new system they want will establish control at the point where money enters/leaves the blockchain i.e. brokerages, purchase of goods and services, payroll, custodial services (savings) etc... Governments will institute regulations such as KYC, anti-money laundering and terrorist funding at those node points. Those node points are primarily within the private bank networks.

The logical conclusion at this point is the govt could eliminate the central bank and only work with the private banking system. But they won't because the central bank's will promise ultimate control via a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs - China has outlined their plans and they are frightening). This will be too enticing for any government to ignore. And the Central Bank will also argue for the destruction of cash and then be able to completely eliminate the need for the private banks.

I don't believe the private banks understand the position they are in. If they did, they would band together and lobby the governments for the elimination of the central bank.

I would love to hear what others think of the scenario I described above.

[Mypos]

Excellent post ThePythonicCow, thank you.

First let me state that I agree with the depiction of the large banks as vampire squid. However, I am less concerned with private banks and more concerned with the Central Banks and Governments. As you state above, the current system has layers and layers of complex inefficiencies which allow the private banks, central banks and govt to control us and siphon off a little fee at each layer for each transaction. The majority of the work in this system is done by the private bank and clearing houses. The Govts and Central Banks are dependent upon the private institutions to do this work for them.

As you so well described above, the blockchain/distributed ledger technology allows you and I to conduct financial transactions directly, bypassing the current financial system, its control, and fees. That means, we are able to bypass the private banks, the central banks and the govt. All three of them now realize this is an existential threat and they have to do something.

Will they try to kill the blockchain/crypto currency system currently in place? No, I don't think so, it is too efficient and it can be used for greater control (see CBDC description below).

Will all three survive? My bet is the government and central banks will try to gain more control and will, in the process, diminish the role of the private institutions.

I believe the new system they want will establish control at the point where money enters/leaves the blockchain i.e. brokerages, purchase of goods and services, payroll, custodial services (savings) etc... Governments will institute regulations such as KYC, anti-money laundering and terrorist funding at those node points. Those node points are primarily within the private bank networks.

The logical conclusion at this point is the govt could eliminate the central bank and only work with the private banking system. But they won't because the central bank's will promise ultimate control via a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs - China has outlined their plans and they are frightening). This will be too enticing for any government to ignore. And the Central Bank will also argue for the destruction of cash and then be able to completely eliminate the need for the private banks.

I don't believe the private banks understand the position they are in. If they did, they would band together and lobby the governments for the elimination of the central bank.

I would love to hear what others think of the scenario I described above.

What you are forgetting imo is that private banks are the tool of the Central Banks. Real power is housed with the Central Banks. I dont think they will let themselves be destroyed by Private Banks. Most puppet CEOs of private banks are under the control of Central Banks.

[Vangelo]

What you are forgetting imo is that private banks are the tool of the Central Banks. Real power is housed with the Central Banks. I dont think they will let themselves be destroyed by Private Banks. Most puppet CEOs of private banks are under the control of Central Banks.

I agree, the central bank will not allow themselves to be destroyed by the Private Banks. That is why my scenario above posits that the private banks are in the worst position and will lose out if they don't do something.

This is how I am looking at the situation (the following is an over simplification but it should suffice to frame the problem):

Government: Make money through sales tax, income tax, and by creating fiat currency out of thin air i.e. debasement

Central Bank: Make money on the interest it charges the government for printing the fiat currency and they set interest rates for lending fiat between banks.

Private Banks: Make money on the interest earned lending fiat to you and I and also on transaction fees.

You and I: We pay taxes and interest. The value of our fiat drops due to debasement. You and I get poorer because the purchasing value of our money goes down and we are paying high interest rates. You and I want the crypto revolution to continue because it will eliminate debasement, interest rates will be lower and the system will be fast, efficient and private. Example: El Salvadorians who work in the USA and are sending money back home to their families in the form of Bitcoin. They are saving 30% of what they used to spend because they don't have pay Western Union transaction fees. Instead, they send Bitcoin directly to their family members instantly and for pennies.

As I am sure you know, DeFi* allows me to lend crypto to you without the involvement of anyone in the banking system or government. You can then purchase something with that crypto or you can convert that crypto into fiat and then purchase something. Again, no involvement of the banking system. That means the private banks will not be able to make money because they are not lending the money. Instead, I am lending the money to you. I am making the money the bank would have made on the interest. The private banks will eventually go out of business UNLESS they jump in hard and become a DeFi company and also a provider of custodial services.

The govt can still make money on our transactions through sales tax. BUT, the income I make lending you money will only be taxed if I declare it as income and I live in the same country as you. That means the government has to regulate the DeFi company to force them to report my income.

The thing that is missing in this scenario however, is control over the money supply and all the wealth it creates for the central bank and the government. This is, as you said, where all the power is. The government will not want to lose that power nor will the central bank.

The solution for them is CBDCs. If we change the scenario above and include CBDCs and insert the Central Bank, then there is no reason why the central bank can't take over the DeFi service provider function completely (it is almost completely automated). If they do that, then the private banks will be wiped out. I believe this to be the most likely scenario (actually, I believe the government will regulate DeFi to the point where it is managed by the central bank and the central bank will contract out to the private banks which in turn will be reduced in size by 80%)

This scenario means that the financial industry will be a monopoly. It will no longer be a free market. Here in the US, we have large private banking institutions for sure, but we also have a lot of very small community banks and credit unions. That means I can shop around and find the bank that offers the best lending rates. If the government regulates crypto to much, the financial industry will become a monopoly controlled by the central bank.

* DeFi = Decentralized Finance that is enabled by the crypto blockchain technology.

[Vangelo]

I suspect Raoul Pal is correct...

Real Vision’s Raoul Pal Predicts When Regulators Will Reach a ‘Grand Compromise’ on Crypto
Daily Hodl Staff October 31, 2021 REGULATORS
https://dailyhodl.com/2021/10/31/real-visions-raoul-pal-predicts-when-regulators-will-reach-a-grand-compromise-on-crypto/
‏‏‎
Macro guru Raoul Pal says that regulators are starting to see the value of crypto which could lead them to make a grand compromise on the industry.

In a new interview on decentralized finance-focused (DeFi) channel The Defiant, the Real Vision CEO says regulators are struggling to apply traditional securities laws to the complex and nascent crypto space.

“The traditional system is struggling to figure out how to fit this in. We’ve just seen that with a Bitcoin ETF. They’re trying to fit it into an existing framework that doesn’t work, so classic negotiating tactics would be to start with the hardest possible line first, which is everybody’s going to prison, you’re all terrible people, [and] this is all illegal.

As regulators realize how much is at stake in crypto and that the old system does not work for the space, Pal says laws specifically designed to govern digital assets could emerge.

“The reality is, I think they’ve learned pretty quickly that there’s a massive amount of money behind this and a lot of young people who have a lot of votes, so what’s going to happen? I think somewhere within this is a grand compromise, and that’s what has to happen, and it won’t be the securities laws. It will be some new digital asset laws.”

Pal says that Singapore is already making progress with its crypto regulation, but the US may still require more time to smoothen out the digital assets space.

“I think in the end there’s going to be a lot of bluster, and it’s negotiating tactics because everybody wants to get their side of the line, and there’ll be a grand compromise reached probably within, I guess, three years. I don’t think it’s going to be quick.”

unr1hgSsAgM

[ThePythonicCow]

Mankind has a substantial difference compared to all the other species on this planet (whether that difference should be considered an advantage or a curse I'll leave to the reader).

We make or express stuff in complex ways, building whole new layers of order out of primitive elements.

For example:

We don't just "use twigs as tools". Rather we develop complex, world-wide infrastructure to mine, refine and work metals into the parts in automobiles, high rise buildings, bridges, cutlery, swords and guns, and fine Swiss watches.



We've developed several elaborate languages, first spoken, then hand written on wood and stone, then printed on paper, and now in computers and across the Internet.


We've developed weapons such as swords, guns and bombs, as well as chemical and biological weapons, one of which has been making the headlines these last couple of years.



We're developing computers, sensors and actuators that automate factories, control our cars and planes, power the Internet, and a bazillion other such tasks.



We develop powerful sources of useful energy, from burning wood, coil and oil, to using nuclear and solar, to, perhaps in the near future, "free" (from the underlying aether, as I understand it) energy.

Each of the above can be used for good or evil.

Thus it has been and shall be for money, whether as a sea shell, metal coin, a paper receipt, an entry in a bank's ledger, or data on some cryptographically secured distributed ledger such as a blockchain. Each of these forms are means of representing, recording, and exchanging generic value between bodies, both biological humans and legal corporations.

Money, like the sword or knife, is a means, to various ends.

For an example closer to home, closer to the topic of this thread, notice the ongoing struggle between "main stream" and "free people" to control what goes on this Internet. As people get kicked off Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Android, Google, Paypal, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, and so forth, they form other sites, and find existing sites, that support "free" speech.

The Elite Evil Bastards thought they had the upper hand, controlling more or less all of the main stream news, social, entertainment and pro-athlete media and channels, administrators and prominent individuals.

As with the news and social media, as with our institutions of medicine and healing, as with our food and water, so with money.

A year ago, the Elite Evil Bastards had many good reasons to think they were winning their final battle for control of humanity.

The tide is turning. We're pushing back, by the hundreds of millions. More and more people every day are waking up.

Crypto currencies, like the Web itself, are a powerful tool, that can be used for various purposes.

The awareness and intentions of the architects, developers, regulators, maintainers and users determine how such tools are used.

... especially of the users.

[rgray222]

Great post full of a good deal of thought-provoking points. I am reasonably new to the crypto world, about 7 months. My primary purpose for getting involved was to develop a better understanding of where the financial world was going and to see if crypto could provide an outlet for some profitable investing. I don't think I can impress upon people enough that they should start looking into crypto because that is the direction the world is headed when it comes to everything financial.

My thoughts on crypto are evolving at a very rapid pace. Little did I know that one of the purposes of crypto was to remove the third party. Cryptocurrency is decentralized (and anonymous), any two people, anywhere in the world, can send Bitcoin (or another crypto) to each other without the involvement of a bank, government, or other institution. Wow that in itself is astonishing and worthy of our attention. Also, that fact alone should tell everyone that governments and banks will only tolerate crypto for so long before they step in and destroy (regulate) the technology that does not benefit them and takeover (regulate) the technology that does benefit them. Cryptocurrencies technology is still evolving fairly fast, the blockchains are beginning to process transactions at a rate that is far faster than we have ever seen. I believe that ADA (Cardano) can actually do one million transactions a second compared with credit cards that do between 2000-5000 per second. Once we see these blockchains completely built out we will most like start to see the regulation move in. Originally I was naive enough to believe that governments and banks had let the cryptocurrencies go down the road so far that there would be no stopping them but now I believe that government and banks have the desire and the power to step in at any time and take control in a way that only benefits them. Of course, this will be an easy sell to the public because they will be told that it is something they need and it is being done for their protection.

For anyone that needs to be convinced that regulation is going to happen only needs to look to China. They have stopped the public investing in crypto and the Central Bank (The People's Bank of China) has developed the digital yuan and given out millions to the public to get them "indoctrinated". This digital currency in China and eventually around the world will be nothing more than a surveillance currency. They will be able to track where you have gone, every item you have purchased and it will provide an unparalleled stream of tax revenues to governments.

It seems to me (I would like to hear what others think) that the governments of Europe and the USA will let the crypto market heat up (possibly in another year or two) to the point of self-implosion. This will weed out thousands of useless coins and tokens and only the ones that benefit central banks and governments will be allowed to return. Of course, these coins and tokens will become dominant and worth a small fortune. Similar to what happened when the technology bubble burst in 1995/96.

[ThePythonicCow]

First let me state that I agree with the depiction of the large banks as vampire squid. However, I am less concerned with private banks and more concerned with the Central Banks and Governments.

What you are forgetting imo is that private banks are the tool of the Central Banks. Real power is housed with the Central Banks. I dont think they will let themselves be destroyed by Private Banks. Most puppet CEOs of private banks are under the control of Central Banks.

Vangelo didn't say he was unconcerned with the private banks, only that he was less concerned.

The Central Banks, and a handful of the world's largest private banks (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/the-worlds-100-largest-banks-2021), such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank are, along with the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, the several heads of the hydra snake. These heads must be chopped off.


https://themooster.net/uploads/default/original/1X/bac1c8f9691c39d48ab7f3aadf5a3b95d3d199d9.jpeg

However, more central in my view, is that our underlying system of issuing money, by banks lending it out in exchange for debt paper, needs to change. This system of debt-money puts a powerful lever of control over our civilization in the hands of the banksters, as I in the sister thread to this one: How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest-means).

If our core means of exchanging money, generating energy, and healing and feeding humanity fundamentally change for the better, then we've won this climatic war for the soul of humanity.


Down with debt-money.

[ThePythonicCow]

Speaking of debt, I've long wondered what was the essential difference between the borrowing and lending of crypto-currencies that I see supported on some blockchains, and the borrowing and lending of money by banks that I rail against in my How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest-means) sister thread.

The difference is this:



One form of lending is secured. As when I loan my ladder to my neighbor, there is only one ladder. If he's using it, then I'm not. Neither of us can magically make one ladder into two ladders, much less a million or billion ladders. This is the form of lending that I see on cryptocurrency blockchains. The cryptocurrency data structures, algorithms and smart contracts ensure that one unit of currency remains always and forever just one unit ... only the control of the various uses to which that one unit might be put changes hands.

The other form of lending is a means and recipe for nearly infinite amplification of money, and hence of the power it has over our activities. These means of amplification are exactly what I spelled out, in my afore linked sister thread.

The debt-money masters must be kicked out of the temple.

It's not the charging of interest that concerns me so much, as it is the monetization of debt.

[ThePythonicCow]

Central Bank: Make money on the interest it charges the government for printing the fiat currency and they set interest rates for lending fiat between banks.

