Displaying items by tag: Global Macro

My Twitter followers know that I attended the North American Bitcoin Conference in S. Beach Miami last weekend. Here are some keepsakes from the visit as well as a video answer to the new media pop financial pundit, Peter Schiff's assetion that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.

The proprietors of a Bitcoin ATM, due to appear in the states next month.

A few days ago I was waxing poetic over the abilty of David Z. Morris' ability to grasp rather complex, intangible concepts and loquaciously lay them forth in the written word via the pages of Fortune magazine. After all, what creative destruction advocate wouldn't get all mushy after reading "Reggie Middleton, currently building a client called BTC Swap. Middleton, gravelly voiced, dapper, and businesslike, doesn't fit the stereotype of woolly young bitcoin developers. But he slyly describes himself as "not quite an anarchist," and BTC Swap is a shot directly across the bow of the financial industry"...

Or "Middleton sounds a bit like an 18th-century pirate striking back against the Empire when he declares that "what I'm doing right now is a direct threat to fiat merchant banking." For him, excitement over value fluctuations in the bitcoin currency is missing the point: "It's not a threat as people sit there and ponder whether bitcoin is a bubble or not. But if people go through the protocol and use their imagination, the existing system is threatened."" 

Alas, nothing lasts forever. Fastforward 72 hours and Fortune publishes... 

As exerpted:

FORTUNE -- Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, has been interested in technology lately. Wednesday, he made several TV appearances to reiterate his call for tech giant Apple (AAPL) to engage in a massive $150 billion share buyback. As usual, he demonstrated that he was willing to put his money where his mouth was, revealing that he had upped his stake in the company by $500 million to $3 billion, causing Apple's stock to jump 1%.

Well, my subscribers (click here to subscribe) know where I stand on Apple, reference:

•  Apple 4Q2013 preliminary update (Technology)
•  Apple 3Q2013 Valuation Update - Retail (Technology)
•  Apple 3Q2013 Valuation Update - Pro & Institutional)

Then, after the bell, eBay (EBAY) revealed that Icahn had built up a stake in the online auction retailer and was pushing for some radical changes. But in this case, though, Icahn wasn't interested in buybacks -- he was looking for a breakup. Ebay said Icahn wanted the company to spin off its online payment arm, Paypal, and had requested two seats on eBay's board. eBay rejected both of Mr. Icahn's proposals.

... Paypal has grown from its roots as a small payment processor helping buyers and sellers of Beanie Babies feel safe to do business on eBay, to a full-on payment alternative for thousands of merchants with millions of members. Its advantage in many cases is simply speed and convenience -- how many times have you clicked the Paypal button while checking out of an e-commerce store just because you didn't want to get off the couch to grab your credit card?

Does the author mean like this?

...eBay is also lagging when it comes to valuation. The company as a whole trades on a multiple of nine times next year's enterprise value divided by earnings (or ev/ebitida), which measures a company's return on investment. Meanwhile, the payment operators, like Visa and Mastercard (MA), trade roughly at 15 to 17 times next year's ev/ebitda, or around 40% higher than eBay. E-commerce sites also trump eBay's numbers with Amazon trading at around 33 times next year's ev/ebitida and Groupon (GRPN) trading at around 17 times.

But Visa and Mastercard are about to face the same double whammy that PayPal is staying at. Let me show you with video...

or pretty pictures...

You see, the payment processors are very soon to be subject to...

Why? Because P2P solutions such as UltraCoin easily allow for such, and at dramatically lower prices to boot...

If we were to look at this graphically, it would be comical to compare...

On the commercial macro payments side...

So, what happens when your competitors offer a competitive product for between 1/1000th and 1/3rd the price? 

Now, back to the Fortune article and the apparent strawman argument...

... As a part of eBay, Paypal is run by people who know tech and know retail, not by people who necessarily know payment networks. As such, Paypal's growth beyond the web may not be as successful as it could be if it was led by people who worked at a credit card company like American Express (AXP) or a global payment provider like First Data Resources.

Again this seems to ignore the coming wave, alas... I digress...

... eBay's aggressive international expansion is helping to grow PayPal's global presence, especially in countries like Brazil and Russia, where eBay is taking off. If the cord is cut too early the fear is that PayPal's international growth may stall.

Stall or stagnate? 

As my readers recall, I've developed a cross currency swap system that allows holders of BTC to dance around two dozen or so sovereign fiat currencies with ease. Combine this with dramatically lower costs and ease of transmission and I see either a material change in business model or... Margin Compression!!!

 This really makes one think... Is eBay a short play in and of itself? I know Carl Icahn would likely get a large bang for his investment buck backing UltraCoin than he would calling for a PayPal spinoff. Then again, what do I know? Those who wish to discuss the merits of an UltraCoin investment by Icahn can feel free to ping me at reggie at ultra-coin.com. 

I'm rapidly unveiling what's been brewing in the BoomBust labs over the last few months - UltraCoin an intelligent derivative layer of smart financial contracts that sit on top of the Bitcoin architecture. In short, the recreation of the banking industry in software - without the trust and counterparty risk issues!

For those of you who are still skeptical re: cryptocurrencies, I please read the most excellent article by David Z. Morris, which also happens to grace the front page of Fortune magazine today.

I'll excerpt some choice snippets:

Some still doubt bitcoin's usefulness and durability, but 2014 may leave skeptics even further behind -- developers and entrepreneurs are already hard at work building features on top of the Bitcoin protocol that will allow for the decentralized execution of financial services, from currency hedging to loans to stock issuance to rental and purchase contracts...

In the long term, peer-to-peer finance threatens to weaken banks and other financial agents just as peer-to-peer file sharing did the music industry -- and some of the architects of this financial Napster seem gleeful about the possibility.

Ya damn skippy!!!

