Ride the wave as long as you can...When the wave crashes, you will be on your own..I don't have a crystal ball as to determine if bad scenarios arise, and maybe what I do will mean nothing for I am but a little twig on a mighty stream. I hope that no events happen that will bring our society crashing down but in my heart I know that man is his own best and worst enemy. Each person must do what he deems to be right and that is exactly what I do. Regards Errol 43
They wave of living on the planet whilst a global (internet destroying) catastrophe or whatever is not taking place?. Such ambiguity. What "wave"?.
What does it need to bring bitcoin 'down'? No electricity? Internet providers disconnecting clients?. A few core DNS computers switched off? It doesn't need catastrophes, governments already suffice. Why do some people buy silver? Because they don't trust governments? Can governments switch off silver stacks?
Governments can theoretically demand it's citizens hand in their precious metals. Those whom don't comply risk imprisonment if caught with PMs or found trading with PMs. Those whom inform the police regarding members of the public with metals could be handsomely rewarded. YesGovernments provide a threat, so bend over or fight for freedom ...(the American Constitution comes to mind)
Governments can theoretically kill its citizens. Governments can theoretically force its citizens to use brown toilet paper. Governments can theoretically force whatever. Why don't they do it? Because citizens may resist (in numerous ways), and overcoming that resistence costs government a big chunk of the gains they try to achieve with force. The next question then is: Does it cost government more to block / whatever bitcoin, than visiting & checking every place for precious metals / whatever value? Look at what governments do to the internet now. DCMA. Googles result filtering. DNS altering. They don't block everything they want, but is that really needed? Make it harder already suffices. Look at the torrent protocol, it still requires trackers, which are basically centralities. Redirect/wipe those from the dns records, and people will need to make new, and other people will need to find the new, and the latter can aswell include governments, that, guess what, just repeat what they did with the old, making the whole a chase story. Bitcoin now only works in a acceptable (for payments) fashion because governments tolerate it. And governments tolerate it because its current market size is small. So bitcoin versus precious metals not stored in centralized / registered-for / 'official' thus wellknown places, is okay when you trust governments and their system. What is worth a hedging method that depends on what is hedged against?
There are rumours that some countries will tax the BTC. Governments don't theoretically kill people. They kill them. Even if people resist there is not necessary that something would be changed. Just look at Greece case. People are revolting and starving, banksters and politicians are jerking off... People's initiative can do something, but it's too weak compared to power of banks, governments and mass media. There are people revolting in China every day. But their media doesn't show this. I agree, if BTC will become "large" all kind of "disasters" can hit it. PirateBay is doing pretty fine.
Read the thread if you have not already, to discover the greater context of what I wrote. Basically: As an owner of some Bitcoins and a pretty decent load of PMs it is my opinion that my Govt is a threat to both (in a nutshell). People harping on about their mighty PM stash might find they become very inert should a Govt decide to really crack down (with police/army and MSM and greater citizenry even to cheer the Govt on as usual). Look at the Indian Govt meddling with gold import restrictions as it is! (although that is next to nothing compared with what Govts are capable of).
It doesn't need revolting. It doesn't need violence. People making their own small daily decisions for themselves, suffices to circumvent the theft by governments and their parasiting clubs. A crisis within the governments club is the consequence. What you think a financial crisis is? The result of numerous small decisions, in numerous different personal situations, bringing down government institutions that existed many decades. It doesn't need organisation. It doesn't need power. It doesn't need the media. Look better at Greeces case yourself. The smarter got out before, as indicated by the large drop in bank deposits, ahead of the 'public story'. Cyprus same story. The 'silent bankruns'. http://thepiratebay.sx/browse
Interesting to note that another cryptocurrency based on bitcoin exists for the purpose of avoiding the above censorship.
Hence I said "Redirect/wipe those from the dns records, and people will need to make new, and other people will need to find the new, and the latter can aswell include governments, that, guess what, just repeat what they did with the old, making the whole a chase story."
I put in a small investment in BTC a few years ago, left it alone for a while, and now came back to a nice stash. It's now worth many many times the amount I put in, so now I'm converting about 1/10th of my BTC value into tangible silver. The other 9/10th, I'm still deciding whether to withdraw into fiat, or let my pile grow. Based on the comments in this thread, it's very obvious that people in here (not all) don't actually understand the technical aspects of bitcoin.
That's the eternal problem. Something went up, on paper or electronic, but regardless, it stays the promise it was at start. X people with a combined Y profit... on paper. A part of X 'cashes out'. But Y profit of the remaining non-cashing out people drops way more than the part of X. Take for ex silver end april 2011. Woohoo $50. We will be rich if we 'cash out'. But that 'we' were only a few. All the rest 'cashed out' lower. Much lower. $32 included. And that's why you can never judge before actually trading. Some say now silver is a bad 'investment'. Negative return in recent years. But if you don't 'cash out', the loss doesn't materialize, just like aboves profit didn't.
Kind of like how you couldn't find silk road in google originally? People still found it. The government was unable to seize the domain until they caught the guy physically. There are many domains the governments would like to seize, I'm sure, but they haven't, and they cannot currently stop people from visiting such sites. The people who counted were still able to find Wikileaks before it existed on a government controlled network. I just think it's a non issue what you're saying, It also seems to be coming from a pessimistic "nothing we can do, so lets just give up" angle. I can't remember being unable to load piratebay in 10 or so years of occasional use so I was surprised to see your post about it. I very much agree that events these days are a cat and mouse game though, It has always been like that and it always will be. My argument can be boiled down very simply: Cryptography is not something the government can simply decide they would like to control, and then control it. 'Vires in numeris', as they say.
The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves I wouldn't under-estimate the governments ability to regulate this as there is too much potential to make highly important people's wallet lighter
They cannot stop people from visiting? What's that 'STOP' page then? What is the filtering of Googles search results then? That latter doesn't even need governments force, just money, as indicated by the redirection and search results order tampering for advertisement and analysis purposes. In some past, a Google result link was a direct link. Since some years its relayed to dedicated Google servers for these purposes, and they don't show the direct link anymore, rather the contrary, they encrypt it and show only the first part of the url (site). googlesyndication.com googleadservices.com google-analytics.com and if you look at the http request headers you clearly notice 'intimate' data exchange traffic with facebook/twitter/etc. Pessimistic? I just say the things I see. Lets just give up? Give up what? Bitcoin? I didn't say to stop using bitcoin, I said that it has some serious dependency issues (including governments tolerance) that property under own direct control hasn't, which matters especially in the case escaping governments theft, as said, what is worth a hedging method that depends on the goodwill of what is hedged against. Ofcourse things have always been a cat and mouse chase, but which things? Until a couple decades ago, few had internet, and the cat didnt bother. Now, most have internet, and the cat bothers, and acts. If bitcoins market would compete legal tender currency, be sure the cat will jump to the foreground, using the typical variety of excuses we all know. And cryptography is easily defeated: block the carrier of the data. If one speaks gibberish, shut his mouth. Control success. And that's just the more 'rude' way. Cryptography is about decoding strings using keys. Sometimes makers of crypting methods insert specific weaknesses on purpose, as demanded by government elements. Everything what hackers can without privileges, can government, with privileges, surely too.
Someone may have already mentioned this but in case no one has.... http://www.coinworld.com/articles/virtual-currencies-subject-of-senate-hearing
