Bitcoin and Crypto Thread

[Blade Runner]

what if the internet was invented by government goons? correct, it just doesn't matter

Yes, what most don't get and why you will not see something outdo BTC - it is THE MONETARY PROTOCOL. It can be controlled (quasi) in this fashion, as Jeff Booth explains = "If it loses its role as a medium of exchange". That means if it is forgotten about largely and slowly derivative-ized, like gold.

Wrong again. It absolutely does matter. The internet (and BTC) were created by our jewish owned government as a way to usher in a cashless society and turn everyone into materialistic atheists who voluntarily give up their privacy in pursuit of attention and money.

Again, you're so late to the game. That's like telling us that the "jewish" .gov that also ruined all the generations in the west regarding M-F interactions, which we had nothing to do with but inherited, is something we should worry about. NO. You deal with the cards you are played. What you are stating has already happened. This isn't that difficult to understand.

The world is cooked either way.

That's my point. Now, the right method currently is to shrewdly plan and make sure you get the decentralized monetary protocol, because the normies are in fact cooked, they just don't know it (this includes old people with "wealth"). They've probably got about 3-7 years of more empty food, beers and sportsball, though, so hey, live it up.

No one knows precisely what will happen but I can guarantee you if you don't bear the pristine asset called BTC in the coming years, you will absolutely regret it. The biggest mistake of your life, in fact.

 

[chance vought]

Yes, what most don't get and why you will not see something outdo BTC - it is THE MONETARY PROTOCOL. It can be controlled (quasi) in this fashion, as Jeff Booth explains = "If it loses its role as a medium of exchange". That means if it is forgotten about largely and slowly derivative-ized, like gold.

Again, you're so late to the game. That's like telling us that the "jewish" .gov that also ruined all the generations in the west regarding M-F interactions, which we had nothing to do with but inherited, is something we should worry about. NO. You deal with the cards you are played. What you are stating has already happened. This isn't that difficult to understand.

That's my point. Now, the right method currently is to shrewdly plan and make sure you get the decentralized monetary protocol, because the normies are in fact cooked, they just don't know it (this includes old people with "wealth"). They've probably got about 3-7 years of more empty food, beers and sportsball, though, so hey, live it up.

No one knows precisely what will happen but I can guarantee you if you don't bear the pristine asset called BTC in the coming years, you will absolutely regret it. The biggest mistake of your life, in fact.

The world is not cooked. Bitcoin is what saves it - this is the end of the 4th turning. The golden age is right in front of us. The bitcoin singularity is happening. Strategy (MSTR) is a crowd sourced speculative attack on fiat, and they may post the most profitable quarter of any company in history, next month. Billions in fiat is being created, buying Strategy’s bonds, and going to the black hole of bitcoin.

Strategy will soon be listed in the S&P 500. In 10 years it will be the world’s most valuable company. It’s just math.

Everyone will benefit, even if you don’t have bitcoin. The tendrils of bitcoin are going to every part of the financial system.

 

[Australia Sucks]

The world is not cooked. Bitcoin is what saves it

You are missing the bigger picture. Even if Bitcoin somehow saves the financial system The Brave New World style big brother government a.k.a. The Matrix is increasing its control on all other facets of people's lives. Even if you have monetary freedom if everywhere you walk down the street government cameras are spying on you and all your free speech is restricted and you don;t have a right to fly if you take the latest vaccines, etc then you are not free. I am not saying Bitcoin isn't helpful but its just one piece of the puzzle.

 

[chance vought]

You are missing the bigger picture. Even if Bitcoin somehow saves the financial system The Brave New World style big brother government a.k.a. The Matrix is increasing its control on all other facets of people's lives. Even if you have monetary freedom if everywhere you walk down the street government cameras are spying on you and all your free speech is restricted and you don;t have a right to fly if you take the latest vaccines, etc then you are not free. I am not saying Bitcoin isn't helpful but its just one piece of the puzzle.

