Bitcoin York Meetup

This is abominable government overreach. Remember, "we cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence." This egregious action by the UK should make everyone consider other options. On N ostr, new encrypted messaging services are emerging. There is no company for a government to subpoena, and no easy way for authoritarian governments to spy on you if you learn how to use the new privacy tools that are emerging. Apple used to tell us "think different". Now you really need to take their advice.

I initially dismissed the new paper from @schaaf_jurgen and @BindseilUlrich(the “most consistently mistaken men at the @ecb) as yet more rambling from the confused and the ill-informed, but the more I think of it the more sinister it becomes. What do they say? I quote: “Current non-holders should realise they have compelling reasons to oppose Bitcoin and advocate for legislation against it, aiming to prevent Bitcoin prices from rising or to see Bitcoin disappear altogether.” In short, they are saying NOTHING LESS THAN the commercial success of an asset, and the benefits that accrue to its holders, is unfair, and that governments should use their power to depress the price and destroy the value of that asset, because not everyone held it to begin with. Think about that for a moment, and then imagine if they had said this about any asset other than Bitcoin. Microsoft shares are too expensive? Early investors have benefited, and now I can’t afford to invest? The government must destroy the value of Microsoft! Google shares are now too costly for me to buy? I can’t afford gold, or wheat futures? I will lobby the government to prevent Microsoft share prices from rising, or to see Microsoft disappear altogether! The government must destroy this value! It’s only when we consider it through this lens that we realise how genuinely insane this position is, and can only wonder at the strange intellectual poison that appears to have infected both their minds. Thankfully, we’re already seeing legislation like the piece below, for which @bitcoinpolicyuk lobbied, and which recognises that digital assets are ‘property’ like any other kind of asset, and should be subject to the same kind of legal protection. Central bankers will not be allowed to arbitrarily select assets for value destruction; they will not win. Its also not as if people haven’t been telling sceptics like Jurgen and Ulrich to buy Bitcoin for years. Bitcoiners are if nothing else keen for as many people to benefit from the system as possible. Not merely for its price appreciation, but because it is a tool that solves problems, facilitates exchange, and opens up the world of finance to those hitherto excluded from it. Unfortunately, if you’re a banker at the ECB and ignored us, you will now have to have fun staying poor.

Terminator 2 ends with Sarah Connor’s haunting voiceover, as she faces the unknown future with a sense of hope. “If a machine, a terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.” Today, reading this, I feel a little like Sarah. If Mervyn King, a central banker, can realise that we held interest rates too low for too long…. Lord King does mention that doing so contributed to inflation, but doesn’t say why and how. A predominant reason is that cheap credit leads to aggressive lending and borrowing, and a vast increase in the money supply – where commercial banks merrily create new money at no cost to themselves – which also leads to all manner of knock on economic effects, from unaffordable housing to the huge debt burden currently being carried by companies like Thames Water, saddled with unrepayable acquisition debts fuelled by the credit boom. Perhaps, in an insane world, higher rates are the sanest choice.