The Future Of Money

[Pertinacious Tom]

Western Union doesn't want you to view this parody of their ad

So I'm posting it.

 

[BeSafe]

That's pretty awesome

 

[Battlecheese]

For those who are interested, the big end of town is starting to get serious about blockchain systems.

http://coala.global/

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

This was posted in a Syria thread but is relevant here.

The gold price has been going down because of confusion between 'paper' gold and real gold. Some including the US are selling paper gold (shares) so this has the effect of pushing prices down. I've been thinking about buying bullion soon, but waiting for it to go below US$1000.

The world is about to go through much pain in the process of moving back to currency that has something behind it.

There Are Now 293 Ounces Of Paper Gold For Every Ounce Of Physical As Comex Registered Gold Hits New Low

All of that paper is (supposedly) a claim on actual metal.

At some point, people do start to say, "Show me the metal."

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

This was posted in a Syria thread but is relevant here.

The gold price has been going down because of confusion between 'paper' gold and real gold. Some including the US are selling paper gold (shares) so this has the effect of pushing prices down. I've been thinking about buying bullion soon, but waiting for it to go below US$1000.

The world is about to go through much pain in the process of moving back to currency that has something behind it.

There Are Now 293 Ounces Of Paper Gold For Every Ounce Of Physical As Comex Registered Gold Hits New Low

All of that paper is (supposedly) a claim on actual metal.

At some point, people do start to say, "Show me the metal."

Hmm. the scenario sounds vaguely familiar...

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

The End of Quantitative Easing?

The mere mention of ending the irrational exuberance party sent the markets into funkland for the past several years but that didn't happen this time.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Every momentous event needs a t-shirt.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Here Comes ZCash

Bitcoin may have become the currency of choice for the anonymity-loving Internet underground. But it’s never been anonymous enough for Zooko Wilcox. As he’ll remind anyone who’ll listen, the blockchain, bitcoin’s very public ledger of all transactions in its crypto-economy, means that unless bitcoin’s users funnel it through intermediaries or special software, their transactions can easily be traced.

Today Wilcox and his startup Zcash are launching the first public alpha release of the cryptography world’s best shot yet at perfectly untraceable digital money. Using a mathematical sleight-of-hand known as a “zero-knowledge proof,” Zcash (until recently known as Zerocoin or Zerocash) offers the same anti-forgery assurances as bitcoin: No one can counterfeit Zcash, or spend the same Zcash “coin” twice. But thanks to its zero-knowledge feature, any spender or receiver can also choose to keep their Zcash payment entirely secret.

...

Plenty of cryptocurrencies that have boasted features bitcoin lacks have launched and languished over the years, without seeing even a fraction of bitcoin’s adoption. But Wilcox argues that Zcash’s incognito properties, when the currency finally does launch for public consumption and real financial applications, will be crucial for those who need a more privacy-preserving form of digital money. That includes anyone from a medical startup trying to comply with healthcare privacy laws to a businesswoman in Afghanistan dodging corrupt cops and tyrannical male family members. “Privacy makes whole societies safer, stronger and more prosperous,” says Wilcox. “Ubiquitous privacy helps prevent corruption and abuse and oppression.”

...

the anti-money-laundering think tank Global Financial Integrity published an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun describing the idea as a boon to black markets of all kinds, from human trafficking to wildlife poaching. “More girls will be sold as sex slaves, more rhinos will be poached, and every other large-scale transnational crime that you can name is going to become a lot easier if criminals have a way to transfer very large amounts of money completely anonymously,” wrote the group’s spokesperson E.J. Fagan.

Wilcox maintains his stealthy digital cash startup isn’t intended to facilitate crime, but also notes that the company isn’t liable for any criminal applications for which Zcash is used. “The people who built the first cars weren’t held responsible for car accidents or bank robberies,” he says. “The people who use these tools for good or ill are held responsible for that.”

But Wilcox also insists that Zcash’s legitimate applications will outweigh its shady ones. He compares Zerocoin’s ambiguous potential to that of the Internet itself. “Can the internet be used for crime? Yes, it can be, but that’s not what’s important about it.” Wilcox says...

Just because auto manufacturers and the creators of the internet have not been held liable for criminal misuse of their products does not mean it can't happen in other markets. As Eva Dent.

Privacy. It's not just for governments any more. I expect a fight over this one. The power of the DEA to launder cartel money is the power to control them. It will not just be given up quietly.

 

[BeSafe]

Every momentous event needs a t-shirt.

That's remarkably nerdy and awesome.

 

[Hard On The Wind]

The problem with FIAT is it is just that. The value is based on emotion.

As for bitcoin or any other currency surpassing the USD, Internet Bubble, Real Estate Bubble, Monetary Bubble.......

The main thing that supports the value of a fiat currency is taxation by the soveron. Effective taxation creates demand and demand supports value. In the case of Bitcoin there is no taxation due in bitcoins and it is missing this essential driver of demand.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

It seems that the big banks and tech companies have at last realized that they can get aboard the blockchain train or get run over by it.

So they want to make it a private train. Which pretty well misses the point.

"If you look at the Bitcoin/blockchain industry today, are most of them libertarians, I don't know," said Voorhees. "Mostly it's just business people, but that's fine. Business people will grow the system and to me it doesn't matter because the freedom that the asset brings to people happens on the back of the technology."

But the buzzword at this year's conference was blockchain, not bitcoin, a distinction that's indicative of mainstream misgivings about working with a system that's open for anyone to use. Many banks are partnering with companies building so-called private blockchains that mimic some aspects of Bitcoin's architecture except they're designed to be closed off and accessible only to chosen parties.

