Quote from: rpietila on April 15, 2014, 09:30:36 PM

That the (then-current) powers that be try to stifle innovation is as old as the Earth. And yes, sometimes they succeed. Name one.

Stop dreaming. The current powers of the west haven't even made bitcoin illegal, what they could do in a blink of an eye. They just don't care about bitcoin, because it poses no threat as an competative currency. Because of the same reasons that every merchant needs BitPay, the powers see bitcoin only as a gimmick that acts as a way to transfer USD around.

China and Russia banned bitcoin because most of the bitcoins are owned be westerners, and if the Chinese or Russian people would start pumping bitcoin, then it would mean that money is flowing out from China or Russia and into the pockets of the west. The western powers are pretty happy with bitcoin because of that same reason.

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If any country was truly independent, it would have adopted Bitcoin already, mainly because of the fact that it would make them insanely rich. It is like if Norway was asked, "do you want to have all this oil for free, we can give it to Scotland also?" Of course they take it.

Haha, the only one that would get rich with this move would be you and all the others who own the existing 12,5mil. bitcoins. But that's what this is all about, isn't it. About wealth redistribution. About you and your buddy goat buying more manors and lamborghinis and finding some schmucks who would pay for them Wink

How do you imagine this adoption taking place? A country just exchanging their fiat, together with their national wealth to bitcoin? So that artificial deficit could be created, with driving the price up 1000000000% and with actually only changing about 2% of total bitcoins to the wealth of that country? And so the rest who own the 98% and who didn't sell, will actually be the new owners of that countries national wealth? Tongue

I wonder if you actually believe the things that you are talking about. At first I thought that you are a cunning liar and a manipulator. But after getting to know you a little better, I think that you could actually believe things like "a country would be insanely rich if it would adopt bitcoin!!" Grin

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If you duote prices and wages in something, no matter what, they are stable in that. (Duh.)

USD or anything else does not have price stability either - it can fluctuate against other fiat currencies, gold, commodities, real estate, goods - tens of % per year. In the long term, gold has better served as a provider of price stability. During the gold standard, this was natural (see the comment with "Duh"), but even afterwards, prices denominated in gold have fluctuated less than prices in USD. This is mainly because of the persistent inflation of USD, of course, but that is the only way to keep a fiat system inflated due to the requirement to pay interest to 100% of the money base.

A quality currency keeps it's value relatively stable to the things that are most valueable to everyday life and thats value can be best predicted because of predictable availability and regulations.
The main thing that drives the value of money today are fossil fuels, because these are the most important resources that everything else depends on. Fossil fuels dictate how cheap is production, that in turn dictates the available supply, that in turn decides how rare are goods and how expencive they are to you.
When the currency is strongly tied to fossil fuels, then it keeps relative stability to practicly everything else. Of course some things sometimes get cheaper and more expencive because of different reasons and of course there is no absolute stability. But there is the 1% of change anually, that the better quality fiats can offer, and there is the 10000% change anually, that bitcoin can offer. So, bitcoins fixed coin supply is a joke compared to the regulated flow that is in correlation to the most important resources.

Bitcoin will never be stable, even with growth. Only thing happens is that the players will get bigger. today we have whales that are battling eachother with manipulation, but in the future we would have megacorporations and countries that would battle eachother with manipulation and attempts to screw with eachothers efficency.

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There is mainly one global enemy to the sovereignty of countries, and you are likely employed by that. Of course the country has to realize the prospect of economic warfare, but really everything is better than the current fiat slavery. I would probably use a currency basket method in internal contracts (employment contract wage BTC0.01 + $5 per hour) and many other things. It is quite novel, and therefore interesting.

Haha, if there would be only one global enemy to the sovereignty of countries, then that would be greed. And by the looks of it, you are it's employ a lot more then I am Grin

I don't actually work nor I have ever worked in a financial institution. I just have the talent to pick up things quick and even better talent to distinguish BS from the truth.

