Role of Crypto/Cybercurrencies in the PTB's loss of control?

[Miracle]

I don't have the technical details figured out yet, but from the general idea of blockchain as it relates to bitcoin, it seems to me that the robustness of the system is based upon the assumption that all the computers in the network have computing power to the same magnitude, so that a single node couldn't compete against the whole network on the long run. I saw somewhere that a certain "guild of bitcoin miners" introduced a chain of 6 blocks (don't know if they were fraudulent transactions or not). My understanding is that at any point in time, the longuest cryptographically verfiable block chain at any point in time wins the race so to speak.
Now if a government/military whatever organization have computing capabilities that excede by orders of magnitude the computing capabilities of super computer werehouses with their GPUs and TPUs, maybe through quantum computing or some undisclosed technology, they would be able to rig the game without being noticed or traceable. I could be mistaken though.

It's happened before!

Russian nuclear scientists detained for 'Bitcoin mining plot'

Russian security officers have arrested several scientists working at a top-secret Russian nuclear warhead facility for allegedly mining crypto-currencies. The suspects had tried to use one of Russia's most powerful supercomputers to mine...

www.sott.net

Russian nuclear engineers busted for using supercomputer to mine cryptocurrencies

A powerful supercomputer located at a Russian nuclear research facility in Sarov was reportedly targeted by a pair of engineers who wanted to use it to mine cryptocurrencies. "There has been an attempt of unsanctioned use of workplace computing...

www.sott.net

Russian metals plant to start bitcoin mining

A Russian aluminum plant closed as a result of U.S. sanctions is set to be transformed into a bitcoin mining hub. The Nadvoitsy Aluminum Plant in Russia's northern Karelia region, owned by Russian metals giant Rusal, stopped production last...

www.sott.net

Now imagine who isn't getting caught?

Jeffrey Epstein Confidant Ghislaine Maxwell's Rumored Last Reddit Post Was About Bitcoin – Bitcoin News

It seems the last time Ghislaine Maxwell used Reddit, her last post was about someone mysteriously sending a billion in bitcoin on June 30.

news.bitcoin.com

 

[BHelmet]

I checked out Andrew's Crypto dude. He said some things that made a lot of sense, and stand to reason and are not wishful thinking, IMO.

1. What are the chances a Robin Hood/Santa Claus/Easter Bunny invented a system outside the system to benefit all mankind and circumvent Wall Street and the Banks?

Less than Zero?

2. Look at the history of the evolution of Tech. Some prominent Dots: IBM helps Hitler with the holocaust. Gates is given/sold an Operating system by IBM. Ultimately you get massive consolidation (Apple and Microsoft) both with back doors in their software and connections to big gov't/CIA.

3. Internet - We KNOW that has become a tool of mind control/reality creation. (and it was created by Al Gore...who side do you think HE is on??? - {that is an american joke} )

4. Cellular - same develop/consolidate model - Verizon, TMobile ATT and ... that is it in USA. anybody have a choice about 5G? No.

5. Social Media: for the people? Now it is more about narrative control and suppression of free speech and restriction of contrarian information.

6. Youtube and Google - same suppression and narrative mind control. OK, and cat videos.

7. Cryptos: We KNOW the big banks want to go to a crypto system for massive control. They have said so. They are killing the dollar. All of society and business is getting digitized and tokenized; AI'd and automated. Private transactions? Ha! The taxing authorities are loving this.

8. (Then come the drones and robots. Sorry, we don't need people anymore. Wow just wow. No wonder the cosmos is going to react in major ways to this Humongous usurpation of free will)

So the guys thesis is that we are now in a period of development. We don't know who or what is going to be a part of the finalized system yet. It is being developed and tested. In about a year or so, the winners will be chosen and finalized (like Apple and Microsoft were), teh rebels will be crushed/bought out/banned/suicided and it's game over.

Block chain? Chained to a block of code? Blocked by a chain of code?

"Oh this tech it will set us free and defeat the banks, billionaires, and bureaucracies who create, own, control and regulate the tech."

M'Kayyyyy........

Another Grim Fairy Tale

On a positive note, I think the more we wake up, the more the cosmos will respond to this outrageous turn of events.

Yes, I will try to play the game to position myself and my family for the tsunami that approacheth.

