And if we talking war.... What do you think about flag-war? What if banksters buy a STEEM-whale to flag-out any popular texts like this? They have more than enough (free, fake) money to buy as much steem as they whant to do this. And then we will have a censorship!
I believe we must get reed of the ability to flag. Yes you may say "it's a weapon to protect us", but who will protect us when the weapon will be used by aggressively? If you cannot attack anyone, it will be peace (no choice). If you can - will be war (always!). There is a proverb in Russia: "Worst peace is better than a best war".
It will not be true censorship. People can build their own front-end to the STEEM blockchain and view the content that is there, regardless of flags. Also, SMTs will allow for Oracles who will determine who can and can not participate in the rewards pool for that token.
If they buy up a lot of STEEM, the value of all existing Steem Power holders accounts goes up. Bring it on. :)
I agree, worst peace is better than best war, but I also disagree that all downvotes are part of a "flag war". From a technical perspective, a downvote is the same thing is giving a slight upvote to every other post on the platform. Abuse happens often and flags/downvotes are needed to increase the real value created by real authors.
"Many people have died over who gets to control the value of money."
Just look at what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi, who wanted to have their own gold-backed currency. Anyone who has dared to try to get away from the USD has been put down, without exception. We'll see if the Chinese succeed with their Petro-Yuan experiment.
Awesome post. I expected nothing less though when I saw you were the author.
A couple of things crossed my mind as I was reading this.
Your idea in the screenshot that prices will skyrocket when more people are using cryptos directly to make purchases rather than converting to fiat.
This is true. Yet, we need more opportunity to be able to do that. With bitcoin a barrier that has made this unattractive has been the fees required to even use it. They have been working on this, so hopefully is not an issue. With steem and others this is a non-issue.
I immediately thought of the rumblings that there is a chance that Amazon may soon start accepting payment in crypto. If that occurs then what you suggest is something that could occur for most products, unless people don't want to support Amazon. They could buy most purchases there if that happens and crypto should skyrocket.
Now all of that requires that Amazon or many other places start accepting crypto.
DTube is also something people to realize. It is a great application, but it is not viable for long term storage of videos as many people are now realizing as their videos from awhile back are no longer playable. This is okay, D.Tube is still great. People simply need to get into the habit of not putting their eggs all in one basket. When embedding a video into a post, why not do multiple copies of that video each hosted at other video services. There are many to choose from an it is unclear which will dominate in the long run. Gab.ai supports video now, bitchute works, vimeo is corporate but hasn't begun censoring yet, and there are products with big backers like real.video in the works. It is unclear which will dominate. We should use D.Tube, but if you are concerned about long term storage you should store it in additional video platforms as well. Though even those have potential flaws that haven't been worked through YET. So until things stabilize and something clearly exists with most problems resolved use multiple sites for you videos and you'll do much better.
Anyway, great post Luke. Keep up the good work.
EDIT: We are all part of an information war as well.
Thanks so much, @dwinblood. I spent a lot time with my business trying to get merchants to accept and use bitcoin. It was a struggle. Amazon could open up the option and have nothing happen. Overstock has had the option for a long time and even now, if I want to buy something on Amazon with bitcoin, that can be done today with services like purse.io and gyft.com.
The key is the consumer. We as individuals have to demand the merchants we interact with accept cryptocurrency. We as employees need to demand we get paid in cryptocurrency. We as vendors need to demand our contracts be done in cryptocurrency. When the circle is closed to the point where we value things in terms of cryptocurrency (not their USD equivalent), that's when things will really change. From the perspective, the price of BTC going up or down relative to USD won't matter.
We are all part of an information war as well.
Economics and finance are proxies for human psychology which is all about information, so you're exactly right.
We do need to think in terms of cryptocurrency rather than their fiat equivalents. We do need to move this forward by sheer force of will.
While word of mouth educating and enlisting is something we can all do, I'm wondering if there's any kind of coordinated effort in the works, for STEEM in particular, or for cryptocurrencies in general, to do outreach? One voice or message we can unite behind, if we so choose?
I've read of some possible marketing campaign in the works, but I haven't seen an official update regarding such a thing, or even an unofficial one.
Many see that as premature at this point. STEEM is not yet ready to handle millions and millions of new users and their content. As far as I know, Steemit, inc is working on core level scaling improvements such as appbase and hf20 which should hopefully get us closer to a point where the flood gates could be opened to handle real serious growth.
Totally understand the premature part. I was thinking in terms of after that, but yeah, no need to start a full on marketing campaign before you have the means to bring on the masses.
And just today I read this: "As cryptocurrencies increasingly capture the imagination of people, corporations, and states – a process which is already occurring on a truly global scale – the perception that the US has unbreakable financial power will wane. This could help open the floodgates towards the adoption of a cryptocurrency as the global reserve currency." (Smith & Dumieński at CryptoNews) It's from a piece titled 'Rise of Cryptocurrencies Could Curb American Power' -- I think the tipping point for crypto finally happened in November of 2017 and I have a lot of confidence in what will happen moving forward.
