thoughts_quotes_sayings.md

---

Some of my favorite notes, arguments, etc around the Bitcoin and Blockchain space.

1. Its technology. Even if bitcoin has no value the technology behind it does
2. Currency
3. Depository System (wallet)
4. Payment System
5. Speculator instrument
6. denationalize money
7. Bitcoin is a medium of exchange used to purchase goods and services.
8. Bubble or Breakthrough, its both.
9. Currency or Cult, its both
10. Bitcoin is not just an emerging asset class/currency, but a philosophical tool that helps early adopters to live incrementally further outside the scope of the State.
11. The degree to which economists have ignored Bitcoin is surpassed only by the extent to which Bitcoin enthusiasts have ignored economics. The divide between these groups is larger than that between analog and digital.
12. It is clear thereís a thirst for a new truly global currency and there is an increasing likelihood that governments will start regulating it.
13. Bitcoin is an experiment in unintended consequences that makes the North Korean government look efficient.
14. Can Bitcoin help you gain control of your digital footprint?
15. In their current form, cryptocurrencies carry serious risks.
16. Legitimize Bitcoins so we can provide our regulatory protections to the consumers.
17. When it comes to subjects like Bitcoin "It's not about fitting in, it's about standing out."
18. Bitcoins current problems are due to bad human behaviour rather than inherent flaws in the system
19. Bitcoins is about empowering the people to take over their personal finances, not governments and banks.
20. Bitcoins is the intersection of technology+people+finance
21. Bitcoins is offered to the people at no cost.
22. The future of money is digital
23. Bitcoin is not inflation proof. Inflation happens when "too many units of any currency chase too few assets."
24. Bitcoins is will cause a shift in wealth from fiat to private money
25. Bitcoin is maturing beyond its initial niche and begins to realise its true disruptive potential. Sophisticated service firms will be increasingly required to facilitate the system.
26. Bitcoin must grow out of its obsessive adolescence
27. It is important for investors to understand the difference between Bitcoin the technology, bitcoin the currency, and, Bitcoin companies.

• Bitcoin is a technology that bitcoin the currency is built on.
• Bitcoin companies simply operate within this set of protocols.
• Just like the internet isnít to blame when a website is fraudulent, it is not fair or logical to blame Bitcoin the technology or bitcoin the currency when a private company operates unethically.
• Now, more than ever it is important for investors to remain cautious when investing in Bitcoin or Bitcoin related companies. It is also the time for Bitcoin companies to step up and separate themselves from the companies with fraudulent intentions. This can be done by simply educating consumers and potential users with what to watch for.

28. Convenience is Not Always Worth the Price
29. Like water, Bitcoin may take the path of least resistance to gain adoption
30. Switch to a global currency?
31. Digital currencies must be zero trust, via a digital currency contract?
32. The Last Days of Cash. How e-money technology is plugging us into the digital economy.
33. Bitcoin needs to find ways to redistributing existing cashy/payments demand from offline to online
34. Bitcoin has the potential to completely transform every aspect of the internet, marketing, content distribution, and third-world empowerment as we know it.
35. Bitcoins wouldnt have existed without the financial crisis
36. Technology has the ability to overturn monopoly
37. Bitcoins allows banking for the unbanked and under-banked
38. Bitcoins will be a train wreck or a success
39. If this is the end of cash, there is money to be made getting rid of it
40. Where ever there is value there will be fraud
41. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable.
42. Digital currencies may have many potential applications as a medium of exchange, particularly cross border
43. Current Bitcoin user base is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics

• ie Kids with Code

44. Rather than trying to develop a completely new financial system as Bitcoin is trying to do, it makes more sense that banks, as existing money managers, absorb the benefits of the technological innovation.
45. Regulation Could Rob Bitcoin of its Low-Cost Appeal
46. In the notice, the IRS co-opted FinCEN's definition of digital currency:
    • Virtual currency is a digital representation of value that functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and/or a store of value
47. Banks and governments have the monopoly about money.
48. Bitcoin is in trouble if regulation and enforcement becomes more costly than its benefits
49. Bitcoin's protocol is open source. So is its narrative. The story and the code evolve. There is no one way, just individual frames-of-reference. Bitcoin is greater than the sum of these arguments. Ultimately it will be moulded in our collective image.

