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scottmapess · 4 years

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Bitcoin Post-COVID-19: Bullish or Bearish? | Futurist Explains

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Crypto plummeted like every other asset. And to me, that destroys the narrative. What value does Bitcoin have, if not as a safe haven? I do think that our interconnectedness, while it certainly spreads the virus quickly and accelerates it, it also accelerates the response. Hi, everyone. My name is Djavad me. These days, the future looks more uncertain than ever for the crypto industry and the world as a whole. Today on our show, we have a guest who can give us some perspectives of things to come. Futurist and author Daniel Jefferies. In a recent tweet, you said The debt covered 19 pandemic is a threat to the existence of crypto. You also said it is an opportunity for you to forge itself into a living weapon. We need to overturn the debt bubble monster world that we live in now. Can you explain what you mean by that? So if if society is under a severe economic strain, which tends to lead to authoritarianism, it tends to lead to famine, it tends to lead to war. Then you start to see central power has come to pass. If they begin to see putting capital controls, for instance, and people try to use cryptocurrencies through to evade those capital controls. They will. Governments will swiftly move to destroy all centralized exchanges in local bitcoin operations. Then how much is your crypto worth? It’s worth nothing because you’re not going to take one hundred thousand dollars or hundred thousand euros down in a bag to your local bitcoin slash drug dealer in order to exchange money. So it’s there’s a systemic weakness in crypto that I think gives people a false sense of confidence that they can’t cut off the head of the snake because it’s decentralized. And then people say, well, it nigga would need to be a worldwide effort. No, it wouldn’t. If if you live in Spain and all the exchanges are cut off in Spain and ninety nine point nine nine percent of your wealth is wrapped up in the financial system there, which is ninety nine point nine percent of the entire world, then good luck getting your money out. If the United States cuts it off, if Russia cuts it off. Good luck getting your money out of there. And so it does not need to be a global effort. It’s also it is not developed into a parallel economic operating system where the money is distributed directly to applications in people that bypasses the fiat system. So it is systemically incredibly weak if society is facing all kinds of threats. So I don’t believe that crypto itself. It’s not a bullish scenario for crypto. If then if the worldwide economy is crashing and we enter a severe recession or a Great Depression, it’s something that’s on the radar of governments and they will come after it with impunity. OK. And you also said that it can be also an opportunity for crypto to become like a living weapon. I guess it is a bubble monster world we live in. What do you mean exactly by bubble master world? Well, so I mean, we have trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of derivatives and debt that keeps accelerating. The United States has passed a two trillion dollar stimulus bill and it had already seen a dramatic acceleration in debt. We’ve seen debts that are skyrocketing across the world. Some economists believe that debts don’t matter in the least. I think that that is probably true to some degree. In other words, that that governments are able to issue much more debt than I think the average Austrian economists thinks. However, there does come a tipping point where governments can certainly collapse. So in a crisis, it forces people to think faster and to do things that they might have been putting off. So crypto will be no different in terms of responding to the crisis. Suddenly they might. The cryptocurrency communities might get the idea that they need to actually build an entire ecosystem of goods and services, not just money. That reflects a philosophy and say good luck finding a place to spend it. You need to build goods and services. You need to build an entire ecosystem where merchants want to come in and build services within that currency itself. Digital goods, real goods and services. And I think you Voll Harare’s said that this is accelerating progress in some respects. So his university, for instance, had debated for 20 years whether to put some courses online and then they got it done in a single week. So this is the type of thing that puts incredible pressure on. Every type of community in the crypto community will be no different, especially if they come under pressure from governments. They will be forced to adapt and they will be forced to develop complete new ecosystems that distribute money beyond the fiat system. And I think that’s where a lot of innovation can can come very quickly. But until they start to feel the pressure. I don’t see that innovation happening just yet. In another tweet, you also said that crypto. You know, is that it we need to evolve to survive? What did you mean by that? I mean, it’s again, it’s strategically vulnerable. Again, if I always look at how to destroy a system in order to figure out ways to make it stronger, and when I look at something like a proof of work system, it does not take a genius to go for a country, to go in there with guns and seize every major mine and and take control of the situation. In other words, if you have a giant operation that sucks up a ton of energy, it’s not that hard to detect on the grid. OK. It is not it is not anonymous. And all I need to do is send in armed soldiers with guns to steal your mining operation. Second, if I cut off the head of the snake with centralized exchanges, how are people going to get their money out of that system? So in my mind system, the system is still very much in early alpha technology. It’s we’re starting to see we’re starting to see advancements in scale. We’re starting to see advancements in that in in ways to do decentralized consensus. But we still haven’t seen a complete ecosystem. Perhaps the closest thing, ironically, was Facebooks attempt at it. And you saw how quickly governments reacted to that. They were the first ones to try to build a multi coin solution, a solution that would have programmable digital assets, that would have multiple people with skin in the game, a governance system that allows them to vote and be punished if they do bad things of a greater scale. A systems of goods and services that could potentially be sold there. A built in audience that they could distribute money to either through gamification directly to applications or just by distributing it. And they had a system for bringing capital in and out of the system in a unique way, plus capturing interest in wealth for the people who created it. So they had created a complete ecosystem. And I and I challenge every every every crypto community that’s looking at it to think more comprehensively, to look at what Facebook did and to learn that if you want to build something that’s incredibly successful, you have to think about it at a macro scale. You have to think about buyers and sellers. You have to think about the average user. You have to think about a protocol that would allow people to automatically reset their password without it needing to be centralized. You would need to think about ease of use. You would need to think about alternative distribution mechanisms and scale. It’s not enough to solve just one of these problems. You have to solve all of them in order to build a robust community. So I challenge every community out there to look at it in a bigger, bigger, bigger picture. The narrative of Bitcoin being a safe haven and uncorrelated assets was disproved when the market crashed together with traditional markets earlier in March. Do you still believe that bitcoin can become a hedge against the traditional financial system? Again, it depends on which of the scenarios we’re talking about. If we’re talking about the more mild scenarios, then yes, they can start to become a bullish asset alongside gold and funds that are able to trade long and short in the marketplace, as well as biotechnology and other assets that potentially could weather the storm in a more mid range to darker scenario. I think the answer is clearly no. I think the asset crashed along with everything else. And I think the things that I pointed out earlier, which is the the weakness of its ability to be resistant in a very dark scenario to people even getting their money in and out of it makes it a speculative asset. And it’s still a speculative technology. It’s still an early technology. People shouldn’t be surprised by this. People are clinging to the belief, despite the fact that reality is has shown that it wasn’t the case. And I tweeted earlier today that when you have a belief system and it comes up against reality, reality has an undefeated record. And when you come up against the market and you have a desire to make money from the market and you have a belief or a date or an inclination about which direction the market’s going to go, and one of those things is it it proves to be incorrect. The market is not incorrect. You were incorrect. It’s as simple as that. You either made money, you did not, it’s a very binary game. And the fact is that crypto plummeted like every other asset. And to me, that destroys the narrative. Some people hold on to that narrative anyway, because they believe that without that narrative, crypto has no value. That’s not true. Just because I now have adjusted my viewpoint that it’s not proving to be a safe haven doesn’t mean that the technology is not valuable or won’t continue to evolve or potentially be incredibly wonderful and disruptive for society. But you don’t need that to be true. So what value does bitcoin have, if not as a safe haven or a hedge against the traditional financial system, according to you? If as an as a proof of concept technology, then for other crypto technologies, in other words, like the blockchain itself and the the idea of the proof of work in the idea that you could build a decentralized consensus system without a centralized power behind it and that you could make that system work over a significant period of time are the abstract solutions that still make it incredibly valuable in terms of bitcoin itself in a dark scenario being particularly valuable? I don’t see how that’s the case if you can’t get money easily into it and out of it. And minds are easily sizable. And so I think people need to abstract the general solution from the thing itself and not be sad about that. Bitcoin is already proven in remarkable technology, a remarkable solution to many different problems, and it’s lasted a very long time. All with respect to many things. It hasn’t been broken into or hacked or destroyed it. And by all intents and purposes, it probably should have because a number of forces have been trying to crack that thing since it was since Satoshi released it. And it’s proven very resilient. So I think it’s a remarkable technology regardless. But whether bitcoin in itself. And I’ve said this for years anyway in my predictions about crypto currency right. In the next 20 years. I said that Bitcoin had a 50 50 shot. I love Bitcoin. I still think it’s one of the best assets, certainly in a mild to to mid range scenario of the current apocalypse. But in a dark scenario, I think the fact that it dies is very strong and it has to evolve into something else. When you talk about this dark scenario, you mean that the governments are the potential threat to bitcoin, right? No, I say I. Well, they certainly would be the threat to Bitcoin and that would actually be the least of our problems in a dark scenario. A dark scenario is that we’re living in a reed in a redo of the 1930s at an accelerated pace. Right. And and that a systemic failure. In other words, all the governments have issued these massive stimulus bills. They’ve cut rates to zero. They’ve essentially fired all of their weapons at once. And if this thing goes on for months or six months or a year or two years, then we’re going to see huge amounts of business collapses. We’re gonna see cascading mortgage failures. We’re gonna see a lot of people unemployed, very angry. And that gives rise to authoritarianism. It gives rise to famine and it gives rise to war. So Bitcoin and the virus will be the least of our problems. They will be a distant memory in the governments. I mean, the government’s, you know, threat to bitcoin will be the least of our problems in that kind of scenario when we’re all kind of worried about, you know, millions of people suffering in the kind of global catastrophe. So there is very I again, I don’t I don’t like these kind of dark speculations. I think people seem to be feeding on this fear. They seem to look at these exponential curves and say, look, I’ve calculated an exponential curve. This thing goes up indefinitely. And that’s just not true when when an exponential curve goes up against chaos, which is the gazillions of vague variables that are impossible to calculate, even if you stack together all the world’s supercomputers, you would quickly run out of power in minutes. It means that nothing worked. No vaccines, no interventions, no quarantine, nobody working on repurposing drugs, artificial intelligence tracking, social distancing, intelligence spreading. None of those things interrupted that curve. None of those things had a variable effect. So again, I’m still very hopeful that we are not speeding down this path. But I think it has to be acknowledged that this is a very real potential path, perhaps for the first time since the 1930s and definitely for the first time within my lifetime. It is something that is is creating legitimate fear and should be taken seriously. But let’s move to a more mild scenario where, for example, we saw the Fed and several other central banks in the world trying to adopt emergency measures to support their economies. And these measures are mostly about a flow of cash like injections of cash into the economy, cutting interest rates. And many people in the industry are speculating on the fact that these measures could eventually lead Bitcoin to prevail in terms of, you know, as an asset which have undetermined amount and that can be deflationary compared to Fiat. What do you think the chances that this scenario is going to manifest? Well, I think we’re seeing a true life economic experiment happening right before our very eyes. And I guess that we are going to find out. I tend to take a more balanced view of economics. I do not fall on the side of an all inflationary. Currencies are bad in all deflationary currencies are good. And I think every asset that exists in the world exists for a specific purpose. OK, speculative ASX is this for a purpose? Equities bonds exist for a purpose. Derivatives long and short trading cryptocurrency assets, deflationary inflationary assets. Both of them serve different reasons. Deflationary assets certainly reward savers, whereas inflationary assets keep the economy moving quicker and encourage spending. Both, I think are quite valuable when they’re kept in balance. And I don’t think that this concept that we only need one type of asset is realistic anymore. I think the world is just too complex. I think we need all kinds of assets and let thousands of different assets compete in real time. And we now have the chance to look at data for real. It’s not just analog statistics calculated in in a physical ledger. These are Real-Time statistics that we’re going to see play out in reality. I think what people are referring to is their own hope that their particular darling asset will be the dominant one. And that’s nice and good. But again, that’s a story that’s going to come out against the harsh light of reality very quickly. What I see generally when I look at economics is that when any of these assets get way too far out of proportion. In other words, when we inject too much inflation into a system, we inject too much cash into a system, there is a chance that it runs away. Just as you can also see a deflationary spiral. When we saw in the nineteen seventies, for instance, in the United States where nobody was spending any money, and why would you you just you might as well keep saving it because money is going up in value and in are. So I think that in either scenario, each type of money. Can create unintended side effects. There is a possibility that with injecting so much money that it could create a problem. I don’t think it will in the short term. I actually think that governments have a lot more leeway in terms of debt issuance than most people in the cryptocurrency community would like to believe. Short term price controls, short term liquidity, boost do tend to work. We’ve been working on a debt system for 50 years, whether we like it or not. And people have been calling the sky to fall for all of that time. I guess one of these days they’re going to be right. And then I guess a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while and a stopped clock has the right time twice a day. But I don’t know that anybody gets a credit for that. If you call the end of the world, you know, every year and then you finally get the end of the world. I don’t know that that makes you a strong predictor. So I do think that we can withstand this early issuance. But if governments keep half to issuing money in stimulus, then I think we’re in serious, serious trouble. And I think that the crypto community will be correct. People will potentially look to deflationary assets as a hedge against that. It’s a pendulum swings back and forth. And if one is swung too far in the other direction, it’ll be necessary. Coveted 19 exposed the fragility of the world we live in. Our governments are struggling to cope with this crisis. People are dying and the global economy is heading towards recession. Still, in a recent article titled The Coronavirus A Reason for Hope, you described how humanity has never been so well prepared as now to face a global pandemic like Cauvin 19. Can you point out what are the most valuable tools at our disposal which make us prepared for this? So mass communication technology definitely allows us to disseminate information fast. And it allows us to understand the types of procedures and steps that people need to take to protect themselves. If you’re living in the dark ages, the virus crosses borders, whether you close them or not. Even we don’t you know, we don’t have planes and cars back in the dark ages. But the virus still cross the borders and you had no way to get out reliable information to people. So people basically just speculate in the dark. Now we’re able to disseminate information very quickly and people able to rapidly consume that information and understand what they need to do. And we’re also seeing open science, and that is the science where researchers publish their results as quickly as possible and share them as broadly as possible. So we saw the genome, for instance, sequenced of SA’s S.O.B to say the virus that causes Kobie 19 be disseminated very quickly out of China. We’re also seeing artificial intelligence krank through different types of drugs that are already approved. So this is one path for pharmaceutical and biotechnology where you can look at drugs that are already pursued for other things to find out whether they have efficacy against a new type of pathogen. And sometimes that takes years with with current methodologies where artificial intelligence is already starting to speed up possible candidates much faster than we’re already seeing certain drugs be identified potentially. And doctors, since they’re already essentially facing an invisible war on the front lines, are deploying those in real time. We’re seeing the doctors on the frontlines consume the same level of information about which drugs have the potential, and they’re going to test them in the absence of any other solutions rather than just allow their patients to die. So we’re going to see we’re not going to have to wait for many trials, certainly for a vaccine. We will. And I expect to see an exponential speed up there. But for existing drugs, we’re not going to have to wait. The doctors already testing them on the front lines. And so that’s an exciting procedure as well. We’re also seeing the ability to rapidly deploy engineers and to build facilities. We’re starting to see makers come tomorrow to talk about how to build masks. We I read an article on 3M having surge capabilities that they had already prepared for after the bird flu. And they’re able to ramp up production very quickly. And they saw it within the supply chains. They already started to see the crunchies within the supply chain. Well, before everyone else started to be alerted to it, they started to ramp up production of the Cadillac of N-95 mask, the respirator mask that everybody needs to get their hands on. So I think that there’s a number of things that we’ve looked at, people’s hyper interconnectedness and the the interconnectedness of the global supply chain. Instead, it’s super fragile. It certainly is fragile, but it also has some incredible advantages. And I also don’t believe that we can just go back to building everything in our own backyards. That’s a nice fantasy, but it’s just not true. But most parts of the supply chain, if you want to build a battery factory, a lithium ion battery factory, you can hire all the workers and build the factory and buy all the equipment. But if you don’t have lithium in your own backyard, which you don’t because it’s primarily comes from Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, then you are not making batteries if you want to build a smartphone. Apple gets the ingredients from 43 different countries. So you don’t magically have those growing in your own forests or your own minds. Most of the drugs that are made in the world come from 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients come from China and India. You don’t think that the interconnectedness of our world that in this case is a problem. You actually think it’s an advantage? I think it’s an advantage. Look, people tend to think that when the if we slow down and when ultra-nationalist in and closed off everything and that people have the delusion that that suddenly we’d stop the spread of the virus and had shiny, happy people making everything at home. But again, remember the black death? The Black Death wiped out a huge chunk of humanity and sent it into a near collapse for, oh, I think 100 years. And if I’m correct, and there were no fast ships, there was no hyper interconnectedness. There were you know, it wasn’t easy to cross borders. It was incredibly painstaking to do so. And yet the virus, a pathogen, essentially swept across the planet, and that’s happened on multiple occasions. So it’s a false sense of hope that we can it’s really just go back to not inter-connectedness as a solution. And I do think that our interconnectedness, while it certainly spreads the virus quickly and accelerates it, it also accelerates the response in our ability to coordinate information at a global scale in a way that has never happened in in the past. It it’s it couldn’t have even happened, I think, 20 years ago without the communications technology that we have now. What do you think is the utility of blockchain in a crisis like this? Do you think that blockchain can actually help the world somehow to face the threat of Cauvin 19? Sure. So one of the ways that I’ve been looking at it in Oracle in writing now about potential radical or interesting solutions is medical reform. OK. So one of the reasons that medical reform is so expensive and so expensive in medical procedures, so expensive is because doctors are forced and nurses are forced to hide information. They’re not able to learn from mistakes. In the book, Blackbox Thinking talks a lot about this. So they talk about the airline industry and contrast it to the medical industry. And after a series of crashes in the 60s, the airline industry implemented a series of incentives that talk that encouraged pilots and everyone else to file anonymous reports and be transparent. And if they’re transparent, then nothing can be used against them in a court of law if they file a mistaken report within 10 days or when there’s a crash. The Blackbox team comes in and they look at everything and nothing can be used in a court of law. If people are forthcoming, if they lie, all bets are off and then they look to build safety procedures that everyone has to adopt. And so as a result, the airline industry has one of the greatest safety records in the history of mankind. By contrast, doctors can be sued for the slightest mistake. And so they’re encouraged basically by that negative incentive to to be vague in their reports, to not share information, to create a hierarchy of secrecy, to say that things were a one off when people died. And so they’re not able to spot mistakes quickly and learn from those mistakes because of the the negative financial incentive. And so I think that if we had a blockchain technology, if we had a large disseminated technology and laws to back it, that essentially gave them immunity for telling the truth within a short period of time after every mistake allowed them to use something like a Ziek snarks technology to file reports anonymously and aggregate those reports to anatomies that data. It allows us to react in real time. I think that the blockchain technology, particularly a lot of the anonymization technologies that are available, can allow us to disseminate the information and allow people to report on these things. And if we pass the correct laws, we can dramatically reform the medical industry to support openness and learning from mistakes, which I think accelerates open science and open and accelerates our ability to deal with pandemics and other problems in real time. The world is changing because of Soviet 19, whether we wanted to or not. What will the new world look like and what role bitcoin and cryptocurrency will having it, according to you, covered leads to a large scale recession or depression. Then we’d start to see things like capital controls go into place. We would start to see people happy to take their money out of the bank. We’ve already seen the United States move to introduce a digital dollar, then strip it out of the bill. We know China is already basically beta testing the the digital dollars that they’ve made and they’ve already moved towards killing off exchanges. We’ve seen Australia restrict, you know, tens of thousands of 10000 dollar above transactions. We saw India try to phase out cash almost overnight and have to backtrack. So governments are going to want to have firmer control if there is a serious crisis, if they put capital controls into place or they feel like inflation is running rampant, they’re going to want to have centralized control over those things. And they will introduce digital versions of technology because that will give them stronger digital control of everybody’s life. It will put a panopticon in everyone’s pocket as a result of the crisis, and it will accelerate the speed at which governments do this. And so in in in my mind, that’s going to be the. This route to eliminating cash and in the event that you eliminate cash, it certainly creates a lot of different pressures on society, specifically societies that are primarily cash based at this point, Will suffered tremendously and also just simply the ability to disagree with with the government is part of a healthy, functioning society. It’s the you. And we don’t need we don’t need someone to consistently track every single transaction that you made so that they can build a psychological profile of you or just geographically turn off the money to to starve out something that they don’t like in a political response. All these types of things are going to be a cyberpunk nightmare that will soon be everyone’s reality. And so I am still hopeful that that decentralized crypto currency is specifically anonymized. Decentralized cryptocurrencies provide a bulk work against those types of disasterous scenarios which are coming quicker than people imagined in this scenario. They will be accelerated in this scenario potentially. Thank you, Dad. That was very cool and interesting. Thanks for having me on. Always fun. And you guys, don’t forget to subscribe to a channel for more exclusive content. Quintel you have like Subscribe and Hoddle. Mark COLVIN.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-post-covid-19-bullish-or-bearish/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/04/bitcoin-post-covid-19-bullish-or.html

