A town in the United States has embraced cryptocurrency to the point where it is accepted by nearly every business in the area.
The post Entire New Hampshire Town Accepts and Uses Cryptocurrency Just Like Cash And Credit Cards appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
President Trump recently announced a ban on Venezuela’s new national cryptocurrency, the petro.
That’s right—Venezuela created its own national crypto, possibly to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
But could the petro do more than that, and actually catalyze government-controlled cryptos around the world?
President Trump signed an executive order March 21 banning all transactions involving digital currency issued by the Venezuelan government, after it began pre-selling its own cryptocurrency, the petro, in February.
The petro differs from other cryptos because, according to the Brookings Institute, “The price of one petro is pegged to the price of one barrel of Venezuelan oil…” and “the petro/bolivar exchange rate … includes a discount factor determined by the Venezuelan government.”
By making that distinction, the Venezuelan government is now responsible for managing multiple currency systems simultaneously, creating what Dash Force News Editor Joël Valenzuela described as “an accounting nightmare.”
Well, actually it’s not the cryptos but the tech they’re built on. A few episodes back, we discussed how cryptocurrency is backed by radical transparency due to the power of the blockchain.
Rather than being backed by radical transparency and being a “trustless system”, as Valenzuela called it, the petro is essentially “fiat crypto.”
“When you back it with something that doesn’t have transparency, you have to trust the party that is providing the assets that back the coin,” according to Valenzuela. “It ruins its original value proposition.”
Once a crypto is a national currency, it’s subject to many tariff barriers and, in some cases, sanctions. Which is why President Trump made the first major national decision by the U.S. to ban a cryptocurrency. But cryptos like Dash aren’t tied to a government and weren’t created to bypass sanctions.
Once the richest nation in Latin America, Venezuela had suffered wild inflation, plummeting the standard of living and causing uproar from poverty stricken citizens. Many Venezuelans facing economic hardship are putting pressure on the government to stop the bleeding.
Anything to ease their suffering in the short term will be a boon to the tyrants, according to Valenzuela. But because the petro is not truly backed by trustlessness, critics say the government crypto won’t last long. And that presents a challenge to other governments considering creating their own cryptos.
Russian President Vladimir Putin already announced his government will issue its own CryptoRuble, likely sometime in mid-2019, according to CoinTelegraph.
The CryptoRuble is supposed to be directly tied to the ruble, issued by the Russian government and could not be mined.
But remember, the two major selling points of blockchain are radical transparency and decentralization, meaning no one can manipulate the supply or the transactions.
And it’s those two aspects of blockchain that governments aren’t fans of.
Recently Congressman Brad Sherman of California read a statement that called cryptocurrencies “harmful,” and appeared to accidentally admit that cryptocurrency reduces government control of our currency. He said, “It hurts the U.S. government in two ways. Our contr… …our ability to have the US dollar be the chief means of international finance is what has underpinned our ability to impose sanctions…”
So Sherman doesn’t like the lack of “contr…” that the government has over crypto.
But on the other hand, imagine if the U.S. decided to use blockchain to track how our tax dollars are spent. Remember when the Pentagon admitted earlier this year that it couldn’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars?
Corporations are already testing out the tech to prevent major data breaches like what happened to Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan, Anthem and others.
John Oliver explained the power of the blockchain in a recent episode of his show “Last Week Tonight.” He said, “The blockchain… a database that is nearly impossible to hack or tamper with, and which could possibly improve security, efficiency and trust. That is why big companies like Wal-Mart, IBM and JP Morgan have all been experimenting with blockchain as a way to potentially share and secure data transactions in a reliable, easy to access way.”
So what you need to know is that the blockchain presents an opportunity for governments to create a more transparent financial system. But Venezuela isn’t really doing that with the petro.
The question is, who is going to control the crypto? If governments do… they will take away the freedom of crypto… but if crypto currencies remain decentralized, then we will be able to keep a radically transparent financial system for the people.