Yes, but LedgerX had already gotten into crypto futures last summer, well before CBOE, and LedgerX is made up entirely of former GoldmanSachs employees and members of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. November seemed like the tipping point for me because that's when my mother entered the crypto world; she's a good indicator of the non-early-adopting mainstream. lol
There may be a slight shift away from the US dollar as crypto-currencies shift, but the overall power of the United States is not likely to change. Even if everyone adopts crypto -tomorrow, the USA will still have enormous power military and economic influence in the world. This power is from exporting things people want. Iron, Salt, Food, Gold, Tea, and Oil have all been commodities of international power. While I can site 20 trillion reasons why I think the US government has been irresponsible, most foreign governments have been more irresponsible.
The information you give is what I have been waiting to see. Thanks for taking the time to write such comprehensive breakdown of the situation!
We, rooting for Bitcoin and the like, should start calling it what it is. It is the War of the Currencies! People should wake up to what money really is and your post highlights most of the important points! I will definitely be taking the time to watch the videos you mention!
I am not selling anything. They keep slapping the price down and it isn't looking good for months now but this is temporary I know. In a year or so, it will hardly matter. The only regret would be not buying in dips.
If would be a wise thing to do invest two hours in trying to understand the global finacial mechanism. Thanks for the video.
I'd better be a part of a revolution and go through some toil than being a spectator and seeing it explode. Blockchain is the future. It is too strong to be subdued by authorities. It gives freedom and prosperity; two key features of a peaceful world.
Just calling it decentralized means it’s something most of goverments don’t agree with. I really don't think it's an exaggeration that blockchain technology will at the end change the world. It is a fundamentally new way for creating decentralized systems. To me, it is a game changer. The currency speculation stuff is a sideshow. However, if there wasn't this bitcoin bubble, nobody would know about blockchain, and the topic would be completely boring to 95% of people. But the technology itself, including social platforms such as Steemit, is going to change how almost every single digital service is structured. It's complicated, and technical, and kind of hard to explanain in one sentence. Everyone knows that government and financial institutions are completely against it, they are frightened by blockchain technology. At the and people will win this war and they will have to adapt.
I don’t know about governments, in the end they could be the biggest users of the blockchain and it would safe them so much money! They just don’t see the added value yet!
The Iron Law of Bureaucracy shows that the administrators of government agencies are dependent on the opposite of government savings. Their power grows the larger the budget they administer grows, and any savings their agency manages decreases their personal power.
Government is run by people, and those people prefer to grow their power rather than decrease it.
Edit: WE need to use blockchain to first rein in government, and then replace it altogether. WE benefit from savings in the services we fund.
Blockchains and the valuable tokens that secure them go hand in hand. IMO, you can't have one without the other. I agree, it will change everything. As I said in 2013, Bitcoin will be more disruptive than the Internet.
Only six days into 2018 and banks, investment firms, even state regulators have declared war on cryptocurrency. Their campaign is simple, regulate, enslave, and destroy the freedom that some cryptocurrency promise
News from the front lines are as follows Visa has ended its business with WaveCrest putting an end to crypto debit cards from Bitwala, Cryptopay, Wire, and TenX. This move was designed to cast fear, to show dominance. They want all, to know that you are still enslaved and they are just one of your financial masters you must adhere to. Merrill Lynch has banned all their clients and advisors from cryptocurrency investments. They must think their clients are like children and daddy knows whats best for them. Then again 2008 happened and daddy didn’t know shit.
I know how hard it is to ban out the FUD. At the moment I'm still trying to buy the dip. But at some point, we maybe should face reality. This reality can be better or worse than we imagine now.
I did read all the whitepapers of all coins I did invest in. Some will have a future, other I hope they will have.
I don't want to create FUD but:
We all acknowledge the technical superiority of the blockchain and maybe we are confused by the cryptos. I did wrote a post a week ago(will not spam with the link you can easily find in on my blog), claiming that the first can survive without the other, while the other really needs the first. I do predict that within 10 years at least 50% of the blockchains will be cryptocurrency free. I also do predict that some of the coins will survive and boom as never seen before.
But I can imagine that the middle men, who see their existence vaporize due to the blockchain will not go down without a fight. They will keep on spreading FUD, they will come with ingenious solutions about hybrid blockchains. Where they use the power of the distributed ledger, the smart contracts, security and so on, but where the payments will be done outside the blockchain, given them back a reason for existence.
We should not fear this, cause it will all make the case for the good coins stronger, but we also may not neglect that these things could happen.
While it gets harder with the current market to keep the faith and forcing myself to strengthen my position in some coins, I will keep the faith and will not sell my coins with a loss.
I rather see my portfolio go bankrupt, then sell to coins to cheap to the big crypto-whales out there.
I'm a fan of leaving a link in a comment if it's a related post (just use HTML to make it an unobtrusive link), but I wasn't a fan of your analysis (see my comment for details). Cryptocurrency tokens are what secure a blockchain. You can't have one without the other, IMO.
I see FUD has reached a lot of people these days, and it is encouraging to see people like you helping others fight with it. I don't know for sure which side will win the war, but I will bet some money on crypto, while trying to support as much as I can this side. In the end, even of I lose my money, but crypto wins the war, this will still lead to a great progress of our society. Let's see how things turn out :)
Thank you. When the market's in a slump, I need these reminders of what an important moment in history we're in. Not just monetary history either... this technology with change the world and will become one of the most valuable tools that individuals can use to claim their freedom.
Bitcoin is in the biggest, non-existent bubble ever.