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jeffrmayhugh · 4 years

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Bitcoin Post-COVID-19: Bullish or Bearish? | Futurist Explains

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heatherrdavis1 · 4 years

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Bitcoin Post-COVID-19: Bullish or Bearish? | Futurist Explains

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Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-post-covid-19-bullish-or-bearish/

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cryptosharks1 · 4 years

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Bitcoin Post-COVID-19: Bullish or Bearish? | Futurist Explains

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source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-post-covid-19-bullish-or-bearish/

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buytabletsonline · 6 years

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Cryptocurrencies, and particularly Bitcoin, are a hot topic. Its popularity has led to volatile prices, a wave of new and copycat entries into the market, and companies like Kodak switching business models to rent out Bitcoin mining equipment. Make what you will of this wave of enthusiasm for digital currencies, but their surging popularity is now also drawing scrutiny from governments and major tech advertising companies like Facebook. A crackdown seems imminent, which might put a lid on the cryptocurrency craze.

Most recently, Facebook Product Management Director Rob Leathern announced the social media platform is banning ads for cryptocurrencies and associated promotional materials. The company says it is targeting “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” It’s a deliberately broad blanket ban on dubious products related to financial services, including cryptocurrencies, designed to protect Facebook users from potential scams.

Facebook has implemented a deliberately broad ban on dubious products related to financial services, including cryptocurrencies

Facebook’s ban explored

The ban means advertising a variety of financial products potentially associated with deceptive practices is now prohibited on Facebook. This includes Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and their initial coin offerings (ICOs), as well as broader financial services like binary options. The policy extends to other platforms under the Facebook umbrella like Instagram too. The company says the rule is intentionally broad so that it can detect and catch misleading advertising practices and leave the door open for future revision.

Misleading ads have no place on Facebook: just launched a new policy to prohibit ads promoting financial products & services frequently associated with misleading/deceptive promotional practices, (e.g. binary options, initial coin offerings, or cryptocurrency) .. 1/2

— Rob Leathern (@robleathern) January 30, 2018

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Facebook users, as well as those browsing other media sites, have likely encountered advertisements for services promising low-risk-high-reward financial opportunities, cryptocurrency investment “advice,” and other tedious messages from shameless self-publicists claiming to have untold insights into the whole system. All of the above have the potential to do harm and at the very least they’re a blight on advertising quality in general.

The ban on ICO ads is particularly important, as this is the area in which some of the largest cryptocurrency scams have taken place. Outright fake or overinflated fundraising ICOs promising big gains for minimal risk are designed simply to separate unwitting investors from their money. PlexCoin is perhaps the most well documented example, which fleeced $15 million from investors and recently saw head of the company Dominic Lacroix sentenced to two months in prison. Numerous other fraudulent ICOs have been spotted, including one flaunting a fake association with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

Facebook isn’t the only major technology company taking action against potential exploitation. Google is looking to clamp down on advertisers using its DoubleClick ad service to run cryptocurrency mining malware on devices across Europe and Asia, examples of which have even been spotted in YouTube ads. The company hasn’t instigated a sweeping Facebook-style ban on cryptocurrencies, instead adopting specific policies to find abusive advertisements related to the mining phenomenon.

Mounting government pressure

It shouldn’t be surprising to hear that governments around the world are also trying to figure out how to deal with cryptocurrencies. Enthusiasts may extol the virtues of freedom from government-controlled fiat currency, but there’s an increasingly compelling case for regulation of ICOs and, perhaps more importantly, trading exchanges.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently subpoenaed one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges Bitfinex and Tether, who share the same CEO. Tether controversially issues crypto-tokens known as USD Tethers (USDTs) for trading, which are supposedly backed by an equal number of reserve U.S. dollars. USDTs can be traded directly for Bitcoin at the Bitfinex exchange and they have allegedly been used to inflate Bitcoin prices. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reportedly investigating whether Tether can actually back its USDTs, or if the company has essentially been fabricating cash out of thin air, which would be illegal.

Editor’s Pick

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency has been a hot topic of debate among businesses, government, and the general public for a while now. It’s similar to currencies like dollars and euros in that it holds value and allows you …

Clearly there’s a place for government agencies and regulation to reign in this type of exploitation. In fact, it may even be necessary if Bitcoin and other currencies are to survive as viable and trustworthy means of exchange or commodities.

The scope of potential government oversight is perhaps most observable in South Korea, a country with arguably the biggest public interest in cryptocurrencies. The country is the third largest Bitcoin market. Data suggest a third of South Korea’s workers have invested in at least one such currency, and one of its malls is preparing to be the first to accept 12 different digital currencies across all of its stores. The country has even coined the phrase “bitcoin zombie” for those obsessed with prices around the clock.

The technology’s prevalence in South Korea has caused the government to take a particularly keen interest in regulating the market. The country is now clamping down on potentially fraudulent and illicit activities in this space to prevent market manipulation. Officially, South Korea’s finance minister stated the government has no plans to shut down the trading of cryptocurrencies in the country. However, measures implemented so far include banning anonymous trading accounts, preventing foreigners and minors from trading, outlawing ICOs, and placing additional restrictions on advertisements.

There’s an increasingly compelling case for regulation of ICOs and, perhaps more importantly, trading exchanges, to prevent manipulation.

China has gone much further, already shutting down virtual coin platforms trading in Bitcoin, blocking ICOs, and clamping down on miners too. China is particularly worried about issues like capital flight, money laundering, and threats to sovereignty and state control. India too is showing increasing scepticism towards these currencies. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley just told lawmakers that “the government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system.”

As products like Bitcoin continue to permeate public consciousness, many other governments may end up taking stances along the lines of South Korea, and perhaps even China, to grapple with the risks of what is essentially little more than speculative investment.

morningadvertiser

End of the road for cryptocurrencies?

There are some major problems surrounding the explosive growth and popularity of cryptocurrencies — it’s not just the wildly fluctuating price. Between fraud and regular hacking attempts, opportunistic and predatory advertising, and potential price manipulation, there are plenty of very good reasons to be skeptical about cryptocurrencies. What if the bubble pops?

Cryptocurrencies, in their current form, may well be hit hard by increasing government scrutiny, but that presents an opportunity for the market to mature.

The threat of hardline government stances on cryptocurrency certainly has the potential to stamp out its unfettered growth. Recent developments have already prompted investor hesitation. However, it’s perhaps pragmatic to realize the free-for-all nature enjoyed by some so far probably needs to end for these currencies to mature into usable and useful tools, rather than speculative rollercoaster rides. The massive peaks and troughs of Bitcoin value hardly make for a stable regular currency.

The approaches taken by Facebook and official regulators are probably just the start of the normalization of cryptocurrency in public life. That said, even in the most extreme clampdown it’s unlikely that cryptocurrency can ever be put back in the box. Outlawing cryptocurrencies would just drive them underground, much like what happened with the file-sharing revolution — just look at PirateBay, Megaupload or Napster.

However, if regulators uncover major manipulation of any kind, confidence in Bitcoin and other currencies could be shaken to the point of a complete price collapse, much like the dot-com and real estate bubbles of the past. Either way, cryptocurrencies won’t stay the same hot commodity they are now, but the blockchain currency journey certainly isn’t over yet.

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medievalsamurai-blog · 7 years

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Chapter 1 Grabbing Your Attention Written By: Aki Hosoda

Prologue:

Our beautiful land was full of light. Our land is full of different kingdoms and creatures just like our world today. There are also heroes that bring more goodness in our world. Ranging from knights, wizards, rogues and many more. Things were pleasant in our beautiful land. But it was not until the darkness arrived. The darkness surrounds, brought something that should not be said in public. The darkness strips away layers upon layers until there was nothing left. The darkness whispered closely and after hearing the voice of darkness, darkness was in control. All was doom… at first. But it began enjoyment. Darkness puts its hands on two large hills then all the way down to a small moist cave. Then grabbing by the neck of the dragon, pulled, pulled, and pulled until flames rained all over the large hills. The darkness enjoyed it very much. Then the darkness proceeds to have the dragon enters a small rabbit hole located below the moist cave. There was pain at first then it became pleasure. Screams, so loud that it can be heard throughout the land. Ah! Ah! Ah! …

“… What the hell is this!?” exclaimed the armored man holding a book. “That is an erotica I’ve been working on,” said a short middle aged man in peasant clothing, “My wife told me my writing should be less explicit.”