The post Reality Check: What Venezuela’s National Crypto Means for Decentralization (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Coinbase has reportedly refused to specify why it suspended the WikiLeaks Shop"s account, and in response, WikiLeaks is calling for a "global blockade" of the platform.
The post WikiLeaks Tells Supporters to Boycott Coinbase for Joining US Extra Judicial Financial Embargo appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(ANTIMEDIA) — In the wake of Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in popularity, interest in the dynamics of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has skyrocketed over the past year. With bank-based blockchain projects poised to revolutionize the world of financial services, researchers continue to study the new technology to better understand the inner-workings of the blockchain, as well its economic, social, […]
Dash is sponsoring youth programs in Africa, where children have access to healthy food, an extensive library, and athletic activities.
The post Not Just for Day Trading, Cryptocurrency Is Funding and Helping to Educate Children In Africa appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Dash is sponsoring youth programs in Africa, where children have access to healthy food, an extensive library, and athletic activities.
The post Not Just for Day Trading, Cryptocurrency Is Funding and Helping to Educate Children In Africa appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
As banks in India cut off access to cryptocurrencies, the government is rolling out a big brother financial grid complete with their own digital currency.
The post Fingerprints, Eye Scans Now Required To Buy Food In India, As Banks Cut Off Cryptocurrencies appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The power DASH cryptocurrency is not only taking the control of money back from the establishment and giving it to the people but it is also doing the same thing with information.
The post DASH Cryptocurrency is Shattering the Paradigm of Establishment Control Over Money AND Media appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Showing that they are scared of the privacy implications of cryptocurrency, a new leak from Edward Snowden reveals the NSA carried out a massive campaign to spy on users of bitcoin.
The post ‘Bitcoin is #1 Priority’: New Snowden Leaks Show NSA is Targeting Cryptocurrency Users appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A new report is warning that the socialist engineered economic crisis in Venezuela will completely kill the global oil market. Plunging oil production in Venezuela is causing a national economic and humanitarian crisis that could tip the global oil market “decisively into deficit,” according to the report.
Published Thursday, the report laid out concerns that Venezuela’s socialist regime could impact all of us globally. Although critics claim the experimentation with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s oil-backed cryptocurrency, the petro, is doomed to fail epically, Maduro claims it will help deliver “everything our country needs.”
Maduro claimed Wednesday the pre-sale of the digital coin had been a huge success, raising $5 billion from 83,000 investors in 127 countries. However, there is no evidence that he spoke in fact. A report from the Brookings thinktank harshly criticized the petro project, saying it would likely fail and in doing so would harm the legitimate use of cryptocurrencies in general, contributing “to the idea that cryptocurrencies facilitate fraud.”
What makes matters worse, is at the same time, Maduro appears to be ignoring warning signs about the socialist regime’s oil production. “Within the OPEC countries, the biggest risk factor is, and will likely remain Venezuela,” the International Energy Agency said in its closely-watched monthly report.
Along with the fact that the population is being starved and impoverished by government policies which spurred hyperinflation, Oil production in Venezuela has plummeted in the last two years, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration claiming production is 300,000 barrels a day less than in 2017. OPEC cut back oil production in recent years to boost the price of oil after 2014 collapse, but now the unplanned drop in Venezuela’s oil production could cause a shortage of oil.
“Without any compensatory change from other producers it is possible that the Latin American country could be the final element that tips the market decisively into deficit,” the report said.
Despite the worsening political crisis, Maduro has continued to brag about the petro, which he believes will help the country avoid crippling international sanctions. He told the members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela last week that the money raised from the sale of the petro would form part of a wider “economic solution” and would strengthen the country’s “monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade.”
In what can be called a Freudian slip, a US congressman accidentally admitted that the government is scared of the blockchain because it makes it harder for them to control you.
The post WATCH: Congressman Accidentally Admits Cryptocurrencies Threaten Govt’s “Control” Over You appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Allianz Global Investors, the investment arm of Europe’s biggest insurer, employees economists who say Bitcoin is absolutely worthless, and a bubble that’s about to burst. Allianz Global, which manages almost 500 billion euro, says Bitcoin “ticks off all the boxes” for a major asset bubble.
