here is part of my candidacy policy presentation.

Is Bitcoin Money?

Since Bitcoin is now a $multi million market, with its pricehitting new all-time highs, now might be good time to ask, is bitcoin money?

According to Aristotle, for something to be considered money, is has to fulfill four characteristics:

1) It must be durable. It can't fade, corrode.

2) It must be portable. It has to be 'dense' so that you can take it with you when you travel to the market.

3) It must be divisible or, 'fungible.' This means that if you break it up into smaller pieces each smaller piece when you add them up will equal the value of the original piece.

4) It must have intrinsic value. This means it must have value whether or not it's used as money per se.

Let's look at these four characteristics and see if they apply to Bitcoin.

1) Durability.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, decentralized form of money; as durable as the Internet itself. Remember, the Internet or DARPA as it was originally called, was created as a fail-safe, global network with no 'single point of failure.' If one part goes down, data takes another route and nothing is lost. So on this point the answer is "Yes," Bitcoin is durable.

2) Portability.

Bitcoin is probably the most portable money in the history of the world. I can download any amount onto a thumb drive and walk across any border without any problems. Or, I could commit to memory a line of code that I can then input into the network and save or spend Bitcoins. So on the point of portability,
Bitcoin gets an Aristotle
"Yes."

3) Fungibility.

Bitcoin is probably the most fungible currency ever created. You can break it down by 10,000 decimal places and trade it just as easily without it changing in value so on this point the answer is also "Yes."

4) Intrinsic Value.

This is probably the characteristic that most people find difficult to comprehend. The intrinsic value of Bitcoin is very 21st century. If you think about it, what's the one thing that has become extremely scarce over the past thirty years that has grown in desirability? Privacy.

Privacy is an age of universal email collection and spying, with millions of CCTV camera's, and warrantless spying pervasive; privacy has become virtually non existent and therefore extremely scarce and desirable. Bitcoin can be a completely anonymous transaction that maintains the user's privacy beyond the reach of any authority. So on this point too, the answer is "Yes," Bitcoin fulfills Aristotle's need for having intrinsic value. Privacy is a desirable human right and people would want it even if it wasn't encoded as Bitcoins.

In conclusion, using Aristotle's four characteristics of money, Bitcoin fulfills all four. So then according to Aristotles definition, the answer is 'Yes.' Bitcoin is money.

Bitcoin is more akin to something like TCP/IP and like any suite that has been developed, they have been taken up by the masses and custom designed to facilitate a function on the internet, not Governments.

TCP packets now have a fiscal value, this is why we pay for data, data is bought and sold by international transmission companies, and resold by ISPs to their customers. We are not necessarily paying for data but rather value is added to the transmission suite ( TCP/IP ) because for example it is by far more convenient to send a digital letter rather than send a piece of paper through the postal service which travels by road and aeroplane of ship to its destination.

People have no qualms about this and without thinking, fork out $50 to $150 a month in paying for 'data' and the facility to transact in this manner. They quite happily pay more for the ability to be able to do this portably, example: mobile data.

Governments have learnt to operate over the internet implemented TCP/IP suite, they have regulated it, they also use it, they have websites, email, they stream videos etc that can reach the masses because of this anarchistic non-Government centric suite of protocols...

Just as TCP/IP allows for the flow of data from A to B, so does Bitcoin allow for the shift of ownership of a unit of value on a ledger from A to B. It allows for a unit of value to go from A to B 'almost' instantaneously without the encumbrances of traditional transfer of stored value systems.

Its intrinsic value comes from this convenience, and more that it is implemented into hardware and online trading applications and used by people to shift units of value between ownerships, the more this value increases. Like all internet protocols they become popular through their mass implementation and integration into common devices, not necessarily because they are a good idea or convenient to Governments.

Governments have had to buckle down and come to understand them, and learn to operate/transact over them, and this is also the case with the cryptographic transfer of value system often called Bitcoin. Like the IPv4, it may not be the best idea out there, and someone may come up with an upgrade to it as has happened with IPv6, but whether or not this happens, the world will be financially transacting and contracting via the public ledger / blockchain method whether Governments like it or not.

Guntram, you may have missed the point. Its not about Governmental crypto-currency, its more like eco friendly lightbulbs...these are not Government lightbulbs, but political party's can promote an idea or a product that they think is beneficial to their constituents.

So the Green Party says eco lightbulbs are the way, the Conservative Party could say condoms are evil, the ALCP says smoke weed, the McGillicuddy Serious Party believed that we should use chocolate fish as money....

That sort of thing.

@terangikaiwhiriake Well sure, political parties can harangue people to do this or that, but it's always struck me as pointless and not what we elect politicians for.

