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BitCon Is The Foundation Of The Matrix: Always Two, There Are = Protagonist & Antagonist = Social Engineering
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Bitcoin?
After learning about mining, you are probably wondering what the overall advantages and disadvantages of Bitcoin are. There are quite a few advantages that make Bitcoin a one of a kind digital currency that has no likeness. Of course, because nothing is perfect, Bitcoin does have its flaws. Both will be discussed in this guide. Read on to discover them and learn more about this crypto currency.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Bitcoin
Bitcoin Advantages:
Freedom in Payment
With Bitcoin it is very possible to be able to send and get money anywhere in the world at any given time.
You don’t have to worry about crossing borders, rescheduling for bank holidays, or any other limitations one might think will occur when transferring money.
You are in control of your money with Bitcoin. There is no central authority figure in the Bitcoin network.
[Miners are the accountants, that keep track of all transactions, they write the blockchain. Which puts them in a central authority position. Just because no one is not prevented from mining it doesn't mean everyone has the capability to mine it.]
Control and Security
Allowing users to be in control of their transactions help keep Bitcoin safe for the network.
Merchants cannot charge extra fees on anything without being noticed. They must talk with the consumer before adding any charges.
Payments in Bitcoin can be made and finalized without one’s personal information being tied to the transactions.
Due to the fact that personal information is kept hidden from prying eyes, Bitcoin protects against identity theft.
Bitcoin can be backed up and encrypted to ensure the safety of your money.
[Do you think you are going to pay your utility bill without personal information being tied to all your transactions? Are you going to use a different address for every transaction? How convienent is that? When the IRS comes to audit you, those transactions at that garage sale will be noted. What money comes in and goes out, will be noted.]
Information is Transparent
With the block chain, all finalized transactions are available for everyone to see, however personal information is hidden.
Your public address is what is visible; however, your personal information is not tied to this.
Anyone at anytime can verify transactions in the Bitcoin block chain.
Bitcoin protocol cannot be manipulated by any person, organization, or government. This is due to Bitcoin being cryptographically secure.
[The public ledger is what is decentralized. Any interaction with the existing financial construct ties your personal information to your crypto address. The protocol can be manipulated by anyone mining. Since there are few miners, how much say does anyone else have?
A hardfork is a change to the bitcoin protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid, and therefore requires all users to upgrade.
Any alteration to bitcoin which changes the block structure (including block hash), difficulty rules, or increases the set of valid transactions is a hardfork. However, some of these changes can be implemented by having the new transaction appear to older clients as a pay-to-anybody transaction (of a special form), and getting the miners to agree to reject blocks including the pay-to-anybody transaction unless the transaction validates under the new rules. This is known as a softfork.
To date, Bitcoin has never deployed a hardfork, but some altcoins have. ]
Very Low Fees
Currently there are either no fees, or very low fees within Bitcoin payments.
With transactions, users might include fees in order to process the transactions faster. The higher the fee, the more priority it gets within the network and the quicker it gets processed.
Digital Currency exchanges help merchant process transactions by converting bitcoins into fiat currency. These services generally have lower fees than credit cards and PayPal.
[As mining for coins reaches the artificial limits, transaction fees will rise. Everytime you use an exchange, your crypto address is tied to your personal information. Are you gonna use a different crypto address everytime you make a transaction?]
Fewer Risks for Merchants
Due to the fact that Bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed, do not carry with them personal information, and are secure, merchants are protected from potential losses that might occur from fraud.
With Bitcoin, merchants are able to do business where crime rates and fraud rates may be high. This is because it is very hard to cheat or con anyone in Bitcoin due to the public ledger, otherwise known as the block chain.
[Did you buy something without inspecting it? Do you need to get your money back?]
Now that we’ve covered the basic advantages, we can move on to the disadvantages. There are three main ones that need to be pointed out. This is so you can get an overall idea of what to expect with Bitcoin. We don’t want anything to be hidden from our viewers.
