alternative currency

[hrothgar]

If you don't know what vanity means, read the link. Here is an extract -

1: something that is vain, empty, or valueless

 

Hysterical post!

 

In a mere two sentences you manage to

 

1. Define a word using itself

2. Provide two distractors

 

If you're going to go to the bother of quoting Websters, you should try to quote the correct section there of:

the quality of people who have too much pride in their own appearance, abilities, achievements, etc. : the quality of being vain

 

something (such as a belief or a way of behaving) which shows that you have too much pride in yourself, your social status, etc.

 

a bathroom cabinet that is covered by a sink and a countertop

[Vampyr]

So where do you think they are going to find the money for vanity projects that benefit mankind a big fat zero?

 

If you are convinced that science and knowledge are evil, why are you using a computer? And the electricity to run it? These are possible due to science. So you had really better stop.

 

Further, I am sure that you have never been to the doctor, because medicine is all about science, and I hope that you will remain true to your convictions if you ever get really ill and need to see one. Or are science and knowledge OK when they benefit you personally, and no other times?

[mike777]

Anyone actually believe this crap about Participation and Funding of CERN? The list for 2012 includes Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal - all countries under severe financial austerity measures. So where do you think they are going to find the money for vanity projects that benefit mankind a big fat zero?

 

The situation in Greece is so bad that Greece is to sell off historic buildings to settle debt.

 

Higher up I said that 9 billion Euros had already been wasted by CERN on projects like the LHC. Read the whole article - the annual LHC running cost is $1 billion. Seems like I got it hopelessly wrong. According to this article, published on July 5 2012, Finding the Higgs Boson cost $13.25 billion. Another two years has almost passed, so we need to add another $2 billion to the total cost. And still they only "THINK" they have found the Higgs Boson, something they need to give credence to all these stupid THEORIES of theirs. How about someone updating the Wikipedia article with actual cost until 31 December 2013, plus the budget for 2014?

 

The squandering of money to this extent to give credence to a THEORY is truly apalling. You come and tell me - How do these THEORIES benefit mankind?

 

I also have my doubts that spending such a huge chunk of taxpayer money on any one single research project is "best practice" if that is your point.

Given the politics that we are always going to spend the money, I very much prefer we dole it out over many tiny cost research grants. I don't think there is enough evidence that we know how to only pick quality projects so I prefer we go for quantity.

 

I am really looking at this more from a risk management point of view. The risk or harm is far greater plunking all these billions into one project rather than spreading it out over hundreds. Given the politics, not the spending the money, is not a viable option.

[PassedOut]

I am really looking at this more from a risk management point of view. The risk or harm is far greater plunking all these billions into one project rather than spreading it out over hundreds.

Some questions can't be answered with small experiments. If you really want to find the answers, you need some skin in the game.

[mike777]

Some questions can't be answered with small experiments. If you really want to find the answers, you need some skin in the game.

 

excellent point.

 

btw I think this raises one good reason to spend money on a big project. Mankind's survival. If moving out into the universe increases our chances to survive and this is an urgent concern that would be skin in the game.

 

For example in the 60's with the cold war, Cuban missile crisis, etc our survival out into the universe was considered more urgent than in 2014. Thus all the money spent on the moonshot.

 

With that said if some questions cannot be answered on the cheap, the questions may need to wait for more research, small cost research and time or private money. In any event the taxpayer money will be spent, just matter of size.

[32519]

The squandering of money to this extent to give credence to a THEORY is truly apalling. You come and tell me - How do these THEORIES benefit mankind?

If you are convinced that science and knowledge are evil, why are you using a computer? And the electricity to run it? These are possible due to science. So you had really better stop.

 

Further, I am sure that you have never been to the doctor, because medicine is all about science, and I hope that you will remain true to your convictions if you ever get really ill and need to see one. Or are science and knowledge OK when they benefit you personally, and no other times?

True to yourself you have not answered my question, “The squandering of money to this extent to give credence to a THEORY is truly apalling. You come and tell me - How do these THEORIES benefit mankind?” The theory we are talking about is the BBT. Instead you refer to electricity, computers and medicine.

 

But taking your example of medicine – if there were 10,000 scientists (the number working on the LHC) with a budget of $15.25 billion (the amount wasted to date) to find a cure for HIV/Aids and/or cancer, I’ll bet you a BBO dollar any day that we would probably have had a cure for both by now. That would benefit mankind!

