BITCOIN

Scottex99

lozzy1965 said:

Scottex99 said:

Depends on the definition of guilty by association. If Putin helped you get rich, then you should be sanctioned. If you are a Russian National who now lives in Lisbon, you don't (and never) supported any war, then it doesn't make sense that your bank account is embargoed, you can't use your credit cards and you potentially can't trade any of your crypto

If you're a Russian National living abroad it does make some sense.  It's about putting pressure on the leader of a country by causing dissatisfaction and unrest in the citizens of that country.   If you are a Russian National then you are a citizen of Russia.  It makes less sense if you are dual national.
I'm not sure the sanctions go as far as preventing Russian Nationals abroad from using any of their money though.

Yeah but that's flawed imo. I'm Scottish and live in Spain/Gib. If Nicola drives some tanks into England and starts killing English babies then sanctioning me and my banks is going to do what? I'm going to fly back to Edinburgh and join protests to get her to stop it?

Sanctioning Putin and his boss allies has to be the way. Taking it out on the regular population (who may not have lived in the country and completely oppose the regime) does nothing. Farmers in Russia are supposed to travel to Moscow and protest?

And on last point, it does. I know a few who live in Europe and are having major problems moving money in their bank accounts, including GBP and EUR in European banks. They have not supported or taken part in anything relating to Ukraine whatsoever and cant' move 10k from Santander in Madrid to Barclays in London?

Scottex99

Malthusian said:

lozzy1965 said:

I'm not sure the sanctions go as far as preventing Russian Nationals abroad from using any of their money though.

Probably not, but when the Mounties froze the accounts of a couple of hundred sov citizens who were organising riots, that somehow turned into impoverished single moms from British Columbia having their accounts frozen for sending the truckers 50 loonies (who then mysteriously disappeared), so who knows.

It's still interesting that on page 190 a few people who hadn't been charged with any crime were having their accounts frozen and this was proof that everyone needed crypto. Now billions of dollars belonging to people who haven't been charged with a crime are being frozen, private assets like football clubs are being essentially seized and nationalised, and you can hear an NFT drop. Should private citizens have the right to keep their money outside the reach of governments and the courts or not?

First they came for the truckers, and I did not speak out, because I don't blub when I get a hurty needle in my arm.

Then they came for the oligarchs, and I did not speak out, because I didn't loot the post-glasnost Soviet economy for zhillions of roubles.

Then nothing much happened. Number still no go up. The end.

Number going up. UpOnly 

lozzy1965

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvOq-ELG_XY

Prince Philip of Serbia, "Not Crypto, But Bitcoin. It's Only About Bitcoin. Bitcoin is Freedom."

Very interesting, but I would like to see the flip side argument - I know I know, it has been going on for months, if not years on this thread .
Fully admitting that I do not understand the arguments, I can't believe that it is as simple as the prince (and pro crypto-ers) states.  At the risk of sounding like a naïve privileged westerner:  There are a lot of downtrodden poor people in the world in countries not as privileged as ours, but why isn't that at least in part to do with their governments and corruption in their country?
I guess I just can't see how bitcoin solves poverty! 

If you have time, read this 
https://breedlove22.medium.com/masters-and-slaves-of-money-255ecc93404f

OK I have read the first few screens and scanned a few more beyond that.  No.  Just no!  That is not an argument for Bitcoin unless it offers up more evidence later on.
The article is about colonialism and more advanced nations and peoples taking advantage of less advanced ones.  Bitcoin won't solve that.

EDIT:  Ponder this.  A huge number of bitcoin are in the hands of a very small number of people.  A vast number of the world population currently have no Bitcoin.  How is that going to work out?

1 - Early bird gets the worm - this has always been the case in all systems. 
2 - There will always be plenty to go about, but early investors are rightly rewarded. 

1.  Or the early tech savvy punter makes the big time because of their punt?  Perfect for a currency system that is much fairer for the world?
2.  I thought there were a limited supply?  There are a lot of people in the world!

Zola.

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvOq-ELG_XY

Prince Philip of Serbia, "Not Crypto, But Bitcoin. It's Only About Bitcoin. Bitcoin is Freedom."

Very interesting, but I would like to see the flip side argument - I know I know, it has been going on for months, if not years on this thread .
Fully admitting that I do not understand the arguments, I can't believe that it is as simple as the prince (and pro crypto-ers) states.  At the risk of sounding like a naïve privileged westerner:  There are a lot of downtrodden poor people in the world in countries not as privileged as ours, but why isn't that at least in part to do with their governments and corruption in their country?
I guess I just can't see how bitcoin solves poverty! 

