Free Talk Live

Bottom line: The world is going to be turned over by bitcoins unless governments step in and ban them by prosecuting individuals.

1. Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.
2. Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.
3. Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.
4. Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.
5. Bitcoin is a political statement by technotarians (technological libertarians).*
6. Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.

An FBI agent with the New Hampshire Joint Terrorism Task Force is recruiting activists to inform on Free State Project members. That’s what activist Pete Eyre says in the above video, released by Cop Block yesterday.

“Fiat” is money with no intrinsic value beyond whatever an issuing government is able to enforce. When it enjoys a monopoly as currency, fiat inevitably turns the free market functions of money inside out. Instead of being a store of value, the currency becomes a point of plunder through monetary policies such as quantitative easing. Instead of greasing society as a medium of exchange, the currency acts as a powerful tool of social control.

Users and fans of the open-source, digital currency Bitcoin should feel a little less secure today, after leaders of the Bitcoin project confirmed to a British newspaper they have no way to confirm a user's claim that almost $500,000 worth of the digital currency disappeared from his hard drive overnight.

Bitcoin is a free and easy to use, open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system that is completely decentralized, without the need for a central server or trusted parties.

Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of a P2P network to check for double-spending. Users can transfer money easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen. Third parties can’t prevent or control your transactions.

The issue is whether Bitcoin will ever be so widely adopted that it acts like a real, stable currency. Right now, it’s more like a commodity with wild price swings on rumors, articles, anonymous chat-board postings, and well-publicized problems with theft. Most people should wait at least until those issues are resolved. Generally, however, average folks shouldn’t be making direct forays into currency trading; Bitcoin feels a bit like online investing, but it’s more like diving into foreign exchange with even less information on which to make currency calls.

Ernie interviews Ian on the Free State Project about why he moved to New Hampshire and what the Free State Project/Freekeene is all about. Ian tells Ernie that the Free Staters are not Nazis about activism!

Bitcoin sounds like something from science fiction: A purely digital currency, created by an anonymous hacker, that operates outside the world's traditional banking systems. The four-year-old currency is very real, though, and it's trading an all-time high, tripling in value in the last two months alone. One bitcoin is was worth about $40 U.S. dollars on Tuesday, and surged on Wednesday to nearly $49. That's up from around $13 in January, and 5 cents in 2010, according to Mt. Gox, the bitcoin market's main exchange.

Can Bitcoin Survive? Is It Legal?

Bitcoin – the online currency used to buy Alpaca wool socks and illegal drugs whose value dropped from $17.50 to “pennies” after a June 19 hack into its currency exchanger, Mt.Gox –has gotten plenty of media attention. But unless consumers and merchants can be persuaded that adopting it will make them better off, it’s likely to go the way of other online currencies.