Bitcoin Disadvantages:
Lack of Awareness & Understanding
Fact is many people are still unaware of digital currencies and Bitcoin.
People need to be educated about Bitcoin to be able to apply it to their lives.
Networking is a must to spread the word on Bitcoin.
Businesses are accepting bitcoins because of the advantages, but the list is relatively small compared to physical currencies.
Companies like Tigerdirect and Overstock accepting Bitcoin as payment is great. However, if they do not have a knowledgeable staff that understands digital currencies, how will they help customers understand and use Bitcoin for transactions?
The workers need to be educated on Bitcoin so that they can help the customers. This will definitely take some time and effort. Otherwise, what is the benefit of such large companies accepting Bitcoin if its staff doesn’t even know what digital currencies are?
Risk and Volatility
Bitcoin has volatility mainly due to the fact that there is a limited amount of coins and the demand for them increases by each passing day.
However, it is expected that the volatility will decrease as more time goes on.
As more businesses, medias, and trading centers begin to accept Bitcoin, its’ price will eventually settle down.
Currently, Bitcoin’s price bounces everyday mainly due to current events that are related to digital currencies.
Still Developing
Bitcoin is still at its infancy stage with incomplete features that are in development.
To make the digital currency more secure and accessible, new features, tools, and services are currently being developed.
Bitcoin has some growth to do before it comes to its full and final potential.
This is because Bitcoin is just starting out, and it needs to work out its problems just like how any currency in its beginning stage would need to.
In Conclusion
There you have it folks. With this, you now have both sides of the coin. Bitcoin, as you can see, is not perfect. It does have many advantages that physical currencies do not provide its users; however, it also has its disadvantages. This is mostly due to the fact that Bitcoin is still a relatively young and new currency. People are just beginning to become more aware of it. In order for Bitcoin to succeed, more people need to understand what it is and not let their preconceived notions distort the concept of digital currencies.
There are always pros and cons to any situation in life. To be able to make a good decision, you need to weigh the good and bad thoroughly before finalizing your choice. Do the same for Bitcoin. Understand what it is, and decide what you want to do with it. We, at Coinreport give you the facts; you are the ones who make your decision.
Although Bitcoin is often referred to as the “anonymous currency of the dark web,” it is more correct to say that Bitcoin addresses are pseudonymous. This means that there is an identifiable address (or many addresses) for each user on the network, but no one necessarily knows who is behind each address.
With Bitcoin, it’s important to remember that every transaction is recorded on a completely public ledger that anyone can view on a block explorer. A few blockchain analytics companies have popped up over the past few years, and they’re able to deanonymize large portions of the network.
3. Bitcoin Is Completely Transparent
It’s also a myth that Bitcoin is completely transparent. As mentioned in the above section, the true identities of the individuals or organizations behind specific Bitcoin addresses are not always known. There are also various privacy-enhancing services, such as JoinMarket, which allow users to enhance their privacy on the blockchain. There are also other enhancements, such as Confidential Transactions and Zerocash, that could come to Bitcoin in due time.
Rather than being completely anonymous or completely transparent, Bitcoin is better identified as somewhere between these two extremes."
~~~
Is Bitcoin Truly Decentralized? Yes – and Here Is Why It’s Important — Bitcoin Magazine
Those within the industry understand that one of Bitcoin's most important features—and perhaps its true core innovation—is its decentralized structure.
Bitcoin has no central control: no central repository of information, no central management, and, crucially, no central point of failure. And yet, most of the actual services and businesses built within the Bitcoin ecosystem are centralized. They are run by specific people, in specific locations, with specific computer systems, and they are susceptible to specific legal entanglements.
This situation creates tension and certainly a little irony—we have a decentralized technology, yet most things existing upon it are centralized.
To a casual observer, and even more to a cynical one, it may appear that the claim of Bitcoin's decentralization is a myth—an overstated feature conjured up as a bullet point in Bitcoin's marketing brochure, but suspiciously not apparent in the actual product.
Consider the structure of CoinBase, which is arguably the most successful Bitcoin wallet and payment service in existence. There is nothing decentralized about it.
