BITCOIN STARTS IN 2009

"MONEY" IS NOT THE SAME THING AS "CURRENCY"

YOU HAVE REAL CONTROL:
YOU DON'T HAVE TO TRUST BANKS 
YOU CAN TRUST MATH
YOU ARE THE BANK

You can not neutralize bitcoin - it is impossible.

WHO INVENTED BITCOIN AND THE BLOCKCHAIN ?

In 1996 the NSA and MIT created Bitcoin without proof of work. June 1996

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. The paper that first introduced Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper is still recommended reading first introduced October 31, 2008

Maybe Hal Finney developer of the PGP Corporation and cryptographic activist (Died at 58 (2014) could be the founder of bitcoin but no one knows.

Satoshi released Bitcoin as MIT licensed.

2020 Researcher Publishes Never Before Seen Emails Between Satoshi Nakamoto and Hal Finney

#BITCOIN #Blockchain #Fintech #Tech

The mysterious creator of bitcoin could be nominated for a Nobel prize in economics

No one knows exactly who Satoshi Nakamoto is (though many have tried to find out). That hasn’t stopped a UCLA finance professor from promising to get the pseudonymous bitcoin creator nominated for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences—or, as it’s more commonly called, the Nobel prize in economics.  Has he published anything? Yes, a nine-page white paper titled, "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" that he posted on the Internet on May 24, 2009.

Chowdry argues that bitcoin and the potential it unlocked is “revolutionary.” Not only are transactions involving the digital currency faster and more secure than those made with fiat currencies, but the technology behind it, called the blockchain, could change the way we deal with financial contracts and keep information, as well as assets, secure. Nakamoto can be contacted (and sent any prize money) via his bitcoin wallet address.

Learn about Hal Finney. Finney is known to be the second-ever user of Bitcoin after Satoshi Nakamoto himself.

Finny had been one of the first supporters of the idea when Nakamoto floated it on a cryptography mail list, and even received the first Bitcoin test transaction from Nakamoto in early 2009, as Finney himself wrote in a post to the Bitcointalk forum. In other words, the possibly-first and confirmed-second ever users of Bitcoin lived just blocks apart. 

Writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates had already compared Dorian Nakamoto's various online comments and postings with Satoshi Nakamoto's writings on Bitcoin before his total disappearance from the Web in 2011. Hal Finney's writing,  was as fluid and precise as the whitepaper that first introduced Bitcoin in late 2008.

The very first Bitcoin transaction happened on the 12th of January 2009; between Nakamoto and PC programmer Hal Finney; the payment was 10k bitcoins for a slice of pizza. "Hal Finney: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa is my first bitcoin-address. Thanks for 50 Bitcoin."

Hal Finney Bitcoin Bank 2010

“Since we're all rich with bitcoins, or we will be once they're worth a  million dollars like everyone expects, we ought to put some of this  unearned wealth to good use.”  ~ Hal Finney

• "There's no really good reason to hold bitcoin in and of itself." ~ Asani Sarkar, Federal Reserve Bank of NY
• Bitcoin is valuable as money, cash. Value comes from utility and even a diamond has utility (it is a wealth signalling system).

A Bitcoin based future

THERE IS A FINITE AMOUNT OF BITCOIN AND THAT IS ALL THERE EVER WILL BE

The symbol for Bitcoin has Unicode code point U+20BF

Bitcoin Wallets https://bitcoinwallets.com/21.html

Welcome to the Bitcoin Wiki

First, the most important thing to know is this: there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence. There is only one Bitcoin, and there will only ever be 21 mln coins on that blockchain network. If you keep the private key of a bitcoin secret and the transaction has enough confirmations, then nobody can take them from you no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what.

FYI: Miners run the network, "When a majority of MINERS approve the block" that is when you know which coin is really moving along and which coin is stuck in time and causing high fees.

Bitcoin is the name of a type of coin that is tied to a network of computers that keeps track of them on the technology called the block chain.  There have been and will continue to be currencies that fork from the Bitcoin network, taking with them a full snapshot of the network up until that point. Yet there’s still only one Bitcoin. Now there are other coins like Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin-anything-else, none of them have interoperability with the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, and zcash cannot be spent on the Bitcoin network. You can transfer your bitcoin into other kinds of coins like Bitcoin Cash. As far as Bitcoin’s network is concerned, they are merely altcoins like Litecoin, Dash, and so on. They are not Bitcoin and you cannot make the argument that they are. 

2020 OPINION -- If you want to buy and hold bitcoin through it's up and downs for a few years as a strategy for making you wealthy then that would be a plan.

Every single person on this planet should control their own private keys, be their own bank,  and have access to a global permissionless blockchain. If a cryptocurrency is built around a unique core, then it is fundamentally broken.

Adam Back CEO of Blockstream

Blockstream is a blockchain technology company co-founded by Adam Back, Erik Svensen, Pieter Wuille, and others, and led by Adam Back. Blockstream is one of a number of institutions that provide funding for the development of Bitcoin. Bitcoin will rise in price to $ 300,000 over five years, Blockstream CEO Adam Beck said in an interview with Bloomberg. According to him, this will happen without the appearance of institutional investors on the cryptocurrency market.

AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been *chairman* of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.

The CEO of Montreal based Blockstream's parent company was CEO Henri De Castries chairman of the Bilderberg Group.  AXA Strategic Ventures, was the co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose then CEO Henri de Castries was referred to as "the most powerful man in the world" who had been *chairman* of the Bilderberg Group since 2012 and now retired. NOW Henri de Castries is on the board of HSBC the original opium smuggling Jardin pirate bank!

The Bilderberg Group includes top bankers from Goldman Sachs, HSBC - plus Timothy Geithner - Henry Kissinger - Richard Perle - and many many more members of the worldwide banking and political elite.  2019 Bilderberg Meeting Participant List

Holocaust survivors and their families in March 1997 filed suit in Manhattan federal court against European insurers who did not honor policies after World War II. The largest named defendants are Allianz of Germany, Generali of Italy, the AXA Group of France, and the Zurich Insurance Group of Switzerland. All of the firms have significant operations in the United States.

Axa is the second-biggest insurer in the world behind Allian which continues to run two joint ventures in China, including one with the biggest bank in the world, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). In total, Axa now controls €1.4tn (£990bn) through its asset management business, making the company one of the biggest institutional investors in the world, and De Castries ideally placed to comment on the shape of the global economy.  Axa’s offices in the City of London.
Makes sense that the biggest bank in the world with the most powerful group in the world made a play at controlling "cryptocurrency bitcoin - the new money." They won't allow this "money"  to get out of their control. So they bought it via Blockstream for a mere $55 Million. They control the board now, of course, so they can push whatever agenda they want to Blockstream.

So why is Blockstream trying to centralize and control Bitcoin via the Lightening Network? Because then Bilderberg owns Bitcoin completely: they can afford to own the main LN hubs. It's really that simple. This is why everything is happening the way it is. It's why the Scaling Bitcoin conference has nothing about on-chain scaling.

BlockStream literally Blocks the Stream
We are under no obligation to use code developed by Blockstream and funded by the world's biggest investment banks and insurance companies. That would go totally against the spirit of Bitcoin.

How the banks plan to control Bitcoin: simply buy off all the programmers. Blockstream/Core devs are now being paid by a guy who is the CEO of the biggest insurance company in the world.

**** We are not required to use Blockstream's crippled code - in particular their artificial 1 MB "max blocksize" limit, which is central to their strategy to discourage users from transacting directly at "level 1" on the Blockchain and encourage users to instead transact indirectly at "level 2" on Blockstream's complicated, centralized and unproven "Lightning Network".
http://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-startup-blockstream-raises-55-million-in-funding-round-1454518655

Bilderberg Chairman and AXA Group CEO Henri de Castries is also on the board of HSBC now: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/business/dealbook/hsbc-board-henri-de-castries-paul-walsh.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group#Chairmen_of_the_steering_committee

REMEMBER: It is not a conspiracy, if you can prove strategy.

• The satellite implementation forces centralization of anyone who uses the downlink. Why? @Blockstream controls the uplink creating a single point of failure.
• According to an official statement released by Blockstream on July  30, 2019 Tether (USDT) will be now issued on Bitcoin’s sidechain Liquid Network under the name Liquid USDt, which is already available to be deposited or withdrawn on the Bitfinex exchange. 
• Global Dominance Groups CEO'S ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM
• New World Order
• THE 1% POWER ELITE
• THE DEEP STATE HOW THE GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE ON PLANET EARTH WORKS
• GOLDMAN SACHS THE VAMPIRE SQUID

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AS OF 9.17.15 

Cryptos and namely Bitcoin are already owned by the same folks who run the Fed. They own the miners, the exchanges and 90% of the BC. Do your research, understand the Digitial Currency Group.

They were the ones pushing the Segwit changes. They have Larry Summers consulting with them, “Banks can't ignore Bitcoin anymore.” and a member of the NY Fed on their board, Glenn Hutchins. 

When you own the miners, you can push the price around by when you decide to increase or decrease the mining. You also own the changes to the coding, shaping the future of BC.

• Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem 
• Blockstream Banksters might let Bitcoin Legacy (and potentially the majority of the crypto-market) die or at least cripple intentionally.

AS OF 2021 CHINA BANNED CRYPTO MINING AND IT ALL MOVED OUT ACROSS THE WORLD.
Experts estimate that as much as 20% of the worldwide bitcoin network remains in China.

