Dear Mr Williams – Have a happy 2016

So, it is now 18 months since my last post on the “bitcoin expert” Prof. Mark Williams of Boston Uni.

As I pointed out in an early blog posting on Mr Williams his own bloging habits, up until December 2013,  was bloging at around 5 articles a month  – and didnt write on bitcoin until the 5th December 2013.  But from then on, until april 2014 he was posting around 25 articles a month on his Boston University Blog  , all critical of bitcoin.

However , since he was humiliated by his ‘bitcoin will trade for $10 or less by mid 2014’ prediction falling flat on its face, his public pronouncements on bitcoin have almost disappeared.

One of them however was an interview with Vice News June 27th 2014 on the Silk Road sell off auction where he was quoted thus –

“Those interested in bidding are the same close-knit group of buyers. They are inherently bullish on an unproven e-currency and technology,” According to Williams, only a few buyers control a majority of the bitcoin market, thus the cryptocurrency is not a deeply traded or liquid commodity. He said the auction process will make this glaringly obvious.”It is simply a speculative bet not entered by new buyers, but by the same market promoters,” Williams said.

apart from a few references to some old quotes from Williams in mid 2014,  from the end of 2014 he has kept a remarkably low bitcoin profile in the Media right through 2015.

However, he couldn’t help himself still trying to justify his failed  “$10 or less” valuation prediction.

In a report on his comments to bloomberg in May 2015 he was quoted as saying –

There’s always a risk that bitcoin can go from its current value to being virtually worthless. We’ve already seen a drop of more than 75 percent since its November 2013 market high. That price risk hasn’t declined, which is a problem. If a currency can fluctuate by 10 or 20 percent in a given day, then there’s less incentive to own or use it. When you have these extreme price movements, it also reduces the number of merchants willing to take such extreme market risk.

Banging the “virtually worthless” gong again !

How long Williams can keep his head high is an interesting question. 2015 was a very good year for bitcoin, as it finished the year with a YoY gain of nearly 75%, will good steady rises through the year.  This was particularly true when compared to both commodities and all international currencies – see charts below – ( bitcoin even well outperformed the Dollars strong global rise in 2015 )

 

more significantly , and probably to Mr Williams horror, the volume of bitcoin transactions on the blockchain in 2015 increased by 136%

This is an indication of the true growth of interest in bitcoin  –  and certainly can not be due to “only a few buyers controlling the bitcoin market” as Mr Williams told Vice news in June 2014.

Here’s the graph of the transaction volume in 2015 – 86,038 in Dec 2014 to 202,869 in Dec 2015

So,    HAPPY NEW YEAR MR WILLIAMS , and as 2016 looks all set to be another good year for bitcoin, I doubt we will be hearing much from you in the next 12 months ( or maybe you will have the integrity to swallow your pride as say .. “I was wrong”)

just saying ….

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For What it’s Worth … an open letter to Mark Carney, Christine Lagarde & Bill Clinton

Mark Carney, speaking at the “Inclusive Capitalism” conference in London said

“The combination of unbridled faith in financial markets prior to the crisis and the recent demonstrations of corruption in some of these markets has eroded social capital,” he said. “When combined with the longer-term pressures of globalization and technology on the basic social contract, an unstable dynamic of declining trust in the financial system and growing exclusivity of capitalism threatens.”

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Some words of reflection for Mark Carney and Christine Lagarde ,
and Bill , you can put away your Saxophone, the kids have moved on.

“Stop Children, What’s that sound, everybody knows what’s going down”  –  Buffalo Springfield, recorded on December 5, 1966. – you might know this better by its title …  ‘For What it’s Worth’

Well …..

For What it’s Worth – Be Frightened Bankers be very frightened, because,  everybody knows what’s going down now.   The Rat can “sniff the winds of change” that are coming up from the streets – its taken nearly half a decade, of spiralling debt, Fat Cat Fraud and Greed, Market Fixes and Crony Capitalism.   But finally … the financial system is broken.

