Bitcoin as opt out money, defensive technology.

nigma

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I would like to bring some hope to some of the recent discussion. I think it only takes a few individuals in a society who stand their ground, to start turning the ship around. People have been anticipating a techno-authoritarian surveillance control system and building technologies to defend against the onslaught for decades. Technologies like online private websites and browsing (TOR), private money/banking (bitcoin), cryptography (PGP), home servers for hosting services like encrypted chat, photo storage, passwords, etc. Most online cloud based data storage can be decentralized and run from home. Get connected to the communities who are implementing these technologies and start participating.

If you want a good background on some of this, here is a good documentary series available for free View:

View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuns9Evn1w-T2RwqMhUnTZbTTe-M-g42




some links for those interested:
www.start9.com
www.bitcoin.org (please avoid all "trading bitcoin" videos on youtube, bitcoin is not about trading, its about op-out money)

Also the book written in the 90s, The Sovereign Individual predicted how politics and society would be reshaped by the technology of the microprocessor, they predicted the end of governments as we know it. They saw large centralized governments as we have now crumbling and being eventually replaced by city states, i.e. smaller and more numerous governments, decentralisation. The book predicted the emergence of an internet cryptographic money that was outside of government that was critical to this decentralisation process. Amazing since bitcoin was only published in 2009.

Anyway, in my mind the future is bright and I believe there is much to be hopeful for. Money is really where the control is, once the people have access to good money, that is not able to be devalued, or transactions censored, we will see the ship turning around. It is actually already happening. In Nigeria for example 30% of the population uses bitcoin even though the government banned it.

Ray Peat interested folk have usually taken responsibility of their own health.
Bitcoin interested folk likewise have taken responsibility of their own wealth/money.
 

tankasnowgod

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Anyway, in my mind the future is bright and I believe there is much to be hopeful for. Money is really where the control is, once the people have access to good money, that is not able to be devalued, or transactions censored, we will see the ship turning around. It is actually already happening. In Nigeria for example 30% of the population uses bitcoin even though the government banned it.
Welp, Bitcoin can certainly be "devalued."

What happened after Mt. Gox?

Mt Gox.png


What happened after the 2017 high?

2018.png


Silver stackers have been talking about the suppression of silver prices for decades now, and the same was probably happening to gold. Speaking of Silver..... What happened after the Hunt Brothers got busted?
silver.png
 
OP
nigma

nigma

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I think I meant to say 'diluted', my point is 1 BTC = 1 BTC, and that cannot be changed by anyone.

In terms of the risk of what happened to gold and silver with paper gold and silver, that won't be nearly as easy with bitcoin because its very easy to verify the holdings of any bitcoin on the public blockchain. I.e. audits can be made by anyone at anytime, no need to rely on professional auditors saying "yes, the gold company does have X amount of gold in its vaults".
 

tankasnowgod

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I think I meant to say 'diluted', my point is 1 BTC = 1 BTC, and that cannot be changed by anyone.
Well, that's silly. 1 ounce of silver = 1 ounce of silver, and 1 Zimbabwe Dollar = 1 Zimbabwe Dollar, and that can't be changed by anyone, either.
In terms of the risk of what happened to gold and silver with paper gold and silver, that won't be nearly as easy with bitcoin because its very easy to verify the holdings of any bitcoin on the public blockchain. I.e. audits can be made by anyone at anytime, no need to rely on professional auditors saying "yes, the gold company does have X amount of gold in its vaults".
But..... it still relies on centralized exchanges for price discovery. So, essentially, it can be diluted in a similar way to stocks. If someone buys 1 BTC, holds it on Coinbase, and never takes it off of Coinbase.... did Coinbase hold 1 BTC in that person's name the whole time?

So, if Coinbase realizes that only 10% of coins ever get moved off the platform, they can engage in the same sort of fractional reserve banking that happened to gold and silver and stocks and such.

Don't get me wrong, I like cryptos too, but Bitcoin and the others don't solve every problem that other forms of money had.
 
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nigma

nigma

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Well, that's silly. 1 ounce of silver = 1 ounce of silver, and 1 Zimbabwe Dollar = 1 Zimbabwe Dollar, and that can't be changed by anyone, either.
actually this is the entire point. the 1 USD (2021) ≠ 1 USD (2019), its more like 0.7 USD (2021) ≠ 1 USD (2019), because of the increase in money supply whereas in bitcoin 1 bitcoin is always only going to be 1 of total 21 million.

But..... it still relies on centralized exchanges for price discovery. So, essentially, it can be diluted in a similar way to stocks. If someone buys 1 BTC, holds it on Coinbase, and never takes it off of Coinbase.... did Coinbase hold 1 BTC in that person's name the whole time?

