Bitcoin

[NonEntity]

In case anyone wants to play with this new Bitcoin thingie, here is an address where you can send me some Bitcoins:

[center]17U7YxbzL77Ya2EzeZDNLAWeL2hMM2fjf3[/center]
or some incredibly small fractions of Bitcoins, or large heavy brimming with value over the top amounts of Bitcoins.

See how easy I am to get along with? :bootyshake:

Let's get this thing moving. Maybe Marc will even put up a Bitcoin address for his Motions and Books and Autographed Photos of His Hisness at the barbell.

Go HERE for a chart of trading prices and volumes at MtGox.com, a Bitcoin trading site. (Please note that this chart does not include the Bitcoins you've sent to me ... because you HAVEN'T SENT ME ANY YET!!! :rolleyes2: )

- NonE

ByTheWhey, here's a post at Mises.org on Bitcoin...

[NonEntity]

In FACT, how about Mike W. and Calvin putting up Bitcoin addresses for those who may want to send them a little tip for their good efforts. Huh? What a great way to start playing with this stuff AND giving back some to those who give so much to us.

- NonE

{addendum} YouTipIt.org is just what I was thinking about... check this out.

[NonEntity]

CoinPal is a site (in beta) which allows you to purchase Bitcoins with PayPal. I tried it and it works. At the moment there is a limit of 40 Bitcoins per week, and the combination of CoinPal's fee and PayPal's fee adds up to around 7%. You might want to put your toes in the water and start playing with a few coins.

- NonE

[NonEntity]

Nononomous.*

I mis-spoke when making the original post here regarding BitCoin. It is NOT annonymous. You can follow this thread on the forum to see the discussion if you care.

- NonE

* new werd

[NonEntity]

TEOTWAWKI... you herd it hear!

Zero Hedge dot Com Wrote:The story in a nutshell (and as translated loosely from the primary source presented below): the glassworkers pension fund (SPVG) was ordered by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, or the equivalent of the Dutch central bank), that it has to sell the bulk of its gold assets.

Did I hear the sound of jackboots? :eekeek:

[move]Got BITCOIN?[/move]



- NonE

[NonEntity]

[center]Remember, Bitcoin is NOT RADIOACTIVE![/center]

- NonE

[Dionysus]

^^ No, but it is "illegal" according to this FBI press release.

Quote:Along with the power to coin money, Congress has the concurrent power to restrain the circulation of money which is not issued under its own authority in order to protect and preserve the constitutional currency for the benefit of all citizens of the nation. It is a violation of federal law for individuals, such as von NotHaus, or organizations, such as NORFED, to create private coin or currency systems to compete with the official coinage and currency of the United States.

Quote:“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”

Marc and JT talked about this on the show yesterday.

Why the hell aren't we kicking the stuffing out of these psychopathic scumbags yet??? I don't understand. These people are almost completely lacking in intelligence, courage and honor. All they have is thugs with guns. How inept are we? Sigh.

[NonEntity]

Oh yee of little faith. I think you miss the point here, Dio. Bitcoin is totally distributed. There is no "there" there to seize. Trying to capture Bitcoin is like trying to carve steam. At least, that's the way it appears to me.

- NonE

[eye2i2hear]

Quote: Add-ons for Firefox

Bitcoin Prices 0.1
by Corey Farwell

Firefox extension displaying current Bitcoin prices

This add-on has been preliminarily reviewed by Mozilla.
Add-on Information for Bitcoin Prices Updated March 15, 2011
Works with Firefox 4.0b7 - 4.0.*

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/none/

[Dionysus]

Uh oh-- the voice of dissent.

Quote:The Bitcoin Conspiracy Theory
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2011/03/bitcoin-conspiracy-theory.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/201 ... heory.html</a><!-- m -->

Bitcoin is an alternative digital currency. It is gaining popularity.

Bitcoin is a fiat currency. New bitcoins are generated whenever someone generates a key with certain properties. Some people have set up servers to "mine" bitcoins. They search for suitable keys to generate new bitcoins. There is a limit on the total number of possible bitcoins.

You can trade bitcoins for gold or silver or State paper money.

Bitcoin is distributed. Each Bitcoin client contains an encrypted copy of the entire monetary base. Each Bitcoin client contains an encrypted copy of the full transaction history. Every time there is a transaction, it is shared among every client. The data is strong-encrypted. The P2P nature makes it hard for the State to shut down Bitcoin.

Do you see the flaws in Bitcoin?

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I read an interesting conspiracy theory regarding Bitcoin. Someone said "The guy who created Bitcoin actually works for the NSA."

I don't like Bitcoin. I don't see the attraction of using Bitcoin compared to gold and silver. Are State insiders promoting Bitcoin, as a distraction to using gold and silver?

If someone asked me, I'd accept payment in Bitcoin, only if I could convert it to gold or silver or State money.

Fewer than 1% of the population is running a Bicoin client. This makes it very easy for State thugs. They can check and see who's running a Bitcoin client, and add you to their "subversive persons" list.

For example, State thugs can keep track of who's running Tor. I heard of one guy who set up a Tor exit node. State thugs forced him to shut it down. They claimed someone used his Tor exit node for "downloading child pornography", making him legally responsible. I suspect most Tor nodes are run by the NSA. The NSA would have to be totally clueless, if they weren't controlling a large number of Tor nodes.

Suppose that the Bitcoin encryption has a hidden flaw. It's open source. That doesn't mean there isn't a cleverly-hidden flaw in the encryption.

The NSA is more than 20 years ahead of the general public, regarding encryption tricks. They could have planted an exploitable flaw in the Bitcoin encryption.

Every Bitcoin client has a copy of the full monetary base and the full transaction history. This makes it very easy for State thugs to spy on Bitcoin users, especially if there's a backdoor decryption key.