For What it’s Worth – The people now have NO TRUST in Bankers … NO TRUST in Politicians … NO TRUST in Law Enforcement Agencies ..  these “sticking plaster” tinkering attempts to regain Public Trust will surely fail , as the economies of the Western World – fuelled by the drug of cheap money printed with nothing to back it –  will grind the Western World to a final halt.

For What it’s Worth – Your complacent Politicians can’t glibly condemn a generation of young people to an existence of continual stagnation and degrading unemployment,  without them fighting back .  “Stop Children, What’s that sound, everybody knows what’s going down” will once again be heard on the streets.

But this time, the kids have bitcoin!

Finally – for the first time in history –  people can interact, transfer wealth, grow businesses globally all without the need for a Sovereign Central Control.  Your financial citadels are teetering on the edge of collapse, Bail-outs wont work this time, Bail-ins will only further alienate the mass population.

For What it’s Worth Bankers & Politicians – I’m sorry, but your actions are already too late.

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Professor Mark Williams has gone rather quiet on bitcoin .. I wonder why ?

Following my last blog post on Professor Mark Williams ( the well-known FED apologist and ‘bitcoin basher’ )

see here

I had a subsequent series of email correspondences with Mr Williams. At this time I wont be revealing the contents of our exchanges, but it was very enlightening on a number of grounds.  In brief, I asked Mr Williams a number of points for him to clarify, and lets just say his answers were “guarded and cloaked in legalese” . When asked for specific responses to straight questions, he just re-quoted his earlier carefully worded answers, and refused to elaborate further … hmmmm

As we all know, Professor Williams has staked his reputation on his prediction that bitcoin will trade for $10 or less by 30th June 2014. …  Well that’s now only 40 days away !  .. and when I looked just now the bitcoin price was trading at $498

Just so Mr Williams can keep track of the days as they approach his prediction deadline, The Rat has set up a Countdown Clock on this site below

Mark Williams Prediction Countdown Clock

Now, Mark Williams is clearly not unintelligent,  head-strong maybe, arrogant maybe, and beholden to JPMorgan maybe ? .. but he has obviously recognised that staking his reputation on being able to ‘talk down’ bitcoin , was clearly a big mistake !

As I pointed out in my last posting on Williams own bloging habits, up until December 2013 he was bloging at around 5 articles a month  – and didnt write on bitcoin until the 5th December.  But from then on, until march this year he was posting around 25 articles a month on his Boston University Blog  , all critical of bitcoin.

However, since the 10th April .. thats nearly six weeks .. he has only writen four posts  .. and only one on bitcoin !

 

could this be the time for FORTY DAYS in the wilderness for Professor Williams  ?

you might also notice that Mark Williams has disabled comments on his blog – unlike The Rat

Free Speech ? ..  apparently not in ‘bitcoin bashers land’

 

 

 

Bitcoin is the New “Rock ‘n Roll” ! !

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The emerging bitcoin community is today at the turning point of mass acceptance, and the evolution of bitcoin is very reminiscent to me to the history of the rise of Rock and Roll. ( I’m old enough to remember those days – will be 65 in a few months !)

The roots of Rock and Roll grew out of a disenfranchised underclass, with no voice in the mainstream, and sharing the need to articulate their ideas, hopes and aspirations among their own community. ( ie similar to the early geeks in their ‘bitcoin basements’ )

The early ‘musical vibe’ of rhythm and blues was picked up and introduced to a youthful white audience anxious to also express their dissatisfaction with the status-quo  through the “safe and sanitized” Colonel Parker/Elvis promotional model.

This isn’t knocking The King, just pointing out that he wasn’t really an ‘infant terrible’. However, Elvis in his early years was equally vilified and ridiculed by the Main Stream Media and the entrenched ‘musical establishment’, very much as bitcoin has been in its own second phase.

In the mid-sixties, The Beatles Revolution brought mass music to the world-wide teenage population, and spawned thousands of bands – ‘ kids in their garages ‘ – but the Beatles weren’t really “rock and roll’.

In the sixties, teenagers were split into two camps. The mop-top supporters of the Beatles listened to music that even had their parents tapping their feet , they were adored by the Media and received OBE’s at the Palace from Her Majesty the Queen of England. Whereas the long-haired Rolling Stones were the ‘bad boys’, outspoken, drug taking, anti-establishment figures. Pure evil ‘rock and rollers’ – someone you certainly couldn’t take home to Mom and Dad.

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So let’s examine the career of these adolescent bad boys of rock and roll – epitomized by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – from rebels into their existence today as probably the Iconic Surviving Rock Band, adored by celebrities , still playing at Presidential Parties and fund-raisers , almost unrecognizable from their early roots.

You could certainly make the case that the career of the Rolling Stones closely mirrors how bitcoin has developed up to now, and where it will be going in the coming decades.

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Phase One – an articulate unrepresented underclass , communicating among themselves, nerdy kids in garages and basements, ridiculed for partaking in activities that were incomprehensible to the Main Stream.

Phase Two – rebellious, now ‘out in public ‘ loud, kicking the boundaries, some arrested for drug related activities ( Yes, Charlie Shrem is the new Keith Richards !)  bitcoin is now feared by the establishment, but growing in momentum with every month, and surviving all the ‘bad publicity’. Indeed , in the Rock and Roll World the saying goes – “there is no such thing as bad publicity, any publicity is good publicity” and this seems to be true also for bitcoin. Bitcoins adoption has certainly not been hurt by the recent ‘bad publicity’ of all the Main Stream Media reporting of Mt Gox, etc

Phase Three – getting invitations to the ‘top table’ (moving away from the Beggars Banquet ) . This is essentially where bitcoin is moving today. For example , see Barry Silberts quote on twitter on march 23
“Had requests from 38 institutional investors representing +$250 billion to meet with me re bitcoin at Barclays Emerging Payments Forum tomorrow”

Phase Four – Mainstream Acceptance, “I can’t imagine what the rock world would have been like without the Rolling Stones “.   This is where the bitcoin community is going.   Before the end of this decade it will be impossible to imagine a world without bitcoin and the blockchain protocol.
Bitcoin truly is “The new Rock and Roll”

 

 

 

 

 

 

.  Keith Richards

 

The 66-year-old lead guitarist has recently written” Life”, a memoir about his early musical influences, his time on the road with , his run-ins with the law and his occasionally contentious relationship with Jagger, the Stones’ lead vocalist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I’d like to think that in 40 years time , a similar memoir will be written by Charlie Shrem –  Go Charlie !

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Mark Williams’ worst career decision …ever !

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According to information I received via twitter last week,  the chatter coming out of the Delta Sigma Pie Fraternity at Boston Uni is that senior Frat colleagues have been expressing serious concern about the progressively erratic behavior of Prof. Mark Williams.

Several students have over-heard snippets in the GSU Academy room where Mark Williams recent obsession with bitcoin , or rather his increasing frantic activity in the media to talk it down at every opportunity has upset a lot of the fraternity, who see Williams increasingly erratic and out-spoken behavior as a threat to their “Chapter of Excellence” reputation.

This doesn’t surprise me at all.  Mark Williams once had a good reputation himself. He wrote an excellent book detailing the reasons for the collapse of Lehman Bros and why proper management control was essential to avoid similar fraud and criminal behavior occurring again. “Too Big To Fail” Williams said should be addressed urgently.

Mark Williams has been running a blog posting column on the Boston University website since January 2012. Throughout 2012 and 2013 he wrote mainly about big banks in general, and regulations issues over “Too Big To Fail”  In all , there are around 100 posting between January 2012 and December 2013  – on average 5 or 6 a month.

until 5th December 2013  Mark Williams had not written anything at all about Bitcoin.  His first posting is here

Beware of Bitcoin

 

He started his blog on 10th January 2012 with this posting –

Bernanke Pursuing Anti-Greenspan Strategy: Transparency

Over 100 well reasoned postings followed on Risk issues, especially as it affected the big banks and accounting firms.   A lot of the posting were critical of JPMorgan including this one on May 11th

JPMorgan reveals shock $2bn trading loss on investments

This is very ironic is it not ?  and makes a mockery of his comments on the MtGox supposed $400mil loss – as a Fallen Tower of Toxic Sludge !

