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In Defence of Bitcoin

January 20, 2014

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With enemies like central banks, Apple and China,
 Bitcoins must be our friend.







by Hamad Subani 
(henrymakow.com) 


The rise of Bitcoin is relevant because unlike banker-created currencies, the number of Bitcoins in circulation will always be finite (20 million). It's not like Federal Reserve notes, which can be printed as per the needs of The Powers That Be (similar to the way Ben Bernanke adjusts the speed of his treadmill). This makes the Bitcoin inflation-proof. 

Of course, the Bitcoin can be subjected to shock and awe by suddenly releasing Bitcoins which were hoarded for years, but even such effects are temporary. 

Apart from being a currency, Bitcoin is also a medium of monetary exchange. As a medium, Bitcoin logs all transactions to a register, which is highly decentralized, and operates through a peer to peer network, making it very difficult to kill. (They couldn't kill illegal file sharing networks, so good luck with Bitcoin). 

The Powers That Be might have to kill the Internet to kill Bitcoin, which they won't because many of their commercial and surveillance activities are now dependent on the internet. 

While Bitcoin does log all transactions to a register, it does aid privacy by not obligating the bearers of Bitcoins to authenticate themselves (as in the case of plastic money). And The Powers That Be are hell bent on destroying economies where people can transact freely, in the absence of predatory taxation authorities and the monetary perverts known as the banking industry, who always watch where capital is moving.

The writing is on the wall. The Powers That Be Hate the Bitcoin. But if that is not clear, here are some instances:

Apple Hates the Bitcoin

Apple has removed at least two Bitcoin-based apps from its App store. In other words, if you are using an iPhone, you cannot use it to transact using Bitcoins. Why would Apple do this, given the rising user base of Bitcoin? Apple has also been in the news for blocking drone strike tracking apps from its App Store. On the other hand, Apple builds in enhanced tracking features into its iPhone. To quote:

In April 2011, iPhone and iPad users were surprised to discover that, not only was their device keeping track of where they'd been, it also was storing very detailed location information in a plain-text file on the phone.  The data was derived by the cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots the devices encountered, and was added anonymously to a crowdsourced database.

Apple later said the devices were keeping more information than intended due to a bug, and issued a patch that reduced the amount of data. But, because it was used to improve and speed up location services, the practice continued.

Apple has also denied an NSA backdoor, although it is strange how the NSA could be working on a closed source, internally developed proprietary software like the iOS. Do we see a pattern here?

The Chinese Government Hates the Bitcoin

Bitcoin was all set for a golden future in the Far East, where anonymity in financial transactions is treasured, an alternatives to the highly inflated RMB are welcomed. But the People's Bank of China shut down the ability of China's first Bitcoin trading company to trade Bitcoins for Chinese RMB.

In other words, restrictive, totalitarian police states hate the Bitcoin.

Paul Krugman wants you to believe that the Bitcoin is Evil

In a recent article, Paul Krugman is worried that the Bitcoin will damage Central Banking. He believes that we should still stick with dollars because the United States government will always welcome them as a medium to pay our taxes. But how long will the United States government (or the Federal Reserve)  last? There is a good chance that the Bitcoin will outlast it.

There is a Witchhunt for Bitcoin's Founder(s)

Forget the fact that the Bitcoin has successfully established itself as a crypto-currency. The mainstream media has launched a witchhunt for the real founder(s) of Bitcoin, hoping that he, she or them can be coaxed into selling out and reversing the rise of the Bitcoin. Although some suspects have been produced, The mainstream media is already laying charges that the founder(s) are guilty of benefitting as early holders of Bitcoin (Forget the fact that they created a new currency from scratch....something the bankers couldn't accomplish in another 100 years).

Conclusion

If Bitcoin continues its upward spiral, we will soon witness all the traditional enemies of innovation and economy crawling out of the woodwork and banding together against the Bitcoin. This list will continue to grow.

------
Reply to Anthony Migchels:

In his recent article, gold skeptic Anthony Migchels claims that the Bitcoin brings us closer to a cashless society. This is wrong. A cashless society is already in place, thanks to plastic credit cards that allow people's spending habits and movement of capital to be tracked to each and every penny. 

What Bitcoin offers is a largely anonymous way to spend and move capital, especially on the Internet. The biggest ruffle Bitcoin has faced so far is a temporary devaluation because of an illegal clampdown by the Chinese government. Needless to say, the Chinese government is notorious for thugging up on anything it can't control. But Bitcoin was never designed to be controlled, and it is likely to thrive wherever there is some kind of semblance of rights, even pretend rights.

To quote Migchels, "To be effective in servicing real trade, the money supply must grow and shrink with economic activity, allowing stable prices."

