Blockchain technology

[Wu Wei Wu]

I use and work with Blockchain and Blockchain related technology.

And yes, we are collectively eviscerating the modern banking apparatus.

But that doesn't mean it's going to put power in the hands of the people. There's a lot of ways it could turn out at this point. And there's lots of new coins and services coming out. Sia, a new cryptocurrency, is like a massive decentralized dropbox. NXT aims to be the future of money. Ether wants to be skynet, a kind of massive, global, decentralized computer.

What's the potential? So much. It goes beyond currency and business applications alone. With Blockchain we can make digital identities that remain 100% private, though these technologies are still in development.

But yeah. If anyone's curious about Blockchain stuff, I'd be happy to answer. The future is open. There's no telling how it will turn out yet.

 

[latulipenoire]

I use and work with Blockchain and Blockchain related technology.

And yes, we are collectively eviscerating the modern banking apparatus.

But that doesn't mean it's going to put power in the hands of the people. There's a lot of ways it could turn out at this point. And there's lots of new coins and services coming out. Sia, a new cryptocurrency, is like a massive decentralized dropbox. NXT aims to be the future of money. Ether wants to be skynet, a kind of massive, global, decentralized computer.

What's the potential? So much. It goes beyond currency and business applications alone. With Blockchain we can make digital identities that remain 100% private, though these technologies are still in development.

But yeah. If anyone's curious about Blockchain stuff, I'd be happy to answer. The future is open. There's no telling how it will turn out yet.

Thank you Starshine and Wu Wei Wu for introducing the topic of this technology. It's interesting, I work at a bank and never heard of it! While reading the articles posted by Starshine, I was wondering if this technology could be used to really help people and descentralize things, until I caught my wishful thinking in the act and started to read the major banks and companies are already investing their money on this, probably with not the best intentions at heart. So, I'd like to ask if you think that this could be a revolution in the making? I'm reminded of this excerpt from Bringers of the Dawn:

Some new inventions are going to surface in the nineties very underground inventions, because they will never be given patents to be promoted in the marketplace. There will be a whole underground economy based upon barter, in which certain inventions will be traded between people. There will be technologies that can counteract much of the frequency control: these technologies can change the quality of your air and water, and they can eliminate and seal off your home so that you are an integral of energy and nothing can bombard you. There are technologies that do phenomenal things. Do you understand how technology has been used against you? It has not been used for you. Television is not necessarily bad in itself, but it has been put to ill purpose. There is nothing wrong with technology. It is how technology is being used that is the bottom line. That is the difference.

(from http://www.universe-people.com/english/svetelna_knihovna/htm/en/en_kniha_bringers_of_the_dawn.htm)

Unconsciously, whenever I hear about some new developments in industry or in the IT field, I remember this. I always try to bring to mind, however, that we're in a STS domain and that if we're reading about it, the systems of control are already in place and the damage control is done.

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

Hello Latulipenoire, you're right to be cautious. Blockchain technology still isn't widely understood. I would not call this technology revolutionary per say, though it could easily contribute to that effect.

On the decentralization note, yes, most blockchains are decentralized by default. They don't run on one computer, they run on countless computers spread across the world.

But how things are run, and to what end, really depends on which blockchain we're talking about. At this stage, there are hundreds, though a few dominate the scene. Some are based on pure greed, while others were made altruistically. It's a diverse community of very bright people.

As to the big bank investment, that's not a threat to the community, but an opportunity. The banks don't have the ability to produce these technologies. In 2012, 2013, and 2014 they dragged their feet, and the Blockchain evangelists left the banks to form their own businesses and organizations. Large companies like Microsoft, IBM, and the various banks have been forced to work with these groups, instead of hiring them outright. Freedom is a key principle for these people.

This is a unique advantage. Because the technology remains so rare and misunderstood, the big organizations can't simply muscle their way into the business. The blockchain developer teams retain a lot of control, and can influence what the technology is used to create. And many have altruistic aims.

So I'll affirm again, is this a revolution in the making? No. Can/will it contribute to dramatic chances in human interaction? Absolutely. Blockchains strip power from large, centralized entities and put them in the hands of ultra lean, decentralized organizations, often run by the average participants (like how miners in Bitcoin have tremendous influence). Decentralized messaging, currency trading, and much more is already available. Decentralized and anonymous money exists in Monero and DASH. Decentralized and encrypted identities, that confirm you're a real person without giving away your information, are in development.

Generally, the future is bright for blockchain, but we'll see how things play out. One problem is that it's the nature of small startups to become the giant businesses themselves and perpetuate the madness of their predecessors. We'll see.

 

[T.C.]

There was a sort radio show on this topic, too: https://youtu.be/NKrpYdtnfSQ

 

[100c]

As to the big bank investment, that's not a threat to the community, but an opportunity. The banks don't have the ability to produce these technologies. In 2012, 2013, and 2014 they dragged their feet, and the Blockchain evangelists left the banks to form their own businesses and organizations. Large companies like Microsoft, IBM, and the various banks have been forced to work with these groups, instead of hiring them outright. Freedom is a key principle for these people.

I've been watching the progress of blockchain technology and wondering how the banks were going to participate or react. Their power is derived from the ability to create money and loan it with interest. Blockchain technology, if widely utilized, will compete with their bottom line so I don't see them happy about the situation, but rather their focus will most likely be how to subvert it.

Since all monetary systems are based on trust, all that is needed is to break that trust. I've got several theories about how they are going to do this which I won’t divulge here. Therefore, I look at any investment by a banking institution as suspect. I am watching the development kind of like how I watch movies, attempting to predict the outcome. Of course, I'm hoping it does exactly what many people want it to do, take away their power.

The other alternative for the financial institutions is to use the technology to create a system like the one already in use, one where they can create new cryptocurrency units and loan them at interest. This alternative might actually be preferred due to the transaction cost savings. Also, the public is already accustomed to this system and so would embrace it, especially those others who profit from a debt-based system. At this time, blockchain is supposed to protect users from the creation of more currency units by other users, but I can easily imagine a system where creating new units is allowed for “some”, and of course, canceled once they are paid back. Could the big banks develop something so complicated that no one will be able to detect the fraud? Or, invest in such a system? And then, when someone does detects the fraud, there goes the public trust!

