Bitcoin: A Future Fraud Trend – YouTube
After more than two years of internecine struggles over how to expand bitcoin’s ability to quickly process transactions,the long-feared bitcoin “day of reckoning” has arrived. The bitcoin network has split into two separate blockchains, causing the creation of a new cryptocurrency twin to the original bitcoin.
Zero Hedge has lots of news about the really fake fake currency, the Bitcoin business. Well, it has suddenly morphed yet again showing utter lack of stability, indeed, the treasure of this fake money came from its total lack of stability, it shoots up and crashes down making it a very fun toy to play with but it has zero intrinsic value, less than ‘collectibles’ and other desired objects. It is near nothingness which is interesting to me since humans conning themselves over absolute nothingness is the ultimate in collapsing civilizations. Reminds me of the ‘get into heaven’ money schemes cooked up by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.
Nothingness always amuses me. It reminds me of how the Outerdarkness operates. Physical attributes are meaningless, the ethereal reality of That Which Is Invisible is of highest importance out there on the other side of the Gates of Death. Money and death are intertwined since the beginning: gold and silver comes from underground and generally, is removed from the Darkness via slaves who are worked to death.
Then, when the gold or silver is found and seized, it is fought over and eventually, the holders are killed and someone else gets this eternal wealth. Many cruelties have been caused by gold and silver including the looting of the New World, piracy and other violent events.
Now on to fake ‘wealth’ that has zero carry power, we still hoard and use and see gold and silver from thousands of years ago (Tut’s hoard, for example). Bitcoins are a goofy fad run by computer happy geeks who want to fool themselves because they can do this. Fun times. From July 31: The Scaling Debate & Hard Fork Highlight Several Key Differences Between Bitcoin And Gold | Zero Hedge is a very silly story about how wonderful Bitcoin causes manic young men to riot:
What this person is referring to is how the lack of support for BCC from several popular wallet providers/exchanges like Coinbase and Bitstamp, has led to a flood of requests from Bitcoin holders to move their coins off the exchange in order to access the BCC if desired after August 1st. This is essentially akin to a run on the bank, and any third party playing games with their customers’ assets will be exposed in due course. The fact that it’s so easy for a Bitcoin holder to initiate a withdrawal from a third party holding their asset is a huge advantage of Bitcoin versus gold and other traditional monetary safe-havens. It doesn’t take long to see why if you think things through.
Since it isn’t real, it is easy to move around. Gold has real value and has to be carefully stored. Moving it is troublesome. Fake stuff is easy to move since it really doesn’t exist.
Storing your own Bitcoin private keys is very much like holding actual gold or silver in your possession. One thing that hardcore gold bugs like to say over and over is “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it.”
The ‘key’ has zero value if computers cease operating in say, WWIII.
At the end of the day, I think that’s right. It’s also what makes a gold backed digital asset less appealing than you might think at first glance.
HAHAHA.
When you hold your own Bitcoin private keys, not only do you have possession, but you also have a spendable asset. Gold can never replicate this competitive advantage. If you trust someone else to hold your gold, you’re exposed to counter-party risk. You are trusting someone else to secure your asset and be honest. You don’t need to do that with Bitcoin. Likewise, if China, Russia or any other government launch a gold-backed digital currency, you’re trusting the honesty of governments to have the gold they say they do. We know governments lie constantly, so I think it’d be completely foolish to trust such a monetary regime, and we don’t have to.
And if there is WWIII, this fake money will cease to have any value at all. It won’t even exist. Along with entire systems, of course. Life will revert to basic activities. A fine gun collection will be a million times more valuable than fake cyber ‘money’. The very next day, Bitcoin hoarders and holders who live in this fantasy land, suddenly split in two one day after they swore, they wouldn’t do this very thing.
In Friday’s piece, Is the Bitcoin Civil War Over? Here’s How I’m Thinking About Bitcoin Cash, I discussed a potential strategy that “big blockers” might attempt to execute should the 2x part of Segwit2x not happen later this year. Today, I want to discuss how the entire episode has actually served to highlight one of Bitcoin’s (and cryptos in general) huge competitive advantages in the realm of monetary-type assets, but also examine why gold is still important.
Storing your own Bitcoin private keys is very much like holding actual gold or silver in your possession. One thing that hardcore gold bugs like to say over and over is “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it.”
