Rob Wile at Business Insider reports (my highlight)
Rreddit CEO Yishan Wong heavily criticized Bitcoin evangelists on the very site he runs, calling out the hysteria that can fill Bitcoin forums there.Without being too inflammatory, the user base for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics. I say "increasingly" because at one time it was fairly well-informed libertarians but as the currency has become mainstream, it's attracted more poorly-informed individuals and the conversation have become more polarized and less knowledge-based, driving the well-informed and balanced people away, or at least prompting them to recede into the background.He sees nothing wrong with the currency itself, but says these types of individuals are giving the currency a bad name:I think that the obsession in the bitcoin community with bringing down central banks, fiat currencies, and governments is misguided and generally misses the point of bitcoin, which I think is that for the first time in history, we have the technology for enabling extremely low-friction electronic payments and certain trust-delegation mechanisms. That in and of itself is incredibly valuable. (There are also programmability features in the codebase that potentially open the door for zero-trust contracts and other intriguing possibilities, but they haven't been activated or tested yet)And he argues it actually makes it easier to track transactions for illicit goods.
"I would not be surprised if the NSA is actually heavily in favor of Bitcoin," he wrote, "because by combining their other data streams, they can cross-correlate activity on the blockchain and essentially know exactly who is doing what."
Andreessen and Wong are very correct. I repeat from my earlier posts:
Bitcoin transactions can be tracked by governments very easily and government regulations are coming that will require all Bitcoin exchanges to identify in detail all buyers and sellers of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is NOT a libertarian instrument to battle government.
The "obsession" is to not be owned by the global central banker/politician terrorist organization.
ReplyDeletethen stop wasting your time with bitcoin
DeleteThis whole bitcoin saga reminded me of any darling stock run; each holds an attractive concept to bring in buyers to which others can sell. Every move up in price is seen as justification that the "idea" behind the company is a rational/profitable one, when it's really just price-chasing.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I read adjectives like "crazy" in front of libertarian, I'm instantly brought back to Ron Paul's presidential candidacies. There were always mini ad hominems thrown in somewhere by the mainstream pundits/journalists, like "dark horse", "insane", "gadfly", and "geriatric"; instant negatives to sway society's mind - which doesn't take much.
So what if it is tracked? Your credit card is tracked. Your email account is read. Your phone calls are monitored. What difference does it make? It is still an efficient transaction system with a limited supply. What seems to be the problem?
ReplyDelete>"with a limited supply" I do not believe this is what will happen. We are told they issue 40 million bitcoins and that is it. Bitcoins will be sliced, diced, fractionalized, derivatized, hypothecated -- all from a single bitcoin, multiply that by 40 million and becomes exponentially unlimited.
ReplyDeleteWrong. Think about your argument for second. The same thing applies to gold. It can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, each resembling each other, but they are still LESS in amount of the thing in question.
DeleteHow ironic that Bitcoin may have paved the way for a electronic currency issued by governments that can both be tracked and backed by nothing!
ReplyDeleteIt'll have ended up making life worse for everyone if that comes to fruition, let me be the first to say "Thank you Bitcoin, you ass wipes!" for promoting the idea of a "currency" backed by nothing!