But the idea that cryptocurrency will be a transformative game-changer for the betterment of humanity is wishful thinking the more I think about it.

 

[KJS]

It is worth to note, that the creation of volatile markets was also a way to diminish demand for precious metals in the past:

TO THE DEALERS' EXPECTATIONS, WILL BE THE FORMATION OF A SIZABLE GOLD FUTURES MARKET. EACH OF THE DEALERS EXPRESS- ED THE BELIEF THAT THE FUTURES MARKET WOULD BE OF SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION AND PHYSICAL TRADING WOULD BE MINISCULE BY COMPARISON. ALSO EXPRESSED WAS THE EXPECTATION THAT LARGE VOLUME FUTURES DEALING WOULD CREATE A HIGHLY VOLATILE MARKET. IN TURN, THE VOLATILE PRICE MOVEMENTS WOULD DIMINISH THE INITIAL DEMAND FOR PHYSICAL HOLDING AND MOST LIKELY NEGATE LONG-TERM HOARDING BY U.S. CITIZENS.

Satoshi Nakamoto might have some interesting meaning if we take above information into the account:

Have you ever wondered if Satoshi Nakamoto really has any meaning? Is there any translation of the name?

The short answer is "yes". Actually, there is a handful of translations.

The Japanese term satoshi has many meanings. Among some other things, Satoshi means "enlightened", "wise" or "intelligent". And last, but not least, Nakamoto means something like "middle", "base", "root" or "central". This would make Satoshi Nakamoto the “Central Intelligence” :)

My wild speculation is: the futures market was an invention (lucrative to some due to volatility!) to distract the population during the transformation to fiat, and the cryptos are distractions used to move even further in PTB's agenda.

 

[BHelmet]

One other point of view: futures markets and all derivatives markets, really, allow for the manipulation and control of the price of the underlying asset. In other words, if gold was allowed to rise to its true price, people would realize their fiat wealth is going down down down in real terms of actual purchasing power. So, futures markets can foster illusions and hide unpleasant realities.

Like how does Tesla have a market cap 3x Toyota? 6x VW? Now that is some serious distortion. You can argue that is based on future potential and technological advances but does anybody really think Toyota and VW won’t crush Tesla in the long run?

Teslas biggest profit center is their bitcoin hodlings!

Futures markets will enable the same control and manipulation in the crypto space as will ETFs.

 

[Andrew]

But the idea that cryptocurrency will be a transformative game-changer for the betterment of humanity is wishful thinking the more I think about it.

Exactly. Thank you for taking the time to write all this out for everyone.

Like how does Tesla have a market cap 3x Toyota? 6x VW? Now that is some serious distortion.

In reality, the entire market is in serious distortion. But CryptoDudes thought is Tesla is part of the NWO/Global Elites plan. Makes sense to me with Elons type of thinking; man merging with machine i.e. Neuralink and his global Starlink Satellite internet service. Obvious STS clues there. But if Tesla really is part of the PTBs plan, its market cap will continue to increase.

but does anybody really think Toyota and VW won’t crush Tesla in the long run?

Yes. Without a doubt. Tesla is so far ahead of legacy auto it's not even funny. Add on FSD and it's kind of game over as the world is transitioning to Electric Vehicles and "Green" energy.

There has been a massive media disinformation campaign against Tesla for quite some time now that simply isn't true.

Would recommend Solving the Money Problem, Dave Lee on Investing and the HyperChange YouTube channels if you want to better understand Teslas lead here. Also, Cathy Woods Price Target on Tesla is very insightful. ARK’s Price Target for Tesla in 2025 is $3,000 Per Share

 

[axj]

My feelings are that it has real world positive use cases, but it could easily be used to oppress populations, i.e. turn off your digital wallets since you're engaging in WrongThink and BadThought.

Turning off wallets is not possible with decentralized cryptocurrencies. For that, they would have to take over the whole network, which at least in the case of Bitcoin is close to impossible.

From an administrative point of view, digital currency might be like a totalitarian's wet dream.. Every single transaction is traced, it completely removes the obscurity you get with cash

There are also completely anonymous cryptocurrencies, such as Monero. And even with the non-anonymous ones like Bitcoin, they still need to find out who owns which wallet. There are ways to stay anonymous with Bitcoin as well.

