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JUST IN: Spot Bitcoin ETFs accumulated over $35 billion worth of $BTC since January.
@WatcherGuru
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I am at the other end of the spectrum in this matter.
I believe firmly that Bitcoin was created by the NSA/CIA … but we will never know the truth just as with the assassination of JFK.
To me all crypto currencies are a scam.
Today they behave like a script (local private currency issued when legal tender was not available) and the governments of the world tolerate them as this is a psy-ops and they are studying the outcome.
The governments are now ready and want to implement CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) with many features such as expiration date and they will link this to a social credit score.
In the process many governments will make cash illegal and we are left to mercy of our wimp governments.
Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are seen as a commodity which is being traded on exchanges.
Legal tender or what we call money can be anything, it is the stuff that we have to pay our taxes with. Otherwise money is only seen as a medium of exchange and can be anything as long as the receiving part accepts it.
To me Bitcoin is a scam and a trap but history will tell.
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I can tell you that bitcoin users will not support a central bank digital currency.
Bitcoin is a decentralized currency.
Most bitcoin users are libertarian or anarchist.
Steve Bannon is a fan of bitcoin.
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If that is the case, then bitcoin will remain a very minor element of society – there are very few real libertarians or anarchists. Maybe bitcoin enthusiasts will come to be seen as Latter Day Gold Bugs – right on the diagnosis, wrong on the proposed treatment?
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I does not matter what we want or support … the government can dictate whatever they like !
They can and will outlaw all crypto when CBDC is introduced !
Maybe there will be a forced conversion and you will have to pay tax 
Mark my words, this libertarian or anarchist free crypto world will very soon disappear !
But that is just me and my views.
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I think your analysis is mostly correct.
I think bitcoin will gain more traction in places like Argentina and other countries suffering from hyperinflation and irresponsible central banks.
In USA the bitcoin solution will be slow at best. The dollar is still a functional currency relative to the third world and Argentina
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Unlikely because of bitcoin ETF
Billions of dollars flowing into these ETF today and for the next 12 months at least
When CBDC? Governments move slowly. When this launches finally I expect it to be riddled with bugs and security holes.
Don’t mark your words. Place a monetary bounty on your words. Then we will know you are serious about your predictions.
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Maybe Bitcion as a financial instrument will survive but it will be a commodity just like oil or iron or wheat etc.
You cannot go the taxman will 1 ton of iron ore …
The taxman only takes legal tender !
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Bitcoin weighs less than iron.
A better comparison is gold.
But gold is used for jewelry and other things.
Bitcoin is not tangible
There is no physical coin
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Latter Day gold bug is funny.
Headquartered in Utah
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From 2018
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This only says that NSA is using surveillance tools to follow Bitcoin, of course they do, surveillance by the NSA is everywhere: sms, email, phone calls, browsing history, even comments on this web site
Surveillance is everywhere except for ALL money transactions hence why they wish to make cash illegal and introduce the new “safe and effective” digital money issued by a government near you…
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Bitcoin blockchain is public.
Anyone can look at it and track certain addresses or transactions of interest.
If bitcoin is NSA trap why bother with surveillance? Why surveillance when you can say gotcha? Or is surveillance part of the long game psyop?
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That is a fair point – but where do those billions of dollars come from? No-one is trading real assets – mines, oil wells, orchards, factories – for bitcoin. Rather, it is speculators selling financial assets and buying bitcoin ETF. Do tulip bulbs ring a bell?
Bitcoin ETFs are an example of the epidemic of financialization which has done so much to hollow out the real productive economies of the West. It is all Monopoly money until it gets traded for a real productive asset – such as Bill Gates has been doing, selling part of his money wealth in stocks to buy real productive assets like farmland.
Of course, that leaves poor old Bill with the problem of how (in the future) to protect his land from hungry people who will simply occupy it. Does Bill actually own farmland, or does he own simply a piece of paper giving him title to a piece of land, premised on everyone else (in the future) choosing to respect that piece of paper? Did William the Conqueror respect existing Saxon titles to English land when he distributed that same land to his Norman knights?
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Fidelity and BlackRock have bitcoin ETF. And there are 7 others. Approval was in January.
Bitcoin was called a tulip at 100, 1000, 10000 and now at 66000
The tulip accusation first started in 2013.
2022 was a bear market for bitcoin but bear markets are normal. Bitcoin is volatile but let’s not confuse volatility with tulip mania.
A more apt comparison is currency crises and devaluation. Peso crisis in Mexico and Argentina for example.
Milton Friedman tried to short the British pound in the 1960s but every currency exchange rebuffed him
Here is the BlackRock bitcoin ETF
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Regarding real productive assets like land, I mostly agree with you.
Bitcoin mining is interesting and growing especially in Texas. I think a better bet than bitcoin is public bitcoin miners such as Mara and wulf. I have a few options on wulf.
Texas has become the Mecca for bitcoin mining because of cheap and abundant electricity. Plus their grid is not subject to interstate regulation. Keep federal out!
I tell people I bet on bitcoin because I expect dollar devaluation to continue. So it’s more a bet against the dollar than a bet for bitcoin
Good civil discussion. You raise many salient points. Much appreciated for both.
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I am not sure which problem you are referring? There are a lot of problems. There are even a few different problems that gold and Bitcoin adherents propose each can help solve.
One is currency devaluation. Another is what I would call “plan B funding”. Plan B is flight from tyranny and there are numerous examples, but the most well known is the flight of Jews from Germany.
I think both are good solutions to these problems. Yes, a government can outlaw whatever they like, but I think it unlikely that the world will uniformly outlaw gold or even Bitcoin.
The third proposed solution by both Bitcoin and Gold bugs is as a solution to the problem of fiat currency. Either as a standard similar to the gold standard or as an outright replacement.
I don’t think they are correct. The gold standard had its own problems. This thinking ignores a root fundamental issue with any store of value (store of value is the rational used by gold bugs and Bitcoin enthusiasts) whether it be gold, bitcoin or some tangible asset capable of producing a physical good such as farm land.
A root issue is that not all people provide the same value and or can accumulate wealth and or utilize existing wealth to accumulate even more wealth. This issue makes societies and their associated governments unstable. If governments are unstable, you cannot have a stable store of value.
There is one proposed solution that I haven’t seen anyone mention. This is one I would call freedom of association or for people that have read Atlas Shrugged it would be similar to Galt’s Gulch. A group of people that will only exchange their good or service to other people with the correct means of exchange. Maybe it is an obvious part of The Network State.
I think this solution also suffers from the inherent issue of unequal ability to add value and accumulate wealth. Sooner or later, the mob will make sure things are fair by forcibly taking what they believe is rightfully theirs either through the mechanism of a State or the old fashioned pitch forks.
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14 minute video from 2022 about trucker convoy in Canada 
Yes, there is a concern about sloppy thinking around the “store of value” issue – because “value” is basically what someone else at some point in the future will be prepared to trade to the seller in exchange for that “store of value”.
Thought experiment – “Joe Biden” ensures that the USA gets nuked. Electric grid is gone. Internet is gone. Water & wastewater systems are in ruins. Food supply chains are totally disrupted. Under those circumstances, how many gold bars would I get for a can of beans?
The answer is obviously – I would never exchange a valuable can of beans for any number of gold bars.
In a less extreme scenario, gold or bitcoin might retain some utility as a “means of exchange” – but only for those people who have a real good or valuable service to exchange. The only long-term “stores of value” are tangible assets which generate real goods & services for which other people with different assets are prepared to trade. Financialization of the economy has obscured that truth for the last few decades – but all things must pass.
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