 

[Carl]

I propose that we change the name of this thread to 'Cryptocurrencies', or even 'Blockchain technology', and get some more discussion if anyone is interested.

See this very pertinent quote from the C's, from session 25th November 1995.

Q: (L) Well, that is all fine and good except for one fact that I have been observing lately, and that is that prices continue to go up, and wages for the average person do not. I watch prices, and they have been jumping in a very erratic and frightening way. I know for a fact that people simply cannot afford to live. A large segment of the population cannot, that is.

A: Nobody who obeys the "rules" can afford to "live," but if you refuse to play the game as you are told to, you will do quite well, indeed.

Q: (L) Okay. What do you mean by not playing by the rules? What rules?

A: The best way for us to answer that is for you to think out loud, and wait for our responses.

Q: (S) Rule one would be working at a regular job, 9 to 5, or 40 hours, whichever, and saving all your money and putting it in the bank.

A: Wait, one at a time.

Q: (L) Okay. The first one is that you have to have a "regular job."

A: "Trap" number one!

Q: (S) Rule number two is that you have to save your money.

A: You save your money by multiplying it, not storing it.

Q: (L) Are you saying that putting it in a bank is "storing" it?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Are you saying that money is only "saved" if it is multiplied?

A: Yes. When you store it in the bank, you are helping the Brotherhood AKA Illuminati AKA Antichrist multiply it for itself, all you get is the "crumbs" left over. And, the Antichrist can "call it in" anytime it wants to!

Q: (L) One of the most popular ways to make money by investing is in the stock market. But, it seems to me that the stock market is also part of the Antichrist system and investing there would also amount to only getting "crumbs."

A: Yes and no. Not all stocks traded publicly are under direct control of the Illuminati.

Q: (L) Are you suggesting the stock market as a means of multiplying money?

A: We are not suggesting anything specific, we are just laying the groundwork. With the general clues we give you, you will figure out the details yourselves, which is tantamount to learning, which is how you progress as souls.

Q: (L) You said we should multiply our money and that storing it is not making it work for you....

A: If you notice, all successful business people do this. They multiply their money, expand their horizons, continuously. They multiply their money by multiplying their output, thus their intake likewise. And the process is never ending, because they understand instinctively that it is part of a cycle. For the intake to continue, it must not be only retained, but must increase in order to keep pace with the ever spiraling cycle of increase and expansion. And, for this to happen, the output must be expanded accordingly. When it stops, it collapses. And this is how the Illuminati AKA The Brotherhood AKA The Antichrist creates a "Panic," by stemming the flow, even only slightly, and then broadcasting the created impression aggressively.

This is huge, and absolutely correct as we now know.

I am posting this because:

1) Some cryptocurrencies look like very promising stores of value now, despite volatility, and are in many ways better than bank accounts. The Chinese are already all over this, using primarily Bitcoin as a safe haven for wealth.
2) For other smaller cryptocurrencies, I see a bubble forming on the horizon which would provide a very strong (albeit risky) investment opportunity.

As a brief rundown on the state of affairs currently: Bitcoin has become bloated and much less usable than it was in 2013 in its initial bubble. The transaction fees are becoming increasingly high due to more traffic on the network, the transactions-per-second that the network can handle are woeful, confirmation times of payments can take anywhere between 1 minute and 1 week depending on fees used. Multiple scaling solutions have been proposed, but there is a huge amount of division and politics. In short, bitcoin has been stuck for 2 years, it's problems having no end in sight. Despite this, money continues to flow in, because it was the first, most well know, and still has a lot of usefulness beyond a bank.

For reference, here is a chart of the Bitcoin (BTC) - US Dollar price since the beginning of 2016. Despite fluctuations, the long term trend is up. Most various significant rises and falls in the chart are due to news or rumours from the Chinese government regarding capital flight controls and BTC regulations.





The most recent sharp rise and fall was due to a decision by the US securities exchange commission regarding a financial trading instrument for BTC (which would have opened it up to the wider public). The rise was due to hype, the fall due to a negative decision, after which the market recovered again. Any further fall will probably have something to do with bitcoin's lack of scaling solution, but we can see that it has recovered well from negative news in the past.

It is my opinion that the fundamentals (tech, community, progression) behind bitcoin is looking shaky, but it just seems to defy gravity and has become something of a 'digital gold', meaning a storage of wealth which (ideally) appreciates in value but has very little use in every day transactions.

Enter Ethereum (and 705 other cryptocurrencies and 70+ projects, at the time of writing).

A brief visit to https://coinmarketcap.com/ will show you the scale of the cryptocurrency market today. There are a vast number of alternative cryptocoins. Most of them are junk. Their price is often inflated and crashed in 'pump and dump' schemes, as this market is entirely unregulated and low enough in volume for this to work.

However there are a number of promising projects here which not only provide an alternative to BTC, but fix all of its problems and offer a whole lot more. Some of them have seen very good growth, both in money and in development, and now have a high enough market capitalisation to be considered slightly more safe investments.

The projects use cryptocurrency tokens as a key part of their operations, but many are more than just cryptocurrencies. In projects where the goal is not just to be a currency (Ethereum, STORJ, SIA, Golem, Augur, etc.) the value of the token used comes from its usefulness to the project. This is also how one invests in the project. By holding a stake in the token, you hold a stake in the network growing and using that token. In a 'pure' cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, DASH, Monero, Litecoin, PIVX etc.) the value of the token/currency is driven by its mass adoption.

Ethereum:
Ethereum is not actually a cryptocurrency the same as Bitcoin, but it uses and is 'powered' by a Token (ETH), which is also cryptocurrency in its own right. It uses a blockchain just like bitcoin. From the website:

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.

These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property. This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middle man or counterparty risk.

The project was bootstraped via an ether pre-sale during August 2014 by fans all around the world. It is developed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit, with contributions from great minds across the globe.

The simplest way to explain it would be that it is a world-wide computer made up of many computers or nodes, which removes the need for middlemen.