 That means loans without banks, contracts without lawyers, and stocks without brokers, executed and recorded across hundreds of servers at all corners of the earth.

__________________

Independent entrepreneurs are also working to build this infrastructure. One of these is Reggie Middleton, currently building a client called BTC Swap.

This will be marketed as UltraCoin! Wasn't completely ready for the interview, but will be shown live at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami Beach this weekend!

Middleton, gravelly voiced, dapper, and businesslike, doesn't fit the stereotype of woolly young bitcoin developers. But he slyly describes himself as "not quite an anarchist," and BTC Swap is a shot directly across the bow of the financial industry.

Believe it!

Still in early development, BTC Swap is planned to facilitate a variety of what Middleton calls "Zero-Trust Digital Contracts," which recreate financial functions in software code by matching offered and desired transactions between parties without the need for intermediary institutions. Because these contracts are automated, instantaneous, and executed with assets already represented in the Bitcoin blockchain, Middleton says they eliminate counterparty risk while also subtracting conventional banking and brokerage fees.

David was correct in that it was in early development when he saw it, but we've been busting our collective asses (analysts, financial engineers, software engineers, programmers, website designers, the whole crew) and we'll not only be demonstrating live but will be trading risk down in Miami, right in front of your eyes!

The most immediate function Middleton envisions for his system is for hedging bitcoin against existing national currencies. With bitcoin's valuation still showing huge volatility, Middleton claims the availability of distributed hedging will both ensure the value of bitcoin for individuals holding the asset and provide systemic stability. (Given persistent skepticism, there should be plenty of takers to short bitcoin against the dollar.) And the entire system relies on decentralization for its security and integrity: "My contracts are peer-to-peer," says Middleton. "If you hack my servers, there's nothing to get." Somebody call Target (TGT).

Somebody? Anybody? Target, drop me a line at reggie.middleton at ultra-coin.com if you want my assistance in getting in on this distributed, peer-to-peer bitcoin thingy. My next post will show how my UltraCoins can add 15% to Overstock.com's bottom line. That's pretty damn good if you ask me! As a matter of fact, it's pretty damn good even if you didn't ask me :-)

Such hedging functions have particularly unique promise because of the extremely low transaction costs of peer-to-peer currency. Bitcoin makes microtransactions ranging down to fractions of a cent viable, but Middleton says that "right now, if you do micropayments, the volatility of bitcoin can really take you out." Because of the low cost of Middleton's swaps, "I can let [payees] manage risk and decrease volatility at the micro-level."

Please pardon me for the heavy excerpts taken from this article, but it is really... just.. that.. good!!! And it gets even better. Check it out:

The functions that advocates say could be automated through the Bitcoin network seem nearly endless, including peer-to-peer investment funds, Kickstarter-like crowdfunding, binding arbitrations, and even non-financial transactions such as naming rights management and encrypted communication.

I actually have much of this stuff oven already. All I need is the funds to help accelerate development becuase "you know who" is likely to get their bonus pool panties in a bunch and start coming after me :-)

And all could be executed without a cut for intermediaries. Bitcoin partisans, from developers down to rank-and-file users, often seem to revel in the idea that they are threatening the control and profits of Wall Street institutions, who they see as rent-seeking fat cats. If it were limited to the loss of fees on payments and transfers, bitcoin's threat to existing financial institutions would still be substantial. But with a full array of commission-free financial services on the horizon, there is even more reason to take heed.

Oh, and I love this part...

Middleton sounds a bit like an 18th-century pirate striking back against the Empire when he declares that "what I'm doing right now is a direct threat to fiat merchant banking." For him, excitement over value fluctuations in the bitcoin currency is missing the point: "It's not a threat as people sit there and ponder whether bitcoin is a bubble or not. But if people go through the protocol and use their imagination, the existing system is threatened."

And here comes the rain on the parade :-(

However, there is a substantial obstacle to this coming revolution. Despite the emergence in 2013 of entities like Coinbase that have drastically streamlined the process, it is still difficult to exchange bitcoin for national currencies in a quick, reliable manner. It's unclear how Middleton's automated dollar-bitcoin hedging will work without a lightning-quick and reliable dollar-bitcoin exchange platform.

UltraCoin was in early beta stage when David saw it. It'll be ready to strut much of its stuff in Miami, making things much clearer.

So, the true "automation" of bitcoin functions that integrate with the economy as a whole may require a reconciliation with existing trading platforms.

Oh, I wouldn't bet the farm on that one.

As should be obvious to many, I'm quite serious about recreating today's financial system. I'd like to introduce what some in the media have coined (no pun intended) Bitcoin 2.0 (which is actually just the true implementation of bitcoin), otherwise known as UtlraCoin. UltraCoin is the derivative layer that we're writing on top of Bitcoin to enable Bitcoin holders, buyers and sellers to do some pretty amazing things.

Here's the latest Max Keiser in which he and Stacey Herbert to a good job of explaining what I have in mind. Of course, I get to speak my mind in the second half of the show.

I am pushing very hard to have the Zero Trust Currency Contracts, the first implementation of UltraCoin, to go into open public beta by the end of next week. That means you will be able to short, leverage, go long and arbitrage BTC. The strategies I and my analysts and developers have come up with will blow... your... mind! Here's a screen shot of the early beta trading desk:

Brand spanking new research is available to all paying subscibers, with a super bonus to my professional and institutional subscribers. To excerpt from said pages...

The professional and institutional versions of this report contain over 30 pages of data and analysis. These trades are for big boys (and girls), or at least those who can think like big boys (and girls). It is my intent to have traders, investors, companies and speculators use our Zero Trust Digital Contracts often, and knowledge of opportunities such as these do a lot to foster such use. Click here to subscribe.