If you have time, read this 
https://breedlove22.medium.com/masters-and-slaves-of-money-255ecc93404f

OK I have read the first few screens and scanned a few more beyond that.  No.  Just no!  That is not an argument for Bitcoin unless it offers up more evidence later on.
The article is about colonialism and more advanced nations and peoples taking advantage of less advanced ones.  Bitcoin won't solve that.

EDIT:  Ponder this.  A huge number of bitcoin are in the hands of a very small number of people.  A vast number of the world population currently have no Bitcoin.  How is that going to work out?

1 - Early bird gets the worm - this has always been the case in all systems. 
2 - There will always be plenty to go about, but early investors are rightly rewarded. 

1.  Or the early tech savvy punter makes the big time because of their punt?  Perfect for a currency system that is much fairer for the world?
2.  I thought there were a limited supply?  There are a lot of people in the world!

When Christopher Columbus discovered the US, is it fair that he and most of the other early explorers got the best land to build houses and farms on because of their punt? I think so. 

There is a fixed and limited supply, if it was evenly split there would be 0.002625 bitcoin to go around, or 262,500 "Satoshis"...
If for some crazy reason that is not enough, the unit of measurement can be split even further.. Also, like any investable asset, people will sell when they need something, like a house, car etc.  There will always be trades. 

Like stocks and other investments, there will be many in the world who will likely never have any, for one reason or another..

lozzy1965

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

lozzy1965 said:

Zola. said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvOq-ELG_XY

Prince Philip of Serbia, "Not Crypto, But Bitcoin. It's Only About Bitcoin. Bitcoin is Freedom."

Very interesting, but I would like to see the flip side argument - I know I know, it has been going on for months, if not years on this thread .
Fully admitting that I do not understand the arguments, I can't believe that it is as simple as the prince (and pro crypto-ers) states.  At the risk of sounding like a naïve privileged westerner:  There are a lot of downtrodden poor people in the world in countries not as privileged as ours, but why isn't that at least in part to do with their governments and corruption in their country?
I guess I just can't see how bitcoin solves poverty! 

If you have time, read this 
https://breedlove22.medium.com/masters-and-slaves-of-money-255ecc93404f

OK I have read the first few screens and scanned a few more beyond that.  No.  Just no!  That is not an argument for Bitcoin unless it offers up more evidence later on.
The article is about colonialism and more advanced nations and peoples taking advantage of less advanced ones.  Bitcoin won't solve that.

EDIT:  Ponder this.  A huge number of bitcoin are in the hands of a very small number of people.  A vast number of the world population currently have no Bitcoin.  How is that going to work out?

1 - Early bird gets the worm - this has always been the case in all systems. 
2 - There will always be plenty to go about, but early investors are rightly rewarded. 

1.  Or the early tech savvy punter makes the big time because of their punt?  Perfect for a currency system that is much fairer for the world?
2.  I thought there were a limited supply?  There are a lot of people in the world!

When Christopher Columbus discovered the US, is it fair that he and most of the other early explorers got the best land to build houses and farms on because of their punt? I think so. 

There is a fixed and limited supply, if it was evenly split there would be 0.002625 bitcoin to go around, or 262,500 "Satoshis"...
If for some crazy reason that is not enough, the unit of measurement can be split even further.. Also, like any investable asset, people will sell when they need something, like a house, car etc.  There will always be trades. 

Like stocks and other investments, there will be many in the world who will likely never have any, for one reason or another..

Hmmm, sounds a little like inflation?

Bitcoin was supposed to replace money!

The trouble with Bitcoin is that every time I see a specific reason to justify it, I can't see how it solves that reason.

Scottex99

Only if you don't understand it.

It's ability to be able to split into 8 (?) decimals or 1 Satoshi doesn't effect the total supply which is always 21m. Just means it's easier to use/send.

It's not "supposed" to do or replace anything. Nobody is saying oh we have BTC now, lets burn every single fiat currency immediately as we've solved all financial problems. The static labels dont need to be there.

For me, it was designed as peer to peer digital cash and now has evolved into hard money, its only 12 years old, it could evolve again

Zola.