From a reddit post:

Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and said "Remember when your phone was just a phone? Well now your phone is a platform that can run any number of applications including a 'phone' app that emulates the old behavior."? Well, Ethereum did that to Bitcoin. Ethereum allows the possibility of rewriting many applications that you know and love in a decentralized way that doesn't require any middlemen, not just currency like Bitcoin. Imagine Facebook without the company in the middle, just peer to peer social networking. HTTP is hyper centralizing as it requires a central server to coordinate everything. Those central servers are always owned and operated by a middleman (Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, Youtube, etc). Imagine client software talking directly to other clients in a peer to peer fashion, without the need of any intervening servers.

There is a lot more to cover that is outside the scope of this post. Suffice it to say that, although it is very early days, this is very promising. It is what is built on top of the Ethereum platform is what actually gives it value, and there is a whole lot in the pipeline right now. Applications need the ETH token to perform, which is what gives the token value as an investment. The stronger and bigger the network becomes, the more demand for ETH and the more value.

Further:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/what-is-ethereum/

Other than ETH, there are plenty of projects which are promising and interesting. Some listed here.

Golem (GNT): Decentralised supercomputer where participants can rent out their computing power (paid for using GNT token). Use cases include rendering CGI, data analysis, scientific research, cryptocurrency mining, and deep machine learning/AI. They have not even brought out an actual version yet, but if it succeeds (especially the AI aspect), it will be massive.

GameCredits: This is a specific payment method for online videogaming. It is small but is already being used, with small gaming companies on board and strong fundamental tech behind it. The video game industry is absolutely massive, set to grow 5% annually, increasingly entirely online, and increasingly employing 'micropayment' solutions. The payment method/cryptocurrency token used is GAME.

SIA: Decentralised cloud storage solution. The blockchain distributes and stores files across the network. Similar to how bitcoin wallets work, but in this case your 'wallet' is stored data. Comparable to Amazon S3. Aims to provide cheaper more secure services than current solutions out there. Tokens (SIA) used in payment for storage services, which gives their value. Still in early release.

STORJ: Direct competitor to SIA, currently moving over to the Ethereum network.

https://themerkle.com/maidsafe-vs-sia-vs-storj/

Decentralized Credit (DECRED): Very early stage right now. Offers many technical improvements over bitcoin with an interesting structure, using Proof-of-stake and proof-of-work for blockchain operations/rewards.
https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/118/whats-the-difference-between-proof-of-stake-and-proof-of-work


DASH: Pure Cryptocurrency, fixes most of bitcoin's current problems and has decent marketing. It is however centralised.

FACTCOM: Decentralized modern blockchain/application platform that focuses on being very cheap to use and scalable. Token: FACT. Very good marketing, branding, company image, naming of products along with strong technicals.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, or a list of projects guaranteed to succeed. The industry is in its infancy still, with a lot of promises and not a whole lot delivered yet.

On investment generally:

This chart shows the global Cryptocurrency market capitalisation for the past 4 years, beginning with the astronomic rise of the bitcoin millionaires, followed by a 2 year cooling off period, followed by a third wave expansion to beyond all time highs.



Now there is some debate as to whether we are in a bubble yet. People within the crypto community - and other early investors - certainly seem to be in a bubble mindset. Projects are crowdfunded for millions of dollars before they have written a single line of code, there are pump&dump schemes and scam projects. On the other hand, most people over the entire planet have never even heard of cryptocurrencies (other than a passing mention of bitcoin), 'serious' financial institutions/investors have not been taking it very seriously, and the combined market cap is still actually quite tiny (nearly touching on $30Bn this month).

Here is a chart of the late 90's dotcom bubble for comparison. Note the combined market capitalisation was in the $trillions.

2 Scenarios could possibly play out from here:

1) This crypto boom is actually just like the dotcom bubble in microcosm. Even in this case, the peak has yet to be reached, and those projects with the strongest fundamentals will be the ones to survive, while the junk gets washed away in any crash. Exactly which projects those are yet is uncertain, but Ethereum looks to be one of them by all indications.

2) We are not yet anywhere near in a bubble. In fact, the party is just getting started. This is the beginning of a new Web 3.0 revolution driven by distributed, decentralised computing, block-chain technology, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies. In which case, there is a lot of potential for money to multiply.

This is not just bitcoin vs. the banks anymore. In fact the banks seem to be getting on board with it more and more, with one project (Ripple/XRP) specifically aimed at banks. Large companies are also getting on board with Ethereum: http://entethalliance.org/

In short, crypto is well worth taking a second look at.

P.S. Any form of fiat collapse could see massive amounts flow into the crypto sphere.

 

[cazamara]

Thank you Carl for your post, it helped me better understand the concept of cryptocurrency. I searched the forum hoping to find the thread regarding this topic and was happy when I found it.

The first time I ever heard about Bitcoin, never though about any other cryptocurrency, was on the SOTT radio show. I don't remember when, but surely long time ago and Jason was one trying to explain. He spoke favorably about the concept, but at that time it was too foreign to me and I was not able to understand. the next time I was listening about Bitcoin was probably the beginning of last year from Cliff High, the guy I heard about from one of the C's session. One of the questions Laura asked C's was if Cliff High was on to something and they replied with something like'You bet!'. I am not able to find that session and therefore cannot quote their exact words. This cough my attention and I checked him out on Internet. He does what is called "predictive linguistic"; there are many interviews with him posted on YouTube and here is one about most recent events occurring in politics, economics, and much more...

Cliff High-2017 Predictions on Everything

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HVAI07f-5M0

Nevertheless, the first one I listened last year was one he posted talking about the man called Harold W. Percival and the book he wrote: "Thinking and Destiny". I also listened him talking about Bitcoin, but it was something I was still simply ignoring and this book was much more interesting to me. Anyhow, this is a different topic and belongs to different thread.

It's being only past few years that I've had a possibility of saving some money. Having always in my mind to ultimately use it for the purchase of my own home, but because I very much dislike the stock market and have much more trust in tangible wealth, I thought I had no other option but try to save as much as I could. I've reached the point where I realize it's the time to act and not just hoard...

And here comes my problem!!! With everything that is going on in this world and the vast information available on Internet it became so hard for me to make the right decision.

Thank you Carl for the quote from C's, from session November 25 1995:

"A: You save your money by multiplying it, not storing it."