This may be true for the present day world we live in, where economics teaches us that inflation is endemic, a friendly part of the system, and not a parasite. To the contrary, it is a secret war machine of the criminal elite (See my article, The Federal Reserve as an Instrument of War.) 

To quote Migchels again, "Money Scarcity is, together with Usury, the hallmark of Money Power control." 

I agree that usury may be a hallmark of Money Power Control. But money scarcity? Name one case where a nation was bankrupted because of money scarcity? In almost all cases, money got inflated because too much was printed.

To quote Migchels again, "Bitcoin is spent into circulation debt-free, but it will be lent out at interest by the bank. Compound interest lending will allow the banks to gobble up the whole money supply in just a few years."

That's exactly what banks are there to do. But even this helps the Bitcoin, as it makes it more precious.

While it is true that Bitcoin is dependent on algorithms (or is as good as the algorithms), it had to be dependent on something if it was designed to survive on its own on the Internet, without any infrastructure to accommodate its needs. If you were on an island with only pineapple trees, wouldn't pineapples end up being used as a currency? 

And why the Internet rather than the physical world? Because in the West, bad things are happening in the real  physical world. Why was Liberty Reserve, a source of gold-backed digital currency shut down? JP Morgan may have just patented a Bitcoin-like architecture, but its unlikely that they will implement one. Rather, they will sit on the patent to prevent others from doing so.

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http://www.techtangerine.com/2014/01/19/bitcoin/


Alternative News Website of Hamad Subani: http://www.cabaltimes.com/


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Related - Bitcoin Network Is Here to Stay - Montreal Economic Institute

------------- Richard M Stallman: Bitcoin is not anonymous - that's not part of its design.



Reply from Anthony Migchels:


Nice to see a good response on your website today. Clearly the camp is divided.


There are two main issues: Hamad doesn't understand money scarcity, as witnessed by his question 'name one country bankrupted by it'. How about the entire West during this horrible contraction? Not quite the only example. But money scarcity is always there in a usurious environment: debt (principal) plus interest can never repaid, because only the principal is created.


This blindness to money scarcity is quite pervasive, and the more so among those of the Austrian persuasion, because Austrianism simply denies it: markets will always clear, the money supply is irrelevant, they say, completely ignoring the horrible contraction necessary to 'clear'.


Also: it's not wise to choose your friends by their enemies. The idea that not everybody is immediately convinced in no way takes away the point that there has been massive media coverage for bitcoin, both in the MSM and alternative media. Also: managed conflict is....well, managed. They don't mind if the protagonists slug it out, they own both, often they don't even care who wins.


Then there is the issue of the ponzi, strongly enforced by the comment by CK: 927 people own half the money supply, which at this point is worth about 7 billion. Meaning they're all millionaires because of bitcoin, at the expense of later adopters. What if Bitcoin capitalization keeps appreciating at this rate and reaches 1 Trillion territory in 2 years? These people will then be buying up Goldman Sachs and Exxon. This is not a problem?


Good money never redistributes and Bitcoin is all about winner takes all, just as our current system.


Last: the real revolution is all the regional currencies and interest-free mutual credit based (cyber) currencies that are now being developed. One is the WIR, in Switzerland, you posted an article of mine on that some time ago.





First Comment by David K


Hamad Subani is spot on. All these people who are supposedly against the banking system but then oppose bitcoin are looking a bit suspect. Look at Alex Jones who we know is controlled opposition, he has spoken against bitcoin and predicted its crash.


People saying that its not really anonymous are misguided, look at the thousands of people buying drugs with it and none of them have been caught. Crypto's are like cash, it is anonymous and can be used for anything you like. There is no way this is the kind of currency the establishment wants for us and anyone who thinks it is really needs their head read. 


Also look at all the tech savvy people who have already become bitcoin millionaires, why would government want to create this situation? I for one would much rather some computer geeks to get loaded and have some economic power than the current governments and corporations . Anyone who is realistic cannot be against bitcoin. And if we now look at the other crypto's its not just the computer geeks who can get rich its all of us. If we all just stop using fiat and we all start using crypto's then power will move. They can print more and more fiat and it will just make it even more valueless in comparison to crypto. And we can even watch the crypto's for movement and if say a certain one gets too much traction too quick we know its a pump and dump by gov't, banks, corporations etc. In fact someone should create a program to track the buying and selling of crypto's so we can be fore warned when big players attempt this move. Then we can stop them in their tracks by not following them and ending up in the dump.