With less than 3% of the earth's population invested in bitcoin... it can't be a bubble.
Fortunately for bitcoin, the market manipulators do not have their biggest tool. They cannot "create" free bitcoin. Every attack costs them.
In the stock market, the plunge protection team has basically unlimited funds. The computer trading can actually make stock. How do you compete with that?
That last question is a good one. The only way I know to compete with it is to educate people on the very nature of value itself and help them formulate better perceptions in order to control their own understanding of what is and what is not valuable. Once we control our own perceptions, we can control what we're willing to buy, sell, and work for.
It certainly is a battle and only the strong will survive. It is difficult to have enough cash on hand to keep injecting into crypto. When the next surge happens I hope that crypto is ready to take over the world. I'm going to be pretty deeply invested.
I personally have been surprised that BitShares hasn't done better during the crash because of BitUSD with all the drama around Tether, SBD not keeping the peg and also NuBits now falling from the peg and trying to recover.
I think it is kind of confusing to people in some respects because you have to put up BTS as collateral. So I think in people's mind it seems weird to have to take a position in BTS that might go down in value just to have this other thing that is supposed to stay at $1. BitUSD to me seems like a good mechanism that exchanges could use to keep a peg in people's accounts. Like they would have a huge BTS reserve and utilize that as collateral for the BitUSD and then display people's holdings in their account that way people wouldn't have to buy into BTS to utilize BitUSD.
I like the premise that you don't have to own NuShares to utilize NuBits but I'm still trying to wrap my head around that ecosystem and I took it in the teeth slightly on my play with that now that it has decoupled from the $1. I'm going to keep learning though.
I very much agree with your sentiment, and purpose.
Three things. First, cryptocurrencies are inherently as fragile as any code. Even paper money is more physically robust, as it is less dependent on complex systems to survive. People often handwave this concern away, to their peril.
Second, FUD is a good thing. Fear is not the mindkiller, it is the enabler of courage. Without fear there is no courage. Reason is potential to resolve FUD, and rather than the absence of FUD, cogent analysis of facts is the essential tactic necessary to drive sound mechanisms.
Lastly, when confronted by superior weapons, opposition forces adopt those weapons. They don't need to create new cryptocurrencies. They can just take the ones that work over.
The only real victory over banksters will come with the post market economy.
I agree, physical forms of money (on the surface) seem more robust, but as a developer for more than 20 years, I'm biased towards code because (unlike the gold confiscation in 1933), I think obtaining everyone's private keys might be a little more difficult (especially if proper paper wallet creation procedures are followed). I have concerns about hardware wallets as well, but I'm currently giving them a shot.
I think risk is the enabler of courage. We could say fear comes with risk, but I prefer thinking in terms of risk having probabilistic negative outcomes which we want to avoid. No fear needed to have courage in managing risk. Based on my understanding of neuroscience, fear (and many other intense, primitive emotions) really does shut down the prefrontal cortex part of our mind which does all the thinking. If we have trusted facts, we don't have FUD by definition.
They will certainly try to take them over, but cryptocurrencies are anti-fragile by design. Taking them over, by design, is quite difficult. Due to the nature of open-source technology, it's also very difficult to do effectively over the long term. Some fear bitcoin was being taken over, so bitcoin cash was created. That's just one example among many.
How do you define a "post market economy"? Is that like a gift economy or like a "post-scarcity" Venus Project like thing?
Technology is creating means to have nonpoint source production of goods and services. 3D printing enables people to create any number of the parts and supplies they need from basic stock, and the manufactories being replaced range from stonework to living organs. This is presently available in models you can buy today for as little as $50, although that'll get you cheap plastic parts.
It's difficult to overestimate the level of disruption this will create in every field you can imagine, from Law Enforcement (weaponized drones) to Medicine (printing your own drugs and even organs in situ), but the concept at it's base replaces the capital investment model altogether--along with the social control mechanisms that support it, such as government.
With some few additions, such as mesh networks (to decentralize communications), and cryptocurrencies (as a temporary medium to replace the legacy capital system during transition) it is inevitable that continuing development of these extant technologies will make capital itself obsolete.
These aren't technologies that need to be invented. They exist now.
In 'The Diamond Age' Neal Stephenson postulated streams of atoms being delivered to people's personal printers by nanobots. In 'Transcendence' this network of nanodevices is networked and self aware.
The infrastructure concomitant to global and societal evolution takes time to create, and refinement and development of technology will continue to improve capabilities and reduce expense, until literally anything you want can be made to order at no cost.
Nothing stands in the way of this technically, except those who need power over people, which they will no longer possess when their money can't buy it.
There will eventually be no need to buy anything, because you can just make it. There will be no essential services you (and your neighbors) don't create yourselves.
There will be no necessary markets. There will be no need for money.
I enjoyed reading The Diamond Age and watched the Transcendence movie (though I hear the book is better, I still really enjoyed the movie). I get where you're coming from, and I don't think you're wrong just possibly premature. Time will always be a scarce resource. There will always be inequality because there will always be different ambitions and different levels of commitment regarding time spent working vs. time spent in leisure. I don't see that ever changing. Money is just a token on a shared ledger of understanding for who is providing value to others. At least, that's what sound money is supposed to be. Those who rail against money, I think, are really railing against the distortion of money and how separated it is from what humans actually value via government and central bank monopoly control.