Bear in mind that , until December 5th 2013, Mark Williams had never mentioned Bitcoin at all.  But since December 2013 he has written over 50 postings on Bitcoin , in a little over two months, with only a handful of his normal type of postings about banking risks  –  Thats an average of now around of 25 postings a month – all critical of Bitcoin.  Not the normal 5 or 6 … but 25 postings a month.  That’s definitely odd behavior for Mr Williams.

Sudden changes of behavioral  patterns are ‘signals’ that something quite significant has occurred.  Why did Mark Williams decide to risk all his reputation – on a gamble – that he could derail Bitcoin ?

What exactly happened to cause this sudden change in the pattern of his behavior – and lead to serious concern among his colleagues at Boston University.

Here’s my view – and one which many of those near to him also appear to share.

Until late September 2013, although he had written in a critical manner about JPMorgan, he hadn’t specifically criticised Jamie Dimon directly.  .. until this one

The Cost of Doing Bad Business – Jamie Dimon Must Go

 Pretty hard hitting stuff for a Federal Reserve Auditor –  Calling for Jamie Dimon to go was brave , and interestingly, after that posting, never repeated.  Do you think Jamie Dimon had no influence in this “change of heart” ?  If you doubt the power of Jamie Dimon, just ask yourself why he has never been prosecuted ?  Money Talks – and a lot of Money talks very loudly.

It would certainly “fit the pattern’ to believe that Mark Williams made a “career decision” to stop talking about Jamie Dimon – and start attacking Bitcoin almost every day.  Why would he do that ?

Was Mark Williams ‘leaned on”  ( ie did he get a visit from some large men in Black Overcoats )  or was he promised a sweetener or two ? Maybe a nice fat job at JPM ?

Whatever did cause this totally out-of-character change in the pattern of his postings behavior – Bitcoin is not destroyed.  But I fear that Mark Williams reputation is – and  it will only be a matter of months before he outlives his ‘usefulness’  …  as he will have “failed” to destroy bitcoin ..  and his professional and academic career will be in deep jeopardy.

Attacking Bitcoin, and deciding to stop attacking Jamie Dimon, may well be  Mark Williams’ worst career decision …ever !

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eBay’s Securities and Exchange Commission Report – Dec 2013

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eBay’s financial report to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission just issued makes interesting, if rather heavy, reading.

This year , eBay has recognised that Bitcoin is going to be a significant potential competition

This is the section of the report worth reading –  ( my highlights in red text )

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PayPal also faces competition and potential competition from:

 

•	money remitters such as MoneyGram, Western Union, Global Payments, Inc., Xoom and Euronet;

•	bill payment services, including CheckFree, a subsidiary of Fiserv;

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services that provide online merchants the ability to offer their customers the option of paying for purchases from their bank account or paying on credit, including Western Union’s WU Pay, Dwolla, Acculynk, TeleCheck (a subsidiary of First Data), iDEAL in the Netherlands, Klarna in several European countries, Sofortuberweisung (which recently has agreed to merge with Klarna) in Germany, PayLib in France and the MyBank pan-European initiative;

•	issuers of stored value targeted at online payments, including NetSpend, Green Dot, PayNearMe, UKash and Qiwi in Russia;

•	other international online payment-services providers such as AliPay, the PayU group of companies (owned by Naspers), PagSeguro and Bcash (owned by Naspers);

•	other providers of online account-based payments, such as Skrill, ClickandBuy (owned by Deutsche Telekom), Barclays Pingit in the U.K., Kwixo in France, and Paymate and Visa PayClick in Australia;