But, if in the near-term future where nothing cosmically changes our reality, I've heard the argument that national digital currencies (or some crypto equivalent) could be implemented very, very quickly.

"Government-controlled cryptocurrencies" are an oxymoron, because real cryptocurrencies are decentralized and controlled only by the open-source algorithm and code that anyone can check. The "central bank digital currencies" are fundamentally just a scheme to get rid of cash, because there is no difference between these and the current centrally controlled currencies.

This entire operation just screams evil to me.. Its disgusting. The irony here is I am going to try and make a living out of it, because I will never get the opportunity anywhere else, and if my dreams come true I can finally use the money earned to set myself up in a place that is hopefully far away from the reaches of this new digitalized freakshow.

If it is evil, why do you participate then? I think it is the same as with money in general: Money itself is not evil, it all depends on what you do with it. In the right hands, a fortune can create a lot of good.

Now imagine who isn't getting caught?

Bitcoin mining as described in the articles you posted actually strengthens the Bitcoin network against attacks. Unless someone is able to use so much computing power as to get more than the entire current Bitcoin network has to offer.

Cryptos: We KNOW the big banks want to go to a crypto system for massive control. They have said so. They are killing the dollar.

The central banks will never ever switch to a decentralized cryptocurrency. What they want is purely digital money (cash ban) that is centrally controlled by them just like the current currencies, which means it is the opposite of a decentralized cryptocurrency.

 

[BHelmet]

We heard a similar story about the internet back in the day: that it was a decentralized open space to play in. Forgetting that it was created by the military industrial complex to begin with. As tech rolled along we found back doors in operating systems and mobile phones for the government snoops to exploit.

So now we have a mysterious supposed Robin Hood who creates defi and crypto.
Side note-who controls the bitcoin hash rate and has all the mining operations and makes the mining machines? China. How confidence inspiring is that?

Yes Monero is off the record but any truly anonymous protocol can be frozen out of the system by being banned and delisted from exchanges with no on-ramp back into accepted mediums of exchange. So you can do peer to peer transactions but you may not be able to convert or add to your holdings except through off the record “illegal” transactions. If the only game in town is the government store, what are you going to do with that Monero? Hopefully the local farmer will take it. But if they can hack into your phone and computer, I would bet they can figure out what you are doing with your Monero and, minimally, who you are doing it with.

 

[KJS]

This seems to be a probable explaination why the crypto market isn't regulated yet:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1377210541282824193

 

[mxwlll0]

Some thoughts to share after catching up in this thread:

I had been doing some research a little while ago on blockchain and crypto as an area to design for when looking for new work. I never ended up purchasing anything. It seemed crazy to throw in so much money to participate in something that is really quite vacuous — but then of course that’s the very good cause to suspect the PTBs are going to back it! >.< And another form of mass distraction to further lock people into technological inter-dependency -- with virtual artifacts no less. There’s some sick people rolling on the floor laughing at everyone’s expense - very disheartening.

I’ve always considered the real possibility that these currencies along with their valuation could be ‘vaporized’ at any given moment just like any official (fiat?) currency. Scarcity is manufactured and people covert what they can’t have or what they think they need - the urge imprinted within this form of branding is very strong. "Greed is a disease..." says the Cs and I agrees.

Another thought, if everyone is buying (collecting NFTs) I wonder if the next stage of the NFT craze (really digital artifacts) is to allow for peer to peer trading of these digital artifacts. Maybe that’s already possible? What about facsimiles? I wonder how this would affect pricing

Here are a few articles that crossed my path as I was thinking about this topic:

Coinbase Posts Blowout Q1 Profit of $730-$800 Million, Days Before Public Listing - Decrypt

Coinbase in Q1 had its best quarter in the company's history. The news will likely boost the price of its shares on April 14.

decrypt.co

In brief:
* On the heels of its best ever quarter in Q4, Coinbase posted record new profits for Q1. (between $730 million and $800 million on revenue of approximately $1.8 billion)
* The results come eight days before the company goes public on April 14.
* Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong will share details of the results on the company's first earnings call.

From their site:

Buy and sell cryptocurrency - Coinbase is the easiest place to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Sign up and get free Bitcoin.* -

So you buy and sell made up money?

From Crunchbase - Coinbase - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding

Coinbase is an online platform that allows merchants, consumers, and traders to transact with digital currency.