Nine of world's biggest banks join to form blockchain partnership

Nine of the world's biggest banks,  Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan, State Street, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, BBVA and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, have joined forces with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to create a framework for using blockchain technology in the markets.  It is the first time banks have come together to work on a shared way in which the technology that underpins bitcoin—a controversial, web-based "crytocurrency"—can be used in finance.
The new project, the result of more than a year's worth of consultations between R3, the banks and other members of the financial industry, will be led by R3 CEO David Rutter, formerly CEO of electronic trading at ICAP Electronic Trading, one of the world's largest interdealer brokers.

IBM Adapts Bitcoin Technology for Smart Contracts
Tech giant developing its own version of blockchain technology, plans to release open source software within next few months. IBM plans to release open source software that could be used to create digital contracts that—like bitcoin transactions—would be recorded publicly and securely on a world-wide computer network.  IBM is zeroing in on a technology called blockchain, which serves as bitcoin’s online ledger. Blockchain allows the bitcoin network to track the currency’s movement from one online wallet to another. But it could be used to log other types of transactions.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-adapts-bitcoin-technology-for-smart-contracts-1442423444

ARK Web x.0 ETF is the first ETF on a US exchange to invest in bitcoin.
ARK's investment in publicly traded shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) will be valued each day at 4:00 PM ET at their then current daily market price. The ARK Web x.0 ETF invests in disruptive companies transforming all sectors of the economy, said the company. ARK has made its investment for ARK Web x.0 ETF through the purchase of publicly traded shares of Grayscale's Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX: GBTC).  ARK said it is betting on bitcoin to disrupt the $500bn intermediary payment platform industry which includes credit cards, electronic payments and remittances.

BEWARE BITCOIN can be declared a Financial Institution!  

The risk with Bitcoin is that the government could simply change the definition of money. The Feds can declare miners to be a BANK. In 2017 The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate is currently working on Bill S.1241 that aims to criminalize deliberate concealment of property or the control of a financial account. The bill was submitted in June, and the law would change the definition of “financial account” and “financial institution,” and thus also cover digital currencies and digital exchanges. Who is pushing it? None other than California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein, who maintains that the bill is needed to update existing money laundering laws because of terrorists. This means that the miners of Bitcoin will become a “bank.” 

The bill will change the definition of “financial institution” in Section 53412 (a) of Title 31 , United States Code. The text will read: “An exhibitor, a redeemer or a cashier of prepaid access devices, digital currency or a digital exchanger or a digital currency.” The regulation will remove the anonymity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies defeating this idea that there is an alternative-financial-universe separate from government.

​

TRADERS

December 1, 2017 CFTC Gives Official Go-Ahead for Bitcoin FuturesLET THE "BIG SHORT" GAMBLING OF DERIVATIVES BEGINWe’ve self-certified to launch our Bitcoin futures contract Monday, December 18. Let the Big Short gambling begin again.

@ft also saw what CME did there.

6/4/15 New York has become the first state in the US to lay down regulations and rules for the trade of virtual currency including Bitcoin. The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) released the new rules and regulations that will affect traders which accept, sell or buy virtual currency. They will Tax your Bitcoin!!

12/21/17 Bitfinex, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Tether, the issuer of a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, are responding to accusations of mismanagement. Bitfinex and Tether in the Paradise Papers. Bitfinex Reveals a New Polish Bank Account Under a Panama Registered Company. Bitfinex’s current banking partner is apparently a faceless Panamanian front company for some outfit in Poland. The Paradise Papers Reveal That Appleby Assisted Philip Potter and Giancarlo Devasini Set up Tether in the British Virgin Islands in 2014

10/22/15 EU's Top Court Rules That Bitcoin Exchange Is Tax-Free
Bitcoin got a boost at the European Union’s top court after judges said exchanging virtual currencies should be exempt from value-added tax in the same way as traditional cash. In a ruling that puts Bitcoin on a more equal footing with mainstream money, the EU Court of Justice sided with Swede David Hedqvist who set up a service for the exchange of mainstream money for bitcoin and vice versa. VAT, a type of sales tax, shouldn’t be charged because the business involves “the exchange of different means of payment,” the judges said. “It’s very good news,” said Simon Dixon, CEO of Bnktothefuture.com, a platform for investing in new, alternative financial products, including those based on Bitcoins. “If you were taxed on the exchange it would make it an inferior currency to other currencies, so the implications of it being treated as a currency are that it can free flow.”

MATH

Reality:  Mining creates more jobs, more physical equipment, more maintenance, more support, more money, and more real value than any other portion of the entire #Bitcoin space.  It is the actual "industry" in the "Bitcoin industry".

The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin The way the bitcoin ecosystem will play out is written in the mathematics of its consensus rules; we should all know the three phases it will go through.

