1: cartelization or regulations, are what might cause digits to go poof?  But couldn't cartels hoard gold like how FDR stole gold and stuffed it into locked vaults?  Couldn't regulations cause gold to be illegal?  All it takes is a buttload of AK 47s in the hands of the right soldiers (backed up by 50 caliber technicals in the street and artillery on the hill or drones in the sky) and gold can be squeezed out of any people and taken away.  once said gold is taken off the market, then fractionalized debt note currency can be issued, like FDR and the FRB did.

2: A known rate of debasement for gold?  How long does it take to coat a tungsten bar in gold?  How quick is that debasement accomplished?

3: This one might be true, sure, but gold has to have a form, and lots of forms are serialized.  But yes, gold eagles for example, are not serialized.  However under point #1, it takes only the right authority to force all gold eagles to be stamped with a serial # and any without the number, become illegal.  So force becomes the key driver.

4: I agree with this part about not putting all your money in them, but if someone feels that the black markets (billions of dollars in secure flowing cash from heroin and Afghanistan wars) will go all into bitcoin to cut down on their laundering costs (making bitcoin go to insane levels), then he might take that risk thinking he could get out before the cops crank down on bitcoin.  But long term, war is the only sure thing when humanity is so rich in hypocrisy. Speculation is different than savings I guess.

5: Yeah, but like I said, flexing the established crime/black markets as bitcoin and its children-knockoffs will surely do, will surely cause war on a global scale, to either control the black markets or stop them, so its moot.  But probably you might be right.  I do not see humanity overcoming its hypocrisy with regard to sex and drugs, so war and chaos must be the result.  In such a case, logically, the guys with glasses are killed first because intellectuals are the first to be purged when true evil (Marxism), righteously decides to press everyone toward righteousness.  I mean that true hard core marxists will just gun down drug users in the street, they are essentially nihilists.  The nature of bitcoin and SR drug market means the drug war will ramp up to the maximum, and government will be threatened as will gangs (who traditionally live off drug distribution which is being taken from them via bitcoin and SR) and so society will probably not survive.  Crypto, however, will survive everything, as its mostly indestructible so long as two computers remain.  Computers doing math on prime numbers is pretty basic, and even if there are only 10 humans left after the shake out, one of them will be able to run a computer and do crypto, which will give them more power than the other nine.

But anyway, develop your hash-currency, and sure, some people will mine them and you'll get your fame.  There will have to be lots of crypto monies, to give people a chance to survive the coming chaos.

Problem with that as I argued in my prior replies to jorbis (review them please), is that there are market inertia you simply can't undo, e.g. simpleton users don't like to change their software, merchants can't upgrade easily, etc. And how do you communicate to all them? How do you do a unified upgrade? And maybe they refuse, because they don't feel harmed. The power elite are very crafty in obfuscating the damage in for example taxes or government theft. They then get their profit from the public backstop. Meaning they don't have to directly attack the users in order to gain transfer pricing rents on all merchants, they might even get it through a govt tax on all merchants (which exempts them), so the users may not have an incentive to switch.

It isn't as simple as you want to think it is. Better to eliminate the weakness from the technical design.

You force me to explain in this thread even though I said I wasn't

I don't want to appear irrational so let me prove to you that you can use cycles to predict the future. Yes there is chaos, but that chaos is occurring orthogonal to the forces of nature which have regularity of waves. The 78 year cycle has nothing to do with the sun or BS like that. It has to do with the 26 year generation of human reproduction. Since humans take years to become educated and contribute new technologies, then the technological change follows this cycle.

Every 78 years we have a huge wave of technological unemployment that causes a crisis. Go to following link and view the chart of history and the technological paradigm shifts every 78 years and corresponding downturns and wars:

http://www.mpettis.com/2013/02/21/a-brief-history-of-the-chinese-growth-model/#comment-21689 (see textual chart)

The last generation can't adapt, so you have 26 years downturn while they hold onto political power. Then 52 years of boom as the new technology is spread out. Then repeat.

So the downturn will bottom 2033. We will have a war interim.

See also my latter post that elaborates:

https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/160612.msg1705610#msg1705610

Per my prior post about the differences between gold&silver versus P2P currencies, my view is that we need competition amongst units-of-exchange. Contrast this with the qualities of a good store-of-value and unit-of-account-- which gold is probably the best because of its intrinsic quality of being rare. A unit-of-exchange does not need to maintain a "perfect value" over a long-period of time, because frankly there is no such absolute in the universe (don't ask me to get abstract because then I will drop my unified theory of the universe on you). In layman's terms, no one can say what is a perfect value, because there are so many relativities, e.g. we say Bitcoin is eventually never further debased, but the fact is the value of Bitcoin is always changing and new competing P2P currencies may always be gaining/losing relative confidence.