 

Surely it must be glaringly obvious to every Forrest Gump out there, that there is someone (a group of people) hiding in the shadows with ulterior motives who are driving the LHC project to give substance to the BBT? No sane person will continue throwing this sort of money into a fruitless project THAT THEY THEMSELVES KNOW IS FRUITLESS and which ultimately benefits mankind zero!

 

The physicists working on the project couldn’t give two hoots as long as they keep on receiving their fancy salaries every month. To keep themselves there all they need to do is keep on coming up with all these stupid theories. When one has run its course e.g. the Standard Model, they invent a new one the Big Bang. That way they secure a job for themselves for the next 50 years while they make all sorts of meaningless calculations as to the age of the universe etc.

 

When the Forrest Gump’s of the world point out the flaws in the BBT to these guys, they convince their paymasters to build something like the LHC with, “Hey, we got a theoretical answer. Now let’s go about trying to prove it.”

[gwnn]

True, but I wanted to be scientifically accurate. The discovered particle has been shown to have the expected properties but that does not automatically mean that it is the same thing. Science tends to move slowly - that is why the discovery of this particle is generally regarded as so important; and why I found 32519's statement particularly unusual.

I have no idea what your post means, maybe you misworded it. If the discovered particle has been shown to have all the expected properties, then certainly it would automatically mean it is the same thing as per the duck test. The trouble is that they did not manage to identify all of its relevant characteristics yet, as far as I understand. However, all of the characteristics that they have found are consistent with the conjectured ones of a Higgs boson. I will ask my evil friends from the Freemason Society at LHC for some more details.

[Vampyr]

True to yourself you have not answered my question, “The squandering of money to this extent to give credence to a THEORY is truly apalling. You come and tell me - How do these THEORIES benefit mankind?” The theory we are talking about is the BBT. Instead you refer to electricity, computers and medicine.

 

You may be talking about the Big Bang Theory. The Higgs Boson is more about the theory that objects have mass. Anyway, you seem perfectly happy with the theory of a electromagnetism, and the germ theory of medicine. Also I am sure that you rely on the theory of gravity in your everyday life. A lot of money and effort have been 'squandered' giving 'credence' to these theories. Possibly the practical benefits of pure science are less obvious than those of applied science, and while the former has often yielded important practical results, these will often be realised years or decades later.

 

But sometimes the benefit of knowledge is simply having the knowledge itself. And it is not just the scientists who gain the knowledge; those of us who are curious about the world and universe benefit as well. For many of us the thirst for knowledge is just about as important as the need for food and drink. It is of course curiosity that has led to all human accomplishments.

 

You are not curious, and personally I regard this as a bigger handicap than stupidity (not that I am claiming you are not stupid). Especially as it is often wilful.

[PassedOut]

But taking your example of medicine if there were 10,000 scientists (the number working on the LHC) with a budget of $15.25 billion (the amount wasted to date) to find a cure for HIV/Aids and/or cancer, Ill bet you a BBO dollar any day that we would probably have had a cure for both by now. That would benefit mankind!

Let's check that out.

 

More than 40 years after the war on cancer was declared, we have spent billions fighting the good fight. The National Cancer Institute has spent some $90 billion on research and treatment during that time. Some 260 nonprofit organizations in the United States have dedicated themselves to cancer more than the number established for heart disease, AIDS, Alzheimers disease, and stroke combined. Together, these 260 organizations have yearly budgets that top $2.2 billion.

And that's just the US.

[mike777]

"You may be talking about the Big Bang Theory. The Higgs Boson is more about the theory that objects have mass. Anyway, you seem perfectly happy with the theory of a electromagnetism, and the germ theory of medicine. Also I am sure that you rely on the theory of gravity in your everyday life. A lot of money and effort have been 'squandered' giving 'credence' to these theories. Possibly the practical benefits of pure science are less obvious than those of applied science, and while the former has often yielded important practical results, these will often be realised years or decades later."

 

Ok I don't know much about this stuff but:

 

 

So this is something to do with mass which is also about weight or how things gain mass or weight. I also read it involves models, some standard looking model(no supermodels?) some not so standard looking models or fields of mass or super models.

 

It all sort of sounds like 15 billion spent on a secret project to find a magic diet pill. If so well worth 15billion and I bet the models are happy.

[blackshoe]

"I don't understand it, therefore it's stupid and a waste."

 

Uh, huh.

 

I don't think anyone believes that the existence of nuclear weapons is a good thing - yet a lot of other things, mostly good, did come out of nuclear research.