Private Banks: Make money on the interest earned lending fiat to you and I and also on transaction fees.

The primary point of my How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest-means) sister thread is that it is not the interest charged, nor the fractional reserve lending, that is the main problem, the main source of the Banksters excessive power.

It is the monetization of debt itself, creating more monetary assets that can leverage more debt in various other forms, layer upon layer of debt, that is the power that enables them to turn the two hundred thousand that I once borrowed as a mortgage not just into the perhaps four hundred thousand that I paid back with the interest, but into hundreds of billions of leveraged, optioned, securitized, derived, sliced and diced and repackaged debt.

Fractional reserve lending and usurious interest charges are limited hangouts.

The monetization of debt, and the further layered burdening of that freshly created monetary asset with yet another layer of also monetizable debt, as far as the Wall Street quant's computer can handle, is the problem, is the fulcrum about which the Banksters move the world, realizing Archimedes dream when he said (in Greek no doubt) "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

[ThePythonicCow]

Pal says laws specifically designed to govern digital assets could emerge.
Grand new bodies of law, that lay the ground work in new areas, always seem to follow grand crashes in those same areas.

They write the laws behind closed doors. Then when they're ready, they blow things up real good, in order to create the fear and panic that can be used to get their new laws passed.

It is usual in such crashes for a few to become far more wealthy and powerful, and for the many to lose their shirts.

Since I am an old man, with less time remaining to rebuild from nothing if I lose my shirt, I tend to play it safe. This means keeping my crypto off the exchanges, staying diversified in several different crypto currencies, and taking profits to move them into other stuff of value to me.

I fully anticipate a major crash of something, somehow, in the crypto space, at a time and a place, and in a manner, that I will have no knowledge of ahead of time.

[indiana]

Central Bank: Make money on the interest it charges the government for printing the fiat currency and they set interest rates for lending fiat between banks.

Private Banks: Make money on the interest earned lending fiat to you and I and also on transaction fees.

The primary point of my How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest-means) sister thread is that it is not the interest charged, nor the fractional reserve lending, that is the main problem, the main source of the Banksters excessive power.

It is the monetization of debt itself, creating more monetary assets that can leverage more debt in various other forms, layer upon layer of debt, that is the power that enables them to turn the two hundred thousand that I once borrowed as a mortgage not just into the perhaps four hundred thousand that I paid back with the interest, but into hundreds of billions of leveraged, optioned, securitized, derived, sliced and diced and repackaged debt.

Fractional reserve lending and usurious interest charges are limited hangouts.

The monetization of debt, and the further layered burdening of that freshly created monetary asset with yet another layer of also monetizable debt, as far as the Wall Street quant's computer can handle, is the problem, is the fulcrum about which the Banksters move the world, realizing Archimedes dream when he said (in Greek no doubt) "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."


Very interesting thread, thanks! I'm familiar with some of what you talked about - familiar as in I've watched documentaries, listened to podcasts and read up on some of it. Could you explain a bit more about the "monetization of debt"? It's a bit of a new one for me. Thanks!

[ThePythonicCow]

Could you explain a bit more about the "monetization of debt"? It's a bit of a new one for me. Thanks!
When you take out a mortgage to buy a home, that debt paper, the I.O.U. you signed promising to pay the loan back with some interest, is as good as money to the bank that extended that loan to you. That bank usually takes that debt paper to the market, and sells it for money. Student loans, car loans, all manner of loans are handled the same way. Your debt is someone else's money.

We saw this in the 2008 crash, when mortgage backed securities failed. These were bundles of such home loans, packaged up and sold again, for money, just as the underlying mortgage debt paper had already been sold, When the real estate market fell, many of the mortgages failed, then many of the mortgage backed securities failed, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed a major shot of money and restructuring from the Federal government, to avoid blowing up.

One man's debt is another man's asset. Thanks to the introduction of computers on Wall Street, and other major financial centers, in the last half century, the ability of the Banksters to repackage such debt paper as more assets, under different terms, often rehypothecating the same underlying asset to multiple overlying securities, the actual, hard asset value of such financial paper is far, far less than the apparent nominal value.

My How to turn ten thousand dollars into ten billion dollars, by less than honest means (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest-means) sister thread goes into this in more detail.

[Vangelo]

You are absolutely right ThePythonicCow ... "The monetization of debt, and the further layered burdening of that freshly created monetary asset with yet another layer of also monetizable debt ... is the problem"

For those folks who don't quite understand what this actually means think of it as a pyramid scheme with one big difference. Most pyramid schemes begin with something of tangible value that the con artist promises to each other person. However, when they monetize debt, the thing that is being sold is the loan. It is not a tangible asset like gold or real estate. They are converting my promise to make monthly car payments into an asset and selling that. Then they take out another loan on that newly created debt asset, rinse and repeat... To make matters even worse as ThePythonicCow describes above, they can create all sorts of other exotic (i.e. crazy ass) financial instruments as well.

This is not only unethical and immoral but it makes our financial system very fragile. The blockchain and crypto are disrupting this game. It literally empowers the people. The most important thing we can do is get educated and lobby for pro crypto legislation that outlaws CBDCs.

[ThePythonicCow]

However, when they monetize debt, the thing that is being sold is the loan. It is not a tangible asset like gold or real estate. They are converting my promise to make monthly car payments into an asset and selling that. Then they take out another loan on that newly created debt asset, rinse and repeat... To make matters even worse as ThePythonicCow describes above, they can create all sorts of other exotic (i.e. crazy ass) financial instruments as well.
To err is human. To really f*ck things up requires a computer.

This scale and layered complexity of financial fraud could not have been pulled off, before we had computers.

But the solution, blockchains and other such distributed ledgers, also requires computers ... and quality networking.

If generation one of big computer based financial and monetary infrastructure, the fraud as pulled off by the Wall Street quants, blows up big time before generation two of such infrastructure, that began with Bitcoin, gets thoroughly corrupted, then we have a good chance of knowing, collectively, how NOT to do it.

[Mypos]

What you are forgetting imo is that private banks are the tool of the Central Banks. Real power is housed with the Central Banks. I dont think they will let themselves be destroyed by Private Banks. Most puppet CEOs of private banks are under the control of Central Banks.

I agree, the central bank will not allow themselves to be destroyed by the Private Banks. That is why my scenario above posits that the private banks are in the worst position and will lose out if they don't do something.

This is how I am looking at the situation (the following is an over simplification but it should suffice to frame the problem):

Government: Make money through sales tax, income tax, and by creating fiat currency out of thin air i.e. debasement

Central Bank: Make money on the interest it charges the government for printing the fiat currency and they set interest rates for lending fiat between banks.

Private Banks: Make money on the interest earned lending fiat to you and I and also on transaction fees.

You and I: We pay taxes and interest. The value of our fiat drops due to debasement. You and I get poorer because the purchasing value of our money goes down and we are paying high interest rates. You and I want the crypto revolution to continue because it will eliminate debasement, interest rates will be lower and the system will be fast, efficient and private. Example: El Salvadorians who work in the USA and are sending money back home to their families in the form of Bitcoin. They are saving 30% of what they used to spend because they don't have pay Western Union transaction fees. Instead, they send Bitcoin directly to their family members instantly and for pennies.

As I am sure you know, DeFi* allows me to lend crypto to you without the involvement of anyone in the banking system or government. You can then purchase something with that crypto or you can convert that crypto into fiat and then purchase something. Again, no involvement of the banking system. That means the private banks will not be able to make money because they are not lending the money. Instead, I am lending the money to you. I am making the money the bank would have made on the interest. The private banks will eventually go out of business UNLESS they jump in hard and become a DeFi company and also a provider of custodial services.

The govt can still make money on our transactions through sales tax. BUT, the income I make lending you money will only be taxed if I declare it as income and I live in the same country as you. That means the government has to regulate the DeFi company to force them to report my income.

The thing that is missing in this scenario however, is control over the money supply and all the wealth it creates for the central bank and the government. This is, as you said, where all the power is. The government will not want to lose that power nor will the central bank.

The solution for them is CBDCs. If we change the scenario above and include CBDCs and insert the Central Bank, then there is no reason why the central bank can't take over the DeFi service provider function completely (it is almost completely automated). If they do that, then the private banks will be wiped out. I believe this to be the most likely scenario (actually, I believe the government will regulate DeFi to the point where it is managed by the central bank and the central bank will contract out to the private banks which in turn will be reduced in size by 80%)

This scenario means that the financial industry will be a monopoly. It will no longer be a free market. Here in the US, we have large private banking institutions for sure, but we also have a lot of very small community banks and credit unions. That means I can shop around and find the bank that offers the best lending rates. If the government regulates crypto to much, the financial industry will become a monopoly controlled by the central bank.

* DeFi = Decentralized Finance that is enabled by the crypto blockchain technology.

My reply was to this statement you made:

I don't believe the private banks understand the position they are in. If they did, they would band together and lobby the governments for the elimination of the central bank.

I dont believe private banks will band together and lobby with the goverment as Central Banks are much higher up the foodchain. So Central Banks will not let this happen.

The end of private banks are imo a very realistic scenario. But this would be a massive blow to Central Banks too. Thats why i see a scenario in which we get two alternative realities (as we basicly have allready with people who dont get the jab versus people who do) in which the 2 systems co-exist. Control crypto space and freedom geek crypto space.

[Dumpster Diver]

…anything on a computer, based on complex math, is probably controlled by the deep state.

You make make some “money” short term, but it is ultimately no protection. Store food, and some silver, gold…

[ThePythonicCow]

…anything on a computer, based on complex math, is probably controlled by the deep state.

You make make some “money” short term, but it is ultimately no protection. Store food, and some silver, gold…
Computers, math, and algorithms are like guns and books.

They can be used for a variety of purposes, and can be designed to have various strengths and weaknesses.

In my reasonably well informed opinion, with degrees in complex math and software, the core blockchain and hashgraph algorithms are substantially more resistant to deep state manipulation than traditional banking and financial mechanisms.

I am not a Luddite, and I do not recommend that view to others.

[WhiteFeather]

Welcome Back Paul, Excellent thread, i had just noticed your back on the forum, is this recent? I haven't been on the forum as much of late.

[ThePythonicCow]

In my reasonably well informed opinion ... the core blockchain and hashgraph algorithms are substantially more resistant to deep state manipulation than traditional banking and financial mechanisms.
There is a foundational concept here, that I almost missed.

Cryptocurrencies can bring solid money back, and do so on the Web.

The foundational advantage of classic gold and silver coinage was that no one, not even kings, could cheat massively, quickly, and easily. Sure, over decades, they could shave coins and dilute the gold and silver with cheaper bronze and tin. But this involved a fair bit of time and effort, for only a small multiple of gain.

Once the Banksters got us to money that: was whatever the programs on their computer said, and no longer backed by (routinely interchangeable with) anything that the ordinary man could audit, then they could build their Babylonian towers of debt-money derivatives to (their) heavens (of extreme wealth over humanity).

A key element of such a corrupt monetary system is the entanglement of the means and units of payment and accounting, with the instruments of lending and securitization, at all levels, individual, corporate and government. Thus could the use of money in conducting transactions become entangled with the use of money to fund and structure debts and securities, which, by my above comments we see becomes the use of money to magnify itself many times, orders of magnitude, as debts become assets which support more debts, onward and upward, in a vicious circle.

A key advantage of Bitcoin is that it cannot leverage itself up this way in supply, to become a million or a billion times more abundant, covertly, in the hands of the inner circle of the Evil Elite Bastards.

Bitcoin is designed to be a global system, that the globalists cannot corrupt to build another such Babylonian Tower of Basil.

The math of Bitcoin, like the physical properties of gold, protects it from unbounded corruption by even the most powerful of humans.

An global civilization needs an honest global money that is fundamentally protected, by its very nature, from unbounded corruption. Such was gold, in some centuries past, and such is Bitcoin, in the century we are entering. Gold worked when business was conducted face to face, hand to hand, and Bitcoin works when business may be conducted over the Internet.

We can and we must keep the failing Masters of Debt Money, aka the Banksters, from co-opting cryptocurrencies into little more than a more convenient form of online funding, tracking, and controlling of fiat (aka debt-money) denominated transactions.

[ThePythonicCow]

Welcome Back Paul, Excellent thread, i had just noticed your back on the forum, is this recent? I haven't been on the forum as much of late.

Fairly recent - last few months I guess. :wave:

[mozo33]

In my reasonably well informed opinion ... the core blockchain and hashgraph algorithms are substantially more resistant to deep state manipulation than traditional banking and financial mechanisms.
There is a foundational concept here, that I almost missed.

Cryptocurrencies can bring solid money back, and do so on the Web.

The foundational advantage of classic gold and silver coinage was that no one, not even kings, could cheat massively, quickly, and easily. Sure, over decades, they could shave coins and dilute the gold and silver with cheaper bronze and tin. But this involved a fair bit of time and effort, for only a small multiple of gain.

Once the Banksters got us to money that: was whatever the programs on their computer said, and no longer backed by (routinely interchangeable with) anything that the ordinary man could audit, then they could build their Babylonian towers of debt-money derivatives to (their) heavens (of extreme wealth over humanity).

A key element of such a corrupt monetary system is the entanglement of the means and units of payment and accounting, with the instruments of lending and securitization, at all levels, individual, corporate and government. Thus could the use of money in conducting transactions become entangled with the use of money to fund and structure debts and securities, which, by my above comments we see becomes the use of money to magnify itself many times, orders of magnitude, as debts become assets which support more debts, onward and upward, in a vicious circle.

A key advantage of Bitcoin is that it cannot leverage itself up this way in supply, to become a million or a billion times more abundant, covertly, in the hands of the inner circle of the Evil Elite Bastards.

Bitcoin is designed to be a global system, that the globalists cannot corrupt to build another such Babylonian Tower of Basil.

The math of Bitcoin, like the physical properties of gold, protects it from unbounded corruption by even the most powerful of humans.