The above paragraph is insane. And childish. The gold bugs are correct. Pretending that pretend money is real only works with people who also believe this fake story. Anyone else will laugh. Gold, on the other hand, has over 7,000 years of ‘high value/doesn’t rot or age’ behind it. It is very real and never changes except the shape might shift, but it remains basically gold. Melt it and it doesn’t change its chemistry, it remains gold.
At the end of the day, I think that’s right. It’s also what makes a gold backed digital asset less appealing than you might think at first glance.
When you hold your own Bitcoin private keys, not only do you have possession, but you also have a spendable asset. Gold can never replicate this competitive advantage. If you trust someone else to hold your gold, you’re exposed to counter-party risk. You are trusting someone else to secure your asset and be honest. You don’t need to do that with Bitcoin. Likewise, if China, Russia or any other government launch a gold-backed digital currency, you’re trusting the honesty of governments to have the gold they say they do. We know governments lie constantly, so I think it’d be completely foolish to trust such a monetary regime, and we don’t have to.
Note how the True Believers in this fake, silly ‘currency’ convince themselves that their junk is better than gold because speculators make it shoot up and down in value. Its very instability is why they love it: it is a game to play with hoping for instant wealth while doing nothing useful or good. Just pure speculation! Hooray. Some of the readers aren’t fooled by this childish commentary praising fake cyber money that is extremely unstable.
GoldVu runningman18 Aug 1, 2017 2:24 AM
So what’s being alluded to, is the need to combine both blockchain technology and physical gold & silver, right?Luckily enough that’s just happening with BullionCoin which is a digital currency, not a cryptocurrency.
Investors buy the physical gold & silver to be securely vaulted, then they digitise the title of ownership of it into fixed quantities per unit of title (1gram for gold & 50 grams for silver). Those digitised titles, BullionCoins, are then sold / traded with other investors / businesses.
Everyone holding BullionCoins can withdraw the physical gold & silver backing it from the vault any time they want.
Oh – creators of BullionCoins get paid a lifetime fee on their specifically created coins. Each transaction has a fee, if your coin is used in that transaction, then you instantly get paid a portion of that fee into your wallet – Forever! (well at least until someone decides to redeem your specific coin).
HAHAHA. I am old enough to remember paper money back when it said it could be redeemed for either gold or silver, these were US dollars that were actually called ‘silver/gold certificates’ not ‘money’. I even did this when I was a kid, right before the President and the Federal Reserve, to pay for stupid wars, destroyed this connection and issued fake paper money that immediately began to loose value.
runningman18’s picture
runningman18 Squid-puppets a-go-go Jul 31, 2017 11:50 PM
Gold has every advantage over bitcoin because gold is a rare and tangible commodity while bitcoin is a digital farce. Anyone with cryptography knowledge can create a cryptocurrency out of thin air, which means there’s nothing intrinsically special or rare about bitcoin. It’s “value” comes from perception and faith instead of rarity or utility.
Readers really rip into this story and other stories pushed by the Zero Hedge youngsters who are too young to remember when we had real money and pennies were made with real copper and dimes were real silver with Mercury’s winged head on one side, for example.
Lore’s picture
Lore GoldVu Aug 1, 2017 7:24 AM
…So it boils down to a depository receipt. Gee, nobody’s ever done that before. /sarcMike’s article reminds me of the gobbledygook around the table when people are playing Magic: The Gathering. It’s amusing when two emotionally-engaged players have a disagreement and practically come to blows. The rules are imaginary, only relevant and meaningful if you’re mentally invested.
Otherwise, they’re nothing. It’s a kind of trickery. I submit that the dynamic with cryptocurrencies is absolutely identical. We have different groups of people attempting to impose their own rules about a facsimile of reality upon the people around them. Like magic trickery, it only works for as long as you can keep the audience convinced. That characteristic is the main thing that pisses me off. And by extension, the ability to serve as a store of value is illusory and only works for as long as YOU can convince the other party in a transaction. By participating, YOU do your part to feed the beast.
It’s immoral. It’s a kind of shared lie, requiring you to take advantage of others. For that reason, I’ll not touch it. In this and every other area of society, it’s time to stop looking for new forms of escapism and start embracing the absolutes of nature.