So, if Coinbase realizes that only 10% of coins ever get moved off the platform, they can engage in the same sort of fractional reserve banking that happened to gold and silver and stocks and such.

Don't get me wrong, I like cryptos too, but Bitcoin and the others don't solve every problem that other forms of money had.

Well anyone who leaves their coin on coinbase or any other exchange is obviously a beginner, as they gain in knowledge they will remove and hold themselves. Since last year, the trend has been for exchanges to hold less. At the moment the figure is around 13.5% of all bitcoin on exchanges.
1630046731966.png


I think bitcoin does solve most of the problems. Most importantly, it solves the most important one, inflation of the supply, which led to the demise of all previous monies.


View: https://youtu.be/4ia-cFbSru8


And all other crypto projects aren't decentralised, so I don't waste time on any of them.
 

tankasnowgod

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actually this is the entire point. the 1 USD (2021) ≠ 1 USD (2019), its more like 0.7 USD (2021) ≠ 1 USD (2019), because of the increase in money supply whereas in bitcoin 1 bitcoin is always only going to be 1 of total 21 million.
Not true. The supply of Bitcoin has been "inflating" from the beginning, and there are about 18.79 million Bitcoin out there right now. The total number is capped at 21 million, but that many have never been available.
Well anyone who leaves their coin on coinbase or any other exchange is obviously a beginner, as they gain in knowledge they will remove and hold themselves. Since last year, the trend has been for exchanges to hold less. At the moment the figure is around 13.5% of all bitcoin on exchanges.
Whether it's "Beginners" holding them there or not, the potential Fractional Reserve and manipulation issues remain. The exchanges themselves aren't exactly "beginners." That 13.5% you mention is more than enough to effectively "double" the supply. Did you see the insane volume of sales that the Chinese exchanges were supposedly conducting back in 2016 and earlier?

And all other crypto projects aren't decentralised, so I don't waste time on any of them.
Not true. Many of them are decentralized, including Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Vertcoin, even Dogecoin. And, plenty of the centralized projects can still have value as well.
 
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nigma

nigma

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Not true. The supply of Bitcoin has been "inflating" from the beginning, and there are about 18.79 million Bitcoin out there right now. The total number is capped at 21 million, but that many have never been available.
I said total of 21 million. My point is correct. 1 BTC = 1 BTC, can't say that about any other currency, they don't have a mechanism to prevent changes to their monetary policy, this includes ethereum (70% premined also), and the others since they still have figure heads. There is simply no comparison, usage of the word decentralised for these projects is just not correct.

Whether it's "Beginners" holding them there or not, the potential Fractional Reserve and manipulation issues remain. The exchanges themselves aren't exactly "beginners." That 13.5% you mention is more than enough to effectively "double" the supply. Did you see the insane volume of sales that the Chinese exchanges were supposedly conducting back in 2016 and earlier?
I don't think this is likely because the blockchain is public, and the wallet addresses of the exchanges are known and so balances can be easy viewed by any block explorer.

Not true. Many of them are decentralized, including Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Vertcoin, even Dogecoin. And, plenty of the centralized projects can still have value as well.
Incomparable to bitcoin.
View: https://youtu.be/w7la6D5qCmQ
 

Miggie

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Jun 21, 2015
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162
Except bitcoin is completely unusable when it comes to payments. You have high miner fees, its slow and only allows 3tps. There are way better crypto options out there.

Also bitcoin can be targeted by a 51% hack if you possess 51% or more of the mining capacity. Also the price of bitcoin is inflated because of the tether printer.
 

Vinny

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I would like to bring some hope to some of the recent discussion. I think it only takes a few individuals in a society who stand their ground, to start turning the ship around. People have been anticipating a techno-authoritarian surveillance control system and building technologies to defend against the onslaught for decades. Technologies like online private websites and browsing (TOR), private money/banking (bitcoin), cryptography (PGP), home servers for hosting services like encrypted chat, photo storage, passwords, etc. Most online cloud based data storage can be decentralized and run from home. Get connected to the communities who are implementing these technologies and start participating.

If you want a good background on some of this, here is a good documentary series available for free View:

View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuns9Evn1w-T2RwqMhUnTZbTTe-M-g42




some links for those interested:
www.start9.com
www.bitcoin.org (please avoid all "trading bitcoin" videos on youtube, bitcoin is not about trading, its about op-out money)

Also the book written in the 90s, The Sovereign Individual predicted how politics and society would be reshaped by the technology of the microprocessor, they predicted the end of governments as we know it. They saw large centralized governments as we have now crumbling and being eventually replaced by city states, i.e. smaller and more numerous governments, decentralisation. The book predicted the emergence of an internet cryptographic money that was outside of government that was critical to this decentralisation process. Amazing since bitcoin was only published in 2009.