• http://bitcoinmagazine.com/12226/lets-talk-libbitcoin-2/

50. Its not about Bitcoin, its about the features and where the energies of developers go.
51. Bitcoins, as property, will not likely succeed in raising Bitcoins curtain of anonymity.
52. US is currently based on the debt-based money system (and all of its negative effects)
53. I want to be able to issue "repayable" Bitcoins to someone.
54. With a Government backed Cryptocurrency we could have a Monetary Justice where new money can be issued directly to individuals and bypass Banks.
55. Bitcoin is No Substitute for Government Money, But a Refuge From Control
56. Consumer confidence in the financial industry is as low as it has ever been.
57. Lack of trust hurts everyone: consumers, investors, the financial industry, and the economy.
58. Big promises that could never be met and strategies to fulfill them that were never fully thought out.
59. Is this true "Money creation is too vital to be left to the state"?
60. People who confidently reject all the innovation in new payment and monetary systems are on the wrong side of history.
61. Experience isnt something you can purchase.
62. Digital dollars or bogus bucks?
63. Data the new hostage, cloud the new hideout, bitcoin the new ransom
64. What are the the Economics of Private Digital Currency?
65. Bitcoin's greatest asset is its community
66. Bitcoin in terms of tulips is using antiquated thinking.
67. Privacy is an illusion. You have zero privacy in todays connected world. Get over it.
68. It's not about inventing technology, but applying it.
69. Where do nudists keep their bitcoin?

• We have the answer.
• http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/11/17/bitcoin-is-getting-under-your-skin-literally/

