Satoshi Nakamoto is an Aussie!

[r9453]

24,518 Bitcoins for sale by auction:

http://www.afr.com/technology/ernst--young-16-million-bitcoin-auction-20160527-gp53i0

[Fulvio]

24,518 Bitcoins for sale by auction:

Handy if you've got a lazy million or so lying around. Though I wouldn't expect the current prices to hold. I sold at the peak, and bought them back at about $60 less a day later.

Also, I'm really surprised anyone could be dumb enough to have their coins siezed...

"What's your private key?"

"I have no idea. My hard drive crashed and I lost it! Bite me!"

:angel:

[Unicorn]

Also, I'm really surprised anyone could be dumb enough to have their coins siezed...

"What's your private key?"

"I have no idea. My hard drive crashed and I lost it! Bite me!"

[Fulvio]

Well, no, actually, you don't. Nobody can be expected to remember a key made up of seemingly random characters. So if you're clever about how you hide it, it doesn't exist, and never did. OTOH, its like the guy who puts his banknote collection in a shoebox with a big red label that reads "VALUABLE BANKNOTES - DO NOT STEAL!" and leaves it on the doorstep... fools and their money deserve to be separated.

[trout]

If the government thought that Bitcoins were a valid/genuine form of currency I imagine they would simply keep them instead of auctioning them off.
If this was a stash of pounds stirling, US dollars or any other form of currency they seize from time to time they would simply have kept it :ok:

[Fulvio]

If the government thought that Bitcoins were a valid/genuine form of currency I imagine they would simply keep them instead of auctioning them off.

Governments can't afford to legitimise any currency not under government control. Think about it...

You're the President of Troutistan, and you can create money at will. You can choose how much to create, and when. Whatever path you choose, be it high, low or middle, your hand is firmly on the steering wheel, and you can effectively bribe the people who keep you in power at will. Live Long and Prosper.

Now, along comes an alternative that doesn't rely on your say-so to exist. It relies on mathematics, is completely trust-free, and impossible to control. It can move anywhere in the world more or less instantly, knows no borders, and is moderately anonymous. If you acknowledge it as an actual currency, you lose your power base. ALL of your citizens can choose to conduct their trade using that alternative and not your state-issued Troutskis. Worse, YOU have to conduct your trade with it too, because the Troutski will very soon be challenging Zimbabwean Dollars as the most worthless paper on the planet. Your ability to control your own economy has evaporated, and before long you're going to be bouncing along some back road in the back of a manure truck to freedom if you're lucky, and swinging in the breeze if you're not.

However...

Everyone with two brain cells to rub together can concede that a cryptocurrency is superior to fiat on every level. The issue is control, not reliability. Control over its creation, movement, possession and value. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Yes, if you remove the power and control considerations. Cryptos don't need to be manufactured, moved, guarded and so on, so the savings are enormous. Think about the true cost of moving our beloved bits of metal around from hand to hand. All that goes away if you're just dealing with numbers.

So, enter the state-issued crypto. Rest assured, these are coming. The computers which will create them and record their movement won't be owned by you, me and anyone else who wants to play the game. They'll be government computers not subject to any scrutiny. Which of course is a wonderful situation to be in, right? Government computer systems are very much in our best interests... just ask the FBI, NSA, CIA, ASIO, ATO, etc, etc, etc.

Way back when we first started discussing cryptos, I said that they were inevitable, and that we could get used to them sooner or later, but we couldn't ignore them. And you lot laughed. Now, we have everybody and his dog jumping on the private blockchain bandwagon, and we're going to see not the one or two market leaders or even the 600 or so alternatives. We're going to see every single entity running its own private system. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of them, all under tight government controls of course.

And my question is, what happens when they fall over? When the company goes bust or the government shuts down or privatises an entity? When the liquidators flog off the computers, who's going to maintain their beloved private blockchains?

A recipe for disaster, methinks. But one we'll have no say in, and won't be able to avoid. If only we'd collectively seen the light and adopted proper, open cryptos when we had the chance.

[trout]

:laugh2: Here in "Troutistan" the Treasurer Mrs trout insists on the currency from another foreign power (Aust gov) for all commerce and trade conducted here exclusively.
If this currency was to become unviable there is a contingency plan to use various Silver and Gold round pieces of metal to facilitate trade :ok:

[ausjack]

What about your body :blush2:

[Goldseeker]

^^^^^I truly love Trout's response^^^^^^

[trout]

^^^^^I truly love Trout's response^^^^^^

HeHe
I enjoyed typing that

What about your body :blush2:

Not much value left in that Mate

[trout]

In reality we already have a system of currency that has been created out of thin air, is backed only by a promise  and even our coins have little intrinsic value now.
However this has worked rather well since 1910 and I can't see any value in reinventing the wheel with crypto's as these mostly have to be converted back to AUD or another currency to facilitate a trade anyway :ok:
There are many many different ways of storing wealth that are far more secure and viable than crypto's :good:

[Fulvio]

mostly have to be converted back to AUD or another currency to facilitate a trade anyway

And that is exactly what everyone in the crypto community is working to change. The problem right now is that:

a) Prices are tied to fiat, so that with the big spike in BTC's price of about 10% the other day for example, the price was fluctuating minute by minute.

b) There are costs involved in trading. Both negligible fees for the actual transfers, and heftier middlemen fees for the facilitators. Kinda like sending fiat overseas, where the fee can be more than the amount sent.

c) Immediately cashing out hurts the market price and amplifies volatility.

So the answer is to create closed loops, where you buy something for crypto, the vendor pays his suppliers in crypto, who pay the manufacturers, who pay the workers who buy stuff for crypto. You know, just like fiat.

And just for the record, I'm not a huge fan of Bitcoin as the basis for all this. It has far too many technical problems making it a rather poor working currency. That's why I much prefer Dogecoin, but even there, it won't scale to millions of active users, let alone billions. That's still a problem to be solved once there's a critical mass stretching the systems to their limits.

---

So, does The Rt. Hon. Treasurer, Mrs Trout allow you a government stipend, or does your allowance come under the control of the Troutistan Treasury Department? Not to be confused with the Troutistan Taxation Office, as the TTO taketh what the TTD giveth.

[JeffH]

I came across this in my bedtime reading last night;

Money is a construct, an agreement among people. Wealth is what we can actually use: food; shelter; clothes; transport; access to clean air, water and light - these last three increase the rent on an apartment because everyone knows their true value.

David Suzuki, "Naked Ape to Superspecies"

[Fulvio]

I came across this in my bedtime reading last night

I like your taste in reading material. David's a seriously cool dude. Even if he did sort of stuff up on Q&A a couple years ago. :angel:

One of my favourite quotes:

"We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit."

Sounds an awful lot like soon-to-be-ex PM Mal, eh?

[r9453]

I was reading about Blockchain in an article on ABC News. It stated that it (the blockchain) contains a complete record of every transaction ever made (and that it is made public). Is that correct? Would it become rather large and unwieldy, is it published online somewhere?