“Yeah, well you’re better off as a gardener.” As the armored man tosses the book behind him and a disappointed peasant man catching the book; they are walking along the path in the woods being on their way to the peasant’s village. Suddenly the peasant man noticed a creature up ahead blocking the path and shrieks, “Look out! It’s a monster! It’s a Peach Frog!” The large creature has a body of a pink peach with arms, legs and a head of an average frog. It’s one of many different types of Fruit Frogs and there are others, such as Apple Frogs, Orange Frogs, Grape Frogs and so on. But Grape Frogs are just large normal looking frogs with purple skin that shit out grapes, puke out jelly and piss out wine; wine is very expensive in this world. The armored man gallantly steps forward and says, “Don’t worry, I’ll take this creature! After all, I’m from the Knighthood League! If my name isn’t- *splat*

The armored man was abruptly killed when a Peach Frog jumped on top of him. “Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” panicked the peasant man as he was trying to run away. The Peach Frog hops towards the peasant man, ready to eat him, suddenly the frog shrieked in pain. A thin blade popped out from inside the Peach Frog with a bright blue light emanating from the same stab hole. Then the sword rapidly swings in multiple direction, that could almost be seen in a naked eye, and the sword quickly went back inside the frog; yet the frog is still intact but motionless. A second later the frog exploded. As the peasant man is on his ass to the ground being shocked to what he just witnessed while the remains of the Peach Frog is raining down, he sees two figures that were inside the frog. One of them is a 5.3 feet tall male samurai with medium length coarse black hair and dark brown eyes wearing a black kimono robe with a white sash around his waist as a belt, white pants, a blue scabbard on his left side, pair of black shoes and a large brown drawstring bag strapped over his left shoulder; while holding a katana sword on his right hand while resting the blade on his right shoulder with his left hand is emitting blue flames. Another is a glowing blue fairy with round spherical body with two sets of insect-like wings and a pair of yellow eyes. These two are the main protagonists of this story. “Wow, way to make an entrance on a first chapter.” said the fairy, “This is why we should’ve stayed at an inn or pitched a tent!” “Well look on the bright-side,” said the samurai enthusiastically as he sheathed his sword, “we’re alive! Plus, we got food!” As the samurai picks up one of the remains of the Peach Frog, eats it and with his mouth full he says, “Holy shit! This is delicious!”

***

Hi, I’m the narrator. Some of you might be confused because a samurai popped out of nowhere. Some of you might be pissed because this is not a traditional medieval fantasy story with eloquent vocabularies, overly descriptive details and bunch of other shit. Well, here I say artistically speaking, traditions aren’t necessary and keep an open mind. Just look on the bright side, at least this story is not overly descriptive with a slow-paced narration of a constipated turtle like the book, The Great Gatsby, or else the prologue would’ve been longer than three pages if I described every little detail to the point of using the reader’s imagination would’ve been unnecessary; making this whole reading experience boring and painful as shit. And if any of you all are pissed by my statement, my only excuse is that this story is very comedic.

Anyway, this story sets in the land of Euros, which is no different than looking at the map of modern day Europe. Any countries in Europe that has euros for currency are regions in this story such as the French Region, the German Region, the Spaniard Region and so on. The currency consists of golden coins called Europes and silvers coins are called differently depending on the region such as in the French Region they would be called France, in the German Region they would be called Germany and so on. The currency in Euros works very similar to an American currency system, such as one Europe would equal 100 silver coins. And just like America’s currency with quarters, dimes and nickels, Euros also have that, but they are called Q’s, D’s and N’s. But the only difference is that Euros do not have pennies. Because pennies are useless. The setting of this world juxtaposes medieval Europe with post-modern American society, like The Flintstones, Dave the Barbarian or The Roman Holidays. This world, like any other world, is not perfect. Monsters are popping out of the woodwork, there are corrupt greedy kings, difference race of beings coexisting such as humans with different skin tones, elves, anthropomorphics (which are humanoid animals like some of the characters from Bojack Horseman) and so on; yet discrimination still exist and whole bunch of other shit. With all the chaos happening in the land of Euros, a long time ago the capital king created the Knighthood League to protect innocent citizens from danger, minimize illegal activities and provide service and needs at a certain price. It’s like a combination of police force and craigslist. The Knighthood League not only consists of knights, but it also includes various types of people with special skills and magical abilities; and a samurai is one of those people.

Speaking of a samurai, the samurai’s name is Akira Hikari (for those who are having a hard time pronouncing his name it’s Aw-Key-Rah He-Kah-Ree. You’re welcome). Akira is a 20-year-old man of the Yen descent. He has no memories of his native land yet he was told the Land of Yen was destroyed in the huge catastrophic war. He was abandoned and found on a fruit cart in Euro as so he claims. Energetic, good-hearted, naïve and he’s always up for an adventure. The fairy’s name is Ulric. He recently met Akira and through some circumstances he decided to stick around. He claims to be the smartest creature on earth. It’s worth noting that having an aide fairy is very outdated in this world. Reasons being is that people have access to helpful tips and guides in books and articles from the group of geniuses called The Scholar Society and aide fairies are known to be useless and very annoying. Yet Ulric stated, “those guys are fucking idiots. Anyone who relies on The SS might as well rely on horoscopes.” Nihilistic, jaded, sarcastic, intelligent and drunk half of time, yet, keep in mind, he is not completely heartless.

“Man, I can’t believe I finished this book after that long-ass exposition,” said Ulric as he’s holding the peasant man’s erotica with his top two wings while keeping himself flying with his bottom two wings, “but, yeah, you gotta be explicit or else people will read this entire thing with a soft dick. But I would quit while you’re ahead. Since many people have access to porn with their mirrors to jerk off to.” “Uh, thanks,” said the peasant man as he was given his book back, “I’ll keep that in mind.” The functions of mirrors in this world, besides pleasing narcissists, are used as cellphones, televisions, and computers. Pocket-sized mirrors, as cellphones, are called pocket-screens. Mirrors that are usually around 12”X16”, as computers, are called com-screens. And large wide mirrors ranging 16”X20” or larger, are called tele-screens. Many of you all would think if Akira had a pocket-screen and have access to guides and tips from the Scholar Society, he wouldn’t need Ulric. However, Akira’s pocket-screen’s only functions within certain limits are to call, text, record voices, take photos and get alerts from the Knighthood League. So essentially Akira has a go-screen. And Akira is in a huge debt of 19,800 Europes. Akira lives in an apartment complex called Creature Junction that is located within the capital kingdom of Euro, Paris. The kingdom is large as Paris in reality and it is surrounded by huge walls for protection. How his debt came to be was that on the day he bought his apartment he was given two payment options from his land lord. Either pay a monthly rent of 360 Europes or pay 19,800 Europes in three months and afterwards he’ll have a rent-free apartment. He chose the second option believing he could easily achieve that in three months. So, as of now, Akira cannot buy anything. And so far, Akira has 17,200 Europes left. Plus, Akira has poor direction skills outside of Paris. Anyway, the two heroes are on their way to the peasant man’s village to take over the request originally assigned to the dead armored man. “By the way,” said the peasant man, “thank you so much young… lady I-

“Actually I’m a man,” as Akira corrected him.

“Oh, sorry. You’re wearing a dress so I assumed you’re a woman. Unless if you’re a crossdresser-which I’m not judging or anything-

“This isn’t a dress. This is a kimono. Many people in the Land of Yen wore something like this.”

“… So, are all the men crossdressers in that land?”

“… No-or at least that’s what I think- anyway, this is just something that I like to wear.”

The peasant man shrugs and says, “Well if you say so.”

It’s worth noting that many people in Euros are not exposed nor familiar with the cultures from the eastern lands. That is why many people think Akira is a crossdresser. Akira is use to it, yet gets slightly irritated and often corrects people many times. “But again,” said the peasant man, “thank you so much for taking this request on such short notice!” “Yeah, you should be more than grateful,” said Ulric, “cause that one guy you’ve originally hired was one weak pussy ass bitch.” “Ulric!” exclaimed Akira.

“What? I’m just saying. Anyone who gets killed by a weak common creature, like a Peach Frog, says a lot.”

“Yeah, but he was still a human being! Don’t you think we should’ve given him a proper burial, said some words and contact his family instead of just burying his body in the middle of the path?”

“Akira, in a given circumstances, what we knew about that guy is that he had a face, he wore an armor and he was killed by a Peach Frog. So, I don’t it matters to literally anyone at this point.”

“Well it matters to me! That’s why I’m gonna go to his folks to tell them the news after this quest! Thankfully his address is within Paris.”

“Okay, we’re here,” said the peasant man.

Like most to all low economic villages, they have stone houses with roofs made of hay, a stone well full of drinkable water and various small fields of crops for food and manufacture; that is how most villages stay financially stable. Except in this village some of houses are falling apart and there’s a very large field with only three people tending the crops. Akira went up to the field to take a look at what they’re growing and exclaims, “Damn! These bean pods are huge! They’re bigger than regular beans!” “Wow, you’re easily impressed,” said Ulric sarcastically, “yeah those are called heart beans, beans that are the size of a healthy human heart. Haven’t you a seen one of these at a marketplace? It’s not like they’re rare.”

“I don’t go to marketplace that much; I usually hunt for my own food. I mean, what’s the point of buying food when there are shit ton of food you can find in nature.”

“Do you always know what you’re eating when you’re out there?”

“Rarely.”

“… I am surprised you’re not dead yet.”

Then Akira sees three people in a far distance tending the crops, he yells, “Hey! How’s it going over there?” The three people did not respond. “Okay, I could see you guys are busy!” as Akira kept yelling, “Keep at it!” As Akira walked back over to the peasant man, he asks, “So what’s the situation here?” “Well, it’s our local king,” as the peasant man began explaining, “we’ve been doing very well producing heart beans yet our king has been giving us less money than what we were supposed to earn. Some of the people from our village have tried talking to him, but they ended up getting yelled at and told us to produce more beans.” “Sounds like this guy’s a real asshole,” said Ulric, “who is this king?” “His name is Alexander Johnson,” continued the peasant man, “he is notorious for being aggressive and unreasonable. He was recently made king of this village after our previous king died. And just last week, one of our villager’s friend came to visit, who was an anthropomorphic frog, then our king came to visit with his two guards. When our king saw the frog guy, he immediately went up to him and asked him if he was gay. When the frog guy said yes, he was taken away up to his castle without saying anything! Do you understand the situation we’re in? Our village is terribly poor right now and at this rate this village will crumble to nothing!” “Hmm...,” said Akira, “unfair treatment towards the citizen and an undocumented arrest, yup, sounds like a real corrupt king. What do you think, Ulric?” “Oh I already knew the king is a real piece of shit the second we got into this village,” said Ulric, “any village with a depressing atmosphere is an obvious sign for a corrupt king.” “So,” said the peasant man, “does that mean you’ll help us?” As Akira looks at the peasant man with a gallant look and says, “Isn’t it obvious? Of course, I’ll help! I’m a hero after all!” Then the peasant man got on his knees and exclaims, “Oh thank you, kind sir! Here! Take these heart beans with you as our appreciation! But don’t eat more than five of these, or else you’ll damage your digestive system.” After the peasant man gave Akira an abundant amount of heart beans, he showed the path to King Johnson’s castle, which is on the top of the hill through the woods. The two heroes start their journey to the top of the hill. “Alright Ulric,” said Akira excitedly, “let’s do this shit!”