An global civilization needs an honest global money that is fundamentally protected, by its very nature, from unbounded corruption. Such was gold, in some centuries past, and such is Bitcoin, in the century we are entering. Gold worked when business was conducted face to face, hand to hand, and Bitcoin works when business may be conducted over the Internet.

We can and we must keep the failing Masters of Debt Money, aka the Banksters, from co-opting cryptocurrencies into little more than a more convenient form of online funding, tracking, and controlling of fiat (aka debt-money) denominated transactions.

just to throw it out there ... BTC is not Bitcoin ...

[ThePythonicCow]

Once the Banksters got us to money that: was whatever the programs on their computer said, and no longer backed by (routinely interchangeable with) anything that the ordinary man could audit, then they could build their Babylonian towers of debt-money derivatives to (their) heavens (of extreme wealth over humanity).
Note that this confluence of events could only have happened in the last century, and likely can not continue to happen in this way.

Up until petroleum, such as from the Middle East, became the dominant source of energy, most trade was local or regional. Not all trade, but at least a substantial portion of it, was such. The delivery of petro around the world, and the delivery then of raw materials and manufactured goods around the world, using diesel powered steel hull boats, while still constrained to using main frame computers that were independent corporate assets shifted a substantial portion of all monetary activity on the planet to big computers owned by various corporations and governments, each with other agendas. Even the "last mile" of payment activity was moved to the computers of the "Big Boys", using plastic (credit and debit cards) and now mobile phone apps.

That violated a fundamental principle of good system design: Keep each major function working independently, at "arms length" from each other function.

One easily sees this with local services such as sewage, water, garbage, electricity, phone and internet, in working communities. If I get in trouble with the phone company for not paying my bill, the water still runs fine from my tap. If my politics disagrees with the politics of the garbage truck driver, he still picks up my garbage just fine. If my car is repossessed for falling behind on car payments, the USPS/UPS/Fedex/Amazon package and mail deliveries still come to my mailbox or door step just fine, which is good, as I can't drive to the store so easily anymore.

For the last century, and only for the last century, this independence broke down for the creation of money in our civilization.

Almost all money in this period has been lent into existence by banking institutions, and the other half of those loans, the "debt paper" was not managed by a system primarily focused on safe, sensible, financially responsible management of that debt paper, but rather on the abuse of that source of almost infinitely expandable wealth, by those who had gained control of the banking (e.g. Rothschilds) and petroleum (e.g. Rockefellers) businesses to impose their other insatiable and often Satanic appetites on the rest of us.

===

This now seems to me to be good news, for it is now changing, for the better.

For now that we have sufficient compute power in most everyone's hand or on their desk, there is an opening for a monetary system that reverts to classical system design principles, of keeping major subsystems independent and focused on doing their one job the way it ought to be done.

We've already seen this, in our lifetime, with the transport of TCP/IP Internet packets around the planet. Higher level software, such as runs on Twitter or Youtube servers or in web browsers in China, might discard messages because they express the wrong "political" views. But the underlying router and networking hardware comes pretty close to doing what it was designed to do - moving the IP packets around to where they are addressed, regardless of what the data in side the packet might mean in a higher context.

We now need to, and I predict will, get our foundational infrastructure for moving, storing, lending and such monetary tokens around our planet, over the existing TCP/IP networking structure, up and running as the dominant means of moving money about, large and small, regardless of the race, creed, color, politics, motives or morals of the parties (humans or robots) directing the movements.

Cryptocurrencies will have one job: be good currencies.

There may well be many people, middle aged and older, who are already thoroughly entwined in the debt-money system of this last century, who go to their grave never figuring this out. This is a big change. It will take years, even a few decades, to play out. Major governments, political parties, businesses, and professions will never be the same again.

Money that is issued as debt, so that it's "other half", the debt paper can be used to build a Babylonian Tower of Debt-Money Derivatives,is being replaced with money issued on blockchains and other such distributed ledgers, which will have simple, hard limits on borrowing and lending built in, making such towers of debt money securities, derivatives and other fraud practically impossible.

We will have honest money again.

The Babylonian Tower of Debt-Money Derivatives has begun its collapse.

As might have been expected, it only lasted for about one century, while energy, shipping and manufacturing were global, but money was centrally controlled debt-money causing a near fatal cancer on our civilization.

[Vangelo]

just to throw it out there ... BTC is not Bitcoin ...


HUH?

BTC is the 'ticker' symbol for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is both the token (i.e. identifier of the unit of value) and the blockchain.

[Vangelo]

Once the Banksters got us to money that: was whatever the programs on their computer said, and no longer backed by (routinely interchangeable with) anything that the ordinary man could audit, then they could build their Babylonian towers of debt-money derivatives to (their) heavens (of extreme wealth over humanity).
Note that this confluence of events could only have happened in the last century, and likely can not continue to happen in this way.


<< sections deleted to conserve space >>


Cryptocurrencies will have one job: be good currencies.

There may well be many people, middle aged and older, who are already thoroughly entwined in the debt-money system of this last century, who go to their grave never figuring this out. This is a big change. It will take years, even a few decades, to play out. Major governments, political parties, businesses, and professions will never be the same again.

Money that is issued as debt, so that it's "other half", the debt paper can be used to build a Babylonian Tower of Debt-Money Derivatives,is being replaced with money issued on blockchains and other such distributed ledgers, which will have simple, hard limits on borrowing and lending built in, making such towers of debt money securities, derivatives and other fraud practically impossible.

We will have honest money again.

The Babylonian Tower of Debt-Money Derivatives has begun its collapse.

As might have been expected, it only lasted for about one century, while energy, shipping and manufacturing were global, but money was centrally controlled debt-money causing a near fatal cancer on our civilization.


Another great post, thank you.

I agree that this distributed ledger technology gives us the infrastructure we need to have real money again. I too am hopeful but I am also a little paranoid that we haven't yet reached that point of no-return i.e. the point where governments can't effectively ban it. It is true that we have many examples where nations states have tried and failed multiple times (i.e Nigeria and India). They failed because their populations simply continued to use crypto by working around the government regulations. I suspect the same is happening in China.

Some people argue that we have reached the tipping point because of El Salvador's adoption. Others argue we still need more institution adoption before it is 'too late' for governments to pull the plug on us. What is your opinion?

I guess I won't feel comfortable until a major government implements favorable laws and regulations that are unambiguous. Even still, I am a strong supporter of crypto and recommend owning a select few to family and friends.

[Vangelo]

Once the Banksters got us to money that: was whatever the programs on their computer said, and no longer backed by (routinely interchangeable with) anything that the ordinary man could audit, then they could build their Babylonian towers of debt-money derivatives to (their) heavens (of extreme wealth over humanity).
Note that this confluence of events could only have happened in the last century, and likely can not continue to happen in this way.

Up until petroleum, such as from the Middle East, became the dominant source of energy, most trade was local or regional. Not all trade, but at least a substantial portion of it, was such. The delivery of petro around the world, and the delivery then of raw materials and manufactured goods around the world, using diesel powered steel hull boats, while still constrained to using main frame computers that were independent corporate assets shifted a substantial portion of all monetary activity on the planet to big computers owned by various corporations and governments, each with other agendas. Even the "last mile" of payment activity was moved to the computers of the "Big Boys", using plastic (credit and debit cards) and now mobile phone apps.

That violated a fundamental principle of good system design: Keep each major function working independently, at "arms length" from each other function.

One easily sees this with local services such as sewage, water, garbage, electricity, phone and internet, in working communities. If I get in trouble with the phone company for not paying my bill, the water still runs fine from my tap. If my politics disagrees with the politics of the garbage truck driver, he still picks up my garbage just fine. If my car is repossessed for falling behind on car payments, the USPS/UPS/Fedex/Amazon package and mail deliveries still come to my mailbox or door step just fine, which is good, as I can't drive to the store so easily anymore.


<< Sections deleted to conserve space >>



As mentioned previously, any technology can be used for good or for bad. The quote above which describes exactly what China is doing with their CBDC implementation. They are integrating it with their social scoring system and will then punish and enforce compliance on their citizens via the monetary system i.e. the Chinese CBDC or Digital Yuan.

My concern is that people will equate the potential benefits of blockchain with CBDCs i.e. CBDC bad therefore blockchain and crypto must also be bad.

Comments?

[mozo33]

just to throw it out there ... BTC is not Bitcoin ...


HUH?

BTC is the 'ticker' symbol for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is both the token (i.e. identifier of the unit of value) and the blockchain.

BTC is a fork off Bitcoin as is BCH ... both do not comply with the Bitcoin white paper, and why it is you have BSV as in Bitcoin Satoshi Vision ....

[mozo33]

just to throw it out there ...

70% of BTC is denominated in Tether and only 8% in USD ...

[gord]

just to throw it out there ... BTC is not Bitcoin ...


HUH?

BTC is the 'ticker' symbol for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is both the token (i.e. identifier of the unit of value) and the blockchain.

I suspect it may be a reference to something like the content of this page: https://thatsbtcnotbitcoin.com/, but that's not really the topic of the thread.

[ThePythonicCow]

As mentioned previously, any technology can be used for good or for bad. The quote above which describes exactly what China is doing with their CBDC implementation. They are integrating it with their social scoring system and will then punish and enforce compliance on their citizens via the monetary system i.e. the Chinese CBDC or Digital Yuan.

My concern is that people will equate the potential benefits of blockchain with CBDCs i.e. CBDC bad therefore blockchain and crypto must also be bad.

Comments?

Those confusions, between central bank controlled cryptos, and free and honest cryptos, will occur, no doubt.

The tendency with technology is for well conceived, architected and adaptable layers of the technology to prevail, eventually, for most use cases.

Technology keeps evolving rapidly, and when one is building some "new" system, if there is some component you can use off the shelf that "just works", reliably and predictably, even if put to some use, in some way, that the originator of that technology never imagined, then there's a good chance that you'll just use that component, and focus your resources and creative energies elsewhere.

TCP/IP networking has become such, at one layer of the protocol stack.

Linux and related operating system kernels have become such, at another layer, from mobiles to super computers.

HTML has become yet another such layer, though efforts to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish still seem quite active, by such behemoths as Google.

Hardware is rife with such examples, but that's not so much an area of my expertise, so I'll not cite examples.

I expect that which ever distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchains, become most widely used will provide more such examples.

Currently, the main way that the Banksters suppress cryptocurrencies is by making it difficult for ordinary people to move value between cryptocurrencies and their bank issued debt-money. The Banksters are trying to "wall off" cryptocurrencies, in a holding action, while they marshall their forces.

I expect that this will shift over the time. In perhaps a few years, perhaps several years, we'll see a shift to more equal co-existence of "real" (distributed ledger) cryptocurrencies along side bankster debt-money, with Central Banks issuing digital forms of their debt-money. Then we'll see further shifting, to bank issued debt-money being more on the periphery, trying to remain relevant.

Given the deep entanglements that our current debt-money system has with our global infrastructure, manufacturing, financial and economic systems, such a shift in the technology of our money will not, can not, happen in isolation. Much else has to shift as well. So this shift will be long, slow and difficult, with some "surprises" along the way.

As reportedly was once said of World War I:


War is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

[Vangelo]

Currently, the main way that the Banksters suppress cryptocurrencies is by making it difficult for ordinary people to move value between cryptocurrencies and their bank issued debt-money. The Banksters are trying to "wall off" cryptocurrencies, in a holding action, while they marshall their forces.

I agree, they are trying to do everything the can to slow adoption and create barriers to entry. But there are positive things happening as illustrated by these three articles:

Mastercard is preparing to announce that any of the thousands of banks and millions of merchants on its payments network can offer crypto services...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/25/mastercard-says-any-bank-or-merchant-on-its-vast-network-can-soon-offer-crypto-services.html

Visa is partnering with over 50 crypto companies to allow clients to spend digital currencies. This means clients can buy from any merchant accepting Visa, even those who do not accept crypto.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/cryptocurreny-payments-visa-partnership-clients-spend-convert-digital-currencies-2021-7?op=1

Twitter Launches Bitcoin Tipping Feature, Explores NFT Authentication
https://news.bitcoin.com/twitter-bitcoin-tipping-nft-authentication/

Then there is El Salvador. They have made BTC legal tender and distributed $30 in BTC to every citizen.  That is big news IMHO.  What country will be next?

I am hoping the Blockchain community can continue to out run the central banks and the government regulators with these types of innovations and services.

[ThePythonicCow]

I expect that this will shift over the time. In perhaps a few years, perhaps several years, we'll see a shift to more equal co-existence of "real" (distributed ledger) cryptocurrencies along side bankster debt-money, with Central Banks issuing digital forms of their debt-money.



I agree, they are trying to do everything the can to slow adoption and create barriers to entry. But there are positive things happening as illustrated by these three articles:


I think we're more or less in agreement ... they are starting to integrate the main stream debt-money system with cryptocurrencies.


I am hoping the Blockchain community can continue to out run the central banks and the government regulators with these types of innovations and services.

I agree. From what I've seen of networking (TCP/IP) and operating systems (Linux), and from my confidence that well built systems are more resilient, I expect a robust cryptocurrency infrastructure to outrun and mostly replace the highly corruptible and corrupted debt-money system.

This is a monster change however. It won't be easy or quick. Many who have already cut their teeth on the debt-money system will never make sense of this to a comfortable degree, and just have to put their head down and plug along.

[amor]

I have not read anything above or elsewhere which visually and adequately describes the crypto currency system from beginning to end. How does one pay for things when their owners are not a part of the crypto system? Is there some sort of physical representation of the value of your money in the system? What makes anyone think that the Block/Chain, whatever that is, guarantees that internal theft or other manipulation cannot be hardwired into the computer system to escape detection? Hah! Just remember what the crooked Dominion Voting Machines were able to do to the election results. That is only the beginning of possibilities. Furthermore, the greed and corruption of Banksters and their underlings, the Governments, is boundless and uncontrolled.