•	payment services targeting users of social networks and online gaming, often through billing to the consumer’s mobile phone account, including PlaySpan (owned by Visa), Boku, Bango and Payfone;

•	payment services enabling banks to offer their online banking customers the ability to send and receive payments through their bank account, including PopMoney from Fiserv, which has a collaboration agreement with Visa, and ClearXchange (a joint venture among Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase);

•	online shopping services that provide special offers linked to a specific payment provider, such as Visa’s RightCliq, MasterCard MarketPlace, TrialPay and Tapjoy;

•	services such as Coinbase and Bitpay that help merchants accept and manage virtual currencies such as Bitcoin; and

•	cash.

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Their report  also gives us a clue as to what their strategy is going to be to counter the threat from Bitcoin – This is the telling section

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PayPal’s competitors may be able to innovate and respond to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements faster and more effectively than PayPal. Some of these competitors may also be subject to less burdensome licensing, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and other regulatory requirements than PayPal, which is subject to additional regulations based on, among other factors, its licensure as a bank in Luxembourg.

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So, we can see what their approach is going to be – this sentence puts it very clearly:

“subject to less burdensome licensing, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing”

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So be prepared for more claims that Bitcoin is  ” used by money-launderers and terrorists ” !! …

let’s examine the validity of this claim

The current TOTAL market capitalisation of Bitcoin is around $11 billion

The current amount of money-laundering for drugs and terrorism last year was subject to international studies that have estimated that cross-border flows of global proceeds of financial crimes totalled between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion . ( thats 1,000 times the entire stock of Bitcoins )

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some more facts on how the existing Banking Sector supports drugs, terrorism and money laundering

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In July 2012 the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs issued a 339 page report detailing a  catalogue of ”criminal ” behaviour by London based HSBC. This includes laundering over $881 million for the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel and for the Norte del Valle Cartel in Colombia. Besides this, HSBC affiliated banks such as HBUS repeatedly broke American AML laws by their long standing and severe AML deficiencies which allowed Saudi banks such as Al Rajhi to finance terrorist groups that included Al-Qaeda. HBUS the American affiliate of HSBC suppliedAl Rajhi bank with nearly $1 billion in US dollars.

in addition

Wikipedia gives this historical information

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Bank of New York: US$7 billion of Russian capital flight laundered through accounts controlled by bank executives, late 1990’s

Sani Abacha: US$2–5 billion of government assets laundered through Banks in the UK, Luxembourg, Jersey (Channel Islands), and Switzerland, by the president of Nigeria

Standard Chartered: paid $330 million in fines for money-laundering hundreds of billions of dollars for Iran. The money-laundering took place in the 2000s and occurred for “nearly a decade to hide 60,000 transactions worth $250 billion”

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links

United States Department of State Report  2012  – Volume II: Money Laundering and Financial Crimes

http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2013/vol2/

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime  2013

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/corruption/index.html?ref=menuside

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eBays Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission – Dec 2013 – IN FULL

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/000106508814000010/ebay201310-k.htm

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Price Waterhouse Cooper have commissioned a Secret Report on Bitcoin

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On 27th January 2014, Price Waterhouse Cooper, one of the Top Three Global Accountancy firms commissioned an in-house report into how its high-roller clients in the gambling, entertainment and music industries might build branding and competitive impact by adopting Bitcoin

that’s big news for Bitcoin.

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But , the Bigger News …..

is that the report was accidentally placed on the publicly accessible  side of their website , and then rapidly removed by Price Waterhouse Coopers management without any explanation.

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In chasing up this story I have sent numerous emails to both PwC’s Head Office and its Publicity Agency without any response.  So you may draw your own conclusion as to why they will not verify or deny the story?

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But the report certainly does exist  ( I have a pdf copy ) and it’s my belief that someone high up in PwC’s senior  management panicked when they discovered the dynamite nature of the news coming out that PwC was advising the use and verification of Bitcoin as a main-stream business practice.

