What's Your View on Bitcoin? - Questions For Corbett #011

[ktlight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QMGs6nkNTg

"Published on Nov 9, 2013
SHOW NOTES AND MP3: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=8228

As James prepares to deliver a keynote address to an open source conference in France this month, he takes some time out of his schedule to answer some of the questions that have come in for #QFC. Topics include the depopulation agenda, localization, Japan's "sexless" youth, Gladio B, anarchy and the environment, and the insurance on the Twin Towers."

[Lifebringer]

Rather have a local internet barter system where every community has a part in the health of it's community and neighbors. But hey, that's just me, all the other monetary systems have failed me and my ancestors since western civililization took to colonization.

Internet, you don't know the color and you get treated fairly, provided your product is true. I always strive to ensure that my product is true as I can understand it. I'm striving to have my thoughts the same way, because I just want to be there when needed and appreciated and safe when I leave.

[indigopete]

My own opinion is that cryptocurrencies will come to have a place in history alongside penicillin or the telephone as one of the most profound discoveries of this century. (ok - they were last century but you get the idea :) ).

Most people don't really understand cryptocurrencies because they don't really understand money. The thing is, bitcoin is *base money*. What you have in the bank is *credit money*. The difference is huge and very significant for the potential change in landscape of the financial system. It just hasn't dawned on the many yet.

Gold came to be used as base money - from which credit money was derived - because it had certain unique qualities. Apart from the fact that it was "nice and shiny", it is impossible to manufacture - it has to be "discovered". That's still the case today despite technology advances in everything else. Apart from that, gold doesn't have much industrial value and certainly no so-called "intrinsic" value. People have endowed it with value.

A cryptocurrency has all the qualities of gold. Although people worry about it's origin being "electronic" it actually isn't - its origin is mathematical. Bitcoins are "mined" by searching for certain, very rare functions of prime numbers and their solutions. So they are the discovery of a naturally occurring phenomenon, just as gold was, except they have one *huge* advantage over gold as far as the modern world is concerned - namely that they are easily transmitted through a computing network.

Finally, it doesn't matter what the debate about Bitcoin's viability says - bitcoin can't hear it. They will continue to be generated for the next 40 years as long as a computing network exists. They will continue to be useful whether their dollar exchange rate booms or crashes.

[RMorgan]

Hey folks,

Here's an article that's very worthy of reading, about bitcoins.

On the fact that Bitcoin has a Kill Switch; and how to disconnect it. (http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009)

In my opinion, it is fairly accurate.

Raf.

[indigopete]

Here's an article that's very worthy of reading, about bitcoins

Very interesting article. I just read it in detail. It's certainly true that BTC might be an "NSA Honeypot" as Stanislav says.

I need to chew this over. It's a good reason for not investing your life savings in it, but at the same time we are only talking about BTC's exchange value with other currencies. "Dr Evil" flooding the market like that would certainly deplete it's dollar exchange value, but don't forget that the FED are doing this very thing to the dollar as we speak and the Bank of Japan are doing the same to the Yen.

Also, it doesn't change the fundamental property of their quantity being limited. So I don't know if it would kill it "beyond recovery" as that commentator says.

[Bubu]

when you are running a hoax on the verge of exposure, isn't it logical to make another and say that it will solve the shortcomings of it's predecessor. But of course you don't say that you are running both.

[Redstar Kachina]

..........

[indigopete]

Concur Bubu...Bitcoin solves nothing, just provides a substitute for a dysfunctional monetary system. It's kind of like voting Democrat or Republican since the majority party is screwing things up this year or that year. Outcome is the same: disaster...

addsub (& Bubu) -

I really must respond to your remark. This is categorically one of the most ill informed and whimsical comments I've seen about cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin absolutely does solve many problems with the money system. 2 in particular just off the top of my head:

[1] - it massively de-centralises control over the money supply
[2] - redresses the huge imbalance between base money and credit money

I'm not saying that there aren't problems. One is that it's suspected that there are major hoarders of the currency waiting to dump their stash on the market when the price is right etc. But that in itself isn't a flaw in the design of the currency - if anything it's the integrity of a cryptocurrency that exposes it to this risk by correctly responding to the balance of supply and demand (unlike central bank fiat currencies).

As for it being a "hoax", it's becoming a bit of a fashion for lazy libertarian commentators to just assume that the elite either create or covertly co-opt every single good idea which emerges. While this may be true, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. The "Elite" are only there because we allow them to be, variously through ignorance, laziness, indifference or outright self aggrandizement.

Cryptocurrencies are a hugely powerful concept. If people don't grasp this with both hands and take control of it, then the "elite" surely will. Whether the original idea was "there's" or "ours" is immaterial. It's there, it's de-centralised and therefore impossible for any central authority to manage. Maybe you don't agree with this statement, well then I'd just say you don't understand it and are too steeped in "centralist" thinking yourselves.

I'm afraid that cynical dismissals like the two comments above don't come close to doing crypto currencies justice, or their potential to allow people en-masse to crawl out from under the rock of the world banking oligarchy.

[sigma6]

Gold came to be used as base money - from which credit money was derived - because it had certain unique qualities. Apart from the fact that it was "nice and shiny", it is impossible to manufacture - it has to be "discovered". That's still the case today despite technology advances in everything else. Apart from that, gold doesn't have much industrial value and certainly no so-called "intrinsic" value. People have endowed it with value.

Gold may be too pretty and shiny... why it has been hoarded. Apparently there is so much gold held by the "hoarders" they now have to artificially control the price of it. The problem imo is lack of proper distribution. All the people who worked and slaved to mine that gold don't have it. Someone else does, if it was distributed, people could use it, it could be used for many things in manufacturing besides jewellery, for example it could be used for tooth fillings solving a huge global health problem because of lead and mercury. It has numerous electronic applications, can be used as glass insulator. It probably has even more properties then we know. Gold absolutely has intrinsic value.

[Vitalux]

I like bitcoin

It allows me to use "silk road"