Paying subscribers, download here:

• Making Real Money from Virtual Money – Arbitrage opportunities in Bitcoin trading
  (Global Macro, Trades & Strategy)
• Digital_Currency_Returns Pro blog download (excel spreadsheet)
  (Global Macro, Trades & Strategy)
• Making Real Money from Virtual Money ~Arbitrage opportunities in Bitcoin trading - Professional & Institutional

Bitcoin is highly volatile. It also experienced astonomical returns. That we all know. What I wanted to know was the true source of those returns. Some say it's speculation, some say is fundamentally derived. Most say things they have no business saying. I believe it's fair to say that bitcoin adoption will increase, and increase rapidly. It makes sense to believe said adoption will increase bitcoin's price. It's interesting in that history doesn't necessarily support that assumption though, as trading volume and daily returns have a low (or sometimes even negative) correlation.

I believe I have amassed one of the biggest libraries of bitcoin investment and financial data available in a very short period of time. I will start distributing this data via forensic reports to all paying subscribers as of tomorrow. Professional and Institutional subscribers will recieve some very, very advanced trading strategies that I have discovered that appear to still be making some pretty big short term returns as well. They are not simple, they proffer more than a little risk, but they are capable of some very material returns.

On a different front, it is also widely known that bitocoin's high volatility hampers its use by many would be vendors and institutions. I have created a solution, which I have illustrated in the following video - a brief demo of the early code of our Zero Trust Currency Contracts and an explanation of what they do.

Those who are interested in getting in on our closed beta, please email me at reggie at boombustblog dot com. Paid subscribers to my blog (click here to subscribe) get first crack, then those who are influential in the business, corporate finance guys, etc. and/or the high net worth crowd. I'm trying hard to get the beta rolled out today, but you know how this software development stuff goes. As of now, we're right on schedule for a beta release last week. :-)

Although this is a mere introduction, paying subscribers can catch a preview with  Digital Currencies' Risks, Rewards & Returns - An Into Into Bitcoin Investing For Longer Term Horizons

Note: New subscriber content available below.

I have created derivatives for Bitcoin that work exclusively on the Bitcoin network. They are capable of literally replacing the role of the large money center and investment banks. YES! This is a big thing. I will hopefully have a limited use beta example of the first product for the viewers of the show to experiment with. These products have been designed as zero trust contracts (meaning it was designed to eliminate the human judgment factor, thereby nearly completely automating the entire transaction). Currently, trust issues that the conventional OTC banking system products incur severely hamper free flowing capital markets. Greed begets inefficiencies. Digital zero trust contracts (as opposed to physical legal contracts) “theoretically” eliminate litigation and court involvement and expensive dispute resolution through means of the legal system. My BoomBust contracts allows anonymous parties to swap exposure in and out of Bitcoin from many widely traded currencies. (USD, EUR, YEN, CNY, etc.).

The state of the capitalist union today is ripe for Bitcoin activity to explode if knowledge of the platform spreads. Just to list a few catalysts:

1. The lack of trust in the world’s reserve currency, the USD.
2. The financial controls in the world’s most populous nations, India and China.
3. The Pan-European sovereign debt crisis
4. The confiscation of bank deposits in Cyprus (EU Bank Depositors: Your Mattress Is Starting To Look Awfully Attractive - Bank Risk, Reward & Compensation) and Ireland (As Forewarned, Irish Savers Have Just Been "Cyprus'd", And There's MUCH MORE "Cyprusing" To Come) and eventually anywhere banks are overleveraged and/or undercapitalized.
5. The billions of the great “unbanked” of the world, in both 3^rd world nations and even in the most developed nations on earth, ex. right here in the US.
6. The paltry returns on loans and bank deposits as well as the unsubstantiated bubble returns on risk assets – all stemming from the Fed’s unprecedented 6 year global ZIRP real time experiment. I commented on this back in 2008 (A real life, real time example of the Great Global Macro Experiment)and it’s still running strong.

Possible uses for the BoomBust contracts:

Simple investment/speculation

Those who want to gain exposure to a foreign or digital currency can easily enter into a swap to gain said exposure without actually having to purchase said currency (other than BTC, of course).

Hedging

The swap can be used as a simple hedge for any party that has large exposure to BTC, USD, EUR, etc., such as a retailer with low margins and high volume, ex. Chinese widget manufacturer or smartphone OEM, that accepts bitcoin but wants to hedge out the volatility and market risk. The BoomBust contracts can be layered, levered and/or compounded to make more complex hedges as well.

Capital flight/mobility & Banking System Bail-in protection

Parties who are domiciled in free flowing capital hostile states that have tight capital controls, ex. China, India, and now France with its 75% effective wealth confiscation scheme, etc. that have banned or limited BTC trading by banks and/or individuals can take advantage of the BoomBust contracts to gain multi-currency exposure without explicitly violating the law. Take note that the systems with the tightest capital controls have been the one’s exhibiting the most aggressive stance to bitcoin. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to understand what Bitcoin is and what it can do. I stand to educate the masses. See below…

Cyprus banks closed on a Friday and announced confiscation of assets over the weekend. These BoomBust contracts could have been used to move monetary value outside of the Cyprus banking system assuming the participants had a store of Bitcoin (it is rumored that this is how some of the Russian money was removed over the weekend). Let’s assume a small businessman would like to purchase $1M euro worth of bitcoin, yet is concerned that the BTC volatility may cause more of a loss than the Cypriot capital controls. He buys the BTC then hedges his large BTC position into EUR. He proceeds to do that with a quarter of his monthly cashflows, building up a sizeable, fully hedged position in cyberspace (thus, effectively offshore) and outside of the fragile Cyprus banking system. The Cyprus banks pull the trigger to confiscate funds and the Russian bank depositor has significant funds mobile and ready to deliver anywhere in the internet connected world within minutes, even on a Sunday afternoon.

