Ok, so we are at real use number 3. after "pyramid / get rich quick scheme" and "volatile high risk investment", the "evading the bank system, shady financial transactions and tax evasion" part.
They can, though. All it takes is a majority of the miners deciding to do so. For example: https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/07/20/hard-fork-completed/
The DAO hard fork happened because most people with economic power who run nodes in Ethereum accept Vitaly's decision. With Bitcoin there's a concensus at this point that only bug fix hard forks are accepted.
There was a consensus that Cyprus bank accounts were solvent, until they weren't.
> The DAO hard fork happened because most people with economic power who run nodes in Ethereum accept Vitaly's decision.
Yes. The point is that can happen to Bitcoin, too.
Is it unlikely? Perhaps. It's also unlikely you'll have your bank account take a haircut via government action like Cyprus took.
What's more, you've shown that you know enough about cryptocurrencies that you know this.
You are arguing in bad faith.
I disagree.
I'm ultimately arguing that this:
> I understood it that if I keep the private key secure, nobody can take it away from me.
Is demonstrably false, both from a practical and a technological standpoint.
I've more faith in developed-world governments than I do in Bitcoin's miners.
Which you won't do, because you can't.
Instead you dumped your life savings into something that’s demonstrably wrecked you a few times, at one point leaving you with 20% (?!) of what you started with? If you don’t care about what’s in there, as you mustn’t to be ok with that, why do you care about putting it into a bank account? Because of the Cypriot banking crisis of 2012? On a tiny island in the Mediterranean split between 3 countries (the Greeks, the Turks and a pair of British overseas territories serving as military bases from when the whole island was under their administration) known for its shaky financial system? 4% of the land mass of Cyprus is a UN buffer zone between the various belligerents!
I mean you know how that reads right? It sounds a bit like the anti-vaxxers of finance.
If you see the amount of debt being created and not payed back, it’s just a system designed for risk takers. I was buying phyisical gold as well, but over time switched to Bitcoin + having an own apartment in case I lose it all.
For me just the legal definition of being a creditor to the bank when I wanted to own my money didn’t feel right.
> Also are you sure? 90 years ago US was on the gold standard. Are you sure you can still get the gold that was promised 90 years ago?
If I wanted gold I’d buy it. My comment was about bank failures — dollars - not their redemption capabilities. It is true fact. What you’re describing is a default, external to the banking system that did happen and would not affect you if you used money like you’re supposed to, as a temporary store of value to buy assets with.
> If you see the amount of debt being created and not payed back, it’s just a system designed for risk takers.
None of this matters at all if you buy assets with it like I said. Which is what you were doing. The system works.
Executive Order 6102 is an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933.
"The main rationale behind the order was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve preventing it from increasing the money supply during the depression. The Federal Reserve Act (1913) required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes that were issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit, in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes, which could be backed by the gold in its possession"
One is a bank defaulting on its obligations to provide you a certain number of units of currency regardless of their market value. This has not happened since the FDIC was created in the wake of the Great Depression.
Another is a sovereign default where the country decides not to honour its obligations to those holding units of its currency or its debts. This has happened ~6 times in the history of the United States, and I do include the cancellation of the gold withdrawal rights as a sovereign default. This has nothing to do with the FDIC or your bank.
I can't stress this enough, neither of these things matter to you if you do what you're supposed to with money, which is not keep your life savings in a mattress or a savings account, but use it as a temporary store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account and buy things with it. Gold, real estate, magic beans, I don't care. This is practically ECON-101.
On the subject of freedom, backing all currency with gold eliminates my right to choose what I back my personal economy with. A gold backed currency has strictly less freedom than a fiat currency. I can today choose to back my personal economy with gold, silver, platinum, magic beans (crypto) or Apple stock by leveraging a brokerage account and a credit card. If you believe in freedom, it's actually what you want.