Consider CoinBase's internal policies—they resemble PayPal’s, not the distributed utopia Bitcoiners imagine. Coinbase wants to know who you are. They want to know what you're doing with your money, and they'll block you if they disapprove. They spy on you and control you as much as any traditional financial institution (and to be fair, it's not really their fault—enforcers with guns will throw them in a cage if they don't do these things; it occurs under duress).
[Couldn't we avoid all this crap, by just hunting down those that corrupt the financial system and political system?]
So the question arises: How can Bitcoiners claim decentralization when the premier Bitcoin service has essentially become a bank itself?
Critics point to centralized exchanges, wallets, and payment processors to condemn Bitcoin's claims of decentralization. When Mt. Gox exploded, losing half a billion dollars of customer money, critics expressed immense skepticism that Bitcoin was really anything unique at all—to them, it looked like just another new medium by which people are spied on at best, and ripped off, scammed, and defrauded at worst.
So isn't Bitcoin's claim of decentralization a lie?
No.
And here's why: to understand Bitcoin one must understand the difference between coercive centralization and market-based centralization. Bitcoin possesses the latter, but avoids the former, and that is a crucial distinction.
Coercive centralization is what we all experience in the legacy financial industry. The world's monetary system, based upon national fiat currencies created and managed by government-sponsored central banks, is coercive. It is coercive because the entities with the power over money's creation, regulation, and transfer have the will and the power to hurt you if you disobey. Not only that, but you are coerced into it in the first place, being forced to pay taxes and settle debts using only your government's anointed currency.
If you’d like to experience the coercion first-hand, try creating some dollars, and you will find yourself thrown in prison, your property taken from you. Or try transferring dollars in any way that is “unauthorized.” Then you will see what coercion means.
The entire financial system as it exists today rests upon this anti-market model of coercion—money moves only with the permission of those in control, and they're not in control by mutual contract, but by the privilege of violence. The various poisons such coercion bestows upon society are a topic for another essay, but the only reason people suffer this system is because it's been the only game in town.
Market-based centralization is fundamentally different. Its key feature is the ability to opt out.
Yes, CoinBase is a centralized entity. But you needn't use CoinBase to use Bitcoin. Yes, a Bitcoin exchange or web wallet is centralized, but you can always trade coins with a friend directly over the blockchain, or store it in a local wallet, without the permission of any third party.
[How about getting internet service? Utility company service? Car insurance? Are you gonna pay with crypto and use your personal information? Then they find you.]
A user of fiat is always forced to utilize a centralized service. A user of Bitcoin is never forced to utilize a centralized service. This is the key distinction between centralization found in Bitcoin (which is market-based) and centralization found in the traditional banking industry (which is coercive).
[Bullshit. If cryptos become institutionalized, its game over. Lead bullets will become the new currency, and I'm not talking about financial transactions.]
And this ability to opt out, while it may seem modest, enables wonderful things to happen, for the discipline of the marketplace can be realized. Consider: since every CoinBase user can opt out and leave the platform, this presents a natural check on CoinBase's ability to act with impropriety, and makes coercion impossible. Compare this to the model of a bank, which is able to burden its customers to a far more significant degree because it knows that if the customers want to participate in a meaningful way in the financial system, they have to use a bank and its associated fiat currency system.
[The coercion comes from what you need to survive. If you need to interact with the electric company to heat your house during winter, you will comply. Some things are difficult to opt out of. This results in all your crypto transactions being tied together, unless you can use multiple crypto addresses and also the purchases must not require your personal info, and the seller doesn't report to taxing authorities with your personal info.]
It should thus be clear that Bitcoin enables users to withdraw into the neutral pasture of decentralized finance at any time, which means that any centralized service within the sphere exists only at the pleasure of its customers.
