by InfleXion » Mon Jul 13, 2015 7:17 pm
BTC was over $1000 when the Cyprus bail-in happened, primarily due to businesses needing a way to transact while their banks were on holiday. I can definitely see the benefit of a decentralized currency, and this doesn't look like a terrible price point to get in on the action, but I could never invest in something that requires electricity and an Internet connection to get my money back out of.
I'm not sure it would be that difficult to manipulate, if it isn't already. As the only free market I know of, anybody can buy up as much as they want to do a pump and dump.
To me it seems more a bellwhether of where the economy has gone than where it's going, if it makes much difference. As in more a reactive currency than a predictive one. Not that there aren't always some ahead of the curve and maybe smaller movements could foretell larger movements, but most of the herd doesn't make a move until there is pressure applied.
I also echo CPH's sentiment in that the last few years I have had the concern that BTC or a technology similar to it would make the ideal global currency for a cashless society. While some purport that the blockchain can be used anonymously even though it tracks all transactions that ever occurred, the truth is that you can only be as anonymous as your IP address which can be discovered in most cases.
The only thing it really does to thwart the establishment is remove their ability to print money out of thin air since the protocol has a built in deflation algorithm, but when taking into consideration that the primary aim of fiat currency is debt slavery, and that the aim of debt slavery is control, I'm not so sure they wouldn't be willing to give that up in exchange for people not being able to buy and sell without being on the grid. Once that is a reality, pretty much anything can be forced onto the population lest they be rejected from being able to transact. Debt slavery isn't necessary if actual slavery can be achieved.
I would however look to BTC as a leading indicator of what precious metals could do thereafter, since the population is always slower to go back to tangible assets which are less convenient, but nothing is more trustworthy, and metals are the logical choice when all else fails.
Silver: the Rodney Dangerfield of precious metals.
If it's printed on a piece of paper it's worth the paper it's printed on.
If it's a digital asset it's worth the electrons in cyberspace.