Even in a 3D printed world, our expectations will change, as they always have. People believed cars, washing machines, dish washers, etc would create so much leisure that people wouldn't need to work anymore but instead we chose new things to work on. We're always creating. We're not a static species. We'll be working to build communities on Mars and beyond, if we survive long enough.
until literally anything you want can be made to order at no cost.
I don't see this ever being a reality within our lifetimes because that level of production and consumption would quickly destroy the planet we need to live on. You said "services" but then said create. Not everything we pay for is a physical thing that can be created or bought. Much of the economic activity in the world is service based and AI's are making great progress there, but are still a ways out.
I like the Star Trek dream of no money and no markets but every attempt at it on a large scale so far has lead to massive amounts of human suffering. On the small scale, I think we're starting to see sustainable communities live out what you're describing, and I think it's a beautiful thing we can all learn something from.
Its good to see people actually writing articles about the reality, making people aware about how our current monetary system works. The thing is, people need to be not only aware, but they should know what to do. Recent examples of banks blocking bitcoin transactions, banks stopping fiat transactions, governments taking tax in bitcoin are all moves by the centralised power against decentralisation. Irony of the fact is people are still talking about gains in cryptos with respect to the ever depreciating asset, called USD. And more than 99% of the people dont even care where the money comes from. As a united community we should first educate people outside the crypto world, so that people understand that Dollar is a tjing not worth holding. Everytime, when I tell people that Dollar is losing value ever since, and fiat money isnt backed by anything, I see 90% of the people laughing. Those who know keep quiet... Keep up the work, share the articles! Good to read though....
Watched it last night and enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing. I should do more research into the actual share holders of the FED. I remember looking into that years ago and seeing a list at some point but not really going much further with it.
I hadn't viewed it as a war before, but you're right. It's a bit scary to think we might be in a financial war with the wealthiest organisations on the planet.
I see it more as a mass disruption of the established order or maybe even a revolution, not a war. I think some of the bankers will break ranks at some point because you can't hold back a technology breakthrough as big as this.
They can do that and try to slow it down or delay the inevitable....but the inevitable is that the profit margin they are taking from being central to our financial system is going to disappear. They actually wont be able to compete with smart contracts from a profit margin perspective.
I don't think bitcoin's price fell because anyone declared war on it . It fell because lots of speculators and bitcoiners decided to cash out. They liked the idea of having dollars...
Reminded me of that Zach Williams song - "Fear, he is a liar". Zach came through Salt Lake a few weeks ago with the Roadshow, along with Matthew West and a few others - awesome concert. Good reminder. Thx.
So nice to hear your passion for cryptocurrencies as well as the steem blockchain in particular. Great to know you're in the top 20 to help guide the steem project where it needs to go.
Wow ... I really like your post, because your post is very different from others and also very useful .. post like this can be an example for us all friends .. thanks
I've been investing flr about 12 years now but i went into real estate not crypto. Looks like i missed out on alot of fun. One more real estate buy and then I'm in though
I love the first image with the graph. It really helps put things into perspective. We must not forget that cryptocurrencies are still relatively at the beginning of the journey.
Excellent post @lukestokes, it is always a pleasure to read your post, remember reading your post approximately half a year ago about the importance of voting for witness and I see you have gone far. Very nice to see a video of you talking live. I hope you can give me some advice on how to become a successful witness, just recently have rented out a server, got node installed and made my intro post. I really love the witness community and to participate on the witness channel.
The best advice I can give is to add value and build relationships. Figure out what the community needs and try to provide that. One thing which would be really helpful is to regularly review the STEEM github repo and update everyone on what Steemit, inc is working on.
Thanks for this interesting post.
And if we talking war.... What do you think about flag-war? What if banksters buy a STEEM-whale to flag-out any popular texts like this? They have more than enough (free, fake) money to buy as much steem as they whant to do this. And then we will have a censorship!
I believe we must get reed of the ability to flag. Yes you may say "it's a weapon to protect us", but who will protect us when the weapon will be used by aggressively? If you cannot attack anyone, it will be peace (no choice). If you can - will be war (always!). There is a proverb in Russia: "Worst peace is better than a best war".
It will not be true censorship. People can build their own front-end to the STEEM blockchain and view the content that is there, regardless of flags. Also, SMTs will allow for Oracles who will determine who can and can not participate in the rewards pool for that token.
If they buy up a lot of STEEM, the value of all existing Steem Power holders accounts goes up. Bring it on. :)
I agree, worst peace is better than best war, but I also disagree that all downvotes are part of a "flag war". From a technical perspective, a downvote is the same thing is giving a slight upvote to every other post on the platform. Abuse happens often and flags/downvotes are needed to increase the real value created by real authors.
The SCUD missile analogy was spot on.
Just look at what happened to Saddam and Gaddafi, who wanted to have their own gold-backed currency. Anyone who has dared to try to get away from the USD has been put down, without exception. We'll see if the Chinese succeed with their Petro-Yuan experiment.
Yep. It's not a coincidence other financial war tools which cause trade wars are now being deployed as part of this global financial situation.
Awesome post. I expected nothing less though when I saw you were the author.
A couple of things crossed my mind as I was reading this.