“‘I’m a hero after all’? Really!? Could you be anymore cliché than that horseshit line?” said Ulric.

“Well what else could I have said?”

“Anything! You could’ve said ‘will do!’ or ‘sure thing!’ or you could’ve walked off without saying anything for at least two second and say ‘let’s go fuck shit up!’”

“Ooh, I like the last one! I’ll be sure to remember that one for our next adventure!”

***

The two heroes showed up in front of King Alexander Johnson’s castle, which is a small two story enceinte castle that is made entirely out of gold with few windows and huge double doors. “Man, looks like this king likes to live luxuriously,” said Akira. “More like stupidly extravagant,” said Ulric as he is holding a tiny bottle of alcohol, “I’m surprised that this guy isn’t arrested yet. It’s pretty obvious what he’s been doing with those people’s money. Eh, whatever. Let’s go deal with this thing.” As Ulric chugged the entire bottle and tosses it behind him, the two heroes went up to the huge golden doors and Akira gave three knocks on the door. As one the doors opens, King Johnson showed up. He is a large thick man with balding hair wearing a gold tunic, pair of gold pants, a pair of gold shoes and a gold robe. “Who are you?” asked the hostile king, “This better be important, because I was in the middle creating an… info about the… the… uh… wars-yeah-wars.” “Sir, I’m from the Knighthood League,” said Akira, “and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions and search the whole perimeter of your castle.”

“… Do you have a search warrant?”

“Uh… no.”

“THEN GO AWAY!”

As the king slams the door, he goes back to sit on his golden throne, with his two golden armored guards, one of each standing next to him, and returns to his actual business: painting his penis gold. “You might be small, little guy,” said the king talking to his unfortunate penis, “but no ladies will deny sucking you off pretty soon.” Just like the exterior of the castle, everything inside is made out of gold as well. Stairs, floor, a very large chandelier and even his long carpet that leads to his throne to the double doors is made of gold. Just as Ulric said: stupidly extravagant.

“He’s definitely guilty,” said Ulric to Akira, “I mean, the castle is one thing, but asking for a search warrant is really obvious.” “How is that the case?” asked Akira.

“If anybody ask for a search warrant before any of the authorities come in, it’s clear that they are hiding shit.”

“Well you got a good point there. So far I took a photo of his castle, but we need more evidence to arrest this guy and we don’t have a search warrant.”

“In a situation like this, we don’t need a search warrant. Do you still have that lightning orb you found earlier?”

“Yeah, hold on a sec… found it!”

Akira pulled out a small yellow orb out of his bag and it is covered in blood from the raw Peach Frog meat. “Good,” said Ulric, “now throw it at that castle wall.” “What? No,” as Akira refused, “this is my only lightning orb and I don’t know how to cast spells. Plus, why do you want me to throw it at a castle?”

“Akira, trust me, I am smart enough to know many, many things. And besides it’s not like those spell orbs are rare, you could find more of them in our next quest and plus when the hell have you ever relied on those things? As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been doing just fine without them, so throw the damn orb!”

“Alright, alright!”

As Akira threw the orb at the castle wall, the orb shattered from the impact causing a huge electrical shock wave throughout the entire castle. While this was happening, there were loud screams from inside the castle. Akira was shocked to what just happened and exclaims, “Holy shit!” “Yeah,” said Ulric, “that’s what he gets for building this stupid castle. Honestly, building this thing on top of a hill is like asking mother nature to murder him when there are lightning storms. Anyway, c’mon Akira, let’s go.”

“Are you crazy! What if he’s dead!? Then I would be charged for murder! And what about that frog guy!? We should’ve at least checked if he was alive!”

“Akira, relax. That one orb isn’t enough to kill him, it’s enough to make him pass out. And also, you’re talking about a guy who is notorious for being unreasonable and from what we’ve heard from that villager, he’s definitely anthrophobic and homophobic! If you were that frog guy and if that golden hostile fuck went up to you and asked if you’re a gay frog and took you to his castle do you think you would be alive the next day? I don’t think so! Plus, it’s been a week, of course he’d be dead! His corpse is rotting somewhere in that castle! So, c’mon let’s get this shit over with!”

As the two heroes stepped inside the golden castle they see all three individuals being unconscious at the king’s throne; with the king slouched on his throne with his hand in his pants and his two guards on the floor. “Jesus,” said Akira. “I know,” said Ulric, “this guy is greedier than I thought. Look at this shit! Even his goddamn carpet is made of gold! And I’m willing to bet he only has two guards so he doesn’t have to pay much! What more does this excessive piece of fuck want!?”

“I was talking about them! I really hope they’re not dead!”

As Akira checks all three of their pulses, he gives a sigh of relief and says, “they’re still breathing.” “See?” said Ulric, “What did I tell ya? Aren’t you glad that I was right like many times before? You know, if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t be in here right now-

“Okay! I get it! You could stop busting my balls.”

“Hey Akira, can you move this carpet for a sec?”

As Akira moved the carpet, they found a hatch that is located right in front of the double doors and it’s the only one that is not made of gold. “Wow, look at that,” said Ulric, “the only thing in the castle that is not made of gold for once. Alright, Akira, open this hatch so I could go check this out and you go check upstairs.”

“Will do.”

After Akira opened the hatch Ulric went down to see what’s in the hatch, while Akira went upstairs. As Ulric reached six feet down below the castle, he found himself in a dark room. “Ugh! It smells like sulfur in here!” exclaimed Ulric, “And why is there not a single torch light? And I swear if I see more golden shit I’m gonna be pissed!” Then Ulric made himself glow brighter to illuminate the room and he found himself in a dungeon with bleak greasy brick walls with five skeletons without skulls chained to the wall. And when Ulric reached the other side of the room, he found a recently deceased corpse which revealed to be the same frog guy the peasant man mentioned. The frog guy’s corpse showed there was excessive bleeding from his ears and nose with his skull completely crushed. Ulric is shocked to what he saw and says, “Oh my god…”

Meanwhile, Akira is in the king’s bed room finding more things that are made of gold. “Dammit,” said Akira, “all I’m finding up here is more golden shit.” Feeling disappointed from finding nothing, he decides to go downstairs to see what Ulric found in the hatch. By the time he reached the hatch the king quickly woke up, noticed Akira and screams, “HEY! WHAT ARE DOING IN MY CASTLE!?”

“I should be the one asking questions,” said Akira, “why is there a hatch and have you been converting most of villager’s money to create this castle?”

“Are you kidding! Those villagers don’t need all that money! They have all that delicious beans to sustain themselves and I have been giving them plenty!”

“In an unfair amount! Those villagers deserve the amount money they earn from producing those beans!”

“Well those shit bags are down there and I’m up on this hill. So, they are the least of my concerns!”

“And what happened to that frog guy a week ago?”

“Oh, him? He’s been long dead. He’s an abomination like the rest of them gay froggers! You know there’s a lake that turns people gay and those frogs been swimming in it and they are using them tongues by licking people’s buttholes and turning them gay!”

“… Yeah, I don’t think that’s true.”

“IT IS GODDAMMIT! THERE’S A LAKE THAT TURNED THOSE FROGS GAY AND THOSE FROGS ARE MAKING MORE PEOPLE GAY WITH THEIR TONGUES!!!” No such lake exists. Even though this world is full of endless possibilities, but there is no magical lake that turns people into homosexuals.

“Well from your words, I think I have enough evidence to put you under arrest in the name of the Knighthood League,” said Akira as he revealed he was recording their conversation on his go-screen, “you gonna have to come with me to Paris.” The king’s face turned red with anger and yells, “I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE! ESPECIALLY WITH A CROSS-DRESSING WEIRDO LIKE YOU!!!”

“Then I guess I’m gonna have to take you by force!”

“OH BRING IT ON YOU SKINNY LITTLE BITCH! But first I need to fart.” As King Alexander, from the other side of the room, has his ass face towards Akira and grunting trying to concentrate; Ulric came out of the hatch and says “Hey! Akira! Listen-

“Just a sec Ulric,” said Akira, “I’m about to fight this guy but I’m letting him fart for a sec.”

“OH SHIT! AKIRA! MOVE!!”

As soon as the king farted, it did not come out as an actual fart sound, instead a loud booming scream vocalized as “FART!!!” came out; which created a large hole on the castle wall. Akira managed to dodge it; he is hanging on the top corner of the room. “What the hell was that!?” asked Akira being very confused. “There’s more to that greedy fat piece of shit than I’d anticipated,” said Ulric, “this guy is born with a skill of emitting highly enhanced scream of high amplitude. He is also one of those people who are born with two mouths: one on where it should be and the other on random places and it looks as though he has a mouth as an anus. It’s like that play Teeth but with anal.”

“LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY CASTLE WALL!!!” scream the king. “Bitch! That was your fault!” said Ulric.

“I’M GONNA MAKE YOU BOTH BLEED TO DEATH!”

“Go ahead and try!” said Akira confidently as he emits blue flames from his legs; then he jumps from the wall to the floor then as the speed picks up he starts to rapidly bouncing off multiple surface in the room. Akira is born with a skill called Aura. This skill allows him to enhance his strength, defense, speed and magic one at a time. Usually there are spells for enhancement, but unlike the enhancement spells which can boost up by ten, Akira’s Aura can boost up to a hundred. Let’s say in a role-playing video game, like Final Fantasy, a character’s speed stat is 33. With an enhancement spell, it would only go to 43. But with Akira’s Aura, it would go up to 133. Akira’s Aura is also capable of enhancing other people, shoot beams and projectiles from either his hand or his sword and maybe more as time progresses as he levels up. Anyway, as Akira was about to throw a punch to the king’s face, the king let out a huge sonic scream of “YAAAAAH!!!” from his regular mouth; causing the whole foundation of the castle to vibrate and blasting Akira to the wall. As Akira got up and exclaims, “Ow! Dammit! I was so close!” Then the king lets out another vocalized sonic fart and Akira manages to dodge it very easily since he now knows the function of that ability. Then Akira keeps moving while Ulric is flying closely besides him and the king kept using his mouth attacks. “Looks like from his regular mouth, his attacks are pervasive,” said Ulric, “while his farts are more condensed yet twice as powerful! I hope, you got the idea to avoid his farts at all cost! Or else you’ll end up like that frog guy down in the dungeon! I’ve seen his corpse and it was fucked up! His skull was completely crushed!” “Shit!” exclaimed Akira, “well I can’t get close to him without having my ears bleed!”