We need to use our brains and get even more creative, crypto's represent the ONLY alternative in the world today to fiat. If we stop this absurd infatuation with believing that its all hopeless and EVERYTHING is created by the TPTB then maybe we can start to see new ways crypto's can be used, made more stable and create a constant increase in value to everyone who joins them. If we can achieve this then fiat could very well be destroyed and everyone who joins crypto's will become free of debt.


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Tony B - weighs in: 


I'm sorry, Henry, but Hamad Subani's article is laced with ignorance on money.  A glaring example near the beginning of it:


"Apart from being a currency, Bitcoin is also a medium of monetary exchange."


Hello, currency is DEFINED as a medium of exchange.  "Apart from" ? Please!


Too, he says there will be no inflation with Bitcoins because only a limited number will ever be created.  First, this shows he has no concept of money creator greed, no concept of a growing world population, and more importantly, he is clueless as to how the true value of money is set.


That is, he has no concept of the necessity of keeping a stable ratio between exchanges and circulating medium of exchange, just as our federal reserve, which bankers understand this, yet they collectively use this knowledge to manipulate boom & bust cycles (changing the value of the exchange medium) to profit from our losses.  Nor does he consider the fact of probable hoarding involved which skews the ratio of medium created to exchanges needed, making the medium more dear and therefore of higher value, i.e, inflated value.


Subani also states:  "Name one case where a nation was bankrupted because of money scarcity?"


Okay, not exactly a nation at the time, more like 13 of them.  That is the 13 British colonies in North America which, at the beginning of the time in question, were the most prosperous places in the world because each colonial government had learned to create and control the volume of its own scrip as its working medium of exchange.  Same basic concept as greenbacks but without the banker mandated concessions to them which they demanded of Lincoln.


This is EXACTLY why the Bank of England forced those colonies to destroy their scrip and use ONLY Bank of England gold coin as their exchange medium.  Enter the criminal third hand in every exchange. Within a short time the most prosperous places in the world were full of sheriff's sales (the official  records still prove this) and homeless, starving, people with no means of support, no money, because the Bank of England refused to circulate enough of its gold coin in the colonies to meet necessary exchanges.  This was the true cause of the revolution against England by the colonies.   The whole story was recorded by some prominent Americans, Ben Franklin being the most known for it.



 



Scruples - the game of moral dillemas

Comments for "In Defence of Bitcoin "

Derek said (January 22, 2014):


If people get rich trading Bitcoin by using the right formula in speculation, that shows its inefficiency. No one should get rich on
the monetary system – it should be neutral and invisible. We should introduce all new purchasing power in equal doses to all people throughout the monetary system, so that consumption is sovereign, and the consumer is the first spender and lifts demand – that leaves no
room for speculators. Then the money remains in the system permanently, because it was not loaned into existence. It's a mistake
to say that money must disintegrate to force people to spend it.

Bitcoin has already been cornered; people have already lost by dabbling with this dirty trick. Here's a better option – American Populist Social Credit:

http://www.abeldanger.net/2013/12/everything-citizen-must-know-to-reform.html

http://www.abeldanger.net/2013/04/populist-social-credit-thin-air.html

Steven said (January 21, 2014):

As far as Bitcoins are concerned I don't think it is a currency who's time has come. If anything it is the next NWO scam to replace the current one that is on its last legs.

Remember that the bankers and the elite want a electronic currency that requires a electrically powered computer network. To avoid unofficial theft they will require that all authorized users be identified possibly with an RFID implant that would identify an authorised Bitcoin user. Those that control the computers will control the currency and the people.

What looks like a private peer to peer system will not be allowed for long without submitting to government and banker control and ultimately take over if Bitcoin is seen to be popular and works. So far Bitcoin is voluntary and private. At some point it will incorporate the RFID technology and become compulsory. None might buy or sell save he have the mark of the beast.

So Bitcoin is not part of the solution it is an evolving part of the problem. That problem being the implementation of non coinage currencies that have no value, no substance or require electricity and official permission to use. What is needed is a return to metallic coinage, no fractional reserve lending , no government borrowing and no paper or electronic currency. Just coinage that can be used by anyone and used anonymously.

If you want freedom then you need a coin only monetary system and that does not include Bitcoin, RFID chips, plastic, electronic or paper currencies. Buy , sell and get paid in coin or not at all.


Bitcoin is just part of a continuum of fake values in society and it ought to be rejected.

Maurice said (January 20, 2014):

Can one equate the Bitcoin with the Protestant Reformation? The world economy is crying out for reform. The founder of Bitcoin is akin to Martin Luther. The Church of Central Banks despises the Bitcoin much in the same way the Church of Rome opposed the distribution of the Bible. They wished to keep the people oppressed, poor, and ignorant. History repeats.

Henry Makow received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982. He welcomes your comments at

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