Bitcoin gives you wings. You are not trapped in your 5 eyes welfare-state pasture, being milked by the machine. You can go to El Salvador, Panama, Dubai, Singapore - you can go where capital is treated best. Maybe the US goes to war with us bitcoiners, but maybe we take over from the inside.

You have global money that can’t be stolen and can’t be stopped at the border. I am hopeful that the USA, with our culture of freedom, becomes the talent and capital magnet for the world, Even if it doesn’t, bitcoin gives you so much optionality, it doesn’t matter. Need “the shot” to fly commercial to leave the country? Fine, charter a flight for your family instead.

Big government won’t and can’t exist without fiat. Bitcoin kills fiat, and with it the welfare state. Warren Buffet said “Bitcoin is rat poison squared.” On that I agree.

Like nuclear weapons, fossil fuel, electricity, gunpowder, and agriculture, bitcoin is not optional. Nations will embrace it and wither away slowly, or fight it and collapse spectacularly.

 

[chance vought]

 

[scorpion]

Like nuclear weapons, fossil fuel, electricity, gunpowder, and agriculture, bitcoin is not optional.

One of these things is not like the others.

Nations will embrace it and wither away slowly, or fight it and collapse spectacularly.

Care to expound on this? Because I think you've got it completely backwards. In my view, any nation foolish enough to attempt hoarding Bitcoin in place of investing in actual wealth/economic development - through the intelligent use of its own issued currency in many cases - will actually impoverish itself over time. There can be no other outcome when you have multiple actors racing to acquire a deflationary asset, especially when said deflationary asset is being utilized as money (meaning, as capital required for investment).

If you disagree, you really need to explain the economic explosion of China over the past several decades, as well as the "surprising" way that Russia has easily weathered the punishing economic sanctions placed on it over the past few years, sanctions that were explicitly intended to collapse both its currency and its economy, but which actually had the opposite effect, as they simply spurred Russian investment in its own domestic industries.

If you can easily recognize the absurdity of the statement, "Countries must race to acquire Fartcoin, or else relegate themselves to irrelevancy in the coming decades", then surely you must be able to step back and admit that Bitcoin is really not much different. Acquiring a popular internet token is simply not and never will be the same thing as building nuclear power plants, rail networks, maintaining a robust and trustworthy legal and political system, and investing in the health and education of the population to create a productive workforce. One of these things is actual wealth creation, the other is a bizarre sideshow, a cult, a fad, a distraction. You talk endlessly about the perfect money, but you still don't understand that money is not the same thing as wealth.

 

[Blade Runner]

Acquiring a popular internet token is simply not and never will be the same thing as building nuclear power plants, rail networks, maintaining a robust and trustworthy legal and political system, and investing in the health and education of the population to create a productive workforce.

You still don't understand what money is, and thus you don't understand what BTC is (and it's a protcol, as I stated earlier). If we have a better money, and read this 10x because it's the point, people will be more incented to do work for it. That's the point of money, and you quite frankly, have made it quite obvious you don't know what money is. You also don't know how profoundly immoral fiat is, and how it leads to really bad outcomes for humans - socially and in terms of various types of violence.

The good chases out the bad, right? If I offered a payment mechanism to someone in BTC, which doesn't get debased, which shows relative increase in value over time (certainly vs fiat), you're telling me a given worker won't take it vs. the fiat that loses value and can even be reset or confiscated? Apply that to ANY of the sectors you just mentioned. Your argument doesn't even make sense. You haven't thought about this at all from a non emotional point of view.

It doesn't matter what I say. You will bend the knee. Or pay a severe price. And I don't think you have even that much pride, because I know humans. The only question that remains is if you will ever admit you were wrong.

 

[scorpion]

You haven't thought about this at all from a non emotional point of view.

It doesn't matter what I say. You will bend the knee. Or pay a severe price. And I don't think you have even that much pride, because I know humans. The only question that remains is if you will ever admit you were wrong.

I think it's utterly hysterical that you keep accusing me of emotionality on this topic at the same time you continually espouse this bizarre and completely transparent power fantasy about forcing everyone you disagree with to bend the knee to you simply because you own numbers on a distributed spreadsheet.

