141 words / 1:00:37
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On this episode of Counter-Currents Radio, Greg Johnson is joined by Karl Thorburn to discuss the fundamentals of and some listener questions about Bitcoin. Topics discussed include:
- 00:00:00 Intro
- 00:01:00 What is Bitcoin?
- 00:25:00 Where is Bitcoin mining located?
- 00:32:30 Is Bitcoin overvalued?
- 00:39:00 Other cryptocurrencies
- 00:48:30 How to start with Bitcoin
- 00:57:00 Hyperinflation vs hyperdeflation
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13 comments
Very good discussion of alternative funding tactics.
The interview with Jason Kessler was also useful for an understanding of lawfare in the 21st century.
Let’s see more programs like this.
Great livestreams. He does a lot to sell one on Bitcoin. Will listen again. Bricks of tea were used as money in early modern China. Gold was exclusively decorative in its preindustrial heyday. I have noticed that money in the preindustrial world is almost always a luxury item: gold and cowrie shells are decorative. Salt a condiment. Tea for caffeine. Humans appear to prefer luxury to economic power or utility. Bitcoin provides no luxury so it can’t be money. Enjoy your bits and bites!
That said, while I haven’t been a fan of Bitcoin, I now believe it will always have value because there will always be some failed state such as Venezuela(I realize this could describe the US in a couple of decades) or black or illicit markets where an alternative to the official currency is sought. Bitcoin fits that bill. I also like the argument that all the oligarchs are heavily invested in it, which creates a sort of philosophical inertia, much like the dollar system—nobody wants it to end because we’re all so heavily invested in it!
Bitcoin offers superior portability to gold. It can’t be robbed off your person. It can’t be forged or diluted like gold can. That needs real metallurgical expertise to evade, after all, such a question was what caused Archimedes’s original Eureka moment! Bitcoin has a lot of advantages.
I’m intrigued that a lot of people on our side are techie types who have benefited tremendously from Bitcoin. I’d like to know more about them. I’m sorry I didn’t get into Bitcoin early. I wish I had smart people to associate with who could have helped or directed me. I’m more of a poetry/mythology boy personally.
Great podcast, but I’m still not buying into bitcoin. “If the power goes out, you can’t access your Bitcoin don’t worry its still there!” I legit LOL at that. And no, I’m not a Libertarian.
If the ‘power goes out’ almost nothing of value will remain. It’s a specious objection to Bitcoin.
Then how about the “government can just step in and kill the exchanges” thing? This guy freely admits you could lose 90% overnight. Digital tulips are a pure speculative bubble. A “currency” is supposed to be stable.
I don’t measure my savings in state currency, so I wouldn’t “lose” anything.
I don’t see why I should care to hold the currency of a cartel that has made it impossible to buy my book with said currency.
“I don’t see why I should care to hold the currency of a cartel that has made it impossible to buy my book with said currency.”
Agreed, but that’s a free speech issue and one that still holds regardless of the existence of some fake-arsed currency. Once said “cartel” (more like “monopoly” if we’re whining about Amazon not letting us play in their ball pit) gets state fingers into crypto, ie the tax man, and neutralizes that avenue of exchange…well, same difference, right?
Decentralized exchanges, and anonymous ones.
Uniswaps is the most popular right now. It runs on Ethereum, so you must first buy ethereum.
HEX, DOT and CEL are very promising new technologies. BTC, LTC and ETH are Blue-Chip equivalent.
Well worth having a small portion of your portfolio in there.
Land > Farm equipment > Gold > Silver > Bitcoin
Silver is actually very common and easily mined. It’s a terrible store of value. Gold is far superior as far as metals go. But even that has huge problems – easily confiscated, difficult to hide, difficult to divide, assay, and so forth. Plus there’s no way to know the total supply of gold at any given moment. We know with certainty how many Bitcoin there are.
Land is nice to own, but you only “own” it at the behest of the government. It’s easy for them to take it from you and you’ll be paying a regular, hefty tax just to keep it.
The “Pets dot com” of currencies strikes again. 20% drop in one day. Yup, sure…. currency of the future. So stable and reassuring.
Don’t worry, it was overdue a correction and may well be up again soon enough. Unlike 2017-18, if I understand the position correctly, there has been significant institutional buying this time. Are they perhaps trying to corner the market like the Hunt Brothers with silver ca. 1980? If so it would certainly put a crimp in the step of those wanting near-anonymous online means of settling transactions, making donations etc.
The same principles of technical analysis that are employed for assessing likely movements in securities like shares, commodities and futures apply also to BTC etc and you don’t need to look far to find them; try starting with say, Peter L. Brandt (yep) on twitter.
btw look into using a paper wallet – usable with BTC ATMs (when the restaurant or other similar shops housing them aren’t closed because: COVID critter). No need for a smartphone or Q code reader. Then when BTC has been purchased, transfer it to a wallet client application online like, say, electrum using a VPN for some figleaf of anonymity (Tor has complications in this respect). If you buy just to donate or buy stuff using BTC, you never need to even become a member of an online BTC exchange. For that matter you can even do meet-ups to purchase or sell BTC against physical fiat though you’d need a laptop / smartphone to do that and given the time taken to settle transfers on the blockchain it might not be so practical. Also for reasons of caution it would best be limited to small amounts.
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