Gold doesn’t work as a currency either anymore in the Western world (I’ve linked to this before, I recommend Mark dice’s youtube channel overall):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndshbH3qZ6Y&t=251s

I suppose that sexual services always sell. One doesn’t even have to be human to figure that out. It might not work on an interstellar scale though, since sexual reproduction might be pretty unique to Earth due to a random evolutionary accident 1.2 billion years ago.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17055264/coinbase-cryptocurrency-tax-irs-compliance-court-order

Lack of government control, one of the alluring elements of crypto currency, is disappearing and thus is in the process of the legitimizing the concept? If the IRS recognizes it and a court warrants that records be turned over then maybe it is a currency?

In my comment of February 14, above, I wondered “If it is slowing SETI, what other science and innovation is suffering in order for this mysterious coinage to exist?”

According to Adam Draper, founder and managing director of startup accelerator Boost VC, not only are the computer chips not getting to scientists and engineers but investment money is not going to industry, either. Specifically, space startups are finding it harder to get investment finances than it should be.

http://spacenews.com/foust-forward-space-startups-face-new-competition-for-investment-dollars-or-bitcoins/
“’I actually think money is moving away from everything else in early stage right now and moving to crypto,’ [Adam Draper] said.”

The author, Jeff Foust, concluded the essay: “‘Right now, I don’t think space is going to take off this year,’ [Draper] said. ‘I think we need to lay the groundwork to get ready for it to take off in three to five years.”

It is a mad craze indeed, misallocating scarce resources and reducing actual economic activity in order to replace currency with speculative investment in a different medium for trade for the remaining economic activity.

How stupid wouldn’t we be if we didn’t spend bread crumb monies on listening for copies of what we are ourselves? What else should listen for, nuclear weapons on Mars? SETI has a doable real assumption for what they are looking for. We know that what they are looking for exists in the universe, because we do. I’d call that a pretty good alibi if I were the judge.

We should do what we can. This is just the beginning. It is hopeless in our lifetime (sorry Seth Shostak, you will soon owe me a coffee), but we are at least getting started. As human technology and economy evolves, so will the SETI effort. In ten thousand years it might bear unfathomable fruit. And they will look back at us and say that we were among the ones who once started it all.

Maybe there exists something out there that could objectively measure our subjective consciousness! Imagine the consequences of that! Where could it exist if not in space? Suggestions are welcome.

SETI has a problem. That problem is quantum entanglement. Recently the Human Race has demonstrated that two “quantum entangled” sub atomic particles will react to each other INSTANTLY, in apparent disregard for time or space. Thus it would be a fairly simple engineering problem to effect one, and hence the other, from a “0” state to a “1” state, thereby creating FTL digital communications that can NOT be intercepted.

Given the time frame of telecommunications on Planet Earth, Marcony in the 1800s to modern radio wave based coms of the present. It looks very much like any given civilization might well only be “hearable” on the electromagnetic spectrum for a few decades! This GREATLY reduces the likelihood that anything usable or even all that interesting would ever be found by SETI.

If, by phenomenal luck, SETI happens to be listening at just the right time and place to “hear” and alien civilization electromagnetic communications all that will done is to establish that ONCE, however long ago that communication originated, an alien specie achieved sentience and a degree of technology sufficient for them to generate a spark generator.

So, I am not enamored of SETI anymore, and am leaning more and more towards the idea that SETI is a gigantic waste of time and money.

https://btcmanager.com/steemit-user-builds-decentralized-youtube/

Interestingly, at the time, there was not enough gold and silver in Europe to go around, and it was getting to be too rare to use successfully as specie. The influx of gold and silver from America by Spain “saved” Europe and helped its economy. This was, unfortunately, at the expense of those who no longer owned these metals, because it was not gained through economic means; the natives were not reimbursed through goods or services for their valuable metals.

“Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”
Charles Mackay 1852
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm]

More up-to-date ‘popular delusions:’

California Challenges & Responses –
Victor Davis Hanson
IIABCal Forecast Luncheon, February 12, 2018
https://youtu.be/_wb91k-SjfU
(41:13)

Gold however has the physical properties that makes it the ideal money. Indestructible, easily divisible, compact and portal, easy to recognize by density and color. And 6,000 years tradition helps too. Gold has another intrinsic value in its beauty even when it is not used as money, so that’s hedge right there, one can never lose 100% with gold. The indians loved gold although they didn’t use it as money AFAIK. Btw, only in recent years has it been understood why gold and copper (and roentgenium I think but it’s nucleus is very unstable) are not silver gray like all the other 100s of metals. It’s some funny quantum mechanic phenomena. But in a digital economy a physical good has a disadvantage when it comes to portability, when one actually users the money. Gold for savings and a block chain currency for trade, no reason to not use multiple currencies for different purposes. Always safer with diversification.

