Probably not, because, I know more about the Federal Government than 99% of Americans.
If the Federal Government took your digital currency (or other assets), and you sued them, then DOJ would claim Sovereign Immunity and a Federal Judge would rule in favor of the Federal Government. And, then, the Federal Government would really attack you out of pure hatred.
Yes, you are.
All bad actions are conspiracies in your world. ‘Totally corrupt monetary system’. ‘A financial system that can’t be trusted’.
BTC has its place. It’s an interesting tool for potential hedging against unsound monetary policies. But that doesn’t make all monetary policies unsound.
It’s not a conspiracy when it’s true. But it is denial when it’s called out and not acknowledged.
All Fiat currencies fail over time. Every single one of them. The dollar will be no different, (unless someday we get smart and dollars become backed by Bitcoin).
You do realize that if you use BTC for everything, all your money flows are completely traceable, correct? You can’t be anonymous yet get paid (or make payments)?[/QUOTE]
My Bitcoin transactions are traceable, and I have no problem with that.
What’s important is that no-one can stop me from exchanging or spending my BTC with another willing person or business that will accept BTC as value. And also that my BTC is out of the reach of manipulation by governments, institutions or individuals.
In todays news….
Binance’s CEO Confirms Participating as Equity Investor in Musk’s Twitter Takeover
“We're excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter,” Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said in an emailed statement. “We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology."
This thread is being at least temporarily closed. The moderators are discussing if or when it may be reopened.
The discussion has gotten heated and personal at times. And I have handed out a couple unofficial warnings in the past few days.
Reading through the many posts, it is abundantly clear that the thread contains a public policy debate. A discussion about the use and value of crypto is something politicians and central bankers and the such have. It is not within the bounds of what is allowed on the DBR. Frankly, the sniping and disagreement in the thread are the kind of thing I would expect in a public policy debate.
Additionally, there are some people who feel some cryptocurrencies are a Ponzi scheme or something like that. Certainly there are people who have lost vast sums of money on bad crypto-related investments (and others who have earned fabulous windfalls). The DBR chooses to err on the side of not allowing advocacy of something that may be dangerous.
Again, it is possible we will allow this thread to reopen at some point, but for the moment we feel it is not in the spirit of the community we have built to allow it to continue.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
With a certain someone no longer around...
And with the current conversation about SBF seeming calm and rational...
The decision has been made (by me) to reopen this thread.
Please play nicely.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Thank you for opening this back up. Since it was shut down I have poured countless more hours into learning more about this space, and wanted to share an additional resource.
Through a youtube rabbit hole, I eventually found a podcast called Rational Reminder by two guys out of Canada who typically cover finance / personal finance and who have a solid 250+ episodes under them with some big names as guests.
Anyway, they ran a 17-part "Understanding Crypto" sub-series earlier this year, and although I'm only through part 14, they have touched on (either lightly or extensively) pretty much every topic and discussion point on this thread. They bring on a different guest for each episode with a wide ranging diversity of areas of expertise and attitudes towards crypto. There's been technology-focused, economics-focused, legal-focused, etc. and a mix of both pro and anti voices.
Many of these guests have been cited throughout the thread as well.
Each episode is between 45 and 90 minutes, so it's not exactly a fast listen. But still, worth it so far.
Understanding Crypto 17: Ari Juels: The Technical Case for Blockchain
Understanding Crypto 16: Chris DeRose: Uncensored Crypto Perspectives
Understanding Crypto 15: Prof. Vili Lehdonvirta: Cryptocracy: The Obfuscation of Power
Understanding Crypto 14: Prof. John Cochrane: Money, (Fiscal) Inflation, and Political Freedom
Understanding Crypto 13: Prof. William Magnuson: Blockchain and Democracy
Understanding Crypto 12: David Gerard: Crypto Realities
Understanding Crypto 11: Quinn DuPont: Understanding Crypto: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Understanding Crypto 10: Prof. Hilary Allen: DeFi: Shadow Banking 2.0?
Understanding Crypto 9: Prof. Campbell R. Harvey: DeFi and the Future of Finance (Rebroadcast)
Understanding Crypto 8: Tim O'Reilly: How does Web3 Compare to Web 2.0?
Understanding Crypto 7: Nicholas Weaver: A Computer Scientist's Perspective on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain
Understanding Crypto 6: Bruce Schneier: Security, Trust, and Blockchain
Understanding Crypto 5: Stephen Diehl: The Case Against Crypto
Understanding Crypto 4: Prof. Tobin Hanspal: The Characteristics of Crypto Investors
Understanding Crypto 3: Prof. Eswar Prasad: Bitcoin, Banking, and the Future of Money
Understanding Crypto 2: Prof. Igor Makarov: Economics of the Crypto Ecosystem
Understanding Crypto 1: Daniel Mescheder: What Problem Do Blockchains Actually Solve?
https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast-directory
A text without a context is a pretext.
About halfway through I thought to myself "Hey I should write down some brief notes and takeaways for each of these at the end"... but I was already through seven at that point so I just gave up and did nothing going forward - sorry!
However, if you go to the link above, and if you click on each episode, they will give you a full paragraph explanation of what's being talked about and with whom.
A text without a context is a pretext.
Well, as a disclaimer, I still have three episodes left, and at least one of them sounds pretty pro-crypto.
But overall, I found myself agreeing vehemently with the skeptics and arguing out loud with some of the statements made by the "pro" side, but I'm sure Wheat and others might be doing the same thing only in reverse.
It was nice to hear some things fleshed out a bit more than you would get in a Tweet thread or short blog, with some occasional follow-up by the hosts to clarify or ask about what their opponents might argue. And to that last point, I wish there was more of that. There is some of it, but I desired a lot more - e.g., "We just had Guest X on a couple episodes before you and they {made claim Y | argued against what you just said}. How would you respond to that?" sort of thing.
Some of my specific takeaways I recall though:
- don't expect technology to solve political/social/cultural problems
- trust has to lie somewhere, it's just a question of where you're moving it
- while there may be some niche "good" uses here and there, they are dwarfed by the sheer amount of bad that comes from this; the negative externalities are enormous
- the technology, while innovative, is not really practical or useful for anything beyond cryptocurrencies, and all the talk about the "underlying technology has promise" is usually just a smokescreen
- decentralization, like trust, is loosely/broadly defined and depends on who is speaking, and is really just a matter of shifting around where those centralized elements actually are
- reporting on crypto suffers from a lot of the same problems that tech reporting in general does *
* See Words Matter: How Tech Media Helped Write Gig Companies into Existence
If I just had to recommend a couple (because I thought #1 was very technology heavy, which was fine for me, but maybe not everyone, and that #2 and #3 were a little slow because I'm not a finance guy), I would go with
- #5 Stephen Diehl
- #6 Bruce Schneier
- #7 Nicholas Weaver
- #10 Hilary Allen
A text without a context is a pretext.
This could go in the other thread, but I'm sticking it here.
320067565_563084705829493_4814758761901549973_n.jpg
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan
At this point, blockchain has to rate as a pretty big technological fizzle...a lot of huge companies fell all over themselves to tout it, now not so much.