You, like chance vought, crow endlessly about your Austiran-inspired conception of Bitcoin as money, while still exhibiting a frankly childlike understanding of the true underpinnings of nation-state-scale wealth and power.

 

[Blade Runner]

I think it's utterly hysterical that you keep accusing me of emotionality on this topic at the same time you continually espouse this bizarre and completely transparent power fantasy about forcing everyone you disagree with to bend the knee to you simply because you own numbers on a distributed spreadsheet.

It's got nothing to do with me, that's the first point. Do you think BTC cares about what you or I do? I can assure you, it doesn't.

Now, to the meat of the issue: my forecasts have been correct. I see the direction and have predicted it. While you have not. There is no basis in reality that you can make any of the claims you make. Zero.

Who's living in reality as we reach all time highs measured in USD fiat?

Who exactly is living in the fantasy world here? Anyone reading knows it is not me.

 

[scorpion]

Now, to the meat of the issue: my forecasts have been correct. I see the direction and have predicted it. While you have not. There is no basis in reality that you can make any of the claims you make. Zero.

Who's living in reality as we reach all time highs measured in USD fiat?

That's great. You are investing in the most manipulated asset in the world at the tail end of a three-year bull run. I don't see you talking about your laughable predictions back in 2021 of Bitcoin going over 100k and then seeing it fall to 15k in 2022.

Further, the USD price of Bitcoin has absolutely zero to do with its functionality as a national or global currency. The fact that you still can't make an argument that isn't based on, "Bitcoin good because number go up!" illustrates your total macroeconomic ignorance.

 

[Blade Runner]

The fact that you still can't make an argument that isn't based on, "Bitcoin good because number go up!" illustrates your total macroeconomic ignorance.

I've made all the arguments I have to. You believe that the USD is the best fiat currency, right? The same currency that lost 99% of its value over the last 100 years. My money is where my mouth is, and as you know, seemingly much to your chagrin when you look at ALL the assets in the world

Do you hate increasing your net worth that much? Booth has it right = Ego Death capital.

 

[chance vought]

One of these things is not like the others.

Care to expound on this? Because I think you've got it completely backwards. In my view, any nation foolish enough to attempt hoarding Bitcoin in place of investing in actual wealth/economic development - through the intelligent use of its own issued currency in many cases - will actually impoverish itself over time. There can be no other outcome when you have multiple actors racing to acquire a deflationary asset, especially when said deflationary asset is being utilized as money (meaning, as capital required for investment).

Money is essential for civilization. It enables everything to be measured against everything else nearly instantaneously worldwide. It is a distributed human computer. Which works better to build with: a flexible ruler with constantly changing measurements, or an unchanging ruler with fixed measurements?

If you disagree, you really need to explain the economic explosion of China over the past several decades, as well as the "surprising" way that Russia has easily weathered the punishing economic sanctions placed on it over the past few years, sanctions that were explicitly intended to collapse both its currency and its economy, but which actually had the opposite effect, as they simply spurred Russian investment in its own domestic industries.

For now. China is slowly dying. There is no next generation. Russia is rich in natural resources, and has the most intelligent leader of any major country (and is also starting to use bitcoin.). Fiat money isn’t a long term solution. It has only been a few years.

If you can easily recognize the absurdity of the statement, "Countries must race to acquire Fartcoin, or else relegate themselves to irrelevancy in the coming decades", then surely you must be able to step back and admit that Bitcoin is really not much different. Acquiring a popular internet token is simply not and never will be the same thing as building nuclear power plants, rail networks, maintaining a robust and trustworthy legal and political system, and investing in the health and education of the population to create a productive workforce. One of these things is actual wealth creation, the other is a bizarre sideshow, a cult, a fad, a distraction. You talk endlessly about the perfect money, but you still don't understand that money is not the same thing as wealth.

I agree, money is not wealth, but it is the only thing that can enable wealth creation. Better money defeats worse money - anyone who clings to the worse money is eliminated from the gene pool. China and India staying with silver. Europeans mass producing glass beads and expropriating the wealth of Africans. Bitcoin takes real work to create - it is not fartcoin, or cRyPto. It is not fiat that banks create for free, while I work 40 hours a week for their fake money.