1. First Era: Satoshi’s Free Offer (2009–2014)
2. Second Era: Satoshi’s Subsidy “Bitcoin is shifting to a new economic policy, with possibly higher fees.”
3. Third Era: Self Sufficiency (2028? onwards)
   “Once a predetermined number of coins have entered circulation, the incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees and be completely inflation free.” — Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

How to prove you created a #Bitcoin-based #blockchain:
Go Block #2 and get the output address because the genesis block has no outputs. Sign a unique message with that address. Post it. H6MLEFpG1+UVpBCPlXKiG6LDVhIaxrXFkOeIrSqZJ1I9L8QwDCq/h743nU1sSB25d6KmSchKgE+dIoIfZDjHuu0=

BUT WHAT DOES THE
WAZ THINK?

10/23/17 OPINION --  Wozniak Thinks Bitcoin Is Better Than Gold

Steve Wozniak (aka the ‘Woz’) thinks Bitcoin is better than gold and the U.S. dollar, which he called “phony,” because the government can always print more.

Wozniak feels a currency is more “stable” when it cannot be diluted and, while Bitcoin has a fixed future supply (only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined), the same cannot be said about government-backed fiat currencies.  “There is a certain finite amount of bitcoin that can ever exist,” Wozniak said in explaining that the U.S. government could wind up printing more dollars for political reasons. He described the U.S. dollar as “kind of phony” in that sense, while describing Bitcoin as more “genuine and real.”  Similarly, he said, gold does not necessarily have a fixed supply either, because humans will continue to find more efficient ways to dig it out of the earth.  “Gold gets mined and mined and mined,” Wozniak said. “Maybe there’s a finite amount of gold in the world, but Bitcoin is even more mathematical and regulated and nobody can change mathematics.” 

He compared owning Bitcoin to owning a house. “Your house has value. And if it is a house today, 40 years from now, it still is a house in value,” he said, even if the price goes up and the government draws more taxes out of it. 

Mathematical Appreciation
Wozniak said he “admired” Bitcoin when the digital currency was first presented.  “I looked at it as a form of currency,” he said, adding that initially he did not understand the underlying blockchain technology but now he does. 

He said, initially, he had a tough time buying bitcoin because that required setting up a special bank account. The process, he said was “so awkward, it kept me from getting early bitcoin.” When he finally was able to buy bitcoin, he said the price immediately dropped in half.  But those kind of numbers don’t mean so much to Wozniak. “I am not financial,” he told the crowd, admitting he never followed the price of bitcoin, nor the price of Apple stock but said he was drawn to bitcoin because it was based on mathematics.  “My wife and I, we judge a hotel room more by the number on the door than what is inside the room. We are both mathematicians,” he said. 

Countless Opportunities for Blockchain Technology
Wozniak also touched on Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology, and its importance in allowing people to transparently track things, like minerals.  “Right now, there is conflict with minerals in the world, and you don’t want to buy conflict minerals. Well, how do you avoid it?” He continued by explaining how companies will usually buy gold from different countries and smelt it together, so there is no way of knowing where it all comes from. With blockchain-based solutions, however, tracking where that gold comes from is now possible.  “They are applying the technology where all the payment can only go to the good, legitimate sources that don’t have conflict minerals,” he added.  Wozniak pointed out that, currently, there are so many applications popping up using blockchain technology that are so different than what people initially imagined, and it will take time to get used to.  He also likened the introduction of smart contract platforms, like Ethereum, to when computers first came out and suddenly people were writing “tens of thousands of programs” nobody had ever thought of before. Smart contract platforms open those same doors of opportunity.  “There is a lot more to this cryptocurrency than just the Bitcoin,” he said.<//>

Blockchain is a chain of blocks of encrypted information that form a database or ‘ledger,’ which will eventually lessen the need for the intermediary platforms that currently approve, clear, and settle payments. While very limited in current mainstream payments, the bitcoin ‘cryptocurrency’ was developed as an alternative payment system that eliminates the need for a centralized institution to approve payment transactions. Despite its potential, blockchain technology is untested in large volumes, where authorizations need to be processed in fractions of a second. If the technology were ever to prove promising for payments, we would expect the incumbents to adopt it.” Blockchain technology has a range of “potential applications and benefits” beyond Bitcoin.  Jones writes that the technology is expected to transform the clearing and settlement industry, and highlights that the blockchain can also “promote transaction transparency, enhance data security and reduce the risk of a single point of failure.”~ report titled “Consumer Digital Payments — US,” which was released on October 11 2017 by Moody’s analyst Stephen Sohn and team.  <//> 

We all use technology on a daily basis that we can’t explain in perfect detail. I use a microwave but only vaguely understand the actual mechanics behind it. Same with cars. And cell phones. And television. And the Internet, for that matter.

Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet: a distributed, worldwide, decentralized digital money. Unlike traditional currencies such as dollars, bitcoins are issued and managed without any central authority whatsoever: there is no government, company, or bank in charge of Bitcoin. As such, it is more resistant to wild inflation and corrupt banks. With Bitcoin, you can be your own bank.