The Tulip Mania was inflation caused by the gold and silver imported (stolen) from America by the Spanish. Just like the FED has created trillions of dollars out of thin air. Inflation has to go somewhere and in recent times it has mostly gone into house prices. Tulips in Holland became a similar bubble because of deregulation of coinage there and then. That concentrated Europe’s inflation into Holland, and they happen to grow tulips there. Inflation and bubbles are not economical, but political, phenomena.
https://mises.org/library/truth-about-tulipmania

Scoff at me all you want but are you restricted in exchanging it for gold? Or silver? or anything?

Not not one restriction. And if someone will not take Dollars but will take Rubles I can walk into a bank and exchange them.

Bitcoins not so much.

Plus whats to say some country around the world doesn’t get its cut of the Bitcoin market and just shuts down the network?
Without the network I can not exchange bit coins and poof they are worthless. Just serial numbers.
But with something I can hold in my hand like dollars or gold you could shut down the internet and the banks and I will still be able to trade it.

Sorry but bitcoins will NEVER beat that. in fact name the non government backed currency/money that has lasted longer than 100 years?

The concept may be better (or maybe not), but the volatility makes it worse. The US dollar is considered the world standard, the Global Currency, because it is relatively stable. So far. The Euro and the Yen also seem to be popular as global currencies. Unless bitcoin becomes stable, it and its concept are unlikely to depose the US dollar or any other standard.

From the Martyn Thomas video (thank you for that, LocalFluff, it was informative): “But the value of money depends on trust. We need to have confidence that the money we receive for something will be valued by somebody else when we want to spend it later.” This is why gold had been the standard for centuries or millenniums.

It sounds as though these bitcoins, limited in number as they are, are only worth what I am willing to give or do for them (goods and services). I think that I will stick with US currency for as long as I can; it is as close to gold as I can get without actually getting gold, it is easier to spend, and I have confidence that this money will be similarly valued by somebody else when I want to spend it later. At least I can see it when I have it in hand. And I don’t have to worry about my hard drive crashing (can a bitcoin be backed up?), my laptop walking away (if it can be backed up, can I verify my backup as mine before the thief makes it his?), my father erasing my bitcoin software (my father would never erase my cash), or the value crashing like Dutch tulips.

Further, my privacy remains intact, because my transactions are not published when I spend cash in order to ensure that I do not spend the same dollar multiple times.

Yesterday, I bought a piece of plastic tubing for my model making hobby, and I pulled out a dollar (easy to spend), gave it to the seller (similarly valued by somebody else when I want to spend it), and no one will ever know that I skipped paying sales tax (my privacy remains intact — or did until I blabbed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGcRTJK43OM — 22 seconds “Blabbed about Mars”).

https://mises.org/library/free-banking-sweden-1830%E2%80%931903-experience-and-debate

“Between 1830 and 1903, Sweden experienced one of the longest and most successful free-banking periods in history. During this period, private note issuing banks were allowed and prospered. This paper describes the rise and fall of the Swedish free banking system and shows that the system could be considered a true free banking system, in spite of legal restrictions. Finally, the paper provides a comprehensive summary of the critique raised against the Swedish free banking system.”

“Up until March 1964, silver certificates could be redeemed on demand, exchanged for silver dollars. After that date and until June 24, 1968, redemption was in exchange for silver bullion from the nation’s strategic silver stockpile. Passage on June 4, 1963, of Public Law 88-36 repealed the Silver Purchase Act of 1934 and confirmed the redeemability of silver certificates for silver dollars or bullion at the monetary value of $1.2929 an ounce.”

https://blockchain.info/

Take a look at this image:
https://www.goldeneaglecoin.com/resource/productimages/1935GstarVF2.jpg
–The key phrase on these Bills: “$1 in silver payable to the bearer on demand.”
Now compare that to the Federal Reserve notes in your wallet.

But the technological concept of a Block Chain is most likely here to stay. It certainly is a much better money concept that the government fiat monies we have today are. That Bitcoin rushes to be worth tens of billions of dollars might very well be most rational and very good for society. It might replace all money. How much is all the monies in the world worth? But just like the internet bubble in the 1990s actually correctly foresaw how people communicate and shop today, we don’t use Netscape and AltaVista. Investing in them was not a good idea. Bitcoin or not, but I think Blockchain logic will be with us henceforth in some form, because it is a brilliant idea. And the politicians can’t do anything about it. They lose all control.

They are stored on your computer but can not be used transfered traded changed mangled folded or stapled without being hooked to the internet and their “block chain network”.

Many people have lost their bitcoins when their harddrives crashed, someone stole their computer or dad came by and erased the blockchain software.

There is NO cloud or record of who has what coins.
There is no Bitcoin bank to store your coins in safely.

