Quote from: jbreher on September 16, 2014, 07:01:41 PM

Quote from: BurtW on September 16, 2014, 12:27:00 AM

People "in the know" like you and me will accept no substitutes and demand payment in the real thing.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the very founding of the institution of fractional reserve banking was predicated upon lies and chicanery, upon fraud and deceit.

Unlike the scenario where gold depositories violated their core oath to safely store their client's metals -- by loaning these assets out to others -- transacting in Bitcoin IOUs carries no advantage whatsoever from transacting in actual Bitcoins.

In contrast, transacting in depository-issued certificates or notes rather than the metal itself has very real advantages, in terms of the convenience of portability, divisibility, etc. (Ignoring for the moment the very real risk disadvantage)

With Bitcoin IOUs conveying no advantage to the user whatsoever as compared to transacting in actual Bitcoins, knowledgeable people will have no incentive to prefer them. With the very real negative of possible loss of value, people have every incentive not to accept Bitcoin IOUs in lieu of Bitcoins.

With no advantage, and a very real disadvantage, knowledgable people will not accept Bitcoin IOUs in lieu of Bitcoins.

If we can get the populace informed of the attributes of Bitcoin -- and more importantly the attributes of the fiat money system -- we can stave off any embryonic move towards fractional reserve bitcoining before it has a chance to take root.

But people are really, really stupid though and will want it despite any problems. If you substitute the word dollar for the word Bitcoin in your statement how is it different?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the very founding of Bitcoin was predicated upon lies and chicanery, upon fraud and deceit. When I first came to this forum looking at mining Bitcoin many of the pools were ripping people off. I donated the very first Bitcoin to organofcorti when he came up with Neighborhood Pool Watch. Meni Rosenfeld and organofcorti would engage in long debates about the mathematics behind how the pools are cheating people. Bitcoin was only the currency of drug dealers when I first came here and about half of the threads were about SR. Scammers abound in Bitcoinland so much so that outside authorities needed to be brought in to capture the worst offenders.

Just because people have infiltrated a system and used it fraudulently for their own gain doesn't make the system at fault or you would have to blame Bitcoin too. Many people I talk to are having that issue with Bitcoin. They don't want to even let me talk to them about it because of all the problems at the start.