Bond market topping out? liquidity collapse imminent, seems the ultimate debt bubble is shimmering and quivering if you read between the lines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11487546/Liquidity-crisis-could-spark-the-next-financial-crash.html

i think BTC-e is temporarily deluded at best.

first, they have no clear way of proving which coins were stolen.  it makes no sense that the thieves would send stolen coins directly to BTC-e for sale w/o a few intermediate hops at least.  similarly, "mule" activity can only be suspected, not proved.  secondly, while i agree BTC-e has the right to choose to behave as they wish (it being a free mkt), the consequences of such actions will be to destroy their own business as internet of money (Bitcoin) will choose to route around them if their behavior persists.  thirdly, i doubt they're acting out of pure ethics; the behavior is suspicious as the owners have been anonymous from the beginning making this freezing of coins highly suspicious.  my bet is that they had some of their own coins on Evo and they're just trying to retrieve them.  thirdly, do you really think they will just freeze the coins and then destroy them?  hell no, they'll eventually have to decide to return them to their rightful owners, destroy them, or turn them over to some law enforcement agency (think DOJ).  in the first instance, those owners will then merrily go off and spend those coins freely as if nothing happened and recipients of those coins will do likewise.  in the second instance, destroying them would be an untenable act as the rightful owners (if they can even be identified) would scream bloody foul again destroying their customer base.  if they try to hold them "forever", suspicions will arise that they might eventually spend them themselves (BTC-e).  in the third instance of turning them over to DOJ or some gvt (and here's the real zinger) what do you think they would do with them?  Voila!  we already have 3 instances of exactly what the feds would do:  auction them off.  and this is where the ultimate hypocrisy comes from all this moral and legal parsing going on about this tainting issue.  when gvts believe they have the moral authority to do what's right for them and them only (auctioning and running off with the proceeds from "illegal activity") they undermine confidence in themselves from the viewpoint of the people.  i know that when i see these auctions going off on SR coins or the auction the Aussie authorities are planning, i think hypocrisy, ie theft.  this is why the Bitcoin community will ultimately give those tainted coins a pass and accept them in everyday trade.  if the gvt can do it, so can they.  this "pass" just takes time.  in 2 wks, this Evo thing will have blown over.  furthermore, if the community refuses to do this, it means the end of Bitcoin as what is paramount is the principle of fungibility.

Would you mind telling me exactly how, from a technical standpoint, you would even white or black list BTC?

Given that there is no such thing as a coin but just a series of inputs and outputs, what do you taint and how is that sustainably identifiable throughout the life of a "coin"?

except that blood diamonds are NOT critical for world trade as a form of money.  Bitcoin, otoh, has the distinct possibility to enable frictionless payments across all borders with a strictly known and fixed supply.  yes, a gvt can perform irrational tainting acts but they risk isolating themselves and cutting themselves off from what has the potential to fundamentally change commerce.  which nation wants to risk that?

ftfy

This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal.  It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time.  This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.

Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary). 

Catching up after a week's absence.

So fully agree with this sentiment. The change locks bitcoin onto an automatic 20 year ramp to essentially zero limit. None of us know for sure how this will play out.

The only reason I can think Gavin would want to do this is maybe a fear that after the next jump in price and usage, bitcoin might start to become too large to effectively fork/change, and so it is best to make a change today that locks in future changes to remove the limit as a minimum bitcoin needs.

Gavin's view seems to be that the market will figure it out. I agree it will, but believe it will figure itself out by becoming more centralized with a majority of nodes running in cloud datacenters (I already only run my full node in AWS). So I don't worry that bitcoin will technically break, but worry that the immediate solutions the market finds will make bitcoin less decentralized and easier for centralized governments to attack through regulation. I'd prefer bitcoin stay smaller if that is what it needs to do to remain more decentralized.

I actually agree with tvbcof on this, and that doesn't make me against bitcoin.

There are strong historical precedents for governments to outlaw forms of money and mandate the usage of their currency. FDR's ban on gold possession is the the most recent US based example. We can say "well many people ignored the ban and kept their gold", and that is true, but they weren't able to use that gold publicly for business, transactions with most firms, taxes, etc. So it didn't matter that many people kept their gold, it only matter that most people couldn't use their gold.

Also, most people are either apolitical on money or against bitcoin's libertarian purpose, and would happily comply with any Presidential mandate as tvbcof lays out.

Especially if compliance is required to receive healthcare through obamacare, social security, mortgages to buy housing, student loans to go to school, food stamps, welfare checks, etc. etc. An apolitical/collectivist population is an effective weapon for current governments against any sound money system.


That only works for small private party to private party transactions. Try telling that to your locally owned pizza shop who's owner relies on his business to feed his family. He/she will happily comply with a mandate in order to stay in business. Sure, maybe if the two of you know and trust each other you'll agree to under the table transactions, but that is a small minority of transactions. Point is, any mandate will be followed by most businesses, and that is what matters.

... you would be surprised about how many articles, like this telegraph one, I read in MSM before the 2007 seizure in the CDO, CDS markets in august that ultimately led to the 2008 stock crash. No one can say they "never saw it coming", BIS, IMF and others all were warning. I believe it depends totally on your filtering mechanism (read normalcy bias), now that there is so much information available.

It is snippets from the trade floor and signs that insiders are getting out, CEO early retirements, moving to other sectors, etc, that are most valuable. If a room of traders anywhere near the capital markets, i.e. money market funds, MUNIS, corporate paper, T-bonds, gilds, LIBOR, gold, etc is saying they sense something different, pay attention. This is by no means a MSM article anyway, it is a side note by a financial section read by very small percentage of overall population. I suggest you go ask the man-on-street what the mood in the corporate bond market is currently to test your stupid comment if you believe the MSM is spouting this stuff.

Basically, I think you wrong and you will lose money because of it.

nice catch. I'm picking that we could have a good night or two swapping similar stories over some bottles ...

edit: just noticed that there were still nothing in the comments after 8 years for that damning article about the countrywide CEO making off with $150 million before the company collapsed (and was bailed out?)