The basic idea behind Bitcoin is to use a combination of public-key cryptography and peer-to-peer networking to create a virtual analogy of gold, that is to say, a substance that is scarce (if not absolutely finite) and fungible. Nakamoto devised a software system that enabled people with access to powerful computers to "mine" Bitcoins (effectively by solving very complex mathematical puzzles) and then securely use the resulting "coins" for online trading. He also arranged things such that the number of Bitcoins can never exceed 21m and that they will become progressively harder to "mine" as the years go by.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~George Bernard Shaw 

NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY BITCOIN IN NOT ANONYMOUS

Bitcoin is not anonymous.

Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity’s Deep Packet Inspection Software
Now Detects Bitcoin Transactions in Network Traffic. The new Bitcoin protocol classification functionality enhances network analytics and security solutions to identify Bitcoin network activity. This enables enterprises to identify, control and block bitcoin transactions within a network, Because Bithumb accounts for 50% of all digital currency trading daily, this is a big deal for ZCash.

Montco man tells feds he stole $40M in bitcoin It is unusual, however,  Emin Gün Sirer  said, for authorities to identify a person responsible for the theft, as Price claimed to be, according to the court documents.  “This is one of the first cases where the person behind the malware has been located,” Sirer said.

zcash is anonymous

Snowden likes Zcash because of its secure privacy. He said that Bitcoin is great, but he doesn't believe it is safe because it's not private.

 zkSNARK, is the cryptographic tool underlying Zcash, that Bitcoin, an open financial software system, does not provide. Another important thing to note is that it's impossible to audit the blockchain so that provides some additional risks to ZCash holders in case of a bug in the codebase. 

This means, it is a protocol which creates a framework in  which a person – called prover – can quickly convince another person – called verifier  – that she or he ‘knows’ a secret without revealing anything about the secret. The  first constructions of SNARK protocols were inspired by the PCP theorem which  shows that NP statements have ‘short’ probabilistic checkable proofs.

Forget vague notions of trust – code is law on these new transactional platforms.

Blockchain – and its associated technologies and platforms, including Bitcoin and Ethereum 
Online trust becomes a commodity. Blockchain – also known as distributed ledger – is a technology, not a product. It's most famously been used to create cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) and to make smart contracts (Ethereum), and many more uses will follow, each with a new name. You don't need to trust other people, you can trust the system.

THE DTCC

Blockchain Hype Takes Hit as Chain Releases Code for All to Use

Chain Core is enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure that enables organizations to build better financial services from the ground up.https://chain.com/

https://github.com/chain/chain
Second wave' of tech arrives after bitcoin's start in 2009 Blockchain in a box just became real. Go play with it. October 24, 2016  Anyone can now download an entire blockchain specifically built for financial services.

Chain, the San Francisco-based startup that's working with Visa Inc. and has made a presentation <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-06/central-bankers-told-they-should-be-sprinting-toward-blockchain> on the benefits of blockchain to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, just released to the public the 30,000 lines of open-source code that make up its Core Developer Series. Software developers, engineers, traders and executives can now build and test any type of application they think will help improve efficiency in their business, said Adam Ludwin, Chain's chief executive officer.
 

MONEY IS NOT THE SAME AS CURRENCY

Money is NOT the same as Currency
Public Money vs. Private Money vs. Currency vs. BITCOIN
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

BITCOIN is not really a “crypto-currency" BITCOIN is private Money – BITCOIN is NOT private Currency
Capital controls  DO NOT apply to bitcoin Transactions
To protect yourself: you should always own bitcoins to use instead of money when [not if]  the banks lock you out and bail in your money. After the country’s leadership failed to reach a deal with creditors on spending and tax reform, emergency financial restrictions have blocked Greek citizens from sending funds abroad and capped bank withdrawals at €60, or about $67, per day.  While the country’s precarious situation may have inspired others to seek out the potential safety of bitcoin, those most directly affected simply can’t access their funds to exchange for bitcoin or anything else.  "For Greece, it’s probably too late now—they’re in a pretty bad situation," says Coinbase cofounder and CEO Brian Armstrong. "It’s the rest of Europe that’s taking this as a warning sign." Those digital coins can then be transferred simply by recording additional transactions to the blockchain, or stored on a hard drive or cell phone in a cryptographic wallet, without needing to involve traditional banks or services like Western Union and MoneyGram. Advocates have argued those characteristics make bitcoin safer than traditional, so-called fiat currencies, which can see their values slashed by inflationary government policy or their use curtailed by regulations like the ones now in play in Greece.  "Situations like this crisis in Greece shows [people] that money in banks is not 100% there," says Filip Godecki, a spokesman for Poland-based bitcoin exchange Bitcurex, which has also seen an increase in volume from European users. "They’re trying to find alternatives, and bitcoin is an alternative." fastcompany.com/3048103/greek-turmoil-sparks-renewed-attention-to-bitcoin-but-keeps-greeks-from-buying

A Global, Open, Decentralized Payment Network

FACT: By providing a single transparent trail and a distributed ledger, the technology has the potential to significantly transform, or even replace, much of today’s financial infrastructure.