State tax collectors can run a Bitcoin client, apply their secret encryption backdoor, and see who's a heavy Bitcoin user. It's very easy for State thugs to identify heavy Bitcoin users.

I don't like Bitcoin. It's inferior to gold and silver. You can get the same benefit as Bitcoin by making entries on a piece of paper, settling with physical gold and silver when necessary.

I haven't seen an "alternate monetary system" that's more attractive than gold and silver. Are State insiders intentionally promoting Bitcoin, knowing it has exploitable flaws?

[eye2i2hear]

Dionysus Wrote:Uh oh-- the voice of dissent.

Quote:The Bitcoin Conspiracy Theory
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2011/03/bitcoin-conspiracy-theory.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/201 ... heory.html</a><!-- m -->
Do you see the flaws in Bitcoin?
...
I haven't seen an "alternate monetary system" that's more attractive than gold and silver. Are State insiders intentionally promoting Bitcoin, knowing it has exploitable flaws?

Uh oh-- the voice of dissent... Are State insiders intentionally dissing Bitcoin, knowing it's silver and gold that has exploitable flaws? Is fskrealityguide an insider CIA plant?!? Is fskrealityguide actually a "Precious Metals" dealer?!? (is fskrealityguide insider code for Timothy McVeigh?!?)

geesh Louise, just be SCARED!! BE VERY SCARED!!!

(and what's up widda blogger not including THEIR having THE (internet) KILL SWITCH, like Egypt had?!? missing something like that on the radar sounds like something only incompetent NSA/Gumbit employees would do...)
:yawn:

* caveat: not intending to diss the value of examining/critiquing Bitcoin (like any thing else); just leave the mongering off, for my value *

[Dionysus]

Well, I almost invariably agree with FSK, but in this case he's going down a path I can't follow. Even though I'm quite convinced that money is best when commodity-based and in the world of sticks-and-stones (as opposed to strictly in the mental/mathematical realm), I conceed that it's a great, big world and there's more than enough room for an experimental form of fiat money like Bitcoin. Before burying Bitcoin like FSK, I'm willing to give it a chance to rise or fall on its own merits in a truly free market (something we've never really had). Who knows? It might be a revelation and be the cure for all our monetary ills. I'm pretty sure that commodity-based money would still emerge victorious in a direct competition, but I'm far from positive (only fools are positive! ) As for the NSA, I hardly think that matters. They say Google, Yahoo, etc. are run by the CIA, but so what if they are? They're just tools to be used as I see fit. What difference does it make who created or "runs" them? Let them keep a database on my Internet activities and data mine it. Maybe the slugs will learn something. :tongue2:

[eye2i2hear]

Dionysus Wrote:Even though I'm quite convinced that money is best when commodity-based ...

This is an aspect I'm quite unsettled about myeself2 (you can call me money-dumb even, without narry a slight taken on my part; superstitions versus values seems quite a lifetime work for the indoctriNationed/religionized).

It seems in one sense, Bitcoin is commodity-based; it perhaps only has less of a mental picture (value) as a (the) commodity itself, viz mere bytes on (a) hard-drive(s)*; and the commodities** based, are in every transaction with them, thus very spread out...?
I know for myself, it long didn't matter that a FRN had no commodity basis and worked fine as a medium. The rub for me is in the store of value-- yet I'm unsure if that is but more faith-based (Paytriot etal) belief/superstition...


* I put the plural in hopes of emphasizing that Bitcoin (commodity) has a 'backup' (receipt/store)
** for one example, marc's book (now) is one such commodity and one that Bitcoins are now accepted for (not to even get into what a store of value AiLL is! haha)

ps: you included the "in the world of sticks-and-stones", which prompted my recalling the history of literal such, aka http://Talley Sticks...?!

[NonEntity]

Yeah well uh erm... uhhhh. Commodity based. Whutza commodity? What makes gold have value? The fact that it is desired. I don't think ants or anteaters value gold, do you? No. Whut makes gold valuable is that humans want it, for what reason is irrelevant. So if there is a digital thingie called a Bitcoin which is valued by someone, how is it not a commodity? What makes Bitcoin valuable to us humanoids is its very scarcity, kinda like gold, no? It is something which can be shown to exist, and which can also be shown to be scarce. What more do you want, chocolate coatings?

- NonE

[eye2i2hear]

NonEntity Wrote:Yeah well uh erm... uhhhh. Commodity based.

Didn't I read somewhere that Bitcoin transaction values are being recorded/posted somewhere online (sort of like a Stock Exchange/Stock Market)? No?

Quote:Whutza commodity? ... What makes Bitcoin valuable to us humanoids is its very scarcity, kinda like gold, no? It is something which can be shown to exist, and which can also be shown to be scarce.

Eye's not sure scarcity, per se, is a relevant concern even/either; seems the key hinge factor is simply an (equitable) production cost = time investment to procure (aka establishing an investment value/store of value). The ole adage, "you don't work, you don't eat" (you don't work, you don't purchase equity). Paralleling: corn commodity = time/labor/investment (farming/harvesting). oil/gas commodities = ditto (capturing/refining). gold/silver/diamond commodities = ditto (mining/transporting).
From what I've gleaned elsewhere, one of the historical problems for the non-Insiders (common folk) with gold comes has been precisely when it becomes scarce (by intent or natural/inherent design). No? [Bitcoins initial scarcity design, from my understanding, is simply to prevent introductory deflation via it being slowly issued based upon user "labor"/time investment + it's being value-laden established via initial exchanges; the initial exchanges being the representative of what legit (private) bank loan officers did in the past (ie requiring equity/market appraisals/etc), etc]

:frobro: