BITCOIN [R]EVOLUTION - [Vid Feat Ron Paul]

I just created an informational bitcoin video. Helps to explain all the advantages and features of bitcoin in a simple way. Includes some short clips of Ron Paul speaking to Ben Bernanke about inflation and sound money. Enjoy.



PS - go to 3:50 if you want to skip the boring explanations and get to the conspiracy stuff.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Gosh no comments or questions? Not even a debate? How boring...

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Funny Money: Why Bitcoin Is a Scam www.good.is...

Bitcoin isn’t just a currency, it’s a massive experiment in group trust. It’s also a hint of the financial system to come and, ultimately, a scam.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I believe Bitcoin is ultimately worthless. Working out a true barter system with your community or online friends, or investing in some tangible asset (such as silver, or bullets) that you feel would be a commodity if there was no value to the current fiat currency, would be a much better tool for your or anyone else considering Bitcoin.

Bitcoins = sell to others who trade in Bitcoins, tradeable through electronic means only
Silver = has an equal value no matter where you go, tradeable in person or online

I appreciate you taking the time to make the movie but I couldn't watch it. That voice is atrocious and the background music makes it worse. I think no narration would be better than listening to that.

reply to post by LilDudeissocool

Bitcoin isn’t just a currency, it’s a massive experiment in group trust.

Yes it is actually... but so is the entire fiat currency system in use today. There's an important difference with bitcoin however: limited quantity. The main problem with fiat currencies is that they are just that: easy to create and backed by nothing. Most people in the Austrian School of thought will tell you fiat currency is useless because the Government or central bank will continuously keep printing more money, thus causing each unit of the currency to depreciate. A prime example of this argument is often spoken by Ron Paul when he talks about how the dollar is depreciating.

Now it's easy to see what the core of the problem is when it comes to fiat currencies: the quantity is never controlled properly because all they need to do to create more money is print some more nice looking paper bills, which they often do. The result of this excessive money printing is inflation, which is like a "hidden tax", as Ron Paul puts it. So the core of the problem clearly is that they print too much money, they choose to manipulate the amount of money in circulation and it leads to inflation. On the other hand materials like gold hold value well over time because they don't know how to create gold from thin air.

Bitcoin works on exactly the same principle as gold. The amount of bitcoins that will ever exist is completely limited to a number which is set in stone. It's not an inflationary currency it's a deflationary currency. And unlike existing fiat currencies, it's also completely impossible to create counterfeit bitcoins, which is also another big reason for inflation. So now what arguments would an Austrian economist have against a fiat currency like bitcoin if they can't point to uncontrolled manipulation by the Government? Well they might say it still isn't backed by anything except trust.

And that is true. However, think about the fiat dollar we use today. The Government made it a legal tender and forces people to use it as a currency, which is a big reason why it has value and why people use it. Bitcoin isn't even enforced in any way what so ever, yet people still choose to use bitcoins and they still think bitcoins have value. Why would anyone want to use them if they aren't even required to? Well because bitcoin has very useful properties and many advantages over all existing currencies. Bitcoins get value because the useful properties and advantages give them value.

As listed in the video, some of these properties and advantages are the following:

* the amount of bitcoins in circulation is completely predictable
* it is a deflationary currency with a limited quantity of coins
* it is completely impossible to create counterfeit bitcoins
* each coin can be sufficiently divided up, i.e. granularity
* bitcoins cannot be manipulated/inflated by the Government
* your accounts cannot be frozen or made inaccessible
* all your coins can be stored as data on your computer
* send bitcoins directly to other people without a middle man
* send money all around the world at any time with low fees
* no central financial authority and no single point of failure
* built on trusted and tested cryptographic technology

These are some of the reasons why bitcoins have value even though no one is forced to use them. It gives people control over their own wealth and removes central authorities from the equation. And yes this system does depend on the internet. But so do many banks and money services. If the internet were to disappear it's likely a great deal of money would be lost. But it's very unlikely the internet will disappear because it too is decentralized and has no one single point of failure. Not to mention there will probably be much bigger problems to worry about than money if the entire internet does get destroyed for some reason.