[ThePythonicCow]

What makes anyone think that the Block/Chain, whatever that is, guarantees that internal theft or other manipulation cannot be hardwired into the computer system to escape detection?

Those of us with appropriate skills can look at how these cryptocurrencies work and see where the vulnerabilities are. The core mechanisms are powerfully, mathematically, secure. They are open source. They are designed to be secure. There are vulnerabilities in crypto, which is why experts often recommend keeping your crypto off the cryptocurrency exchanges, except when actively trading them, why long time crypto traders warn new comers that the cryptocurrency market is very volatile, and why they warn that changes in the legal and regulatory environment of cryptos could drastically effect their value.

Others who try to look at the election machines usually get turned away, not allowed to look. But when they find ways to look anyway, they find layers of lies, fraud and deceit, designed to facilitate election theft, and used for just that purpose, in many nations, over quite a few years now.

We are not in stable times. The US Dollar may crash and burn; the stock and bond markets around the world may crash and burn, the entire debt-money system that has dominated our civilization for the last century or two may crash, burn, and/or be completely replaced. Precious metals, real estate, ... it's all at risk of greater volatility than usual, including great fraud.

In particular, I would prefer a new monetary system. Currently our monetary system is based on debt-money and isused to build an immense tower of Babylonian debt-money derivatives (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116677-How-to-turn-ten-thousand-dollars-into-ten-billion-dollars-by-less-than-honest...). I would prefer a core monetary system that is built to securely and transparently transfer and hold assets, rather than to opaquely build up towers of debt, derivatives and fraud.

[ThePythonicCow]

What makes anyone think that the Block/Chain, whatever that is, guarantees that internal theft or other manipulation cannot be hardwired into the computer system to escape detection?

In other words, anything can all be used for good, or for bad.

Hands, words, hammers, swords, food, drink, guns, explosives, computers, coins ... everything can all be used for good or bad.

One has to look at the way something is used, the intention of the user, and the consequences of the usage, in order to come to a more informed opinion on whether one agrees with that use.

[ThePythonicCow]

One has to look at the way something is used, the intention of the user, and the consequences of the usage, in order to come to a more informed opinion on whether one agrees with that use.
On further thought, the above concerns of amor are very legitimate.

Digital currencies may well become the dominant form of money in coming years.

Our future digital currencies could predominantly be one of two forms, either:

Open source based cryptocurrencies freely and directly exchangeable between all humans, without central surveillance and control, or
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC's), that enable global central surveillance and control of all human monetary activity.If CBDC's predominate, then humanity will be enslaved.

I spell this concern out further in Post #97 of my Money Master thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1461177&viewfull=1#post1461177).

Once the current US Dollar dominated monetary and financial system collapses (as I expect within a year), then the Money Masters, the Central Bankers, the Banksters intend to convert our civilization's monetary system to CBDC's that will then enable them to control humanity.

We must become aware of this threat, while we still can. We must resist.

[Vangelo]

One has to look at the way something is used, the intention of the user, and the consequences of the usage, in order to come to a more informed opinion on whether one agrees with that use.
On further thought, the above concerns of amor are very legitimate.

Digital currencies may well become the dominant form of money in coming years.

Our future digital currencies could predominantly be one of two forms, either:

Open source based cryptocurrencies freely and directly exchangeable between all humans, without central surveillance and control, or
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC's), that enable global central surveillance and control of all human monetary activity.If CBDC's predominate, then humanity will be enslaved.

I spell this concern out further in Post #97 of my Money Master thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1461177&viewfull=1#post1461177).

Once the current US Dollar dominated monetary and financial system collapses (as I expect within a year), then the Money Masters, the Central Bankers, the Banksters intend to convert our civilization's monetary system to CBDC's that will then enable them to control humanity.

We must become aware of this threat, while we still can. We must resist.


Again, we agree. This is the battle we must face. I have been contributing to this thread specifically with the intention of emphasizing the double edged sword of adopting crypto as our monetary system.




As mentioned previously, any technology can be used for good or for bad. The quote above which describes exactly what China is doing with their CBDC implementation. They are integrating it with their social scoring system and will then punish and enforce compliance on their citizens via the monetary system i.e. the Chinese CBDC or Digital Yuan.

My concern is that people will equate the potential benefits of blockchain with CBDCs i.e. CBDC bad therefore blockchain and crypto must also be bad.

Comments?

We need digital currency(s) in the form of the Bitcoin blockchain for instance, to replace our current fiat monetary system because it is a usury tower of Babylonian debt-money derivatives. But we have to find some means to maintain independence from CBDCs which the Central Banks will issue to control the populace.

Because I believe Governments and Central Banks will never give up power and control, I believe we will end up with CBDCs. The question will be how enslaving will they be. I am hoping we will also have a parallel monetary system. It exists today in the form of the crypto/blockchain craze currently dominated by Bitcoin.

We must get educated and we must lobby our governments to pass laws that promote crypto as a privately held asset like gold while at the same time either outlaw CBDCs (which I doubt will happen) or pass laws that prohibit the CBDCs from being used to punish 'bad behavior' and enslave us.

[ThePythonicCow]

We need digital currency(s) in the form of the Bitcoin blockchain for instance, to replace our current fiat monetary system because it is a usury tower of Babylonian debt-money derivatives. But we have to find some means to maintain independence from CBDCs which the Central Banks will issue to control the populace.

Yes.


Because I believe Governments and Central Banks will never give up power and control, I believe we will end up with CBDCs. The question will be how enslaving will they be. I am hoping we will also have a parallel monetary system. It exists today in the form of the crypto/blockchain craze currently dominated by Bitcoin.

As with the news and social media, such as Avalon :bigsmile:, we need to preserve, protect, defend and encourage alternative monetary media


We must get educated and we must lobby our governments to pass laws that promote crypto as a privately held asset like gold while at the same time either outlaw CBDCs (which I doubt will happen) or pass laws that prohibit the CBDCs from being used to punish 'bad behavior' and enslave us.

When the Elite Bastards sufficiently control the police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers and media, then the laws do not constrain the Elite Bastards. For one recent and blatant example, election laws in the U.S., enacted by the state legislatures as they are explicitly empowered to so do by our Constitution, were just pushed aside by minions working for the bastards in critical precincts, who dictated other more easily corrupted procedures.

But the laws can, if recognized by enough people as legitimate, dramatically effect the narrative. When and if enough people think and feel that good and essential laws were violated, then continuing to egregiously violate such laws, in order to accomplish evil, becomes too difficult. Laws are ultimately enforced in the hearts, minds, and souls of the people.

This is a war for the hearts, minds and souls of humanity, and for their wallets, bodies, labor and property.

[ThePythonicCow]

.
The title of this thread asks:
Will the Banksters Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish Cryptocurrencies?
I have seen the future, and the answer is:
Yes, they will.
(where, by "extinguish", I mean mostly integrate into their monetary surveillance and control grid, marginalizing what they can't so integrate.)

Guy, the crypto guy at the Coin Bureau, is one of the best crypto commentators that I know of. He, somewhat unwittingly in my view, answers this question, in the following Youtube video that he posted earlier today:

nFSOfkalDK4
Guy provides a fine overview of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Updated Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers (https://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfrecommendations/documents/guidance-rba-virtual-assets-2021.html), released last month, October 2021.

These actual recommendations are available on this FATF website as:
VIRTUAL ASSETS AND VIRTUAL ASSET SERVICE PROVIDERS:
UPDATED GUIDANCE FOR A RISK-BASED APROACH (111 page pdf) (https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/Updated-Guidance-VA-VASP.pdf)

The fundamental legal question here is whether pre-crime surveillance of activity and communications (e.g. wire tapping of phone lines), searches and seizures of private property, and detention of individuals is:

[freedom]: only allowed after sufficient evidence of illegal activity particular to specific situation has been presented to a judge or grand jury to warrant such surveillance, searches, seizures, indictments, and/or arrests, or
[tyranny]: generally allowed to the "government", in order to "keep us safe."

The above linked FATF "Guidance for virtual assets" unabashedly takes the position that such pre-crime surveillance, searches, seizures, personal arrests, corporate takedowns, and financial isolation are important and essential to be imposed on all non-compliant institutions, operations, corporations, governments and other identifiable entities (was their failure to mention robots simply an oversight?) in our world.

FATF provides the roadmap to the Money Masters to "keep us safe", from any virtual asset holdings or activity (by us humans), that might present a danger or impediment (to their tyrannical rule).

Since the Money Masters would not, and have not for a long time, allowed anyone to obtain any position of authority who would think otherwise, I am now confident that I have seen the future, and that cryptocurrencies and all related activity, insttutions, tools and software will be interwoven with the mass control grid that they seek.

I still hope and expect that Trump has been and is still working as a frontman for some white hats who intend to clean up much of the corruption in our media, schools, governments, and big businesses (such as big pharma and "health" care). The basic story line here will be that Big Bad China corrupted these institutions and some traitors within them, in order to carry out one of the worst attacks in human history.


[To be added here a bit later: links to a couple of posts, on some other appropriate thread, spelling out my current grounds for such hope. -- Paul

P.S. -- See next post for links.]
However I see scant basis for hoping that such a cleanup will extend to cryptocurrencies or the Money Masters Satanic control of our civilization's monetary and financial institutions and practices. Trump is not now, nor has he ever been, in a position or of a mind set to take down the Money Masters who have ruled over humanity for the last several thousand years, at least.

There are a few activities and possessions, such as cash, guns, homes, voting, speaking, travel, worshiping, the postal service, and telephony that had laws and practices which were put in place here in the U.S., back when we were more free, and which (at least until 9/11, and then more so Covid) have retained more freedom to (nearly) the present day.

For most "new stuff" that has arisen in the last hundred years, the "safety" of the public takes priority over the freedom of the people, authorizing mass pre-crime unwarranted surveillance, searches, seizures and arrests, as mandated by the "authorities".

Cryptocurrencies will be joining that long list of state controlled entities.

Read the above FATF "Guidance for virtual assets", or view Guy's above video ... and weep.

I forecast that there will come a "Pearl Harbor", a "9/11", a "Covid", catastrophe in the crypto space, and then legislation will be pulled from some Senator's locked desk drawer, to be swiftly introduced and passed, bringing control of cryptocurrencies under the (left?) hand of our Satanic overlords.

This might not happen until after a majority of the people have some digital currency, perhaps as a "coin drop" from their central bank. Such catastrophe's work best when a majority of the people are shocked to their core. An economic and financial collapse would be a good opportunity for such a "coin drop".

Thus, I forecast this order of events:

A major financial and economic collapse.
"Free" money to all, in the form of new central bank digital currencies.
A shocking digital currency wipeout say of Bitcoin itself or of a major crypto exchange.
Rapid passing of "Crypto Patriot Acts" world-wide, to regulate digital currencies.

[ThePythonicCow]

.
Here are the above promised links to a couple of posts spelling out my current grounds for such hope:

Post #17799 - The Qanon posts, and associated US political analysis (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100318-The-Qanon-posts-and-associated-US-political-analysis&p=1461614&viewfull=1#post1461614)
Post #17800 - The Qanon posts, and associated US political analysis (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?100318-The-Qanon-posts-and-associated-US-political-analysis&p=1461616&viewfull=1#post1461616)

[ThePythonicCow]

Thus, I forecast this order of events:

A major financial and economic collapse.
"Free" money to all, in the form of new central bank digital currencies.
A shocking digital currency wipeout say of Bitcoin itself or of a major crypto exchange.
Rapid passing of "Crypto Patriot Acts" world-wide, to regulate digital currencies.


A couple of revisions to this forecast:


First, a simple revision:

Perhaps the "shocking digital currency wipeout" is rather a "shocking abuse by <terrorists>" of cryptocurrency, as in some major jack of critical infrastructure, with the "ransom" to be paid in bitcoin. After a few days without one of power, cell, net, water or some such in a major metropolitan area, or without some other such critical infrastructure, more people would be open to a "crypto security act" that cracked down hard on any remaining cryptocurrencies or exchanges that had not already complied with existing "virtual currency", aka cryto or digital currency, regulations. The elite bastards don't want to stop crypto currencies, rather they want to embrace and extend them to be more useful for their own centralized surveillance and control objectives. This would further that objective.

Now for the higher octane revision:

After listening to the following new and quite fine discussion between the Dark Journalist and Joseph P. Farrell, I am reminded once again that our elite human bastard overlords probably are not at the top of the food chain on this planet.

T8M9AbCcwz8

Joseph P Farrell summarizes in a compelling fashion his long held thesis that the Nazis, after World War II, formed a covert international "state" without borders, and continued working on advanced technology. There is much evidence of advanced ancient alien technology, of their former existence on Mars, that the asteroid belt is an exploded planet that had been between Mars and Jupiter, and that some mix of Nazi and alien presence has a heavy influence on both our publicly visible technologies of the recent century and our public national and supranational powers on this planet.

I have also long had the intuition that the most powerful humans in public view, such as some royal families and such billionaires as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, are NOT at the top of the heap. These psychopathic bastards feel to me like some of the more power hungry directors and vice presidents in corporations where I've worked, rather than founders of such companies. In other words, I doubt that the most powerful beings influencing our civilization attend Bohemian Grove or Bilderberg. They feel to me like they are under the thumb of superior powers, such as perhaps aliens and their Nazi Intenational agents.

Cleaning out some traitors like the Clintons, Bushes, Rockefellers, Rothshilds, various Royalty, the Vatican, the swamp in Washington DC, the perpetrators of the Covid scamdemic, and those stealing elections are NOT going to clean out these alien superior powers and their Nazi agents. Quite the contrary; these cleanup operations might well be deliberate operations of these superior powers.

Conclusion: This war between humans and some superior powers enslaving us will not end, even if the one's we call "white hats" are brilliantly successful. Rather this war, between free humans and alien overlords will continue, perhaps by other means.

