It seems that many people don’t understand why cryptocurrencies are here to stay and will eventually take over the banking system. One supposedly enlightened person on Facebook even said that he didn’t think that I understood that I haven’t backed up my arguments logically. Well I plan to lay it out here in more detail so the rest of you who have doubts will be able to see what I see more clearly.
First let me say that I was skeptical myself of bitcoin when I first heard about it. I’m not exactly sure when I first heard about bitcoin. I seem to remember encountering that option around 2010 when I was searching for e-commerce payment solutions for my software business, but thought bitcoin was just another “Paypal”.
The next time I remember much more clearly, when in Oct 2015, William Stickevers recommended looking into Coinbase. I almost signed up right then, but I got distracted and forgot about it being heavily involved in my own software project Delphic Oracle XPF. The turning point wasn’t until I finally finished that project at the end of 2016 and started reading outside of my narrow field of interest again.
I actually bought my first bitcoin on Feb 14, 2017 through Coinbase. At the time the price was barely over $1000. BTW, people seem to have this misconception that you have to buy a whole bitcoin. I only bought $50 worth on that date and shortly afterwards I read the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper and that changed everything. Having more than 2 decades experience in running my own software company and writing code, I was primed perfectly for that paper.
That was when I realized that it was much more than just money. What Satoshi did was take the trend that has been happening with computers putting some people and industries out of work and focused it into a trend that would put authority out of work. He did this by solving the byzantine generals problem which for centuries was only solvable using a central authority, but he found a way to solve the problem of achieving consensus without the use of a central authority.
This technology goes by different names such as “blockchain”, “decentralization”, “technical disintermediation”, etc, but there’s actually about 6 underlying technologies that make this work (elliptic curve cryptography, blockchain encumbrances, some variation of Proof of Work, PoS, DPoS, public and private keys, SHA-256, etc…).
In the past, digital currencies have been tried. The NSA was actually working on this in the 1990’s and there were such ideas as digicash which made the mistake of central control that quickly got stomped out by authorities. Authority doesn’t like anyone cutting in on its monopoly of issuing currency, so when sovereign entities whose source of power comes from the issuance of their own currency see a non-sovereign competitor, they stomp it out by finding out who’s in charge and threatening those creators of competing currency with lawsuits, jail time, etc…
So when bitcoin showed up on the scene in January 2009, it was a very small group of cypherpunks led by an anonymous creator (Satoshi Nakamoto) who released the code as open source software that anyone can run. It flew under the radar for quite a while until Wikileaks finally put the currency on the map of authority when Wikileaks credit card access was denied and it started accepting bitcoin for payments, ironically making an Ecuadorian embassy imprisoned Julian Assange very rich with no place to spend it.
The problem for authority is that there’s no central authority running bitcoin itself. No authority to shut down. What bitcoin did was hold authority hostage to the benefits of losing the internet and Swift Network that the banking system uses. So for authority to shut down this technology it will have to commit technical suicide and go back to the days of paper book keeping. I’m old enough to remember those days, so I know authority thinks it might be able to use the “internet kill switch”. However, once government does that, they’re dealing with much bigger problems. For one thing, in Philadelphia, there were near riots when welfare recipients lost use of their EBT cards.
The devils bargain that authority made was to accept this new technology, warts and all, because if they don’t, they lose all of the progress that they’ve made over the past 3 generations or so. So what alternative do they have? They will of course focus on the exchanges like Coinbase that do have people in charge and have KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) which violate the decentralization principles of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bottom line is that shutting down the internet creates more problems than it solves.
The naysayers often cite the awesome power of government to punish those within their borders. Of course that will happen. At some point governments around the world will make use of cryptocurrencies illegal. This has in fact already happened in a number of places. Historical precedent shows what happens when a government does this. There hasn’t been a single instance where making a currency illegal saved that nations currency. In fact the opposite happens…
(source - Andreas Antonopoulos)
This is known as Gresham’s law in economics. The problem for authority is that the police have to be paid in the legal currency which is of course worth less than the illegal currency. As that nations currency value plummets due to hyper inflation, the cops can’t survive and do their job with the legal currency so they end up being forced to be criminals themselves by accepting bribes in the illegal money to survive.
The authorities who signed their names on the law of course are completely aware of what comes next, so they watch for police accepting bribes and then the police are forced to bribe the judges, then the judges are forced to bribe the politicians and on it goes all the way to the top until the ones holding the most of the “illegal” currency are the ones who signed their names on the law.
Bitcoin was made possible because authority created a massive equity drain through printing up and running government under the concept of “unlimited money”. Limited money would have made it much harder for bitcoin to gain traction.