Furthermore, no one is saying any of you should use bitcoin and forget about everything else. The whole idea is to have "alternative currencies" just like Ron Paul says. Bitcoin is an alternative currency and it's free for anyone to use if they desire. In fact there are already several variants of bitcoin too, bitcoin is just the most popular P2P cryptocurrency because it was the first and original, and it has the largest network, which makes it the safest and most secure cryptocurrency. If you don't want to use bitcoin, then fine, but don't bag on it when you don't even understand it properly.

reply to post by Domo1

I appreciate you taking the time to make the movie but I couldn't watch it. That voice is atrocious and the background music makes it worse. I think no narration would be better than listening to that.

It's called volume control. No one is forcing you to have the sound on. Mute it and just read the text (unmute for the Ron Paul snippets though).

reply to post by Ameilia

Bitcoins = sell to others who trade in Bitcoins, tradeable through electronic means only
Silver = has an equal value no matter where you go, tradeable in person or online

There are ways to put bitcoins onto a "bitcoin bill" or onto electronic cards similar to debit cards. Furthermore, people all around the world trade bitcoins on the bitcoin exchanges, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world instantly, assuming you have an internet connection. You will never find it hard to trade bitcoins.

Funny Money: Why Bitcoin Is a Scam www.good.is...

Upon reading that article, it's clear the author has no idea what they are talking about, just like the majority of other article claiming such stupid things as "bitcoin is a scam". The points made are easily refuted and even the title is biased, "funny money" is a typical derogatory sensationalist term used by those who rely upon emotional arguments instead of logical factual substantiation. Needless to say there is nothing in that article which proves bitcoin is a scam. Lets review some of the points made shall we.

A few weeks ago the value of the bitcoin briefly plunged to negative eight cents to the dollar as hackers crashed exchanges and digitally ransacked electronic wallets to the tune of $9 million. A single victim claims that hackers absconded with some 25,000 of his bitcoins, worth, absurdly, approximately $375,000 at present dollar-to-bitcoin exchange rates.

That’s a crazy amount of money to have stolen by someone essentially copying a file from your hard drive.

First of all, bitcoin exchanges are 3rd party services. The security of such exchanges has no bearing on the security of the bitcoin network, the bitcoin network has never been compromised. There are some trustworthy and secure exchanges however, like VirWoX, which has never lost any bitcoins to hackers as far as I'm aware. I actually keep a decent amount of BTC in my VirWoX account because I tend to trust their service more than actually keeping a wallet on my own computer.

Secondly, for those people who have had their wallets stolen from their computer: it's their own damn fault. You only get your wallet stolen from your computer if you get a virus which can steal your wallet, and if you're stupid enough to download infected files then you deserve to have your wallet stolen. Furthermore, physical notes can be stolen just as easily, or in fact even easier... because you can encrypt your wallet file, making it useless to theives even if they manage to steal your wallet file with a virus.

So far, you can’t buy anything with bitcoins that you couldn’t purchase more easily with cash or a credit card. Despite rumors that Bitcoin was creating an online Hamsterdam where anonymous users could sell drugs and lord knows what else, Bitcoin isn’t truly anonymous unless you’re already taking some relatively advanced anonymity steps. Even then, Internet forensics could likely track you down.

This argument is just as stupid as the first. People didn't use PayPal for much when it was first invented either, and now it's basically used for everything online. Plus their are already real life businesses who accept bitcoin as payment, in fact I read an article about a place which accepts rent payment in bitcoins. And it's not very hard to use bitcoins either, I don't see how using a credit card would be easier. There are bitcoin payment gateways, such as my PHP Bitcoin SCI script, which allow for quick seamless transactions.

And I don't want to promote bitcoin as a currency which is often used by the underground criminals to trade drugs and other questionable materials, but the facts are it has spawned "an online Hamsterdam" and is used in the underground community because it is highly anonymous when used properly. But I don't see why anyone would be so concerned about that unless they intended to use bitcoin for nefarious purposes. Cash isn't perfectly anonymous either, no currency is really perfect when it comes to anonymity.

More problematically, the economics don’t quite work. Currencies are most valuable when lots of people trust and use them frequently. But PayPal has refused to convert bitcoins to cash, and major exchanges like MtGox have fallen to hackers. A currency that you can’t convert into anything else isn’t worth, well, anything.

PayPal doesn't like bitcoin because they are trying to maintain their unfair monopoly on online transaction and bitcoin is a direct threat to them. They are like the school yard bully trying to make everyone else do things their way. Screw PayPal, they mean nothing... but if you really want to buy and sell bitcoin with PayPal then you can use the exchange I mentioned earlier (VirWoX). They get around the problem by letting you first purchase Linden Dollars (SLL), then converting them to BTC. To sell BTC you simply trade them for SLL then sell the SLL for USD which can be transferred into you PayPal account.

It's not very hard to purchase bitcoins and convert them into other currencies, especially if you don't rely on PayPal. You can convert BTC into almost any other currency, and the fees are usually ridiculously lower compared to typical currency exchanges. So the claim that it's a "currency that you can’t convert into anything else" is plainly wrong and completely false. And with time it's only going to get easier and quicker. Take for example BitInstant which allows one to "transfer funds between Dwolla, Liberty Reserve, MtGox, Cash Bank Deposits, Crypto X Change, Bitcoinica, Bitstamp, BTC-E and VirWox".

But the biggest problem is that, despite its anarchic design, the system presents a huge opportunity for big fish to take advantage of the Internet everyman. Ben Laurie, a respected web security expert and cryptographer, makes a compelling case that Bitcoin won’t work because it accrues such a huge advantage to people who can bring the most computing power to bear on clearing transactions.

As I state on my bitcoin website, you can make a profit in mining Bitcoins if you have the right set up, but the Bitcoins will not come free. It's just like mining gold, which is also a limited quantity resource. You pay for all the mining equipment, and then expect to make a profit, like any business. In the gold mining business, the biggest and richest "fish" also have a huge advantage over those who lack the resources to mine gold. However, everyone has a chance to mine bitcoins if they want, all they need is a computer, so in that sense it's much fairer.

It is true that the early adopters will benefit a lot more than late comers, but that is true with almost anything. Business ventures always benefit the early adopters, the first people to mine gold benefited more because it was so easy to find. To label bitcoin a scam for such a reason is completely absurd, because it would suggest almost everything in our society is based on a scam. It's impossible to make sure the late comers have the same level of profit as the early adopters, it's something that can't be avoided. I just see it as a reward for being quick and taking the risk. And BTW I am a late comer.

Most worrisome is the opportunity for collusion: If any single person or group controlled a majority of computing power in the network, they could rewrite the transactions to take your money. Bitcoin relies on the growth of the network to outpace any single node’s ability to control the bulk of the processing power, but one mining collective, deepbit, currently clears more than a third of all transactions. Already, hackers have used botnets, online networks of computers, to increase their ability to process transactions and mine bitcoins.

While those statements are true, they are very deceptive also. Bitcoin has been operating for several years now, and the network is bigger than it has ever been, and in all that time there's never been such a case of a collective compromising the system. The amount of power required to gain a majority foothold on the network is unimaginable, and can only be achieved by large mining collectives such as deepbit.

However, if they were to attempt such a thing, they would suffer more than they would gain. Such an act would cause the bitcoin network to crash and the currency would become worthless, thus all their efforts would be completely useless because they wouldn't get anything from it, and they would loose all their miners. Furthermore, there are other technical hurdles which must be overcome, such as dealing with a split in the blockchain if it were to ever work.

It’s hard to trust a monetary system concocted and managed by anonymous hackers who aren’t answerable to anyone.

Even if the whole network was operated by "anonymous hackers", which is isn't, it would still be perfectly secure. The network doesn't rely on you to trust any single person or entity, the network as a whole validates transactions and makes sure nothing illegitimate is taking place because it requires that all nodes accept the correct block history, therefore, the larger the network is the harder it is to hack. All types of people use bitcoins and thus make the network stronger.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder



By never being able to adjust the quantity of a currency in ration to total worth of deposits against out standing debt how can liquidity be maintained within the marketplace at all times?

I take issue with the such phrases as "fiat currency backed by nothing" in describing such currency as the USD for example. It is backed by something. The USD is backed by raw material producers who have agreed to sell their commodities on the world open market in USDs such as oil. They do so because they are receiving protection form the USG that maintains their ownership and control of their wealth producing and storage facilities. One storage facility is the FED in the way of private and public debt. This is FED member banks (the Federal Reserve System) loan money to customer banks which in turn make consumer loans. The Federal Reserve System of member banks that, oil producers for example, deposit in them and supply the Discount Window with liquidity can also buy up public debt in the form of public bond purchases such a T-Bills. This is to ensure that the protection mechanism is flush with cash.

Parts of that mechanism would be the DoD and intelligence agencies designed and centered around protecting the raw material producer's ownerships and controls of their wealth producing and storage facilities, the world open market and the FED along with making sure these participating producers have their production facilities protected. For example the Al-Sabah family had their production facilities stolen from them by Saddam Hussein in 1991. The USG then provided its protection services to one of the leading depositors in the FED system by returning their production facilities back to them in the continuation of the exchange of servicing USG public debt and supplying the USD global economy with liquidity. Otherwise the FED to maintain liquidity within the marketplace would really have to create money out of nothing and the USD would in a very short time be worth nothing. That don't have to at this point because the USD is backed by the upstream demands of raw material producers like the Al-Sabah family and other major raw material producers like them. That's demand value!

So what is the demand value of bicoin based on other than emotional idealism?

What is the exchanges of goods and serves taking place that create its upstream demands giving it actual value, real demand value for x needed raw materials, commodities, being produced for the economy? That's commodities that the economy can't function without being traded on the world's open market. All other currencies that do not function based on such a dynamic are merely pegged and piggybacked on the currencies that do such as the USD, Euro etc.

PS

You know at any casino you can buy house chips that convert USDs into those house chips, but chips are still simply a wealth storage facility for USDs because casinos will convert the chips back into USDs that people can then use at the gas station and pay their taxes with.


How can I use bitcoins without converting them into USDs to buy gas and pay my taxes?

reply to post by LilDudeissocool

I take issue with the such phrases as "fiat currency backed by nothing" in describing such currency as the USD for example. It is backed by something. The USD is backed by raw material producers who have agreed to sell their commodities on the world open market in USDs such as oil.

No that does not mean the USD is "backed" by something in economic terms. It just means people choose to use it because everyone else uses it. Many people choose to use US dollars because it is widely accepted and they trust the Government and entities supporting the USD. These are some of the properties which make the USD desirable and valuable without needing to be backed by some sort of commodity with intrinsic value, in the same way BTC has value because it has properties which make it desirable.

When it comes to trust and BTC, we don't need central banks and Government authorities to carefully monitor everything and control the money supply, because everything is maintained by the decentralized P2P network and trust is placed in the cryptography on which the system operates. One of the reasons BTC has value is because it cuts out all the middle-men and lets us truly have a currency which is controlled by "the masses". We have strength in numbers, not false illusions that we can trust our Governments.

What is the exchanges of goods and serves taking place that create its upstream demands giving it actual value, real demand value for x needed raw materials, commodities, being produced for the economy? That's commodities that the economy can't function without being traded on the world's open market. All other currencies that do not function based on such a dynamic are merely pegged and piggybacked on the currencies that do such as the USD, Euro etc.

Many people buy and sell all sorts of things using BTC, at this stage it's mainly video games, computer hardware, website hosting, and other items which are often purchased on the internet. When it comes to raw materials and commodities, it is possible to buy food and clothing products using BTC at a few different websites (and as mentioned, drugs too). I have also heard of people buying things such as fuel for their car, but usually that only happens between people who know each other, not as a business transaction.

