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Bitcoin,
a censorship-resistant crypto-currency, will absorb any regulatory
interference and only grow stronger as a result. Blowback baby! The cost of
using credit cards is being dragged out of the shadows. Germany has demanded
their physical gold be moved back to the Homeland in anticipation of a
currency crisis and capital controls. And the Bitcoin juggernaut continues
to gain mass and momentum having reached $21.43 today.
Bitcoin, with a pitbull like grip, has attached itself
to Leviathan’s carotid artery.
BITCOIN HAS SEBASTIAN SHAW-LIKE CHARACTERISTICS
Jon Matonis recently wrote how a government ban on
Bitcoin would fail miserably. Sebastian Shaw is a
mutant villain in X-Men: First Class and
leader of the Hellfire Club. Shaw has the mutant ability to absorb energy or
force and then focus it in a counter-attack.
Thus, the idle threat of force from regulators at 0:17 ‘Put that man down
or we will open fire.’
If there were proposed regulation I can already see Bitcoin’s smirk
coupled with the satirical response, ‘Promise?’
I would go into more depth about why this is the case but I should give
you some reason to attend on May 17-19th, with about 1,500 others, the Bitcoin Conference 2013 in San Jose,
California. Plus, Jon Matonis has graciously invited me to give a
presentation on Bitcoin: Regulation, privacy and taxes. It should be
fun and interesting!
Gold, a physical element, is the same today as it was 500,000 year ago.
But Bitcoin is so much more than it was a mere four years ago when first
released to the public!
By analogy, the blockchain is like DNA and the market participants of the
open-source Bitcoin community are like ribosomes that read the DNA in order
to craft proteins necessary to adapt to and function within whatever
environment or circumstance are encountered. This organic proliferation of
software code by crypto-warriors who are changing the world is a beautiful
thing and a simple time function with exponential effects.
Crypto-Ancapistan is already here. It seems most do not recognize it though
because it is neither across an ocean nor does it have borders. Its citizens
neither secede nor declare independence plus there are no permanent residence
visas or passports required. They build this new virtual nation line of code
by line of code. There are even some publicly traded companies with $10m+
market capitalizations; two which earned 5k and 17k bitcoins in Jan.
Cipherspace is a place where heroes live and where people who want to
be heroes live.
THE COST OF USING CREDIT CARDS
Yesterday I flew around a volcano in southern Chile. I even saw magma!
Then it came time to settle the bill so I got out a credit card.
The proprietor stated, ‘Using a credit card will be an extra 5%.’
For a 200,000 peso flight that comes out to about $21.33!
Tonight I enjoyed a delicious congrio dinner. The waiter brought the
handwritten bill. So I got out the credit card. He responded
fairly vehemently, ‘No tarjeta. Pesos or dollares.’ So I scraped
together a few pesos.
Well, get used to it. Many credit card merchant agreements included a
clause that prevented merchants from charging a fee to use credit cards for
payment. But as part of a $7.3B class action settlement starting 27 JAN 2013
merchants can begin adding a surcharge for using credit cards.
The IRS and gas stations have done it for year. Now it will likely be
coming in force to merchants near you. And if your favorite merchants do not
then ask for a discount if you pay with cash. After all, there is a sweet sound of cash and
a reason why we offer products at about a 40% discount if paid with Bitcoin. So encourage your local merchants
to talk with BitPay about accepting bitcoins.
As the currency wars escalate the currency controls will get
increasingly onerous.
GERMANY DEMANDS GOLD REPATRIATED
On 16 JAN 2013 Telegraph reported that Germany
would repatriate 674 tons of physical gold to the Homeland because ‘A growing
chorus of lawmakers in the Bundestag has demanded a return of all Germany’s
gold in case the financial crisis escalates.’ Germany can sense that the capital controls are going to
intensify.
Argentina has already shown by example why one should look for ways to
avoid credit cards. Jon Matonis wrote about how ‘A 15 percent tax
surcharge will close some of the gap between the regulated official rate and
the black market rate’. So, if you have an Argentinian bank issued credit
card and use it outside Argentina then the Argentine government has a 15% tax
tacked onto your bill.
As the currency wars escalate the currency controls will get increasingly
onerous. If a currency or payment method is censorship-prone, like
Argentinian bank issued credit cards denominated in Argentine pesos, then it
will be subject to such controls. This means you could take a large financial
loss.
But historians are good at stating facts from the past and not
creating the future.
MONETARY HISTORIANS VERSUS MONETARY VISIONARIES
Historians really have it pretty easy since they read about what has already
happened. But to be a monetary visionary requires so much more.
James Turk, founder of GoldMoney, is one of the
more prominent monetary historians. In this interview
on 17 JAN 2013 Mr. Turk referenced my work on the
tangibility of Bitcoin but oddly did note give proper credit. Why a
monetary historian would not give proper credit to a monetary visionary
baffles me. But James is just one of many I have directly influenced since I
began publicly recommend
Bitcoin in its infancy.
For examples from articles, interviews and etc., Robert
Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal, Chris Powell of GATA, Lew Rockwell, Anti-War.com, Jeff Berwick of The Dollar
Vigilante,The Silver Vigilante, John
Rubino of Dollar Collapse, Jason Burack of Wall Street
For Main Street, BrotherJohnF,
Michael of The Daily Paul, Max Keiser, James Turk of GoldMoney, Kerry Lutz of the
Financial Survival Network, Daniel Ameduri of Future
Money Trends and many others off record have all been influenced early on
by myself and persuaded to use and accept bitcoins.
But the point is that four years (someone may want to tell
Mr. Turk who stated two years in the interview … maybe that was the first
time he heard about it) after Bitcoin was released to the
public GoldMoney has
finally started to mull Bitcoin integration. Sure, a true monetary visionary
would already have the gold vaulting service integrated with Bitcoin. But
historians are good at stating facts from the past and not creating the
future.
Because what customers need is to have their bullion integrated with a
censorship-resistant currency that will be much more malleable as
currency controls are ratcheted up. You can bet that more
restrictive currency controls and capital controls will be placed on gold if
a real monetary crisis appears. A crisis Germany is preparing for by taking
physical possession of the gold.
CONCLUSION
Bitcoin, with a pitbull like grip, has attached itself
to Leviathan’s carotid artery. Bitcoin, a sophisticated
cryptographic protocol and the largest distributed computing network in the
world, is immune to force. Threats of regulation, which are really just
threats of force, are idle because of these Sebastian
Shaw-like characteristics.
Germany is preparing for a major currency crisis by repatriating 674 tons
of physical gold. Currency controls will only raise the cost of using credit
cards which are currently far more expensive than Bitcoin in terms of time,
money and privacy. And when currency controls are ratcheted up it will be
Bitcoin that allows holders of capital to have
monetary sovereignty and portability.
Sure, gold is collapsing
against Bitcoin but the real question is why are Bitcoins trading at a
mere $21. Perhaps the monetary visionaries need to do more work teaching,
training and influencing the monetary historians and others? To start, check
out pages 72-78 of the February edition of Open Skies, the Emirates Airlines
magazine. You will get to read it before millions of wealthy businessmen
stuck on transoceanic flights who are used to being economically censored.
Get a copy of the Free Bitcoin Guide (recently updated), see you
in San Jose and bring quesitons!
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