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I’m sure also that they were  afraid of a big slap on the wrist from their Bankers, and therefore suppressed the report as soon as they realized that it might have got into the public realm.

If you want a copy of the pdf,  there is a copy on-line here

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@BitcoinRat  –  sniffing out the News on Bitcoin

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Bitcoin’s Civil War .. whatever will they dream up next ! !

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On the 29th January 2014  Robert  Wile wrote an article entitled – The Emerging Bitcoin Civil War – in Business Insider – link here 

Civil War ? – Very Dramatic Headline – but rather premature.

The Bitcoin Community always has been able to bring together such diverse elements as the original code-writing “geeks”, the radical libertarians , anti-statists, social visionaries, free-enterprise capitalists and proto-anachists alike.
What holds them together isnt politics, but their common understanding that the blockchain protocol and the coming scripting layers that will sit “piggy back” on top of it, are fundamentally going to change the way the World communicates forever.

It is the decentralised, verifiable honesty, of the blockchain that is it real application – not just its use as ‘currency’ ( that will crash to zero ? ? – come on !)  by the way , Mark Williams ( who spoke so disparagingly about Bitcoin ) has actually been predicting the “bubble’ will burst for the last six months. I have even issued a “challenge” on-line to Mr Williams when he predicted .. and I quote … ” Bitcoin will trade for under $10 a share by the first half of 2014, single digit pricing reflecting its option value as a pure commodity play.” So … I have “wagered” Mr Williams my annual salary this year against his, that by April 31st , Bitcoin will be trading at closer to £1,000 than $10 . (So far he has refused to ‘put his wallet where his mouth is’ !)

There are certainly ‘differences of approach’ among Bitcoin advocates. While some of the “Bitcoiners” at the NY meeting are clearly seeking to “couple” bitcoins development to some sort of Federal, Central Bank control, it is also those same “voices” that will gain to make millions from its future development.

If anybody wishes to really understand the clear ‘purity’ of the The Blockchain Protocol, and what it offers to mankind , they should look up the works of Andreas Antonopoulos ( ‏@aantonop on twitter ) and check out his YouTube videos.

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@BitcoinRat    #justsaying

If you still think Bitcoin is a Bubble ……

Then that’s your opinion, which you are entitled to hold   …  Recently, the idea that ‘Bitcoin is a bubble’ has become very popular, although many more people were jumping on the ‘just a bubble’ fallacy in late November/early December of 2013 when Bitcoin’s growth pattern appeared to mimic the classic “bubble curve” – even distinguished economists (who should have known better) were rubbing their hands and saying, ‘I told you so.

But the “crash” never happened

The fallacy of the “Bitcoin is a just Bubble” position is that it fundamentally misunderstands that Bitcoin is not just “coinage” ( of whatever “monetary value” you might like to speculate that it is, or is not ) but a unique mathematical protocol, open-sourced,  and verifiable – built on the blockchain and driven by its peer-to-peer networking effect. Bitcoin “lives” within the nodes of the internet itself, unable to be influenced by outside counterfeiting, or printing more paper money as Governments have recently been doing, and is thus a perfect store of long-term value in its own right .  If you already understand this, all this media talk of “bubbles” are easily dismissed.

However – to the doubters , who still want to believe Bitcoin is a Bubble   – here’s some advice for you

The “Bitcoin Bubble” hasnt “popped” … but if you still want to hang onto the thought that it will .. look at the graph below. There have been a series of well publicized  “bad news events” recently ( Central Banks ‘warnings’, accounts of stolen wallets ; and the latest – the arrest of the head of a leading exchange on criminal charges of money laundering – as if HSBC hasnt been doing this for years for the big drug cartels in Latin American ) But the price has held up solidly. The bitcoin community is very resilient, speculators may panic sell – but bitcoiners know its not a bubble ! and that it will only continue to grow and grow as more and more people understand its true nature and Bitcoins adoption into the mainstream economy is inevitable.