Another example of dealing with a company with tight capital controls would be India. India has extremely tight capital controls that have (IMHO) hampered its economic progress relative to China, despite having similar populations and the advantage of a large indigenous English speaking population stemming from British occupation (easier to do business with the larger capitalist nations when more of your constituents speaks the native tongue).

India has effectively outlawed trading in bitcoin, but Indians can still participate in the evolution of money by taking advantage of the liberalised remittances scheme of the Central Bank of India, a person can remit up to 75,000 USD offshore annually. These monies can end up in a Bitcoin friendly jurisdiction (amazingly enough, like the US), and be used to purchase BTC hedged, via BoomBust contracts, back into rupees or the currency of choice.

This can also work the other way around, which would actually be quite advantageous to the Indian government and potentially make them rethink the real world practicality of capital controls. Even in a country that has capital controls and fears Bitcoin may threaten its banks, a decentralized near friction free currency exchange would be beneficial solely do to international remittances from expats in foreign workers. A real world example are Indians that I know who lose significant money because of PayPal and Western Union fees (not to mention bank wire fees). Indians can send BoomBust digital contract rupee locked BTC home on a deferred basis. The registered exchange or ATM in India however could only be one-way so that it only accepts BTC from the Indian general public in exchange for rupees and not the other way around.

Spread Arbitrage

On Dec 13^th, the EUR/USD exchange rate was roughly .78x, thus if one were to have sold 1 BTC into EUR than purchased USD, a $10.66 spread could have been realized over buying the USD with EUR directly.

Notice the differences in prices throughout the SAME MARKETS, contingent upon exchange.

I am happy to discuss this with institutional and professional subscribers whenever possible.

All paying subscribers (click here to subscribe) can download this introduction to our institutional level report on investing in cryptocurrencies:  Digital Currencies' Risks, Rewards & Returns - An Into Into Bitcoin Investing For Longer Term Horizon. There will be much more to follow in the upcoming days. Below is the brief summary as how we have computed the following ratios:

Excess Risk Adjusted Return

Excess Risk Adjusted Return is defined as returns over and above the required return on asset based on its risk characteristics. BITCOIN being a very volatile asset, the required return of the currency has been computed using the CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) approach. CAPM equation requires a variable known as Return on Market Portfolio (a portfolio comprising of all risky assets, conventional as well as alternative assets like antiques, currencies, private equity investments, etc.). For equity investments, general Market Index shall suffice but in our case the investment is altogether different (Digital Currency) and the conventional market index will be a bad proxy. Best Proxy in our case shall be a diversified Currency Portfolio – comprising all global as well as digital currencies. As such there exists no known proxy/Index consisting all Currencies, We have approximated it by using MSCI – EM Currency Index. The Index comprises a basket of 25 emerging market currencies. 

Excess Risk Adjusted Return = (Return on Asset) – (Required Return on asset based on its risk characteristics)

Return on Asset (Ra) = Return on B ITCOIN for different periods like 3M, 6M 12M, etc.

Required Return on Asset = RFR + β * (Rm – Ra)

RFR = Current US I year Treasury Yield

Beta = Covariance of (Returns on Asset & Returns on comparable Index) divided by Variance of (Index Returns)

Rm = Long term return on comparable Index, (in our case which is the Currency Index return comprising 25 Emerging Market currencies)

What's so eery is that now even Ben Bernanke and I actually agree upon something... 

“Digital currencies may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system._” 

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

So, what is money? According to Wikipedia: 

Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given socio-economic context or country. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment. Any kind of object or secure verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered money.

When currency is stable, money can serve all four of the functions above. Things get trickier when currencies are not stable. If we were all to be honest with ourselves, we'd have to query, "What fiat currency is truly stable over time?".

When unstable currencies or engineered forms of financial capital are brought into play the fourth aspect of defined money (and the least addressed) gains significantly in importance. Here we must differentiate and distinguish between true capital (economic capital) which comprises physical goods that explicitly and directly assist in the production of other goods and services, e.g. hammers for carpenters, paintbrushes for painters, wrenches for plumbers, tooling for factories, etc., and financial capital. Financial capital is funds provided by lenders and/or investors to businesses and entrepeneurs to purchase economic capital (ie.equipment) for producing real goods and services.

To explain why the 4th aspect of money's definition is important, yet often and in my opinion purposely ignored, let's examine the three concepts of capital maintenance in terms of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): (1) Physical capital maintenance (2) Financial capital maintenance in nominal monetary units (3) Financial capital maintenance in units of constant purchasing power.

1. Physical (economic) capital - We have covered already.
2. Financial capital in monetary units is best described as basic accounting. It's how most financial reporting is done in the states (and in Europe). It fails to take into consideration the constant destruction of value of the fiat currencies, an aspect of the definition of money that is a foundation of money itself!
3. Financial capital measured in constant purchasing power - something that effectively never happens. It is the "Real" value of money, adjusted for destructive aspects, ex. inflation, particularly purposeful inflation brought upon by a banking system that attempts to adjust and control the prices of goods and services for its own end (as opposed to the end that will benefit the masses) through the artificial manipulation of the value of the means of exchange, the currency.

Financial capital is provided by lenders for a price, commonly known as interest. This  price to attain financial capital is not the only cost though, for the price of the financial capital provided by lenders through things such as debt does not take into account the cost of currency maintenance destruction, or the purposeful manipulation of the currency value by the lender or lending system to which the lender belongs to to further its own means. This is why the prudent may wish to identify a single standard of deferred payment to avoid purposeful manipulation (otherwise known as cheating) by transacting in a denominator of debt that the participant believes to be dropping in value, ie. fiat currency!