 

[scorpion]

I've made all the arguments I have to. You believe that the USD is the best fiat currency, right? The same currency that lost 99% of its value over the last 100 years. My money is where my mouth is, and as you know, seemingly much to your chagrin when you look at ALL the assets in the world

Shrug. As I said, congrats for doing well with your investment the past few years. Will it continue indefinitely? We shall see - but I doubt it. Your focus on fiat continues to be myopic. Like anyone else with half a clue, I'm not invested in the USD/fiat. I'm personally invested in stocks, real estate and gold. Are all of these assets in some way tied to the dollar? Of course - but so is Bitcoin (in fact, Bitcoin is arguably even more tied to the dollar than any of them!) More importantly, however, and unlike Bitcoin, these assets are tied to the real-world economy.

One day you're going to understand (probably only in hindsight, unfortunately) that Bitcoin is basically like owning plots of real estate on Mars. It may be cool and trendy, and people may be honestly convinced it's the next big thing - until one day everyone wakes up and realizes they own something that's completely and utterly useless. That's when the stampede for the exits begins in force.

 

[chance vought]

- until one day everyone wakes up and realizes they own something that's completely and utterly useless. That's when the stampede for the exits begins in force.

Exactly what I think will happen.

 

[scorpion]

Money is essential for civilization. It enables everything to be measured against everything else nearly instantaneously worldwide. It is a distributed human computer. Which works better to build with: a flexible ruler with constantly changing measurements, or an unchanging ruler with fixed measurements?

That money works best which allows for the greatest and most efficient allocation of labor, capital and resources. The idea that money must be "an unchanging ruler" totally misses the mark of how money functions in a modern economy.

For now. China is slowly dying. There is no next generation. Russia is rich in natural resources, and has the most intelligent leader of any major country (and is also starting to use bitcoin.). Fiat money isn’t a long term solution. It has only been a few years.

Ahh, now you're starting to land on the true components of wealth - things like a growing population and natural resources. Bitcoin (and fiat, for that matter) pales in comparison to true wealth. The purpose of money is not to measure wealth, it is to help facilitate its creation. Seriously - think about that last statement for a minute. In a nutshell, it really says it all.

Bitcoin takes real work to create - it is not fartcoin, or cRyPto. It is not fiat that banks create for free, while I work 40 hours a week for their fake money.

A lot things take work but are not productive and provide no economic value to the broader system. This is also one reason I doubt the future of PoW cryptos in general - as the AI arms race accelerates, the idea of wasting that much compute on something as useless as Bitcoin will quickly move from something foolish, to something ridiculous, and then to something outright treasonous and illegal.

 

[chance vought]

That money works best which allows for the greatest and most efficient allocation of labor, capital and resources. The idea that money must be "an unchanging ruler" totally misses the mark of how money functions in a modern economy.

Because Keynes says people will hoard money if it isn’t stolen from them via inflation? So if they steal more shouldn’t the economy be even more productive? How’s Zimbabwe doing? Or Venezuela?

Ahh, now you're starting to land on the true components of wealth - things like a growing population and natural resources. Bitcoin (and fiat, for that matter) pales in comparison to true wealth. The purpose of money is not to measure wealth, it is to help facilitate its creation. Seriously - think about that last statement for a minute. In a nutshell, it really says it all.

But money is capital. It is a representation of value already created, that allows more wealth and capital to be created. Giving a select group of people the ability to create currency, when they produced no value, distorts the economy, and incentivizes theft, grift, and all kinds of anti social behavior.

A lot things take work but are not productive and provide no economic value to the broader system. This is also one reason I doubt the future of PoW cryptos in general - as the AI arms race accelerates, the idea of wasting that much compute on something as useless as Bitcoin will quickly move from something foolish, to something ridiculous, and then to something outright treasonous and illegal.