[amor]

My to the point answer is to, "Will the Banksters Embrace, Extend and Extinguish the Cryptocurrencies? Do DOGS return to their VOMIT? (A quote from the Bible.)

Some months ago I wrote on Avalon that I would lay odds on the bet that Rothschild was involved with the Criptocurrencies. I got a mental electric shock between his consciousness and my brain. BINGO.

As long as there is a computer, program, internet or anything, which is not under the investor's sole control and they have all the money to own and control everything, you are dead in the water. Evidence the recent fraudulent election on computers. Further, all the fancy, schmancy, Block-Chain Jazz, relaying messages of a Chain tied to a huge, heavy block at one end and your Ankle at the other, says all that needs to be said. You are as good as DEAD. He who owns and controls the machines owns YOU.

[Mypos]

Thus, I forecast this order of events:

A major financial and economic collapse.
"Free" money to all, in the form of new central bank digital currencies.
A shocking digital currency wipeout say of Bitcoin itself or of a major crypto exchange.
Rapid passing of "Crypto Patriot Acts" world-wide, to regulate digital currencies.


A couple of revisions to this forecast:


First, a simple revision:

Perhaps the "shocking digital currency wipeout" is rather a "shocking abuse by <terrorists>" of cryptocurrency, as in some major jack of critical infrastructure, with the "ransom" to be paid in bitcoin. After a few days without one of power, cell, net, water or some such in a major metropolitan area, or without some other such critical infrastructure, more people would be open to a "crypto security act" that cracked down hard on any remaining cryptocurrencies or exchanges that had not already complied with existing "virtual currency", aka cryto or digital currency, regulations. The elite bastards don't want to stop crypto currencies, rather they want to embrace and extend them to be more useful for their own centralized surveillance and control objectives. This would further that objective.

Now for the higher octane revision:

After listening to the following new and quite fine discussion between the Dark Journalist and Joseph P. Farrell, I am reminded once again that our elite human bastard overlords probably are not at the top of the food chain on this planet.

T8M9AbCcwz8

Joseph P Farrell summarizes in a compelling fashion his long held thesis that the Nazis, after World War II, formed a covert international "state" without borders, and continued working on advanced technology. There is much evidence of advanced ancient alien technology, of their former existence on Mars, that the asteroid belt is an exploded planet that had been between Mars and Jupiter, and that some mix of Nazi and alien presence has a heavy influence on both our publicly visible technologies of the recent century and our public national and supranational powers on this planet.

I have also long had the intuition that the most powerful humans in public view, such as some royal families and such billionaires as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, are NOT at the top of the heap. These psychopathic bastards feel to me like some of the more power hungry directors and vice presidents in corporations where I've worked, rather than founders of such companies. In other words, I doubt that the most powerful beings influencing our civilization attend Bohemian Grove or Bilderberg. They feel to me like they are under the thumb of superior powers, such as perhaps aliens and their Nazi Intenational agents.

Cleaning out some traitors like the Clintons, Bushes, Rockefellers, Rothshilds, various Royalty, the Vatican, the swamp in Washington DC, the perpetrators of the Covid scamdemic, and those stealing elections are NOT going to clean out these alien superior powers and their Nazi agents. Quite the contrary; these cleanup operations might well be deliberate operations of these superior powers.

Conclusion: This war between humans and some superior powers enslaving us will not end, even if the one's we call "white hats" are brilliantly successful. Rather this war, between free humans and alien overlords will continue, perhaps by other means.

Hmmm what happened to the vid of the Dark Journalist...

[ThePythonicCow]

Now for the higher octane revision:

After listening to the following new and quite fine discussion between the Dark Journalist and Joseph P. Farrell, I am reminded once again that our elite human bastard overlords probably are not at the top of the food chain on this planet.

T8M9AbCcwz8

Joseph P Farrell summarizes in a compelling fashion his long held thesis that the Nazis, after World War II, formed a covert international "state" without borders, and continued working on advanced technology. There is much evidence of advanced ancient alien technology, of their former existence on Mars, that the asteroid belt is an exploded planet that had been between Mars and Jupiter, and that some mix of Nazi and alien presence has a heavy influence on both our publicly visible technologies of the recent century and our public national and supranational powers on this planet.


Conclusion: This war between humans and some superior powers enslaving us will not end, even if the one's we call "white hats" are brilliantly successful. Rather this war, between free humans and alien overlords will continue, perhaps by other means.

Hmmm what happened to the vid of the Dark Journalist...
Dang - Youtube has removed that video.

I shoulda, woulda, coulda made a copy, whlle it was still up.

[ThePythonicCow]

Found it:

https://vimeo.com/643390684

Dark Journalist has been anticipating such censorship, and copying stuff to vimeo as well.

[ThePythonicCow]

A couple of revisions to this forecast:


First, a simple revision:

Perhaps the "shocking digital currency wipeout" is rather a "shocking abuse by <terrorists>" of cryptocurrency, as in some major jack of critical infrastructure, with the "ransom" to be paid in bitcoin. After a few days without one of power, cell, net, water or some such in a major metropolitan area, or without some other such critical infrastructure, more people would be open to a "crypto security act" that cracked down hard on any remaining cryptocurrencies or exchanges that had not already complied with existing "virtual currency", aka cryto or digital currency, regulations. The elite bastards don't want to stop crypto currencies, rather they want to embrace and extend them to be more useful for their own centralized surveillance and control objectives. This would further that objective.

Now for the higher octane revision:

After listening to the following new and quite fine discussion between the Dark Journalist and Joseph P. Farrell, I am reminded once again that our elite human bastard overlords probably are not at the top of the food chain on this planet.

...

Conclusion: This war between humans and some superior powers enslaving us will not end, even if the one's we call "white hats" are brilliantly successful. Rather this war, between free humans and alien overlords will continue, perhaps by other means.
With the above noted censorship by Youtube, and with today's announcement by the Departments of Justice and Treasury (https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/580585-justice-department-seizes-million-as-part-of-crackdown-on-hackers-linked) of more indictments, arrests, extradictions, and confiscations in their fight against the use of cryptocurrencies to extract ransomware, my above two revisions stand, further confirmed.

[ThePythonicCow]

Found it:

https://vimeo.com/643390684

Dark Journalist has been anticipating such censorship, and copying stuff to vimeo as well.
Helvetic independently noticed and posted this video, over on his Continuing Search For The Truth thread: here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?1383-The-Continuing-Search-For-The-Truth&p=1461856&viewfull=1#post1461856).

[ThePythonicCow]

.
Here's an excellent discussion by some long time crypto experts on the threat that cryptos present to the Money Master's monopolization of money:

_PJIlianiJg

My terse summary:
If the Elite define what is money, then only the Elite will control its use.

Today's announcement of U.S. Departments of Justice and Treasury actions against ransomware attacks that use cryptocurrencies to collect payment are a good example of the case that the Minions of the Money Masters are continuing to build, to maintain their monoply on money:

th-cCjCm7lE


Justice Department seizes $6 million as part of crackdown on hackers linked to Kaseya attack (https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/580585-justice-department-seizes-million-as-part-of-crackdown-on-hackers-linked)


Cryptocurrencies have grown on the promise of breaking the Money Masters Monopoly on money. Cryptocurrencies are now under aggressive attack, for that reason.

[ThePythonicCow]

.
There's an excellent essay I just finished reading, on the various forms of money and exchange of value, from barter, to collectible, to store of wealth, to medium of exchange, to unit of account.

It compares Bitcoin to gold, fiat money, and earlier forms of money.

It evaluates these forms of money as to whether they are durable, portable, fungible, verifiable, divisible, scarce, long established, and censor-ship resistant. Except for its limited resistance to censor-ship (transactions can be tracked on the blockchain, and "tainted" coins such as from ransomware payments can be blocked from trade on regulated exchanges, for example), its limited time of use so far, Bitcoin is the winner by these other metrics.

It's rather too long an essay to post here as text, being over 11,000 words long, so I'll just link to it from here. I have a local copy, if the original disappears.

https://vblgoldfix.substack.com/p/april-2021-bitcoin-vs-gold-saylor

It's a good read, well thought out, well edited, and well presented. Thoughtful people who are just getting serious about understanding Bitcoin may find it especially informative.

Scan down this webpage a little to find the essay, entitled "The Bullish Case for Bitcoin over Gold"

The essay was written in 2018, by Vijay Boyapati, and begins with these opening remarks:


With the price of a bitcoin surging to new highs in 2017, the bullish case for investors might seem so obvious it does not need stating. Alternatively it may seem foolish to invest in a digital asset that isn’t backed by any commodity or government and whose price rise has prompted some to compare it to the tulip mania or the dot-com bubble. Neither is true; the bullish case for Bitcoin is compelling but far from obvious. There are significant risks to investing in Bitcoin, but, as I will argue, there is still an immense opportunity.

[DSKlausler]

Conclusion: This war between humans and some superior powers enslaving us will not end, even if the one's we call "white hats" are brilliantly successful. Rather this war, between free humans and alien overlords will continue, perhaps by other means.

Prison Planet indeed.

[rgray222]

Paul, I was reading The Bullish Case for Bitcoin over Gold (https://vblgoldfix.substack.com/p/april-2021-bitcoin-vs-gold-saylor) and I couldn't help but think that Fiat Money is not backed by anything other than trust in government. The value of Bitcoin/Crypto is based on how much other participants value it and having a functioning worldwide internet to sustain it. Now that Bitcoin has been around for a while it just seems so obvious that cutting out governments, bankers and institutions from monetary transactions makes so much sense. In essence, people benefit at the expense of governments, bankers and financial institutions. This is truly something that every human outside of the controlling elites can and should get behind. That said it is extremely easy to see how crypto could be seen as the ultimate war between good and evil or the ultimate war between mankind and the Powers that Be.

So my question to you is, doesn't this then comes down to who controls the internet? The answer to me seems clear it is the government.

[ThePythonicCow]

Paul, I was reading The Bullish Case for Bitcoin over Gold (https://vblgoldfix.substack.com/p/april-2021-bitcoin-vs-gold-saylor) and I couldn't help but think that Fiat Money is not backed by anything other than trust in government. The value of Bitcoin/Crypto is based on how much other participants value it and having a functioning worldwide internet to sustain it.

...

So my question to you is, doesn't this then comes down to who controls the internet? The answer to me seems clear it is the government.

Fiat money is backed by debt. Bankers lend it into existence. They create two, offsetting entries in their books, an asset representing the loan document, mortgage, bond, guilt, ... that they just received from the borrower, and a debit for the equal and opposite credit they are about to transfer to the lender.

Double entry accounting (https://onlineaccountinghub.com/double-entry-accounting-history/) is the fundamental mechanism underlying this debt-money. Each party involved keeps, with more or less investment and sophistication, their own "set of books", in which they keep their understanding of their monetary assets and debts, income and expenditures.

Our money is valuable not because someone held a gun to our head and ordered us to use something as money (though that does happen sometimes). It has been valuable over the recent centuries because of the rising tide of civilization's economy, which tended, over time, to make most debts, as obligations on future income, to be payable in roughly their expected real value, when they came due.

So long as the debt holds, or rises in real value, over time, it's good.

But when it's like Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, or Evergrande on November 10, 2021, it's bad, not just for that particular debt, but in cases such as these, as a harbinger of more debt collapse, due essentially to the fundamental instability in the inverted tower of financial assets built on top of our civilization's real economy, as I have been describing over on my Money Master's (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1450980&viewfull=1#post1450980) thread. So long as economic growth exceeds debt growth, pyramiding debt is solid. But when debt growth exceeds economic growth, it becomes a Ponzi Scheme (https://www.investor.gov/protect-your-investments/fraud/types-fraud/ponzi-scheme), and is doomed to ultimate collapse.

The British guilt's were "as good as gold" in the 1800's and early 1900's, because the sun never sat on the British Empire, so they could mine, refine, transport, and store the gold backing their pound, in which those guilt's were denominated. They claimed the moral high ground (essential to be held in war) by assuming that it was their "White Man's Burden" to elevate the other more backward people's of this world to modern civilization.

The U.S. Treasuries had been "as good as gold" from the early 1900's (until August 15, 1971, when Nixon "closed the gold window"), then "as good as oil" until now, because the American Empire dominated the planet, because the United States had similar powers. The U.S has claimed the moral high ground with the assertion that they were "Saving the world for democracy."

The CCP intends for China to pick up that mantle, but that effort appears to be still born, as the bankruptcy today of Evergrande signals their deep entanglement with the moral, economic, political, financial and monetary collapses we are now experiencing. They are claiming the moral high ground by asserting that it is their destiny to return to the Great Nation status they once held, before that was stolen from them.

The moral high ground of the U.S. and of China is being lost, with their brutal, tyrannical, and deceitful conduct on the world stage, which is being exposed to humanity, thanks to the Internet enabling real time, high bandwidth, communication between ordinary people, world wide.

The strength of our civilization's economy, which underlies the value of debt-money, depends in part on our development of productivity, which depends in part on our technologies, such as of agriculture, manufacturing, energy, transportation, computation, and communication.

The Banksters, the Money Masters, are at war with all of humanity. They intend to enslave us all, and to own it all. Their morality is encoded in the Law of the Sea, the Uniform Commercial Code, and is issued through dictates of super-national groups such as the United Nations and the Bank of International Settlements, as well as through various agencies of the nations and corporations they control. People around the world are taught from a young age that they should honor property and pay debts. Grand legal, political, and financial institutions, laws and regulations are in place, world wide, to enforce this Law (at least on the common people when in a dispute with an elite person or corporation.) The very legal and political notion of "Corporations" elevates to the status of, or even above, humans the institutions of the Money Masters, in such affairs and disputes.

My fundamental purpose, in this thread and in my Money Master's thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.), is to expose this war on humanity.