70. Bitcoin is not only volatile in its value, but in its very essence.
71. The crusade to absorb bitcoin into the seams of the State has begun.
72. Bitcoin does not pander to power structures, it undermines them.
73. Bitcoin is meant to function outside of regulatory systems.
74. Just like the internet gave information back to the people, Bitcoin will give financial freedom back to the people.
75. Bitcoin will allow us to shape the world without having to ask for permission.
76. We have been brought to a point where it has become necessary to dissolve the bond between currency and institution.
77. Bitcoin: under-performing on trust. Bitcoin needs to regain some trust.
78. "If someone tells me, Oh, in Cambodia or in India, only 10% of people have a bank account, then I would assume these people are not capable to transact in an encrypted currency"
79. Entrepreneurs should stay as lose as possible to their target markets.
80. Bitcoin is R&D's largest community
81. Bitcoin is a self-conscious reinvention of every wheel in finance, and when you crowdsource your wheels some of them will be lumpy or ill-formed or oval.
82. Will regulations isolate the U.S. from ?parts? of the international bitcoin economy
83. 10 things bitcoin won't tell you
84. Bitcoin could be the tip of a dangerous iceberg
85. We're a tax nightmare waiting to happen
86. Our hype is much bigger than our market share
87. Our volatility could leave you broke
88. We're fertile ground for fraud
89. Our little software problems can cost you big bucks
90. You may have to print out your 'digital' money
91. Our fees are low, but maybe not for long
92. Currency 'miners' could mine your bank account
93. You might need us some day, like it or not
94. Explore, analyse, modify, and learn from streams of data?
95. The past decade has seen major advances in machine learning to model and predict outcomes from data. However, the greatest challenge facing these approaches remains interpreting the results and gaining strategic understanding of the predictions. We still need ways to hypothesize and understand how a system works - the real value resides in actionability. Here I will introduce advances in the field of evolutionary computation that can accelerate this process by detecting key mathematical drivers and relationships from raw data. These results can be applicable in almost any situation -- from detecting laws of physics from motion-tracking data to modeling sales drivers in a retail chain.
96. Escrow agents are replaced by rule- and software-driven technology.
97. Specific performance of contracts is no longer a cause of action because the contracts themselves automatically execute the agreement of the parties.
98. The practical consequence of solving this problem means that any Internet user can send digital property to one another.
99. Digital Money Management, often referred to as Personal Financial Management (PFM), is the future of digital banking.
100. We are now headed towards a MASSIVE Sovereign Debt Crisis which will engulf large parts of the global financial system and cause the misplaced trust in governments to shift into the private sector
101. Privacy is a protected right, even in the US.
102. Building a community, 1 conversation at a time
103. Technology can address financial crime compliance
104. There are a lot of things that just aren't easy to accomplish with a grassroots approach.
105. Bitcoin is more ideology than trustworthy currency
106. Few economic injustices are more villainous than stealing from the poor. Yet this is what a government does when it devalues its currency.
107. New payment industry entrants seek to capitalize on technology opportunities.
108. Investing and trading bitcoin as one of the first major applications of crypto currency and believe increased investment and trading activity is helping create the payment network infrastructure and monetary base that will facilitate increased economic activity in the future.
     • We believe investors value bitcoin based as a weighted average of potential outcomes that can range between $0/bitcoin to $1,000,000/bitcoin
     • This broad set of outcomes means any small change in perception regarding the likelihood of the best case outcome drives significant changes to current valuation.
     • This would imply volatility in the price of bitcoin may not go away anytime soon, as the potential for bitcoin is being constantly measured by the market in light of rapid technology development and unpredictable regulatory constraints.
     • We believe traders value volatility as they continue to gravitate to bitcoin trading as an active 24/7 market uncorrelated with other asset class returns.
     • Since economic activity (sale of goods & services, money remittance, P2P. is intermingled with trading activity, we believe the trading activity is helping create the network capacity and monetary base to support the future economic applications of bitcoin.
109. Bitcoin Can Open Doors of the Global Economy for 2.5 Billion People
110. If you don't have your own currency, you basically lose a lot of sovereign powers.
111. Americans, bankers, venture capitalists, regulatory agencies and legislators know about digital currency seems to be based on fiction and not fact.
112. Cash: It's anonymous, invisible to the IRS, law enforcement and hackers, as well as to irritating marketers and data brokers.
113. Distributed Economy, Linked Data, HTTP message signing.
114. Reasons Paper Currency Should Be Eliminated

• It would be more efficient: Change left at airport checkin, no looking for ATM.
• Help foil crime: Cash is hard to trace, Prevent Bank Roberies, limit tax evasion.
• It would be cheaper: It costs 2x the price of penny/nickel to produce.
• Allow for negative interest rate: With physical cash, there can never be negative interest rates because consumers can always withdraw money and keep it under their mattresses. Below-zero interest rates could conceivably draw investment and boost the economy.
• Paper money is filthy: Teeming with bacteria related to pneumonia, food poisoning, gastric ulcers and staph infections
• There are many legitimate objections to this idea
  • Consumers should be allowed to make anonymous purchases if they wish.
  • Not everyone has access to broadband and can afford it.
  • An electric currency would be vulnerable to power outages, among other threats. Bitcoin seems to fit the bill. Maybe it will replace it as well.