“In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero,” Stefan Hofrichter, the company’s head of global economics and strategy, wrote in a recent web post. “A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream.” Gold doesn’t generate an income stream either but has been a viable currency for over 2,000 years.
But according to Bloomberg, the investors at Allianz Global have more to say about Bitcoin. Additionally, they added that the world’s largest cryptocurrency “ticks all of the boxes” of the essential criteria for any asset bubble, including overtrading, “new-era” thinking and rising leverage, he wrote. Bitcoin mania is a textbook-like bubble, “one that is probably just about to burst.”
Hofrichter is far from the only person to make comments regarding Bitcoin’s value. Even Peter Schiff says the cryptocurrency is heading toward its “real worth” of $0. University of Pittsburgh researchers have concluded it’s “an asset which has no value by traditional measures” and economist Nouriel Roubini called it the “biggest bubble in human history.”
Others, such as Jeff Berwick from The Dollar Vigilante, says that it isn’t the Bitcoin bubble we should worry about. We should be more concerned about the elites engineering an economic collapse and blaming the cryptocurrency as an excuse to ban or heavily regulate all sources of “money.” It is easier to believe the global elitists dislike Bitcoin, because of the mere fact that the currency is decentralized and regulating it is incredibly difficult.
But that doesn’t stop many in the global economy scene from continuing to bash Bitcoin while passively admitting the risks are small. “Bitcoin’s demise would have few spillover effects on the ‘real world,’ since the market for this cryptocurrency is still quite small in size,” Hofrichter said. “As a result, we believe that the risks to financial stability stemming from bitcoin are negligible — at least as of today.”
Google has also come out swinging against Bitcoin, saying it will ban ads for all cryptocurrency. Remember, the elites that run things are actively trying to keep things from the public. There’s probably a very good reason why tech giants and the globalists who run them don’t want people involved in cryptocurrencies. “Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that’s removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue to be a top priority for us,” said Scott Spencer, Google’s director of sustainable ads, in a blog post. The post did not explain why digital currencies may be harmful.
This follows a similar move by Facebook as a part of an effort to” clear unregulated financial products off its platform.” Does anyone catch the keyword “unregulated” in there? If the elitists can’t control your money, they can’t control you.
(ANTIMEDIA) It’s been an embattled year so far for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world in general. The start of the year saw a precipitous drop in Bitcoin value, marking somewhere around blockchain’s 250th death. Then, numerous financial institutions, government regulatory agencies, and elite moguls rubbed salt in the wounds with a series of rhetorical attacks aimed at discrediting cryptocurrency and dismissing it […]
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Having explained why central banks are so nervous about cryptocurrencies, it seems the rest of the banking sector is finally admitting the real driver behind their disdain for digital currencies – they are competition and an existential threat.
As CoinTelegraph’s Molly Jane Zuckerman reports, J.P. Morgan Chase has added a segment on cryptocurrencies to the “Risk Factor” section of their 2017 annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), filed yesterday, Feb. 27.
The annual report mentions cryptocurrencies under the “Competition” subsection when describing how new competitors have emerged that threaten J.P. Morgan’s operations:
“Both financial institutions and their non-banking competitors face the risk that payment processing and other services could be disrupted by technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, that require no intermediation.”
The report notes that these new technologies, evidently including Blockchain, although they don’t mention it by name, “could require JPMorgan Chase to spend more to modify or adapt its products to attract and retain clients and customers or to match products and services offered by its competitors, including technology companies.”
This competition could potentially “put downward pressure on prices and fees for JPMorgan Chase’s products and services or may cause JPMorgan Chase to lose market share.”
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had made waves back in September 2017, when he called Bitcoin (BTC) a “fraud” and threatened to fire any employee that traded BTC on company accounts. Since then, Dimon has backtracked slightly, telling a Cointelegraph reporter at the Davos World Economic Forum that he is not a “skeptic” on cryptocurrencies.