When all the Bitcoins have been mined they can no longer be mined or earned. But lo just like regular cash the Bitcoin people came up with a great way to keep the mining going. They took all the bitcoins and split them into thousandths. If you had one you now had a thousand. So those last 100,000 coins out of 20 million that were not mined yet are now 100,000,000,million coins and the mining continues.

Like a pyramid sceme only the guys first in are going to make any real money out of it and they have already cashed out for millions and have left the scene. Oh the system keeps running but they don’t care about it anymore.

And yes your coins can be stolen. Just like any information can be stolen from your computer.

Plus unlike Curency from governments there are no laws regulating them. At least with a government you have a chance.

The block chain concept is bigger than currency, Bitcoin is just the beginning. Block chains are physically unfalsifiable and automatically enacted contracts without any middle hand. Action in the shape of a physical object. A total revolution of society and the end of government.

And now I’m confused again. Thank you for the effort, though.

wayne says that Bitcoin is earned by doing calculations for someone (this seems to be the “mining”), but then what do I have? Apparently all I have is a serial number that has nothing to serialize. How do I know that I received the bitcoin, and where do I keep this non-existent non-entity serial number?

As investment advisers recommend, never invest in anything that you can’t explain. I still have yet to find someone who can explain bitcoin. No wonder its value is so volatile. At least I can explain the dollars that I have in my pocket, invested in the stock market, and posted in the ledger at the bank.

— you do have to perform specific computational tasks related directly to bitcoin, to ‘mine’ them. Its not just, random calculations. But you do have to be plugged into their network and trust them, enough, to transact business. (and ‘coins’ have went POOF, before.)

At the start of bitcoin, it was possible for a single user with a desktop to perform the calculations in a reasonable amount of time to earn ‘units.’ (they like to say it was akin to the 1st people in on a gold-rush.) But that time has past, hence you have people with 1,000’s of processors rigged together, and the graphic-chips are ideally suited for the math.
As noted above by others; there’s a finite universe of ‘coins’ that will be created, I do not however, know at what Rate they grow. The difficulty to compute, concurrently, rises as well.

One of the key items in all this;
If you can’t pay your taxes with bitcoins, they are just an intermediate good one is stashing their ‘wealth’ in for a time, eventually you have to convert them into Federal Reserve Notes, to pay your taxes. And central-banks can/do manipulate the monetary base. That’s why the Government has “legal tender laws,” as was touched upon above.

Currency can not be kept centralized but govt. doesn’t seem to know that. This is why you can trade tokens, but call them coins and govt. can take them and throw you in jail. You can buy silver blanks from a company in Denver, but stamp them too close to coinage and you’ve got govt. trouble.

Govt. is lawlessness disguised as law.

I still do not understand what a bitcoin is or how I would know if I found one while mining.

wayne’s comment suggests that a bitcoin is a reward for doing computational work, not something that is “found” by mining, but then that still does not answer the question of what a bitcoin actually is. Is bitcoin more like a bank that stores your crypto-currency in a ledger and records its change of hands, like a checking account?

When Amazon first went public it was $1.54, today it is $1451.00, and I think it split 3 times since 1997, 2 for 1, 3 for 1 and 2 for 1. If there were no splits (Growing the number of shares) Amazon would be priced at about $75,000.00 per share today.

Bitcoin numerically is exactly the same.

And if everybody stops mining, what happens to the transaction processing?

The problem is that this sometimes locks up the visitors computer using 1005 of their CPU time.

When they can better regulate the amount of CPU a website visitor will give up to this scheem watch for it to start be added to vidio games.

Just how many coins will a game maker “earn”? how about if they add in all those phone app games?

Crypto curencies are just representations of CPU work. The more CPU work done to “earn” them the less they are worth.
Like Bitcoin. only 20 million were origionaly sceduled to be earned. but that limit was quickly reached so they either had to issue more Bitcoins or break them up into bit “pennies”.
It took an estemated 1000 hours of CPU time to earn the first btcoin. Now it takes that long to earn a bit penny.
They just changed the name and issued more.
If the first bit coin was worth 1000 hours(like a doller) then they just changed its face value and called the old bitcoin (a doller) was now a thousand bit coin ( a thousand dollar bill)
They didn’t issue more they just broke them into smaller pieces. next up is the thousandth penny.

I seem to remember something about America never having a central bank by some old guys that wrote some ideas down on some piece of paper many years ago.

The Mystery of Banking
Murray Rothbard (mises institute)
https://mises.org/library/mystery-banking

The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking
Professor Thomas DiLorenzo
https://mises.org/library/corrupt-origins-central-banking

also highly recommend anything from Murray Rothbard on “banking.”

Want to see how the real world is adapting to “crypto” / app currencies?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hyperinflation-meets-tech-cash-scarce-venezuela-sees-boom-120359148.html

Go to Venezuela who’s economy has been devastated by hyper inflation and see how the people are adapting, this may well be a real world, real time electronic currency / payment experiment.