The distributed ledger is a peer-to-peer model and doesn’t require a central ‘coordinator’ or hub. Today most of our clearing and settlement infrastructure that intermediate trades or payments between  banks operates in a centralised model as a ‘hub and spoke’. It is this that could be affected by the blockchain. The exciting part is that the ‘ledger’ doesn’t have to be a traditional ‘balance’: It could be any asset that can be represented in digital form. This gives rise to the potential to develop ‘smart contracts’, able to replace the cumbersome processes we have today and very clearly identify and prove ownership. Not only would this further transform financial markets,  It may also allow you to buy your next house on a Saturday. Combining the ‘smart contract’ blockchain with guaranteed payments would  tackle one of the oldest concepts in payments, Delivery versus Payment, or DVP. DVP is the principle of understanding that when an asset is handed over the seller has received the payment, and vice versa. With the blockchain concept of a smart contract, the exchange of the deeds and the funds transfer could be proven, linked together automatically, whilst happening  in near real time and theoretically on a 24/7 basis. The same principles are true for many asset types and purchases, such as buying real estate, or a second-hand car – a process fraught with risk today.

FACT: Bitcoin is a truly global currency. Bitcoin is a notoriously volatile currency and no one, no matter how dire their straits, should assume to use it as a store of value. Platforms are built to address just that issue by linking the value of a digital coin to a real-world currency or commodity

The global economy spent over US$500 billion spent last year on fees for remittances (i.e. money sent from one country to another) and mostly to low-income households. Total remittances in 2014 reached a whopping US$583bn according to recent World Bank figures. Up to US$100bn in migrant savings could be generated or saved annually by developing nations cutting remittance costs, migrant recruitment costs as well as mobilizing diaspora savings.

NanoCard A true ‘crypto-debit’ card to be funded at the point of use from the user’s own address.  

The fusion of Bitcoin, traditional banking and the suite of new blockchain technologies now available – through CCDEK’s Nanocard initiative.
A Bitcoin-supported debit card from one of the credit card majors, which is denominated in both Euros and US dollars that is funded by your Bitcoin balance as it is spent – rather than being pre-paid. Among features of the Bitcoin Debit Nanocard is the guarantee of the lowest commission on all card transactions and low service fees. Price-Stable Cryptocurrencies called SmartCoins provide the freedom of cryptocurrency with the stability of the dollar and offers the chance of low-cost, global transfers of money, independent of any bank or government. It means users will be able store their funds in cryptocurrencies pegged to the Euro, US dollar, Chinese Renminbi (CNY), silver as well as gold – and converted only at the time of use.

American Bankers Pay Attention

The J.P.Morgan Guide To Credit Derivatives By Blythe Masters  "Because it is truly ironic that the firm which created CDS will be the one responsible for destroying them.” She is the JP Morgan employee who invented credit default swaps, and is now heading JPM's carbon trading efforts. Among the credit derivatives that grew from the bank’s early efforts was the credit-default swap. In hot water for, among other things, allegedly lying under oath, obstructing justice and "engaging in a systematic cover up" to "approve schemes" seeking to defraud the states of California and Michigan in electricity trading (Enron flashbacks are more than welcome).  

Dream killer: 4 nasty truths about U.S. fintech and Comments

 

ODE TO SATOSHI The Official Bitcoin Song by John Garrett

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Bitcoin Security vs Bank Security 

A double standard is the harsh way in which economists and commentators criticize Bitcoin technology, while at the same time taking for granted the financial system that they live under every day. The underlying technology — decentralized and open source in nature — has proven itself to be extremely robust and constantly evolving. The same things cannot be said about the fiat currency system.

Banks and central banks are still running old software, with systems that sometimes haven’t been updated since the 1960s. Vital parts of the service and technology is centralized and therefore frozen in time, in a spiderweb of ever-expanding bureaucratic rules.

Carbanak Cybergang Swipes Over $1 Billion from Banks

And bad banks don’t die; they are kept alive with "Bail Outs and Bail Ins"  from the government. Since 1971, the dollar depreciated by 97% against gold, and by 83% against the consumer price index.

WE THE PEOPLE

THE FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD'S WEALTH IS BETWEEN MERCHANTS AND ROYALTY

The very essence of the banking system is to make us all slaves to debt.

Credit card and debit fees in the U.S. totaled $72 billion in 2013, says Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. Much of that could vanish if bitcoin catches on, he says.