105. Bitcoin API, SDKs and enterprise infrastructure help developers focus their time and resources on building amazing apps, and not needlessly rolling out payments infrastructure.
106. Automation is Vital to Drive Business Value
107. Capitalistic - 10 seconds to send an email, 172,800 seconds to send money. The Internet as financial infrastructure will lead to a more agile global economy.
108. Privacy framework seeks to give users control of how their personal data is used and shared while ensuring that their identities are known to someone in case law enforcement comes knocking.
109. Self-Sovereignty of digital personal identity, personal data, and finance.
110. Electronic payment & e-comm are an inseparable couple
111. Bitcoin is Teaching Realism to Libertarians. It's not really clear that large piles of wealth sitting there actually exist without the state to protect them. The ability to do large scale capital accumulation without having to need a private army is basically an artefact of pre-existing law. I own the house I live in, but that house next door that I'm renting to you? The reason it's mine, is because the state says it is. Some people prefer gold over Bitcoin, but even if you own a lot of gold, and civilization breaks down, you'll need people to guard your gold. http://bitcoinmagazine.com/18000/bitcoin-is-teaching-realism-to-libertarians-an-interview-with-old-school-cypherpunk-vinay-gupta/
112. What privacy regulations apply to transactions Paid for using Virtual Currencies?
     • What Privacy Regulations Apply if the Transaction Includes a Consumer Customer Resident in the U.S.?
113. One of the major perceived benefits from math-based currencies such as bitcoin is the notion that users' identities can be protected from those who could exploit that information for commercial purposes or to perpetrate identity theft.
114. The fundamental shortcoming of current payments networks is they try to secure the pipes, not the content.
115. Businesses Should See Digital Disruption As an Opportunity to Thrive to Greater Heights
116. Bitcoin: It's not all about the money. Bitcoin's blockchain ledger may turn out to be more important than the currency
117. Bitcoin is speculative but Blockchain will revolutionise the world
118. Will bitcoin will “always be currency of the future” (never the present) https://gigaom.com/2014/11/18/skeptic-says-bitcoin-will-always-be-currency-of-the-future/
119. Technology is changing all industries and puts pressure on the traditional business models The difference between generation z and previous generations is, in brief, that they grew up with technology, embrace technology instantly and deploy it in their everyday life to a much greater extent than previous generations.
120. Within a couple of years, they'll use something called tokenization so the numbers you use to send are not the same as the numbers you use to receive.
121. Is paper money "social superior" to electronic currencies?
122. Can build consensus without seeking authority?
123. Can Bitcoin worked with legal, compliance, audit and regulators to implement controls and surveillances for trade execution?
124. "replicated, shared ledgers". That is: every full participant in the network has a full copy of the transaction ledger and the "magic" of the system is in how it makes sure that everybody's copy stays in step with everybody else's.
     • http://gendal.me/2015/02/10/a-simple-model-for-smart-contracts/
125. Is Bitcoin an Economic Equalizer or a Tool for Conflict and Crime?
126. Digital toolsets like Bitcoin will put serious pressure on traditional brick-mortar businesses.
127. Blockchain will become tomorrows transparent pyramid schemes without verifiable identity. One of the ironies of the information age is how it's turning out to obscure rather than improve our understanding of what's really going on.
128. Bitcoin is a speculative attack on the current form of money. The time to consider how to prepare for that future is now before practical problems arise.
129. Biometrics is a statistical process with its acceptance boundaries being established by delineations between an acceptable access or not an acceptable access.
130. Bitcoin should be a Money Service Business, not a currency.
131. Traditional financial services providers are widely known for suffering a significant decline of profits in low nominal interest-rate environments. For FinTech companies however one of the supporting engines was the fact that clients felt that banks are of no use when they charge for “everything” but pay virtually 0 interest. This situation is due to change. We think this will be a period of volatility, transition and selection within the FinTech world.
132. Certificates (CA), to have any value, must have liability associated with their issuance.
133. Ultimately, like mobile, like the internet, and like computers before that, Blockchain is not the thing. It's the thing that enables the thing.
134. The argument for going forward with a formal acceptance of a digital currency is that the world consumer becomes venerable to losing their monetary holdings without knowing why. No government is backing the transaction when a lose occurs. – also, no government is taking a role of underwriter for the digital currency itself.
135. Its likely Bitcoin will pilot and empower Free Market Economy yet not be part of the mainstream finances.
136. Is Blockchain "The Right Answer to the Wrong Question"
137. Bitcoin users have rubbish passwords just like the rest of us
138. Blockchain will challenge trusted third party business models like eBay, Amazon and Uber by creating a way for buyers and sellers to interact safely without the costs of a platform. For this to occur users must first learn to manage their private keys. Additionally the practicality of implementing decentralized cryptosystems falls outside of the traditional IT development skill-set.

• simplifying business processes and creating trusted, safe records of business agreements and transactions with storage on a cloud based permissioned public ledger.

139. Paypal doesnt just protect your account, it protects your purchases. Impossible for any Blockchain/DLT to accomplish that.
140. Debate over the priorities of law enforcement, regulation, and personal privacy.
141. Blockchain: Disruption or distraction?
142. Put transparency and immutability together and you have a dream scenario for regulators, auditors and compliance officers
143. An economic productivity tool.
144. Cryptocurrency continues to evolve, shaping itself to the rapidly shifting needs of markets. As communication technologies have made our world increasingly interconnected, the need for means to support transactions taking place across borders in an expeditious manner with partners previously unknown has grown significantly. Cryptocurrencies offer the promise of digital cash, with many of its characteristics, good and bad. The market may fork in in coming years, with both government-sanctioned cryptocurrencies and private cryptocurrencies operating simultaneously to meet different market demands.
145. Social payments vs financial payments?
146. In todays age Identity is a currency. We are the product.
147. Blockchain should be used as a property ownership registry/recording system. Blockchain should not contain the product itself (ie a digital currency). Digital currencies are extremely dangerous.
148. Focus on improving existing systems, rather than getting excited about trendy technologies. Small incremental baby steps that offer business value is a more likely outcome.
149. Golden Copy: The Blockchain is Just a Database
150. The blockchain story is bull#%@^ blockchain is indeed a clever solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem (a fault tolerance problem in distributed systems), its practical applications are rather limited. The story that blockchain technology will re-shape significant components of the Internet is bull#%@^.
151. Authority is Good: Authorities make sense in important transactions because there will be conflicts between transacting parties. Resolving conflicts requires the enforcement of judgments, and enforcement requires administrative powers including the ability to reverse transactions. The nature of Blockchain irreversibility affords no liability protection available for users. Hackers, crackers, and key loggers will steal the funds with administrative powers being able to reverse the transactions.
152. Blockchain: A technology looking for a problem to solve, rather than a technology created to solve a problem.
153. Regulatory and other hurdles will force most digital currency start-ups to partner with, rather than compete directly against, incumbent banks. Yet, most financial institutions remain in 'experimentation mode,' wary about the scalability of the technology, privacy issues associated with broadcasting commercially sensitive information about money flows, and the volatility and governance of non-fiat digital currencies.
154. Money as a weapon of control & economic censorship:

• Money dependent on systems of representation requires trust to work. With the creation of the Federal Reserve and other central banks, private corporations began taking over the supplying of money. This centrally planned money production intermediates human relationship by dividing all into classes of creditors and debtors, where the former are masters, while the latter often become de-facto slaves.
• The hidden captains of this managed democracy direct the flow of currency through financial engineering and have created incentive structures that are bent toward preserving their power. Stimulated by toxic asset bubbles, derivatives and quantitative easing, these incentives work like invisible hands of the market. They suppress democratic values by controlling information, which is the currency of democracy and suppressing free speech with economic censorship, as was seen in the case of the financial blockade against WikiLeaks.

155. At this stage in history, because everything is so well-connected, any situation in life will have an impact on the global economy.
156. Future of digital services: A naive developer playing with code he doesn’t understand, savvy thieves exploiting the vulnerabilities he doesn’t understand, and finally a squad of angry investors & criminals descending on him for screwing up their meal ticket. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens a lot — although physical violence is, as far as I know, still fairly rare. To protect digital services, like Bitcoin or a Blockchain, the whole system needs to be protected through advanced security, hot & cold wallet rotations, one time keys, authentication & authorization tokens, multi-factor systems, etc. Less than 0.1% are sharp enough to build it and fewer than 1% of the 0.1% few are diligent to keep the system continuously secure.
157. 2016 stats

• http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=cb875975da196e21bcc6f8b5f&id=01e5227905&e=a1af1e0a4e
• 20%: Risk of a company having its systems breached
• 89%: Breaches that have a financial or espionage motive
• 91%: Percentage of breaches that involved stolen credentials
• Cryptography doesnt solve these problems! Bitcoin thefts are from stolen credentials. Since there is no central authority no one can help you.