 

"The space program was a political boondoggle and a waste of money." - so say some anyway. Yet out of the space program we got many improvements to our lives that would have at best taken a lot longer to get to.

 

Don't ask me for examples - you're here, you know how to google.

[mike777]

"....Surely it must be glaringly obvious to every Forrest Gump out there, that there is someone (a group of people) hiding in the shadows with ulterior motives who are driving the LHC project to give substance to the BBT? No sane person will continue throwing this sort of money into a fruitless project THAT THEY THEMSELVES KNOW IS FRUITLESS and which ultimately benefits mankind zero!...."

 

I think this is where you lose a lot of people. In the long run claiming zero benefits seems too strong far too strong. I can understand the argument that the money could be better spent or could produce greater short term benefits by being spent in other grants.

 

You make some strong provocative points but to say zero benefits for mankind will come out of the LHC and the search for the Higgs Boson is a step too far. Perhaps you use the term benefits to mean something else? Again to claim zero benefits in the coming 100-200 years seems a step too far.

 

For example some posters claim they benefited just from the search, benefited in some important way for them.

 

At the very least spending some 15B benefited the local economy and they are mankind. :)

[sfi]

"The space program was a political boondoggle and a waste of money." - so say some anyway. Yet out of the space program we got many improvements to our lives that would have at best taken a lot longer to get to.

 

Don't ask me for examples - you're here, you know how to google.

 

That's hardly fair - I'll do the work:

 

Tang

The Space Pen, with the documentary synopsis found here

Heavy Boots

[32519]

Openness the key to entrench Bitcoin as currency

[y66]

Paul Krugman posted this today:

 

Henry Farrell has a truly brilliant essay on how the evolution of Silk Road, the dark-web trading platform for forbidden transactions, can be viewed as an experiment in political philosophy. I can’t do better than his own blurb:

 

The Silk Road might have started as a libertarian experiment, but it was doomed to end as a fiefdom run by pirate kings.

 

It’s an awesome read.

[y66]

From Bitcoin Technology Piques Interest on Wall St by Nathaniel Popper:

 

...Until now, digital transactions have always gone through some sort of central authority that can move the money and update the records on both sides — as PayPal and Visa do for many online purchases.

 

The Bitcoin network, on the other hand, is run by a decentralized network of users who jointly keep track of transactions and update the records in real time, with no single user or company in charge. The records of all transactions are kept on a public ledger — essentially just a big, publicly available spreadsheet — known as the blockchain that is visible to anyone and has, at least so far, proven impossible to tamper with.

 

Much of the work being done inside banks, and in other industries, is looking at whether the blockchain technology can be used independent of the Bitcoin virtual currency, which was the first thing to be recorded on the blockchain ledger.

 

The music publication Billboard recently wrote about how several start-ups are aiming to use a digital ledger like the blockchain to keep track of musical downloads and distribute the royalties to artists without relying on a central record keeper.

 

Vermont’s state government commissioned a study in June to look at how a blockchain could be used as a legal method of record keeping under state law; it is one of several governments, many of them outside the United States, looking at the technology.

 

But the most intense work is being done by financial companies like the Nasdaq OMX Group, which has several programmers in Manhattan preparing software that the company plans to roll out this year.

 

...Many in the financial industry hope they can find a way to use the blockchain concept — what is often referred to as a distributed ledger — without using the blockchain associated with Bitcoin.

 

Although the bankers working on the idea disagree on how this will happen, they show surprisingly little disagreement on whether it will happen. One of Goldman’s top Internet analysts, Heath Terry, said in a recent company podcast that “the whole blockchain tech behind Bitcoin has massive implications for really any kind of asset — and the ability to transfer ownership of digital goods.”

 

“It’s hard to see a world where that blockchain technology doesn’t end up changing the way we think about asset ownership,” he said.

[y66]

From Two reasons Bitcoin just surged past $4,000 by Timothy B. Lee:

 

The virtual currency Bitcoin hit a new record over the weekend, surging past the $4,000 mark. As of press time, one Bitcoin is worth $4,250. It's an astonishing rally for a currency that was worth $580 a year ago and has risen 300-fold over the last five years.

 

It's not clear what's causing the currency's value to rise so rapidly.

 

One likely factor: last week, the Bitcoin network officially accepted a long-debated upgrade called segregated witness. The Bitcoin network limits the size of blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain, which in turn limits the number of transactions the network can process each hour. For the last year, the network has been bumping up against this limit, leading to congestion on the network and high transaction fees. Segregated witness aims to relax this bottleneck by moving part of each Bitcoin transaction outside the blockchain, allowing more transactions to be squeezed into each block.