It came to me just in right time this is what I've been thinking lately and have finally decided to learn more about Bitcoin. I remembered listening Cliff High talking about Bitcoin and I searched for his most recent interviews on this topic:

Web Bot:Bitcoin at $13,000 USD by February/March 2018

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p83I_5qYHOk

Silver and Bitcoin Expert Cliff High Warns: WE STAND AT THE CUSP!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKtpLgqUkA4

It is interesting that Cliff High started running his emotional analysis system for the stock market back around 1995/'97. While he was trying to get the emotional response of retail investors and get ahead of them on stock purchases thinking of making his living on it, in the process of growing the system around 2005 he started getting hints that soon to emerge invention component that would be analogous of the emotional impact on the social order in general and he was on the look out for it. When the Bitcoin appeared it slowly became a new form of communication and his data was showing that people actually did desire this, which they would certainly need in the future. There was an emotional link that tied it to silver even at the earliest stage of it's existence (2009/'10) when it had a very little monetary value. Among other things, he is talking about it in the interview below (minute: 7:20-14:15)

China Gov Promoting Bitcoin! Coming Silver Shortage - Cliff High's Web Bot Revelations

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VIp-6NcXZC4

It looks to me that all of this has something to do with C's remarks in mentioned session November 25 1995:

"A: Not all stocks traded publicly are under direct control of illuminati."

The way I understand it at this stage is yes, even if it's unavoidably controlled by illuminati in one way or another, some of the cryptocurrencies are not under DIRECT control. And the reason why that might be possible, Cliff is suggesting, is because of an emotional response of the social order in general which created an emotional link that ties it directly to an actual tangible wealth - first silver and now even gold. It's moving towards gold in terms of it's emotional equivalency within the broader understanding of the social order. As more and more people see in it tangible value it creates an emotional link that ties it, at this very moment, to gold.

Listening what he is saying gives you some tiny hope for the future, but then remembering the last session with C's on May 13:

"A: US wishes to destabilize EU similar to Syria so that they can come in and "fix" things. i.e. rule and control resources and trade the "American way". Everyone will speak English!

Q: [laughter] (Pierre) They sure have a sense of humor, but I'm not sure that will be the only consequence..

(L) So basically, some kind of cabal in the deep state of the US is at the bottom of some kind of One World Order plan to really basically bit by bit take the entire planet under its control. Is that it either overtly or covertly?

A: Covertly at present, but overtly eventually.

Q: (Joe) That's been the goal for along time."

I am just thinking, they didn't say Everyone MAY Speak English; they said: "Everyone WILL speak English". Have we arrived to the point when it is certain and there is no possibility for a different outcome? It's frightening!

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

 

[cazamara]

I propose that we change the name of this thread to 'Cryptocurrencies', or even 'Blockchain technology', and get some more discussion if anyone is interested.

See this very pertinent quote from the C's, from session 25th November 1995.

I apologize for repeating my post, but am not really good at inserting the quotes. This was meant to be reply to Carl's post.


Thank you Carl for your post, it helped me better understand the concept of cryptocurrency. I searched the forum hoping to find the thread regarding this topic and was happy when I found it.

The first time I ever heard about Bitcoin, never though about any other cryptocurrency, was on the SOTT radio show. I don't remember when, but surely long time ago and Jason was one trying to explain. He spoke favorably about the concept, but at that time it was too foreign to me and I was not able to understand. the next time I was listening about Bitcoin was probably the beginning of last year from Cliff High, the guy I heard about from one of the C's session. One of the questions Laura asked C's was if Cliff High was on to something and they replied with something like'You bet!'. I am not able to find that session and therefore cannot quote their exact words. This cough my attention and I checked him out on Internet. He does what is called "predictive linguistic"; there are many interviews with him posted on YouTube and here is one about most recent events occurring in politics, economics, and much more...

Cliff High-2017 Predictions on Everything

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HVAI07f-5M0

Nevertheless, the first one I listened last year was one he posted talking about the man called Harold W. Percival and the book he wrote: "Thinking and Destiny". I also listened him talking about Bitcoin, but it was something I was still simply ignoring and this book was much more interesting to me. Anyhow, this is a different topic and belongs to different thread.

It's being only past few years that I've had a possibility of saving some money. Having always in my mind to ultimately use it for the purchase of my own home, but because I very much dislike the stock market and have much more trust in tangible wealth, I thought I had no other option but try to save as much as I could. I've reached the point where I realize it's the time to act and not just hoard...

And here comes my problem!!! With everything that is going on in this world and the vast information available on Internet it became so hard for me to make the right decision.

Thank you Carl for the quote from C's, from session November 25 1995:

"A: You save your money by multiplying it, not storing it."

It came to me just in right time this is what I've been thinking lately and have finally decided to learn more about Bitcoin. I remembered listening Cliff High talking about Bitcoin and I searched for his most recent interviews on this topic:

Web Bot:Bitcoin at $13,000 USD by February/March 2018

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p83I_5qYHOk

Silver and Bitcoin Expert Cliff High Warns: WE STAND AT THE CUSP!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKtpLgqUkA4

It is interesting that Cliff High started running his emotional analysis system for the stock market back around 1995/'97. While he was trying to get the emotional response of retail investors and get ahead of them on stock purchases thinking of making his living on it, in the process of growing the system around 2005 he started getting hints that soon to emerge invention component that would be analogous of the emotional impact on the social order in general and he was on the look out for it. When the Bitcoin appeared it slowly became a new form of communication and his data was showing that people actually did desire this, which they would certainly need in the future. There was an emotional link that tied it to silver even at the earliest stage of it's existence (2009/'10) when it had a very little monetary value. Among other things, he is talking about it in the interview below (minute: 7:20-14:15)

China Gov Promoting Bitcoin! Coming Silver Shortage - Cliff High's Web Bot Revelations

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VIp-6NcXZC4

It looks to me that all of this has something to do with C's remarks in mentioned session November 25 1995:

"A: Not all stocks traded publicly are under direct control of illuminati."

The way I understand it at this stage is yes, even if it's unavoidably controlled by illuminati in one way or another, some of the cryptocurrencies are not under DIRECT control. And the reason why that might be possible, Cliff is suggesting, is because of an emotional response of the social order in general which created an emotional link that ties it directly to an actual tangible wealth - first silver and now even gold. It's moving towards gold in terms of it's emotional equivalency within the broader understanding of the social order. As more and more people see in it tangible value it creates an emotional link that ties it, at this very moment, to gold.

Listening what he is saying gives you some tiny hope for the future, but then remembering the last session with C's on May 13:

"A: US wishes to destabilize EU similar to Syria so that they can come in and "fix" things. i.e. rule and control resources and trade the "American way". Everyone will speak English!

Q: [laughter] (Pierre) They sure have a sense of humor, but I'm not sure that will be the only consequence..

(L) So basically, some kind of cabal in the deep state of the US is at the bottom of some kind of One World Order plan to really basically bit by bit take the entire planet under its control. Is that it either overtly or covertly?

A: Covertly at present, but overtly eventually.

Q: (Joe) That's been the goal for along time."

I am just thinking, they didn't say Everyone MAY Speak English; they said: "Everyone WILL speak English". Have we arrived to the point when it is certain and there is no possibility for a different outcome? It's frightening!

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

Q: (L) Well, that is all fine and good except for one fact that I have been observing lately, and that is that prices continue to go up, and wages for the average person do not. I watch prices, and they have been jumping in a very erratic and frightening way. I know for a fact that people simply cannot afford to live. A large segment of the population cannot, that is.

A: Nobody who obeys the "rules" can afford to "live," but if you refuse to play the game as you are told to, you will do quite well, indeed.

Q: (L) Okay. What do you mean by not playing by the rules? What rules?

A: The best way for us to answer that is for you to think out loud, and wait for our responses.

Q: (S) Rule one would be working at a regular job, 9 to 5, or 40 hours, whichever, and saving all your money and putting it in the bank.

A: Wait, one at a time.

Q: (L) Okay. The first one is that you have to have a "regular job."

A: "Trap" number one!

Q: (S) Rule number two is that you have to save your money.

A: You save your money by multiplying it, not storing it.

Q: (L) Are you saying that putting it in a bank is "storing" it?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Are you saying that money is only "saved" if it is multiplied?

A: Yes. When you store it in the bank, you are helping the Brotherhood AKA Illuminati AKA Antichrist multiply it for itself, all you get is the "crumbs" left over. And, the Antichrist can "call it in" anytime it wants to!

Q: (L) One of the most popular ways to make money by investing is in the stock market. But, it seems to me that the stock market is also part of the Antichrist system and investing there would also amount to only getting "crumbs."

A: Yes and no. Not all stocks traded publicly are under direct control of the Illuminati.

Q: (L) Are you suggesting the stock market as a means of multiplying money?

A: We are not suggesting anything specific, we are just laying the groundwork. With the general clues we give you, you will figure out the details yourselves, which is tantamount to learning, which is how you progress as souls.

Q: (L) You said we should multiply our money and that storing it is not making it work for you....

A: If you notice, all successful business people do this. They multiply their money, expand their horizons, continuously. They multiply their money by multiplying their output, thus their intake likewise. And the process is never ending, because they understand instinctively that it is part of a cycle. For the intake to continue, it must not be only retained, but must increase in order to keep pace with the ever spiraling cycle of increase and expansion. And, for this to happen, the output must be expanded accordingly. When it stops, it collapses. And this is how the Illuminati AKA The Brotherhood AKA The Antichrist creates a "Panic," by stemming the flow, even only slightly, and then broadcasting the created impression aggressively.

This is huge, and absolutely correct as we now know.

I am posting this because:

1) Some cryptocurrencies look like very promising stores of value now, despite volatility, and are in many ways better than bank accounts. The Chinese are already all over this, using primarily Bitcoin as a safe haven for wealth.
2) For other smaller cryptocurrencies, I see a bubble forming on the horizon which would provide a very strong (albeit risky) investment opportunity.

As a brief rundown on the state of affairs currently: Bitcoin has become bloated and much less usable than it was in 2013 in its initial bubble. The transaction fees are becoming increasingly high due to more traffic on the network, the transactions-per-second that the network can handle are woeful, confirmation times of payments can take anywhere between 1 minute and 1 week depending on fees used. Multiple scaling solutions have been proposed, but there is a huge amount of division and politics. In short, bitcoin has been stuck for 2 years, it's problems having no end in sight. Despite this, money continues to flow in, because it was the first, most well know, and still has a lot of usefulness beyond a bank.

For reference, here is a chart of the Bitcoin (BTC) - US Dollar price since the beginning of 2016. Despite fluctuations, the long term trend is up. Most various significant rises and falls in the chart are due to news or rumours from the Chinese government regarding capital flight controls and BTC regulations.





The most recent sharp rise and fall was due to a decision by the US securities exchange commission regarding a financial trading instrument for BTC (which would have opened it up to the wider public). The rise was due to hype, the fall due to a negative decision, after which the market recovered again. Any further fall will probably have something to do with bitcoin's lack of scaling solution, but we can see that it has recovered well from negative news in the past.

It is my opinion that the fundamentals (tech, community, progression) behind bitcoin is looking shaky, but it just seems to defy gravity and has become something of a 'digital gold', meaning a storage of wealth which (ideally) appreciates in value but has very little use in every day transactions.

Enter Ethereum (and 705 other cryptocurrencies and 70+ projects, at the time of writing).

A brief visit to https://coinmarketcap.com/ will show you the scale of the cryptocurrency market today. There are a vast number of alternative cryptocoins. Most of them are junk. Their price is often inflated and crashed in 'pump and dump' schemes, as this market is entirely unregulated and low enough in volume for this to work.

However there are a number of promising projects here which not only provide an alternative to BTC, but fix all of its problems and offer a whole lot more. Some of them have seen very good growth, both in money and in development, and now have a high enough market capitalisation to be considered slightly more safe investments.

The projects use cryptocurrency tokens as a key part of their operations, but many are more than just cryptocurrencies. In projects where the goal is not just to be a currency (Ethereum, STORJ, SIA, Golem, Augur, etc.) the value of the token used comes from its usefulness to the project. This is also how one invests in the project. By holding a stake in the token, you hold a stake in the network growing and using that token. In a 'pure' cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, DASH, Monero, Litecoin, PIVX etc.) the value of the token/currency is driven by its mass adoption.