158. Bitcoin is emerging from its "hacktivist" origins. People are starting to park their money in digital currencies, like Bitcoin, rather than parking them in fiat currencies. This is primarily due to the Negative Interest Rate Policy as well as Zero Interest Rate Policy of the Central Banks. Central Banks cannot get away with all the monetary printing. The more they print, the more they push investors away from wanting their fiat currency. A scenario of total collapse, the governments telling everybody that your money is now worthless and the bonds you own are now worthless. Institutional investors are recognizing this outcome, hence, they are the largest group of Bitcoin buyers.

• Lack of regulation was scaring a few customers; not that regulation helped in any way during the 2007 crash, and neither will it help in the next crash.
• The two Chinese exchanges, Huobi and OKCoin, both witness approximately 92% of the global trade in Bitcoin.
• There's a lot of hot money in China that has to go somewhere.
• Main emphasis on this movement is to find 'alternative' asset classes, which are mature enough, but not saturated. The risk-reward in such classes should be high.

159. After 7 years now Bitcoin is still an inaccessible, obscure experiment and esoteric online currency, used by few and understood by fewer. Despite the breathless prophecies of countless experts, neither death nor revolution have come to pass.
160. Regulators are starting to encourage and support the use of technology to reduce risk and ensure compliance. Blockchain as a piggy bank dramatically increases risk over what we have today. Blockchain as an accounting ledger can help that by automating reporting. To reduce risk you must separate the piggy bank from the ledger.
161. Since Bitcoin's creation in 2009, 33% of all Bitcoin exchanges were hacked, and 48% closed. Hackers manipulating a ledger that cant be corrected?
162. If you guarantee the authenticity of the user you guarantee the integrity of the transaction.
163. Without data confidentiality, a general purpose ledger is incomplete.
164. By clashing with new privacy laws like the ‘right to be forgotten’ and by making it nearly impossible to resolve human error and hackers mischief efficiently, the blockchain’s immutability could end up being its own worst enemy.
165. What data isn't sold to advertisers or stolen by hackers is carved up by government surveillance.
166. The Cashless Society Is Just Another Creepy Fantasy

• Liberated from the burden of physical currency, consumers could make purchases from the convenience of a mobile device. Every transaction would come equipped with fraud protection, reward points and a digital record of its time and location. Comprehensive tracking could help the Internal Revenue Service reclaim billions of tax dollars lost to unreported income, like the $80 I made selling a used refrigerator on Craigslist. Drug dealers, helpless without an anonymous medium of exchange, would acquire wholesome professions.
• This universe is missing one of the fundamental aspects of human civilization: A world without cash is a world without money.
• A claim is only as good as its enforceability, and in a cashless society every transaction must pass through a financial gatekeeper.
• {NSN OF1KA56TTDSI }

167. Whose vision will prevail, Wall Street or Silicon Valley?
168. I urge the cryptocurrency community to avoid infighting - the bigger fight to be had is for external adoption not different cryptocurrencies targeting different use cases
169. Bitcoin is independent of all nations. It may easily become a neutral medium of facilitating capital outflows (especially for China)
170. Bitcoin companies are hiring promotional CEO's and CTO's. The investors are being mesmerized, blinding them to the challenges the technology is facing.
171. Bitcoin Was Supposed to Change the World. What Happened?
172. Mobile technology is more important to bank the unbanked than Blockchain. Mobile money is issued to a mobile SIM card, not a Blockchain.
173. The most efficient outcome will prevail in any market.
174. Breaking a technology or process into functionally relevant components facilitates innovation.
175. Transactions improve when trust is managed by the system, not by mediators.
176. Blockchain will not solve poverty traps.
177. Blockchain may or not be successful but it is positioned with the trends in the marketplace. There is more opportunity infront of you than behind you.
178. Bitcoin will cause a slow death by papercuts as startups wake up to the possibilities offered by shunning legacy finance. M-Pesa and BitPesa has been pushing this for years. As payment wallets for the unbanked/unbankable grow grow so will the papercuts. Having a new technology that is not defined by law (unregulated) is an opportunity.
179. Every cryptocurrency community has a value to scammers and hackers.
180. With greater advances in technology come greater risks to cyber security. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has recently put cyber security and cyber attacks as the number one threat to America. Identity theft in hospitals is much more attractive to hackers.
181. For the next 10 years Blockchain should only be used for social currencies, social engagements. NOT financial engagements or financial services. Once the privacy & safety features of Blockchain matures then and only then consider it for Financial Services.
182. Every attempt to apply capital market measures will drive up the social market demands for Bitcoin. These social market reforms will lead capital market reforms. Is Bitcoin still a currency free from state intervention and large corporate interest?
183. Unlimited financial expansion is an illusion. Although money is a legacy of the first phase of industrial capitalism, it must now be attuned to the information age and its characteristics; a key critique for the discernment regarding the future form of currencies.