In my view the most important attribute of a good unit-of-exchange is that it is level playing field, meaning that what ever the rules, they can't be gamed. And a good unit-of-exchange is as inclusive as possible, and is as free market as possible. Beyond that, I say let everybody compete.

If you want to speculate on rising use and confidence of a new P2P currency, that is fine. But that is not a store-of-value, that is speculation (which is fine too, we need speculators). What we don't need is naive people dumping their life savings into the next Tulip Mania, thinking that tulips are unique and have some value which they don't have.

Thus I would prefer to see competing P2P currencies. We will be much safer as a human race with more diversity, not less. So we lose a little stability of value by having a diverse, chaotic free market, but we gain the loss of catastrophic failure modes (similar to the comparison between a Cathedral and a Bazaar):

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4867&cpage=1#comment-397396

If I created an alternative to Bitcoin, this actually removes the failure mode from Bitcoin, without them needing to modify the design. Because the power elite won't bother monopolizing Bitcoin, if they can't also monopolize the alternative P2P currency.

So actually what I am doing is helping make Bitcoin's future more stable at the same time providing an alternative to reduce failure modes.

This is very much like the bimetallic gold and silver standard, which reduced failure modes that could occur by attacking (manipulating the value of) just gold or silver alone.

So my response is let the free market flourish and build as many P2P currencies as we can. Then let the market pick the winners and the losers.

No person is smart and omniscient enough to manage the market and provide all its needs. We each throw out our contribution, and let the market decide how it plays out.

We backstop each other in times of individual hardship, if someone can't eat or otherwise failed big time. Individual charity makes you feel good. You know the person personally whom you are helping, who is down on his luck. That doesn't mean give them so much that they become discouraged to ever work or do their own. It means sharing some food, a place to sleep, and a way to rebuild. It doesn't mean triple-bypass surgery-- sorry they may just have to die if they did not save enough for that. Then again, if it is my mother, I will give her the money even if she didn't save. Family matters. When the govt pays for everything, family doesn't matter any more.

In my past, I had the experience to survive eating rice and salt. I did it to know what it was like. It wasn't pleasant, but it has made me realize that even though I like expensive things, I don't really need them that much. I live my life fairly simply, for the most part.

Greed is useless. Love, knowledge, and experience are irreplaceable.

Per my prior post about the 78 year cycle, we are headed into very bad times. But in the worst of times, is where the human spirit and innovation can shine the most.

We have generational differences. I'd really like you to read about the Long Wave Cycle:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/t9p570-inflation-or-deflation#4735

Yeah I used to own the domain name GoldWeTrust.com, but I let it go. I stopped working on ideas about currencies in 2010. I had some other things come up in my life. I dismissed the digital P2P currencies even though I had a rough design for one, because I felt no one would accept units created out-of-thin-air.  In hindsight, I did not factor strongly enough that unit-of-exchange is not store-of-value.

Any way, look at that link above. I am Gen X (age 47.9). Some here are Boomers, others are Gen Y, maybe even a few Gen Z here.

So the point is we will have different attitudes and perspectives given our different generational environment. My generation grew up somewhat neglected by our parents (but I don't regret this, I love my parents). Gen Z is growing up very spoiled (but facing massive technological unemployment). Etc.

So we need diversity. Because not all of us are the same. We are all competing to provide prosperity and fitness to the outcomes of future.

Degrees-of-freedom (diversity) is a game theory strategy of maximizing the breath of options, so that you can adjust to future without overcommitting to ONE FUTURE. There is not one future. The future is changing as we approach it. No one can predict the ONE FUTURE.

P.S. About gold as a store-of-value, although I am sure it will go up in value a lot from where it is priced now (maybe a further decline first though), I don't know if the future will include high interest rates again and thus gold declining in value relative to the currency that is being loaned at interest. There are no absolutes (of truth or value). Perhaps P2P currencies change the equation somehow such that we don't get a repeat of 1981 where gold declined when Volcker raised interest rates. This crazy period until 2033 is also about preserving value. For as long as the crisis is not resolved, physical gold&silver is the most reliable.

I am experimenting with how to teach computer science over the internet:

http://copute.com/edu/

Check out the "Why Learn To Program?" in the Intro to Computers. And also see my one page Intro to HTML, as you type in html, it tells you what you did wrong.

I am currently trying to design a new programming language to replace Java. It is named Copute. It is not ready yet.