Anyway, in my mind the future is bright and I believe there is much to be hopeful for. Money is really where the control is, once the people have access to good money, that is not able to be devalued, or transactions censored, we will see the ship turning around. It is actually already happening. In Nigeria for example 30% of the population uses bitcoin even though the government banned it.

Ray Peat interested folk have usually taken responsibility of their own health.
Bitcoin interested folk likewise have taken responsibility of their own wealth/money.

Thank you
 

nattywaffle

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Apr 7, 2021
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The obsession with BTC's relation to traditional stores of value is preventing a lot of progress imo. Crypto in general is being adopted as a less regulated, off color trading scheme. I am not completely bullish on BTC as the tech could be improved upon, but the central philosophy is vital to what continues to be an increasingly tighter authoritarian grasp on the individual.
 

TurboTime

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Feb 28, 2021
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Monero is the only serious cryptocurrency. It has completely taken over the dark net markets, which is the realest application of crypto right now. I suspect its role in people's lives will continue to grow as the rest of the world becomes more dystopian. It's actually useful.
 

tankasnowgod

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I said total of 21 million. My point is correct. 1 BTC = 1 BTC, can't say that about any other currency,
Bull, you can say that about literally every other currency. Even to your point, 1 BTC in 2015 wasn't worth what 1 BTC was in 2014.
they don't have a mechanism to prevent changes to their monetary policy, this includes ethereum (70% premined also), and the others since they still have figure heads. There is simply no comparison, usage of the word decentralised for these projects is just not correct.
Oh, you're worried about "Pre Mining," but not the 1 Million Satoshi Coins that he never moved? With over 2 Million Bitcoin left to be mined, and something like 3 Million supposedly "lost," that still puts a huge amount of the currency in the hands of one individual/group/government/company/who or whatever created it.

Also, how does this holdings chart represent "Decentralization?"


Over 16 Million Bitcoin is held in less than 0.4% of addresses.

Yeah, a lot of those projects are more useful, faster, and have lower fees.
 

Herbie

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Jun 7, 2016
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Crypto is useless for most because we get paid in fiat currency for our work. Its good for buying things which could not be sold otherwise so yeah because of less and less freedom it’s becoming useful.

Regarding gold, there are areas on earth which are known where there is so much gold that they are not allowed to start digging because it would destroy the gold price. Storing gold safely is an issue. The country I am citizen of has the right to confiscate my physical gold if they wish by law.

The only thing that I have come accross where gold and crypto would be useful is if your country goes into chaos and war and you use the gold or crypto to buy your way out of there because the fiat currency becomes worthless.
 
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nigma

nigma

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Messages
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Except bitcoin is completely unusable when it comes to payments. You have high miner fees, its slow and only allows 3tps. There are way better crypto options out there.
Have you heard of the lightning network? Close to zero fees, almost instant. Have you heard that El Salvador is adopting the lightning network with the help of the bitcoin company Strike?

Also bitcoin can be targeted by a 51% hack if you possess 51% or more of the mining capacity. Also the price of bitcoin is inflated because of the tether printer.
Yes, this is true of all proof of work blockchains. That is why there are so many miners in bitcoin, so as not to allow one group to get 51% of the mining capacity.

Actually the price of bitcoin is up because of the USD printer, no need to worry about tether.
 
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nigma

nigma

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The obsession with BTC's relation to traditional stores of value is preventing a lot of progress imo. Crypto in general is being adopted as a less regulated, off color trading scheme. I am not completely bullish on BTC as the tech could be improved upon, but the central philosophy is vital to what continues to be an increasingly tighter authoritarian grasp on the individual.
Bitcoin tech is not fixed, it has massive software development behind it, see github, it is one of the largest open source projects. Bitcoin allows an individual to save their wealth, its the greatest technology anyone feeling financially oppressed could wish for. No one who has held bitcoin for 3-4 years has lost money. This is the long term chart:

1630110040966.png


Fidelity analysis: Fidelity Bitcoin Analysis | ORANGE PAPER
 
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nigma

nigma

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Monero is the only serious cryptocurrency. It has completely taken over the dark net markets, which is the realest application of crypto right now. I suspect its role in people's lives will continue to grow as the rest of the world becomes more dystopian. It's actually useful.
Bitcoins lightning network is actually private, so it will be interesting to see how it will play out. You can't scale blockchains to global size, so unless Monero innovates like bitcoin, it may not survive. But from what I've seen monero's software development is healthy at the moment. But they could change the monetary policy could they not?
 