For a bubble to develop now, Bitcoin will need to mirror the classic bubble curve profile once again. This would mean the need for another exponential rise in the price.  let’s say this ‘bubble effect’ starts next  month.  By the time the ‘crashing point’ of the classic bubble curve will have been reached ( taking as precedent the growth of bitcoin over the past year ) a very ‘conservative’ estimate would have Bitcoin trading at from $4,500 to $5,500.

So – even if you are still convinced Bitcoin is “just a speculative bubble”  – please don’t bother to worry about it until nearer Next Christmas . You’ve plenty of time to invest a little cash now,  and it will buy all your Christmas Presents ! !

Bye the Way – it’s not going to burst then either ! ! –   Trust the @BitcoinRat

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Why people no longer need The Banks .. but don’t yet realize it.

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Let’s face it , ask any passer-by what they think about Bankers and you are guaranteed a juicy four-letter word type response. Never in the history of our Modern Times have the leaders of our financial institutions been held in such contempt and deep mistrust by the population. ( Sir Fred Goodwin at RBS,  Henry Lehman and Richard Fuld at Lehman Brothers, the Rev Flowers at Coop Bank etc .. etc.. etc )

And it’s not only the ‘Fat Cats’ at the top that are getting this treatment. Recent incidents such as the Cyprus banking shut-down, and subsequent confiscation of deposits,  the policy of HSBC in the UK of limiting cash withdrawals, and the repeated incidents of ATM and POS systems failures ( either computer crashes or hackings ?)  have hit hard at the General Public’s patience with the whole banking system as a whole.

So why aren’t they withdrawing their money in droves ? 

There are two main reasons why this isn’t happening – Yet.  Firstly, whatever one’s view of Banks most people feel that they can not do without them. A Bank allows them a depository for their immediate ‘store of income’  ( whether this be monthly salaries, state benefits or forms of unearned income etc)  So in effect they never see any ‘cash’, as its just a “numbers transfer” into their bank account. This has a certain convenience in not having to carry vulnerable large amounts of cash on their person.  So, this seems a ‘value’ in safety terms in handing over control of their money.  In return for this, it is perceived as another ‘value’ that their Bank then grants them the means to transfer their money – via cheques, credit cards, inter-bank transfers etc. to carry on their everyday life.  But as pointed out previously, the ‘system’ can easily break down leaving people with no accesses to their own resources. But as these breakdowns, at present, are not all that frequent most people have not given any thought as to whether there may be any alternative.

This is the second reason why current account banking is so intransigent to change. The perceived lack of any alternative. Again, stop any passer-by and they will say to you ‘ all banks are the same, there isn’t much point in switching my money” ( interesting that they still say ‘my money’  even though it passed straight from the “Employer” to the “Bank’  without ever passing through their hands)

Effectively people have handed-over the personal responsibility for their own money  – to a third party –  The Banks – that, lets face it, mainly serves their own institutional interests and more times than not actually exploit the account holder, with exorbitant penalties and handling charges ,  that can amount to a very high percentage taken from the “money” of that individual.

So, given all this distrust, annoyance and frustration among the General Public, we have a situation here that is crying out for a radical reform.

We need a concerted public-awareness campaign , that sets out in clear terms – without ‘political’ or ‘ideological’ over-layers  – why the development of the Blockchain and the Ethereum scripting protocol will enable ordinary people to take back control of their own money by embracing Bitcoin .

Your Personal “bank account” will lie in your hands – and the blockchain and all the applications that are being built daily on top of that, will enable YOU to perform yourself all the functions that your bank used to do.  We are not quite there yet , but the hundreds of coders and cryptographers that are working day and night across the globe, cooperating together to grow the protocol,  will deliver that ‘golden egg’ very very soon.

This is dynamite to the Bankers ( and they know it !) –  so expect a lot of ‘fight back’ , dirty-tricks, and sabotage attempts –  but with the right advocates and ‘bitcoin apostles’ interfacing directly with the public at large, and spreading the word,  we can get the message out.

#justsaying  #The Future

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