I think this is relevant to my project:
I have great respect for Martin Armstrong's work.
However, when it comes to the topic of Bitcoin, he seem to be a little too pessimistic, saying the government can shut it down anytime it wants.
I wrote him an email asking who he would think the government could do this, but received no reply until today.
Anyone with more info?
He says very little about Bitcoin, but he sees the matter from a pragmatic viewpoint: crypto currencies - that allow hiding the money from the tax man - will be stopped by the government. Government will collude with the Bitcoin foundation or just simply direct them to do it and the protocol will be modified to implement features to enable more efficiently track of the money (but even in its current form BTC is a god given gift for the tax man as by definition everything is in the blockchain and traceable.) The miners will cooperate too. In case the developers and miners don't comply - which is extremely unlikely - measures will be exposed on different levels such as ISP and OS (in the case of proprietary OS like Windows and iOs) to crack down on Bitcoin. (Of course all naive libertarian attempts like Dash and zerocash that try to implement privacy will be cracked down too).
Please note, there is no reason for government to intervene at this moment in time. Bitcoin is minuscule and insignificant terms of market capitalization and volume, used by very few users (the active 1 million users are lot less than a mediocre porn site has) so the government will step in when for some reason it will be actually popular, but at the time the government will act quickly and forcefully.
MA is pessimistic of private money surviving long term, it usually appears during a crisis and withers away or ends up being taxed anyway, there's nothing new under the sun so the saying goes.
He doesn't believe bitcoin will be any different.
"The idea that Bitcoin can circumvent government currencies and taxes I just do not buy. I suspect these people are licking their chops to rush in. That is my only concern. You cannot withdraw $3,000 in cash without them freaking out. They will an underground economy exist? I seriously doubt it."
Agreed on your and trollercoaster's response. And btw, this is why I suggested to Zcash, they hedge their bets and also focus some of their efforts on the
corporate applications of zk-snarks to privacy for public block chains with an optional viewkey for the government. This is absolutely needed by corporations if they are going to use block chain technology to interopt more efficiently. Zcash is sitting on a gold mine technology if they get some clarity into their strategy. I think perhaps they should have hired me. Any way, I am off on other project/work now.
Let me add to both of your points, that the global government is also taking form but not entirely organized yet. For example, the G20 has just recently pledged to share information and work together on tax cheating. It takes a while to get all these 100+ nations to cooperate, but realize the leverage the G20 has over international banking (e.g. they threatened to shut off the Philippines' OFW remittances if the Philippines didn't comply with the wished for the USA such as ending the bank secrecy law in the Philippines) and over the internet trunk lines (undersea) and other geopolitical leverage.
The government will be able to shut down Bitcoin for the reasons AltcoinUK has explained. Bitcoin is becoming centralized and controlled by a few people. For example, the Chinese mining cartel controls 67% of the hashrate and recently did a 51% attack on Bitcoin.
I have pretty much given up on the anarchistic, ideological aspect of crypto currency. I am focused on a smarter "anarchistic" ideology of making crypto currency popular and enabling netizens to express themselves more freely. Ultimately the battle with be political so I am better off to use my technological expertise to enable more popular freedoms in decentralized social networking than to focus on some impossible dream.
I have also recently shown that no decentralized crypto currency can ever exist. Sorry there are lots of uninformed soundbite-mastery "experts" who persistently say otherwise, but they are wrong.
Governments would be pro Bitcoin because everything is being recorded in the blockchain
Correct. That's why Bitcoin is a God given gift to the the government and tax man.
That's why there are conspiracy theories - which I don't subscribe to - that Sathosi is an NSA creation.
Non-sequitor. (plz don't be offended)
If Bitcoin is a God given gift to the government, then it does not logically follow that Satoshi wouldn't be a DEEP STATE (global elite/NSA/CIA) operation.
On the other hand, I don't agree with conspiracy theories that government will make Bitcoin big just to have this centralized place for tax collection i.e. intentionally make Bitcoin very big as some theory advocates it. Government don't have to do that - they implement the electronic FIAT system anyway, in Europe very-very quickly so they don't need Bitcoin, the electronic FIAT system is their central store of information. That's why I said if for some miraculous reason BTC get bigger then the government will step in, but not before.
I years ago figured out why the global elite planted Bitcoin.
It undermines the nation-states, central banks, and existing banking systems. They could not accomplish that in a hidden way if they did it top-down as you claim.
(yet another reason that Zcash should take my advice and make sure they focus also on corporate applications of their technology)
The plan all along has been to discredit the existing nation-state system to move towards a world government system.
On the note of electronic FIAT - and it indicates IMHO how intelligent Armstrong is and he sees the big picture - on the other day he said that yes, all nations will implement the electronic FIAT system, but the US, because the role of US dollars in world economy won't be able to that. Therefore, it will be a very messy situation. Now, that is very interesting. Electronic FIAT will be a big change around the world with its consequence on society and economy. The sheep of Europe - like we are in the UK and all others in the EU - move to electronic FIAT. In the meantime the physical US dollar will be still in place. How that does work, everyone will just buy US $ as Armstrong predicts it (please note he predicts it for mainly different reasons)? But Armstrong also says after 2020 the money flow to Asia. Why would it flow if US dollar still the safe heaven? Indeed a complicated issue.
He also stated the USA has the least chance of cancelling the dollar (not just cash) because the Bible Belt might secede from the USA, but Europe, Japan, etc have done it very often.
What Armstrong is saying is the same as I have long stated, which is that the rest of the world will implode and then blame the strong dollar. It is this contagion of blame that will lead to a new Breton Woods where a global government can be initiated. The point of Bitcoin and the sovereign debt crisis is force the nation-states to their knees to beg for a globalized monetary union.
And btw, this is why I suggested to Zcash, they hedge their bets and also focus some of their efforts on the corporate applications of zk-snarks to privacy for public block chains with an optional viewkey for the government. This is absolutely needed by corporations if they are going to use block chain technology to interopt more efficiently. Zcash is sitting on a gold mine technology if they get some clarity into their strategy. I think perhaps they should have hired me. Any way, I am off on other project/work now.
That was the reason I started to support the Gadgetcoin developers, because they identified businesses need a private implementation of the blockchain, businesses simply can't operate with public blockchains. Such public blockchain exposes all their trading and transaction information to the public, which is simply not an option for business operations (now the GDC devs are unhappy with me because of my IOTA fight, but that is an other matter). I think you are quite right if you see there is a business case and your project can be successful in that area.
I am saddened to hear that the GDC affiliation turned slightly sour because of your questioning the ethics of Iota. I would guess what they would be upset about is being associated with any strife, because it might turn off corporations. I don't think you can do anything about speculation in coins. You have nothing to gain from fighting such a war. Instead be laserbeam focused on investing correctly. And trying to find any serious and capable development that you want to invest in.
One of the problems that GDC and I face is economies-of-scale. We simply don't have enough full-time developers and I am also ill. But I am going to redouble my efforts on both my health treatment and on my resolve to not post in forums and be focused on coding. The key in my mind is reaching a point where others invest in the ecosystem, then economies-of-scale become easy. So I am just trying to devise the clever way to jumpstart to that pole position with the resources I have (i.e. myself and enough cash to support my living expenses for several more months).
Let me add to both of your points, that the global government is also taking form but not entirely organized yet. For example, the G20 has just recently pledged to share information and work together on tax cheating. It takes a while to get all these 100+ nations to cooperate, but realize the leverage the G20 has over international banking (e.g. they threatened to shut off the Philippines' OFW remittances if the Philippines didn't comply with the wished for the USA such as ending the bank secrecy law in the Philippines) and over the internet trunk lines (undersea) and other geopolitical leverage.
It always amaze me how powerless we are when it comes to money, and how quick government and the money lobby can act. You remember, not long time ago the Greeks voted and said no to austerity. The vote was on a Sunday. The following week their prime minister sat down with the Troika and by Friday the prime minister implemented more severe measures that was declined by the voters just a few days before.
I think the Chinese, Europe and all others will implement those money control measures in a heartbeat when they feel the Status Quo needs to be defended.
That is why I want to work on the problem insidiously. The people should taste freedom in the things they do normally on the internet, e.g. social networking. From there, the people are astute at finding all the opportunities and fighting for them. Enable the masses to get what they REALLY want. That is the key.
Very astute.
Btw, Bubble is sort of headed in the right direction, but I am thinking you lack marketing experience. I mean you lack the experience to be able to analyze the difference between an idea and a market (unless your marketing is to speculators and not to an adoption market, in which case I see the cleverness of your approach).
If you want to succeed in adoption markets, you might consider partnering with
someone like me who has that experience. But then again, I am not that interested in partnering. I am more interested in interopting where each developer owns their own project in a mutual ecosystem. I don't like being responsible for someone else's coding/code. I prefer modules and economically separated as well. Finding a well matched partner for co-founding a project is very difficult for me, because I am not socializing in real life with coders. I am far away on an island.