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nigma

nigma

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Bull, you can say that about literally every other currency. Even to your point, 1 BTC in 2015 wasn't worth what 1 BTC was in 2014.
The point is, I know more than any other project, that ultimately there will only be 21 million bitcoins or less. I run my own node and can choose which monetary policy I want to go with, by controlling the software on my node.

Oh, you're worried about "Pre Mining," but not the 1 Million Satoshi Coins that he never moved? With over 2 Million Bitcoin left to be mined, and something like 3 Million supposedly "lost," that still puts a huge amount of the currency in the hands of one individual/group/government/company/who or whatever created it.
The fact that satoshi has not moved his coins backs up his views regarding the current corrupted monetary system. If some were to get a hold or the keys to those coins, or as you suggest its actually a government. It wouldn't matter significantly as once they spend those coins either trying to dump the price or whatever, they in effect distribute the coins into the market, making it even more decentralised. The whole point is you don't have a special group that gets to print value (print human labor) like we have had the past 50 years.

Also, how does this holdings chart represent "Decentralization?"


Over 16 Million Bitcoin is held in less than 0.4% of addresses.
Yes, but that 0.4% of addresses is 140,000 addresses, which is a lot.

Decentralisation is about the design of the system, not the holdings of the coins. When bitcoin first started in 2009 all the coins were held by a only handful of people, now that number is in the 10s of millions. The distribution is decreasing overtime as more people come into bitcoin, which is happening continually.

Yeah, a lot of those projects are more useful, faster, and have lower fees.
See lightning network and adoption by El Salvador, was announced a couple months ago, goes into effect in 11 days. I expect we will see their economy flourish. Since bitcoins early days it was known blockchains cannot scale to a global population, layers would be needed, lightning network is layer 2 of bitcoin, bitcoins are locked into the lightning network to be used for fast, cheap payments like cash.

Why would a nation adopt a currency if it were not fast enough or have too high fees?

from wikipedia (El Salvador - Wikipedia):
1630111843130.png

1630111821916.png
 
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nigma

nigma

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Dec 14, 2013
Messages
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Crypto is useless for most because we get paid in fiat currency for our work. Its good for buying things which could not be sold otherwise so yeah because of less and less freedom it’s becoming useful.

Regarding gold, there are areas on earth which are known where there is so much gold that they are not allowed to start digging because it would destroy the gold price. Storing gold safely is an issue. The country I am citizen of has the right to confiscate my physical gold if they wish by law.

The only thing that I have come accross where gold and crypto would be useful is if your country goes into chaos and war and you use the gold or crypto to buy your way out of there because the fiat currency becomes worthless.
There are many services where you can now automatically convert your pay into bitcoin. Bitcoin has been the best way to save money compared to any other asset in the last 10 years.

One of the primary uses for bitcoin is to beat money printing/inflation, this is the direct cause of prices of goods and services increasing overtime, which is a bigger problem for the poor than the rich as they have no assets and live on their cash savings. This causes wealth inequality over time and thus the current situation we find ourselves in today with more disgruntled populations rioting. Inflation has always been a problem in the poorer countries, but now it has come to the wealthy western countries.

What is the point of keeping your pay in USD, EUR or whatever, when you get barely any or negative interest on it in the bank, where as with bitcoin you have been getting 70% per year.
 

tankasnowgod

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Bitcoin has been the best way to save money compared to any other asset in the last 10

This is a silly thing to say. Bitcoin has only been around for 12 years. Bitcoin was trading between $1-32 back in 2011 (ten years ago). If you brought at $32, yes, it was an absolute bargain by today's price, but it crashed back down to $2. No one really knew much about it, and I'm sure most of those in it had no idea what would become of it. It would have been a great "lottery ticket" sort of investment, but that's about it. It was no safe haven.

There are all sorts of ways an investor could have lost that money, from having an address with poor randomness, to storing that address somewhere compromised, or losing their private keys, or keeping it at Mt. Gox. A lot of those early adopters paid the price so that people can secure their cryptos better today.

So sure, you could have made a lot of money by getting some Bitcoin ten years ago. You could have made a lot of money if you had brought Amazon or Google when their stock first came out, too.

At the same time, people buying Bitcoin today probably won't get a 10,000-100,000x return on their investment in the next ten years. But those sort of possibilities are (potentially) there in some of the newer cryptos. Of course, the risk is there as well.
 
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nigma

nigma

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No one really knew much about it, and I'm sure most of those in it had no idea what would become of it. It would have been a great "lottery ticket" sort of investment, but that's about it. It was no safe haven.
Most of those, yes, had no idea. But most people today are in the same boat, they don't realise where bitcoin is going. Hal Finney calculated $10,000,000 per coin in Jan 2009!!! Still 200x from here, but I think it will go further. But yes, probably not 10,000-100,000x, but you never know.

1630126445533.png
 
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