"The big companies want to improve themselves [but] they don't want to disrupt themselves," said William Mougayar, an investor and author of a new business guide to the blockchain industry that draws analogies to the early days of the internet, when open access drove rapid innovation.

"Big companies like to talk about using the blockchain without Bitcoin and using maybe 10 percent of the capabilities that Bitcoin has given us," says Mougayar. "And I think it is a mistake."

But Voorhees is confident that open and permission less blockchains will ultimately prevail even in the banking sector simply because they're more efficient....

 

[Saorsa]

The problem with FIAT is it is just that. The value is based on emotion.

As for bitcoin or any other currency surpassing the USD, Internet Bubble, Real Estate Bubble, Monetary Bubble.......

The main thing that supports the value of a fiat currency is taxation by the soveron. Effective taxation creates demand and demand supports value. In the case of Bitcoin there is no taxation due in bitcoins and it is missing this essential driver of demand.

How does taxation create value?

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

The problem with FIAT is it is just that. The value is based on emotion.

As for bitcoin or any other currency surpassing the USD, Internet Bubble, Real Estate Bubble, Monetary Bubble.......

The main thing that supports the value of a fiat currency is taxation by the soveron. Effective taxation creates demand and demand supports value. In the case of Bitcoin there is no taxation due in bitcoins and it is missing this essential driver of demand.

How does taxation create value?

Correction: "taxation by the soveron" :huh: Oh boy, this should be good....

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Which Soveron are you talking about?

I tried looking it up, but don't know if you're talking about Pablo Soveron Nizoli, Enrique Soveron, Sandra Soveron de Luizalga, or some Soveron who doesn't appear at the top of Google.

What do he/she/they do with this tax money that's do wonderful?

 

[Hard On The Wind]

Had a look at the link. Agree with most except the 'Where does the value come from?' part.

I have friends trading in bitcoin and I will be soon to probably. The value is a function of choice, yeah, but it is also a function of limited quantities of the currency. I do not gamble but if I had to I would bet on bitcoin over the US dollar over the next decade.

What set of prejudices do you base that opinion on? Or are you some kind of credentialed expert on money theory?

 

[Hard On The Wind]

The problem with FIAT is it is just that. The value is based on emotion.

As for bitcoin or any other currency surpassing the USD, Internet Bubble, Real Estate Bubble, Monetary Bubble.......

The main thing that supports the value of a fiat currency is taxation by the soveron. Effective taxation creates demand and demand supports value. In the case of Bitcoin there is no taxation due in bitcoins and it is missing this essential driver of demand.

How does taxation create value?

As it relates to money, taxation does not create value as such, it creates demand for the currency. People need to acquire the currency in order to pay their taxes.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

As it relates to money, taxation does not create value as such, it creates demand for the currency. People need to acquire the currency in order to pay their taxes.

So I'm going to guess that the Soveron you were talking about is not from Switzerland.

 

[Raz'r]

The problem with FIAT is it is just that. The value is based on emotion.

As for bitcoin or any other currency surpassing the USD, Internet Bubble, Real Estate Bubble, Monetary Bubble.......

The main thing that supports the value of a fiat currency is taxation by the soveron. Effective taxation creates demand and demand supports value. In the case of Bitcoin there is no taxation due in bitcoins and it is missing this essential driver of demand.

How does taxation create value?

As it relates to money, taxation does not create value as such, it creates demand for the currency. People need to acquire the currency in order to pay their taxes.

this is correct. taxation creates demand.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Fed Planning For Negative Interest Rates

What better way to learn the NIRP ropes than from fellow central bankers who have actually done it? The Fed’s recent Jackson Hole retreat was an opportunity. And sure enough, they had a session on Negative Nominal Interest Rates.

The lead presenter, Marvin Goodfriend of Carnegie Mellon University, is an unabashed NIRP proponent. His paper “makes the case for unencumbering interest rate policy so that negative nominal interest rates can be made freely available and fully effective as a realistic policy option in a future crisis.”

Janet Yellen didn’t bring in Goodfriend for entertainment. She wanted to learn how to implement NIRP. Yellen’s own Jackson Hole speech had a footnote describing a monetary policy rule (to replace the Taylor Rule) that would have sent rates down to -9% in late 2008. It is clearly on her mind.

I believe the Fed wants to have NIRP as a policy option when the next recession begins. Having NIRP in the toolbox does not mean they will actually use it, but it does mean they haven’t ruled it out. The previously unthinkable is now fully thinkable.

Having trouble pushing a wet string up a hill? Push harder!

 

[tuk tuk Joe]

Fed Planning For Negative Interest Rates

What better way to learn the NIRP ropes than from fellow central bankers who have actually done it? The Fed’s recent Jackson Hole retreat was an opportunity. And sure enough, they had a session on Negative Nominal Interest Rates.

The lead presenter, Marvin Goodfriend of Carnegie Mellon University, is an unabashed NIRP proponent. His paper “makes the case for unencumbering interest rate policy so that negative nominal interest rates can be made freely available and fully effective as a realistic policy option in a future crisis.”

Janet Yellen didn’t bring in Goodfriend for entertainment. She wanted to learn how to implement NIRP. Yellen’s own Jackson Hole speech had a footnote describing a monetary policy rule (to replace the Taylor Rule) that would have sent rates down to -9% in late 2008. It is clearly on her mind.

I believe the Fed wants to have NIRP as a policy option when the next recession begins. Having NIRP in the toolbox does not mean they will actually use it, but it does mean they haven’t ruled it out. The previously unthinkable is now fully thinkable.

Having trouble pushing a wet string up a hill? Push harder!

That's OK, throw grandma under the bus the banking cartel knows what's best.. h34r: