Posted on 03/06/2014 7:29:24 PM PST by Mad Dawgg
(Reuters) - A Japanese American man thought to be the reclusive multi-millionaire father of Bitcoin emerged from a modest Southern California home and denied involvement with the digital currency before leading reporters on a freeway car chase to the local headquarters of the Associated Press.
Satoshi Nakamoto, a name known to legions of bitcoin traders, practitioners and boosters around the world, appeared to lose his anonymity on Thursday after Newsweek published a story that said he lived in Temple City, California, just east of Los Angeles.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Well, there is a reason for bitcoin, or at least the idea of it, and that is the desire of people to get away from the GOVERNMENT having control over money. There was Egold and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There may be a few more. The idea is having something that is “backed” by more than “the full faith and confidence of the US Government” which is also secure. They have the first part down, whether you are data mining prime numbers, using electronic warehouse receipts for gold or whatever. Egold (and now Bitcoin) have shown that the security part is also going to be troublesome.
Governments HATE this because people can move money quickly, and outside the control of the state, to an area they cannot confiscate. This is why bitcoin rocketed up to over $1,000 just after the seizure of funds by the Eurozone in Cyprus. Same thing with the currency controls now in place in Greece and Italy.
Look for howling screeches about “drug money” and “terrorism” from the usual state mouthpieces (and the idiots here who think themselves “patriots” in repeating the propaganda), but this is really about governments keeping wealth where they can tax and confiscate it, vs the desire of people to get it out of an environment where the government is committed to do that.
And I'm thinking that in a few months they'll be on a penny stock advertisement on TV.
A cyber digit is minted?
I just heard the Bitcoin CEO, a young female, commited suicide a couple of days ago.
In other news, the IMF is already in Crimea, there to help re-build.
Lots of confusion going around re bitcoins.
You definitely have the right idea. But here are a few more details. You don't have to move money anywhere ever since it is already distributed safely worldwide in a hashed chain. If you want to convert to cash and transfer coin to an exchange, then you can have problems. But simply keeping your coins is a snap: keep a secure backup of your private key (e.g. in a USB stick stuck someplace secure). Your coins will be safe in the chain forever.
The backing of bitcoin is proof of work, it takes 10 minutes to get the next coins and that is automatically controlled by the mining algorithms. There can be no glut of new coins since nobody can print them willy nilly. So scarcity is guaranteed.
The second criteria for a currency is spendability. That is guaranteed by the same mining algorithms that produce new coins. Each new coin issue is in a block and the block also contains all the transactions. A coin can not be fraudulently spent (need the private key) nor double spent (the chain is checked for double spending). Since that is all part of the mining, the same computing power devoted to mining is also devoted to transaction security.
Now why in heaven would the MSM disparage an exchange in competition with the money gin preferred by their major stockholders?
There is nothing backing up the value of a bitcoin other than the good faith and credit of the idiots who keep throwing money into it.
United States paper currency is subject to a slow and inevitable decline in value. Bitcoin, on the other hand is subject to an inevitable and instant disintegration. When Bitcoin collapses it will be worth nothing overnight.
It is an entirely ephemeral currency. It does not really exist except in the minds of the fools and suckers who are willing to trade real dollars for nothing more than Hope and Change.
Of interest to me is that the article says the car chase bitcoin engineer was worth 400 million bucks.
Taking him at his claim that he was not the founder of bitcoin but only an engineer involved in it, explain how he gets worth 400 million bucks. No one mentioned any patents, businesses, speech circuits, etc.
400 million....top of the pyramid or near the top.
Those at the bottom have in their possession cyber digits. Can’t eat it, touch it, taste it, see it....can barely explain it.
If I had some of them, I would quietly be trying to dump them.
“Yes. That is/was Mt Gox, leader in Bitcoin promotion and exchange. It’s CEO killed herself yesterday.”
Nope, the suicide was not a Mt. Gox employee, but was involved another BTC exchange in Singapore. It’s not clear what prompted the suicide.
Likewise, Satoshi Nakamoto was not involved with Mt. Gox, a Japanese company. Its CEO was Mark Karpeles.
Meanwhile BTC continues to trade at around $650, roughly where it’s been for a month.
Are you sure about that?
Ask Argentina, Zimbabwe, the Wiemar Republic, Mexico, Russia or those old enough to remember the Great Depression if they believe it is possible for paper fiat money to rapidly collapse.
I have yet to hear a good answer to the question...
If we must have a fiat currency with no intrinsic value, that is back by nothing and it's only value is the faith that people put in it, what reason can you give as to why we should choose the USD over Bitcoin?
I don’t have a lot of faith in our currency given the person who is charged with running our Treasury department and who is spending us into bankruptcy. However the reality is that the US Dollar is the strongest currency on the planet and I get paid every week in US Currency and everywhere I go in the World it is still accepted as legal tender for all debts public and private.
I would not be willing to hold a Bit coin in my computer for any longer than it would take for me to transfer it into another asset, be it goods, services or currency. It could completely crash in a matter of minutes and I could be holding an invisible ephemeral symbol of what used to be somebody’s hard earned money.
Buy the stupid bitcoins. Corner the market on them. I could care less what YOU do with your money. Eventually even Bitcoins need to be turned into dollars and the way things are going, it won’t be long before you won’t even be able to turn them into pennies.
I challenge you to take your entire life savings and buy bitcoins. If you trust them more than the dollar, then put your money where your mouth is.
He went on LA High speed chase didn’t get caught yet OH MAN amateur LOL!
“If we must have a fiat currency with no intrinsic value, that is back by nothing and it’s only value is the faith that people put in it, what reason can you give as to why we should choose the USD over Bitcoin?”
I’ll give you one reason: Currency that is totally electronic is hard to get your mind around for the average person. People worry about the security of something that they don’t understand. Now this?
Both are fiat currencies as you say.
If you are concerned about the future of technology, you can always purchase some insurance.
I think that we were (are?) in the early adoption phase of crypto-currency. It’s been coming for a while now. How many people have a Paypal account for instance? I don’t think any of those people would have a serious problem with using BitCoin. Except for the recent News, I mean.
Personally I’m intrigued by it, and see its potential.
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