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**Camdoc** · 03-01-2014, 04:22 PM

Bitcoin Resources and Analysis
This is a summary of some important information about Bitcoin. Even though you have heard that there is this geeky thing called Bitcoin, you probably did not have a clue as to how this new technology could literally change the world. Until I watched a particular video, excerpted below, I myself had no such idea. I had the idea that Bitcoin, as a non-Fiat currency, might be a way to avoid using the PTB banking system. I had an inkling that the GG Currency which we have been working on defining might somehow copy Bitcoin. I had watched a dozen or so Bitcoin videos and read some primers. But they did not even begin to unfold the power that this system appears to have.

So, I am going to give you some reference material, which I encourage you to make available to your brain. But the most important thing I will share is my gist of Stefan Molyneux�s talk on the TRUE VALUE of Bitcoin. To summarize, Bitcoin gives a means whereby any kind of transaction can be recorded, as publicly or privately as desired, all over the world. The transactions can be conditional, or not. They replace the need for most banking activities, most credit or debit card transactions, most conflict resolution, all real property, intellectual property, ownership protection, copyright, patent, stock exchange, and potentially many other industries. And they make access to public money (IPO�s, stocks) available to all. Just getting rid of the financial transactions could DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF WEALTH AVAILABLE TO US! Does that sound worth a few minutes of your time?

Oh, and the second most important thing is to introduce you to Stefan Molyneux,, which I do after the fact.
If you do one thing with this material, read my notes of Stefan�s vlog, below. If you do one more, watch Stefan�s video The Story of (Y)our Enslavement

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.
� What is Bitcoin? One minute video: http://bitcoin.org/en/
� Best Ever Explanation of What Bitcoin Really Is
� Bitcoin for a 5 year old http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-expl...five-year-old/
o (Great Beginner�s Guide on the right side, too)
� Bitcoin Primer is available here: http://www.sovereignlife.com/moneyrevolution.html
� Best picks for Bitcoin resources: http://www.sovereignlife.com/bestbitcoinresources.html
� Bitcoin Comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ0s...layer_embedded

Excerpt from a response to Alan Greenspan regarding the value of Bitcoin:

What has value is not Bitcoin as a �currency�, but as a payment and distributed ledger network. It is this technology that is disruptive and pathbreaking. It is the Bitcoin network that has value.
However, the only way to participate in this network is to own bitcoins.

Think of it another way. The Bitcoin network represents a paradigm-shifting advance on financial networks as we know them. There is no company, no bank and no government involvement. The entire system is peer-to-peer, running on a distributed network of servers which track, verify and store the global ledger � the block chain.
If this Bitcoin network was owned by a company, then its early supporters would be venture capitalists and qualified investors � all as shareholders. In other words, when you purchase bitcoins you are in fact purchasing �shares� in the Bitcoin network � shares that are as volatile as any technology start-up company BEFORE it goes public.

The reason people have trouble grasping the essential nature of Bitcoin is because the word itself represents two things � the distributed network and the �currency� that is transacted on it.

And because Bitcoin is not a company, and it doesn�t have shares, bitcoins themselves are acting like shares � shares that can be freely traded on the open market. At the end of the day, those �shares� will be worth what the Bitcoin network is worth � as a viable, disruptive technology which has the potential to undermine and replace the entire world of banking and finance.

The stakes are high, and if the Bitcoin network succeeds, then those who have gotten involved early, and possess bitcoins, will be rewarded as any early adopter purchasing shares in a pre-IPO internet technology company would.

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http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-intrinsic-value-alan-greenspan/

Confusingly, when the anonymous creator of the Bitcoin protocol named it, he chose to use the same word to refer both to the unit of value that is traded (bitcoin, with a lower-case b) and the payment network over which bitcoin travels and the way in which it�s stored, referred to as Bitcoin (with a capital B).

A good analogy is email: Without a network to carry email over, there�d be no value in composing an email � it wouldn�t have anywhere to go when you hit �send�.
Similarly, bitcoin would be worth nothing without the payment network that it sits on. You could have all the bitcoin in the world and if there wasn�t a network behind it, nobody would care. There�d be no context � just meaningless digital bits sitting on a hard drive.

Now, we know that payment networks are valuable. Just ask Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Western Union, and Moneygram.
We also know that methods of storing value persistently are valuable. Most of the world�s governments have a gold reserve. The US government alone holds over 8,000 tons of it.

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http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-intrinsic-value-alan-greenspan/

http://stg.do/CbLe Could Bitcoin be as transformational as the Net?
12.00 �Bitcoin technology is credit transfer, rather than direct debit� Thus, it may function as a means of moving from a debt based currency system.

The Truth About Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4HGVJjqDVk A pretty good video as an introduction to Bitcoin. But the following is what is really paradigm blasting:

The True Value of Bitcoin: What You Really Need To Know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Cs6F91dFYCs

01.08: Bitcoin is not just money transfer. It is a publicly audited ledger. Contracts and ownership can be publically audited and verified.