Ethereum:
Ethereum is not actually a cryptocurrency the same as Bitcoin, but it uses and is 'powered' by a Token (ETH), which is also cryptocurrency in its own right. It uses a blockchain just like bitcoin. From the website:

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.

These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property. This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middle man or counterparty risk.

The project was bootstraped via an ether pre-sale during August 2014 by fans all around the world. It is developed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit, with contributions from great minds across the globe.

The simplest way to explain it would be that it is a world-wide computer made up of many computers or nodes, which removes the need for middlemen.

From a reddit post:

Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and said "Remember when your phone was just a phone? Well now your phone is a platform that can run any number of applications including a 'phone' app that emulates the old behavior."? Well, Ethereum did that to Bitcoin. Ethereum allows the possibility of rewriting many applications that you know and love in a decentralized way that doesn't require any middlemen, not just currency like Bitcoin. Imagine Facebook without the company in the middle, just peer to peer social networking. HTTP is hyper centralizing as it requires a central server to coordinate everything. Those central servers are always owned and operated by a middleman (Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, Youtube, etc). Imagine client software talking directly to other clients in a peer to peer fashion, without the need of any intervening servers.

There is a lot more to cover that is outside the scope of this post. Suffice it to say that, although it is very early days, this is very promising. It is what is built on top of the Ethereum platform is what actually gives it value, and there is a whole lot in the pipeline right now. Applications need the ETH token to perform, which is what gives the token value as an investment. The stronger and bigger the network becomes, the more demand for ETH and the more value.

Further:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/what-is-ethereum/

Other than ETH, there are plenty of projects which are promising and interesting. Some listed here.

Golem (GNT): Decentralised supercomputer where participants can rent out their computing power (paid for using GNT token). Use cases include rendering CGI, data analysis, scientific research, cryptocurrency mining, and deep machine learning/AI. They have not even brought out an actual version yet, but if it succeeds (especially the AI aspect), it will be massive.

GameCredits: This is a specific payment method for online videogaming. It is small but is already being used, with small gaming companies on board and strong fundamental tech behind it. The video game industry is absolutely massive, set to grow 5% annually, increasingly entirely online, and increasingly employing 'micropayment' solutions. The payment method/cryptocurrency token used is GAME.

SIA: Decentralised cloud storage solution. The blockchain distributes and stores files across the network. Similar to how bitcoin wallets work, but in this case your 'wallet' is stored data. Comparable to Amazon S3. Aims to provide cheaper more secure services than current solutions out there. Tokens (SIA) used in payment for storage services, which gives their value. Still in early release.

STORJ: Direct competitor to SIA, currently moving over to the Ethereum network.

https://themerkle.com/maidsafe-vs-sia-vs-storj/

Decentralized Credit (DECRED): Very early stage right now. Offers many technical improvements over bitcoin with an interesting structure, using Proof-of-stake and proof-of-work for blockchain operations/rewards.
https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/118/whats-the-difference-between-proof-of-stake-and-proof-of-work


DASH: Pure Cryptocurrency, fixes most of bitcoin's current problems and has decent marketing. It is however centralised.

FACTCOM: Decentralized modern blockchain/application platform that focuses on being very cheap to use and scalable. Token: FACT. Very good marketing, branding, company image, naming of products along with strong technicals.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, or a list of projects guaranteed to succeed. The industry is in its infancy still, with a lot of promises and not a whole lot delivered yet.

On investment generally:

This chart shows the global Cryptocurrency market capitalisation for the past 4 years, beginning with the astronomic rise of the bitcoin millionaires, followed by a 2 year cooling off period, followed by a third wave expansion to beyond all time highs.



Now there is some debate as to whether we are in a bubble yet. People within the crypto community - and other early investors - certainly seem to be in a bubble mindset. Projects are crowdfunded for millions of dollars before they have written a single line of code, there are pump&dump schemes and scam projects. On the other hand, most people over the entire planet have never even heard of cryptocurrencies (other than a passing mention of bitcoin), 'serious' financial institutions/investors have not been taking it very seriously, and the combined market cap is still actually quite tiny (nearly touching on $30Bn this month).

Here is a chart of the late 90's dotcom bubble for comparison. Note the combined market capitalisation was in the $trillions.

2 Scenarios could possibly play out from here:

1) This crypto boom is actually just like the dotcom bubble in microcosm. Even in this case, the peak has yet to be reached, and those projects with the strongest fundamentals will be the ones to survive, while the junk gets washed away in any crash. Exactly which projects those are yet is uncertain, but Ethereum looks to be one of them by all indications.

2) We are not yet anywhere near in a bubble. In fact, the party is just getting started. This is the beginning of a new Web 3.0 revolution driven by distributed, decentralised computing, block-chain technology, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies. In which case, there is a lot of potential for money to multiply.

This is not just bitcoin vs. the banks anymore. In fact the banks seem to be getting on board with it more and more, with one project (Ripple/XRP) specifically aimed at banks. Large companies are also getting on board with Ethereum: http://entethalliance.org/

In short, crypto is well worth taking a second look at.

P.S. Any form of fiat collapse could see massive amounts flow into the crypto sphere.

 

[Shinzenbi]

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are based on absolutely nothing. No precious metals, no stones, nothing at all. They are purely virtual. Then why has it been created and why should it be trusted ? To my understanding, it has been created because the other main currencies are worthless. The limited number of bitcoins, 21 millions, and inviolabiliy of the blockchain are supposed to ensure reliability. Volatility of bitcoin is high. Companies do not use it for payments because its value can vary 30% in one day. If you have bitcoins, they are stored in your computer or smartphone. If it is destroyed, so are your bitcoins.

Even though the idea of cryptocurrency is not wacky, i still find it much safer to buy precious metals like silver (gold is too expensive) and keep them at home.

 

[Ant22]

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are based on absolutely nothing. No precious metals, no stones, nothing at all. They are purely virtual. Then why has it been created and why should it be trusted ? To my understanding, it has been created because the other main currencies are worthless. The limited number of bitcoins, 21 millions, and inviolabiliy of the blockchain are supposed to ensure reliability. Volatility of bitcoin is high. Companies do not use it for payments because its value can vary 30% in one day. If you have bitcoins, they are stored in your computer or smartphone. If it is destroyed, so are your bitcoins.