In the beginning of February, an alleged internal report from J.P. Morgan Chase referred to cryptocurrencies as “innovative” and “unlikely to disappear”, also noting cryptocurrency’s potential to be successfully applied to payment system areas that are traditionally problematic or slow, such as cross-border payments.
JPMorgan is not alone, as TruthInMedia.com’s Brendan Weber reports, in Bank of America’s new annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the corporation largely reflected internally about a number of economic, geopolitical, and operational risks faced.
One of those stated risks is surrounding the increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies, which could have negative effects on the corporation’s earning potential.
In addition, technological advances and the growth of e-commerce have made it easier for non-depository institutions to offer products and services that traditionally were banking products, and for financial institutions to compete with technology companies in providing electronic and internet-based financial solutions including electronic securities trading, marketplace lending and payment processing. Further, clients may choose to conduct business with other market participants who engage in business or offer products in areas we deem speculative or risky, such as cryptocurrencies. Increased competition may negatively affect our earnings by creating pressure to lower prices or credit standards on our products and services requiring additional investment to improve the quality and delivery of our technology and/or reducing our market share, or affecting the willingness of our clients to do business with us.
Increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies also had Bank of America admitting that it may need to make “substantial expenditures” to compete with these rising technologies:
In addition, the widespread adoption of new technologies, including internet services, cryptocurrencies and payment systems, could require substantial expenditures to modify or adapt our existing products and services as we grow and develop our internet banking and mobile banking channel strategies in addition to remote connectivity solutions.
Bank of America might have already taken action to help counter these technologies by banning cryptocurrency transactions on their credit cards.
Additionally, the document stated concerns besides those directly affecting earning potential; they noted that emerging cryptocurrencies could impact Bank of America’s compliance with anti-money laundering regulations:
In addition to non-U.S. legislation, our international operations are also subject to U.S. legal requirements. For example, our international operations are subject to U.S. laws on foreign corrupt practices, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, know-your-customer requirements and anti-money laundering regulations. Emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, could limit our ability to track the movement of funds. Our ability to comply with these laws is dependent on our ability to improve detection and reporting capabilities and reduce variation in control processes and oversight accountability.
Even though cryptocurrencies were a small mention within the entire report, its brief discussion indicated that the company is both aware of and reacting to the further potential impacts of cryptocurrency.
The chief cross-asset strategist at Morgan Stanley, says the recent correction was just an "appetizer, not the main course." Coupled with the Fed"s incitement of panic over inflation, it seems a perfect storm is brewing.
The post Megabank Warns Recent Stock Crash was Only an “Appetizer” to “Main Course” of a Major Crash appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Banks like to pretend that they’re so much more established and secure than the world of cryptocurrencies, but as anybody who pays close attention to the headlines would know…that’s just not the case…
Setting aside all of their rhetoric about embracing the blockchain, banks have mostly avoided or opposed cryptos (Goldman Sachs, sensing the opportunity for profit, is one notable exception), often citing their volatility and the ease with which they can be used to launder money as qualities that disqualify them from being taken seriously (though, as we recently witnessed with the US dollar, perhaps banks need to rework this volatility argument a bit). Even yesterday’s announcement of the first criminal charges against a cryptocurrency trader pales in comparison to the many, many crimes that banks (or even one bank) have settled allegations of. The real answer to why the banks’ dislike cryptocurrencies is probably because they feel threatened. The recent selloff notwithstanding, the rise of cryptocurrencies has continued unabated, despite the efforts of some of the most powerful governments on Earth, while the concept is still very young, it does have potential to shake up the aging fiat system. In order to understand the race between the banks and cryptocurrencies, we developed a visual to see just how “David” is comparing to “Goliath.”
Using data from Yahoo Finance and CoinMarketCap.com, HowMuch.com‘s data team developed a visual that compares the market caps between some of the world’s largest banks and the largest cryptocurrencies. On the left blue column, there are four banks listed from largest to smallest market caps: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Conversely, the right red column features the total cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Stellar. The larger the circle, the bigger the market cap.