The thing about bitcoin is that it's still quite new as a currency and people are just starting to learn about it. That's why there aren't a lot of real life businesses who accept bitcoin, although there are a few dozen. Once again this is merely a problem related to the age of bitcoin, you can't expect any new currency to immediately have a foothold in the market when it comes to large scale commodity trading. It's absurd to dismiss a currency just because it's new.

Some websites you may find useful:
List of sites that accept Bitcoin
Bitmit Market Place
BitMunchies
BitBrew Coffee
Square²Wear Clothing

reply to post by LilDudeissocool

How can I use bitcoins without converting them into USDs to buy gas and pay my taxes?

Try paying your taxes in gold and see how far you get. Now tell me gold is worthless.

In fact this was one of the points discussed in the video, which leads me to believe you didn't even watch the video. The Government also tries to maintain a currency monopoly by making sure no one can use anything but their legal tender. In this way it doesn't matter how much they inflate the money supply because people are forced to use it anyway. That's the main reason why Ron Paul supports an effort to establish alternative currencies. Once again we are dealing with a typical case of the school yard bully trying to make everyone else do things their way via brute force and intimidation.

Here's another one - SCREW BANKS!!



Crazy cast of characters

screwbanks.net...

reply to post by tonygal


lol, thanks for sharing, I hadn't seen that video before.

Indeed, screw banks and their little dog too!

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Ameilia

 

Bitcoins = sell to others who trade in Bitcoins, tradeable through electronic means only
Silver = has an equal value no matter where you go, tradeable in person or online

There are ways to put bitcoins onto a "bitcoin bill" or onto electronic cards similar to debit cards. Furthermore, people all around the world trade bitcoins on the bitcoin exchanges, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world instantly, assuming you have an internet connection. You will never find it hard to trade bitcoins.

I will never find it hard to trade Bitcoins?

I urge you to rethink your opinion. I can take as many printed or debit card Bitcoins down to the pawnshop as I want. Not only will the pawnshop not redeem my Bitcoins for dollars, they will also not trade me a drill for Bitcoins.

Now if I took silver, I can make a trade or a sale.

The only place to trade Bitcoins is within the Bitcoin community, existing only of Bitcoin customers. They aren't tradeable on eBay or anywhere else, for anything else, and they never will be.

Have you heard about the idiots who "invested" in Beanie Babies? What about those who "invested" in ostriches? Farmers were literally clubbing their own ostriches in the head to kill them because they could not afford to feed and house them and there were no buyers. Why? Because the entire ostrich industry was comprised of ostrich owners trading with one another only.

Again, I urge you to rethink your position. Bitcoin = fail.

reply to post by Ameilia

I will never find it hard to trade Bitcoins?

I urge you to rethink your opinion. I can take as many printed or debit card Bitcoins down to the pawnshop as I want. Not only will the pawnshop not redeem my Bitcoins for dollars, they will also not trade me a drill for Bitcoins.

Now if I took silver, I can make a trade or a sale.

Of course you will find it hard if you go to the wrong places. The point I was making, is that it is not hard at all when you know where to trade them. You can easily convert your bitcoins into other currencies at any time of day if you wish. And you can get a drill using bitcoins if you go the right place too.

The only reason silver or gold can be more easily traded is because they have a long history and they have an accepted place as a material of value. Every single day it gets easier to buy and sell using bitcoins. This absurd argument that bitcoins suck because they aren't widely accepted is complete nonsense.

The only place to trade Bitcoins is within the Bitcoin community, existing only of Bitcoin customers. They aren't tradeable on eBay or anywhere else, for anything else, and they never will be.

There are several auction/bidding websites where you can buy and sell all types of items using bitcoin. Ebay and PayPal work hand in hand to enforce ridiculous fees and screw people over. Try using ALTERNATIVE services instead of relying on these monopolistic pricks who try and control the market and write their own rules.

edit: as stated in the video posted by tonygal, these entities are only so huge and powerful because everyone continues to use them, even though many people are aware that they are abusing their power and screwing us all over. It's high time for a change, we need alternatives and fair competition to even out the playing field.