“Then why don’t you use your sword for projectile attacks then?”

“I won’t.”

“What!? What do you mean, you won’t!?”

“I’m not using my sword against someone who is unarmed and is a non-dark intelligent living being. It’s not noble.”

“Akira, this is no time to be a bushido bastard! His voice and his fat ass are the only thing keeping him from being vulnerable! Unless if you have another plan to beat this guy if not we’re shit out of luck!” While the two heroes are still avoiding the king’s attack, Akira starts to slow down from using too much of his aura for enhancing his speed. “Aw shit!” exclaimed Akira, “I need to eat!” While still running, Akira quickly reached into his bag and pulled out some Peach Frog meat to chow down as fast as he could. One weakness about Akira’s ability is that it taxes his body’s stamina; in order to regain more aura energy, he has to eat something. By the time he finished eating, he hatched an idea. From that point, he starts to jump to one surface to another, the same thing he did before, except this time he threw a heart bean into the king’s mouth. After the king swallowed the bean whole, he yells, “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!? ARE YOU TRYING TO FIGHT ME OR FEED ME!? But keep em coming. They’re deliciously peachy.” Without responding to the king, Akira kept throwing beans into the king’s mouth until he used up to the total of ten beans. After that, Akira quickly threw two fire orbs on the floor, completely missing the king, which then caused two large flames to appear in the room. Then Akira picked up two golden unconscious guards, went to the large hole that was created from earlier and yells, “Come on Ulric! Let’s get the hell out of here!” Then the two quickly got out of the castle leaving King Alexander Johnson surrounded by few flames. “YEAH! YOU BETTER RUN!” screamed the king, “THIS IS WHY NO ONE DARES TO MESS WITH KING ALEXANDER JOHNS- Oh god! What the hell? Ugh! My stomach!” Suddenly, the king’s stomach started to expand like a balloon. By the time he gotten really big, he became immobile and started to panic by saying, “UGH! AW SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!!!” Meanwhile, outside of the castle, Akira and Ulric, with two guards tied up and still being unconscious, are at short distance away from the castle. “I gotta have to admit,” said Ulric, “that was some good thinking there Akira.” “Thanks Ulric,” said Akira.

“And you might wanna cover your ears for this.” As both heroes covered their ears, they watched the golden castle explode in multiple pieces; with the king blasting off into the distance leaving a long smoke trail coming out of his ass while the king is screaming, out of fear, and his ass screaming out “FAAAAAAAAAH”. “I just hope he’ll land on something safe,” said Akira. “Don’t worry about it Akira,” said Ulric, “I’m sure with his thick body it’ll lessen the impact when he lands. Plus, judging by the distance he’ll land straight to Paris, where he’ll be arrested for sure.”

“Well, now I’m really relieved to hear that.”

“Yeah, that’s the charm of being main protagonists; they always have the highest luck.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Anyway, let’s take those photos of that dungeon you’ve mentioned for one last evidence and let’s collect all the gold for those villagers.”

After the two heroes completed the quest, they’re on their way back to Paris while Akira is carrying three huge gold bricks. “Man, it was really nice of them to not only paying us 500 Europes but also giving us these golden bricks,” said Akira, “that’s even more than our last quest!” “Well you did handle that guy like a fucking boss,” said Ulric, “not a lot of knights would do something like that. In fact, no knights would ever do that!”

“Well I couldn’t have done without your help.”

“Yeah, no shit. You don’t need to say that twice.”

“By the way, how much Europes would be converted from these bricks?”

“Definitely 3,000.”

“Sweet! … I feel really good about today. With the two of us, I feel like we’re gonna accomplish a lot of great things … I’m glad I found you Ulric.”

“And I’m glad you’re not weak little bitch. Hey, by the way, have much time do you have to get that debt taken care of?”

“A month.”

“Wait… A MONTH!?”

“Uh… y- yeah.”

“What the fuck have you been doing for the past two months!?”

“… Did I mentioned that I’m not very good with directions outside of Paris?”

“Are you that bad!?”

“… Yes.”

“What the fuck!? … WHAT. THE. FUCK!?!?”

Debt Counter: 13,700 Europes

31 Days Left

Epilogue:

As Akira went up to a one-story house he knocked on the door and an average woman wearing a blue tunic opens the door and asks, “can I help you?” “Yes, ma’am,” said Akira, “is this the household of Thomas Fister?”

“I’m his wife. So yes, what do you want with my husband?”

“Actually, I’m from the Knighthood League and I came here to inform you that… your husband unfortunately died by being crushed to death by a Peach Frog… I’m really sorry for-

“Hold on, wait… Did you say my husband got crushed by a Peach Frog?”

“… Yes.” After three seconds of silence, the woman broke out into huge laughter. “Oh my god!” laughed the woman, “Hey Phillip! Come here!” A tall muscular man wearing nothing but white braises show up at the door and says, “What it is?”

“My dumbass husband,” said the woman while still laughing, “got killed by a Peach Frog!”

“Oh my god!” laughed the muscular man, “What a shitty way to die! Now we don’t have to worry about getting caught!” It is clear that Mrs. Fister was having an affair with that muscular man. Akira, being very confused by the situation, says, “Okay… I’m gonna go now.” “Okay! Take care!” said the woman still laughing. Then Akira walked away from the house while those two were still laughing their ass off.

#medievalfantasy #fantasy #samurai #comedic #comedy #alex jones #lol #book #funny #funnytext #hilarious #frogs

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apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016

As 2015 comes to a open, its normal to get romantic and start looking back on the memories constructed over the past year.

Every year has its ups and downs, and some are more fateful than others.

But as I began to think about my 26 th year and the ones before it, I realized for me, theres one fool-proof lane to stir recalls that will stand out in my mind forever, and that mode is to travel.

On top of the priceless knows that “re coming with” exploring a brand-new region, traveling obligates you a most independent, open-minded party and teaches you life assignments you might never learnt cooped up at home.

So while your health and fitness destinations and saving coin are important( and Im right there with you on those, extremely ), I would argue that we should all puttraveling more towards the top of our to-do rosters for2 016.

To help, I reached out to two millennial wandering bloggers who are killing video games, Brooke Saward of World of Wanderlust and Trevor Morrow of Trevor Morrow Travel, to be determined how we can all realize interpreting “the worlds” a realistic resolution in 2016.

Get your priorities in order.

Whether its limited vacation eras or a lack of funds, its easy to make excuses when it comes to travel.

Morrow, who is based in Los Angeles and has done everything from Tarzan-ing in the jungle to brewery hopping in Australia, declares his globetrotting lifestyle isnt plausible for everyone, but he enunciates if there is even the smallestamount of wiggle area in national budgets, all you have to do is prioritize.

He responds,

If gazing fresh is your priority, youll waste your extra money on clothes. If sitting at home and playing video games is your priority, youll invest your money on the latest PlayStation. If traveling is your priority…well, you find where Im departing. You have to really want to travel. Just like you have to really want to break a bad dres or genuinely wishes to get in shape to supersede. If “youre going” it, youll figure out a acces to make it happen. Its as simple as that.

Start out small.

So perhaps you cant afford a ticket around the world just yet. The key thenis to think local.

Morrow mentions,

Try to take three long weekend expeditions this year. Boom, youre now a traveler. Wake up early one Saturday morning and drive a few hours to the nearest big city — devour a cuisine youve never hard-handed before( perhaps Malaysian) and keep walking a neighborhood like youre a neighbourhood. Boom, youre now a traveler.

Saward, who booked a one-way ticket from her dwelling on the Australian island of Tasmania to London in 2012 on the day of her college graduation and has been at it ever since, agrees.

She speaks,

It always surprises me how much enjoyable you can have by only making a short road excursion to the beach or trekking a nearby mountain. One of my favorite things to do is re-explore my home.

Be smart with your money.

Both Saward and Morrow have learned to apply expedition first when it comes to spending.

For Morrow, that means restraint how many times he dines out per month and manufacturing his own lunches every day.

For Saward, its ridding herself of properties she doesnt require, and locating free activities to do with friends.

She alleges,

Taking all your old invests and belongings to a weekend market is a great way to reach some quick currency, as is selling your gondola. Wreaking extra alters not only sets more money in the bank but too impedes you from spending money going out with sidekicks so often, and over time you realize there are plenty of free replacements like catching up with a acquaintance for a strength walk instead of spending money used to go for lunch.

Of course, both are also pros at being thrifty on the road when necessary.

Morrow shows leasing an Airbnb or trying out dwelling exchanges, Couchsurfing, and WWOOF-ing.

Saward is a fan of the app HotelQuickly , which labor kind of like Uber, but for last-minute hotels.

Both advocated grabbing providings at neighbourhood markets instead of dining out for every snack, and taking advantage of free walking tours. Morrow does,

Im a big devotee of Sandemans New Europe Tours. They render great free walking tours in a variety of European metropolis. I think its an awesome happening to do on your first day in town.

Morrow also recommends the book How To Trip The World On $50 A Day by Matt Kepnes, and Saward wrote a upright titled “50 Space I Saved( A Lot) Of Money To Trip The World”on her blog.

Do your research, but be flexible.

Saward isa visual person who starts projecting a potential trip-up as soon as a photo catches her eye.

Morrow has a directory of ends a mile long, but he speaks its important to be flexible.

Be is accessible to what moves your way naturally. If a pal asks you to travel to a destination youve never daydreamed about, consider exiting! Or if you hear about a concerted effort or a celebration that piques your interest, bulge that end up on your schedule so you wont miss it.

