Yes you can make it so your bitcoins are held in a place that you have to show that you are safe in order to take them out.

Also for any point make about bitcoins in this regard, gold or cash is equally or less safe.

People aren't spending BTC in the US because there's no incentive to do so. Why would I spend my BTC, a deflationary currency I expect to appreciate in value that costs like $1/tx to use, when I can use my credit card, earn 2% cash back and spend my depreciating dollars? This doesn't mean that bitcoin doesn't have value.

The scaling issue is a very real issue that may prevent bitcoin from ever becoming an everyday currency. Bitcoin could very well end up being the gold-like crypto with high transaction costs that functions as an ultra-secure store of value/protection against inflation, but not really as a practical, high-frequency currency.

Other less secure and less decentralized cryptocurrencies with lower transaction costs and faster settlements (like ethereum or litecoin?) may step in to fill this void. With other cryptos you can have confirmations in under 30 seconds and transaction fees of a few pennies. But they don't have the security and track record of bitcoin.

I believe that cryptocurrency in some form will be a killer app for the 3rd world. How can it not? It is life changing technology for them. Only being able to own whatever can be stored in your tiny house is a pretty ****ty way to live.

This is what both Szabo and Finney ascribe it to be, based on george selgin's work and FA Hayek, and they are the number 2 suspects for being the creators. It is also the premise/conclusion of 20 years of lectures by John Nash.

This is great. Now we're getting somewhere. I've been led for years now to believe that bitcoin has a bunch of cool **** going on that just hasn't been implemented yet. And I keep asking myself why. Now I'm being told all that cool **** is the equivalent to a Jetson's space car. I can buy that and adjust my thinking to bitcoin being nothing but a store of wealth, useful for tax evasion, a deflationary currency, keeping the government out of your business, and a high value settlement medium.

Am I getting it right?

The problem is when I thought there was all this cool **** going on I could kind of buy into governments thinking "hey this is some cool ****".

Now that I'm learning it's a nothing but a store of wealth, a way to keep the government out of your pocket, and deflationary (or a bubble) I'm thinking to myself the government might not think it's that cool a few years down the road.

Governments plan years and decades ahead often letting boils fester before popping them. Governments like money, they like controlling money, they like controlling their citizens, they like beating their non compliant citizens over the head with a pipe.

That's a conspiracy view of the government. The government is an institution created by the people and for the people. It cannot think "Uh oh, they have something I don't want them to". This isn't how government works.

In the short term we are seeing governments watching bitcoin and not regulating it because that is what their experts are telling them to do. Regulating heavy or banning it and cutting your population off from growing wealth is a very bad idea and it doesn't make the price or value do down.

The suspect for the creator of bitcoin wrote many many essays on the subject and is a graduate of george washington law school. He already explained how it will unfold in relation to law based on the history of law in relation to technology

btw smart contracts are szabos creation the concept is 20 years old and he created it based on legal paradigms

You're preaching to the choir. I can't figure out why anyone would spend bitcoin either. Especially when we have all of the banking perks of 2% cash back, buyer protection, and a bunch of other cool **** we basically get paid to use.

Fortunately for us we have a phone and the internet that allows us to use all those cool banking features, whereas those in the 3rd world don't have that luxury. I am curious though if it takes a phone and internet to use bitcoin, once the underserved 3rd world people get a phone and internet why would they choose bitcoin? Do you think Mastercard, Visa, and Discover only want to make money off of the rich imperialist dogs?

Why shouldn't 3rd world citizens be afforded 2% cash back and buyer protection? Instead we're going to give them a ****ty 20 digit key that cost $5 for every transaction, no buyer protection, no reversibility, and no insurance?

I'd say "**** that. Give me Visa, it's everywhere you want to be".

Exactly, thats a rational bitcoiner perspective. But if their currency is hyperinflating...they would sure like to own some.

One last time I'll ask "Have you read any history books or watched world news?" Guns, drugs, booze, freedom, money, religious freedom, gender equality, are all things that governments have said "Uh oh, we don't want them to have that" and governments have beaten their citizens over the head w/ pipes for all of those things.

Cool. Realistic or not? Are they going to happen or not? I don't give a **** which "coolest expert that ever lived who knows more than God and the Dali Lama combined that I idolize" hacker created it. I'm asking is it going to be implemented, as touted years ago, or is it a pipe dream?

