Its not. Its widely unstable because there is no centralized authority (like a US Treasury) guiding market adjustments, mitigating runaway inflation, etc. The 21 million bitcoins was just the maximum number someone decided.
I just keep hearing about these newly minted Bitcoinaires and all I'm thinking is, "you ain't worth shit until you actually sell them and cash out". I understand there are some irl businesses that take bc, including one or two car dealerships which seems fucking insane to me. But it's like you said, someone just decided that 21m was the limit. What stops the next guy from setting a higher one? Or even a lower limit, to boost its worth? Sure, without the gold standard all currency is based on faith, but bc is straight delusional.
The math behind bitcoin is all quite solid, and the blockchain tech is pretty cool in terms of decentralized trust, so I think the cap is well enforced by the underlying structure of the system. I do agree that the economics are wonky, as there is no actual value inherent in the system, and it could collapse the second people decide not to value it. Bitcoins have no intrinsic value like gold, nor are they backed by the fiat of a powerful entity like a national government or bank.
Even more powerful is Ethereum (or Ether, for short), because that tech stack is electronic currency wrapped up in electronic contracts. The big uncertainty around any digital currency like Bitcoin and Ether is how government and financial entities will deal with them globally, and the trust of the exchanges that are set up to convert them to "real" money. Personally, I view it all as very interesting technology, but there's no way I'm "investing" in any of them... it's too much of a boiler-room pump-and-dump. That being said, I am currently working on a project that will be implementing the "soft contract" components that are in the Ether stack. Again, it's pretty interesting stuff. There are tons of people with huge positions that are actively marketing and hyping the cryptocurrencies to raise the value of their current holdings, and some more still are gaming the system to take advantage of the volatility of those markets. For instance, just look what happened on Monday: the price of Ether crashed 99.9% in under a second on one of the exchanges (GDOX), due to a large sell which in turn triggered a ton of automatic sells. Some people lost 150k or more in under a second. https://futurism.com/why-the-gdax-ether-flash-crash-isnt-surprising-and-what-it-means-for-crypto/ Luckily, (and amazingly), the exchange has dipped into its own pockets to reimburse those lost positions in order to try and build good faith and trust in the new tech, but still...
All Ive ever heard of it, beyond the articles on the theory behind it, is that it's only value at this point is in the huge speculation gains. If I had lucked out on being an early investor I'd cash the fuck out with my newly minted millions asap.
You may have heard they sent in Feds to help in Chicago. "Van Buren/Morgan: a white Chevy Equinox belonging to the FBI was taken from a dumb-ass agent that left it running while pumping gas .... with all his weapons in same." Thanks to a dumb-ass FBI agent, the offender now has a Chevy Equinox, a M4, a Glock 17, a Glock 22, a Glock 27, 2 vests, full tank of gas...
I know ToyToy hates antifa, but their response to this story is ice cold: https://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/hoax-anti-confederate-rally
What's y'alls thoughts on CNN basically blackmailing the kid who created the Trump Wrestling meme? Black mailing might be a stretch by definition but threatening to doxx a kid if he goes back on an apology is kinda fucked up. One part of me thinks making racist memes for the lulz should come with social consquences. A major news outlet saying they reserve the right to ID you if you go against their wishes is pretty fucking scary.
I think they're both idiots for each doing what they did. CNN shouldn't be doing what they're doing at all, and the guy who made it was somewhat stupid for posting it. (90:10 kind of split). That being said, I think it's one of those things that went viral totally unexpectedly, so when the guy posted it he was assuming he'd get a few laughs online, but then it took off and people started digging through his online life. Between the shit he posted on Reddit and Facebook, it wasn't that hard to figure out who he was. My thoughts on that are "if you post shit online, assume they can and will be used against you". Much like my own experience with this place and my previous employer... I was disappointed in their response, not in the fact that I posted the stuff I have. I'm also having a problem figuring out why CNN actually gives a shit.
To be fair, it sounds like the user that made and posted it is 15. If thats true, CNN is going after a kid for a joke. And because normal things cant happen anymore, there is now violent threats being made against anyone who works for CNN as a journalist.
It sounds like at first they wanted the easy "Trump retweets known online racist" line. Adding the line about reserving the right to publish his ID if he reneges on his apology is what I can't come to terms with. Reagrdless of how easy it would be for anyone to track the guy down to have a major media outlet holding this over someone as if they are some arbiter of mob justice punishment for any of the offensive he might have posted is kind of fucked.
This is about the wrestling thing, right? The only reason this matters at all is because Trump reposted it. And then of course CNN decided to take it as literally as possible knowing that particular thing shouldn't be. They ran with it in such a way as to think Trump was calling for people to actually clothesline reporters. Granted, Gianforte actually did. But still, as a whole, if we decided to treat stupid memes as if they are a literal message, we should hope Trump gets the Benjamin Button disease.
Fair enough, the misinformation here is a bog to wade through. That being said, it only makes the situation marginally better. If the situation were reversed and someone was threatening to release personal information of a CNN reporter for a particular story, CNN would flip their shit instantly and make never-ending grandstanding gestures about freedom of the press, etc. Its pretty fucked up on their part. I know anti-Trump goggles have polluted many people's brains to the point where critical thinking has evaporated and they can no longer objectively discern right from wrong, but the only thing worse than CNN in this story are the people defending them.
I don't think this meme was the issue. If they exposed him for making the dumb meme no one cares. It was the other racist memes and comments made by the user that made the dox a big deal. https://www.adl.org/blog/analysis-o...responsibility-for-president-trumps-cnn-video
Welcome to the online world... Sure, you have the right to say whatever you want, but you don't have the right to be anonymous about it. Based on that article, assuming it's legit/real, the guy is a 40-something veteran living in Tennessee. It seems that the guy has a big history of posting hateful and racist shit online, and it was only when his real identity was about to be disclosed that he had a big mea culpa. Honestly, CNN would have been well within their rights to publish what they found online... his name, the stuff he posted, etc. After all, that guy put it out there in the public for all to see... he just didn't think anyone would correlate his online persona with his real life. It seems like they kind of took pity on the guy and didn't post his real name, (which undoubtedly would have made him a target of all sorts of crap in real life), albeit in return for not spewing that shit any more. Part of me thinks that CNN should have released his name and let him suffer the consequences of his own actions... and part of me feels like it's not CNN's place to force good behaviour on people. I also think that this isn't CNN as a business entity setting policy... I think it's one online reporter cutting the guy a break with an all-too-human reaction of bargaining, like they're getting something good out of the exchange for not doxing the guy. I think the "we reserve the right to publish his name later" part was just the reporter covering their ass, ensuring everyone knew that they didn't make some sort of promise or contract with the guy that they could be held liable for if they went back on it later. In short, I think it was decent of them to withhold his personal information, and they should be commended for that, but they should never have said they did it because he promised never to do it again.
Yeah Ive heard the argument that line was more of a legal maneuver. CNN could not have worded the whole statement worse. While you make a good point that it was decent they didn't cause this guy any more trouble than they needed something about wielding this power over a source with the very nature of journalism and reporting relationship with sources being as ethically contentious as it is feels very off to me. Not that I totally agree with Trump's sentiment about CNN it does seem their reporting is as good as it once was.