BINGO! On this and everything else you've said in this thread. I just heard of BTC 2 days ago, so there's much for me to learn. From the limited understanding I have so far, it's already become fairly evident that one or a combination of several different things are in play here...

• 1) BTC is the creation of the power elite (using your title) and made to look homegrown.
• 2) BTC is a great product with an even greater marketing campaign but nothing more. Closer to "Cabbage Patch Dolls" in the '80s or "Beanie Babies" in the '90s, than a sustainable currency.
• 3) This is just one of the test currency models considered for the global, cashless economic system that will soon be implemented....more testing to come in the very near future!
• 4) BTC is genuine and was created in the high hopes of bringing something new, something free and something that works to the world
• 5) #4 is accurate and the only reason it hasn't been crushed by government(s), elite, the Fed, World Bank, etc., is because they're watching to see how they can use it themselves
• 6) #4 is accurate...at first, but it's been taken over by the powerful and is now (or soon will be) just another corrupt, evil and oppressive system that will soon be used to manipulate and control the masses

I've always been a pessimist, it keeps me from chasing after every wild fantastical new thing, I prefer it. While most of the things listed are quite negative in nature, there is nothing here that's so unlikely as the idea that BTC is going to replace the economies of the world with zero resistance, influence or intervention from the power elite (I do like that term...think I'll steal it ). There's also nothing here so unlikely as the fantastical belief that BTC will reach some of astronomical value some have predicted. The most prudent plan for people who have a sh*tload of them, is to watch for the perceived value to begin it's decline and then dump them quickly. Novelties like this tend to burn really hot and really fast once they catch, but they burn out every bit as quickly...sometimes quicker.

Yes, the BTC phenomena is pretty darned intriguing and interesting. As you stated though, someone will eventually come up with something better and BTC will fade into history like so many other novelties before it. My personal thought on the whole thing is, whether it began with the elite or whether it ends with them, this is just one of the stepping stones along the road they're building for the sheeple.

I will reply to this after I get some sleep.

Why is this relevant to P2P currencies?

Please read the following linked post (JustSaying is me), it is very brief:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4867&cpage=1#comment-397396

I am trying to create a computer language that would enable open source to delivered in mix-n-mash modules. Here is some info about that:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4824&cpage=1#comment-396626

That is great in of itself. But the further implication is that the modules become money. Knowledge becomes money. Bingo! You remove the ability for idiots to debase simply by "who they know", "how they can manipulate the ignorance of the masses", or any other form of action which lowers collective knowledge.

Why? Because everything in the future is software. We even can print new hip joints with your own body cells using a 3D printer. We can print a plastic car that is stronger than steel. Etc.. This is causing technological unemployment, until the youth adapt. The boomers mostly can't adapt. They will try to hold on to the political control and destroy the world into war with their selfishness and myopia. But we will just route around their failure mode of political control, by using technology which can't be controlled by politics. In my view, government is very good at making legislation to "fix" that which is unfixable, thus the motivation I have is to create projects which decrease failure modes so the government becomes more irrelevant and not needed. One day I hope the government becomes totally ignored, like babbling idiots talking to themselves and nobody cares.

What are P2P currencies backed with? Knowledge and need for diverse options against a dangerous future. So if you want to create an alternative P2P currency, you need to innovate. See my prior post for background on importance of diversity relative to no known ONE FUTURE:

https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/160612.msg1703553#msg1703553

More on this in future, first we need to release someone similar to my design for an alternative Bitcoin. This would not be modified to make software modules money-- it is an orthogonal project. Also, this will not destroy Bitcoin.

"If an attacker can muster 51% of the Proof-of-Work capacity of a P2P system, the attacker can take over the system. There are differences of opinion as to the degree of malicious behavior an attacker could do. However, one unarguable mathematical conclusion is that an attacker that had for example 60 to 90% of the Proof-of-Work capacity could process 60 to 90% of the transactions. If this attacker did not do any thing noticably malicious and did not charge a transaction fee, then virtually all customers would not find it necessary to offer a transaction fee, because over just 3 blocks of waiting time the 60 to 90% becomes 94 to 99.9% of all transactions.* If this was sustained for sufficient months or years when the production of new coins had ended (or declined significantly), then all the other miners would go bankrupt because their costs are not subsidized. Such attacker would then control virtually 100% of all transactions processed. Note this 60 - 90% could be built up over time, because offering free transactions to a percent of the market (when no new coins are being minted), drives some percent of the other miners bankrupt thus increasing the percent the attacker has— it is a snowball effect."

But what would it cost to offer free transaction processing to 60% to 90% of all transactions for months or years? And at the end of it, what would the attacker actually have achieved except to destroy BTC, which would seem like rather a pyrrhic victory !