Bitcoin uses an essentially different mechanism than the keeping of books using double entry accounting, by each of the parties involved. Bitcoin, and most (not all) of the current altcoins (https://www.thebalance.com/altcoins-a-basic-guide-391206), use a form of distributed ledger technology (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/distributed-ledger-technology-dlt.asp) called blockchains (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp).

Bitcoin has dependencies that earlier forms of money did not have, on computers and on the internet, yes. Our present means of communication between you and me has those same dependencies. If a solar micro-nova takes those out, bitcoins and websites become worthless in a literal flash.

We are in a war for the hearts, minds, and souls of humanity. Barring such a cosmic event, computers and the internet are some of the tools we use in this war, and some of the ground over which and for control of which we fight. As I have been discussing back and forth on this thread, so has, and will, that war waver back and forth for control of computers and the internet.

As noted in the paper I referenced in my Post #50 (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116682-Will-the-Banksters-Embrace-Extend-and-Extinguish-Cryptocurrencies&p=1462254&viewfull=1#post1462254), above, Bitcoin is on a road to become a well recognized form of money, built on computer and internet technologies. The primary topic of this thread is whether, and to what degree, the Debt-Money Masters will swallow, like Jonah' whale (https://www.alim.org/history/prophet-stories/16/6/), digital currencies such as and including Bitcoin.

So long as person to person communication was limited and mostly via easily controlled channels (letters, newspapers, radio, and television) it was easy for one nation to hold the moral high ground, at least amongst its own people, during times of war. The Money Masters, who instigated and financed wars between nations, to advance their own objectives, could control the outcome of those wars. This is happening again, to a considerable degree, in the "War by other means" between the American and Chinese empires, for dominance in this century.

However in the ongoing covert war between the Money Masters and humanity, as communications and now money extends to all humanity, in real time and high bandwidth, including the essential effort to move from a Bankster controlled debt-money system, to a distributed ledger controlled system, the outcome presents a unique challenge to our understanding.

[ThePythonicCow]

I mildly regret that my "little essay" just above is not so "little".

It integrates a number of important points, some of which I seldom see noted elsewhere.

But I don't know of any more succinct, more compelling, way to say the above.

My fundamental purpose, in this thread and in my Money Master's thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.), is to expose the Money Master's war on humanity.

[ThePythonicCow]

So my question to you is, doesn't this then comes down to who controls the internet? The answer to me seems clear it is the government.
The government's control of the internet is incomplete. Much is being said and shared that no government agency under the control of the Elite Bastards and their Money Master agents condone.

[ThePythonicCow]

The very legal and political notion of "Corporations" elevates to the status of, or even above, humans the institutions of the Money Masters, in such affairs and disputes.

I understated the role of corporations. Corporations have been a fundamental tool, for the last few centuries, of the Elite Bastards, to fund, lead, and protect from legal liability, their take over of humanity.

David Martin says this more powerfully than I did, in the opening portion of the following, new, interview, and then goes onto the role of vaccines to "incorporate" our human bodies into their "corporate" structure.

xf1O2rewBBYz

His comments are powerful, visionary, and hopeful.

[rgray222]

Paul, thanks for your response. It provides a lot to think about. I am still trying to process the David Martin Endgame video. It is like a tsunami of information that I am aware of but don't often think about. Posted this on the meme thread this evening. Seems appropriate here as well.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/253233891_417624966577865_2678207009578954924_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=8Gu6PkYUoJwAX8Oq4-4&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=3805c309962f94e88e3d2d8385707763&oe=61914A1D

[ThePythonicCow]

It is like a tsunami of information
That it sure is.

[DSKlausler]

So my question to you is, doesn't this then comes down to who controls the internet? The answer to me seems clear it is the government.
The government's control of the internet is incomplete. Much is being said and shared that no government agency under the control of the Elite Bastards and their Money Master agents condone.

Hmmmm.

In simple terms, On/Off, they, or their stooge organizations do. Even simpler: Power Supply On/Off, the same.

I can't see any monitoring of electronic traffic escaping their embedded systems.

[ThePythonicCow]

In simple terms, On/Off, they, or their stooge organizations do. Even simpler: Power Supply On/Off, the same.

I can't see any monitoring of electronic traffic escaping their embedded systems.
They won' turn it off, all off, forever. It is their greatest tool to surveil and control 7 billion humans, and the total collapse of the power, communications and supply grid would leave them isolated in their bunkers, with a Mad Max world above them.

They can't monitor it all; even the finest intelligence agencies are unable to reliably monitor all the encrypted traffic of their specific known adversaries, much less of all of us, and we'd all be their adversaries if they tried such a stunt.

This is analogous to why they couldn't use their greatest weapons of mass destruction in a World War III. They are like parasites, that die if they kill their host.

[DSKlausler]

... the total collapse of the power, communications and supply grid would leave them isolated in their bunkers, with a Mad Max world above them.

Precisely.

Kill all.
Retreat to "bunker".
Crustal Displacement.
Release drone swarms to wipe out those pesky survivors.
Emerge from "bunker" to a "new earth".




They can't monitor it all; even the finest intelligence agencies are unable to reliably monitor all the encrypted traffic of their specific known adversaries, much less of all of us, and we'd all be their adversaries if they tried such a stunt.

You seriously believe that the technology implemented that you and I know of is all they have? I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how advanced their "hidden" technology is.

[ThePythonicCow]

Of course I don't know it all, and if I did, I'd not be even hinting here that I did.

The overall dynamics of the earthly power structures are visible to us all.

[Ernie Nemeth]

The 'hidden' technologies most likely extend beyond this planet to off-world sources.

[ThePythonicCow]

The 'hidden' technologies most likely extend beyond this planet to off-world sources.

Yup - likely so. Such is too far beyond my current understanding to support useful speculation.

[IChingUChing]

Have to admit in advance that I haven't read the article yet. Anyway, this video is my understanding. Currently bitcoin's value is measured in fiat currency and fiat currency really only has value in relation to gold. As JP Morgan said, "Gold is money, everything else is credit."
If/when hyperinflation comes, all currencies go to zero and gold goes to infinity, bitcoin goes....where? What am I missing? Thanks.
OGuXKNt-DXA

[Vangelo]

Have to admit in advance that I haven't read the article yet. ... What am I missing? Thanks.


I suggest you spend the time to read the article. The Bullish Case for Bitcoin over Gold (https://vblgoldfix.substack.com/p/april-2021-bitcoin-vs-gold-saylor). There are logic errors and fallacies in the video you posted.

For instance, the primary premise of the video is based on this question and answer, and I quote ... "In the beginning, how did anyone know what a bitcoin could buy? When bitcoin was born it was immediately indexed to the dollar."

That is an erroneous answer. There is nothing inherent to bitcoin that ties it in any way to the dollar. That association simply does not exist as an intrinsic feature of bitcoin.

Regarding the question, what could a bitcoin buy? The first recorded transaction was for pizza. On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz agreed to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for two delivered Papa John's pizzas. (https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/cryptocurrency/bitcoin-pizza-day-2021-some-interesting-facts-about-this-special-cryptocurrency-day-6924731.html)

Although this seems like a trivial thing, it literally is the event that established a value for bitcoin. Boy do I wish I had those 10,000 bitcoin. At $65k each, how how much money would I have?

[IChingUChing]

Thanks Vangelo.

I will read it when I get the chance. Not sure I entirely agree with your argument. As I see it, fiat currency is globally agreed to be the representation used for exchange so that noone has to carry 3 chickens to go and exchange for 10 pizzas (for example). Rather 3 chickens cost $x and 10 pizzas also $x so we just hand over the units representing this in fiat currency. Because of global agreement to use the fiat system of value representation, even if 10,000 bitcoins were used to buy 2 pizzas, everyone translates the "2 delivered pizzas" in to the dollar fiat currency value of that time to know this initial valuation of bitcoin. I don't see a way around this. It would be ridiculous if everyone was talking about bitcoin in terms of so many oz of tomato paste, grammes of cheese, grammes of flour, etc.
As far as I can see it always gets translated in to units of fiat currency because that's how we've agreed we compare values.
Anyway, apologies - I have to read the article! :-)

[Vangelo]

... fiat currency is globally agreed to be the representation used for exchange so that noone has to carry 3 chickens to go and exchange for 10 pizzas (for example). ... I don't see a way around this. It would be ridiculous if everyone was talking about bitcoin in terms of so many oz of tomato paste, grammes of cheese, grammes of flour, etc.
As far as I can see it always gets translated in to units of fiat currency because that's how we've agreed we compare values.

You are absolutely right, it would indeed be ridiculous and impractical. The inefficiency of the barter system is the primary reason why money has come into existence. You are describing the concept of 'store of value', one of the characteristics of money. It is a feature that is held by the fiat currencies of most nations.

Here is a portion of the article that describes the attributes of a good store of value (https://vblgoldfix.substack.com/p/april-2021-bitcoin-vs-gold-saylor)

When stores of value compete against each other, it is the specific attributes that make a good store of value that allows one to out-compete another at the margin and increase demand for it over time. While many goods have been used as stores of value or “proto-money”, certain attributes emerged that were particularly demanded and allowed goods with these attributes to out-compete others. An ideal store of value will be:

Durable: the good must not be perishable or easily destroyed. Thus wheat is not an ideal store of value

Portable: the good must be easy to transport and store, making it possible to secure it against loss or theft and allowing it to facilitate long-distance trade. A cow is thus less ideal than a gold bracelet.

Fungible: one specimen of the good should be interchangeable with another of equal quantity. Without fungibility, the coincidence of wants problem remains unsolved. Thus gold is better than diamonds, which are irregular in shape and quality.

Verifiable: the good must be easy to quickly identify and verify as authentic. Easy verification increases the confidence of its recipient in trade and increases the likelihood a trade will be consummated.

Divisible: the good must be easy to subdivide. While this attribute was less important in early societies where trade was infrequent, it became more important as trade flourished and the quantities exchanged became smaller and more precise.

Scarce: As Nick Szabo termed it, a monetary good must have “unforgeable costliness”. In other words, the good must not be abundant or easy to either obtain or produce in quantity. Scarcity is perhaps the most important attribute of a store of value as it taps into the innate human desire to collect that which is rare. It is the source of the original value of the store of value.

Established history: the longer the good is perceived to have been valuable by society, the greater its appeal as a store of value. A long-established store of value will be hard to displace by a new upstart except by force of conquest or if the arriviste is endowed with a significant advantage among the other attributes listed above.

Censorship-resistant: a new attribute, which has become increasingly important in our modern, digital society with pervasive surveillance, is censorship-resistance. That is, how difficult is it for an external party such as a corporation or state to prevent the owner of the good from keeping and using it. Goods that are censorship-resistant are ideal to those living under regimes that are trying to enforce capital controls or to outlaw various forms of peaceful trade.

The table below grades Bitcoin, gold and fiat money (such as dollars) against the attributes listed above and is followed by an explanation of each grade:

The remainder of the article gets into the characteristics of bitcoin relative to these properties. Please note, that the article and I am only talking about bitcoin and not other crypto currencies. Not all crypto currencies are the same by any stretch of imagination.

[ThePythonicCow]

As far as I can see it always gets translated in to units of fiat currency because that's how we've agreed we compare values.
Yes - we use some artificial unit, such as sea shells, troy ounces of gold, pound sterling, or US Dollars, as the basic unit of accounting, and translate other values into that basic unit.

Over time, the most widely preferred unit of accounting changes.

As I explain on my Money Masters thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.), the US Dollar is ending its time in that role, sunk under the weight of debt and corruption.

The question is what will be the next, most generally accepted, unit.

As our civilization expands and grows, it will be important to choose a unit that works over the Internet, which is becoming our civilization's "nerve system".

Even the Banksters, who base their power on a monopoly over extending debt, would, I presume, want a robust unit of accounting, that is relatively immune to the fraudulent schemes that have grown like an enormous cancerous tumor, many times larger in nominal value than the real value of the underlying asset, the US Dollars in circulation, as we see now.

Like the Internet that is becoming our civilization's nerve system, both the debt-money monopolist Banksters and good humans and businesses, will increasingly depend on having robust monetary unit of accounting that works well over the Internet.

We do the same thing with weapons: both good guys and bad guys seek out reliable guns.

Also, like with guns, I don't seek to remove guns or make them more impotent.

I seek to use the tools available to me, such as my brain with its experienced geek talents and the keyboard beneath my fingers, to support people acting for good, and hinder people acting for ill. I encourage others to do the same, with such abilities and resources as they may have.

As best as I can tell, as I documented yesterday over at my Money Masters Post #118 (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1462710&viewfull=1#post1462710) and Post #120 (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1462826&viewfull=1#post1462826), Bitcoin is a good choice for the next basic unit of accounting for our civilization, and is on track to become just that.

So, to answer the question I initially posed in the title of this thread:

Yes, the Banksters are embracing a particular cryptocurrency, one that is not under the control of any particular national bank, namely Bitcoin.

[Dubsy]

We're taking into account that in any future world 'emergencies' that the grid stays up and our virtual wallets will stay virtually wallet'ed

I'm not wishing to spoil the party here :shielddeflect:

[I am B]

Like Dubsy says, it depends on the scenario.

- If the grid goes off, and we're talking WW3 or by the likes (people eating boiled leather jackets, etc) It is out of question that bitcoin won't be remotely good. People don't know how to exchange and veryfy it, and there probably wouldn't be any device, or electricity at all, to go around exchanging them.

- Another very likely outcome is If governments do reset the economy (something that seems like an obvious objective) and maybe during conflict or crisis, find the way and the excuse to wreck fiat money and make the world go into a credit system based on crypto. Which would very much turn it into complete dystopia, because of the "requirements" Vangelo posted. Imho, standarised cryptocurrency would be the very end of the little freedoms we have left.

[ThePythonicCow]

We're taking into account that in any future world 'emergencies' that the grid stays up and our virtual wallets will stay virtually wallet'ed

I'm not wishing to spoil the party here :shielddeflect:

Most of our modern life depends on technology, infrastructure, and other such world activity.

If major or all portions of it go down, we fall back and regroup, as best we can.

Since the odds seem good that it will keep going, we should arrange to do it as well as we can, and not stop because it might fail, while keeping some backup supplies, in case it does fail.

[ThePythonicCow]

standarised cryptocurrency would be the very end of the little freedoms we have left.
Crypto as I imagine the Chinese CCP (and some of the American) elite desire would destroy much of our remaining freedom, yes.

Crypto that supports direct person-to-person exchange of money, in much the same was as coins and paper money do now, would greatly expand our ability to engage in economic activity, with any other human, even for unbanked individuals commonly living in poorer regions of the world.

Such would also be an improvement for many people in wealthier regions who rely on corporate payment services and bank cards to exchange money now. For example, some of those who have been blocked from Paypal for "spreading disinformation" would no longer be blocked. For another example, our good forum Founder Bill Ryan might find it easier to receive donations, in a form that he could then make practical use of in his locality, or over the Internet with remote services (such as the Avalon web host), than he finds it now.

Just as the core Internet TCP/IP protocol has no way of blocking traffic just because some authority doesn't approve of who is sending or receiving it, so does Bitcoin have no way of blocking anyone from sending coin directly to another, just because of who they are.

This is why I am against Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBCD), as they are usually proposed, for they would allow, in America for example, the Federal Reserve to identify every sender and every receiver of a requested transfer, before accepting it or rejecting it.

This is analogous to guns. If only the agents of the government are allowed to have guns, then the people are much more easily controlled. If anyone might have a gun, then the police are much more likely to treat the people with respect (or at least to abandon the area, such as in some inner cities in America).

[I am B]

But cryptos can be traced, the market can be easily influenced or broken with technology accesible to the rich and the government only and with the press of a button, not to talk about the "dangers" that the devices used for transmission hold. There is no privacy in the net, be it with CBCD or not.

Not like right now its too too different, but at least cash money makes for a small almost untraceable economy...

[Vangelo]

We're taking into account that in any future world 'emergencies' that the grid stays up and our virtual wallets will stay virtually wallet'ed

I'm not wishing to spoil the party here :shielddeflect:

Most of our modern life depends on technology, infrastructure, and other such world activity.

If major or all portions of it go down, we fall back and regroup, as best we can.

Since the odds seem good that it will keep going, we should arrange to do it as well as we can, and not stop because it might fail, while keeping some backup supplies, in case it does fail.

Let's walk through this scenario together. It will show that bitcoin is much more resilient to this type of catastrophe than our current financial system...

So, presuming some catastrophe hits and all the electricity goes out, everywhere around the world. That means the internet goes down everywhere as well. If it is an unrecoverable event, then it is an existential threat to the population of the world that is dependent upon electricity. The majority of people will die and money will have no value what so ever. Food and water will be the new gold ;)

If it is a recoverable event, and it was short enough duration that we didn't kill each other as we scavenged for food and water then, when we turned electricity back on, we would have to reset the data in the information systems that run our economy. So for instance, my bank would have to restore the last backup tape they have (note that I am being specific about backup tapes because they would be one of the few mediums that survive without an electric current running through them) Hopefully, my bank did a backup the night before the event. That means my bank account would read my balance as of last night as opposed to the balance as of the moment of the event.

In addition, the company that supplies my electricity and the company that supplies my natural gas and my local, state and federal governments would also have to go to their their last backup tape (presuming they have one). None of them would have the same backup date which means nothing would add up. The government records might say I owe taxes while the electric company might say I have a positive balance on my account.

How do we resolve that dilemma? A very interesting topic to speculate about...

Notice, that I did not yet say anything about bitcoin. Here is the interesting thing, every miner on the network would have the same balance. All we would have to do is find the most recent backup tape that was taken by any one of the miners and use that as the new starting point. Then, the question becomes how do we know who owns each wallet? Well, if you saved your private key or seed words on a piece of paper, you are good. If you did not, you are out of luck.

[Vangelo]

But cryptos can be traced, the market can be easily influenced or broken with technology accesible to the rich and the government only and with the press of a button, not to talk about the "dangers" that the devices used for transmission hold. There is no privacy in the net, be it with CBCD or not.

Not like right now its too too different, but at least cash money makes for a small almost untraceable economy...

Yes, this is why the FUD that crypto's are black market money that promote illegal activities and money laundering is a lie.

However, cryptos like bitcoin do keep the owner's identity hidden. The way law enforcement tracks down the crypto criminal is to trace the transaction to the physical location (IP addresses) and then knock on the criminal's door and arrest them or they catch them when they cash out the crypto into fiat at a bank.

There is a very important difference between CBCDs and cryptos like bitcoin which we have discussed previously in this thread and can be overly simplified as CBDCs BAD, Bitcoin GOOD. Let me elaborate...

CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) and Bitcoin are electronic currencies that implement blockchain technology. This is where they are the same and also why they are confused. The reason why bitcoin is good is because it has been implemented to be distributed, trustless, and private using encryption methods that can't be hacked. This simply means you and I can conduct a financial transaction without the need for a bank intermediary. I don't need to trust you or know who you are and you don't need to trust me or know who I am, but we both know the transaction will complete because it was executed on the bitcoin blockchain.

The reason why CBDCs are bad is because they are not trustless or private and they are centralized. As such, they are under the complete control of the issuing central bank. China will be the first country to issue a CBDC. They have outlined the things they plan to implement with it and it is frightening. They will tie their social credit score to it. If you have a poor score then they can stop any and all payments to/from you. For instance, you wont be able to get on the bus or buy certain foods. They can also grade your purchases as good or bad according to their social credit system. They have even placed a timer on their money meaning, after a period of time, the digital Yuan you have will expire. They can take taxes from you directly, without your consent. They will know every transaction you make. I can go on and on...

The difference between a CBDC and a normal crypto like bitcoin is important for every one of us to understand. The blockchain and bitcoin gives the regular guy financial freedom and independence. We need to do everything we can to preserve and protect it. On the other hand CBDCs are a bastardization of the blockchain technology and is designed to enslave you and I. We must do everything we can to limit CBDCs. I would say stop them but I don't believe we will succeed. The best thing to hope for is laws that limit their capabilities. Of the two, the most important is to keep bitcoin alive because it can operate in parallel with the CBDC. Those Chinese people with bitcoin will be in a better position than those without.

[I am B]

CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) and Bitcoin are electronic currencies that implement blockchain technology. This is where they are the same and also why they are confused. The reason why bitcoin is good is because it has been implemented to be distributed, trustless, and private using encryption methods that can't be hacked. This simply means you and I can conduct a financial transaction without the need for a bank intermediary. I don't need to trust you or know who you are and you don't need to trust me or know who I am, but we both know the transaction will complete because it was executed on the bitcoin blockchain.
.

I'm afraid thats wrong, and kinda naive too. Everything can be hacked from the moment you get online. And bitcoin IS traceable now. No standard person will be halfways "hidden and private" while doing bitcoin transactions. It just needs the smallest of efforts for any government or organisation to go after it.

And one way or another, you're putting your money in a "device" that could be literally torched with the press of a button. (Almost the same way it is now with bank accounts)

Of course CBDCs are even worse. But it doesn't make cryptos any better. I just see at the best of two evils.

They worked back then for exchanging some illegal goods privately. (and they had TONS of scams etc) But you cannot base an economy into that, the same way I wouldn't bet all my money on my finely tuned pc to work forever. (specially not while having the power there is aganist it)

[mozo33]

CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) and Bitcoin are electronic currencies that implement blockchain technology. This is where they are the same and also why they are confused. The reason why bitcoin is good is because it has been implemented to be distributed, trustless, and private using encryption methods that can't be hacked. This simply means you and I can conduct a financial transaction without the need for a bank intermediary. I don't need to trust you or know who you are and you don't need to trust me or know who I am, but we both know the transaction will complete because it was executed on the bitcoin blockchain.
.

I'm afraid thats wrong, and kinda naive too. Everything can be hacked from the moment you get online. And bitcoin IS traceable now. No standard person will be halfways "hidden and private" while doing bitcoin transactions. It just needs the smallest of efforts for any government or organisation to go after it.

And one way or another, you're putting your money in a "device" that could be literally torched with the press of a button. (Almost the same way it is now with bank accounts)

Of course CBDCs are even worse. But it doesn't make cryptos any better. I just see at the best of two evils.

They worked back then for exchanging some illegal goods privately. (and they had TONS of scams etc) But you cannot base an economy into that, the same way I wouldn't bet all my money on my finely tuned pc to work forever. (specially not while having the power there is aganist it)

true what you say ... Bitcoin is not even encrypted ...

[Vangelo]

...
I'm afraid thats wrong, and kinda naive too. Everything can be hacked from the moment you get online.

How familiar are you with SHA256 and Elliptic Curve Digital Signatures?

The one thing I am certain of, regarding the Avalon community, is that it is full of people with extraordinary depth and knowledge. As a result, I tread softly.



...
And bitcoin IS traceable now. No standard person will be halfways "hidden and private" while doing bitcoin transactions. It just needs the smallest of efforts for any government or organisation to go after it.


Yes, that is why I agreed with your original assertion and said "Yes, this is why the FUD that crypto's are black market money that promote illegal activities and money laundering is a lie."



...
And one way or another, you're putting your money in a "device" that could be literally torched with the press of a button. (Almost the same way it is now with bank accounts)

Not sure I understand this comment. Are you saying something like... if my bitcoin is stored on my phone and the phone is destroyed, I would therefore lose my bitcoin? If so, that is not true. Nothing is stored on private devices. The 'information' is stored in the ledger and the ledger is replicated at every one of the nodes i.e. with the miners. There are currently over 10,000 bitcoin nodes around the world. That means the ledger is replicated 10,000 times and it is why bitcoin and other distributed ledger cryptos are so resilient. Banks, on the other hand, are centralized and their bank account information is only as safe as the DR (disaster recovery) location.



...
Of course CBDCs are even worse. But it doesn't make cryptos any better. I just see at the best of two evils.

CBDCs have the potential to truly enslave us all. Unfortunately, I don't think we will be able to outlaw them so I only see 2 options:
1) Work to get your government to pass laws that limit the capabilities of CBDCs
2) Work to get your government to pass laws that facilitate the use and adoption of cryptos such as bitcoin.

In all cases, we need to educate people as to the differences between the two.

[ThePythonicCow]

CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) and Bitcoin are electronic currencies that implement blockchain technology.

...The reason why CBDCs are bad is because they are not trustless or private and they are centralized. As such, they are under the complete control of the issuing central bank.

CBCD's might not even use blockchain technology :wink:

Blockchains come with extra complications required to reach a consensus between a more or less random unreliable collection of independent nodes. A particular CBCD might use blockchain technology, but that would be an internal implementation choice. A given Central Bank is a single organization, and would be more likely, in my estimation, to use more traditional banking and retail transaction processing software.

Blockchains are used to implement distributed, trustless databases. Blockchains are the first example we have of a software architecture that could do this, and they are still the most common way of doing this. Blockchains are a way for multiple nodes that don't trust each other to come to a consensus on updates to a shared database. They require additional logic to arrive at this consensus. They can do this over the public network. They don't have to be behind the firewall of a single operation. They can reach consensus in the presence of nodes coming and going without notice, while other hostile nodes are busy poking and prodding, interfering with this traffic by blocking, spying on, or flooding the network with bogus traffic

Anytime you are doing such accounting work inside a single operation, you don't need these complications. You can put up a firewall and use traditional computer software, such as the banks already use to keep track of their customer accounts. Such software is much more mature, feature rich and commercially supported than blockchain software.

In nations where most people already have online accounts with banks, stores and other services, the customer facing interface to CBDC's might well look and feel like the debit cards many of us already have. The main difference be that the Central Bank holds the account, instead of a commercial or retail bank or similar.

In nations where many people don't have the legal identities needed to setup such accounts, or where the Central Bank wants to support more anonymous access, then the CBDC's can let each user's device, such as a PC or mobile, generate random unique identifiers to be used as the addresses to send money to, and receive money from. That might still not involve blockchains on the back end, though it might feel more like using a blockchain network, to the end user.

In short, CBCD's are not that much different than checking accounts with ordinary banks, except (1) no paper checks, (2) only electronic access over the Internet and (3) it's the Big Daddy of banks in your nation you're dealing with, so you jolly well better hope they don't take a dislike to you.

[ThePythonicCow]

Bitcoin is not even encrypted ...
Your identify is better than encrypted; it's not even present. Just randomly generated send and receive addresses are generated and used as needed by the senders and receivers.

Law enforcement typically can't tell who is sending what to whom just by looking at the blockchain. That information is not there.

When you move money between crypto and conventional money, then law enforcement can usually tell, because they are in cahoots with the exchanges and banks that do these exchanges, and those exchanges have to have your real world legal identity, to know where to send the conventional money to, or where to get it from. Also law enforcement (or other astute observer) might be able to tell from the exact amounts and times, such as a large ransomware payment for a specific and unusual amount made at a particular time, when a particular unusual transaction (in timing and amount) corresponds to some other known event.

Bitcoin users often reuse the same receive address for multiple transactions over time. If a website puts up a Bitcoin address to receive donations, then all donations made to that address can easily be seen on the blockchain. Most crypto wallets reuse the same addresses over and over, for ease of use. Such wallets will let the user select new random addresses, so more security conscious users can avoid making it easy to see that all their transactions came from one person.

But bitcoin transactions carry no direct legally identifying information about the parties involved.

[ThePythonicCow]

They worked back then for exchanging some illegal goods privately. (and they had TONS of scams etc) But you cannot base an economy into that, the same way I wouldn't bet all my money on my finely tuned pc to work forever. (specially not while having the power there is aganist it)
As best as researchers can tell, early use of cryptocurrencies had a high proportion of illicit activity, but that (ab)use has declined over the years. Criminals are often early adopters of new technology, before law enforcement figures out how to use that tech.

Suitcases (or in the case of Obama and the Iranians, airplanes) full of cash are still one of the best ways to covertly transfer large sums of illegally or dubiously obtained or spent money.

[ThePythonicCow]

...
I'm afraid thats wrong, and kinda naive too. Everything can be hacked from the moment you get online.

How familiar are you with SHA256 and Elliptic Curve Digital Signatures?

The one thing I am certain of, regarding the Avalon community, is that it is full of people with extraordinary depth and knowledge. As a result, I tread softly.

I have a high degree of confidence that SHA256 signatures and Elliptic Curve private/public key encryption can not be hacked by anyone, anyhow. I don't recall offhand my back of the envelope calculations on this but it was something along the lines of saying that one would need more super computers than there are electrons in our galaxy, all connected by a network operating faster than the speed of light, for longer than the known lifetime of the universe, to crack some of these message digests and encryptions. Not going to happen.

¤=[Post Update]=¤



CBDCs have the potential to truly enslave us all. Unfortunately, I don't think we will be able to outlaw them so I only see 2 options:
1) Work to get your government to pass laws that limit the capabilities of CBDCs
2) Work to get your government to pass laws that facilitate the use and adoption of cryptos such as bitcoin.

In all cases, we need to educate people as to the differences between the two.

I completely agree :bigsmile:.

[ThePythonicCow]

In nations where most people already have online accounts with banks, stores and other services, the customer facing interface to CBDC's might well look and feel like the debit cards many of us already have. The main difference be that the Central Bank holds the account, instead of a commercial or retail bank or similar. This Bank for International Settlements (BIS) paper (https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d174.pdf) from March of 2019 calls these "account-based" CBDC's.



In nations where many people don't have the legal identities needed to setup such accounts, or where the Central Bank wants to support more anonymous access, then the CBDC's can let each user's device, such as a PC or mobile, generate random unique identifiers to be used as the addresses to send money to, and receive money from. That might still not involve blockchains on the back end, though it might feel more like using a blockchain network, to the end user.The above linked BIS paper calls these "token-based" CBDC's.

[ThePythonicCow]

Bitcoin users often reuse the same receive address for multiple transactions over time. If a website puts up a Bitcoin address to receive donations, then all donations made to that address can easily be seen on the blockchain. Most crypto wallets reuse the same addresses over and over, for ease of use. Such wallets will let the user select new random addresses, so more security conscious users can avoid making it easy to see that all their transactions came from one person.



The long awaited Taproot (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/11/13/taproot-bitcoins-long-anticipated-upgrade-activates-this-weekend/) upgrade to Bitcoin goes into effect soon, perhaps this weekend sometime. It will provide several core protocol changes, including the ability to wrap more complex transactions into one obfuscated meta-transaction. I suspect that this could be used (and if it can be, it will be) to obfuscate sequences of related transactions in order to improve privacy on the blockchain.

[ThePythonicCow]

.
Here is a bit more detailed explanation of the Taproot upgrade to Bitcoin:

UNDERSTANDING TAPROOT IN A SIMPLE WAY (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/understanding-taproot-in-a-simple-way)

[Vangelo]

...

CBCD's ([sic] Central Bank Digital Currencies - CBDCs) might not even use blockchain technology :wink:

... In short, CBCD's are not that much different than checking accounts with ordinary banks, except (1) no paper checks, (2) only electronic access over the Internet and (3) it's the Big Daddy of banks in your nation you're dealing with, so you jolly well better hope they don't take a dislike to you.

This is why we need crypto friendly laws so that we can keep our money out of the hands of the Central Banks. I just posted the following in the BREAKING NEWS ~ Continuously Updated thread here (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?113363-BREAKING-NEWS-Continuously-Updated&p=1463251&viewfull=1#post1463251):

Biden’s OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) nominee Saule Omarova wants to take your bank deposit account.

https://twitter.com/TrumpJew2/status/1459213417764556812
I have no doubt that many progressives think this way but I am flabbergasted that she would say this openly. Is there something here I am missing?

Edit: Incorrectly identified her as the Treasury nominee rather than the OCC nominee.

[ThePythonicCow]

...

... In short, CBCD's are not that much different than checking accounts with ordinary banks, except (1) no paper checks, (2) only electronic access over the Internet and (3) it's the Big Daddy of banks in your nation you're dealing with, so you jolly well better hope they don't take a dislike to you.

This is why we need crypto friendly laws so that we can keep our money out of the hands of the Central Banks.
I doubt that laws will protect us from the Central Banks, for the legislators are agents of the Banksters.

Rather cryptos that are intended to provide monetary liberty are one essential element to protect us from the Banksters.

[ThePythonicCow]

Biden’s OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) nominee Saule Omarova wants to take your bank deposit account.

I have no doubt that many progressives think this way but I am flabbergasted that she would say this openly. Is there something here I am missing?

I commented on OCC nominee Saule Omarova at some length on my Money Masters thread. See my Post #95, on that thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1459440&viewfull=1#post1459440).

She's a piece of work. Like some other officials, she's so bad, she might be good for us in the long term, due to the damage she could cause to some current tyrannical and fraudulent institutions, if she gets in.

[palehorse]

Came across this publication, may be interesting to some.
https://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfgeneral/documents/outcomes-fatf-plenary-october-2021.html

If US dollar crashes as designed by this "great reset" thing, does it make all crypto totally useless?

Thanks for the thread, very insightful.

[Vangelo]

If US dollar crashes as designed by this "great reset" thing, does it make all crypto totally useless?

Thanks for the thread, very insightful.

Let's first define US Dollar crashing as it becoming near worthless relative to all other fiat currencies.

It is important to know that Crypto is priced relative to all the fiat currencies in the world meaning I can, for instance, go to an exchange in a country and see its price relative to that currency. I can also purchase it or redeem it in that fiat currency.

I can also purchase or redeem crypto in other crytpo's. Here is a screen shot from the Coinbase Pro exchange to illustrate pricing relative to Fiat (Euro) or other Crypto.


47965

The implication of the US Dollar becoming worthless simply means people with US dollars will not be able to afford it any longer unless they hold other fiat, other crypto, gold, silver or a valuable commodity.

If we define US Dollar crashing as the entire financial system crashes and no longer functions, then the other fiat currencies will be in the same place as the USD. In that scenario, only people with other crypto, gold, silver or other commodities will have wealth. This is the 'store of value' argument.

Some will argue that under this catastrophic scenario, only gold (and silver) will hold value because it had done so for 1000s of years. The counter argument to that boils down to exchangeability referring to the difficulty of conducting any transaction with gold where as with Bitcoin, it is very easy to transact with anyone anywhere in the world.

This often leads back to the basic question of whether or not Bitcoin is an equal to or better store of value than gold. The paper referenced earlier in this thread lays out that argument quite well ... The Bullish Case for Bitcoin over Gold (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116682-Will-the-Banksters-Embrace-Extend-and-Extinguish-Cryptocurrencies&p=1462737&viewfull=1#post1462737).

[Mashika]

If we define US Dollar crashing as the entire financial system crashes and no longer functions, then the other fiat currencies will be in the same place as the USD. In that scenario, only people with other crypto, gold, silver or other commodities will have wealth. This is the 'store of value' argument.

Only if working under the framework of the SWIFT system, if you go out of it, then items such as gold or other resources may suddenly have more value than estimated under the west controlled value system in place right now



Some will argue that under this catastrophic scenario, only gold (and silver) will hold value because it had done so for 1000s of years. The counter argument to that boils down to exchangeability referring to the difficulty of conducting any transaction with gold where as with Bitcoin, it is very easy to transact with anyone anywhere in the world.


If you want to eliminate or ruin an enemy, you make their money worthless.

The SWIFT alternative has been already implemented, and it will be set in motion across lots of countries very soon. If/Once the dollar fails, this 'secondary' system will pick up all the countries and avoid a global failure. "Except for the countries that won't align to the new system in place"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS


At the end of 2020, 23 foreign banks connected to the SPFS from Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland.


If everyone suddenly switches to the SPFS, and abandon SWIFT, then the western dollar based economy collapses in a day, yet no country would be affected, they keep trading on the other system, in their own currencies, and the dollar is out. It's as easy as that

[Vangelo]

If we define US Dollar crashing as the entire financial system crashes and no longer functions, then the other fiat currencies will be in the same place as the USD. In that scenario, only people with other crypto, gold, silver or other commodities will have wealth. This is the 'store of value' argument.

Only if working under the framework of the SWIFT system, if you go out of it, then items such as gold or other resources may suddenly have more value than estimated under the west controlled value system in place right now



Some will argue that under this catastrophic scenario, only gold (and silver) will hold value because it had done so for 1000s of years. The counter argument to that boils down to exchangeability referring to the difficulty of conducting any transaction with gold where as with Bitcoin, it is very easy to transact with anyone anywhere in the world.


If you want to eliminate or ruin an enemy, you make their money worthless.

The SWIFT alternative has been already implemented, and it will be set in motion across lots of countries very soon. If/Once the dollar fails, this 'secondary' system will pick up all the countries and avoid a global failure. "Except for the countries that won't align to the new system in place"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS


At the end of 2020, 23 foreign banks connected to the SPFS from Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland.


If everyone suddenly switches to the SPFS, and abandon SWIFT, then the western dollar based economy collapses in a day, yet no country would be affected, they keep trading on the other system, in their own currencies, and the dollar is out. It's as easy as that

SPFS and SWIFT are systems that enable financial institutions worldwide to send and receive financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable network. There are other facilities that do the same thing such as CIPS (China) and INSTEX (EU). In addition, Ripple and Stellar are two crypto's which offer a blockchain based network as well.

All of these implementations require an intermediary organization to manage and administer the transactions (where Stellar and Ripple are much less onerous than the others). However, decentralized blockchains such at Bitcoin offer real Peer to Peer (P2P) transactions and do not need any organization, administration or oversight in between. This makes them much more efficient, private and secure.

It would seem to me that the scenario where everyone suddenly abandons SWIFT would indeed cause a problem but it would be temporary and short term. There are multiple alternatives that could be quickly adopted such as INSTEX, Stellar or Ripple. In addition, there is nothing that would prohibit the use of bitcoin or any other crypto as well. For Instance, Boeing could very easily accept payment in bitcoin.

[Vangelo]

Biden’s OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) nominee Saule Omarova wants to take your bank deposit account.

I have no doubt that many progressives think this way but I am flabbergasted that she would say this openly. Is there something here I am missing?

I commented on OCC nominee Saule Omarova at some length on my Money Masters thread. See my Post #95, on that thread (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116122-The-Money-Masters-Crises-of-war-plague-and-hunger-Total-central-real-time-control-of-all-money.&p=1459440&viewfull=1#post1459440).

She's a piece of work. Like some other officials, she's so bad, she might be good for us in the long term, due to the damage she could cause to some current tyrannical and fraudulent institutions, if she gets in.


Let's hope this report is accurate: Scoop: Centrist Dems sink Biden’s nominee for top bank regulator (https://www.axios.com/democrats-omarova-occ-5755a0e4-c6a5-4ca7-b6c7-87d18d5491f9.html)

[Vangelo]

If we define US Dollar crashing as the entire financial system crashes and no longer functions, then the other fiat currencies will be in the same place as the USD. In that scenario, only people with other crypto, gold, silver or other commodities will have wealth. This is the 'store of value' argument.

Only if working under the framework of the SWIFT system, if you go out of it, then items such as gold or other resources may suddenly have more value than estimated under the west controlled value system in place right now



Some will argue that under this catastrophic scenario, only gold (and silver) will hold value because it had done so for 1000s of years. The counter argument to that boils down to exchangeability referring to the difficulty of conducting any transaction with gold where as with Bitcoin, it is very easy to transact with anyone anywhere in the world.


If you want to eliminate or ruin an enemy, you make their money worthless.

The SWIFT alternative has been already implemented, and it will be set in motion across lots of countries very soon. If/Once the dollar fails, this 'secondary' system will pick up all the countries and avoid a global failure. "Except for the countries that won't align to the new system in place"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS


At the end of 2020, 23 foreign banks connected to the SPFS from Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland.


If everyone suddenly switches to the SPFS, and abandon SWIFT, then the western dollar based economy collapses in a day, yet no country would be affected, they keep trading on the other system, in their own currencies, and the dollar is out. It's as easy as that

SPFS and SWIFT are systems that enable financial institutions worldwide to send and receive financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable network. There are other facilities that do the same thing such as CIPS (China) and INSTEX (EU). In addition, Ripple and Stellar are two crypto's which offer a blockchain based network as well.

All of these implementations require an intermediary organization to manage and administer the transactions (where Stellar and Ripple are much less onerous than the others). However, decentralized blockchains such at Bitcoin offer real Peer to Peer (P2P) transactions and do not need any organization, administration or oversight in between. This makes them much more efficient, private and secure.

It would seem to me that the scenario where everyone suddenly abandons SWIFT would indeed cause a problem but it would be temporary and short term. There are multiple alternatives that could be quickly adopted such as INSTEX, Stellar or Ripple. In addition, there is nothing that would prohibit the use of bitcoin or any other crypto as well. For Instance, Boeing could very easily accept payment in bitcoin.

Wow Malisa, you must have a crystal ball. Good Call :-)

Biden Mulls Cutting Russia Off SWIFT Ahead Of Putin Call In "Nuclear Option" Ukraine Response (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-mulls-cutting-russia-swift-ahead-putin-call-nuclear-option-response-ukraine)

"... if Russia invades Ukraine "the US and Europe together will impose the worst economic sanctions that have ever been imposed on a country, outside of Iran and North Korea," according to the report.

It should be noted that with such an "option" in play, if things actually escalated to the historically unprecedented level of Russia's being blocked from SWIFT - such a scenario would mark a huge future day for cryptos, given cryptos have been suggested as the first space Putin would likely migrate to amid total isolation for the West-based payment system used by banks around the world."