Hey,

I support gold, BTC, and other real-world useful commodities.

Compared with conventional commodities, BTC is extemely complex. It really doesn't fit under the category of a commodity or a currency. It's not something that most people can learn about in an evening; especially if they don't have some previous understanding about cryptography or data encryption in general.

Just to clarify, Bitcoin isn't a ponzi scheme. People who reach the conclusion that it's a ponzi are grasping at straws. It's very similar to the invention of the internet; people make generalizations about things that they don't understand. The world was flat once, etc...

Bitcoin is a protocol, the code was invented and released as an open-source project. It's been tested against attack for the last 5 years with no holes discovered (being open-source gives attackers and developers access to the code equally.) The protocol is riding on the back of a global P2P network with more processing power than 300 times that of the top 500 most powerful super computers in the world combined. The encryption method is SHA-256; if it's ever broken, the last thing anybody would be worried about is BTC. SHA-2 is used to secure things like nuclear launch codes, military secrets, etc... There are much bigger fish in those waters than just a few Bitcoins.

All of the recent security issues aren't protocol related; they are either custom wallet implementation related, internal theft of BTC that was given to a person or business in trust that they will be returned upon request, or negligence of the owner to secure them properly (You wouldn't store a gold bar on the front seat of your car). If you don't take precautions you're susceptible to people stealing your stuff. (BTC is much more secure than gold when care is taken to secure it. Nobody can claim it by force without your involvement where gold can be stolen or appropriated.)

Bitcoin isn't a currency; it's a decentralized distributed autonomous public ledger of accounting. It's a wealth and ownership trading platform that has uses far exceeding the limitations of currency or commodity.

Bitcoin isn't a doomsday hedge; it doesn't rely on economies collapsing or on replacing existing currencies to appreciate in value. Once the infrastructure is further developed it will become more user friendly, more intuitive, and it will be utilized by many different avenues outside of the financial sector. Bitcoin is an emerging technology that will be built on and developed over time; the world will be moved and it will be epic.

Im talking about gold and silver here:

https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/421484.0

Welcome to bitcointalk OROBTC.  I've always enjoyed reading your comments are Zerohedge.  

I believe gold and bitcoin are compliments, and a diversified portfolio should contain both.  Gold has thousands of years of history as money, while bitcoin has transactional properties that make it apt for the information age.  I expect bitcoin to perform much better % wise over the coming years, but I recognize that it may have more risk to the downside too.  

I believe most skeptics at Zerohedge simply haven't taken enough time to really learn what bitcoin is due to some sort of mental obstinance (a mental obstinance I see time and time again when it comes to bitcoin).  

Before discovering Bitcoin, I was very much a gold bug as a means of preserving my wealth knowing the value of my fiat has been devalued around 98% of its value. But due to the fact I'm in the process of living overseas, I've had to reduce my PM holdings and I currently hold more BTC than PMs. It's a much easier way of transporting wealth abroad without alerting any of the "authorities".

I agree with aminorex, the amount of trolling and just plain ignorance in regards to the overall technology of Bitcoin on ZH is mind boggling. Then again, the quality of discussions on ZH has deteriorated over the years. Though the same can be said of here. I don't really concern myself with skeptics given I heard the same kind of skepticism when the internet was in its early stage.

Speaking of which OROBTC, I am a fan of your posts on ZH as DCRB, and I wish you well on your venture south of the equator. Do you happen to know if fonestar is on this forum?

I'm in the "gold and bitcoin complement each other" crowd, and I'm also thinking that we are actually in the collapse. I don't think the collapse is a singularity type event, but a slow reorganization of the economy similar to the change from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

I love bitcoin for online and in person digital transactions, but its not so good for in person anonymous cash-like transactions. Gold and silver, especially in my favorite form of Shire Silver (https://shiresilver.com), is great for in person anonymous transactions but sucks for online and digital.

I'm also wishing people would stop trying to make physical bitcoins intended for use in trade - they can never properly handle the trust issue. They might be great for interesting cold storage, but as trade pieces they fail. To be more clear, physical gold and silver can be trusted for in person exchanges, but not for online. Bitcoin can be trusted for online, but not physical exchanges.

The solution is obvious: https://shiresilver.com/catalog/gold_twentieth_gram_card 

LOL, I'm the guy in the video, and using a silly straw helps me to make them inexpensively. In fact, anyone can make their own - that's one of the points of it. That allows its production to be more decentralized, as in anyone can start their own version for their area. Instructions are on the site. I've called it the drug dealer model of production and distribution in that if enough people are doing it then there's no point going after them since you'd never stop it.

And just like with bitcoin, the merchant network is really what makes it valuable. Its just that with bitcoin it has an inherent virality and ease of Internet use that makes getting lots of web based merchants on board, whereas Shire Silver is physical and needs locals promoting it. If I had a tenth as many people half as devoted to Shire Silver as bitcoin has, there'd probably be hundreds of places near you accepting it.

Interesting.

In centuries gone by, merchants could accept coins with little fear of being fleeced because the coin's issuer, the government, stood by it's weight and purity and therefore its value.

But with this decentralized model, what's to prevent a cheat from pouring or drawing his own thinner silver and gold or to make alloys with a less expensive metal?  And who's to track down the cheat?  Surely not ShireSilver.  So it's up to the merchant to be able to discern real gold and silver from fakes and in the right amount.

If we are to believe the movies, prospectors in California and Alaska would walk into the general store and place a few nuggets of gold on the scale.  The merchant would weigh it and accredit the prospector's account so he could buy his grub and supplies.  It was up to the merchant to know the difference between real gold and fools gold or other cheating.

So do you advocate the return to the days where it's up to each of us to discern if the money is real?


This discussion reinforces something.  The most shocking and significant aspect of bitcoin is the extent to which the possibility of cheating has been eliminated.

Branding. People trust government's currency in large part because it has the government's branding. The market can figure out which brands are trustworthy and which ones aren't.

Plus, with the small denominations much of the cost is in the manufacturing. Replacing the precious metal with faked metal wouldn't create much profit. You'd have to mass produce them on a large scale for it to be worth your time, and if someone can do that why not just do it legitimately? You'd be much safer and likely to make more in the middle to long term. To put it another way, it would take too much effort to do a pump-n-dump to be worth it.


Yes, I do advocate the return to the days when people took responsibility for themselves. And yes, it does point out that the bitcoin protocol does make accepting that responsibility much easier, at least for technically inclined folks. But the cases like Mt Gox do show that people still need to be aware of how the system really works, in that if you don't control the private keys you don't control the bitcoins.

Also, to use your prospecting example, people didn't just accept nuggets by weight. Gold dust was easy enough to accept by weight because the pieces were so small that counterfeiting them was (at the time) essentially impossible. Gold dust was also probably discounted somewhat based on the risk the merchant thought he was taking. Larger nuggets would be assayed before being accepted.