Relation to debt-based society

A debt in any form is essentially a deferred payment. The fourth definintion of money, standard of deferred payment,  is usually what the debts are denominated in. The value of any and all money – including the most liquid and deep, ex. dollars or euros, or the oldest and revered, ex. gold and silver, or the newest and least understood, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies – may fluctuate over time via inflation and deflation and often through direct manipulation and unforeseen results that stem from the same. The value of deferred payments (the real level of debt) likewise fluctuates.

Money, as Leading Economists Such As Paul Krugman Appear To Know It, Is Obsolete - There's a New Sheriff In Town

The definitions of money mentioned above are predicated upon the assumption that money must be dumb! What I mean by this is that money was defined in a time when the store of value was an inanimante object designed to represent a simple binary concept of buy or sell, that had no abilities other than to look or appear as if it had the value believingly bestowed upon it by society - or at least two of the participants in a particular transaction. What if money in this digital day and age was smart? What if money was able to do things besides just sit there and be called money?

Here's an example...

Historically, and up until now, deferred payment was/is based on enforceability of debts and rule of law. The rule of law, particularly engagement within the legal system is destructively expensive, time consuming and essentially the antithesis of friction free commerce, ex. capitalism. The rule of law is generally not relied upon when debts are unlikely to be collectable. For illegal transactions, or for low or zero trust transactions, gold or diamonds may be preferred as the medium of exchange and in those circumstaces there is no recourse in case of counterfeit currency (bogus, bank peddeled Mortgage Backed Securities, fake US dollars, etc.) is being used. — and there is rarely any deferral of payment: if there is, it will most likely be stated in dollars - which brings us back to where we started.

What if currency was smart enough to act upon a predetermined set of parameters, even after being released to the payee? What if trust never had to be a factor in negotiation fo payment, even in a negative trust environment? What if the highly ineffecient legal system could be wholly avoided in the risk/reward calculation of a monetary transaction? Would the existence of this possibility, in essence, demand a 5th definition for money - intelligence and/or malleability? You see, the cryptographic digital currencies are smart as compared to the dumb dollar or euro, or yen or yuan! It is this intelligent ability to control money during a transaction and even post transaction, the abilty to instruct money to disburse iteslf only open mutual agreement by all parties present, that appears to elude the prominent MSM economists of today. 

Furthermore, dumb money as purely fiat is truly without physical value or utility value as a physical or digital commodity. It derives its value by being declared by a government to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for all debts, public and private - including taxes, where in the US, it is the only currency accepted. Laws in place such as these essentially imbue fiat money with the value of any of the goods and services that it may be traded for within the nation that issues it. The fact remains though, the value of fiat money is held in belief and belief only, enforced by the whims of government. With this being the case, there is no true utility argument to be made for fiat currencies, including the USD.

Digital cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, however, have an implicit edge on the fiat currencies in that its utility (or use value) is dramatically leveraged as compared to fiat because it comes part and parcel with its own, virtually unassailable transmission system. In essence, this means that if Bitcoin, the USD and the EUR were cars, BTC would be the only one that comes with its own international roads open 24/7 that were able to bypass all of the toll roads and bridges, everywhere there was an Internet connection - not to mention power itself with a virtual fuel that was limitless and had no costs. Now, if one were to think of it, such an aspect is so valuable and useful (as in utilitarian) that not only does it qualify for significant use value, but in the very near future one could wonder how the world ever got along without it. Does this mean that a sixth aspect of the definition of money needs to be added - autonomous transferability!

This is why I say there's a new sheriff in town and the old schoolers whose eyes are not yet open should recognize that the future of money is here!

According to famed economist and NY Times pundit Paul Krugman, "To be successful, money must be both a medium of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value. And it remains completely unclear why BitCoin should be a stable store of value."

I counter these widely believed assumptions with the fact that the USD, the world's reserve currency, has not been a stable store of value. As a matter of fact, from its underpinnings (as described in the BoomBustBlog link below) and throughout its history, the dollar has consistently lost its value over time to inflation. Thus, as per Krugman, the USD is not successful!

As per Wikipedia:

To be widely acceptable, a medium of exchange should have stable purchasing power (Value) and therefore it should possess the following characteristics:

1. Value common assets
2. Constant utility [I have explained the constant utility of Bitcoin above, a utility which trumps the relatively dumb dollar]
3. Low cost of preservation [the cost of preservation is a fraction of that of the dollar, with constant reprinting of physical dollars and coins and the power, machinery and labor required to do so; as well as the recircutlation of those new bills, not to mention the destrcution of the old bills]
4. Transportability [This is moderately difficult with large amounts of physical bills, but much easier with the digital manifestation of those physical bills that most institutions deal with. The mere existence of the banks as necessary intermediaries and middlemen add signficant, and in this day and age of P2P technology, unnecessary costs and frictions and rules. This hampers portability significantly - no transfers on weekends and bank holidays, no low margin business models due to artificially high transaction costs, big up Visa, Mastercard and Paypal!)
5. Divisibility
6. High market value in relation to volume and weight [Bitcoin can't be beat in this regard]
7. Recognisability
8. Resistance to counterfeiting [A currency based on cryptography, need I say more?!]

As quoted from the Wikpedia link above:

"fiat money is the root cause of the continuum of economic crises, since it leads to the dominance of fraud, corruption, and manipulation precisely because it does not satisfy the criteria for a medium of exchange cited above. Specifically, prevailing fiat money is free float and depending upon its supply market finds or sets a value to it that continues to change as the supply of money is changed with respect to the economy's demand. Increasing free floating money supply with respect to needs of the economy reduces the quantity of the basket of the goods and services to which it is linked by the market and that provides it purchasing power. Thus it is not a unit or standard measure of wealth and its manipulation impedes the market mechanism by that it sets/determine just prices. That leads us to a situation where no value-related economic data is just or reliable.^[3][4]" 

I will continue this missive in part 2 of the series wherein I will announce my efforts in bringing the beneftis of smart money to light. I'm sure these concepts and products will blow your socks off, even if you are an old school economist! For those who don't follow me, this is who I am. - Who is Reggie Middleton? I believe track record speaks louder than Op-Ed columns, degrees or TV show appearances. Let me know if you agree...

This article showases my 3rd installment of Bitcoin analysis, explanation and investment opportunities. As a quick recap of the 12 minute video, I reviewed:

Bitcoin's dramatic and near unprecendented run and generation of 6 digit gross returns...

The definition of Alpha and its Bitcoin's historical generation of Alpha over the last 3 years.

Risk, risk vs. reward and the application of said idealogies to true risk adjusted investment returns as compared to fiat currencies...

Arbitrage opportunities available through Bitcoin and Litecoin trading....

A comparison of daily returns between Bitcoin and high beta emerging market currencies...

And last but not least, the innovative, unique and unprecendented finanical products we're looking to launch in the beginning of the new year, starting with digital currency to fiat swaps, avaible from any smartphone, PC or even Google Glass...

chocomalk  +Stephen Pettyjohn  What you are saying is that the cost/price of any real world currency should not matter either?
".After all it is infinitely divisible"
Isn't that one of the arguments of bitcoin? That it fixes the problem of over printing by limiting the issuance to a finite amount? So we see now the people did not understand monetary theory since issuance is only one factor in the inflation/deflation cycle of circulating currency.
Because of price fluctuation and its divisible nature, there is in effect an infinite amount of bitcoin in circulation. There is a plus side to this but that is not the point. As I stated there are flaws in the system.
And I understand why the energy cost is high but I also understand that any competing currency will outdo Bitcoin by not only matching or exceeding its security but doing so more EFFICIENTLY. Some smart developer will write a more efficient code or better way of managing the overall system and that will pop bitcoin.
Anyway my argument was not to disparage cryptos but to point out the flaws and the flawed logic presented here. If anything bitcoin has shown the worth of the underlying structure that caused the other internet bubble and that is the internet itself. The most valuable and one of the greatest inventions ever.
The internet is the road. Show less Reply  • 

 

Stephen Pettyjohn   8 hours ago     Sorry, I suppose I should clarify my first statement. The value of the currency (call it a relative CPI) impacts those who own it, but the actual utility of the currency and its demand is controlled by market cap (which is why the market cap for the dollar is so high, when we print money the price per dollar drops proportionally or close to it). 

The raw cost of the network is the barrier to obtaining a large share. For instance, the switch from GPUs to ASICs (Im throwing out FPGAs here because that was a very short phase) reduced the cost per GH from about $270 to $5 with a subsequent reduction in power cost of about 25X. This only made it easier for mining pools like cxe.io to take over larger market shares because they were able to gain an efficiency edge. Increases in efficiency do not yield increases in security. The only thing that blocks people from obtaining a larger mining share is the cost of obtaining that share. The only thing that could "pop" bitcoin at this point is a new form of the dirty pool attack, which is arguably not effective or a method of breaking the 256k1 eliptic coding, which is not used outside of bitcoin (or rather is used infrequently) and thus very little work has been done on this front.  Show less Reply  • 

 

chocomalk   8 hours ago     +Stephen Pettyjohn
 As I stated, printing(issuance) and deflation(withdrawing from circulation) is only one way this cycle can happen.
Imagine if the dollar went from 1 - 1000 in a year and then tell me why it was a good thing outside of the investment potential.
I didn't say efficiency leads to security but it can, the efficncy will lead to less power consumption.
Sorry but a united front of world governments could halt bitcoins advance. Even the US alone could provide the pressure needed. That would relegate bitcoin to the black market and if they ever decide to stop the war on drugs lol Show less Reply  • 

 

chocomalk   8 hours ago     +Stephen Pettyjohn
 As a side note to my last comment, there used to be smaller increments of the dollar than the penny. It is as divisible as bitcoin, it all relies on the system itself.   Reply  • 

 

Stephen Pettyjohn   8 hours ago     +chocomalk India is openly arresting individuals operating exchanges (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-first-time-in-the-country-ed-raids-a-bitcoin-seller-in-ahmedabad-1941187) and it's citizens still take part in the currency. In addition, one or two EU countries treat it as a good and tax a massive VAT on it's exchange. All that happens is the population is less likely to transact with it. Considering less than 10% of BTC exchange happens in the US (and even that number is suspect given that a large portion of that exchange is done via brokers to exchanges in Slovenia and Russia) I doubt the US could control the currency significantly. As long as some governments are willing to open their doors (Cyprus, Sweden, Spain, Singapore) then I am relatively certain regulation will not kill the currency. Now, current value is obviously in jeopardy (China's recent regulatory stance) but in terms of long term prospects I think we are relatively safe.

Also, it is worth noting that the estimated cost of electricity for the current mining network is 1/30th the estimated hardware cost. As long as hardware is price competitive and will yield a return at current or short term predicted value people will buy it. Arguably Scrypt produces less waste by not leaving giant ASIC doorstops around, but I'm sure in a world where Litecoin or a Scrypt derivative is the prominent currency  FPGAs or ASICs will be built and well be back to the same point. 

 

chocomalk

+Stephen Pettyjohn

 But why are they investing? Because they are using it to transact or because of the profit potential? Hard to answer.

Bottom line here is the argument that it bypasses the system fails if the system it is bypassing decides to get involved. India might not be able to stop people from buying or using it in outside transactions but they can regulate he business end in India itself as can other countries, they just haven't yet.

Sure some may not make it illegal but they will want a cut of the action and if they can't get a cut they will make all effort to stamp it out I assure you.

So in the end will it be better than a central currency? Imagine if right now the entire world just adopted it and odd man out, if you didn't have the sense to get in early you are effectively screwed and poor as punch.

"current value is obviously in jeopardy"

This is really the basis of my entire argument, bitcoin is a great invention outside some flaws I listed and others outside my keen. Miners should receive compensation but the current system makes monopoly and overt profits way to easy.

Reply  • 

  

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chocomalk

False correlation. Bitcoin is not the internet, it's not a road either and we had an internet bubble anyway lol. You assume it's present unregulated state will continue.
And obviously you have not looked into the "fuel cost" of Bitcoin, it is actually quite high. Your analogy of a road can be used with the present regulated transfer system.
There is nothing Bitcoin can do that another more efficient(cheaper) CURRENCY can do and that is the point, at these price levels, bitcoin is an investment vehicle not a currency.
Is it a ponzi? I don't know but it could be.
It's a great idea with horrible implementation. Show less Reply  • 

  View all 9 replies    Stephen Pettyjohn 

+chocomalk India is openly arresting individuals operating exchanges (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-first-time-in-the-country-ed-raids-a-bitcoin-seller-in-ahmedabad-1941187) and it's citizens still take part in the currency. In addition, one or two EU countries treat it as a good and tax a massive VAT on it's exchange. All that happens is the population is less likely to transact with it. Considering less than 10% of BTC exchange happens in the US (and even that number is suspect given that a large portion of that exchange is done via brokers to exchanges in Slovenia and Russia) I doubt the US could control the currency significantly. As long as some governments are willing to open their doors (Cyprus, Sweden, Spain, Singapore) then I am relatively certain regulation will not kill the currency. Now, current value is obviously in jeopardy (China's recent regulatory stance) but in terms of long term prospects I think we are relatively safe.

Also, it is worth noting that the estimated cost of electricity for the current mining network is 1/30th the estimated hardware cost. As long as hardware is price competitive and will yield a return at current or short term predicted value people will buy it. Arguably Scrypt produces less waste by not leaving giant ASIC doorstops around, but I'm sure in a world where Litecoin or a Scrypt derivative is the prominent currency  FPGAs or ASICs will be built and well be back to the same point. 

Show less Reply  • 

 

chocomalk   16 hours ago     +Stephen Pettyjohn
 But why are they investing? Because they are using it to transact or because of the profit potential? Hard to answer.
Bottom line here is the argument that it bypasses the system fails if the system it is bypassing decides to get involved. India might not be able to stop people from buying or using it in outside transactions but they can regulate he business end in India itself as can other countries, they just haven't yet.
Sure some may not make it illegal but they will want a cut of the action and if they can't get a cut they will make all effort to stamp it out I assure you.
So in the end will it be better than a central currency? Imagine if right now the entire world just adopted it and odd man out, if you didn't have the sense to get in early you are effectively screwed and poor as punch.
"current value is obviously in jeopardy"
This is really the basis of my entire argument, bitcoin is a great invention outside some flaws I listed and others outside my keen. Miners should receive compensation but the current system makes monopoly and overt profits way to easy.

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Friday, 27 December 2013 16:34

Bitcoin Q&A On YouTube

  

 The article and accompanying video "Bitcoin for Big Dummies: Why The Digital Currency Is Spiking & Why It's Not A Bubble" proved to be rather controversial, and has spawned many different viewpoints and comments. I'd like to take this time to address a few of them in detail.

+Gary Tooze "Hi Reggie - I know you fancy yourself as a realist, but in all the videos and articles I have followed from you - you have never mentioned 'Gold'. Why do you suppose the Central Banks hold Gold? REALISTICALLY they OWN the government - which could crush BTC in a flash. The CBs know exactly what is going on and won't be the losers in these shifting sands....

Reggie Middleton

+Gary Tooze Who would accept Bitcoin with all of its volatility? Possibly everyone who accepts the USD, who's predecessor had even more violent swings which ended up in a redemption value of less than 1% - http://boombustblog.com/blog/item/9178-the-anti-economist-calls-bitcoin-the-anti-social-network. You see, new currencies with thin markets are prone to risk and volatility. Many act as if Bitcoin invented the term volatility.

Reggie Middleton +Gary Tooze No, you have not got it right in referece to your gold comparisons. BTC does have Intrinsic value, more so than gold in my opinion. BTC is programmable, gold is not. BTC can easily be stored, transfered and tracked - gold can not. BTC can circumvent banks, as can gold - but by your estimation the banks hold most of the gold already :-) The programmability of BTC (especially in a digital age) should end the argument of intrinsic value before it gets started. Programmability is more valuable than fringe industrial uses in the age of the Internet and an interconnected world.

 Dinan5iver2

A few observations Mr. Middleton. First, the problem with your automobile analogy. Who builds and maintains the exclusive road that only your car may use? The roads that the rest of us use can be built with the monetary unit of account (fiat) for public purpose. Could the same ever be said of a bitcoin alternative? I don't see this as a remote possibility. 

This leads to what I consider the primary weakness of the bitcoin alternative model. It's essentially a return to the gold standard by electronic means and would severely limit policy space for a democratic republic in a massively monetized economy. Can bitcoin as presently constructed fuel a federal job guarantee to provide a true living wage floor for those willing to work? How would a true single-payer universal health service be provided with bitcoin? What about publicly provisioned education through graduate school at no charge for citizens? I think you can see what I'm driving at here. All of these policies require the services of a true central bank (under democratic control) utilizing fiat over which it maintains absolute sovereignty. 

 

Reggie Middleton

Actually, the hundreds of millions of denizens of the World Wide Web builds "builds and maintains the exclusive road that only your car may use?" The Web, and its denizens are not, in large part, governmental agencies, nor are they direct agents of the government either. 

"The roads that the rest of us use can be built with the monetary unit of account (fiat) for public purpose. Could the same ever be said of a bitcoin alternative? I don't see this as a remote possibility."

Of course, those digital roads can be built. There are some ISPs and hosting services that you can go to know to pay in bitcoin to set up a site infrastructure and be part of the roads of the Web.

"Can bitcoin as presently constructed fuel a federal job guarantee to provide a true living wage floor for those willing to work? How would a true single-payer universal health service be provided with bitcoin? What about publicly provisioned education through graduate school at no charge for citizens? I think you can see what I'm driving at here. All of these policies require the services of a true central bank (under democratic control) utilizing fiat over which it maintains absolute sovereignty."

You've lost me here. It's not as if the USD can "fuel a federal job guarantee to provide a true living wage floor for those willing to work" so I don't see how you would ask the same of Bitcoin. It is the value percieved behind the dollar that fuels these items you refer to, not the dollar itself. It is this very same discussion that outlines the utility of bitcoin as a currency (as opposed to Bitcoin, the transmission network). The Fed can, and has, and currently is, mulitplying the amount of dollars in the system to fund these activities without a commensurate increase in the value backing these dollars nor a commensurate increase in the economic value in the system at all. This can't be done very easily with bitcoin, which is one of the popularly stated benefits of the currency. It is essentially printer-proof!

What your country's central bank is doing is debasing the value of the monetary units to make more of them to nominally purchase goods and services in the present, but not paying for them in the present. Economically, this is simply a loan that needs to be repaid by true value creation in a future time period (likely that of your children). You see, those debased dollars are essentially IOUs, while you are referring to them as actual units of value and not promises to deliver said value.

chocomalk

False correlation.

Bitcoin is not the internet, it's not a road either and we had an internet bubble anyway lol. You assume it's present unregulated state will continue.
And obviously you have not looked into the "fuel cost" of Bitcoin, it is actually quite high. Your analogy of a road can be used with the present regulated transfer system.
There is nothing Bitcoin can do that another more efficient(cheaper) CURRENCY can do and that is the point, at these price levels, bitcoin is an investment vehicle not a currency.
Is it a ponzi? I don't know but it could be.
It's a great idea with horrible implementation. 

Reggie Middleton  "Bitcoin is not the internet, it's not a road either and we had an internet bubble anyway lol."
No, we did not have an Internet bubble. We had a stock market bubble wherein underwriters preyed on the naive and greedy in convincing them to buy Internet stocks.

 

" You assume it's present unregulated state will continue."
How do you regulate a P2P network?

 

"And obviously you have not looked into the "fuel cost" of Bitcoin, it is actually quite high."
The "fuel cost" of Bitcoin? You mean like the paper, ink, printing presses and metallurgical coin stamps made to produce fiat which has to cyclically be replaced every few years with the same expensive process save some additional R&D to attempt to outrun counterfeiters who always seem to win in the end anyway?

 

" Your analogy of a road can be used with the present regulated transfer system."
So the present regulated transfer system can circumvent the Fed, ECB and all money center banks? Please....

"There is nothing Bitcoin can do that another more efficient(cheaper) CURRENCY can do and that is the point, at these price levels, bitcoin is an investment vehicle not a currency."
Nothing as in being programmable to act towards the wishes of the sender and/or reciever after being sent or recieved?
Nothing as in being able to totally circumvent banks - all of them?
Nothing as being able to settle a 9 digit international monetary transfer from Sri Lanka in 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon in NYC?
That's a whole lot of nothing, my friend.

 

 

 

 

chocomalk  +Reggie Middleton
 Yes it was an investment bubble, call it what you want the similarity is investment and inflated value. The net itself is not analogous to bitcoin nor were the businesses that sprung up around it outside the servers/IP providers themselves.
You regulate with the law. You might be able to get away with underground transactions but they can limit a lot of commerce. They can also regulate the pay window, meaning you could not buy or sell into other currencies legally. Or accept payment as a business legally.
I am not saying present currency doesn't have a cost, just that the energy requirements for Bitcoin are quite large.
Circumvent is what Bitcoin is doing at present, I already stated that it could end or be regulated the same way meaning there would be no effective difference.
And I should have stated "crypto currency" that was my mistake. A cheaper, more secure crypto currency can and will be produced meaning any value that bitcoin has above its "manufacture" is based on investor and market opinion.
Like I said, It's a great idea with bad implementation and it is overpriced.  

 

The Internet is a interlocking network (hence the name, "internet") of standalone servers that serve data to and from each other in such fashion as to make a seamless network of information available to all who access it. Bitcoin is a peer to peer network of computers who collectively transmit, recieve and maintain the bitcoin system as a whole. Think of bees working in a hive without a central queen bee, but a queen bee that exists a little at a time in each and every worker, drone, soldier and scout bee. In order to destroy the hive or to coopt it, you will have take down the entire hive or the vast majority (as in >95%) of the bees to do so. If you live in the hive as well, like the government and the rest of the world living on the WWW, then option one is out of the question. So, yes, Bitcoin is analagous to the Internet and WWW.

Stephen Pettyjohn +chocomalk Crypto currencies cost is irrelevant. At the end of the day it's the amount of goods that can be bought. Since that measure is relatively the same and tracks with the dollar, the only thing that makes bitcoin feel expensive is the whole unit bias. After all it is infinitely divisible (in theory, currently a satoshi is only a ten-millionth)
As for cheaper crytocurrencies, certain currencies have design advantages, but price is never one of them. A cheaper currency means that the network supporting it's proof of work system is smaller. The 51% scale attack cost against bitcoin is close to 1.5 billion right now (and thats assuming that you can magically convert bitcoin into specialized ASICs) whereas, a single large bitcoin miner could easily perform a 51% attack on any of the SHA256 alt currencies. Bitcoin's massive electricity and hardware costs are what give the currency it's security against network attacks. In addition, the higher price and corresponding market cap encourages development in the area which makes bitcoin more fluid and props up companies like CoinBase, ItBit, Bitpay, and Circle.

 

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