There is value in mining: it secures the network. A network that would have zero value if it were not secure. They are buying electricity to do it. Should buying electricity be illegal, if you don’t approve of how it’s used? Should watching the Kardashians on television be illegal because it wastes electricity? I am a property rights fundamentalist. If I buy something, I have the right to use it however I please, as long as it does not violate someone else’s property rights.

 

[PurpleUrkel]

You believe that the USD is the best fiat currency, right?

It is not a matter of "belief," unlike what you deal in which are the pagan rituals of gambling and fortune telling, it is a fact.

The same currency that lost 99% of its value over the last 100 years.

I hate to be so rude, but you are completely full of sh*t. Everything you deal with is fantasy and "the future." Let's talk about today. The US dollar is gaining value when you increasingly get paid more of them faster than prices rise. I made 2 grand in untraceable cash yesterday (plus another $1500 in US dollar based electronic payments) because I was selling recycled high quality made in USA textiles today in real time. $3500 is the most money I've ever made in a single day. So financially speaking very little in the US is in actual "decline" if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and a medium-high IQ. It is just changing, and in some instances not for the better, but this does not equate to "failure" or "collapse." If you are not selling 3-dimensional items that serve an actual physical purpose (or in the trades providing a service) then all you are doing is buying which means you must be neck deep in the Antichrist jew fields of mindless consumerism and usurious "investing," lawfare, finance, and/or "speculation."

You are increasingly sounding just like It Is My Time with your anti-American fear porn zealotry, "Everything having to do with America, it's society, it's money, it's future, muh, bad, everything, everywhere else, muh, good." And just like IIMT your arrogance and repetitive Antichrist future predicting is a sickness in which the only cure is taking the humility pill.

Anybody can say anything about the future (you say it's bleak, I say it's bright), but as of today the US dollar is the most powerful economic tool ever known to man and makes bitcoin look like an adolescent video game slot machine (which it is). So let's stick with the facts: Relatively speaking nobody needs, wants, or uses bitcoin. Nobody understands bitcoin (which like the stock market and insurance actuaries is a JQ feature, not a bug), nobody likes bitcoin (except fear porn loving 4chan basement dwellers), yet everybody loves, understands, wants, and uses the US dollar. Read em' and weep Mr. Wrong Again Doom Piller.

 

[Australia Sucks]

Bitcoin gives you wings. You are not trapped in your 5 eyes welfare-state pasture, being milked by the machine. You can go to El Salvador, Panama, Dubai, Singapore - you can go where capital is treated best. Maybe the US goes to war with us bitcoiners, but maybe we take over from the inside.

You have global money that can’t be stolen and can’t be stopped at the border. I am hopeful that the USA, with our culture of freedom, becomes the talent and capital magnet for the world, Even if it doesn’t, bitcoin gives you so much optionality, it doesn’t matter. Need “the shot” to fly commercial to leave the country? Fine, charter a flight for your family instead.

Big government won’t and can’t exist without fiat. Bitcoin kills fiat, and with it the welfare state. Warren Buffet said “Bitcoin is rat poison squared.” On that I agree.

Like nuclear weapons, fossil fuel, electricity, gunpowder, and agriculture, bitcoin is not optional. Nations will embrace it and wither away slowly, or fight it and collapse spectacularly.

I agree if you get rich from Bitcoin you can move. However not everybody is going to own enough Bitcoin to have financial freedom and they will be the ones that are stuck and have to suffer. Bitcoin helps but it doesn't stop the world from being cooked.

 

[Australia Sucks]

It is not a matter of "belief," unlike what you deal in which are the pagan rituals of gambling and fortune telling, it is a fact.

I hate to be so rude, but you are completely full of sh*t. Everything you deal with is fantasy and "the future." Let's talk about today. The US dollar is gaining value when you increasingly get paid more of them faster than prices rise. I made 2 grand in untraceable cash yesterday (plus another $1500 in US dollar based electronic payments) because I was selling recycled high quality made in USA textiles today in real time. $3500 is the most money I've ever made in a single day. So financially speaking very little in the US is in actual "decline" if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and a medium-high IQ. It is just changing, and in some instances not for the better, but this does not equate to "failure" or "collapse." If you are not selling 3-dimensional items that serve an actual physical purpose (or in the trades providing a service) then all you are doing is buying which means you must be neck deep in the Antichrist jew fields of mindless consumerism and usurious "investing," lawfare, finance, and/or "speculation."