• See my W3C\stories\Beyond Bitcoin - Evonomics.pdf

184. Distributed capitalism? Example: 3D Printing
185. No free ride for Bitcoin.
186. At present, virtual currencies are vulnerable to crime, given they sit outside the financial-services regulatory framework. They make it easier to move illicit funds faster and more secretly than via the traditional banking system.
187. Blockchain is best used for recordkeeping, fraud, compliance technology, not a digital piggy bank.
188. Most blockchain evangelists exaggerate what blockchain does, overlooking what it was designed for, and stretch it to irrelevance.
189. Globalization works against the interest of the poor. When you have nothing you have nothing to loose.
190. These new technologies are doing more than just changing the way we live. They are changing the global economy, taking apart one industry after another, which destroys many old companies but also creates many forward-leaning new ones. People on the wrong side of the divide are angry and scared, so they understandably supported a leader who promised to bring their Old Economy jobs back. Trump wants to bring back the uneconomical jobs but tech is changing or replacing those jobs. This is creating a fundamental shift in the market demand and supply of skills the employers want. The opposition gets caught holding too tightly to the past and gets swept away.
191. Initially Blockchain will be used as sustainable monetary systems for communities so they can exist outside of fiat systems?
192. Blockchain is an irrational trend?
193. Bitcoiners & Blockchainers are extending their risk-taking culture to their customers.
194. To create a true payment system, people and the world need to work together. Blockchain can't do that. Blockchain promissed are causing people to follow like bady ducks, yet the technology will never be mother duck.
195. Focus on a road map and plan, not 1 implementation (aka Blockchain)
196. Does this make sense? Blockchain is so complex that only a few mathematicians & engineers can understand them, and they require massive computing resources to operate — yet billions of dollars are invested in them.
197. Self-regulation can happen but only if there is full transparency. Standardize the processes and automate the technology for know-your-customer (KYC), anti-money-laundering (AML), automated suspicious transaction reports (STRS) will facilitate innovation. But what happens to privacy in an environment like this? Is there privacy in an always connected world?
198. Ledgers have been around for 1000's of years. The true value of Blockchain/DLT isnt in the ledger, its in the automation of workflow. The Ledger is just the final resting place for the transactions execution/results.
199. The possibility of bitcoin eliminating currency is only a pipe dream as the mass acceptance can come about only if an authority issues it. Virtual currency is hard to track and has no legal binding which puts its users to risk.
200. Blockchain is more of a powerplay than a usable technology. The entrepreneurs are battling the large financial giants.
201. How can any Ledger thats also a piggy bank stand up against malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control system? It cant and your piggy bank is lost. If its just a ledger you might loose your privacy but not your bank account.
202. DLT & Blockchain is an append-only data store. This means you can only add, never change or delete.
203. As money and value progressively move online, quantum resistance will become an increasing priority. Its not possible to forge quantum money nor its underlying information but as you get access to the underlying information, forgery becomes easy.
204. The hype about Blockchains potential to transform financial services is way ahead of the reality, its more hope and promise but should still be taken seriously. Some of the ideas currently receiving millions of dollars of funding are akin to mediocre academic research projects.
205. The changes that blockchain, Bitcoin and distributed ledgers are introducing are probably inevitable. Just not very fast!
206. Blockchain, as a global piggy bank, has 1 massive side effect: Lack of regulation in a market that is largely based outside of the U.S., and the potential for market manipulation. This was the primary reason for rejecting the Bitcoin ETF.
207. Is half an apple better than no apple at all: There are issues with scalability and latency with the Blockchain model that utilizes cryptographic algorithms and shares the entire transaction history across every node in the network. Currently, there is no solution to this problem, as Blockchain does not provide the speed that is available using current technology. Use cases involving equity trading execution or card processing require execution cycles that DLT cannot currently provide.
208. Bitcoin: only 21 million units can ever be issued, and a fixed money supply is incompatible with a growing economy.
209. Traditional authentication and identification models do not scale well into the evolving IoT/Blockchain/Ledger space
210. Blockchain'ers tend to incorrectly bias very heavily towards using Blockchain technology to solve a problem that is fundamentally more social than technical.
211. Catch-22: You cant enforce rules against illegal transfers of Bitcoin/Digital Currencies unless you recognize it.
212. Gold is the only non-fiat currency in the world. It has always been a hedge against risk.
213. Blockchain: Open Source Money. Blockchains are simply distributed transaction processing engines. The technology allows data to be stored in a variety of different places while tracking the relationship between different parties to that data.
214. Traditional banks are not meeting the needs of 21st-century consumers (Mobile Devices) 215: Blockchain: A lack of trust is no basis for commerce. Whole proposition is built on distrust and on anonymity, shrouded in paranoia. And since blockchains are also highly hackable, disaster is frequently just round the corner.
215. Central banks will and must guard against e-money takeover. To compete Central banks would need to come up with options that solve the trust, security and anonymity issues associated with many forms of electronic payments. Cash currently fulfils that role, but its use is declining, so central banks need to rethink the "future form" of money.
216. Bitcoin: A currency needs to grow with the people, not overwhelm them.
217. By using "secure companion devices" you can shift authentication from a point-in-time event to an ever-present state where we tether the person to the system. Their presence can be constantly assured. Transactions can flow smoothly because we have a high integrity data trail.
218. Many liken the world of blockchain to the early days of the Internet, which was full of hope and promise but also adversely impacted by rapid growth. Ultimately a series of incentives supporting the Internet’s stability and security allowed it to accelerate forward into what it is today. There is a similar trajectory for blockchain technology. A cautionary tale is advised for those looking to commercialize it to remain vigilant of potentially problematic technical issues that could significantly retard momentum.
219. the cryptography behind Bitcoin is not foolproof and industry must plan for potential collapse. Failures will happen… as long as you have thought it through, you’re okay.
220. The headlong pace of technological change produces giant leaps forward in knowledge, innovation, new possibilities and, almost inevitably, legal problems.
221. Data are to this century what oil was to the last one: a driver of growth and change. Flows of data have created new infrastructure, new businesses, new monopolies, new politics and—crucially—new economics. Digital information is unlike any previous resource; it is extracted, refined, valued, bought and sold in different ways. It changes the rules for markets and it demands new approaches from regulators. Many a battle will be fought over who should own, and benefit from, data.
222. Bitcoin is becoming one mechanism via which investors channel funds abroad.