And this surprisingly refreshing and brutally honest article on the whole scheme (had to post the whole thing) considering it was featured in Angel List's newsletter:

NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money

Photographers, filmmakers, and digital artists are falling over themselves to mint NFTs in a get-rich-quick scheme that will do little beyond transferring wealth from artists to tech billionaires. Why are so many people buying into the idea that something is rare because everyone says it is? If...

fstoppers.com

Photographers, filmmakers, and digital artists are falling over themselves to mint NFTs in a get-rich-quick scheme that will do little beyond transferring wealth from artists to tech billionaires. Why are so many people buying into the idea that something is rare because everyone says it is?


If you’ve yet not minted your first NFT and you’re wondering how it works, here’s a quick summary of the process: you create a wallet, buy some Ethereum, and choose a platform. You then pick one of your digital creations and pay around $70-100 to “mint” this artwork into a Non-Fungible Token. You choose a starting price and wait for the bids to come rolling in. You may even like to build up to a “drop” to create some hype.


One of the easiest places to get started is Rarible, which is bewildering, thanks to the crypto aesthetic made up of nightmarish visions of randomness and memes. Certain tropes emerge: Pepe the Frog, rhinos, and rainbows proliferate, creating a nonsensical soup of chaos and confusion that feels like a terrifying mash-up of kids cartoons and 4chan.

If you’re one of the early adopters or have some friends who were ahead of the curve, you might have landed yourself an invitation to a platform such as Foundation.app. These sites create a degree of exclusivity, as there’s a level of filtering to ensure that only a small number get to mint their work. If you don’t know anyone with an invite, you can head to a specific channel on Foundation’s Discord server and ask politely, though such is the FOMO, meaning requests have been piling in at more than one every 30 seconds.
Whichever platform you choose, you won’t be able to ignore the fact that a lot of people seem to be selling a lot of questionable digital art for ludicrous amounts of money. That’s a very strong nudge for you to get involved.


Incentivization is such a feature of these platforms that many of the artworks being minted and traded reflect it in the aesthetic. Pieces involving the letters FOMO proliferate in a self-referential sea of urgency to buy, sell, and be sold. This sense that you’re not on board with the beginnings of something big underpins the entire NFT experience, and it’s a marketing masterstroke. Almost every tweet telling you about an auction that you should get involved in will remind you that artwork will only be available for a brief window. The FOMO is so powerful that you probably feel like you're already losing money by having not signed up yet.

NFTs offer a new type of ownership and an exciting way for digital creators of all sorts to sell their work. As a concept, it has some appealing aspects such as the fact that whenever you mint a token, you can determine the royalty that you will receive each time that it’s sold on in the future (typically around 10%). Cryptocurrencies offer an alternative to an economic system that is dominated by Wall Street bankers, politicians, and insider dealing, promising a degree of democratization of economic structures that offers freedom and flexibility. This upstart, new-contender, f***-you mentality also infuses the artworks being created with seemingly endless celebrations of how this new system will redistribute power.

Mass Enchantment [me:sure to become mass disillusionment]

To many, it’s a means of overthrowing the existing regime; when you look a little closer, you realize that it’s just an extreme manifestation of neoliberalism. Instead of convincing you to buy stuff that you don’t need, they’re convincing you to buy imaginary optimism based on a mass enchantment. In addition, as a generation, we have the fervent belief that every single one of us is special and that therefore our creativity must have innate value; NFTs are our chance to sell it.

The rhetoric is compelling if a little naive at times. I stumbled upon a statement accompanying the forthcoming drop (i.e., the beginning of an auction) of one reasonably well-established digital artist, which, like many NFT artworks, ties the concept of the NFT into the artwork itself. This is how he described his animation of a futuristic character and his flying car: “NFTs are a rallying call for creatives,” it read. “A call to explore, to dream, and to leap into a world where our solitary dreams become a collective reality.” He added: “Collecting and creating NFTs is not an act of defiance but a tribute to a historical moment of a movement that is changing our lives.”

I’m not sure anything can be more meta than the simulated ownership of a digital copy of an artwork that describes itself as a tribute to a historical moment of a movement. It also conveniently ignores that these platforms are owned by millionaires such as the Winklevoss twins, who famously sued Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook.