Your idea in the screenshot that prices will skyrocket when more people are using cryptos directly to make purchases rather than converting to fiat.
This is true. Yet, we need more opportunity to be able to do that. With bitcoin a barrier that has made this unattractive has been the fees required to even use it. They have been working on this, so hopefully is not an issue. With steem and others this is a non-issue.
I immediately thought of the rumblings that there is a chance that Amazon may soon start accepting payment in crypto. If that occurs then what you suggest is something that could occur for most products, unless people don't want to support Amazon. They could buy most purchases there if that happens and crypto should skyrocket.
Now all of that requires that Amazon or many other places start accepting crypto.
DTube is also something people to realize. It is a great application, but it is not viable for long term storage of videos as many people are now realizing as their videos from awhile back are no longer playable. This is okay, D.Tube is still great. People simply need to get into the habit of not putting their eggs all in one basket. When embedding a video into a post, why not do multiple copies of that video each hosted at other video services. There are many to choose from an it is unclear which will dominate in the long run. Gab.ai supports video now, bitchute works, vimeo is corporate but hasn't begun censoring yet, and there are products with big backers like real.video in the works. It is unclear which will dominate. We should use D.Tube, but if you are concerned about long term storage you should store it in additional video platforms as well. Though even those have potential flaws that haven't been worked through YET. So until things stabilize and something clearly exists with most problems resolved use multiple sites for you videos and you'll do much better.
Anyway, great post Luke. Keep up the good work.
EDIT: We are all part of an information war as well.
Thanks so much, @dwinblood. I spent a lot time with my business trying to get merchants to accept and use bitcoin. It was a struggle. Amazon could open up the option and have nothing happen. Overstock has had the option for a long time and even now, if I want to buy something on Amazon with bitcoin, that can be done today with services like purse.io and gyft.com.
The key is the consumer. We as individuals have to demand the merchants we interact with accept cryptocurrency. We as employees need to demand we get paid in cryptocurrency. We as vendors need to demand our contracts be done in cryptocurrency. When the circle is closed to the point where we value things in terms of cryptocurrency (not their USD equivalent), that's when things will really change. From the perspective, the price of BTC going up or down relative to USD won't matter.
Economics and finance are proxies for human psychology which is all about information, so you're exactly right.
We do need to think in terms of cryptocurrency rather than their fiat equivalents. We do need to move this forward by sheer force of will.
While word of mouth educating and enlisting is something we can all do, I'm wondering if there's any kind of coordinated effort in the works, for STEEM in particular, or for cryptocurrencies in general, to do outreach? One voice or message we can unite behind, if we so choose?
I've read of some possible marketing campaign in the works, but I haven't seen an official update regarding such a thing, or even an unofficial one.
Many see that as premature at this point. STEEM is not yet ready to handle millions and millions of new users and their content. As far as I know, Steemit, inc is working on core level scaling improvements such as appbase and hf20 which should hopefully get us closer to a point where the flood gates could be opened to handle real serious growth.
Totally understand the premature part. I was thinking in terms of after that, but yeah, no need to start a full on marketing campaign before you have the means to bring on the masses.
And just today I read this: "As cryptocurrencies increasingly capture the imagination of people, corporations, and states – a process which is already occurring on a truly global scale – the perception that the US has unbreakable financial power will wane. This could help open the floodgates towards the adoption of a cryptocurrency as the global reserve currency." (Smith & Dumieński at CryptoNews) It's from a piece titled 'Rise of Cryptocurrencies Could Curb American Power' -- I think the tipping point for crypto finally happened in November of 2017 and I have a lot of confidence in what will happen moving forward.
It could be the tipping point as well as the moment it got on the radar clear enough for the power players to treat it seriously enough to go after.
Yes, but LedgerX had already gotten into crypto futures last summer, well before CBOE, and LedgerX is made up entirely of former GoldmanSachs employees and members of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. November seemed like the tipping point for me because that's when my mother entered the crypto world; she's a good indicator of the non-early-adopting mainstream. lol
Hahah! I can't argue with the mom evidence. That's powerful stuff!
Interesting about LedgerX. I had forgotten about them.
There may be a slight shift away from the US dollar as crypto-currencies shift, but the overall power of the United States is not likely to change. Even if everyone adopts crypto -tomorrow, the USA will still have enormous power military and economic influence in the world. This power is from exporting things people want. Iron, Salt, Food, Gold, Tea, and Oil have all been commodities of international power. While I can site 20 trillion reasons why I think the US government has been irresponsible, most foreign governments have been more irresponsible.
Hi @lukestone
The information you give is what I have been waiting to see. Thanks for taking the time to write such comprehensive breakdown of the situation!
We, rooting for Bitcoin and the like, should start calling it what it is. It is the War of the Currencies! People should wake up to what money really is and your post highlights most of the important points! I will definitely be taking the time to watch the videos you mention!
Start a hashtag and get the movement rolling #warofthecurrencies
A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world without them
I am not selling anything. They keep slapping the price down and it isn't looking good for months now but this is temporary I know. In a year or so, it will hardly matter. The only regret would be not buying in dips.
If would be a wise thing to do invest two hours in trying to understand the global finacial mechanism. Thanks for the video.
