Category Archives: Commentary
Greece Taps Anti-Bitcoin Video Game Economist as Finance Minister
One piece of fallout from the recent SYRIZA win in Greece's election is the appointment of Yanis Varoufakis, most notable for tinkering with Valve's Steam video game marketplace to the position of Finance Minister. Yanis Varoufakis is much less notable for in the spring of 2013 writing one of the many essays naively assailing Bitcoin as some sort of impossible fantasy incapable of anything, an essay that safely could have remained entirely without note. Unfortunately someone decided to promote him from advising ways for an arcade could extract more money from chumps to managing the finances of a populated area that is still by some miracle, in some form a sovereign state with a government. Let us consider some excepts beginning with the title: Continue reading
CSM Profiles Homero J Garza, Serial Entrepreneur
Today the Christian Science Monitor published an profile of Homero "Josh" Garza featuring selection from an interview they conducted before the North American Bitcoin conference. Most of the information in the profile is not going to be new to anyone who has been following the GAW saga, but the profile covers Garza's history of serial entrepreneurship from Optima Technology and Great Awk Wireless to GAW Miners. Continue reading
The Crypto-Mises Podcast Third Episode Is Now Available
Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute have released the third episode of their podcast. The duo discuss malinvestments such as Litecoin, BFL and other well known scams as opposed to the few good investments and companies in the Bitcoin space to date such as Satoshi Dice and the Silk Road. The pair finish the episode with a startup idea of their own.
The third episode is available stream via YouTube, iTunes podcast subscription and to download in MP3 format.
Another Big Silk Road 2.0 Arrest (Full Complaint)
A criminal complaint filed on January 17th, 2015 reveal the arrest of a man Brian Farrell who is alleged to have served on the Silk Road 2.0 as DoctorClu, the right hand man to Defcon. According to the complaint the defendant's residential IP address was leaked at some point and a "cooperating witness" who lived at the address identified Farrell as a "computer wizard" who bragged he could buy "anything" off of the Internet. Continue reading
Bitcoin Finance in 2014
Bitcoin had a tumultuous year in 2014. The headline news all year was the greatest collapse in the exchange rate since 2013 (remember in April '13 when Bitcoin went from $260 to $50?). There were also scams enacted on a massive scale – the size of which had not been seen since 2012. Very few businesses flourished, and many floundered. All in all, just another year in the single most fun and exciting phenomenon of our lifetime. Continue reading
Roger Ver and America's Emigration Dilemma
Last week Roger Ver revealed that the United States Embassy in Barbados has denied his requests for a visa to attend some Bitcoin related conferences in the United States. As reported by Ver his requests for a visa are denied because in the Embassy's determination he lacks sufficient connections to his new homeland of St Kitts and Nevis to prevent him from overstaying his visa and essentially immigrating back into the United States illegally. This incident highlights a number of ways in which the United States acts on the international stage not as a peer state with others, but as a rogue state. Continue reading
It's Easy To Call Us A Tiny Minority When You Engage In Vote Manipulation
As the drums of war thunder louder and louder, USGavin's effort to frame objection to the blocksize increase as coming from a tiny minority continues. But what must one do when evidence to the contrary begins to appear on outlets for your propaganda such as reddit's /r/bitcoin? What if this evidence clearly depicted that not only is there a debate to be had, but that this "tiny minority" is in fact anything but small. What would you do as it becomes increasingly apparent that it's going to be a struggle to continue to toe the "tiny minority" line unless action is taken? Continue reading
Transaction Fees and the Future of Bitcoin
An interesting side effect of the recent Bitcoin price crash as reported by exchanges has been the drop in hashrate which has created a glimpse into the future of Bitcoin. A future where transaction fees serve their intended purpose as both an antispam measure and valuable component of the miner reward. Continue reading
The Crypto-Mises Podcast Second Episode Is Now Available
Daniel Krawisz and Michael Goldstein of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute have released the second episode of their podcast titled The Crypto-Mises Podcast. Episode two discusses why the desire for monetary stability is based on economic fallacies.
The second episode is available to stream via YouTube, an MP3 download and iTunes. Future episodes are soon to come with yet to be announced special guests.