Bitcoin going Berko

[Sooz]

This is my point, it's a NEW currency. For all our belly-aching about the Fed etc, this is another avenue.

I'm not saying at all, that it's a future currency, although it may be.

But it's a way out. Towards a kind of freedom.

Just like the early internet was and look where we are now after 20 years or so...the internet has transformed our world.

I feel the early days of bitcoin will do the same. And I'm happy to be in on the game.

I invested a bit of money - still yet to regain my investment....who knows?

[modwiz]

Money to make money is both true and old. Like the stock market, it is about the lure of profit. The promise of getting the two birds in the bush for one in your hand. Some will end up with two birds, it is the cost of doing business. I used to fish. Chumming was a big part of making the bait work better, or work at all.

My final words on what is clearly a source of entertainment for some.

Happy hunting.

I assume that berko is a mangled form of the word berserk. Is it spelled with a "z" if the word is plural?

[Sooz]

Yes Mr WiZ it's a mangled OZ term, you can take it as my own if you would like?

I prefer it with a Zed, because I like Zeds'.

Plural it at your pleasure.

Yours in berzurkuzness.

SooZ
X

[Spiral]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRqfjnLd_ok


Published on 19 Nov 2013

In this video Luke Rudkowski interviews Jeff Berwick of the dollar vigilante about the future of the U.S economy and the rise of bitcoin. Jeff is a Canadian entrepreneur, economics, finance, investment writer, libertarian and anarcho-capitalist activist.

[Melidae]

Currency is still just currency...whether fiat dollars (pieces of paper that are distinguished only by the denomination placed on it that makes one piece of paper more valuable than another piece of paper) or bitcoins (digital 'dollars' that can disappear if the grid goes down permanently). They have no value whatsoever in themselves...only the value we place on it.

Gold and silver hold value, no matter what the currency may be doing at any time...but cannot be eaten.

When everything else is wiped away, all that is left is your skills and knowledge.

[Sooz]

Just an update on Bitcoin and an interesting article I found.

Firstly BTC is now up over the $1,000 mark again - AUS$ that is. It slipped to a low of around $500 about a month ago and has made a steady but slow climb up again.

I noticed an article today in Oz that a Mother whose son died from purchasing drugs online with BTC, now has an online petition to ban BTC in Oz, solely on that premise. While I very much sympathise with her loss, BTC had nothing to do with her son's death. Marrying the two is crazy imo.

And here is an interesting article I found on Rense. Is the NSA the inventor of BTC? Don't know how legit this article is....dated 1996, 2 years before Satoshi apparently invented it.

Very long article and haven't read it all, just skimmed.

Interesting anyway...

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/clas...nt/nsamint.htm

[Sooz]

Seems to me there are a whole lot of posts missing on here that were here before.

Interesting ones at that. Nevermind.

[Church]

There were, Sooz, you are correct. Are you not aware of the server issues Malc had recently? He had to revert to a backup, and he was behind on backups, so we lost about a month of posts.

[Sooz]

Hi All, just an update on Bitcoin for those interested:

'The Change to End All Change
Monday, 20 January 2014
Melbourne, Australia
By Kris Sayce

Hopefully your parents convinced you to save from the time you were young.

If you were like me you probably put a few coins aside each week in a money box or tin and then put the money in the bank once you'd saved a worthwhile amount.

(Remember, I'm talking about the days before internet banking and online accounts.)

Over time you would have saved up a tidy sum. Maybe you used it to buy your first TV or perhaps your first car if you were a really good saver.

But money isn't what it used to be. It's changing. In fact it's changing so much that the coming years could see the biggest change for the monetary system since Australia went decimal in 1966...

.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .......................

The idea that money is changing is one of the big themes Sam Volkering has explored in Revolutionary Tech Investor.

That's right, money isn't just a banking story. Money is a technology story...a high-technology story. The future of money is also the subject of Port Phillip Publishing's up-coming conference, World War D: Money, War & Survival in the Digital Age.