I'm familiar enough with history and law I believe. I am layman but I've been shown some specific things.

But you are expressing conspiracy thoughts...

I'll ask you...do you think the government has the right to confiscate something just because it has the potential to limit its power?

Poor people have been waiting on Visa for decades. I'm not an expert, but I'm assuming there are some cost prohibitive reasons why Visa and Mastercard haven't expanded to every corner of the world. Setting up that infrastructure is expensive and tough.

But to get/use bitcoin all you need is a phone, a solar panel to charge your phone and to be close enough to a cell tower. Those are some low barriers to entry.

I'll give you that...Unless they're hungry and their grocer doesn't accept it. I assume most of the grocers in these countries w/ hyperinflation accept bitcoin.

Why are you so sure that governments will agree with your assessment that the proliferation of cryptocurrencies creates wealth?

Do you really think that the creator of bitcoin is an objective source wrt these types of predictions?

The legal right? Of course they do. And when the limitations to their powers in question is their ability to collect taxes they'll be willing to use a lot more than a pipe to get you to do what they want.

So do these people waiting on Visa for decades have a phone, solar panel and cell tower? You're telling me there is a sizable demographic that has a phone, money, and internet access but no banks or credit cards want to service them?

I've found my niche.



There's zero chance that there are people in the world w/ a cell phone that Wells Fargo didn't try to coerce into having 5 accounts.

What infrastructure does Visa require that bitcoin doesn't?

This isn't the real way to consider it, think about a more macro view (ie economic theory)...there is created a want to save and procure bitcoin. HOW average joe does it, is a micro observation. The general trend is simple: bitcion is skyrocketing there and so its a phenomenon to them.

In Venezuela USD's are hard to get. However, if you can think of a way to trade something internationally for bitcoin, you are becoming wealthier. So the psychology is affected.

Bitcoiners, the irrational ones, think its going to take over as their currency. But that doesn't make sense. You say a store might likely take it, and so we could imagine large corporations and banks probably at least wish they could if they can. It makes more sense for large value settlement because of the fees.

But here is the key.

The more bitcoins that enters the country the wealthier they get, and more so because the international value grows. This will helps the economy and therefore the fiat they use increases in value because money is really a representation of the underlying economy (national gdp or whatever etc) in relation to the money supply.

If they can turn around some and the government can reign in supply a little, this could have a dramatic effect on their status and well being.

Because their banks research reports are telling them its true and they are greedy.
He taught me what it means to find and research objective sources. And how to frame a proper argument and ground it in them. He studied the history of law in relation to technology as well as computer science and many subjects in between.

He's not really a creative genius like some crazy mathematician. He's a very well studied logical guy that built this idea over 20 years. And modulated his explanation for it in blog post Each has a short coherent insight that also is component of the bigger picture. He studied gold and what we know about its history and he used that history to build up an argument that shows why some economists are right and some are wrong.

In other essays he explains the rule purpose and function of a government and its limits.

Bitcoin is an academic paper with a falsifiable conjecture and an experiment (other planets could try). It is a academic paper being peer reviewed in which the author is effectively anonymous.

Szabo is the expert by far. I simply studied his works. You can't argue with him, if you want to, economics is a science now, you propose to core and if the network accepts your proposal then your theory was valid etc.

http://mgafrica.com/article/2016-05-...al-right-there

"A study into the low penetration of credit cards in Ghana said the main obstacles to rapid growth was lack of: a proper address system, a proper identification system, efficient internet facilities, a central database system, and a high rate of default."

Visa needs to establish credit histories to assess the risk of the people they're extending credit too. That's not easy.

Bitcoin is trustless. Bitcoin doesn't need to know who anyone is, where they live, if they have any debt, or if they have sufficient income.

And I think you're underestimating the reach of smartphones. There are more smartphones than toilets in the world. Everyone who can afford one in the world has one. And all they need to do is download a bitcoin wallet to get in the game.

I'm not expressing conspiracy thoughts. I'm trying to share what I've seen over the years. Should you expect a government to declare open war on anyone suspected of using drugs? No. Have world leaders murdered their own citizens for unproven suspicion of using drugs without a trial? Yes. Should a government put it's own citizens in prison camps during a time of war because of their heritage? No. Have they? Yes.

Should a government seize it's citizens money because the citizen can't prove where it came from? No. Do they? Yes.

