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Comment by random28345 | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin is for Criminals, Cowards, and Crazies.

Criminals, who find it useful as a mechanism for transferring and storing income from illegal activities.

Cowards, who want to hide behind a cryptocurrency to protect themselves from social and government problems that can only be solved through education and democracy.

And crazies who think that Obama is a secret atheist muslim who is fighting a secret war of confiscation and redistribution against America.

> new allegations that it was the US Feds that stole the money from Mt. GOX users

Which category do you most identify with?

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BitCoin, or at least decentralized currency in general, is great for anyone for whom the current system isn't. People whose interests are do not align with the majority. The disadvantaged. Non-conformists. Individualists and free thinkers.

To some, indeed, such people are all "Criminals, Cowards and Crazies". But that just makes a stronger case for why something like BitCoin is needed.

So I was kinda agreeing with you, but a quick google search did turn out some insane accusations made by the US Govt that rogue DEA officers were behind retaliations to MtGox, including seizing 5MM of cash.

Not so sure what to think anymore..

Bitcoin wasn't designed, ran, maintained or owned in any way by Mt. Gox, anymore than a local currency exchange is in charge of printing dollar bills for the US government. They're completely different things.

It appears thieves or perhaps the owner of Mt. Gox stole a large amount of their money.

And in addition it appears a rogue DEA agent stole a small amount of money.

That's all there is to it. Neither say anything about bitcoin. Scams and theft of dollars happens every single day, and corrupt or criminal individual governmental officials stealing or scamming in the dollar currency is nothing new.

Physical currency such as gold or cash is for Criminals, Cowards, and Crazies.

Criminals, who find it useful as a mechanism for transferring and storing income from illegal activities.

Cowards, who want to hide behind physical currency to protect themselves from social and government problems that can only be solved through education and democracy.

And crazies who think that Obama is a secret atheist muslim who is fighting a secret war of confiscation and redistribution against America.

> new allegations that it was the US Feds that stole the money from Mt. GOX users

Which category do you most identify with?

> Physical currency such as gold or cash is for Criminals, Cowards, and Crazies.

Or people that want to have dinner in Germany, or Greece or a hundred other places.

Cash has its uses, it requires no telecommunications infrastructure to function and as long as you're not buying a new car or a house can be quite handy.

That's why so many places still use it.

Brilliant retort which exposes the rhetorical fallacies in the comment: ad hominem, and, for lack of a better turn of phrase, a false trichotomy.

Haha, because currency issued by a central reserve bank with historical origins in letters of credit and promissory notes is totally just like a cryptocurrency designed for illegal activity and backed by the wasteful expenditure of millions of dollars of electricity. It's the same thing, and you're so clever for noticing.

I never said it was the same thing. My point was to illustrate that they have similarities. The amount of mental energy you use to formulate these insane mental projections must be enormous. You should try to put it to better use.

It's fine that we're having a disagreement though. I probably won't change your mind anyway and you'll just go back to purporting the status quo being fed to you by authority figures. That's probably for the best though because you don't seem to have the cognitive abilities to formulate ideas and opinions on your own.

> you'll just go back to purporting the status quo being fed to you by authority figures

Just because it seems obvious that Bitcoin is a narco-currency masquerading as a ponzi scheme, doesn't mean I am in favor of the status quo, nor to I have much respect for authority figures.

Given that VCs are piling investments into Bitcoin in the hopes of later selling to the greater fool; this makes Bitcoin a snake oil sold by authority figures trying to make a buck at the expense of the gullible.

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