And thus the forms of market-based centralization found within Bitcoinland needn't be feared or condemned as one would the coercive centralization of the legacy financial system. What we have is indeed something fundamentally different, which is wholly compatible with the free-market structure and intent of Bitcoin's genesis. Indeed, a free market will inevitably lead to some points of market-based centralization when economic efficiencies can be found. Every voluntary organization of people or resources is market-based centralization, and by definition, there's an inability to coerce those who partake.
The key to judging the legitimacy of centralization is always the ability of users to opt out. Bitcoin provides this, while fiat and central banks do not.
That is the difference, and it is one that the world will soon come to appreciate.
~~~
Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency is a Government Conspiracy (2017) - YouTube
Individual people, like independent journalists, living off of cryptos, are always going to be biased. They are between a rock and a hard place.
Desperate people, are easily coerced into accepting all kinds of things they normally wouldn't, if conditions were better.
Cryptos are presently a tiny percentage of the economy, yet being highly promoted. Why? Desperation? Investment opportunity?
When should we make money obsolete? When the majority seeks to individually create personal abundance, and then the neighborhood creates abundance, then the town, city, county, state, nation? Self-reliance? Farms, ranches? Decentralized raw materials acquisition, and manufacturing?
You can use cryptos or cash/coin, when making an exchange that doesn't involve interacting with existing financial constructs. Both would work. Yet when interacting with the existing construct, both lead to identification. The difference seems to be when using cryptos, with the public ledger blockchain, opens you to greater risk when the state comes to collect taxes, fees, fines, if you have any traceable interactions connecting your personal info. The institutionalization of cryptos will lead to elimination of cash/coin as acceptable means of exchange. There could be a black-market use of gold and silver coins, that are already in the hands of people. Mints may be shut down at that point. If the population forces the continued use of cash/coin, control-freaks and financial-junkies will not have a choice in the matter.
Offline money is the best. That doesn't mean fed notes.
There is one simple rule to follow when understanding the tragic history of economies: Never put blind faith in a system built on an establishment-created foundation. You would think this would not be a difficult concept to grasp being that we have so many examples of controlled economies and collapse to reference over the centuries, but in our era more than ever the allure of a virtual world with promises of endless wealth and ease is overwhelming.
Yes, I am referring primarily to cyptocurrency "tulip-mania" (sorry bitcoiners, the description is too fitting, it isn't going away), but not this issue alone. I am also referring to a far-reaching problem of which cryptocurrencies are a mere reflection. Namely, the fact that humanity is swiftly losing sight of what a true economy is and what it is supposed to accomplish. It is because of this reality that crypto is thriving.
First, let's be clear, fiat currencies are one of the first machinations of the virtual economy. Once paper currencies printed from thin air by central bankers were separated from tangible backing and accepted by the masses as "valuable" and worth trading labor for, the seed of financial cancer was planted. Today, there is one final step needed for the establishment to accomplish complete tyranny in global trade and that is to disconnect the masses fully from private transactions. In other words, we must be tricked into going digital, where privacy is an absurd memory.
Virtual economics is appealing for several reasons, most of them bad.
Americans and much of the west in particular are increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of real production. The latest generation coming into political and social influence, the millenials, is a perfect example. Surveys show American millenials more than any other generation lack basic workplace competency skills, including scoring low on arithmetic and reading comprehension. Often portrayed as "tech savvy" in popular culture and the media, millenials are quite inept when it comes to core skills that fuel strong business and trade, which is part of the reason why the U.S. is falling into the shadow of foreign workforces.
Millenials in the West also exhibit abysmal technical skills in international testing and lag far behind foreign peers. This has come as a surprise to many mainstream economists and social analysts, primarily because millenials are also considered the "most educated" generation ever. But, of course, we have not only been given a virtual economy in recent decades, but also a virtual educational system. A majority of millenials are lacking when it comes to key production skills and entrepreneurship methods because they have been trained to dismiss such skills as negligible. In other words, millenials have been conditioned to be academic idiots.
Why go through the struggle and hardship required to become an effective producer of tangible necessities when it is far easier to join a collectivist drive for socialism and a structure in which little to no work is required to obtain such necessities? Why not steal from a productive minority and spread it thinly enough to keep the unskilled majority fed? It is only within this kind of culture that virtual production, a virtual society and virtual "money" is seen as an ideal solution.