Should the government seize your bitcoins tomorrow? No. Could it? Yes.



I get it. Bitcoin's bigger than the governments of the world, it's secure nobody can ever take it from you under any circumstances and it's going to the moon. I am hopeful.

Dude this has absolutely nothing to do with whether the government has the right to confiscate something.

I'll ask you...how many governments do you think have confiscated something they didn't have the right to confiscate? Do you think the government under which you live has the ability, not the right, to confiscate everything you own and take away your freedom tomorrow?

You're right. A macro view is probably better. Unless you're actually standing in line for bread at a grocer. If you want widespread adoption you need widespread usability. If the concern is Venezuala's corrupt upper class getting their money out bitcoin is a good use case but as we've seen from leaks the corrupt upper class has plenty of better ways to protect their money.


If you have access to a smartphone and that's your only real asset (if you don't have a toilet but have a smart phone that is your only real asset) you'll do far better spending your time elsewhere besides bitcoin.

Not having a toilet doesn't necessarily signal extreme poverty. Installing plumbing systems is massively expensive. No point in getting a toilet if your town doesn't have running water. That doesn't mean that these people wouldn't massively benefit from being able to save and invest (perhaps to be able to move somewhere with toilets) using cryptocurrencies.

How many people are smart enough to learn how to not only use, but secure, bitcoin? I'm guessing most people who are not able to verify an address and only have a phone in a third world country are not learning how to securely store and use bitcoin like many in this thread. That is not a knock on them, it is challenging enough in a first world country even for those with a college degree and the means to do so.

We can agree to disagree on this one but I'm a believer that not having a toilet is a sign of extreme poverty.

Let's set all of that aside. I've recently learned that bitcoin isn't really going to be used for cheap transactions or commerce. It's a store of wealth, it's a way to get free money when it forks or just by sitting on it and never spending it.

Given my new information, I'm having a hard time seeing how a 3rd world worker w/o a toilet, but with a smart phone profits off of that. Guy makes $5 per week, what's the play?

Save up for 2 weeks, hope you don't get robbed, hope hyperinflation doesn't happen before you can buy into bitcoin, don't eat. After 2 weeks I've got $10 to invest in bitcoin but it costs $5 for the transaction. Ok, I've got $5 worth of bitcoin!! Sweet, I'm playing the same game as the imperialist dogs!! In 20 years I'm coming to AMERICA!

Unless of course it was a bubble, or I decide I'd like to **** indoors, or the government doesn't want me to go to America, or I'd like to buy bread along the way.

Is someone seriously entertaining the notion that bitcoin is mainstream viable in the third world when the transaction cost is a daily or weekly wage?

Bitcoin in its current state, no. Bitcoin in the future, maybe. Other cryptocurrencies, definitely.

Sure it's a little complicated, but it's getting easier by the day and not really much more complex than teaching people how credit cards work.

Where do I even start?

1 in 3 people lacks access to toilets.They're not ****ting outside like bears. They have makeshift indoor solutions due to a lack of running water. Are we writing off over 2 billion people here? I'm certainly not going to.

Basically no one is paying $5/transaction. You set your own transaction fees with bitcoin. Those high fees are isolated incidents when someone needs to get a transaction through ASAP at a time when the network is getting spammed and overpays to make sure it gets through. This kind of thing hasn't happened since segwit has been implemented. If you're opposed to the higher fees you can send ethereum or one of the hundreds of other coins, which have significantly lower (read:under 10 cents) transaction fees.

Assuming you know what you're doing, holding bitcoin is safer than any other way of holding your money. Much easier to steal cash or hack someone's password than to get into someone's bitcoin wallet.

I see. You're take is that bitcoin is not much more difficult than a credit card? They're similar.

How often do people **** up in life? How often do people **** up using new technology? What happens when you **** up using your credit card? What happens when you **** up and send your bitcoin to the wrong address? What happens when you **** up and buy something you didn't want with a credit card? What happens when you **** up and buy something you didn't want w/ bitcoin?

Seems similar

Good to know that no one is paying high transaction fees too. Those newbs that keep posting in the bitcoin thread bitching about $5, $10, and $15 transactions should probably be banned.

Let's just go ahead and assume that all of those 3rd world new users will know what they're doing and no get disenfranchised when their transaction costs a month's wages because that seems like it would be bad publicity which would prohibit growth.