Total Crypto Market Exceeds Size Of JPMorgan; Banks Fight Back In Attempt To Slow Growth
After an extraordinarily volatile (even for bitcoin) start to the year, cryptocurrencies are rallying once again, with bitcoin breaking above $10,000. As of Feb. 16, 2018, the crypto market had a market cap of $470 billion – larger than the size of the United States’ largest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
Bitcoin’s market cap alone is comparable to Bank of China’s. The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, is comparable in size to Morgan Stanley. It is stats like these that have the global banking sector worried that cryptocurrencies are on track to make a serious impact on their operations.
One of the most recent efforts to help slow the pace of crypto growth were announcements from several banks saying that customers could no longer purchase digital currency with their credit cards. Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger has called Bitcoin “totally asinine” and Warren Buffet has said he would “buy a five-year put on every cryptocurrency.”
Overall, cryptocurrencies are seeing their size and value top even some of the largest financial institutions in the world. This has caused banks to fight back and attempt to slow their growth. However, even banks clearly don’t know what they really want. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously declared Bitcoin a “fraud”, it is interesting to now see a report published by the investment bank that calls Bitcoin-based ETFs the “holy grail for owners and investors.”
And should the bitcoin ETF become a reality, do you really think banks will turn down those lucrative fees?
What do you think?
By Vin Armani
WATCH livestream at 10am PST (1pm EST) below. This week we welcome Rick Falkvinge to the show to talk about the current state of Bitcoin after the Bitcoin Cash fork.
Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a campaigner for next-generation civil liberties and sensible information policy. In particular, he stresses how the copyright industries work in collusion with Big Brother hawks to erode or eliminate the parts of Internet that guarantee our civil liberties. Rick recently dubbed himself “Bitcoin Cash CEO” and has been an outspoken thought-leader during the tumultuous Bitcoin schism of this last year.
Visit Rick’s blog, subscribe to his YouTube channel, follow him on Twitter.
Live free and succeed outside the rigged system at Counter Markets.
Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show, CTO of CoinText, author of Self Ownership, founder of Bebi Vodka and co-founder Counter Markets. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Available for interviews at email – Vin (at) VinArmani.com.
A revolutionary bill has just passed the Arizona Senate that will officially recognize bitcoin, litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies as money by accepting them as payment for income tax.
The post Crypto Revolution: AZ Senate Passes Bill Officially Recognizing Bitcoin as Money appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous and they are not decentralized, period. This is to say nothing of the dangers they pose as being “pirate money” that can create real world problems for a persons life. If you don’t believe me simply ask Randall Lord, Ross Ulbricht or anyone that has had their “wallet” hacked or stolen on any number of exchanges where cryptocurrencies are bought and sold. Whom can they turn when the wallet is drained of 100% of it’s contents?
I am all for free markets and free market innovations. I have been and will continue to be skeptical of a technology that was introduced to the world by a ghost. A ghost is something that comes out of the ether, has no material being and is not part of this world. Well, that perfectly describes Satoshi Nakamoto. Is it a little suspicious the “bitcoin” white paper was introduced to the world on Halloween 2008 at the very height of the financial meltdown or is it just me that sees this through a lens of skepticism?
Is it a little suspicious the foundation for Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper was actually developed by the NSA and MIT in 1996 and now we learn the all important SHA-256 technology was also developed by the NSA.
The piece of the Bitcoin code created by the NSA is a hash function called SHA-256. SHA stands for Secure Hashing Algorithm. The hash is the expected outcome. An algorithm can be executed on a piece of data, and the output of that algorithm should match the hash. But you can’t figure out what the data was with just the hash. It only works in one direction. And there are enough different combinations that it is virtually impossible for any two pieces of data to create the same hash. Source
The evidence continues to mount that shows these cryptocurrencies are part of a beast system intent on enslaving the masses. The evidence is coming not only from governments and bankers but more importantly from the cryptocurrency experts themselves. The more that I know the more terrifying cryptocurrencies become.