(source - Stefan Molyneux)
The biggest drains on the economy created in the last 20 years are due largely to the Iraq war (and other wars). Governments instead of asking the people for permission, just metaphorically crank up the printing press. First Bush 43 raided Social Security and stuck an IOU into that trust fund (effectively causing seniors to be taxed twice for the same benefits), then later on in 2008 after the banking crisis, “quantitative easing” (aka counterfeiting by approval) caused the value of the dollar to collapse albeit slowly because it’s the world’s reserve currency causing this to happen...
(Google images - Wikimedia Commons)
When you have multiple currencies operating side by side, you end up with currency wars and in the end the ones with the superior store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account are the ones that prevail. The numbers currently favor the underbanked and unbanked which number about 5.5 billion people. They are the ones who will use cryptocurrency and cause its widespread adoption. The growth of that internet world economy will eventually swallow all nation state currencies because nation state currency is limited by jurisdictional borders whereas the “internet of money” is borderless, censorship resistant, open source, and decentralized.
Some have said that nation states will not allow you to put your money into the system. I expect that to happen too. But you’ve got to remember that by then, the value of that currency will be minimal. Those of us who are already not using national fiat and accept payment in crypto from those who already have it by providing services will be the new economy. Those old currencies are promises by a government that is going to fade away and all most of the 3rd world has left is their time, energy and ability to work for crypto using a cell phone and MyCelium wallet. It’s already happening.
So the protocol can’t be stopped without the governments of the world committing suicide, what’s left to be done? Well authority will of course get nasty and violent when they see their death approaching. I almost feel sorry for them because they never really had control but fell into the illusion of control and behaved badly because of it.
They did lots of immoral and unethical things to prop up their power. Will they be rational about being checkmated? Probably not. They will probably go all the way to forcing the black player to make that move that takes the king off the board instead of that king gracefully lying down sideways on the chess board. We didn't start that fight, but we will finish it.
Will the result be bad? Lots of people seem to think so. Of course anyone dependent on the system for anything will be hurting for a while, but longer term this will likely be the best result for humanity. It’s not easy to see how much better things can be until the parasites are driven out of the system. This is not going to happen over night either. We’re looking at a change here that will take at least a generation to complete.
The question is whether the 1.5 billion banked will be able to hold back the other 5.5 billion. Maybe they can for a while. Americans will of course be the last to understand and jump on board because they have full banking privileges. We may be in for a digital panopticon for a while because authority has made the mistake of using biometrics directly instead of using biocryptics. This can delay adoption for a while, but it can’t last for the reasons stated in that video.
Authority will leave a massive wake of destruction that will have to be cleaned up by those of us who understand decentralization and the future will likely look similar to this proposal.
Donations (public bitcoin address):
3FwxQsa7gmQ7c1GXJyvDTqmT6CM3mMEgcv
That was a really good read, I felt like I got a lot of insight out of it, especially the video adds, and your detailed explainations after each really driving these points in. What a way to come back on an argument. Really valid and strong points.
Very well written. This deserves to be on the trending page. Ill resteem to put more eyes on it. Thanks for the great read bro
Great article! I feel very similar and I agree with a lot of what you said, I also learned a couple things as well. Definitely worthy of a resteem and a share on Facebook as well. Times are crazy and it's going to be interesting to see how it unfolds! Hopefully for the positive! Though.. I don't think the powers that shouldn't be are going to let go without a serious fight.
Hello colleague @zoidsoft, I hope you feel very well :D. Very good post, I voted for it. I would like to invite you to follow me on my page @emmanuel250998 where I will be uploading every day the latest news about the world of cryptocurrencies. I also invite you to vote for my last post:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@emmanuel250998/how-to-start-a-career-at-blockchain-developers-part-one
I would very much appreciate your support. A big hug and greetings from Venezuela ;)
Hodl those private keys all good yo! To the moon we go!
It's important to discuss a topic that is actually all of us now because of the headache, but your post looks amazing to me. I appreciate your knowledge and experience by talking about important things about Bitcoin.
Do you know anything about SHA-256. If you do could you do a post about it. Many are concerned that since it has origins in the government that there is a backdoor key.
I haven't studied the internals of that function, but have written my own hashing algo for registration of my software. The main way that you know you can trust it, is that it's open source. Would Satoshi Nakamoto have used it if it had a back door in 2009? I doubt it. Has there been a change since then in github? Hard to get it past anybody if there was anything new introduced because there are too many eyes on it.
I'll be taking a cryptocurrency course with Ivan OnTech starting Feb 1, 2018. I'm relatively new to this field but have been a full time programmer for over 20 years.
Highly rEsteemed!
Excellent post @zoidsoft and an interesting perspective which I would love to be the case but Iam more suspicious than yourself it would appear regarding the possibility of blockchain technology being used against us rather than a means of setting us free. You clearly have a better understanding than myself as to how everything works and fits together but I have learned to be skeptical and to always look for the negative when I'm being shown the positive, so I still have my doubts.