Exactly! The discipline of real metals inhibit corroding a currency. Take that away and use infinity as the controls you get lots and lots of ‘inflation’ which is really simply debasing the value of money held by savers and stealing their hard work by destroying the value of their compensation.
That is, it is theft.
Culture of Life News 
ZeroHedge.com—tripled in price in hours.
Nixon closed the [so called] Gold Window.
Long ago, Elaine had a story on a gold hoarder [in Nevada or Northern California] and [if I recall] she thought hoarding was stupid [Elaine, is that your attitude?].
THERE ARE 850 ‘Air Currencies’ with more added daily or weekly.
And if there is WWIII, this fake money will cease to have any value at all.–and the same may soon be true of the Greenback. One never knows.
Elaine, you wrote:
“The ‘key’ has zero value if computers cease operating in say, WWIII.”
It’s worth noting that 98% or more of all Dollars are now on the internet, as well. They are “protected” by cryptography and whatnot, using much much older protocols.
I’m pointing this out, because those dollars will also disappear in WWiii. It might not be a bad idea to have some of the printed notes in a fire safe around the homestead, just in case… This has been a public service announcement.
As for myself, I do not currently have any money in cryptocurrencies. But still find the topic interesting.
Worth noting also: WWiii will affect your lifestyle in many many other ways besides losing your bitcoins…
As for the ZH article, there’s another interesting angle here: they split the ‘BTC’ currency into two, and the “other” one is being referred to as ‘BCC’. But they can’t use that symbol, because it is already being used by one of the 800 or so wannabe imitators of BTC.
The upshot of it is, this new “currency” is so ephemeral it doesn’t even have a name yet. And they’ve only “mined” one of them! But even though it doesn’t exist, and doesn’t even exist in “cyrptocurrency space”, and does not have a name, they are trading it for a couple hundred bucks a coin!
How’s that for a mania? It’s got Beanie Babies beat by a thousand miles!
Latest news story: the Chinese are edging closer and closer to ditching the US Petro Dollar. The story is that the Chinese are close to purchasing their Oil in Yuan, not US Dollars.
All money is artificially created, whether it’s bitcoins, dollars, euros, etc. and most of it is digital today. So yeah if there’s ww3 and we lose internet/electricity then currencies are screwed. And your gold? Yeah good luck buying food with that at the store. You never get fair value for it because it’s a hassle to store and have evaluated.
Pet @6 mentions the petrodollar. I think that would be an excellent topic for future discussion on this site.
People berate Nixon for taking the dollar off the gold standard, but they do not give him credit for setting up the petrodollar. Instead of being backed by gold, the dollar is backed by oil. But at least the dollar is backed by something tangible and of universally accepted worth. Few other currencies can make this claim.
This is the only reason that the dollar is universally accepted as the world’s reserve currency. If we lose that status then all of the trillions of dollars being electronically created out of thin air will lead to hyperinflation. That is the underlying significance of Pet@6″ s comment. If the world rejects the petrodollar, and starts trading oil in non-dollar currencies, then the dollar is backed by nothing and we are on the road to ruin. Like Bitcoin.
This would have happened long ago except for Nixon setting up the petrodollar system. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves.
@#8 Ken: Good point. It begs the question, “Which is more important to a World economy or a Nation’s economy, Gold or Oil? Imho, a point to remember about Nation’s stockpiling gold is this: Nations, unlike people can make a paper/common metal currency that is backed by Gold. And only Governments can print Currency. Anybody else does that they are counterfeiters. In the US at one time, counterfeiting was a DEATH Penalty offense. And with a Gold backed Currency, the people living IN that nation can use the Currency to buy things. Gold doesn’t have the same value to a person as does a Nation. The folks who say, “You can’t take gold and buy food with it are partially right. For individuals, but not Nations.
OMG, you do NOT buy ‘food’ with gold! Ask any Viking about this! You STEAL food or better, use gold to hire people to fight with and for you and then do all sorts of funky things like invading Britain and ruling the joint for 1,000 years.
Good lord, this is so simple to see. Bitcoins, in a rough world, can’t even exist. Paper money is meaningless. Gold, on the other hand, for thousands of years, retained ‘value’.