It can also be helpful to plan your journeys based on the time of year( Is it rainy season in August? Will it be packed with tourists in June ?), Morrow suggests, and dont keep forgetting current exchange rates.

Ive been to Europe when the Euro is killing the U s dollars, and Ive been in Europe when the Dollar and Euro are on equivalence. Its much, much more fun to make( to Europe or anywhere) when you can stimulate your fund go further.

Dont be afraid to travel alone.

Working around your own planned is hard enough, which is why many of “the worlds” top jaunt bloggers, Saward and Morrow included, often roam alone.

Saward says hugging the no commitments stage of their own lives realise it easier to jump right in.

She adds,

It pressured me to rely only on myself, which is a really humbling knowledge, just knowing that if your entire world was taken away from you, you could make it on your own.

Morrow remembers how he was scared shitless on the plane to Nepal alone at age 18.

But let me tell you, when you return home, youll be confidently swaggering through international airports high-fiving strangers( or at the least thats how youll look ). Are well aware that you may be scared now, and thats normal, but youll be very proud of yourself for doing it. Derive confidence from knowing that traveling alone realise you a badass. Thoughts about those people sitting at home, afraid to go out and suffer “the worlds”. Do you really want to be one of those people? No!

Both travelers agree that the world isnt as creepy as it looks on TV.

Morrow tells,

In general, beings are route more category and good natured than the mainstream media would have you believe. Be street smart, be informed about, be informed, but dont be scared. Oh yeah, and dont be afraid to strike up a communication with beings at your inn/ hostel, at a bar, or on the street. If it gets weird, who attends, youll never attend them again.

Do it right while youre young.

Whatever stage in life you get bitten by the travel defect, own it! But the earlier “youre starting”, the easier it to be able to reap the benefits.

For Saward, who recommends everyone obligate Southeast Asia, South America and a Eurotrip priorities in their twenties, traveling young mean becoming more self-confident in herself.

I became a person I actually like to be around. Before advance I cared too much about what others thought of me and didn’t just knowing that I did and didn’t like( because I wasn’t intrepid enough to try anything new ).

Morrow points out that a well-traveled resume sees you a better being on paper and off.

He reads,

Aside from realizing you a lane more interesting party at parties, traveling while youre young can really change the rest of their own lives. Traveling builds you kinder, more understanding, more patient, more self sufficient — certainly potential benefits are interminable. And its not mentioned often, but the experiences had and sciences acquired from traveling while youre young, especially for longer periods of time or in places that one might consider challenging, can really be selling items in a job interview.

He proposes three types of tours for millennial travelers to kick off your 2016 bucket index TAGEND

1. Lead somewhere as geographically far from being, and as culturally differences between, your residence as you can. And if you can, stay here for as long as possible. A few illustrations would be places like India, Nepal or Japan.

2. Travel in your “countries “. Its easy to be seduced by beautiful photos to foreign targets, but its important be informed about the two countries you call dwelling and the ones who inhabit it. America is utterly gargantuan, and diverse, and beautiful. Take a superhighway trip-up, clique, visit national parks. Visit out of the lane homes. Eat at diners. Talk to the waitress. Youll be surprised that exactly inspecting different parts of American can provide a foreign experience.

3. Party! Drink vodka in Russia, defendant on a beach in Greece, go to a nightclub in Eastern Europe. Attend Carnival in Brazil. Hangovers simply get worse as you get older, so do your party traveling now!

Well, what are you waiting for ?!

Are in favour of Elite Dailys official newsletter, The Edge, for more narrations you dont want to miss .

The post A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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darrellkmartin · 7 years

Text

The economics of Bitcoin and Blockchains

Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, is quite a marvel built on expertise in (at least) five disciplines–from computer science: databases, distributed systems, cryptography, and from economics: currency and contracting. A lot has been written about the computer science elements of Bitcoin and its underlying distributed cryptographic database, the blockchain. This is why I will try to focus on the economics behind the next big thing.

One can neatly divide the two perspectives on cryptocurrency into macro and micro, so I will split this story into two part: Let’s talk about the macroeconomic aspects of Bitcoin and currency first, and tackle the microeconomic aspects of the blockchain and contracting in the next story.

Cryptocurrency and cryptocash

Bitcoin was invented as a form of currency — a means of payment — that combines the two advantages of being both electronic and cash.

Cash in our offline world lives on in the form of banknotes and coins, and is a major headache to almost everyone involved in commerce. But it has two major advantages: it is local (I carry it right here with me in my wallet), and it is anonymous (the drug store — or possibly sex shop — clerk will never know who bought the rubber ducky unless I introduce myself or pay by electronic means (credit card, debit card, etc.) Cash helps avoiding embarrassment and tracking.

Vendors, banks, corporates, etc., love electronic payment of course. Imagine paying cash at the gate for your business flight and getting paid back in cash by your employer. One big reason why they love it is because it leaves an electronic paper trail. But that is also the reason why many of the radical libertarian folks in the cryptocurrency world, including Satoshi, are suspicious of it. One player who might be interested in that paper trail is the government, and for political (or more nefarious) reasons the cryptolibertarians don’t like that at all. So one of the key advantages of Bitcoin is that it does its utmost to keep the outsider (government or anyone else) from tracing the transaction back to the participants. (The transactions, on the other hand, are public and searchable in a public ledger — the blockchain — roughly in the form “E1212d33Q paid 12.87621 bitcoins to F734GFh3493”.) This semi-anonymity will become important in part 2 when we talk about the micro perspective and contracting.

The two key advantages Bitcoin has over its many unsuccessful predecessor cybercoins is that it is — to a certain degree — able to avoid two death traps of electronic currency: inflation and double-spending. Indeed double-spending control is widely considered the revolutionary step Bitcoin provided: e-cash is digital, it is easy to copy-and-paste digital objects, so what’s keeping me from making a copy of my Bitcoin cash before I spend it, so I can spend it again (and again, and again)? The short answer is the blockchain. This will be discussed in part 2 so let’s move quickly to the other one: inflation control. Now we’re deep in the Macro muck.

Very broadly speaking, currency has three jobs: to make paying for things easy and secure (a flow), to be able to put it into an account — or a pillow — and rest assured it’s still there and valuable when I need it years later (a stock), and to keep track of all of this for yourself or someone else (a report). In short, these three things are called medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. Inflation, or even just short-term currency speculation, kills the second one, so any cryptocurrency designer has to think about inflation before unleashing the invention onto the world. Satoshi did this in two ways: first, by making it hard to “mine” Bitcoin and second, by controlling the number of Bitcoins that can be “mined”. Mining is literally a figurative term, borrowed from mining for gold. Real Bitcoin miners are massive computer farms with huge power bills.

The ease of payment has so far helped Bitcoin become somewhat popular in radical libertarian and geek circles (and folks that hang out in the Darknet to buy illicit things; the three groups tend to overlap), but this has also kept Bitcoin from becoming a trusted store of value and unit of account. Bitcoin was designed for a zero-trust environment, so building these two things takes time.

Cryptoinflation and cryptospeculation

First, let’s look at mainstream adoption and inflation. One of the marvels of the economic world is that we can use almost anything as currency as long as everyone agrees that it is it. (That’s why it’s called fiat money, not from that car maker but from fiat = latin for let there be… money.) For instance, if it weren’t so cumbersome to carry them around, we could create a payment system solely based on Picasso paintings —but at one point we would also have to start cutting them to pieces. Bitcoin is the radical implementation of that idea. If we once accepted that only governments can issue fiat money, we now have to accept that pseudonymous figures on the internet can do the same, and by virtue of accepting that Bitcoin works as currency we can use it as currency. We simply have to believe that if we accept Bitcoin as payment, someone will eventually take them off our hands at the same or a higher valuation.

Technology adoption processes, as Zvi Griliches discovered and Geoffrey Moore popularized, tend to follow a simple S-shaped curve (a sigmoid): a slow ramp-up when only early adopters buy into the technology, a phase of fast growth (scaling up) when the mainstream joins in, and finally a longer residual adoption phase when the technology stragglers catch up. This curve more or less assume stable or falling prices for the technology — as is to be expected when it’s produced in increasing numbers. The curve can get a bit more complicated if prices increase during the scale-up due to supply shortages — sometimes companies get caught by surprise. But what happens when the price itself is the commodity?

We’re a bit in unchartered territory here and Satoshi, a computer scientist rather than an economist, clearly did not think it through. His key insight to keeping inflation under check is to artificially restrict the bitcoin supply. Miners get rewarded for running the Bitcoin system through bitcoin payments. On a very long scale these rewards get smaller and smaller until in 2140 they will cease altogether. One key control is built into the system to keep the price — technically, the exchange rate to standard non-cryptocurrencies like the Euro or US Dollar — somewhat stable: the complexity of mining (the “proof of work”) is adjusted based on supply computing power, to create roughly ten blocks in the Blockchain per minute.

In truth this does very little to keep currency speculation in check — indeed the speculative aspect of Bitcoin might be the most attractive part of the offering right now. Even though Bitcoin has gone through some wild swings in valuation — mostly due to catastrophic security breaches like the Mt. Gox disaster — it has been a boon investment to early adopters. Of the three key qualities of a currency: means of exchange, store of value, and unit of account, the second one might be the biggest driver of adoption right now, except not in the intended way: the value of Bitcoin is far from stable right now, it is almost purely speculative, driving a crypto gold rush. A gold rush, needless to say, is essentially the opposite of a piggy bank.

The problem with this is that speculative adoption is the very opposite of mainstream adoption, and this is the reason why Bitcoin as means of exchange has been rather muted so far, and Bitcoin as unit of account almost non-existent. How many companies do their accounting in Bitcoin? But the problem of this non-linearity in mainstream adoption is only to get worse if Bitcoin is adopted more and more as means of exchange. A fast scale-up will almost surely result in the fast appreciation of the exchange rate of Bitcoin, throwing a massive banner in the works of e-commerce. If e-commerce vendors then opt out because they cannot keep the volatility under control, the non-linearity in adoption will quickly take on a familiar format: the hype-disappointment cycle. By taking steps to keep inflation — the cost of goods in currency goes up— in check Satoshi has created the opposite problem: the price of his cryptocurrency vs. normal currencies has been highly inflationary.