But how will or could things change? What will money be like in the future? We'll still use notes and coins won't we? I wouldn't bet on it. The way we see it, coins and notes are about to become history.

In the future (the near future) you and your kids won't save money in a piggy bank, you'll save money on a microchip...or potentially your body will become your savings repository.
Bitcoins for Basketball Tickets

If you think that sounds a bit weird, I'll explain in a moment. Rest assured, I don't mean that you'll have to carry all your savings around in your pockets. As I said, soon coins and notes won't exist. This will be a high-tech solution.

To show you where things are going, so you don't think I'm making this up, consider this report from the Los Angeles Times:
'The Sacramento Kings will be the first [US basketball] team to accept bitcoin, the controversial digital currency that is increasingly gaining acceptance in the commercial world.

'The basketball franchise said customers can already buy merchandise at its team store. By March 1, the Kings will also start accepting bitcoins for tickets and for products bought online.

'The NBA team is one of a string of companies and organisations that have recently begun accepting bitcoin for payment, ushering the currency into the mainstream.'

If you're not familiar with Bitcoin, it's a digital virtual currency. It doesn't exist in coins or notes. It only exists as an encrypted string of numbers that you can hold in a 'virtual wallet'.

The whole concept may seem ridiculous to you if you're not up to date with the latest technological trends.

But let me put it this way. It's not a whole lot different to how your money exists in a bank account today. Although you may deposit notes and coins into a bank, the bank doesn't hold those notes and coins for you in a safe.

In fact, few people realise this but Aussie banks only hold about $2 in notes and coins for every $100 of savings held in bank accounts.

In other words, 98% of the money held in banks is electronic money.

Compare that to Bitcoin, where 100% of the money is electronic. You see? It's not so different after all.

However, there is one major difference. Bitcoin is a purely private money system. That means unlike national currencies such as the Aussie dollar, US dollar, British pound or the euro, it can't be easily manipulated by a government or central bank.Oh, and that brings me to one other key difference. Bitcoin is anonymous...
Ideal for Liberty Seekers

If the Pursuit of Happiness eletter had a mission statement it would be, 'To get the government the heck out of our lives.'
One way to achieve that is to own a currency which is anonymous. The anonymity of Bitcoin means that the government doesn't know how many Bitcoins anyone owns or even who owns them.

That makes Bitcoin attractive to liberty seekers.

But even though Bitcoin is an interesting story, it's not the whole picture. The real interesting part is that it's becoming an accepted form of money, albeit in a small way.Let's be honest, you can't get much more mainstream than an NBA basketball team's merchandise store. This isn't likely to be the end of Bitcoin's intrusion into the mainstream.

Online retailers should be the natural early adopters of digital currency.

And if these retailers are happy to accept Bitcoin, what's stopping them from accepting other digital currencies? That answer is nothing.

This is where the global money system is heading. This is why I forecast that coins and notes will disappear from circulation within the next 10 years, possibly within the next five years.

Instead of paying for things with coins and notes you'll use new technology. But don't assume it will involve plastic cards either.
Not If or When, But How

Already more and more people use 'touch and go' transactions to pay for things. This is possible due to the chip technology now present on all credit cards.

For transactions under a certain amount you don't need to use a PIN or a signature. It's sufficient to just tap your credit card on the reader to register the transaction.

As this technology grows it will become unnecessary for banks to issue plastic credit cards. In their place banks will issue 'key fob' discs that you keep on your key ring. All it needs is the embedded chip.

Or let's take things further. It's just as likely that the financial system will move on to the next logical step, where smartphones and other mobile devices (perhaps Google Glass or a smar****ch) become the payment method.

Rather than tapping a chip-embedded key fob you'll just hold your mobile device near the reader. Or maybe you won't need to hold it near anything. Maybe proximity sensors or other technology will confirm that you're in fact at the point of sale and automatically debit your electronic account without you needing to lift a finger.

Or, speaking of fingers, that's another way the money system could develop. Biometrics is finally hitting the mainstream. New mobile devices are coming out with biometric technology that involves eye scanning and fingerprint scanning.

Schools in the UK have a fingerprint scanning option for kids to pay for their school lunch. Rather than carry cash, they scan their finger at the counter and it debits the amount from their parents' account at the school. What's to say that in the near future that's how you'll 'store' your savings and transact money? In effect, your body becomes your savings account.

It's a weird thought. But the bottom line is that money and how you use it is changing fast. Those who think the next change in the money system will be a reversion to a Gold Standard are kidding themselves.

Gold will play some role in the future of money, but not in the way the 'gold bugs' would like to think. The future of money is an entirely electronic future. In short, it's not a question of if or when it will happen, but how it will happen.'

Port Phillip Publishing, Melbourne, Australia.

[BabaRa]

Thanks Sooz,

I believe all of the above is true. We can embrace it or resist it, just like all technology, but like it or not, it's our new world.

The basketball team Kris refer to (the Kings) is located in Sacramento the capital city of California. Having the Kings except Bitcoins, might just be the thing to accelerate their acceptance. Buying them and storing them for investment will only take Bitcoin so far. Companies need to begin accepting them, so they can be used, IMO.

I do appreciate your keeping us updated.

[Sooz]

Thanks BabaRa,

I realise that not all of us here are interested in Bitcoin and have their doubts. But I will still endeavour to update this thread.

And in saying that, I ask everyone to post brickbats regarding BTC (Bitcoin), all views are essential to understanding what it is.

I believe Bitcoin is the way of the future. Just like the internet. Early days with lots of naysayers. That's OK with me.

Cheers,
Sooz

[TimeLab]

Can someone tell me where the cash goes that you buy bitcoins with? And you can also apparently cash them out, and/or 'invest' in bitcoins and ultimately make cash, right? So I don't understand how Bitcoins are 'just' digital, but have this relationship to cash, or what am I missing or getting wrong?
Thank you.

[Sooz]

Hi TimeLab,

Yes, you can use your fiat dollars to purchase Bitcoins and/or you can 'mine' for Bitcoins - using sophisticated computer software to solve mathematical algorithims (sp?).

Yes if you have a digital wallet where you keep your Bitcoins, you can cash it out for fiat dollars if you want.

Where do your fiat dollars go in the first instance? Into normal bank accounts I would guess, where else? I would suspect that money goes to buy more hardware to create more 'hashing' power to mine the bitcoins.

Start page, 'cloudhashing' and watch the video, that will give you more of an idea, if you are interested.

I understand your questions and I am no expert, but understand it's a fledgling new currency. It's not perfect. It will go through many reincarnations before it matures into anything, if at all.

Lol....sorry if that all sounds a bit Zen.

Edit: You can also try the Reddit Bitcoin Forum, lots of good stuff there to learn from.

[BabaRa]

Personally, I hope this doesn't scare folks off. I'm sure MSM will make a big deal out of it, while they barely mention, if at all, the money laundering that goes on in US $$.


Bitcoin dealers charged with money laundering

Federal agents have charged a Bitcoin dealer and an executive at a Bitcoin company with money laundering for allegedly selling more than $1 million worth of the cyber currency to people doing business on Silk Road, a black market website that dealt in drugs and other illicit goods.

Robert Faiella, 52, allegedly known as "BTCKing," was arrested Monday at his home in Cape Coral, Fla., and charged with money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Charlie Shrem, 24, chief executive officer and compliance officer at the Bitcoin exchange company BitInstant.com, was arrested Sunday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. He is charged with money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to file reports of suspicious activity with the federal government for Faiella's transactions on the Bitcoin exchange.

complete article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2...ndering/494131

[Sooz]

Hey BabaRa,

Thanks, Yep caught that. Mainstream will try to kill it to be sure. Like you say, how much fiat dollars have been spent by the government in drug dealing.

If you have BTC, gold and silver, be prepared to hang onto it for a LONG time...it won't come good anytime soon. Lol..