Even though the idea of cryptocurrency is not wacky, i still find it much safer to buy precious metals like silver (gold is too expensive) and keep them at home.

Good points Shinzenbi, especially about the volatility of bitcoin. Also, we cannot predict whether access to the internet will be as easy as it is now during the unstable times ahead. There is push to regulate the internet too, which may work against bitcoin and other currencies.

However, there a couple of things that may be worth considering:

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are based on absolutely nothing. No precious metals, no stones, nothing at all.

Still better than other currencies which due to the fractional reserve system and tons of other reasons have negative value with debt attached to them. Unlike bitcoin which isn't a product of the banking system.

If you have bitcoins, they are stored in your computer or smartphone. If it is destroyed, so are your bitcoins.

Even though the idea of cryptocurrency is not wacky, i still find it much safer to buy precious metals like silver (gold is too expensive) and keep them at home.

And if someone breaks into your house and steals all your precious metals you will lose them as well. When the world gets to the point when we will be forced to use our gold/silver reserves as means of payment, it is likely that robberies and burglaries will not be uncommon.

I don't think there is a 100% safe option but IMO it's a good idea to avoid keeping all our eggs in one basket. A combination of different types of investments would probably be a good idea.

 

[Neil]

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are based on absolutely nothing. No precious metals, no stones, nothing at all. They are purely virtual. Then why has it been created and why should it be trusted ? To my understanding, it has been created because the other main currencies are worthless. The limited number of bitcoins, 21 millions, and inviolabiliy of the blockchain are supposed to ensure reliability. Volatility of bitcoin is high. Companies do not use it for payments because its value can vary 30% in one day. If you have bitcoins, they are stored in your computer or smartphone. If it is destroyed, so are your bitcoins.

Even though the idea of cryptocurrency is not wacky, i still find it much safer to buy precious metals like silver (gold is too expensive) and keep them at home.

Yeah, it would seem to me to be the height of absurdity to have rather expensive computer equipment burning real electricity to create something which doesn't exist which nonetheless has value; more value than gold as a matter of fact. I see it as another product of our wishful thinking reality. The inability to track down its creator and the semi-mythical Satoshi to ask questions of the system's intent suggests to me that this is an experimental deep state psyop to ascertain the viability of a purely imaginary cashless currency. It is cool in a way because it has the potential to be a highly reseilient decentralized system, but it's inherent flaw is that it is a deflationary currency. Whenever there is economic expansion in the bitcoin economy that is in excess of the creation of new bitcoins, the value of bitcoin rises. The end result, if applied to the macroeconomy, is that people will hoard their bitcoins as long as possible, because it will almost always be worth more tomorrow. In that sense it has the opposite, but nearly as severe problem as the US dollar. The velocity of money will be very low. I'm not sure if this will encourage people to save for things they really want/need in a more steady-state economic system or whether it will lead to a semi-permanent recession. All it is right now is something of a fad, although it could be a profitable fad for as long as it lasts. It is predicated on the reliability of the internet, and once the earth changes really crank up, it's gone. To be fair, USD is also largely reliant on the internet, although there at least still exists a fractional paper backup system that will keep it from going to 0 in that instance.

It may turn out that in the long run gold and silver will be something of a fad as well if the reality changes dramatically enough, but they are the most tangible "old faithful" form of money of the bunch. It would be interesting to see what the Cassiopaean perspective is on it, but I think I pretty much know what they're going to say.

Added: I like the blockchain concept, but I think the execution will need significant tweaking if it is to actually be a positive development for humanity.

 

[Mike]

I’ve been reading the book ‘Ethereum: Blockchains, Digital Assets, Smart Contracts, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations’ by Henning Diedrich

The concepts are pretty new to me so I’m going slow, but I'm starting to have a better understanding of blockchain, Ethereum and Bitcoin.

From my beginners understanding of the blockchain and smart contract concepts and their application, I do think if the infrastructure of the planet remains in place that it could have a huge impact, much like the internet. The question seems to be whether it will be used for good, such as decentralizing money etc that is out of the control of governments or will be coopted and used for evil. Or if it can be stopped, controlled or backdoored somehow by the NSA (see below).

Here is an excerpt from the book that gives an inkling of how the blockchain could be used for evil given some imagination:

For titles, identity systems and access control, the blockchain adds an important element to electronic passports and license: it allows to revoke and modify them. A normal electronic license can only be made to expire after a certain time, much like a license printed on paper. Any attempt to revoke them requires a blacklist that has to be distributed to every single point where the license is checked.

If the license is a datapoint on the blockchain however, then it can be designed in a way so that it can be revoked by anyone who as the right key to do so. The change would only have to be transmitted to one node of the blockchain. The check points could get their information from any other node at their choosing. The license is highly available, not silo’ed and still modifiable. The trial of changes is auditable and cannot be fudged.

This also caught my eye in terms of how cryptocurrencies are made secure via cryptography via hashes.

So what are the hash formulas?

Many different algorithms exist to create hashes. They have names like MD5, Keccak, SHA-1 or SHA-256. Hashes are so important for CS, business and defense that the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held an open competition in 2009 to find the best possible algorithm.

Bitcoin and Ethereum both use an older one, devised by the NSA in 2001, called SHA-256. It gives 32-byte long resulting hashes, as opposed to the 16 bytes of MD5. Which obviously reduces the chances for collisions. The USA has a patent on SHA-256, #6829355, but they extend a royalty-free license.

The most important part is of course, that you can trust that your hash formula does not have a back-door where someone in the know, say the inventor, knows how to find collisions. They could break your system for good. Especially if the system has no concept of collisions at all and just assumes they can’t happen.

Bitcoin and Ethereum trust the NSA with that. 90

90 – Bitcoin’s makers were a bit more wary and mixed RIPEMD-160 in.