I'd better be a part of a revolution and go through some toil than being a spectator and seeing it explode. Blockchain is the future. It is too strong to be subdued by authorities. It gives freedom and prosperity; two key features of a peaceful world.
I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries.
Just calling it decentralized means it’s something most of goverments don’t agree with. I really don't think it's an exaggeration that blockchain technology will at the end change the world. It is a fundamentally new way for creating decentralized systems. To me, it is a game changer. The currency speculation stuff is a sideshow. However, if there wasn't this bitcoin bubble, nobody would know about blockchain, and the topic would be completely boring to 95% of people. But the technology itself, including social platforms such as Steemit, is going to change how almost every single digital service is structured. It's complicated, and technical, and kind of hard to explanain in one sentence. Everyone knows that government and financial institutions are completely against it, they are frightened by blockchain technology. At the and people will win this war and they will have to adapt.
I don’t know about governments, in the end they could be the biggest users of the blockchain and it would safe them so much money! They just don’t see the added value yet!
The Iron Law of Bureaucracy shows that the administrators of government agencies are dependent on the opposite of government savings. Their power grows the larger the budget they administer grows, and any savings their agency manages decreases their personal power.
Government is run by people, and those people prefer to grow their power rather than decrease it.
Edit: WE need to use blockchain to first rein in government, and then replace it altogether. WE benefit from savings in the services we fund.
Blockchains and the valuable tokens that secure them go hand in hand. IMO, you can't have one without the other. I agree, it will change everything. As I said in 2013, Bitcoin will be more disruptive than the Internet.
Only six days into 2018 and banks, investment firms, even state regulators have declared war on cryptocurrency. Their campaign is simple, regulate, enslave, and destroy the freedom that some cryptocurrency promise
News from the front lines are as follows Visa has ended its business with WaveCrest putting an end to crypto debit cards from Bitwala, Cryptopay, Wire, and TenX. This move was designed to cast fear, to show dominance. They want all, to know that you are still enslaved and they are just one of your financial masters you must adhere to. Merrill Lynch has banned all their clients and advisors from cryptocurrency investments. They must think their clients are like children and daddy knows whats best for them. Then again 2008 happened and daddy didn’t know shit.
I know how hard it is to ban out the FUD. At the moment I'm still trying to buy the dip. But at some point, we maybe should face reality. This reality can be better or worse than we imagine now.
I did read all the whitepapers of all coins I did invest in. Some will have a future, other I hope they will have.
I don't want to create FUD but:
We all acknowledge the technical superiority of the blockchain and maybe we are confused by the cryptos. I did wrote a post a week ago(will not spam with the link you can easily find in on my blog), claiming that the first can survive without the other, while the other really needs the first. I do predict that within 10 years at least 50% of the blockchains will be cryptocurrency free. I also do predict that some of the coins will survive and boom as never seen before.
But I can imagine that the middle men, who see their existence vaporize due to the blockchain will not go down without a fight. They will keep on spreading FUD, they will come with ingenious solutions about hybrid blockchains. Where they use the power of the distributed ledger, the smart contracts, security and so on, but where the payments will be done outside the blockchain, given them back a reason for existence.
We should not fear this, cause it will all make the case for the good coins stronger, but we also may not neglect that these things could happen.
While it gets harder with the current market to keep the faith and forcing myself to strengthen my position in some coins, I will keep the faith and will not sell my coins with a loss.
I rather see my portfolio go bankrupt, then sell to coins to cheap to the big crypto-whales out there.
I'm a fan of leaving a link in a comment if it's a related post (just use HTML to make it an unobtrusive link), but I wasn't a fan of your analysis (see my comment for details). Cryptocurrency tokens are what secure a blockchain. You can't have one without the other, IMO.
I did see it but didn’t read it yet. First have to put the kids in bed!
We will always be 5 steps ahead. Resteemed
Thanks Randy. Power to the people!
I see FUD has reached a lot of people these days, and it is encouraging to see people like you helping others fight with it. I don't know for sure which side will win the war, but I will bet some money on crypto, while trying to support as much as I can this side. In the end, even of I lose my money, but crypto wins the war, this will still lead to a great progress of our society. Let's see how things turn out :)
That's why it's worth fighting for!
Thank you. When the market's in a slump, I need these reminders of what an important moment in history we're in. Not just monetary history either... this technology with change the world and will become one of the most valuable tools that individuals can use to claim their freedom.
Resteemed.
Bitcoin is in the biggest, non-existent bubble ever.
With less than 3% of the earth's population invested in bitcoin... it can't be a bubble.
Fortunately for bitcoin, the market manipulators do not have their biggest tool. They cannot "create" free bitcoin. Every attack costs them.
In the stock market, the plunge protection team has basically unlimited funds. The computer trading can actually make stock. How do you compete with that?
That last question is a good one. The only way I know to compete with it is to educate people on the very nature of value itself and help them formulate better perceptions in order to control their own understanding of what is and what is not valuable. Once we control our own perceptions, we can control what we're willing to buy, sell, and work for.
It certainly is a battle and only the strong will survive. It is difficult to have enough cash on hand to keep injecting into crypto. When the next surge happens I hope that crypto is ready to take over the world. I'm going to be pretty deeply invested.
I personally have been surprised that BitShares hasn't done better during the crash because of BitUSD with all the drama around Tether, SBD not keeping the peg and also NuBits now falling from the peg and trying to recover.