I have been told time and again that I just don’t understand and I just need to research and study how cryptocurrencies work. Well, I have been studying and researching, but I am not interested in what the “charts” are telling me or “how rich I’m going to be” or how cryptocurrencies are going to revolutionize the currency system. No, let’s research what the policy makers are saying and, more importantly, what the policy makers are doing. Well, come to find out, they are saying and doing a lot about a handful of “pirates” attacking their source of power and control. Seems as if no one, with the exception of myself and Ken Schortgen and Chris Duane are actually looking behind the curtain to see what the developers are doing and ask who are these developers. It doesn’t matter what the crypto-crowd says, or doesn’t say, and it doesn’t change the facts.
We have reported what Andreas Antanoppolis stated a couple of years ago when ask the question – “do you have a totalitarian government? because I don’t want to live under that type of government.” Well, Andreas you already do. You just haven’t bothered to look around, earnestly, to see the walls closing in on your life, property and wealth.
It’s no secret that governments around the world are being strangled with unplayable debt. It is no secret the banking system, the too big to fail banks, became insolvent in 2008. These corrupt enterprises need a new “game” to continue the ponzi scheme charade and continue tricking the people into believing that government has all the answers and banks are how you conduct financial transactions. Neither of which is true but the mass of people do not understand this and, therefore, continue to allow these corrupt enterprises to dictate their lives.
Enter a “way out” of the banking system and way around government control – a new currency called cryptocurrency. The magic bean has been discovered! There is just one problem – it’s not magic and it doesn’t work as purported by 99% of the people telling you how great cryptocurrencies are and how freeing cryptocurrency are for the masses.
We recently reported on a debate between Peter Schiff and Peter van Velckenberg. Peter V, is a bitcoin advocate and was debating the virtues of bitcoin with Peter S. Only one problem. Peter V told the truth about bitcoin and spoiled his own party.
Now the non-traceable is the other aspect I wanted to address. We talked about the fundamental innovation as to how this thing (bitcoin) works. It works because there’s a ledger. Not only is that ledger traceable, with perfect fidelity, and there’s only one version of it; not a bunch of records kept by five different international correspondent banks that don’t record beneficial ownership of shell companies that open accounts. There’s one ledger it’s called the blockchain. If you know that someone received a payment at an address on that blockchain you see with perfect fidelity every transaction into and out of that address and this is exactly the type of technological tool that law enforcement has used to apprehend the people that have used these networks for bad purposes. Ross Ulbrecht, the guy that created the Silk Road he was caught with his laptop in front of him. They opened it up, they found the public address where he was receiving payments from the Silk Road drug market and that’s unimpeachable evidence that he benefited from every single atomistic transaction for drugs or heroin that happened on that website. Source
You see Peter V simply explains, in plain english, how perfectly well the blockchain tracks 100% of your transactions and ties 100% of your transactions together with ALL transactions – that’s right, 100% of every transaction, one ever makes! Every time funds come into your account the blockchain ties 100% of the transactions leading up to you receiving those funds back to all those transactions associated with those funds and every time your account sends funds out it tracks all those transactions and ties it back to you regardless of where those funds came from or where they go or how they are used – it is now tied directly to you as well!
Let’s say you receive funds from someone on the blockchain and 47 transactions prior to you receiving those funds someone used some of those funds to commit an act of fraud or embezzlement. The funds in your account are tied directly to that illegal transaction. Not only did you not know anything about the situation you don’t know any of the people involved. Then you send some of those funds out and 138 transactions later someone uses some of the funds in an an illegal drug deal. You are now associated with both acts and it doesn’t matter that you don’t know 99.9% of the people before or after the funds arrived/leave your wallet as you are still associated with those illicit transactions. Pretty cool, aye? This is exactly what Peter V explains above – please re-read what Peter V said and let me know what I missed.
Now, we learn from one of the smartest people in the alternative media space, James Corbett, that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, are not all what we have been told they are. If someone would like to have a battle of wits with Mr. Corbett on this subject you would do well to have all your information gathered properly as I can assure you he has done the deep research and has all the tools necessary to present his side of the debate.