Another domino falls (maybe) 

https://twitter.com/BobMalakasPI/status/1504959615842271242?t=wsoCrbHe2m7uNyLtpidc2Q&s=19

User232002

Malthusian said:

It's still interesting that on page 190 a few people who hadn't been charged with any crime were having their accounts frozen and this was proof that everyone needed crypto. Now billions of dollars belonging to people who haven't been charged with a crime are being frozen, private assets like football clubs are being essentially seized and nationalised, and you can hear an NFT drop. Should private citizens have the right to keep their money outside the reach of governments and the courts or not?

Out of the reach of government overreach, yes. Nobody was ever arguing that people should be able to keep their assets outside the reach of courts. Which is why, contrary to some posts in this thread, most crypto exchanges are not banning Russian users. 

The Canadian truckers situation pointed out that individual bank accounts were non-sovereign. The US seizing $600BN of Russian assets has just made world governments sit up and realise that the 'assets' they thought they held are only held on the condition that the US approves of your actions; permissioned assets. The game has started and the eventual outcome is a neutral world reserve currency.

lozzy1965 said:

EDIT:  Ponder this.  A huge number of bitcoin are in the hands of a very small number of people.  A vast number of the world population currently have no Bitcoin.  How is that going to work out?

So firstly, a lot of the stats you read regarding wallet distribution are incorrect because the biggest on chain wallets are usually things like exchanges that are a collection of many users coins so you have to be very careful when looking at wallet distribution data.

Secondly, I recently read a paper which calculated the Gini coefficient of Bitcoin to be 0.65. That's approximately equal to countries such as Australia, Italy and Japan. Its better than the UK and far superior to the US. I've included the source below - I'd imagine the data in Credit Suisse's annual reports are somewhat reliable.

Notably, inequality (and the Gini coefficient) has been trending up in most developed countries for the last few decades, as you can also see in the table below. This is a natural consequence of a fiat based system, where entrenched interests usually benefit from the money printer at everyone else's expense - the Cantillon effect. It is in fact the opposite in Bitcoin; every metric you look at (Gini or wallets with > 1k BTC) is trending down over time. Its a fair system now, that will only get fairer in time.

Lastly, and this shouldn't need to be stated as its so obvious but given the questions you're asking it probably needs to be, there are basically zero people that bought BTC at like $1 and haven't sold until today. The idea that we will all be ruled by overlords that bought thousands of BTC at cents on the dollar is a myth. Most commonly, the people who bought at $1 sold at $10 and the people who bought at $10 sold at $100 and so on. And for those that bought early and held, they absolutely deserve their riches for being able to see the potential of something that was open to all from day one. I bought my first Bitcoin in 2014, but I didn't hold on to most of it because I didn't see its full potential. Thats my fault, nobody elses. Many of my friends held on to a lot of their BTC after selling some chunk of it to realise a profit - I don't begrudge them their success nor does this mean the system isn't 'fair.'

lozzy1965 said:

Hmmm, sounds a little like inflation?

Bitcoin was supposed to replace money!

The trouble with Bitcoin is that every time I see a specific reason to justify it, I can't see how it solves that reason.

This is an incredibly silly argument. 

Suppose I have 2 pizza's, a plain cheese and a pepperoni, cut in to 4 slices each to share between 8 friends. This isn't ideal as although there are 8 slices, each friend can only choose one type of pizza. Instead I cut the pizza in to 8 slices each and now each friend can enjoy a slice of each pizza.

Creating extra slices did not result in the creation of more pizza. Divisibility and finite scarcity are not mutually exclusive properties.

This has been discussed ITT already. 

Scottex99

https://cryptohayes.medium.com/energy-cancelled-e9f9e53a50cd

Injecctt it

lozzy1965

darren232002 said:

lozzy1965 said:

Hmmm, sounds a little like inflation?

Bitcoin was supposed to replace money!

The trouble with Bitcoin is that every time I see a specific reason to justify it, I can't see how it solves that reason.

This is an incredibly silly argument. 

Suppose I have 2 pizza's, a plain cheese and a pepperoni, cut in to 4 slices each to share between 8 friends. This isn't ideal as although there are 8 slices, each friend can only choose one type of pizza. Instead I cut the pizza in to 8 slices each and now each friend can enjoy a slice of each pizza.

Creating extra slices did not result in the creation of more pizza. Divisibility and finite scarcity are not mutually exclusive properties.

This has been discussed ITT already. 

But how does the fact that your 1 unit of currency, which has been split into 2 units now so that 2 people can own it, prevent the pizza seller telling you that your 2 pizzas now cost more?  It's supply and demand.  Bitcoin will not remove inflation.