I agree. @dan created an amazing financial weapon/tool with BitShares/bitUSD, and we should all be using it more effectively.
I think it is kind of confusing to people in some respects because you have to put up BTS as collateral. So I think in people's mind it seems weird to have to take a position in BTS that might go down in value just to have this other thing that is supposed to stay at $1. BitUSD to me seems like a good mechanism that exchanges could use to keep a peg in people's accounts. Like they would have a huge BTS reserve and utilize that as collateral for the BitUSD and then display people's holdings in their account that way people wouldn't have to buy into BTS to utilize BitUSD.
I like the premise that you don't have to own NuShares to utilize NuBits but I'm still trying to wrap my head around that ecosystem and I took it in the teeth slightly on my play with that now that it has decoupled from the $1. I'm going to keep learning though.
I very much agree with your sentiment, and purpose.
Three things. First, cryptocurrencies are inherently as fragile as any code. Even paper money is more physically robust, as it is less dependent on complex systems to survive. People often handwave this concern away, to their peril.
Second, FUD is a good thing. Fear is not the mindkiller, it is the enabler of courage. Without fear there is no courage. Reason is potential to resolve FUD, and rather than the absence of FUD, cogent analysis of facts is the essential tactic necessary to drive sound mechanisms.
Lastly, when confronted by superior weapons, opposition forces adopt those weapons. They don't need to create new cryptocurrencies. They can just take the ones that work over.
The only real victory over banksters will come with the post market economy.
Thanks!
I agree, physical forms of money (on the surface) seem more robust, but as a developer for more than 20 years, I'm biased towards code because (unlike the gold confiscation in 1933), I think obtaining everyone's private keys might be a little more difficult (especially if proper paper wallet creation procedures are followed). I have concerns about hardware wallets as well, but I'm currently giving them a shot.
I think risk is the enabler of courage. We could say fear comes with risk, but I prefer thinking in terms of risk having probabilistic negative outcomes which we want to avoid. No fear needed to have courage in managing risk. Based on my understanding of neuroscience, fear (and many other intense, primitive emotions) really does shut down the prefrontal cortex part of our mind which does all the thinking. If we have trusted facts, we don't have FUD by definition.
They will certainly try to take them over, but cryptocurrencies are anti-fragile by design. Taking them over, by design, is quite difficult. Due to the nature of open-source technology, it's also very difficult to do effectively over the long term. Some fear bitcoin was being taken over, so bitcoin cash was created. That's just one example among many.
How do you define a "post market economy"? Is that like a gift economy or like a "post-scarcity" Venus Project like thing?
Technology is creating means to have nonpoint source production of goods and services. 3D printing enables people to create any number of the parts and supplies they need from basic stock, and the manufactories being replaced range from stonework to living organs. This is presently available in models you can buy today for as little as $50, although that'll get you cheap plastic parts.
It's difficult to overestimate the level of disruption this will create in every field you can imagine, from Law Enforcement (weaponized drones) to Medicine (printing your own drugs and even organs in situ), but the concept at it's base replaces the capital investment model altogether--along with the social control mechanisms that support it, such as government.
With some few additions, such as mesh networks (to decentralize communications), and cryptocurrencies (as a temporary medium to replace the legacy capital system during transition) it is inevitable that continuing development of these extant technologies will make capital itself obsolete.
These aren't technologies that need to be invented. They exist now.
In 'The Diamond Age' Neal Stephenson postulated streams of atoms being delivered to people's personal printers by nanobots. In 'Transcendence' this network of nanodevices is networked and self aware.
The infrastructure concomitant to global and societal evolution takes time to create, and refinement and development of technology will continue to improve capabilities and reduce expense, until literally anything you want can be made to order at no cost.
Nothing stands in the way of this technically, except those who need power over people, which they will no longer possess when their money can't buy it.
There will eventually be no need to buy anything, because you can just make it. There will be no essential services you (and your neighbors) don't create yourselves.
There will be no necessary markets. There will be no need for money.
This is what I mean by the post market economy.
I enjoyed reading The Diamond Age and watched the Transcendence movie (though I hear the book is better, I still really enjoyed the movie). I get where you're coming from, and I don't think you're wrong just possibly premature. Time will always be a scarce resource. There will always be inequality because there will always be different ambitions and different levels of commitment regarding time spent working vs. time spent in leisure. I don't see that ever changing. Money is just a token on a shared ledger of understanding for who is providing value to others. At least, that's what sound money is supposed to be. Those who rail against money, I think, are really railing against the distortion of money and how separated it is from what humans actually value via government and central bank monopoly control.
Even in a 3D printed world, our expectations will change, as they always have. People believed cars, washing machines, dish washers, etc would create so much leisure that people wouldn't need to work anymore but instead we chose new things to work on. We're always creating. We're not a static species. We'll be working to build communities on Mars and beyond, if we survive long enough.
I don't see this ever being a reality within our lifetimes because that level of production and consumption would quickly destroy the planet we need to live on. You said "services" but then said create. Not everything we pay for is a physical thing that can be created or bought. Much of the economic activity in the world is service based and AI's are making great progress there, but are still a ways out.