Fugger History of Banking by Date | The Old Money Overview | How Bankers Get Started | SMOM

Jackob Rugger :  In This Picturesque Village, the Rent Hasn't Been Raised Since 1520 Tenants in German Enclave Pray Daily, For Good Fortune and the Souls of Bankers

AUGSBURG, Germany -- Every day, retired florist Rita Wunderle prays for the souls of bankers.  Despite daily headlines about banker-fueled economic crisis and an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, her 145 neighbors pray, too.  Mrs. Wunderle lives in the Fuggerei, a Roman Catholic housing settlement for the poor that Jakob Fugger "The Rich" built in this southern German city nearly 500 years ago. Praying for Mr. Fugger and his descendants to enter the Pearly Gates is a condition for living here, at an annual rent of 1 Rhein guilder, the same as in 1520. In today's money, that's 88 euro cents, or about $1.23.

1507 to 1525: The Fuggers pay for two imperial crowns

... the 16th centuries, the merchant banks of the Medici and Fugger families had branches located throughout Europe, to finance foreign ... Kong returned to China in 1997. Today the Fugger families have branches located throughout Europe.   ... 
... to a pre-eminence comparable to that of the Medici and the Fugger in earlier centuries. Money was gold or silver. ...

OH THE IRONY: CRYPTO CURRENCY AND RYAN FUGGER AND RIPPLE

2014  RYAN FUGGER SHARES HIS ANCIENT BANKING FAMILY NAME  WITH THE "BLOCKCHAIN"

Meet a long lost cousin to  Alexander Fugger-Babenhausen a descendant of Jakob the Rich.

RYAN FUGGER came up with the concept of a global, open, decentralized payment network that worked by routing through an arbitrary network of mutual credit links between participants, and called his system Ripple in 2004.  As the "Babelfish of money," it works as a "universal translator" for all currencies, whether they are fiat, digital, or even rewards like miles. 

XRP in the Ripple network 

WHAT IS RIPPLE XRP
https://web.archive.org/web/20090125214628/http://opencoin.org/Members/jhb

Bitcoin proponents have long argued that bitcoin – or some cryptocurrency – is essential to the design of a blockchain, as blockchains require a mechanism to incentivize distributed recordkeeping, a process that on the bitcoin network is facilitated by largely anonymous miners.  Financial institutions, however, seem interested in exploring alternative private networks for such functionality, or solutions that allow for transaction validators to be known.

ryanfugger.com (original site) [interview]
Ryan Fugger Founder at Ripplepay.com British Columbia, Canada Computer Software
The next version of the Ripple service is being developed at Ripple.com. It uses the principles of Ripplepay.com to create financial services that provide secure payment options to members of an online community via a global computer network through the use of traditional currency and virtual currency. Ripplepay will continue to operate at classic.ripplepay.com, but development effort will be focused on Ripple.com.

@RippleLabs is thrilled to welcome former chief @WhiteHouse advisor Gene Sperling to our board of directors!
Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis vice president and research director David Andolfatto "We’re a Protocol Just Like Bitcoin" coindesk.com/federal-reserve-bank-vp-protocol-just-like-bitcoin/

RIPPLE

A global, open, decentralized payment network that worked by routing through an arbitrary network of mutual credit links between participants. A protocol used to denote the currency itself, which is also referred to as XRP. Ripple positions itself more as a system for clearing transactions free of transaction fees and delays. Ripple Labs created the Ripple protocol as a free way to move money across the globe using the power of the Internet. Ripple offers an explanation of what it means by "the future of money" in this video. Ripple is an Internet protocol that interconnects all the world’s disparate financial systems to enable the secure transfer of funds in any currency in real time — consider it an Internet for money. As settlement infrastructure, Ripple transforms and enhances today’s financial systems. Ripple unlocks assets and provides access to payment systems for everyone, empowering the world to move value like information moves today.

Ripple Backed by google=NSA=NWO=Central Banks.

Ripple, the protocol and associated XRP virtual currency are designed not as a transactional currency or even as a long-term store of value, but simply as an intermediary currency. For example, if a user in the US has funds in dollars and wants to send those funds to a user in India, where Rupees are the local currency, the traditional process would involve currency conversion fees. Using XRP, the sending user (or their bank) would exchange the dollars for XRP and then find another user on the network looking to exchange Rupees for XRP. With Rupees in hand, the transfer can be completed to the end recipient. All of this happens in seconds or minutes and at fractions of the cost of traditional wire transfers and currency conversions.  In short, Ripple is the way money transfer and bank settlements would be handled if they were invented today and not subject to decades of legacy technology, systems, and regulations.

