BitCon: The Naked Truth About Bitcoin
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Jeffrey Robinson spent more than a year trekking through "Planet-Bitcoin" to find a digital-something pretending to jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd a currency; that same digital-something pretending to be a commodity; a political apolitical movement that reeks of a delusional cult; and a technology - unique peer-to-peer transfer system - that happens to be brilliant.
He spoke with big players and small players, economists, tech analysts, bankers, cryptographers, digital engineers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, businessmen, regulators, get-rich-quick schemers, wannabes, political anarchists, and the "rock stars" of the eco system - from "Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver and now convicted bitcoin felon Charlie Shrem to Overstock's Patrick Byrne and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen - all of whom have a stake in bitcoin's brilliant future or abject failure.
He investigates the great promises made by the "Faithful": How bitcoin will replace fiat; how central bankers are trembling at the feet of this all encompassing digital currency; how bitcoin is the perfect solution jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd the developing world's unbanked and underbanked; how bitcoin is a speeding freight train bearing down on the dollar's dominance as the world's primary currency; and how bitcoin is wildly successful having gone so viral that it is viral cubed.
By separating the myths from the naked truths, one by one, he concludes they are, for the most part, wildly delusional. He questions the get-rich-quick scheme of jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd Winklevoss twins; the rip-off bitcoin wannabe flogged by an off-the-reservation native American; and the illogic behind bitcoin ATMs - "For every bitcoin ATM in jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd world, there are condom machines in American gas station toilets.
Jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd with typical wit, humor, and his jaundiced eye for cons, scams, pirates, hype, market manipulation, misinformation, outright lies, self-fulfilling Ponzis, sleight of hand and a mob of greater fools, Robinson reveals: Jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd book that the bitcoin "Faithful" do not want you to read, Jeffrey Robinson rips through the headlines, the hot air and the hysteria to prove without any doubt that, "When it comes to bitcoin, what you see is not jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd what you get.
Jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd the other hand, those wanting to read a book that promotes their own, pre-existing prejudices should look elsewhere.
Just like any classic book, that one may even disagree with, Robinson's BitCon packs insights that the prepared and open mind needs to nurture itself. Jeffrey Robinson is an American author best known in media circles for his work on international financial crime via his book The Laundrymen.
Especially when the book he publishes is called, BitCon: The Naked Truth About Bitcoin. Sadly, for the Bitcoin faithful — as well as all the other reasonable institutions that seem to have been taken in — the verdict is not good. Robinson reduces the entire phenomenon to a classic swindle. A small cohort of ruthless predators taking advantage, as usual, of the naive and gullible via a carefully constructed and asymmetrical myth, which happens to appeal to those of a certain persuasion, encouraging them to take leave of their senses entirely.
In fact, Robinson says, even the Austrian school academics, who Bitcoiners love to idolise, assess jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd phenomenon that way. Worse than that they assume their Ponzi is transparent, and thus immune to the information asymmetry problem that plagues all other Ponzi schemes.
It suffers not only from misinformation, but concentrated market power, hoarding, opaque and unregulated exchanges, insufficient trade reporting, elevated marketing hype and greater opportunities for market manipulation. As Robinson observes, this is the domain of those suffering from apophenia, i. The book, in any case, provides a good overview of why the economic thinking that drives the movement is toxic, as well as the twisted and malevolent forces at play.
As ever, Robinson begs us to consider, cui bono? Who does it all benefit? Those in prime beneficiary position are the dark and mysterious miners, anyone with illicit earnings to launder through the jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd, the intermediaries, the scammers, the PR industry propagating the brainwashing, the cottage industry of exchanges and even the big tech geniuses who have put their reputations on the line.
A key focus of the book is unravelling much of the misinformation that has come to dominate bitcoin coverage in the media — in large part due to the ferociously persistent nature of the PRs appointed by the movement. His biggest beef is with the notion that retail adoption is growing and that retailers are benefiting from the inclusion of bitcoin.
They all had pretty much the same story. Then, their bitcoin takings all evaporated. Instead of thousands, jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd turned out to be a few dozen and, doubting them, Wikipedia had stopped publishing outside entries to the bitcoin listing. Unsubstantiated entries and unreliable information.
Bitcoin the currency he notes is backed by the full faith and credit of wasted computer time. The technology, when not connected to currency, does possibly have potential. But even on the technological side, there are issues due to the general complexity and cost associated with introducing digital asset systems. The private sector, meanwhile, had no interest in creating or supporting a system which competed with their own digital products directly.
Robinson interviews David Everett, the developer of the first electronic purse — a system called Mondex — who was brought in to the MintChip project.
As he tells Robinson, had the Mint been prepared to bear the cost, the whole thing would worked really efficiently due to the simplicity. It all went wrong, he believes, because in the end people got confused about the difference between a real currency and a virtual one.
This he notes, is down to the fact that not everyone understands cash or how the cash mechanism works. But as Everett notes, the reason why Mondex and MintChip had the potential to work jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd bitcoin will not is because they really were the equivalent to real currency.
As Robinson quotes him saying: And really, this is only point with which we disagree with Robinson on. It encourages people to police themselves rather than to rely on the services of a particular public or private authority of repute. What it really amounts jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd is a persuasion technique focused on the roll out and adoption of a protocol on voluntary as opposed to compulsory terms, which — if constructed wisely — is supposed to help society order itself more prosperously.
This is no different to Moses persuading his followers that a world of self-discipline, as per the Ten Commandments, is better than a world without it. Naturally, if society can be trusted to accept such commandments and live by them, the need for a supervisory agent of the ancient Egyptian jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd can be eliminated.
But the question remains how can you be sure the public will comply with the rules that need to be followed by all if the system is to flourish? The truth is, this usually depends on an innate payoff and penalty jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd built into the system.
In religion, the reward for compliance is access to the kingdom of heaven while the penalty is eternity in hell. And not dissimilarly, with the Satoshi system, the reward for compliance is a step up on the social hierarchy of the system, while the penalty is the collapse of the system itself.
Remove such payoffs and penalties, and the incentive to cheat or ignore the protocol becomes too great. What you end up with instead is a system that depends on constant public scrutiny to deter non-compliance. But this introduces not only an incentive to dodge the inspection of the crowd — opaqueness via off blockchain transactions —but also the corruption of the scrutinising crowd.
Yet the public is unlikely to have the time, the resources or the inclination to be bothered to participate to that scale. This leaves the judgment process open to the bias of participating judging agents. We guess it all comes jeffrey robinson bitcoin to usd to whether you prefer a system that uses a common entity that everyone knows and trusts to judge what you are entitled to, or a faceless crowd of unknown repute, with an unclear agenda.
