Quote from: deisik on February 07, 2019, 03:18:40 PM

Quote from: cellard on February 07, 2019, 04:08:34 AM

Quote from: deisik on February 02, 2019, 11:11:52 AM

Indeed, you cannot trust gold for the reasons stated, but I don't think you can trust Bitcoin a lot more than that, either. To be 100% betrayal-proof, you should do everything by yourself. I don't think this is the case with Maduro as otherwise he wouldn't be in a situation like the one he is currently in). So he has to trust someone, and that is where there is not much difference between gold and Bitcoin as the flip side of trust is betrayal, as per definition. When money is involved and big money at that, you can't trust anyone, even your closest relatives like spouses, children, etc

That's why it is so lonely at the top (see Bezos case)

I understand what you mean, but any big infrastructure, like a government, is going to need some delegated tasks, and some backups. If you are the president, or the boss of a big deal with many people involved, you need allies.

The difference between hosting gold reserves overseas in a different jurisdiction vs appointing some high trusted, very select set of people to host Bitcoin backups, I think lowers risk of betrayal by several orders of magnitude.

As I said before, Maduro would have reduced risk to a few people vs trusting an entire overseas jurisdiction, bank and whatnot. There's no such thing as perfect security, it's all about getting the best that you can get.

You are underestimating people's greed

What you say may be true, but this backup you are talking about is not possible without a way to enforce it (i.e. make it actually work as a backup in case such a need should arise), so while trusting an entire overseas jurisdiction with your gold is definitely not the way to go, trusting a few people with your bitcoins doesn't really look like a much better alternative at all unless you can make these people return your bitcoins in some way. The latter basically means you will have some power in the future, but this may not be the case with Maduro in particular and dictators in general

What would you do? If you were running some sort of dictatorship, independent republic, or any other organization which tries to be as neutral as possible, but no matter how neutral you plan to be, there's always going to be allies and enemies due game theory.

Let's say on a long enough timeline an imperialist force like the US tries to invade your borders and you have no options but to fight, or give up, both outcomes end up in your assets stolen.

Of all possible options, what is better but to have Bitcoin as your reserve asset and have overseas backups? with a scheme of choice to try to end up with a successful outcome. You have many options like seeds, timelocks, or just good ol trust for someone to carry your wallet. What other asset gives you options?

Like I said, it's about having options, nothing is perfect. Bitcoin is the closest to perfect there is.