If you don't want to use bitcoin then fine. But more and more people are choosing to use them every single day, and they are becoming more and more accepted by more and more people. You can't expect the whole thing to start out with maximum awareness and acceptance, it takes time and the willingness of people to try an alternative...

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by LilDudeissocool

 

I take issue with the such phrases as "fiat currency backed by nothing" in describing such currency as the USD for example. It is backed by something. The USD is backed by raw material producers who have agreed to sell their commodities on the world open market in USDs such as oil.

No that does not mean the USD is "backed" by something in economic terms. It just means people choose to use it because everyone else uses it. Many people choose to use US dollars because it is widely accepted and they trust the Government and entities supporting the USD.

You live in America so you don't get the truth about what modern money is, and what it is backed by in order to function as a currency.

reply to post by LilDudeissocool

You live in America so you don't get the truth about what modern money is, and what it is backed by in order to function as a currency.

Actually no I don't live in America, but if you live in Detroit then your own argument would apply against yourself. Furthermore I hardly ever listen to mainstream news, I research things myself and look at the core facts to reach my conclusions.

Furthermore, a currency does not need to be backed by oil in order to work as a legitimate currency, as you seem to be implying. What happens when the oil runs out... you think all our currencies will become worthless? No, only some of them will become worthless, the ones which are propped up by oil trade.

There are many currencies which "function as a currency" without needing the support of oil, bitcoin is one of them. Bitcoin gets all it's value (which is $6 USD per bitcoin right now) without needing to be propped up by oil trade, so that should tell you something important.

May I recommend that you take the time to read this article I wrote on fiat money:
Fiat Money

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Furthermore, I have a background in macro economics. I'm quite intimately familure with how different types of central banking systems and their respective currencies function. I specialized in analyzing and evaluating the dynamic functions of upstream demand pulls on curacies, specifically the USD and its relations to other non petrol-currencies, yes with an "l," and competing petrol currencies such as the Euro. Btw all non petrol currencies are all pegged to a parent petrol currency, a money mother-ship of sorts, otherwise they cannot function.

Okay so I know what I am talking about when it comes to the scientific study of modern currencies as what I did was no art, it was a science.

I'm banned from the industry for life now because a guy named Burry went short on insuring credit default swaps due to my group unwittingly leaking information to associates of his back in 2005. The information regarded some fears expressed by major oil producers who feed most of the moneys to the FED's member banks (their banks, in the form of bank bond purchases, you know them as CDs, moneys that are in-turn dispensed at the Discount Window) were becoming leery of rampant out of control "house flipping" that they as major depositors recognized was causing a hyper artificially inflated housing market here in the U.S.., and btw was occurring across Europe, but that was not our concern. These depositors, the partners, the owners, warned the Board of Governors they needed to raised rates, the FED administrators, who refused. The major bank depositors then began slowly to hold onto their money by channeling their petrol wealth elsewhere, and slowed their purchases of bank bonds overtime. Such actions began drying up liquidity which meant less and less money that could be loaned out to people flipping homes. Note: You and others are told that that the sub prime crash was due to a bunch of poor people not being able to make their Fanny loan payments that flooded the market with foreclosures, and I know that's a lie. There simply was not enough Fanny foreclosures to impact the market in any meaningful way. It was a liquidity issues due to a slowdown in bank bond purchases, and, no, the FED does not print money out of nothing as such an action would cause mass inflation.

When liquidity dries up this happens www.rooshv.com... that's what happened. How would or could bitcoin stop that from happening?

Anyway, I know my macro cold. I mean, I am what they call an expert.


PS I'm sure you will declare any conversation we would ever have here on this subject over once I get over your head again and confront you with obvious influences of actions to correct imbalances. You know such as... managing inflationary/deflationary pressures and still maintain liquidity and market confidence. Maintain market confidence something a bitcoin money system could never manifest. Maintain liquidity? What if a few people at the top of King's Mountain hoarded most of the bitcoins, cornered the bitcoin market and held its economy hostage? What would happen then? No one can corner the USD.