It's possible that we can end up with a digital panopticon for a while which I talked about in a few previous posts. I only briefly mentioned that at the end of this post. The problem with using biometrics directly is that eventually those metrics get compromised and can no longer be used as a reliable single source of identity information. The reality is that we really don't need identity in the vast majority of cases.
The better course would be to use biocryptics which uses biometrics as an input to a hashing algorithm so that PII (Personally Identifiable Info) can be protected. Barring that, you eventually end up with Equifax magnitude data breaches that lead to the necessity for 2FA, 3FA etc. There's a much better solution...
I don't question their intent to do evil, but I do question their ability.
This video is an excellent explanation why centralized security is fatally flawed... (this is the lack of ability I talk about)
"We didn't start the fight, but we will finish it". Sometimes the fight gets tiring, but we actually have something promising at this point.
Great post outlining your perspective of what is going on in a big picture way! Resteemed. I see a possible scenario where authority uses violence to force everyone into their centralized version of CICADA. Also creating a program that allows people to rapidly vote to take away others rights will result in an explosion of slavery. Democracy is simply a system of generating lies which cause slavery (laws) where everyone is a slave and a master of slaves. This is different from a principle, which is a truth that creates freedom like gravity or thermodynamics. In a democracy each person has a taste of the enforcement of their will on others rights and having others vote away their rights. Our democracy in America has ended up a mix between a police state and a welfare state where theft is legalized via the FED and other banking and financial institutions. Democracy is not the way forward, it is possibly the most evil vehicle of confusion for the human mind that exists.
You won't be getting an argument out of me. I'm an anarchist. I merely point out there's such ideas floating around out there like CICADA DDD. I'm not endorsing all of it. I brought it up because it shows how authority can be inverted into a decentralized system.
Conversations at my recent holiday gatherings of friends and family inevitably lead to discussion of blockchain technology (in the form of bitcoin to keep everyone on the same page)...I was terrified by the lack of knowledge in the older generations about what will ultimately give cryptocurrencies more value than fiat. They nodded along, seeming to understand the benefit of a decentralized ledger for protecting information but when I stated that there was a finite amount, eliminating inflation, there was a very underwhelming reaction.
Your observation of America's banking privileges is the reason why these education efforts are increasingly important. Increasing concerns with the government spending/inflation along with increasing major business and credit hacks are understandably causing people to be concerned, but people are unaware that our friendly cypherpunks have already laid the grounds for the solution for us. The few industries that have been disrupted by the internet so far will pale in comparison to what is coming but one with a libertarian mindset can't help but be excited to be able to participate in such an important community at such an early stage.
Great article, I resteemed. You point out part of the slavery system really, (Federal reserve). Are you aware the U.S. is a FREAKING corporation? Like federal express?
Long story but pretty much everything is a LIE I believe. The crypto is a piece of the puzzle, still question it somewhat but I agree with your thoughts , interesting tims. I hope steemit keeps growing, censorship is rampant. Oh, and Earth is flat & Las Vegas shooting was a hoax , Peace.
I don't believe that the earth is flat (there are mountains after all). I've driven from NY to Florida too many times and every time I go down there I see Antares at about 19 degrees higher azimuth than in NY. The stars didn't all move, but I did and therefore the only way to explain this is that the angle of the surface gradually changed over the 1300 miles of driving. I'm also old enough to remember the Moon landing so I don't believe it was faked.
But government is full of lies. 911 stinks of government inside jobs, but I stick to the conspiracies that actually matter...
There's something called Occams Razor that everyone ought to be aware of because too many mental gyrations eventually leads to brain damage and then you lose all sense of reality.
The reality that for thousands of years stars stay EXACTLY where they need to be be to navigate ships ALL while MOVING at a MILLION MiPH and over billions of MILES in a SINGLE YEAR, let alone THOUSANDS of years??? You are good with that, every night you look up and they all there like the night before for thousands of years AND there moving and I'm nuts.
I commented under david hicks on that frauds video about 6 months back or so, oh well.
That FRAUD you posted is PAID Disinfo for sure. He contradicts himself and says he does not know that much about the moon landings and then goes on to say it would be harder to make a freaking movie than to go to the moon??? Did you even watch his bullshit?
Dude, the power it takes to transmit a signal from the moon would require a shiton of batteries and weight and back then they still couldn't do it which is why they did not lol.
I was alive when this happened and remember everything that was going on for years before and after this historic event. One of my relatives worked at NASA. So I guess you'll just have to consign me to being one of "those liars". Look up Occams razor on Google.
