Bitcoin: Hope Springs Eternal

Oct 9

Oct 9 Bitcoin: Hope Springs Eternal

During the Q & A with Ron Paul at the Ludwig von Mises 35th anniversary celebration last week and a young man stood up and aggressively questioned Dr. Paul on why he and others don’t support the crypto-currency movement that can and will (according to the questioner) put the central banks out of business.

The ex-congressman and presidential candidate didn’t seem to be against cryptos, he just doesn’t understand them well enough to throw his weight behind them. Of course, that’s the problem, no one can really explain bitcoin or any of the other brands of cryptos. I spoke with a gentleman in the technology business and he admitted he couldn’t explain crypto-currencies and how they are created to anyone. And, he’s in the business.

Anyone who follows the gold space and interviews of Kitco’s Daniela Cambone, has noticed she asks more questions about bitcoin than she does gold and silver these days. At the Mines & Money Conference last week in Toronto, she quizzed Rick Rule who, while he has made some money in bitcoin, believes the cryptos “are problematic for a 64 year old.”

On Jamie Dimon’s recent comments, Rule believes Dimon is “talking his book” (JP Morgan having a large investment in Bitcoin) and that Dimon recognizes the bubble taking place in secondary crypto issuance. Rule compared the hyper issuance of competing cryptos to the Vancouver stock exchange in the 1970’s.

Ian Telfer, Chairman of Goldcorp doesn’t think bitcoin is stealing gold’s thunder. He believes Bitcoin, “will go to zero," He warned investors to be "very, very" careful, and said. "Longer term, I am personally not sure how these cryptocurrencies are going to work and I'm not sure governments are going to let them exist."

“Gold Butterfly” offers a different point of view in the comment section on Kitco. “this guy, Ian Telfer, IS pumping gold, while at the same selling it, now that's disgusting. In the meantime he's butthurt he can't understand how crypto works and wants to slam it because he wants to scam more people by selling gold to them. (which has caused major major wealth losses to people who got fooled by his scam). What a nice guy.”

“Olive Flame” weighs in with “remember that this bitcoin was not created by greed, it was created from necessity, to make sure that modern financing is improved and not stay like the way it is right now and as long as there are people who are fed up with inflation, government meddling when it comes to our transactions, and banks stealing money from us and defrauding us by lending us money with high interests, but they actually don't have that money, this will NOT stop.”

Mr. Rule, who has a firmer grasp on history than Olive Flame, told Daniela he hopes (perhaps his tongue was in cheek) the Central Banks will adopt crypto-currencies, because “the central banks are in the business of counterfeiting. The blockchain makes counterfeiting much more efficient. So anyway the central banks could use a new technology to steal, I certainly think they’ll adopt it.”

While Rule skeptically ruminates, a true believer like “benjojo” expressed the feeling of the crypto crowd three years ago,

I went wild for bitcoin when I realised it was the antidote to central banking, the war machine (which lives off money printing,) human friendly environmental destruction (which lives off money printing) and our losing battle for civilization on this planet.

I've been encouraging my friends and family to get involved in Bitcoin since June 2013. I started having some success in the last couple of months!! Some have even invested into Bitcoin & Bitshares AGS! Boom! :) Each were motivated in slightly different ways but the inflation implosion of FIAT helped a lot and the fact that Bitcoin tech seems more corruption resistant and transparent. Finally the price move from $2 to $1250 got some attention.

With the Bitcoin protocol in existence, the world looks a little brighter and offers a great deal of hope.

If everyone would just embrace bitcoin, there would be no more war, no more inflation, no more environmental destruction.

As I write, Bitcoin just busted through $4,800 on this Columbus Day, while gold pokes along at $1,282. Both prices courtesy of precious metals site: Kitco.