Quote from: Phrenico on January 01, 2014, 05:45:11 AM

We'll see what crystallizes over the next few years.

Agreed because the ecosystem (not just Bitcoin, let's include all altcoins) is largely a free market. I am not omniscient enough to predict the myriad of possibilities in a free market. The nature of a free market is that everyone sees best the portions closest to them, and no one sees the new (as contrasted with repeating below) future all with perfect clarity.

I was explaining to you the repeating pattern of result of socialism upthread. Remember debt is always future taxation throughout history.

Quote from: blablahblah on January 01, 2014, 12:59:34 PM

1) Aggregate size of debt is irrelevant.

As I explained in my prior post upthread, distributing free money distorts all the feedback loops that provide the most efficient outcomes. For example, low or 0% down 30 year mortgage loans pull 30 years of demand for homes forward by 30 years, thus distorting the economy. The vested interests capture the public backstop via the government to privatize the profits and socialize the losses. An example of one distortion is that human capital (i.e. lifespans) are wasted because instead of realizing they need to study computer science, biotech, nanotech, or robotics, many people were too "profitably" busy being real estate brokers or financial analysts. As an idiot, you will apparently never understand that.

Even the IMF admits it is coming:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10548104/IMF-paper-warns-of-savings-tax-and-mass-write-offs-as-Wests-debt-hits-200-year-high.html

Perhaps you totally ignored the upthread links I provided from Martin Armstrong. Well eat this humble pie.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/03/roman-empire-sources/

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This is one of the books I hope to have out this year. It is a project of pulling together the various contemporary historians and laying it all out. You can see how I use the ancient sources in the piece I did on Julius Caesar and the Debt Crisis. The monetary system is my own original research and was put together building perhaps the largest collection of ancient coins for the sole purpose of reconstructing the monetary history of the entire world. It cost tens of millions of dollars to produce this single chart. It is the product of my passion. I wanted to see how Rome collapsed was it like a 747 coming in for a landing, or was it what I called a Waterfall Event. To my shock, ~~things~~economic collapses happen much faster than people would ever suspect.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/03/imf-proposed-expropriation-for-europe/

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The IMF proposal to just take 10% of all European deposits would certainly not take place before the EU elections on May 25th. We do show higher volatility and a crazy period in 2014 in the September/October period. That will be the beginning of the crisis period that will not end until about 2020. We are preparing the 2014 Gold Report and the report on the Pension Crisis. There is a tremendous paradox that has the market befuddled. Why are long-term interest rates so low when the norm had been 8% for so long? Why has the financial system not collapsed? The answers will be in this report and the results of our study of both the Supply and Demand will shock many. Sometimes trends evolve right under our nose and we forget to look closely until it is too late.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/01/why-we-should-be-concerned-about-nsa/

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So why should we be concerned? Because this technology will be used for taxation. You do not build a system this comprehensive for 19 guys and a camel. Where is the profit in this?...

What we should be concerned about is the effort to eliminate economic freedom. These people believe they are not the problem it is you. If you paid all your taxes, they could keep the system running and retain power. But the more this system fails, the greater they will use their powers to hunt everything down. This is how Rome fell. Maximinus I declared all wealth belonged to the state. When there were no other enemies to wage war against and bring home more wealth, they began turning against their own people. This is how EVERY empire has died. They self-destruct unleashing deflation at its worst because people begin to hoard money and that reduces the velocity of money. In Rome they kept raising taxes so high, people just walked away from their properties giving rise to the Dark Age and serfdom.

In Japan, each new issue of bronze coins devalued those in circulation making the new coin worth 10 times that of the previous coins in circulation. This practice ended hoarding as people then preferred Chinese coins and eventually the monetary system collapsed as coinage was no longer acceptable for anything. Money began rice. Japan did not issue coins for nearly 600 years. Money became simply food.

It is this turning inward against the people that is the standard operational procedure for an established state, nation, or empire that signals its demise. This is the danger of the NSA. Maximinus I paid spies to report on hidden wealth. We have the NSA.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/02/europes-practice-of-cancelling-currency-the-dirty-little-secret-everyone-overlooks/

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Again, opinions are worthless we all have them. All I can do is qualify events based upon the past. For the American readers, it is important to comprehend a critical point. A US dollar bill from 1861 is still legal tender. That is not the case in Europe not even Britain. This goes to your question about stockpiling euro notes regardless of the codes. Europe routinely CANCELLED currency with each new issue. They demonetize both previous coins and notes. This has been a socialistic trick. This is WHY the US dollar was favored even in Russia, China, and among drug dealers. The dollar haters do not understand this aspect.

The tradition in Europe is always to cancel the previous notes. Old British pound notes are not legal tender. I would recommend old $100 bills while you can still get them. The new ones they can pick up on a scanner going through an airport these days.

So all I can suggest is based upon previous experience. Will they cancel the notes? They can do that. They always cancelled the notes to ensure people PAID TAXES. If you had a bundled of cash you didnt pay taxes on, cancelling the old notes forced capital out of hiding and it was then taxed.