Oh the FOMO

“Buy, sell, and discover rare digital items,” reads the strapline on OpenSea.io. If you’re wondering how a digital item can be rare, you’re asking the right question. Last century, philosopher Walter Benjamin explored how the authenticity of art was tied to its uniqueness and that photography — along with mechanical reproduction — brought instability. I’m not sure what Benjamin would have made of NFTs, but this disconnect between our love of authenticity and the virtual world’s inability to provide an alternative isn’t resolved by owning tokens that barely even exist. Digital rarity is a pretense.
Society is becoming less physical and more virtual, and it’s no coincidence that NFTs have taken hold at a time when our social interactions have never been less tangible. Furthermore, the creative industries now play a significant role in the economies of major nations, and yet despite the supposed value of artists’ contributions, employment is largely precarious (which itself is made to look appealing) and often supported by mundane jobs. The carrot dangled by the world of NFTs is incredibly alluring: let’s all sell something virtually so that we can collectively pretend that it is now owned by someone else.

The Art of Imagined Value

The art market has always been about making enough people believe that something has value. It’s also been a shadow banking system that facilitates the movement of large sums of money across borders or hides it from tax inspectors.

Whoa. Might be a good angle to present to the Cs? Are NFT transactions a shadow form of movement for currency? It goes on:

The value of the artworks that are now being sold as NFTs have acquired value thanks to marketing, FOMO, and a massive pile-on of unwitting minters and buyers trailing eagerly after celebrities and huge brands. Money washes through this system, and as a bubble, it’s unsustainable.

What doesn’t get seen among the flashy websites and occasionally beautiful artworks is the huge volume of minted pieces that do not sell. Selling an NFT is not that different from selling a print: it’s far easier if you have an excitable band of fans keen to part with their cash, and with NFTs, it’s even simpler if those fans are already tech geeks. If you’re a digital artist with a large following, you might do quite well, and it works in your favor if you indulge heavily in the crypto aesthetic. That’s a tiny minority of sellers; the vast majority will only lose money, as minting isn’t free, and you can be sure that someone somewhere is making a tidy profit as a result.

Not Quite a Swap Shop

Being friendly, supportive people, artists are encouraging fellow artists to buy each other’s art, salvaging egos, and giving you a sense that the money you spent on gas hasn’t been a complete waste. However, gas fees aside, most platforms add a 3% fee to the sum paid by the buyer and then take a 15% cut of that received by the seller: this generous, mutually supportive act of buying each other’s art is doing little more than line the pockets of the millionaires that set up these platforms in the first place. Artists would be far better off simply sending each other checks, posting a photo of the checks on social media, and then just keeping those checks in a drawer. [me: lol! this nails it for me]

The Environmental Impact Is Immense
What many artists are conveniently ignoring is that NFTs have a vast carbon footprint. To her horror, one environmentally conscious artist calculated that minting her six tokens was the equivalent to running her studio for two years. There’s plenty of discussion about the precise impact of NFTs (though the platforms seem predictably reluctant to get involved), but any conversation about this marketplace that doesn’t mention its potential environmental impact is massively irresponsible.

Winners Mean Losers

On the surface, the NFT marketplace is made to look like everyone is making money, and while crypto might be rewriting the rules of economics, there is one dictum it cannot escape: for someone to make money, another has to lose money. NFTs do not magically generate wealth from nowhere; they’re taking it from those buying into the idea that everyone who’s getting in early is making a killing. As David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain explains, “NFTs are entirely for the benefit of the crypto grifters. The only purpose the artists serve is as aspiring suckers to pump the concept of crypto — and, of course, to buy cryptocurrency to pay for ‘minting’ NFTs.”

Eventually, this pumping will tail off as the number of people willing to keep plowing money into Ethereum and NFTs will begin to ease. Given that this system relies on constant growth, it seems a safe bet that the value of these "rare" items might start to fall, and those countless investors who spent thousands of dollars on low-res pictures of a puppy might want to get their money out before it collapses completely. Otherwise, what are you going to do with that puppy? Print it and hang it above the toilet?

Prices might not even need to stagnate for people to sell. They just need to stop rising as rapidly, and suddenly, it will seem like a safer option to have dollars in your Chase account rather than Ethereum in a wallet where its value has already been seen to fluctuate by 20% in a single day. Once investors’ confidence is dented, the collapse could happen quite quickly.