When the Roman Empire fell, the Northern tribes wanted gold. When the Muslims invaded across the southern tier of the dying Roman Empire, they also wanted gold.
It is plain as day, that gold retains value ESPECIALLY when everything collapses. It has thousands of years of doing this, successfully. The other valuable thing, and I can attest to this 1,000%, is steel for making weapons.
Elaine, you are talking about when the Social Fabric breaks down entirely. Of course it is rape, pillage and plunder when a Society completely breaks down. But let’s extend the hypothetical a bit. Let’s say there is a NON violent transition from an Oil-based, so-called ‘PetroDollar’ to a Gold backed Currency. Is it possible? I am inclined to say yes, but we will see. Correct. If/When the Sh#t hits the proverbial Fan, then of course! Having “Mr. .357 Magnum” as your “financial Advisor” is better than a Gold coin.
Bullets, Beans, Barter.
Gold and Lead.
Currency serves three primary purposes – a store of value (better if it’s value isn’t constantly eroded by inflation) – a measuring stick for establishing the relative value of things – and a convenient means of exchange.
Digital currencies, like Bitcoin, serve all three of these functions better than dollars, gold, cowrie shells, or the big stone wheels Yap Islanders used as money.
All money is an abstraction, the value of which is imparted through mutual agreement by buyers, sellers and traders.
As for the Petrodollar, it has as much intrinsic value as a post-it-note with your IOU scribbled on it IF you had strong-armed the owner of the only gas station in town to accept nothing else to fill your neighbor’s tanks. They’d be knocking on your door for more post-it-note-IOUs every time they needed gas.
I advise you all to get over it and trade your inflationary currency in for one that can’t be created by the trillions with no more effort than a few key strokes.
All money is enforced by laws and government. When the government is corrupt and lets money fail, it falls too.
Bitcoins have no power behind it. It is a FAD. Anything stupid can have ‘value’ if it is a fad. Fads have been all sorts of valueless junk. The history of useless fads is very long and very deep.
Humans love fads. They believe in Santa Claus and run a fad sometimes for more than one generation, a lot longer, the ‘buy your way to heaven’ fad in Europe, for example, ran for around 1,000 years! That is a very long fad.
This is the power of beliefs. If you were to sell me a fake bitcoin, I would immediately sell it to some fool for some fungible money and then buy gold with it. That is all that fad is good for: buying and hoarding gold.
Bitcoins have no power behind it–YOU MUST BELIEVE.
Fools are born hourly, even by the minute. I remember when baseball cards rose higher and higher rapidly. I wasn’t around for the Tulip fad.
Pet Rocks. Beanie Babies. AOL stock.
The beanie baby guy was from your area. My brother was his golfing caddie.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/buy-bitcoin-sign-appears-during-dota-international-tournament
BITCOIN NOW USES AS MUCH ENERGY AS ROMANIA?
Costs 1500 dollars to mine a new one.
so claims,
I found this–r ago
Frank Pira Wild Coin Founder LinkedIn – Art director Graphic Designer turned Real Estate Agent and as of February 2017, suddenly a crypto designer expert.
Another heavy IT blockchain expert background like restaurant pizza chef turned SALT Lender Founder.
Platforms, Aps and altcoins…………. Which are you? Even have a product? Bank will not give you $50,000 to start a pizza shop? But people are going to hand me hundred(s) of millions for an “ICO” off a website and “idea”.
Yes – gambling beyond bets of McGregor to knock out Mayweather tonight in the 1st 5 seconds tonight.
“If” silver is “manipulated” (still think that is a fear mongering cult con to sell you crap), 95% of this stuff is a massive pump and dump Ponzi scheme.
Is bitcoin a fad? Are cryptos a fad?
https://www.ethnews.com/six-more-banks-join-ubs-led-group-seeking-to-develop-blockchain-tokens-backed-by-fiat-currencies
Haha, Elain’s just gonna love this one:
https://www.rt.com/business/403072-switzerland-taxes-bitcoin-payment/
25–do you own Cryptos? or have you? when you cash out, does the money go to ones paypal account?
25—I suspect Cryptos are from the gov, not santoshi, the mysterious japanese genius.