02:00 It eliminates labor in wills, accounting, financial transactions, accounting, There is an entire stock market running in bitcoin. IPOs. Can eliminate all of the labor.

03.00 Financial services take up 7% of the economy. If you take away from this sector by using Bitcoin, you end up with a significant amount of increased value that you have retained from the financial sector.

6.00 it will release those involved in accounting and finances and conflict resolution, so that they will have to find a real job.

650: it is more than just banking without fees.

7.10 it will get rid of war. Can�t have war without debt.

8.00 invalidates the currency controls which invalidate the borrowing of money by the govt.

9.40 Bitcoins and the Bitcoin architecture not only canf replace the entire stock market, but it actually has, in some instances. There are stockmarkets running in the Bitcoin environment. One small part of [the Bitcoin architecture] is the transfer of bitcons. But �it is an entire programming environment, and entire lookup environment�..It is the biggest revolution in economics in history assuming that it is adopted, and I [think] that the future of freedom relies on its adoption.

10.52 Part II. Value Proposition. Finance industry is eating up the rest of the economy.

13.12 foreign exchange disappears. Problems with credit card fraud disappears with Bitcoin. A large cost in small retail businesses. Double the profits, lower prices. Debit cards disappear. Credit card processing can disappear.

18.00 Bitcoin is a revolutionary protocol for information synchronization. Every client, every computer, gets ALL the transactions and verifies them.

19.15 no chargebacks, no boomerang payments, which are very expensive.

19.45 Can be as public or anonymous as you desire. Encrypted or not.

20.30 elimination of a third party to validate the transaction. History of civilization is a history of money. When you change money, you change history.

21.20 Blockchain is the list of all transactions.

21.30 You can put anything you want into the blockchain. A Novel, deed for property, Patent, property information, DNA information, any information. Once the other person accepts it, that is like a EULA which has been publicly accepted.

22.00 You can include contracts! If the contracts are violated, they can be automatically invalidated, And money reverts to me.

22.45 A public record of what you want to record. Can put a novel in the blockchain, encrypted, and that is my ownership. It can be incrypted so no one else can read it. If you are a reporter, you can put a story in the blockchain, and that is undisputed proof that you are the first one to write that story.

22.45 Bitcoin as money: Bitcoin establishes ownership of a certain stream of numbers which have been called �coins�. Can have 3 people involved in a transaction, and need 2 of them to agree that the condition has occurred for the transaction to be completed. Could be automated. Third person could be a computer.

26.30 Dispute resolution is automatic.

26.10 Escrow functions�when condition is completed, money is released. Bit coin protocol does not care where the keys are used, just so they are the correct keys. A script can be used to authorize a transaction. A global trnasacction method. No need for a third party. No judges or lawyers.

27.50 can arrange for a transaction to occur at a specific time. So, a will can be done without a lawyer.

28.45 scripts can check the internet for the satisfaction of the transaction. No lawyers involved.

29.45 a reward can automatically be delivered on the completion of some project.

30.45 information can be timestamped without revealing the information that is attached.

30.55 you can have it do almost anything that involves data.

32.15 �Colored Coins� allow anyone to mark a Bitcoin or a portion of a Bitcoin with ownership. If you have this Bitcoin, you can have ownership of something attached to it. A Bearer Bond. No need for a third party, and ownership record is publically recorded. Don�t need to store WHO owns it, you can if you want. But, that it is owned by someone is public record. And if you want to release the fact that it is you who is the owner, that can be done as well, after the fact, with the hashkey. No third party, no lawyers needed.

33.52 Colored coins can be used as shares of something. Full or partial ownership, and intitlement of the dividends. Makes stock brokers and exchanges unneeded. A free society vs an unfree society.

36.50 No barrier to entry into public funding.

36.10 IPOs = hiway robbery. But with Bitcoin, not a problem. Leveling the playing field.

37.00 equalizing access to capital. Support for this already exists in Bitcoin.
1 step away from allowing wallets to accept colored coins.

38.50 the internet of money, but secure.

39.50 get rid of stock markets, credit cards, much of banking, WE WILL DOUBLE OUR WEALTH.

About Stefan Molyneux
He is a philosopher with a libertarian or anti-statist viewpoint. You may have seen him on the Thrive movie. He is brilliant and engaging and gives some of the most mind-bogglingly simple and obvious explanations for the way things are that you have ever heard. He also has worked as a computer software expert for 15 years, an actor, a novelist, and general curmudgeon. I recommend a couple of his classic videos�please watch at least the first one!

Statism is dead part 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY&feature=player_embedded

The Story of (Y)our Enslavement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27bJ5pqPtF4 Please pay more attention to the words than the pictures!

Statism is Dead - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGIgOIFdnMQ

I also recommend the others in this series.

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Bitcoin Introductory Resources

Bitcoin Introductory Resources

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