Cryptocurrency areas and cryptotribes

I should be clear that I don’t share the pessimism of other economists like Paul Krugman or John Quiggin regarding the chances of Bitcoin to become a regular means of exchange and store of value. The true time bomb of Bitcoin waits for us after it has been widely adopted. To understand this risk we have to look into another key area of research in currency: that of optimal currency areas, or economic geography applied to currency.

This seems to be a rather arcane research topic but if you are living in Europe it is hard to escape the consequences of it. The Euro area itself is a big gamble that the currency area is bigger than the European nation states — most of which are the bruised leftovers from colonial and feudal times. Despite early successes for the Euro as a means of exchange across borders, the Euro system is creaking and on the verge of collapse. The reason for this is transfers, or rather, the high costs of enabling transfers.

We intuitively think of currency areas being identical to nation states, but that is rarely ever the case: the U.S. Dollar is used, officially or unofficially, in many other countries. Ideally, a currency area captures an area of similar economic productivity, and exchange rates make up for productivity differences. When I was a kid, we would go to Italy on vacation almost every year, and in the time before globalization getting an Italian gelato was still a rare treat. Each year the price in Lire went up a bit, but in the same time the exchange rate of the Lira vs. the Deutsche Mark had gone down, so for us the price for a gelato had stayed mostly the same, just the flavors got better…

But like Germany and Italy are unequal in economic productivity — for reasons that go back hundreds of years and have extremely little to do with shiftlessness — different areas inside a country are also unequal in productivity: as a very general rule, cities are more productive than rural areas, coastal areas are more productive than landlocked areas, temperate areas are more productive than humid areas, etc. (exceptions abound of course). The only accepted way to keep this working and keep a common currency area is transfers: payments from rich areas to poor areas, often through elaborate government schemes. But transfers are much-hated, especially if they seem to entrench shiftlessness. For a government it is a never-ending balancing act to keep the transfers flowing to keep the economy intact and keep up appearances that these transfers will cease if the recipients don’t shape up.

But — to come back to cryptocurrency — Bitcoin and friends don’t have a government to take care of those transfers. Indeed, Bitcoin was invented to make government obsolete. So transfers are not only not designed into the Bitcoin system, Bitcoin as a political (radical libertarian) project is out to kill transfers off for good. So the end of the road for Bitcoin, Ether, or any other cryptocurrency that gains widespread adoption, is the end of the nation state as an economic unit — for better or worse. Crumbling nation states are moments of global crises. We should hope for — but not bank on — this crisis to blow over without violence.

What is left for us is to speculate what comes after, in a world without hard-coin currencies. For one, clearly we should not expect that the world will agree on a single cryptocurrency, even though a dominant design might emerge. A single currency is like a single tectonic plate holding up all continents: a nice idea in theory but not really workable in practice. Instead we should expect tribes to coalesce around similar interests and similar economic productivity. How these tribes will be able to throw off the shackles of geography — and how geographic areas will survive with economic unity — remains to be seen.

Macroeconomics, microeconomics, cryptoeconomics

After this big sweep over the grand prospects of Bitcoin, the next part will dig deep into the nitty gritty of the inner workings of the crypto–economy. For this I will dive down into Microeconomics or even deeper, and have a closer look at the blockchain as the engine that drives Bitcoin and ask, among other things, the question if blockchain can survive without cryptocurrency. Expect more ramblings in a week or so.

This article originally appeared here.

Photo credit: btckeychain via Visual hunt / CC BY

from Startup Tips By Darrel http://theheureka.com/economics-bitcoin-blockchains-currency-inflation-20170202

0 notes

apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016

As 2015 comes to a open, its normal to get romantic and start looking back on the memories constructed over the past year.

Every year has its ups and downs, and some are more fateful than others.

But as I began to think about my 26 th year and the ones before it, I realized for me, theres one fool-proof lane to stir recalls that will stand out in my mind forever, and that mode is to travel.

Get your priorities in order.

Whether its limited vacation eras or a lack of funds, its easy to make excuses when it comes to travel.

He responds,

Start out small.

So perhaps you cant afford a ticket around the world just yet. The key thenis to think local.

Morrow mentions,

Saward, who booked a one-way ticket from her dwelling on the Australian island of Tasmania to London in 2012 on the day of her college graduation and has been at it ever since, agrees.

She speaks,

It always surprises me how much enjoyable you can have by only making a short road excursion to the beach or trekking a nearby mountain. One of my favorite things to do is re-explore my home.

Be smart with your money.

Both Saward and Morrow have learned to apply expedition first when it comes to spending.

For Morrow, that means restraint how many times he dines out per month and manufacturing his own lunches every day.

For Saward, its ridding herself of properties she doesnt require, and locating free activities to do with friends.

She alleges,

Of course, both are also pros at being thrifty on the road when necessary.

Morrow shows leasing an Airbnb or trying out dwelling exchanges, Couchsurfing, and WWOOF-ing.

Saward is a fan of the app HotelQuickly , which labor kind of like Uber, but for last-minute hotels.

Both advocated grabbing providings at neighbourhood markets instead of dining out for every snack, and taking advantage of free walking tours. Morrow does,

Im a big devotee of Sandemans New Europe Tours. They render great free walking tours in a variety of European metropolis. I think its an awesome happening to do on your first day in town.

Morrow also recommends the book How To Trip The World On $50 A Day by Matt Kepnes, and Saward wrote a upright titled “50 Space I Saved( A Lot) Of Money To Trip The World”on her blog.

Do your research, but be flexible.

Saward isa visual person who starts projecting a potential trip-up as soon as a photo catches her eye.

Morrow has a directory of ends a mile long, but he speaks its important to be flexible.

Dont be afraid to travel alone.

Working around your own planned is hard enough, which is why many of “the worlds” top jaunt bloggers, Saward and Morrow included, often roam alone.

Saward says hugging the no commitments stage of their own lives realise it easier to jump right in.

She adds,

It pressured me to rely only on myself, which is a really humbling knowledge, just knowing that if your entire world was taken away from you, you could make it on your own.

Morrow remembers how he was scared shitless on the plane to Nepal alone at age 18.

Both travelers agree that the world isnt as creepy as it looks on TV.

Morrow tells,

Do it right while youre young.

Whatever stage in life you get bitten by the travel defect, own it! But the earlier “youre starting”, the easier it to be able to reap the benefits.

For Saward, who recommends everyone obligate Southeast Asia, South America and a Eurotrip priorities in their twenties, traveling young mean becoming more self-confident in herself.

Morrow points out that a well-traveled resume sees you a better being on paper and off.

He reads,

He proposes three types of tours for millennial travelers to kick off your 2016 bucket index TAGEND

Well, what are you waiting for ?!

Are in favour of Elite Dailys official newsletter, The Edge, for more narrations you dont want to miss .

The post A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2r0N1Ap via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016

As 2015 comes to a open, its normal to get romantic and start looking back on the memories constructed over the past year.

Every year has its ups and downs, and some are more fateful than others.

But as I began to think about my 26 th year and the ones before it, I realized for me, theres one fool-proof lane to stir recalls that will stand out in my mind forever, and that mode is to travel.

Get your priorities in order.

Whether its limited vacation eras or a lack of funds, its easy to make excuses when it comes to travel.

He responds,

Start out small.

So perhaps you cant afford a ticket around the world just yet. The key thenis to think local.

Morrow mentions,

Saward, who booked a one-way ticket from her dwelling on the Australian island of Tasmania to London in 2012 on the day of her college graduation and has been at it ever since, agrees.

She speaks,

It always surprises me how much enjoyable you can have by only making a short road excursion to the beach or trekking a nearby mountain. One of my favorite things to do is re-explore my home.

Be smart with your money.

Both Saward and Morrow have learned to apply expedition first when it comes to spending.

For Morrow, that means restraint how many times he dines out per month and manufacturing his own lunches every day.

For Saward, its ridding herself of properties she doesnt require, and locating free activities to do with friends.

She alleges,

Of course, both are also pros at being thrifty on the road when necessary.

Morrow shows leasing an Airbnb or trying out dwelling exchanges, Couchsurfing, and WWOOF-ing.

Saward is a fan of the app HotelQuickly , which labor kind of like Uber, but for last-minute hotels.

Both advocated grabbing providings at neighbourhood markets instead of dining out for every snack, and taking advantage of free walking tours. Morrow does,

Im a big devotee of Sandemans New Europe Tours. They render great free walking tours in a variety of European metropolis. I think its an awesome happening to do on your first day in town.

Morrow also recommends the book How To Trip The World On $50 A Day by Matt Kepnes, and Saward wrote a upright titled “50 Space I Saved( A Lot) Of Money To Trip The World”on her blog.

Do your research, but be flexible.

Saward isa visual person who starts projecting a potential trip-up as soon as a photo catches her eye.

Morrow has a directory of ends a mile long, but he speaks its important to be flexible.

Dont be afraid to travel alone.

Working around your own planned is hard enough, which is why many of “the worlds” top jaunt bloggers, Saward and Morrow included, often roam alone.

Saward says hugging the no commitments stage of their own lives realise it easier to jump right in.

She adds,

It pressured me to rely only on myself, which is a really humbling knowledge, just knowing that if your entire world was taken away from you, you could make it on your own.

Morrow remembers how he was scared shitless on the plane to Nepal alone at age 18.

Both travelers agree that the world isnt as creepy as it looks on TV.

Morrow tells,

Do it right while youre young.

Whatever stage in life you get bitten by the travel defect, own it! But the earlier “youre starting”, the easier it to be able to reap the benefits.

For Saward, who recommends everyone obligate Southeast Asia, South America and a Eurotrip priorities in their twenties, traveling young mean becoming more self-confident in herself.

Morrow points out that a well-traveled resume sees you a better being on paper and off.

He reads,

He proposes three types of tours for millennial travelers to kick off your 2016 bucket index TAGEND

Well, what are you waiting for ?!

Are in favour of Elite Dailys official newsletter, The Edge, for more narrations you dont want to miss .

The post A Time Of Undertaking: 6 Styles To Become A Badass World Traveler In 2016 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2r0N1Ap via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes