Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen

Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen

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A month ago I heard folks talking online about a virtual currency called bitcoin that is untraceable and un-hackable. Folks were using it to buy and sell drugs online, support content they liked and worst of all -- gasp! -- play poker. Bitcoin is a P2P currency that could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I have been following the progress and the technology of bitcoin for years. Now that it is gaining users it is likely going to become the target of very aggressive government intervention. Due to the nature of bitcoin it can not be stopped. It can not be tracked or taxed. It is the end of fiat currency because it is stored work in the form of encryption.

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(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by wayouttheredude


Can you buy food with it? Or pay your mortage? Or your electric bill?

If you can't use it to buy the necessities, then what good is it?

This is what happens when TPTB tries to stifle their own people. the people fight back with new ways to get around the corrupt system..lol
i wouldnt use it myself. no need to. but i must admit it makes me chuckle that the governments are loosing control because they dont really care about the people in the first place..
As for being the "most dangerous project ever" well i would say its the most dangerous puplic project.. that and wikileaks...
im sure if you try hard enough you could find more dangerous projects funded by government and big business.. geneticly modified crops for example...

Originally posted by imasecretspy
reply to post by wayouttheredude

 

Can you buy food with it? Or pay your mortage? Or your electric bill?

If you can't use it to buy the necessities, then what good is it?

When Paypal was in it's infancy did everyone accept Paypal payment? Short answer is no. Take a look around now, there is hardly any place that doesn't accept Paypal anymore. This could take off and be just as big as Paypal or even bigger.

reply to post by SpaDe_


I don't know anyone who buys groceries using Paypal. But sure there probably are people that do.

However I doubt that BitCoin is going to be around long enough to topple any governments or world markets as the article suggest.

reply to post by SpaDe_
Paypal still debits from a bank account or credit card, that is based on our current legal tender.

reply to post by binkbonk


You summed it up perfectly.

That's why Paypal is backed by many real world companies, and why BitCoin never will be.

Perhaps the point is that currency, the medium of exchange between two or more parties, need not be 'controlled' by a superseding third-party.

This would be a radical departure from the current model of exchange which mandates a third-party in ALL transactions... even if only in the form of currency owned and issued (in almost all cases) by a national bank which has a defacto monopoly on monetary policy.

Any such medium of exchange would make it impossible to launder or counterfeit units of currency. Thus the two principle parties in any exchange of currency are uniquely empowered to exercise freedom of commerce without having to surrender control of the money (and hence some of it's value) to a third party.

Considering the explosion of a global information-based communication infrastructure, such a monetary system would almost literally destroy the choke-hold the current supranational financial cartel has on global affairs. They would be unable to disguise it as "credit," unable to redirect it for "in-transit" profit, and most importantly, it can't be 'co-mingled' and 'obfuscated' by "packaging" it into "notional" "vehicles" which represent nothing more than a stake in a gambling game. Risks would become concretely measurable, and their model of '"monetary policy" would have to change forever.

Hence, it will never fly without surviving strong ad-hominem attacks on any and all who desire the freedom of truly 'personal' free trade.

reply to post by binkbonk


Your completely missing my point. My point is when Paypal came on scene everyone said the same thing, that it would never work. The reason with Paypal was because they had to not only make a presence on the web, but in every single established country. It was a huge feat but look where they are today. This start up company could do the same if they play their cards right.

reply to post by SpaDe_
Well, If I missed your point, it's because I used Paypal as soon as I could right when it came out. I thought it was a great idea because it saved me from inputing my credit card info on the internet. To me it was like an electronic check. So I thought it was a great idea and I was not surprised at all to see it become popular.

Paypal is another banking tool based on the same "money as credit" doctrine that leads to the paradigm:

For "A" to spend money on "B" he must give money for "B" to "C" who then gives it to "A" minus "C's" cut.

Of course "A" wants his money... so he raises his prices so "C's" cut doesn't affect him, and only "A" suffers the increased cost.

It's the middleman doctrine... and no, it doesn't "have to be that way."

This reminds me of the whole death of superman comic book event.

I bought a copy of the death of superman for 5 bucks I think. Then some kid offered me 75 bucks for the comic.
I sold it and made a nice profit.

The point is the bitcoins will be worth whatever someone deems their value to be. So if someone is desperate to buy them. Then they will drive up the price.

Just like in world of warcraft the market sets the price for items in the auction house.

If no one wants bitcoins then it won't be worth anything.

If you can only buy certain things in bitcoins that everyone wants then the price will go up.

Myself when my books come out I will be selling the electronic versions for bitcoin. I have already installed the free bitcoin plugin for the wordpress shopping cart programs. I will find some use for them and perhaps I will work on some other virtual projects and games that will accept bitcoin for payment for game time as well as a method of exchange within the game world environment. The game will of course be a p2p type and be just as well encrypted as bitcoin.