Ethereum increases in value when people keep buying Ethereum, and this simulated ownership of supposedly rare digital assets has manufactured demand. Cryptocurrencies are desperate to find a reason for people to swap their dollars for a slightly more imaginary monetary system, and NFTs are the latest solution. When it reaches saturation point, the market will adjust, and it could be messy.

This bubble will burst; it’s just a matter of when.

And ICYMI (in case you missed it) - Cryptokitties: First video game on Etherium network that used NFT, article from 2017 (what a weird year, btw)

People have spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain | TechCrunch

Launched a few days ago, CryptoKitties is essentially like an digital version of Pokemon cards but based on the Ethereum blockchain. And like most viral

www.google.com

Launched a few days ago, CryptoKitties is essentially like an digital version of Pokemon cards but based on the Ethereum blockchain. And like most viral sensations that catch on in the tech world, it’s blowing up fast.

People are spending a crazy amount of real money on the game. So far about $1.3M has been transacted, with multiple kittens selling for ~50 ETH (around $23,000) and the “genesis” kitten being sold for a record ~246 ETH (around $113,000). This third party site tracks the largest purchases made to date on the game. And like any good viral sensation prices are rising and fluctuating fast. Right now it will cost you about .03 ETH, or $12 to buy the least expensive kitten in the game.

So now we have people using Ether, an asset with arguably little tangible utility – to purchase an asset with unarguably zero tangible utility. Welcome to the internet in 2017.

It's only gotten worse it seems, no surprise really. Nonetheless this area is about to get interesting.

And fwiw, I do have some first-hand experience with in-game monetary systems many moons ago. As an artist early in my career I worked on some of the first casual games with micro-transactional market places which now have been fined tuned some 15 years later. I hadn't dipped my toe in this space for a long time for ethical reasons that many here can probably understand. After doing so I'm pretty sure the 1st wave of social gaming was a proof of concept for the grand crypto-casino we’re seeing unfolding now. I’ve got too many thoughts and interconnections happening on this topic for one post so I’ll work on sharing more in another thread sometime…

 

[mxwlll0]

Another thought, if everyone is buying (collecting NFTs) I wonder if the next stage of the NFT craze (really digital artifacts) is to allow for peer to peer trading of these digital artifacts. Maybe that’s already possible? What about facsimiles? I wonder how this would affect pricing

Well, didn’t plan on posting again so quickly, but then this article on Angel List showed up that discusses the plan for trading digital artifacts through a blockchain marketplace:

GameStop and Bitcoin Renewed a Push to Digitize the Stock Market

Experiments in blockchain-based exchanges—with nearly instant, ‘round-the-clock trading—are gaining steam, but critics warn of volatility and risk.

www.wsj.com

Imagine a world where you could buy stocks, bonds, derivatives, cryptocurrencies or even pieces of art, all on one exchange, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from anywhere in the world.
On this exchange, trades occur directly between two investors instead of through a complex latticework of brokers, clearinghouses and other middlemen and gatekeepers. They settle, or close, almost instantly, instead of taking up to two days. The system is cheaper, more transparent and ostensibly more open. It is also potentially more volatile and risky for investors; profits can turn into losses in the wink of an eye at any time of the day or night.

Entrepreneurs have for years dreamed of using blockchain technology, the concepts and software underpinning bitcoin, to enable digital trading of virtually any asset. Today the idea seems less far-fetched than ever.

The Future of Everything​

A look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play.

When trading of videogame retailer GameStop Corp. exploded earlier this year, it illustrated just how fragile today’s markets can be. It also showed that a new generation of stock traders operates much like crypto traders: Flash mobs of retail traders gathering on social media and targeting an asset for a mass-buy has been a hallmark of cryptocurrency trading for years.

The current capital markets aren’t built for that kind of trading, but a number of pilot programs and other experiments are investigating how to create digitized markets that can keep up with changing times. “We’re seeing a tectonic shift start to happen,” says Jeffrey Schumacher, the founder of New Asset Exchange, a Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based startup that aims to help companies create and sell digital securities.
London-based Blockchain.com has already built the infrastructure needed. The company, founded in 2011, began as a “wallet” service, a piece of software used to store bitcoins. As it attempted to grow, it was stymied because the existing financial industry wouldn’t extend basic services to crypto companies, says Peter Smith, the chief executive of London-based Blockchain.com. They had to build the services themselves.