 

Another possible factor: earlier this month, the Bitcoin network forked, creating a spinoff currency called Bitcoin Cash. Many people expected the schism to undermine confidence in Bitcoin, but that doesn't seem to have happened. The spinoff went smoothly, and the mainstream Bitcoin network continued working as well as ever.

 

The value of one Bitcoin has risen about 50 percent since the split happened on August 1. Perhaps Bitcoin speculators are simply relieved that a contentious fight is over and nothing catastrophic occurred.

 

Finally, there's an ongoing boom in "initial coin offerings"—sales of new, Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies for a variety of applications. Last week, for example, a company called Filecoin raised $187 million in a single hour selling a not-yet-created cryptocurrency that will be used to purchase online storage space. Another virtual currency called Tezos raised more than $200 million in July. A third, called Bancor, raised $153 million in June.

 

These exotic new currencies are often offered for sale using Bitcoins, since it's often easier to exchange one cryptocurrency for another than to directly sell new cryptocurrencies for dollars. So people who want to invest in an ICO often need to get their hands on bitcoins (or ether, the currency of Bitcoin competitor Ethereum) first. With hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into these ICOs, that translates into a lot of demand for the most famous virtual currencies.

[Al_U_Card]

Perhaps (yet) another asset bubble waiting to be burst? Between the speculation and the leveraging and the hedging, do we have any hope of value for money? Since we have never had really long-term fiat reserve currencies, no real previous examples to cite other than that a Jubilee might be our next best hope.

[The_Badger]

There's always people making money out of other people's money, though it's never the people who need the money who make it. I'm not jealous as I'm comfortably off and have never been greedy. My father told me money doesn't grow on trees, but it now does seems to exist in cyberspace. The economics world just seems to get more bizarre each passing year.

[y66]

This is somewhat off-topic -- blockchain not currency -- but potentially interesting for reshaping the credit industry.

 

From Bloom Protocol -- Decentralized credit scoring powered by Ethereum and IPFS by Jesse Leimgruber, Alain Meier and John Backus

 

In this whitepaper, we introduce a global, decentralized credit protocol, Bloom. Bloom addresses these existing limitations in lending by moving credit scoring and risk assessment to the blockchain.

 

Bloom is a standardized, programmable ecosystem to facilitate on-demand, secure, and global access to credit services. Bloom presents a novel approach to credit risk assessment allowing both traditional fiat lenders and digital asset lenders to issue compliant loans on the blockchain while increasing competition to lower fees and improve borrower experience at every layer of the credit issuance process.

 

The Bloom protocol presents solutions to the following problems:

 

1. Cross-Border Credit Scoring: Credit histories are not portable across coun- tries, forcing individuals to re-establish their credit track records from scratch when they relocate.

2. Backward-Looking Creditworthiness Assessment: Credit systems rely on historical debt repayment information and therefore cannot easily accommodate users who are new to credit. This is especially prevalent among minorities, the underbanked, and the youth[5].

3. Lenders Have Limited Ability to Expand and Offer Loans Globally: Borrowers in markets with less developed financial and regulatory infrastructure struggle to access credit as lenders have limited identity and scoring data to base credit decisions.

4. High Risk of Identity Theft: Borrowers must expose all of their personal information when applying for a loan - the same info an attacker can use to open new lines of credit.

5. Uncompetitive Credit Scoring Ecosystem: Credit data is centralized. In most markets, a single provider scores credit, resulting in an uncompetitive ecosystem for evaluating credit risk. FICO was checked on 90% of all U.S. Loans[2].

 

Protocol Components

 

There are three main systems which comprise the Bloom protocol:

 

1. BloomID (Identity Attestation): BloomID creates a global secure identity, allowing lenders to offer compliant loans globally, without forcing borrowers to expose personal information.

2. BloomIQ (Credit Registry): BloomIQ is a system for reporting and tracking current and historical debt obligations that are tied to a user’s BloomID.

3. BloomScore (Credit Scoring): The BloomScore is a metric of consumers’ creditworthiness. This decentralized score is similar to FICO or VantageScore score, but with updated models.

 

The Bloom protocol improves the current credit ecosystem by creating a globally portable and inclusive credit profile, reducing the need for traditional banking infrastructure and opaque, proprietary credit scores. This means both traditional fiat lenders and digital asset lenders will be able to also securely serve the 3 billion people who currently cannot obtain a bank account or credit score.

