31–40 of 431 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is gold issued by governments?
No, and it failed as a currency.
Bitcoin befuddles experts who analyze it from a narrow perspective, because it is not just a new medium of exchange or a new store of value: it is also a new kind of point-of-sale payment system (one that doesn't require payment processors), a new kind of global financial transfer system (one that doesn't require financial institutions), a new kind of time-stamping certification system (one that doesn't require notar…
Edit
since i wrote this bitcoins value has soared, but i still hold that opinion. national governments might tolerate bitcoin as a sandbox playground for now, but once it gets widely adopted and threatens national currencies, they can choose between giving up vast economic and fiscal powers or restricting bitcoin. i see no reason why they should choose the former.
did i convince you? want to get rid of your bitcoins? send me some: 17Dk1cugCynTaNdmQihF7tproJgyKyWiwr :-)
I think Bitcoin's doomed to fail, but not for the reasons the article suggest. There're ample historical counterexamples of currencies that are not tied to a government. Gold is the most obvious example; if currency was inextricably tied to governments, there would not have been a mad rush to colonize the New World (and extract its gold reserves). In prisons cigarettes frequently serve as currency, as a medium of exc…
Also, with gold, there is intrinsic value beyond the monetary - jewelry use, or in these moderns days in electronics. That provides a value floor. Bitcoin doesn't have that.
Bitcoin befuddles experts who analyze it from a narrow perspective, because it is not just a new medium of exchange or a new store of value: it is also a new kind of point-of-sale payment system (one that doesn't require payment processors), a new kind of global financial transfer system (one that doesn't require financial institutions), a new kind of time-stamping certification system (one that doesn't require notar…
Why did the author of that article have a different title when the same article was posted on the Reuters blog? [1] Over there the article headline is: "Bitcoin is a step back not forward" Is that his choice or the editors? [1] http://blogs.reuters.com/edward-hadas/2013/11/27/edward-hada...
>> "The developers of bitcoin are trying to show that money can be successfully privatized."
There is so much bias in this sentence that I don't even know where to start.
First of all, the developers of bitcoin are not necessary trying to show anything, are also not necessary the ones or the only ones. Bitcoin is an experiment, and they say that explicitly everywhere. Second, people encouraging the use of bitcoin are way bigger than what the author seems to imply, It's now an economy worth billions, remember?
>> "sophisticated algorithms guaranteeing the anonymity"
Again, bitcoin does not guarantee anonymity. They say that explicitly here https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity
>> "bitcoin is tiny; at the current exaggerated exchange rate, the total projected volume of “coins” is worth less than the gross domestic product of Mongolia"
_is_ tiny now doesn't give you a clue about it's future size.
"But the monetary philosophy behind this web-based phenomenon can be traced back to one of the oldest theories of money."
Web-based? Seriously?
I honestly stopped reading to do my brain a favor.
The guy was every bit a classical liberal, like nearly all of the US' founding fathers, emancipationists and suffragettes. Classical liberalism is decidedly anti-collectivist and modern conservatives are much more collectivist than individualist: "support our troops", faith-based education, corporations as people. Classical liberal ideology predates the modern conservative and liberal thought that grew from it and you can't just decide to associate him with modern ideology.
I'd even say this article is deliberately deceptive.
Calling BitCoin "privatized" misunderstands its nature. While it's true that there are large players invested, crypto-currencies are protocols, and cannot (reliably) be owned or controlled any more than TCP/IP or HTML. Meanwhile, fiat currency (as we know it) is not merely a tool of state; it is a command-and-control tool of the government-industrial complex, a creation not only of the U.S. tax code, but by massive p…
I think it's good to take a critical look at Bitcoin when the price rises so rapidly, but this article is more like a political hit piece than anything with economic merit.