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-price-fallen-500-today/
http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/09/19/china-bans-bitcoin-executives-leaving-country-miners-preparing-worst
QUARTER BILLION TIED UP–
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether
Bitcoin Explodes Above $13,000 For First Since Jan 2018 And Everyone Wants To Know Why
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/26/2019 – 08:28
It was predictable, I suppose — the ‘fork’ in the Bitcoin project, from Elaine’s post above, has become just another altcoin. There are a thousand or so altcoin projects, ranging from zero-value to a few hundred dollars per unit.
What’s keeping Bitcoin up? Several things:
1. The security designed into them is the best on the internet. That doesn’t mean they can’t be stolen, it means they can’t be faked.
2. Although there is not an internet ‘army’, the internet is not going anywhere. It will probably survive the collapse of the USA.
3. By design, there can only ever be 21 million of them, period.
4. The Dollar is looking sort of wobbly these days. Its custodians keep starting wars they cannot win, and printing more of them by the trillions.
Digital currency is TPTB instrument of choice, not Bitcoin of course but those created and administered by the central banks.
Makes me wonder about alternatives to currencies, i.e., trade/barter goods. Since there is always something that is Black Market or illegal, those items would be natural barter goods.
In a world with digitally-imposed currency(ies), many items may be declared illegal, and thus be available for trade. But in virtually all scenarios, drugs will continue to be in demand, hence fungible. I can see it now, Moe the drug dealer.
There was a news story about Mark Karpelès a while back, about his encounter with the Japanese financial regulators. Even though his company, Mtgox, went bankrupt, he was able to satisfy all the claims against him and make everyone whole, and still ended up a multimillionaire after paying all the fines and so forth. It was because his last few (hundred? thousand?) BTC that he saved kept increasing in value.
And there is no doubt at all that TPTB hate it. Anyone running an exchange anywhere on the planet, if they didn’t cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s is likely to have their dollar and euro and etc. accounts confiscated. It has happened several times. And they have tried to confiscate the internet-based accounts too, but with less success. You can look at any of those Bitcoin ‘wallets’, but you cannot spend them without the key and password.
It appears that the Bitcoin phenomenon is far from dead, at this time.
I am amazed at how long a fraud can run. People who have money into this fake money are running in all directions now. Desperate to keep this rolling along, they will do anything except admit it is all a fraud.
As I have mentioned in several other comments, this is a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the Dollar. You have posted articles over the years, Elaine, about stupid things that have been done by the custodians of the Dollar.
And all currencies have a sort of ponzi-like nature, in that they are issued based on ‘trust’ in the government that issues them. It has worked splendidly for the Dollar for more than a century, but did not work so well for Zimbabwe, nor for Weimar Germany. . . . .
35–I thought EMS meant the dollar or DJIA. Bitcoin is less than 1% of worlds monies.
36– Banks and Federal reserve may be the real creators of bitcoin. Also the other tokens did not fly along with BC.
While on the subject of currencies, here’s an article by Luongo on Italy and the Euro. Great read, but some of Luongo’s terminology is convoluted.
Excerpt: It (the mini-BOT or small Treasury Bill) is an existential threat to the current Germany-dominated political order. The main purpose of the euro was do to exactly what we have seen since its introduction, create a structural advantage for German industry through which Germany’s political class can dominate the EU itself. It was specifically designed to roll up the wealth of the continent in this way, bankrupt countries less competitive than Germany and keep them that way trapped within this single currency regime.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/06/25/europe-wont-admit-the-mini-bots-are-coming/
I have a cast iron skillet. A 12 incher. When I bought it, it cost me 25 cents. This was before everybody started scouring the Antiques shops, buying anything cast iron. So the cast iron craze started. Mt skillet, bought by me for 25 cents, sells now for about $120!! It’s a Herd mentality going on.
Cast iron deflation is here. You can buy new cast iron at Tractor Supply now. Costs more than from a yard sale, but you’re getting it new!
but bitcoin isnt in use at junk sales, not yet.
Random sporadic Bitcoin checkin: trading this moment at 8,825.62.
The people maintaining the BTC network just did another ‘halving’ — not important that you know what that is, it was long ago planned routine maintenance. It hasn’t run out of steam yet. The Fed just issued several trillion in new dollars, by the way, you should know how that works.
As I have mentioned in several other comments, this is a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the Dollar.