Today, Blockchain.com offers trading, custody, clearing and settlement services to retail and institutional clients trading crypto. The company can now replicate every service in the traditional capital markets, Mr. Smith says.​

By the beginning of next year, Mr. Smith expects Blockchain.com to begin listing assets apart from cryptocurrencies on its exchange, and plans to “aggressively move into asset classes one by one,” he says. By the end of 2024, he says, he wants to be able to have cryptocurrencies, foreign currency exchange, options and other investment products, and corporate equities available on his platform.
“Our thesis is pretty simple,” he says. “The internet is going to be the biggest economy in the world by 2030, and when it is there’s going to be a financial system built for the internet. Everything in crypto is built for that.”

 

[BHelmet]

And is that light at the end of the tunnel a freight train called Human Tokenization?

 

[SubnetUnMask]

And is that light at the end of the tunnel a freight train called Human Tokenization?

Bruh. I think you might be onto something here. Some applications of blockchain can, and mostly certainly look like they are going to be, used for a system of control. Take VeChain - it's a blockchain protocol used exclusively for supply chain management - now apply this system to food. All grown food / meat gets added to the block chain, and is tracked from End-to-End. This way a customer, or PTB, can see where the food originated from and where it moved from point-to-point until reaching the end. This is going to be advertised as "see? Now you can confirm your greens are certified organic and only been on the supply chain 3 days since grown". In Reality: Any food NOT on the blockchain could be "illegal" because it's contributing to "climate change". Ice Age Farmer has already pointed out in the US, in some states like Colorado, where there are bills to limit animal agriculture under the guise "animal rights" and "net zero carbon emissions". I mean, even Biden's new Climate plan that was revealed called for a 50 percent reduction in animal products - They're literally telling us they're going to starve the population - and I can see blockchain tech being used to aid that agenda.

Also, I've seen recently this new idea of "tokenization of ownership" - specifically within the real estate market. Just search it in Google. Basically the ownership of property can be tokenized on a blockchain. And the people who have access to whatever the "money printer" is, after the dollar goes away, can just buy up all the property and really all ownership can be tokenized. See below:

Session 26 April 2014​

Q: (L) In short, be circumspect, I think. (KJN) What is the status of the money system in the United States? If you have money in the bank, can you leave it there, or should we be doing something more proactive?

A: If you store it with the fox, you will lose it at some point rather soon.

Q: (Odyssey) On the money issue, would it be a good idea to invest in silver or gold?

A: Partly, but what about "needful things"?

Q: (KJN) So we should spend it on things we need now, versus spending it on gold or putting in a bank or that kind of thing?

A: Mostly. Money will soon be worthless, ownership will survive awhile longer.

So, pump up the crypto market, pick the best tech, crash the fiat system, and use the remaining blockchains to implement MORE control over food, property, and the very idea of ownership. That's.... that is what it looks like to me. From a high level perspective. And of course, since we are all STS here, it's hard not to participate in the current crypto frenzy because it's an easy way to make money.

This is what I would ask:

Q: Is the main goal of blockchain technology to eliminate the population's ability to own property such as land, vehicles, and food?

 

[Serendipity]

I think it’s related to gaining MORE control over the planet. However, I don’t think it will be done via bitcoin. But two other projects; XRP & XLM. All I can say here is DYOR in this area as the rampant speculation makes it a muddy topic.

I've entered crypto space some 3 and a half years ago at the peak of the previous cycle, or in layman terms bubble. A colleague of mine advised me to invest in XRP because the rest of the market increased in price in past few months while XRP was still flat. I didn't listen to him but proceeded to trade between different cryptos right away, even tho I was so new and inexperienced in the market. While I was trading around XRP began it's run from 0.2$ price to around 3.5$ in just three weeks. During that time I 'only' tripled my investment on trading around. And then came the peak and brutal bear market began. I didn't withraw anything, but mostly just watched my investment rapidly lose it's value in the coming months. But I didn't quit, on the contrary, since then I was going all in, in the market, and not just with the money, but with the research as well. I remember asking the universe not a year ago before that for a path to financial freedom, and I saw an opportunity, a door, in the crypto space.