12/13/14 Citizens Bank of Weir — or CBW IS USING RIPPLE

CBW was also one of two American banks that signed up with a Silicon Valley start-up called Ripple that is trying to pioneer a cheaper way to move money between any currencies. Most American banks use a few so-called correspondent banks to wire money overseas, requiring multiple steps, each one adding fees and eating up time. To avoid this gantlet, Mr. Ramamurthi flew to India and Mexico and struck deals with banks to accept transfers directly from CBW and deliver the money the same day. CBW offers transfers to India through a site it created called globalremit.com that charges $2.50 for the first $1,000 transferred.

Peter Todd ‏@petertoddbtc -- I wrote a paper analyzing the Ripple consensus algorithm: Ripple is centralized.

ANDRESSON a RIPPLE FUNDER SAYS: The Credit Card Network is Ready for a Paradigm Shift 
Corollary: Giving your credit card info to online merchant in 2014 is data equivalent of unprotected sex. For the love of God, please stop.  — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) March 23, 2014

December23, 2021 How a Cryptocurrency Fortune Crippled a Deceased Billionaire's Estate
What happens when all a corpse's money is in his cold wallet?

The late investor and businessman was a member of two powerful banking families, the Mellons and the Drexels. He reportedly inherited $25 million as a young man from his late father and later served as chair of the New York Republican Party Finance Committee, whom he’d gifted a six-figure donation. But access to Mellon’s wallets was only the beginning of a years-long effort to settle the estate. Bound by an agreement Mellon had made with Ripple, the estate could only sell off a small amount of XRP each day. The lawyers were able to negotiate a slightly higher limit, but their efforts to remove the limit or sell all of the XRP in bulk failed. [Q] WHY COULDN'T THEY JUST AUCTION OFF THE XRP?
“This is essentially a 24/7, 365 day-a-year-on-call asset,” the lawyers wrote in one court document. For years, a lawyer or staffer would have to log on and sell the maximum allowable amount of XRP every single day, including holidays and weekends, to make all of the payments.

ETHERIUM eth

TRANSCENDING POLITICS

Ethereum  born Thursday the 30th of July 2015
is aiming to create a new universe of programmable contracts, powered and secured by its own proof-of-work blockchain. Following the creation of the Ethereum genesis block, which contains all transactions from Ethereum's $18m crowdsale, users are now able to mine and trade the platform's native token, ether (ETH).  Unlike bitcoin, ether is not intended to be used as a global digital currency. Rather, to perform any action on the network, users need to pay an amount of ether. Those who validate transactions on the network, as in bitcoin, will be rewarded for any resources they contribute via mining with ether.  In essence, its a kind of pay-as-you-go supercomputer, with ether – computational power – the currency that brings these computerised functions to life. The more you need the supercomputer to do, the higher the fee.

CRYPTO CURRENCY like BITCOIN

• Money goes from copper to silver to gold to paper to virtual currency called Bitcoin.
• Bitcoin may not be forever, but digital crypto currency is here to stay.
• 21 million bitcoin total​

Bitcoin arrived in the world on Halloween 2008 in the form of a nine-page white paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, a person or group of people who remains anonymous.

Nakamoto unleashed the bitcoin software, all of it public, in January 2009. The system allowed for the creation of 21 million bitcoins, total, with the last ones to be released in 2140. 

Bitcoin lets commerce happen without an overarching authority, be it a bank that clears transactions or even a central bank that controls the money supply. It works because each bitcoin is really just a slot in a huge, peer-to-peer online ledger. No bitcoin transaction is legitimate unless it comports with all of the preceding transactions for each bitcoin involved. Every transaction for every bitcoin is available to every computer that joins the peer-to-peer network that runs the bitcoin system.

The value and promise of bitcoin can completely revolutionize the global economy and has the potential to bypass banks altogether. Think of it as the Bank for Humanity. The bitcoin protocol is the genie that has left the bottle, never to be contained again. Enormous decentralized businesses will be created out of this protocol that will change the landscape of global business forever. A new cycle of disintermediation has begun and all existing businesses must adjust or they will be marginalized.​ 

Bitcoins are digital cash even if Warren Buffet doesn't think it's money, because it represents money just like gold does. Bitcoin (singular with a capital B) lets someone convert dollars into digital strings of encrypted numbers: bitcoins (small b) that can be sent around the world as easily as email.  Bitcoins can be purchased for dollars, euros, yen or other national currencies on more than 40 different trading exchanges. That’s how most people now acquire them.

2009  Bitcoin starts a virtual currency digital cash called Crypto Currency. Bitcoin is here to stay.

Under the Constitution of the United States, Art. I, sect. 8, cl. 5, "Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof...." Congress delegated its duty to "coin money" to the Federal Reserve under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. However, there is no federal law that prevents individuals from creating their own currency. Nevertheless, privately issued digital cash is not technically considered legal tender for debts. See Legal Issues in the World of Digital Cash,  See also Lynch & Lundquist, supra note 23 at 99-104.​

Complementary Currency Software P2P Foundation

Structural Change Is Required