I like the Star Trek dream of no money and no markets but every attempt at it on a large scale so far has lead to massive amounts of human suffering. On the small scale, I think we're starting to see sustainable communities live out what you're describing, and I think it's a beautiful thing we can all learn something from.
Its good to see people actually writing articles about the reality, making people aware about how our current monetary system works. The thing is, people need to be not only aware, but they should know what to do. Recent examples of banks blocking bitcoin transactions, banks stopping fiat transactions, governments taking tax in bitcoin are all moves by the centralised power against decentralisation. Irony of the fact is people are still talking about gains in cryptos with respect to the ever depreciating asset, called USD. And more than 99% of the people dont even care where the money comes from. As a united community we should first educate people outside the crypto world, so that people understand that Dollar is a tjing not worth holding. Everytime, when I tell people that Dollar is losing value ever since, and fiat money isnt backed by anything, I see 90% of the people laughing. Those who know keep quiet... Keep up the work, share the articles! Good to read though....
Thanks. We all can do our part.
Excellent article. The lecture by Griffin is one of my all time favourites. Have you ever listened to the one by Eustace Mullins?
No, I haven't, but I'll surely check it out. Thanks for sharing!
Watched it last night and enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing. I should do more research into the actual share holders of the FED. I remember looking into that years ago and seeing a list at some point but not really going much further with it.
kaBOOM! 100% upvote! Excellent post. Keep spreading the good crypto word. Freedom over tyranny!
yes we are fighters
steemit bo prezivel to vojno ;)
Money is power. Therefore Bitcoin is powerful.
No. Money was power. Until technology came and empowered everyone.
What a great post @lukestokes
I hadn't viewed it as a war before, but you're right. It's a bit scary to think we might be in a financial war with the wealthiest organisations on the planet.
I see it more as a mass disruption of the established order or maybe even a revolution, not a war. I think some of the bankers will break ranks at some point because you can't hold back a technology breakthrough as big as this.
I imagine they will use the technology to strengthen themselves instead of breaking rank, but we will see.
They can do that and try to slow it down or delay the inevitable....but the inevitable is that the profit margin they are taking from being central to our financial system is going to disappear. They actually wont be able to compete with smart contracts from a profit margin perspective.
That sure sounds good to me. :)
I don't think bitcoin's price fell because anyone declared war on it . It fell because lots of speculators and bitcoiners decided to cash out. They liked the idea of having dollars...
The current price of bitcoin is not what I'm talking about. For more of a back story, see this talk: Why Bitcoin May Be More Disruptive than the Internet.
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Good post ..
I am playing a part in the revolution by earning money side by side !!!
Wonderful !!
(hehe)
Very nice crypto currency
I like it this Post, I appreciate your post......
All the strong hands need to read this, thanks Luke for taking the time to put this perspective out there and help the HODLer's manage their emotions.
Reminded me of that Zach Williams song - "Fear, he is a liar". Zach came through Salt Lake a few weeks ago with the Roadshow, along with Matthew West and a few others - awesome concert. Good reminder. Thx.
So nice to hear your passion for cryptocurrencies as well as the steem blockchain in particular. Great to know you're in the top 20 to help guide the steem project where it needs to go.
Thank you for your support. :)
Exactly all the crypto holders are warrior and their war is against corrupt banking mafia.
glad to be part of a future crypto world o lets win this war
Hello Luke, this post is amazing and I am also curious how the crypto space will develope.
by the way, I made a painting of you with your kid.
https://steemit.com/art/@art-universe/lukestokes-steemit-member-painting-6
Hope you like it!
Wow ... I really like your post, because your post is very different from others and also very useful .. post like this can be an example for us all friends .. thanks
awsome!!!
we are still in the beginning of the crypto revolution, when more real life uses appear, the market will become much harder to manipulate
Well i remain loyal to the cryptocurrency battles because like it or yes we are gonna win, and when we do, ill be right there.
I've been investing flr about 12 years now but i went into real estate not crypto. Looks like i missed out on alot of fun. One more real estate buy and then I'm in though
Give me the opportunity to do good work by voting....pls
I love the first image with the graph. It really helps put things into perspective. We must not forget that cryptocurrencies are still relatively at the beginning of the journey.
Bitcoin is Anti-Fragile! Anti-Fragile is not a participation prize!
We have a old saying in my country: Many goose win above the pig
Excellent post @lukestokes, it is always a pleasure to read your post, remember reading your post approximately half a year ago about the importance of voting for witness and I see you have gone far. Very nice to see a video of you talking live. I hope you can give me some advice on how to become a successful witness, just recently have rented out a server, got node installed and made my intro post. I really love the witness community and to participate on the witness channel.
The best advice I can give is to add value and build relationships. Figure out what the community needs and try to provide that. One thing which would be really helpful is to regularly review the STEEM github repo and update everyone on what Steemit, inc is working on.
Excellent advice and good idea. Thank you @lukestokes, will definitely look into that. Thanks, will keep in touch!
After using that Dune quote today, I had to watch the movie. Such a classic. I read all the original books in high school.
Seriously good and important post. Resteeming to help grow your audience for it, and also to reread at my leisure later. Nice work.
Thank you. :)
We are not at war. This is THE revolution!
Thanks for all the links and videos. Resteemed!
Amazing read.
Very interesting friends, you have a good talent in steem