To use cryptocurrencies in the way it was intended or at least in the way some people have intended it for, is a type of “pirate money” is the best way to describe it.
Is it possible, more or less, to use cryptocurrencies sudnonymously (sp?) there is no anonymous use of cryptocurrencies at this point precisely, because as we know, the NSA, GCHQ and other agencies like that do have access to the trunk line of the internet. So it would be rather naive to think that we are able to mask internet traffic and really baffle them with that. But at any rate. Transactions can remain sudnonymous(sp?) and If they are handled the right way they can be done directly, peer to peer, without the influence of third party middle men. Including across international state boundaries and that can enable a new type of market. A cryptocurrency market internationally.
This is where James really digs in and explains the value of bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies in a way that is undeniable. This has been part of my argument as well. Chris Duane has been the most vocal about this aspect of cryptocurrencies as they are nothing more than, literally, blips on a screen.
Right now everyone is focused on what is the price of bitcoin in dollars. Which is precisely the wrong question to be asking if you are looking at this as truly disruptive technology. The real question would be “what can I actually get with these bitcoin” without having to change anything to dollars; without having to buy any bitcoins with dollars. Can I earn bitcoin, can I sell things for bitcoin? OR not bitcoin in particular because there are many, many different cryptocurrencies. But the point would be to try to create a cryptocurrency economy that is not dependent on that interface with fiat currency.
The video below begins at the 13:00 mark where Mr. Corbett over the next five minutes will explain everything one needs to understand about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and the lack of value these digital-illusions bring to the market.
The post James Corbett: “What is The Price of Bitcoin in Dollars – Precisely the Wrong Question” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
(ANTIMEDIA) Switzerland — Cryptocurrencies were a hot topic at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the world’s financial elite essentially split on how to view a technology that’s still less than a decade old.
One market player in attendance, however, George Soros — who, as of December 2017, is worth $8 billion — appeared far more confident in his assessment.
“Cryptocurrency is a misnomer and is a typical bubble, which is always based on some kind of misunderstanding,” the 87-year-old Soros said in a speech in Davos on Thursday.
“Bitcoin is not a currency because a currency is supposed to be a stable store of value and the currency that can fluctuate 25 percent in a day can’t be used for instance to pay wages because wages drop by 25 percent in a day,” Soros said. “It’s a speculation. Based on a misunderstanding.”
On the subject of usability, the business magnate claimed that at the present date, cryptocurrencies are primarily a tool of the criminal element:
“Currently it’s used mostly for tax evasion and for people and the rulers and dictatorships to build a nest egg abroad.”
This sentiment echoes that of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who also spoke on the subject while in Davos.
“In areas like cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, we should be looking at these very seriously,” May said in a television interview with Bloomberg, adding that action on cryptocurrencies may be needed “precisely because of the way they are used, particularly by criminals.”
However, research published earlier this month found only one percent of Bitcoin transactions were actually linked to suspected criminal activity.
Other financial experts, however, appeared less eager to denounce the technology. Speaking at a panel discussion on Thursday, Index Ventures general partner and co-founder Neil Rimer said it’s simply too early to make a judgment call:
“We’re nine years into this experiment. It’s gone well at times and quite poorly. It could fail completely and go to zero, but it has accomplished a number of things I think are remarkable.”
Jennifer Zhu Scott, deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, appeared to agree. She noted that the fact that so many of the world’s financial heavyweights are being forced to address the issue of cryptocurrencies is evidence of the technology’s power:
“The fact that people keep talking today that bitcoin is below 10,000, it’s a disaster, or bitcoin is above 10,000 and that’s crazy. I think the fact that bitcoin is still alive, and attracting so much attention, the fact that we’re talking about bitcoin in Davos with a Nobel Prize winner, a central bank governor and a seasoned investor, I think that’s a powerful tool.”
Robert Shiller, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, was also on the panel.
