Terrific book: The Man Who Stole Portugal by Murray Bloom. Tells the details and how he did it. Fun read!
The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#22Awesome story! And all this before 28… Though not a contender for “greatest counterfeiter”, there is also William Chaloner (1650–1699), who had a similar idea (“the safest place from which to pass his money was the Mint itself”), and did battle with Sir Isaac Newton. There's a great book about this called Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson;…
So where would Satoshi Nakamoto sit in the scheme of things considering the total value of crypto currency?
Inventing a financial system that is voluntarily adopted internationally is not counterfeiting. In fact, Satoshi invented the first currency impossible to counterfeit (barring 51% attack).
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#23Awesome story! And all this before 28… Though not a contender for “greatest counterfeiter”, there is also William Chaloner (1650–1699), who had a similar idea (“the safest place from which to pass his money was the Mint itself”), and did battle with Sir Isaac Newton. There's a great book about this called Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson;…
So where would Satoshi Nakamoto sit in the scheme of things considering the total value of crypto currency?
Presumably a "-$1" with many zeroes behind it.
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
So where would Satoshi Nakamoto sit in the scheme of things considering the total value of crypto currency?
Inventing a financial system that is voluntarily adopted internationally is not counterfeiting. In fact, Satoshi invented the first currency impossible to counterfeit (barring 51% attack).
Anything man made can be counterfeited, and ultimately the threat of violence is what deters those that have the resources to counterfeit.
The philosophy of Injin, The Man, The Legend
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#25The Israeli one shekel coin was counterfeited so much that it was more common than the real coin. When they caught the counterfeiter, he was let off on a technicality (his coins were not an exact copy - they were missing a dot, and they were not magnetic while the real coin was), but the coins were so common they were accepted as legal tender. (At the time people said that the counterfeiter was fined so much he had t…
Coins are a weird one because I don’t think any of the ones in common circulation are worth significantly more than melt value.
Yeah, but then look at all the oddities that occurred when they were made of precious metals, and the resulting economic impacts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement
https://www.goldavenue.com/en/blog/newsletter-precious-metal...
https://page-one.springer.com/pdf/preview/10.1057/9780230118...
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#26My favorite story is that of Jose Beraha Zdravko. He counterfeited the British gold sovereign, and his genius was putting more gold in them than the originals. His "Beraha Sovereigns" fetched a higher price than the official sovereign, more than the value of the extra gold.
Tired of this humiliation, the British tried him for counterfeiting. He countered that only legal tender could be counterfeited, and sovereigns were no longer legal tender. He won the case.
"Money of their Own" by Murray Teigh Bloom
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#27Awesome story! And all this before 28… Though not a contender for “greatest counterfeiter”, there is also William Chaloner (1650–1699), who had a similar idea (“the safest place from which to pass his money was the Mint itself”), and did battle with Sir Isaac Newton. There's a great book about this called Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson;…
Related ongoing thread:
Don’t mess with a genius (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37501231 - Sept 2023 (49 comments)
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#28"How much money did they print? 100 million escudos, which at the time was 0.88% of Portugal’s GDP. Today, it would be worth 150 billion dollars." No it wouldn't. Probably an off by factor of 1000 error.
I had the same thought: .88% of today's Portugal GDP is only 2 billion USD.
But in retrospect, it looks like the comparison is being done to the US economy, given the readership. 150 billion USD is approximately .8% of US GDP. Should have been better explained, I agree.
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#29"How much money did they print? 100 million escudos, which at the time was 0.88% of Portugal’s GDP. Today, it would be worth 150 billion dollars." No it wouldn't. Probably an off by factor of 1000 error.
I had the same thought: .88% of today's Portugal GDP is only 2 billion USD. But in retrospect, it looks like the comparison is being done to the US economy, given the readership. 150 billion USD is approximately .8% of US GDP. Should have been better explained, I agree.
I can accept 150 billion without any suspicion. Portugal just needed to have 75 times greater influence/more value back then in the known economy, than today. Sounds about right.
Re: The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
#30Awesome story! And all this before 28… Though not a contender for “greatest counterfeiter”, there is also William Chaloner (1650–1699), who had a similar idea (“the safest place from which to pass his money was the Mint itself”), and did battle with Sir Isaac Newton. There's a great book about this called Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson;…
wow fantastic read, as good if not better then the main story(because it's bloody Isaac Newton doing this!! ) I'm surprised there's not a movie out based on this story
I would watch the heck out of this Netflix series. Way better than Sherlock Holmes.