People use it to buy drugs? Now that's an economy that will always remain strong, I wouldn't underestimate this, although the government is likely to intervene anyway they can as they don't like people cutting into their business and this is a double whammy cause it first slaps the elites in the face by saying we don't need your fiat money and then proceeds to kick em in the nuts by threatening to take away their profits in the drug trade.

reply to post by ZackMorris


I agree with you 100%. I am surprised they haven't started their MSM smear campaign against it already.

"News at 5, bitcoins were found on dead osama bin ladin's computer. Terrorism is now supported by bitcoins!" *Froth at mouth*

PS Kelly is mine preppy.

Bitcoin is still a long way from being accepted even among the virtual "ecurrency" crowd, and it has an intrinsic problem that more established ecurrencies don't have.

Keep in mind even a well-accepted ecurrency can be wiped out in an instant by the government or the whims of the online world - remember eGold? While they're still around, their popularity has really dropped off, following a raid by federal police over their "not releasing their records in a timely manner" to them.

These ecurrencies are far more established than Bitcoin;
Liberty Reserve
Web Money (Russian based, but very well managed)

Bitcoin, unlike the above ecurrencies like egold, has no real value, and is not backed by a commodity like gold. They claim in their FAQ that Bitcoins draw their value from the fact that it's accepted as a currency by merchants in exchange for goods/services. It is a Fiat currency, in the worst sense possible.

In a sense, you could say that Bitcoin is "backed up" by the price tags of merchants – a price tag is a promise to exchange goods for a specified amount of currency.
- source

Bitcoins can be generated literally out of thin air, and can't be cashed out in in real currency the way egold, LR, or WMZ can be. This is the real danger in Bitcoin, it's not a ecurrency, it's a fallacy. What would happen to it if those merchants currently accepting it lose interest? What would it's value be then? How would you "redeem" any bitcoins in your possession? Can you cash out bitcoins for real money?

When you bought egold, you were at least buying incremental amounts of actual gold, and the value of it in your egold account would actually fluctuate with the value of gold in the marketplace. Egold was by far the best type of ecurrency, the companies big mistake was establishing itself in Florida and under American banking jurisdiction (it's since has moved to an offshore domicile), but the damage to it's reputation has been done after being forced to hand over all it's records to the feds.

Paypal isn't an "ecurrency", comparing it to one isn't fair, it's an online bank and subject to all those laws and regulations (not to mention they have a nasty habit of seizing accounts on pretty flimsy excuses).

reply to post by Maxmars

Perhaps the point is that currency, the medium of exchange between two or more parties, need not be 'controlled' by a superseding third-party....

WOW Great summation. I would like to add.

"Money" can be viewed as just another "product" in the market place. Mises defined money as the most marketable commodity.

...Money serves as a transmitter of value through time because certain goods serve as media of exchange. Money transmits value, Mises taught, but money does not measure value. This distinction is fundamental in Mises's theory of money. Mises was adamant: there is no measure of economic value.


EXCHANGE:
Mises said that every economic act involves a comparison of values A person chooses among several commodities (p. 38). He exchanges one commodity for another. "For this reason it has been said that every economic act may be regarded as a kind of exchange...."

Nevertheless, the exchange is not based on someone's measure of value, merely his comparison of value: more vs. less.

This means that "There is no such thing as abstract value" (p. 47). There are only specific acts of valuation....

Subjective value is not measured, but graded. The problem of the measurement of objective use-value is not an economic problem at all" I emphasize this because we hear, over and over, such phrases as this:

"There is nothing more important that the government can provide individual producers than a reliable standard of value, a unit of account that retains its constancy as a measuring device."

This statement is completely contrary to Mises's theory of subjective economic value, on which his theory of money rests. It is contrary to Mises's theory of civil government. It is contrary to the concept of free market money, as Mises described it. In short, it is contrary to Misesian economics.

Mises on Money: www.lewrockwell.com...

I bring this up because the bolded statement is the lie we are fed to justify the fraud bankers use to siphon off our wealth.

I sure hope this takes off like a ROCKET!

reply to post by imasecretspy


sounds like you are on of the people who arent "in the know".

if you knew aything about the darknet or deepweb, you would understand how useful this is, and that it is CERTAINLY not going away. this is cutting out the money middleman and like a poster above pointed out, fiat currency(in a sense). and it is used online. do you know how much e-commerce there is?
did you really say a digital technology will soon be going away? :-P get reading kid

There will always be people trying to use a free medium of exchange, instead of the BS we have now.

reply to post by VonDoomen


Some good reading to understand where this type of currency will lead and why TPTB are scared of it is found in this short book titled: A Lodging of Wayfaring Men PDF