The notion is becoming more and more prevalent in our popular media, and I believe this is rather symbolic (or ironic) of our conundrum.
For example, consider the book Ready Player One, a pop-culture craze and archetypal zeitgeist for millenials soon to be released as an intended Hollywood blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. The novel depicts the world of 2045, a world in which fossil fuel depletion and "global warming" have triggered economic and social decline (Remember in the 1980s when they used to tell us that global warming was going to melt the polar icecaps and we would be under water by the year 2000?). A totalitarian governing body controlled by corporate behemoths rules over the dystopian sprawl.
In response to an ever painful existence in the real world, the masses have sought to escape to a virtual world called "the Oasis," created by a programming genius. The Oasis becomes a nexus for the global economy and a virtual society.
This sounds like a rousing background for a story of rebellion, and it is about that... sort of. Unfortunately, here is where the disturbing ties between our world and the fictional world of Ready Player One meet. The "rebellion" is for all intents and purposes also virtual, and for millenial audiences in particular, this is supposed to be inspiring.
Perhaps this is why cryptocurrencies are so appealing to the millenial crowd in particular. Think about it — the dismal economic doldrums of Ready Player One exist NOW; we don't have to wait until 2045. Millenials are already feeling disaffected, indebted and disenfranchised, and most of them are also skill-less. Self reliance to them is an idea so alien it rarely if ever crosses their minds. So, how do they fight back? Or, how are they tricked into thinking they can fight back against a virtual system that has left them in the gutter? Why, with a virtual community and a virtual currency, of course.
Millenials and others think that they are going to rebel and "take down the banking oligarchs" with nothing more than digital markers representing "coins" tracked on a digital ledger created by an anonymous genius programmer/programmers. Delusional? Yes. But like I said earlier, it is an appealing notion.
Here is the issue, though; true money requires intrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value. They are conjured from nothing by programmers, they are "mined" in a virtual mine created from nothing, and they have no unique aspects that make them rare or tangibly useful. They are an easily replicated digital product. Anyone can create a cryptocurrency. And for those that argue that "math gives crypto intrinsic value," I'm sorry to break it to them, but the math is free.
In fact, for those that are not already aware, Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hash function, created by none other than the National Security Agency (NSA) and published by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).
Yes, that's right, Bitcoin would not exist without the foundation built by the NSA. Not only this, but the entire concept for a system remarkably similar to bitcoin was published by the NSA way back in 1996 in a paper called "How To Make A Mint: The Cryptography Of Anonymous Electronic Cash."
The origins of bitcoin and thus the origins of crytpocurrencies and the blockchain ledger suggest anything other than a legitimate rebellion against the establishment framework and international financiers. I often cite this same problem when people come to me with arguments that the internet has set the stage for the collapse of the globalist information filter and the mainstream media. The truth is, the internet is also an establishment creation developed by DARPA, and as Edward Snowden exposed in his data dumps, the NSA has total information awareness and backdoor control over every aspect of web data.
Many people believe the free flow of information on the internet is a weapon in favor of the liberty movement, but it is also a weapon in favor of the establishment. With a macro overview of data flows, entities like Google can even predict future social trends and instabilities, not to mention peek into every personal detail of an individual's life and past.
To summarize, cryptocurrencies are built upon an establishment designed framework, and they are entirely dependent on an establishment created and controlled vehicle (the internet) in order to function and perpetuate trade. How exactly is this "decentralization", again?
TOTAL information awareness is the goal here; and blockchain technology helps the powers-that-be remove one of the last obstacles: private personal trade transactions. Years ago, a common argument presented in favor of bitcoin was that it was "completely anonymous." Today, this is being proven more and more a lie. Even now, in the wake of open admissions by major bitcoin proponents that the system is NOT anonymous, people still claim anonymity is possible through various measures, but this has not proven to sway the FBI or IRS which have for years now been using resources such as Chainanalysis to track bitcoin users when they feel like doing so, including those users that have taken stringent measures to hide themselves.
Bitcoin proponents will argue that "new developments" and even new cryptocurrencies are solving this problem. Yet, this was the mantra back when bitcoin was first hitting the alternative media. It wasn't a trustworthy assumption back then, so why would it be a trustworthy assumption now? The only proper assumption to make is that nothing digital is anonymous. Period.
With the ludicrous spike in bitcoin prices, champions of the virtual economy are unlikely to listen to any questions or criticisms. I have never argued one way or the other in terms of bitcoin's potential "market value," because it does not really matter. I have only ever argued that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are in no way a solution to combating the international and central banks. In fact, cyrptocurrencies only seem to be expediting their plan for full spectrum digitization and the issuance of a global currency system.
Bitcoin could easily hit $100,000, but its "value" is truly irrelevant and consistently hyped as if it makes bitcoin self evident as a solution to globalism. The higher the bitcoin price goes, the more the bitcoin cult claims victory, yet the lack of intrinsic value never seems to cross their minds. They have Scrooge McDuck-like visions of swimming in a vault of virtual millions. They'll only accuse you of being an "old fogey" that "does not understanding what the blockchain is."
The fact is, they are the one's that do not really understand what the blockchain is — a framework for a completely cashless society in which trade anonymity is dead and economic freedom is destroyed.
Ask yourself this: Why is it that central banks around the world (including the BIS and IMF) are investing in Bitcoin and other crytpocurrencies while developing their own crypto systems based on a similar framework? Could it be that THIS infusion of capital and infrastructure from major banks is the most likely explanation for the incredible spike in the bitcoin market? Why is it that globalist banking conglomerates like Goldman Sachs lavish blockchain technology with praise in their white papers? And, why are central bankers like Ben Bernanke speaking in favor of crypto at major cryptocurrency conferences if crypto is such a threat to central bank control?
Answer — because it is not a threat. They benefit from a cashless system, and liberty champions are helping to give it to them.
Above all else, the virtual economy breeds weakness in society. It encourages a lack of tangible production. Instead of true producers, entrepreneurs and inventors, we have people scrambling to sell real world property in order to buy computing rigs capable of "mining" coins that do not really exist. That is to say, we may one day soon be faced with millions of citizens expending their labor and energy in order to obtain digital nothings programmed into existence and given artificial scarcity (for now).
It also encourages false rebellion. Real change requires actions in the real world. Removing banking elitists and their structures by force if necessary (and this will probably be necessary). Instead, freedom activists are being convinced that they will never have to lift a finger to beat the bankers. All they have to do is buy and mine crypto. The day will come in the near future when the folks that embrace this nonsense will wake up and realize they have wasted their energies on a unicorn and are ill prepared to weather the economic reset that continues to evolve.
To maintain a real economy in which people are self reliant and safe from fiscal shock, you need three things: tangible localized and decentralized production, independent and decentralized trade networks that are not structured around an establishment controlled system (like the internet is controlled), and the will to apply force to protect and preserve that production and those networks. If you cannot manufacture a useful thing, repair a useful thing or teach a useful skill, then you are essentially useless in a real economy. If you do not have localized trade, you have nothing. If you do not have the mindset and the community of independent people required to protect your local production, then you will not be able to keep the economy you have built.
This is the cold hard truth that crypto proponents do not want to discuss, and will dismiss outright as "archaic" or "not obtainable." The virtual economy is so much easier, so much more enticing, so much more comfortable. Why risk anything or everything in a real world effort to build a concrete trade network in your own neighborhood or town? Why risk everything by promoting true decentralization through localized commodity-backed money and barter systems? Why risk everything by defending those systems when the establishment seeks to crush them? Why do this, when you can pretend you are a virtual hero wielding virtual weapons in a no risk rebellion in a world of electronic ones and zeros?
In truth, the virtual economy is not legitimate decentralization, it is a weapon of mass distraction engineered to kill legitimate decentralization.
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