In a lot of ways it is like the wild wild west of money and finance happening now in cryptocurrencies. As an example, here is a company that is doing an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for a silver related or backed token using the Ethereum platform (or blockchain). People are giving this company money or rather other cryptocurrencies for the initial offering of the token. From what I can tell this is all based on just a white paper describing what they are supposed to do with the money coming into the coin offering. There is no financial prospectus as would happening in the normal world of finance, such as when an Exchange Traded Fund is created, so it is from what I can tell a matter of trust that the creators of the token are going to do what they say in the white paper.

_https://ethereum.link/ethereum-link.html#home
_https://ethereum.link/files/Whitepaper1.03.pdf

Cryptocurrencies and associated offerings from what I have come understand are very volatile and risky, but seems like the influence of the technology is set to grow a lot in the future.

 

[Carl]

I have never heard of Ethereum though and haven't had a chance to check it out on Internet yet, but would love to hear additional thoughts and comments from you Carl and anyone else interested in the subject.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are based on absolutely nothing. No precious metals, no stones, nothing at all. They are purely virtual. Then why has it been created and why should it be trusted ? To my understanding, it has been created because the other main currencies are worthless. The limited number of bitcoins, 21 millions, and inviolabiliy of the blockchain are supposed to ensure reliability. Volatility of bitcoin is high. Companies do not use it for payments because its value can vary 30% in one day. If you have bitcoins, they are stored in your computer or smartphone. If it is destroyed, so are your bitcoins.

Even though the idea of cryptocurrency is not wacky, i still find it much safer to buy precious metals like silver (gold is too expensive) and keep them at home.

That's not exactly correct. Bitcoins are 'stored' on everyone's computer. Everyone in the bitcoin network 'knows' that your address contains X amount of bitcoins. All you need to access them from anywhere in the world is your private keys, which can be stored in pretty much any way possible, including written on a piece of paper or even memorised if you have that capacity.

Yeah, it would seem to me to be the height of absurdity to have rather expensive computer equipment burning real electricity to create something which doesn't exist which nonetheless has value; more value than gold as a matter of fact. I see it as another product of our wishful thinking reality. The inability to track down its creator and the semi-mythical Satoshi to ask questions of the system's intent suggests to me that this is an experimental deep state psyop to ascertain the viability of a purely imaginary cashless currency. It is cool in a way because it has the potential to be a highly reseilient decentralized system, but it's inherent flaw is that it is a deflationary currency. Whenever there is economic expansion in the bitcoin economy that is in excess of the creation of new bitcoins, the value of bitcoin rises. The end result, if applied to the macroeconomy, is that people will hoard their bitcoins as long as possible, because it will almost always be worth more tomorrow. In that sense it has the opposite, but nearly as severe problem as the US dollar. The velocity of money will be very low. I'm not sure if this will encourage people to save for things they really want/need in a more steady-state economic system or whether it will lead to a semi-permanent recession. All it is right now is something of a fad, although it could be a profitable fad for as long as it lasts. It is predicated on the reliability of the internet, and once the earth changes really crank up, it's gone. To be fair, USD is also largely reliant on the internet, although there at least still exists a fractional paper backup system that will keep it from going to 0 in that instance.

It may turn out that in the long run gold and silver will be something of a fad as well if the reality changes dramatically enough, but they are the most tangible "old faithful" form of money of the bunch. It would be interesting to see what the Cassiopaean perspective is on it, but I think I pretty much know what they're going to say.

Added: I like the blockchain concept, but I think the execution will need significant tweaking if it is to actually be a positive development for humanity.

The point of that real electricity usage is to secure the network. If it is very hard and computationally inefficient to verify transactions, then this makes it safer from attackers. That said, there now appear to be better ways of doing that.

Bitcoin is not so much a 'currency' as it is a digital gold and cross-border wealth transfer tool. In a way, it's deflationary aspect serves as a perfect counterpart to inflationary fiat currency. As for a method of value storage it is not much different than gold or silver. I don't see cryptos taking over the monetary system any time soon, but they are here and growing quickly.

People in the crypto/gold space often bring up the idea of the total collapse, 'SHTF' scenario. If we do see a catastrophic collapse that cuts of the internet then of course yes, bitcoin will be useless. But will anyone really care about some shiny useless metal either? And if they do, why wouldn't they just shoot you and take your gold?



Anyway since my post on crypto investment last month, they have indeed boomed into an almost vertical value bubble. Anyone who bought some before May has made lots of money. We have had a correction this weekend, but the upward potential is still massive.

 

[Scottie]

I've never been a big fan of Bitcoin. It just kind of "smells" to me, but that's just a hunch.

But, when I see the value of Bitcoin skyrocket in an economically uncertain time, and when I see stories like, "If you invested $100 in Bitcoin 12 or whatever years ago, it would be worth $73 million today", I sort of cringe.

There is the technology, which is nifty. And then there is a lot of, well, hype.

I mean, sure, you could be a millionaire had you invested $100 in bitcoins when it was first launched. But that's kind of ridiculous. Hardly anyone even knew about bitcoin when it launched, and at the time it was not something that would normally be viewed as an investment. Many, many "projects" like that have started and failed.

So, it's a bit goofy to have the media saying, "you could have been a millionaire!" because that's purely emotional hoopla. It's like saying, "If only you'd invested $100 in Mark Zuckerberg, you would have been a billionaire today!" Well, duh, but it's impossible to predict something like that. You'd need inside info.

IOW, before you'd make your $73 million, you'd go broke investing $100 in thousands of failed ventures.

So to me, the current Bitcoin craziness seems like a way to get everybody buying in, jacking the price way up... Kind of like what they do before a market crash where everybody buys in, the big boys cash out, and then they crash it.

Rich guys get richer, and everyone else gets screwed.

I'm more interested in the fact that countries like Russia and China are buying up literally tons of gold at a frantic pace. The "new order" seems to like precious metals, while the "old order" seems to like things like Bitcoin...

 

[LQB]

I'm more interested in the fact that countries like Russia and China are buying up literally tons of gold at a frantic pace. The "new order" seems to like precious metals, while the "old order" seems to like things like Bitcoin...

100% agree Scottie. What's interesting though, is the recent (near exponential) rise of all of the cryptos - possibly indicating what should be happening to the PMs. Since there is no futures market (paper specs) in the cryptos, you would expect them to eventually mirror a lack of confidence in the financial markets.