Long story short, what I learned, what I know and believe more and more each day is: XRP will play a major role in the financial system of the coming future. I don't know how to explain or convey what I see, as much of it is based on seeing the unseen and reading between the lines of what transpires behind the scenes in the world of economy and digital assets economy, as well as my personal life events and countless signs and 'coincidences' that I learned to accept as normal, such as the date this thread was opened on (11th of March - same date as global pandemic was declared, same date my twins were conceived, same date I had a series of visions in 2012, same date that MrPool on twitter in advance (on 11/9/2019) called something would happen on, and would be akin to 9/11/2001. MrPool (who is suspected to be hinting at XRP being used in the financial system in the near future.. many other 'riddlers' are pointing out the same) https://twitter.com/looP_rM311_7211 left this message recently:



I already made a significant amount of money, more than most people in my country earn in decades (but I also went all in because I had faith and confidence in my belief and knowledge, as well as in the universe and in myself). Besides learning to "see the unseen" and to read between the signs and numbers, last three+ years I mainly focused on learning how to read the charts, especially the chart of XRP. I see a huge (multiple x) spike in the coming weeks with a top at the end of this Spring, specifically at or around June 18th (which will mark the completion of macro Elliott wave 3) After that I expect continuation of growth of Bitcoin price at least til the end of the year (to 200 or 300k+ $),while the chart of XRP makes it's corrective Elliott macro wave 4, followed by a macro wave 5 explosive wave of XRP price chart at the end of the Bitcoin's cycle (just as it behaved in the 2017. bull run, specifically at the end of the cycle, when my friend told me about XRP and I just watched it's price fly from 0.2 to 3.5$ in three weeks. If the cycle plays like that, or similarly to it, I'm looking forward to being able to donate plenty to the lighthouse of this forum and it's community. Fingers crossed :)
Also, take a look at Flare Networks that is soon going to be live and running (around end of June). It looks very very interesting and might even be a seed of a true decentralised financial system, that could ACTUALLY have potential to break us free from financial chains of PTB.

Disclaimer: not an investment advice. This is just my own belief/opinion.

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

Q: (Odyssey) On the money issue, would it be a good idea to invest in silver or gold?

A: Partly, but what about "needful things"?

Q: (KJN) So we should spend it on things we need now, versus spending it on gold or putting in a bank or that kind of thing?

A: Mostly. Money will soon be worthless, ownership will survive awhile longer.

I find this statement very interesting because the fundamental utility of public blockchains is immutable ownership of assets, via cryptography.

Note that various elites absolutely intend to use blockchain technology for the purposes of control, but this is primarily via private blockchains using Proof of Authority consensus. The reason private blockchains are advantageous is because they create an immutable, real time monitoring system for all transactions using that private blockchain, with programmability built in.

In practice, this means you can do things like program constraints on how money can be used. For example, you could specify that no one who receives digital currency from the state social security is allowed to purchase cigarettes, for health reasons, or you could specify the currency paid out via a certain class of companies can only be spent with counterparties compliant with local AML (anti-money laundering) or tax rules. From the perspective of a centralized state, these control benefits are pretty spectacular.

That said, public blockchains do not bring these benefits, and the crypto industry is going in the opposite direction. Some of the greatest advancements in recent years have been made in both scaling technology and privacy technology, such that the ability to enforce financial regulations becomes near nil. A great example of this are technologies like Tornado Cash on Ethereum; once money is mixed there, there's not a lot you can do but ban all 'tainted/mixed' coins, which probably isn't an effective long term solution for international markets.

I'm skeptical that public blockchains are going to be successfully controlled by the current elites. Based on what I've seen, I don't think they have the foresight to know how to control them at this stage, nor the means of enforcement.

That doesn't mean these technologies will end up driving net positive human betterment, only that they will probably not drive the interests of the present elite.

 

[flashgordonv]

In practice, this means you can do things like program constraints on how money can be used. For example, you could specify that no one who receives digital currency from the state social security is allowed to purchase cigarettes, for health reasons, or you could specify the currency paid out via a certain class of companies can only be spent with counterparties compliant with local AML (anti-money laundering) or tax rules. From the perspective of a centralized state, these control benefits are pretty spectacular.

And you see this as a good thing? Frankly, that just appals me. Talk about providing granular control to others.