Quote from: Asrael999 on July 02, 2013, 11:15:22 AM

Quote from: Morbid on July 02, 2013, 10:56:26 AM

i have a good feeling that most of western countries backed by gold keeping wealthy elite families will end up making cryptocurrencies illegal. just like torrent network is being attacked now. in uk in the past year most of torrent hosted websites have been blocked. but i assume that they will shoot themselves in the foot as rest of the world will continue to develop in growth by using cryptocurrencies and drifting away from dollar/euro/pound. at that point wars might start just to restore the use of banking systems there and making cryptocurrencies illegal worldwide. we can speculate all day here - lets wait and see. im very interested to follow the world development after people taken control of their wealth.

The gold standard no longer exists, no western country has it's currency or economy backed by gold any longer. Both the USD and GBP are backed by confidence - confidence in the system, confidence in the ability to use a USD or a GBP to buy a good. As confidence erodes , the value erodes. To restore confidence the Fed and Bank of England (and now the Bank of Japan) have embarked on money printing exercises which have the impact of providing "free" money which is then used to buy assets that post a return. This has reinforced confidence but has had the impact of creating new asset bubbles. If those asset bubbles unwind sharply then once again confidence in the system will be questioned.

I think that there has been a shift towards gold as a better deposit of value than Fiat currencies in the last decade, SPECIALLY since the 2008 financial collapse! Countries that are not understanding this trend would be seriously affected afte the upcoming collapse. China, Russia, Brasil, Venezuela and India have all been very busy buying gold... The UK however sold on cheap in 2006 (thanks to Gordon Brown [link]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/thomaspascoe/100018367/revealed-why-gordon-brown-sold-britains-gold-at-a-knock-down-price/[link/]) :: On the other hand, due to uncertainty and due to a weak euro-pound-dollar combination, Germany asked for the repatriation of 26% of their gold thats deposited at the Federal Reserve in the US!! As another element in this answer, In 2012 all central banks together bought more gold than in the previous 50 years!!! ::: [link]http://www.cnbc.com/id/100458951[/link]...

Even though is true that the Bretton Woods accord changed the balance of international economy to center around the dollar (which means, value backed upon the Use of Force) its also important to note that there seems to be a return to gold as an agreed and solid source of value that its not vulnerable to the money-printing caprice of Ben Bernanke and George Osbourne (+the company of most G8 countries)...

This is another place where Bictoin appears as an unexpected lifesaver for the modern Homo-Sapiens adventure. A de-centralised source of value seems to be an essential element that needs to be put in place for a truly sustainable future.