You are increasingly sounding just like It Is My Time with your anti-American fear porn zealotry, "Everything having to do with America, it's society, it's money, it's future, muh, bad, everything, everywhere else, muh, good." And just like IIMT your arrogance and repetitive Antichrist future predicting is a sickness in which the only cure is taking the humility pill.

Anybody can say anything about the future (you say it's bleak, I say it's bright), but as of today the US dollar is the most powerful economic tool ever known to man and makes bitcoin look like an adolescent video game slot machine (which it is). So let's stick with the facts: Relatively speaking nobody needs, wants, or uses bitcoin. Nobody understands bitcoin (which like the stock market and insurance actuaries is a JQ feature, not a bug), nobody likes bitcoin (except fear porn loving 4chan basement dwellers), yet everybody loves, understands, wants, and uses the US dollar. Read em' and weep Mr. Wrong Again Doom Piller.

Again just because you are doing well and have found a way to live outside the system it doesn't mean everybody can do it. Just because your income is going up faster than the rate of inflation it doesn't mean other peoples incomes are.

In 1971 in the USA Nixon removed the partial gold standard and went full fiat. At that time the minimum wage averaged across USA was $1.60 and at the time an ounce of gold was $44.60. So approximately 28 hours of labour at the minimum wage in 1971 bought you an ounce of gold in America. Today in USA the national minimum wage is $7.25 and an ounce of gold is currently around $3300 USD. So currently it would take an American minimum wage worker 455 hours to buy an ounce of gold. Stop extrapolating your own situation to the wider world. You have done well which is fine but don't assume most people are doing well just because you are. The dollar is in a gradual death spiral and people's standards of living are falling. You don;t even need to look at data just look at the anecdotal evidence. Before 1971 many hosueholds had 4 or 5 people (mother, father and 2 or 3 children) and they owned a house (albeit with a mortgage) and often only the dad worked. Its incredibly rare these days to see a household of 4 or 5 people living from only one income.

 

[Australia Sucks]

lot things take work but are not productive and provide no economic value to the broader system.

Yes proof of work is only valuable if it produces something of value. If you pay somebody to dig a hole and then pay another guy to fill the hole nothing of value has been produced. Nobody is disputing this.

But Bitcoin does have value as a superior medium of exchange and store of value to others that exist in the market place currently. Physical gold is good but its portability is limited, try taking a million dollars worth of gold bars in your suitcase through an airport and see what happens. And if you tokenize gold (which has already happened with gold backed cryptos) its no longer self custodied and you have introduced 3rd party counterparty risk. Also physical gold is not very divisible. One gram of gold is over $100 and also has insane premiums due to minting costs. If you buy 1000 one gram gold bars it will cost you 29% more than just buying a one kilo gold bar. Yes there are other cryptos that are faster or cheaper than Bitcoin but they do not have the same level of security or network effect or decentralization that Bitcoin has and they have more concentrated ownership than Bitcoin.

And before you attack Bitcoin as a medium of exchange like Peter Schiff does you have to realise their is different levels to it just like fiat. You can keep a small amount of Bitcoin in wallets to use with lightining Network or Liquid network etc. This is what you use for purchaisng the coffee oir fast food etc as Steak N' Shake showed. And the bulk of your money you always keep in cold storage so its more secure. Just the same as with fiat you might keep a few hundred dollars of cash in your wallet but you would not generally keep $5000 of cash in your wallet (except in special one-off situations) its the same principle with Bitcoin. Bitcoin on layer one is fast enough for larger transactions. If you are using Bitcoin to buy a house or car or an expensive artwork or for overseas remittance payments etc the fact that it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours to settle is not a problem. In fiat banking it takes longer to settle large transactions anyway.