Who is afraid of Bitcoin or: a monster seldom comes alone

A comment by adamfromberlin, translated from german

Change has the potential to scare or give hope. There are so many narratives as there are different perspectives and positions. Everyone has their own view of things, and it is certainly not easy for individuals to relax, let alone discard, re-evaluate the position they once set.

The topic "Bitcoin" or "cryptocurrency" polarises. Since it was picked up by the mainstream media at the end of 2017 (mainly because of the catalyst profit lustiness), just about every German - even if he knows Bitcoin only by hearsay - has an opinion. And this opinion is - as could be otherwise in our wonderfully democratic and pluralistic society - mostly quite clear. One can understand this impressively in the comment columns of the Internet: the gap between advocates and opponents is deep, the discussion tense. Great are the fears of those who suspect in Bitcoin the breaking of the end of the world. There is talk of New World Order (NWO), of a bank conspiracy, even of the fact that Bitcoin was actually created by an artificial intelligence to enslave humanity. The creativity is limitless and quite entertaining. The unfortunate thing is: dangerous half-knowledge mingles with currently legitimate concerns such as the abolition of cash to an emotional soup in which everything plays a role (for example: am I owner of Bitcoin or not?), only one certainly not: facts.

What has been mentioned by scientists over the years as alarming and long since comedies in movies such as Idiocracy (2006) or Wall-E (2013) have been arround, seems to confirm in the current debate impressive: more opinion, less knowledge of the situation - this seems to be the social trend. This is confirmed by a recent survey commissioned by the Bundesverband deutscher Banken (BdB). 49% of respondents said they had "no idea" what's happening on the stock market. Only 41% could use the term "statutory deposit insurance" to some extend.

In times when groundbreaking technologies like Blockchain can only be understood by an elite circle of expert mathematicians or programmers in all their depths, the ignorance of the many, coupled with the smoldering sense of powerlessness, becomes the devouring, post-factional monster. Emotions become more important than information; the new, which one can not assess, is placed in the corner of the "bad guys", just because one can not assess it - reasons for the distancing are snapped and parroted, mostly unchecked and without contextualizing the overall picture. Bitcoin? That was the drugs!
The monster is real. For although the code of Bitcoin for the normal mortals is difficult to understand, so it is for anyone who takes the trouble to google a little googling, completely undeniable that just this code is an open source code and the idea behind a decentralized, so Bank-free, accounting is. In essence, this idea is simply a slap in the face of the established banking system, there is no reason to doubt that. Also essential and so far completely lost in the debate is that bitcoins are not created out of guilt. Bitcoins come thus astonishingly close to "sovereign money", the money demanded by the Monetative for some time, which is not drawn from fault. The economic association Monetative has already recognized for some time that the current monetary system is problematic with the creation of the giral money (more than 80%) from private hands. Here is a quote from Reinhold Harringer, Doctor of Economics, from the Monetative: "There is a coincidence with the Bitcoin idea, as well as here are no debts in the background, but the conviction that the value of Bitcoin arises from scarcity on the one hand and on the other hand from the confidence in the stability of the relationship between users of Bitcoin. "

While one monster is frightening, another (very serious) monster is sneaking on the crypto-throne. It is called "Ripple" and now occupies second place in the rank of global crypto market capitalization, tendency: rapidly rising. Admittedly, calling Ripple a monster is polemical and, at best, only makes sense for those who would call it today's banking cartel. For information: Ripple is more of a new SEPA system than a coin (the coin is called XRP), it is not really decentralized and does not run on a blockchain, nor does it see itself as an alternative to the prevailing system. Rather, it pleasingly serves it with over 100 cooperating banks. It ultimately extends the existing debt-money system into a more digital age. According to an official announcement from ripplelabs, it is even possible to freeze individual accounts. In such a case "one should turn to the appropriate legislators". Sounds convincing, doesn't it? Honestly, at Bitcoin I found the name so stupid .. and maybe i can still jump on that Ripple train and make some money .. So if I can make profit here, then I'm definitely in for it!

In the end we get what we deserve.

Disclaimer: Trading in bitcoins or other digital currencies carries a high level of risk and can result in the total loss of the invested capital. ken-fm does not provide investment advice, but only reflects the opinion of the author. Please ensure that if you trade or invest in bitcoins or other digital currencies (for example, by acquiring mining equipment or investing in cloud mining services) you fully understand the risks involved!

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https://ripple.com/files/GB-2014-02.pdf