I agree that the banking sector is over privileged and over rewarded and it should be fixed. But fixing it with bitcoin would be like curing your minor headache with putting a grenade in your mouth and pulling the pin.
The answer is actually in the hands of the people, who should take better care of electing their public leaders. Because the public leaders have the power to set things right, but as long as people only spend 1minute a year, learning about their electee, then you can be sure that only hypocrytical crooks win the position of power.
People tend to whine about the government, but when you ask them on how much time did they actually spend a year to make sure that better people would be in place, then all of the sudden they'll be quiet.
If this generation lacks of one important virtue, then it would be the lack of responsibility. No one wants to take responsibility for anything and everyone just want to whine and act like they're powerless.

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Sweet talk does not cover the fact that the record of post-1971 USD as a "stable currency" is abysmal and horrific; it has utterly destroyed the nation that in the 1960s was the powerhouse of the world, and now is a shell, producing nothing, and living off of sucking dry the rest of the world. The inhabitants of the USA are impoverished by innumerable means and are now totally indebted by the booms and busts made possible by this irredeemable "stable" dollar. I could go on but let's leave it here.

Actually the dollar was still pretty strong in the 70s. It was in the 80s where the dollar started losing strength, especially with coming of "the rock star" Greenspan.
It's funny how most of the critics of the dollar are actually ultra-liberal who like the ideas of maximum freedom in markets and the private sector in general. While it was exactly that thing that started to weaken the dollar. Greenspan was the type of guy who really wanted for people to like him. He set the rules that dictated low interest rates and low regulations, where the private sector didn't have much responsibility anymore. Take as many risks as you want and do it however you want, and if things won't work out then there will be a bail-out. It's not hard to see why Greenspan was very popular among the private sector and was considered as the man of the people during the height of his reign Grin

His ultra-liberal views presumed, that people are generally decent at heart and wouldn't exploit the freedom that is given to them. It's funny because most of the bitcoin enthusiasts here share the same ultra-liberal world view, while being critics of the Fed at the same time Grin

After Greenspan there came Bernanke and he was just Greenspan vol.2, having no balls or vision to do anything differently.
Most of the regular folks who read a lot of conspiracy theory books, think that those in power are these evil geniuses with complex plans. The joke is that actually most of them are just schmucks with avarage intelligence and who got their power or money through inheritance. The main thing that they work on, is the act that they actually have a clue on what they're doing. And most of them actually like those conspiracy books that make them sound like scary evil geniuses Grin

It's like the same with Freemasons, the biggest secret they have is that actually there is no secret Wink

All smoke and mirrors, so people would stay humble and submissive.

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Why would I ever need to convert it to fiat? Owner of Localbitcoins never has more than $100, all his business and personal finances have been in bitcoins for years. My business is ill-suited for your experiment because I trade between fiat-BTC-gold-silver. But one of my companies seem to never have converted its income to fiat nor used it. (Link in sig)

Haha, if you buy something with bitcoin, from a merchant that uses BitPay, then you are just converting your BTC to USD at bitpay and not in the exchange before. To this date I have only met one store that accepts bitcoin directly, without the support of bitpay.
If you are serious on the question "Why should I need fiat?", then try to do business or even just live your everyday life with only using bitcoin and only with merchants that don't use bitpay. Because bitpay is dependant on fiat, and why would you need fiat, right? Wink

And yes, it could be possible if it would be a really small company, that doesn't have to pay different kinds of bills, pay employees, buy different kind of appliances, send out invoices, make future estimates etc. But even then it would be harder then to use fiat instead.

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I give you the benefit of doubt that you meant it sincerely. Nevertheless, you are wrong. I mean, I see that we are moving to the direction that makes it possible in the coming years, and technology always wins.

I agree with you there. Technology always wins, but that's the same reason why bitcoin won't win. It's just not a good enough technology to be a quality currency. Sure there probably will be transparent open-sourced currencies in the future that can actually be considered as quality currencies. I myself also believe in this idea. But bitcoin itself has too many fundamental flaws for it do be developed into an quality currency.