BTW, the stars do move millions of miles, but that is so small compared to the vast expanse of light years. At that distance a few million miles is about 0.001 arc seconds. They also move uniformly according to what's known as the red shift. Also the concept of vectors matter. When everything is moving apart at the rate of a millions of miles a year but they move away from the point of origin, if you stand at the point of origin, then the angular vector distance moved is actually zero because there's no measurable difference at the 90 degree angle to that explosion.
We aren't at the origin though, so there is a very small angular movement that gets corrected in the ephemeris. As a programmer, I've actually had to account for this in my software code that displays star positions on screen and gives epoch corrected coordinates. A million miles is not really very far at all. It sounds like a lot, but that's only 4 times the distance from here to the Moon.
What people have trouble understanding is scale so compare millions of miles compared to light years. Do the math and you'll find that the trigonometry is correct. Oh, but you don't believe in trig either... Good luck with that.
As far as signal transmission, you have to remember that space is a vacuum. Direct line radio transmissions take little energy. If you tried to pass a radio wave through solid material then you have signal loss. The air has very little resistance and space practically none.
I could have saved you time. I know EVERYTHING you wrote. I just don't bELIEVE the BULLSHIT, and saying you remember those times tells me you probably just cannot come to terms with the lie!
Seriously , EVEN NASA admits they cannot go to the moon now , they say they lost the technilogy anf the telemtry data and YOU beliee the bullshit is SAD.
Blind disbelief is as bad as blind belief. I don't believe blindly. I accept what's true because it works. If it created a contradiction that couldn't be easily explained, then reexamination is needed. So far flat earther's have violated Occams razor in order to stay true to their world view. Occams razor is an idea that the simplest answer tends to be the truth. The arguments around flat earth are startlingly similar to the switch away from the Ptolemaic view of the solar system into the Copernican view where the Sun is viewed as the center. Then relativity theory came along...
Agnoia is a serious problem that afflicts everyone. Nobody has the complete truth. There's a word in Greek called alethiea which is translated as "truth". When the "a" prefix is used in Greek it means the opposite, so while letheia means "concealment", aletheia means "unconcealment".
No reputable report says that NASA admits they didn't go to the moon. There's tons of disinformation out there.
I don't believe the earth is flat because one obvious visual explanation explains the altitude change of well known stars when moving north and south. If you have to use a hundred arguments to explain the same thing, you're dealing with an inferior model that will cause further mental contortions the more you use it.
PLEASE EXPLAIN this CONTRADICTION (15 seconds)????
Don Pettit is a FAKE AN ASTRO- NOT does he COUNT???
Is he REPUTABLE to YOU!!!!????
He isn't to me. Please explain WTF he means by what he says because my brain is to "SIMPLE" to figure out, I guess good ole. ozam will get it done..... PLEASE.... WAKE UP!!!!! I have MORE NASA LIARS saying they cannot go the moon , but lets ltake a listen to how you and NASA will WORM your way from the TRUTH.
One more for laughs, or maybe tears for ruining the lie....
One more thought, I lost control of my ego in previous response. What sets me off is being talked too like a child essentially, like I never even LOOKED at the evidence you suggest, which seems pretty presumptive of YOU. What you brought up is like evidence 101 in the moon landing and I have been well aware of all of it. I just do not accept the explantions because there are lies which go unanswered by NASA.
The issue isn't important enough to me. We all know government lies, but I just don't agree that this particular one is a lie. If I'm wrong, it's no big deal, but I have the feeling that if you find out you're wrong it will crack your psyche too bad. It's a bad idea to get too attached to ideas. I think there's some emotional reason almost as if domination of thought is an imperative (which comes through your all caps) and that you must make others believe what you believe. The truth is often spoken much more silently. Because I'm an anarchist, I bow to no authority. I only accept what seems to be the most reasonable explanations that work.
DUDE I think the earth is freaking flat, I was pretty attached to the whole ball idea. idk, I knowI can be wrong, why not address NASA like you mentioned before and NOW you come back after I show you MULTIPLE INSANE statements and actions and you do NOT ADDRESS AV SINGLE POINT? But INSTEAD I am TOO ATTACHED TO MY IDEAS????? OK???.....
And I AGREE with you on lots of stuff. So maybe that makes YOU nuts by association with a lunatic like me lololol!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! sorry I am confused I will admit.
Banks are already shooting themselves in the foot. Threatening and closing people's accounts that are suspect of not being "good" citizens.
There is no, talking politely to your valued customer, it is a cease, or we will close your account. This is not he way to keep customers.
And, cryptos are just in the infancy. Imho cryptos will replace the entire financial industry including insurance. Because they are that much better than what exists. And getting better.
may be i reasteam your post
And nicely cryptocurrency that you talked to. It really sounds like cryptocurrency, we all have a lot of thoughts, but the words that you said make me think very beautifully thanks to a nice post.
Very nice written, your post has nice information about bitcoin. I am agree that you said. thanks for this nice post @zoidsoft
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