 

Bloom decentralizes the credit industry while lowering rates and increasing security. Bloom makes it easy for lenders to transition to the blockchain by offering a new, compliant way for them to access new markets.

[y66]

From Bitcoin Moves Toward Mainstream, Poised to Join Oil, Gold in Futures Trading by Alexander Osipovich (WSJ):

 

Bitcoin is moving from the margins of the financial world closer to its center.

 

CME Group Inc.,the world’s biggest exchange group, said Tuesday it aims to launch a futures contract based on bitcoin by the end of the year. The plan, subject to regulatory approval, would be a big step forward in the evolution of the digital currency.

 

Futures are a way for traders to bet on whether the price of a commodity, such as oil or gold, will rise or fall. Introducing a U.S. futures contract based on bitcoin would enable Wall Street banks and trading firms to protect themselves against price swings in the digital currency. It could also provide retail investors with an easier way to trade bitcoin.

 

Bitcoin was conceived in 2008 by an anonymous creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a purely digital currency, or “cryptocurrency”—essentially, strings of ones and zeros flitting around in cyberspace—designed to act as an alternative to government-backed currencies.

 

Many officials and bankers around the world, including J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Executive James Dimon, have been reluctant to embrace bitcoin. Its reputation has been tarnished by an association with money laundering and other illicit activity, while volatility and uncertainty over its legal status have kept the digital currency trading in the shadows of global markets for years.

 

CME’s plan to bring bitcoin to the futures market offers a stamp of approval from a financial giant at a time when the digital currency’s supporters say it is gaining respectability.

 

“It is a legitimization of bitcoin as an asset class,” said Daniel Masters, chairman of the Global Advisors group of companies, which runs a bitcoin hedge fund and exchange-traded notes linked to digital currencies.

 

The move is nonetheless risky for CME, which could face embarrassment if the bitcoin market implodes, as some skeptics predict will eventually happen. There is no guarantee that its bitcoin initiative will succeed. Many new futures contracts introduced by exchanges fail to take off.

 

Still, CME’s plan sent the price of bitcoin surging. After the exchange’s announcement Tuesday, the digital currency’s price rose above $6,400 for the first time, up more than 4% for the day, according to CoinDesk. It has more than quintupled so far this year.

[Aberlour10]

7000 USD ....what does proceeding this growth? only unlimited beliving in the market? I am possibly totally wrong, but in (my) common sense it looks like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster..

[WellSpyder]

I don't see why I should be interested in buying, whether the price is $7000 or 7 cents. And actually, I'm not sure I understand the intrinsic difference between a price of $7000 and 7 cents, when the only value is effectively what someone else thinks it is worth - if I am buying purely in order to speculate (or to diversify risk, if one wants to be more positive about it) then the scope for upward or downward movement seems exactly the same from either of these levels.

[Aberlour10]

I don't see why I should be interested in buying, whether the price is $7000 or 7 cents. And actually, I'm not sure I understand the intrinsic difference between a price of $7000 and 7 cents, when the only value is effectively what someone else thinks it is worth - if I am buying purely in order to speculate (or to diversify risk, if one wants to be more positive about it) then the scope for upward or downward movement seems exactly the same from either of these levels.

 

Thats the point; What is it? A complex system of values or a kind of Ponzi scheme

[y66]

From today's Dealbook:

 

The Bitcoin rocket has wobbled. Is a crash coming?

 

Even non-fanatics are getting in on the action. The WSJ found a 70-year-old grandmother, Rita Scott, who reaped what her grandson said was a 45 percent gain on her investment.

 

From the WSJ:

 

“Believe me, I didn’t have this much fun with T. Rowe Price, ” said the retired secretary and taxi driver Ms. Scott, referring to her mutual-fund investments.

 

Supporters say that there’s still plenty of room left for the digital currency to run, after technical glitches at some exchanges led to a 20 percent decline — and swift recovery — yesterday. But it highlights the mania over an asset whose price has climbed 69 percent in the past months.

From Bloomberg:

 

Bitcoin and bubble have become virtually synonymous in the minds of many skeptics during this year’s breathtaking rally. While the digital currency has defied doomsday prophesies, there’s a number of ways this party could end badly for the swelling ranks of bulls.

 

But be warned: many of the potential causes of death have surfaced during the past few years, and have proven unable to bludgeon bitcoin into oblivion thus far.

 

Death by ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

It’s been a puzzle to explain why bitcoin’s gone parabolic. Why would we expect the way down to be any different?