I've personally never bought a product because a political party endorsed me, and I doubt there are many people who feel otherwise.

@hugheldredgrigg My thoughts about crypto-currency are quite different. Even if bitcoin had never been invented, I would have still suggested the idea of "stateful money" simply because it is a better system of exchanging value. There are MANY problem with paper money, and even more problems with electronic fiat money. I wanted an HONEST money system, and I do believe what I am proposing will achieve that quality of HONESTY. I designed it precisely for that purpose...not so people could have money apart from governments. That is a no-win way to create an "us and them" mentality, and eventually, the "we the individuals" will end up working together, once the pains of financial anarchy are felt, and at that time, the "we" will morph into the "them" and the same problems will occur again. I have tried to avoid all that by seeing how government could be reigned in, and made something that is truly OF THE PEOPLE, so it is no longer an "us and them" scenario, but one where mechanisms put in place that force the government to stay true to the public, and prevent all forms of corruption. That has been my goal all along.

@terangikaiwhiriake I know you have your beliefs about Bitcoin, and I respect them as something you believe. If it does go as you say, I predict great problems with it, as I've stated. I also have developed a competing idea, and believe it or not, the world is big enough for competing ideas to coexist. In the Laws of Marketing, there is the principle that once somebody owns a marketing category "bitcoin style currencies" you can't compete within that category, so you simply invent a new category, which is what I have done: "stateful money". If I can get my system fully implemented, then the bout will be on. Right now, it is just a competition between similar systems, but mine will be truly different, so it will be a choice between two different systems... Don't underestimate the power of choice in this regard, since my system will appeal much better to those who probably don't like the bitcoin idea. Tides have shifted before, and I try to never say never...just a piece of friendly advice :)

Thanks for your input Kenneth.

Bitcoin has wrestled the control of the movement of currency away from banks into the hands of the value owner herself. Thats a done deal as far as the rest of the world is concerned. A quick scan of https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0 will show you just how many others there are in the world that believe their strain of digital currency will rise above the sea of glass to take on and replace bitcoin.

Users back in the day called for the movie and music industries to allow for online sales of digital media, with many stating that they were happy to pay out a few dollars and cents to be able to continue this new convenience they had been exposed to with the now defunct centralised file distribution system called Napster, but the industries balked at the idea of losing their franchises, and the rest is history, silly ninjas in helicopters kicking down doors in Coatsville, Governments enacting mostly toothless legislation to scare their citizens away from file sharing and keeping the large corps happy, the complete decentralisation of the file sharing method, etc etc etc - the tit for tat on this will go on indefinately until the large corps concede to their absolute failure in underestimating the power of the masses to resist against inconvenience and bullying, but by then it will be 20 years too late for them and their industries will be a shadow of their former selves.

Your idea Kenneth, could add value to the bitcoin protocols, as some other alt coins have, Namecoin for example facilitates a DNS system for the dot bit domain name, so even though its an alt-coin, it has added value, but it in of itself will not supercede Bitcoin but rather it will sit alongside of bitcoin as long as the need for dot bit exists. Ethereum is another which gives the potential for contracts albeit in a rather confusing way, and there are others as well.

What bitcoin developers are doing though is, looking at all the alt coins being developed, and taking teh good bits from them that enhance Bitcoin, and simply adding those features to bitcoin for its upcoming Bitcoin 2.0 release. This makes it hard for any alt coins with good ideas to beat Bitcoin in the long run.

As I stated in the domestic crypto-coin discussion concerning the development of any other alt-coin to bitcoin, unless your coin is a significant improvement over the ease of movement of value from A to B tool of the digital exchange of value protocol suite that is the decentralised P2P system called Bitcoin, then these competing ideas will eventually be swallowed up in its shadow as 'almost' every other competing ideas have been in the last 5 years.

I don't mean to discombobulate people with this view on alternative digital coin ideas to that of Bitcoin, its just that sometimes there appears to be an emperors clothes dilemma occurring when it comes to the current state of digital currency around the world, and a belief that this almost completely anarchist digital means of value shifting called Bitcoin can somehow be a) ignored, b) stopped, or c) superseded by one that has more controls and encumbrances on it for users than Bitcoin does, or a combination of a b & c.

@terangikaiwhiriake Thank you for your comments as well TKR. Regarding the music industry, I see what has happened there to be what I think will happen with coins.

Yes, the industry did NOT listen, so you had the BitCoinesque technologies like Napster and all its copies. You had (and still have) torrents, etc., but the main pier-to-pier music trading systems seemed unbeatable...until government decided to do something. Now, the situation is, people ARE paying for music, and they are NOT using the pier-to-pier technologies that were around for a while. Make no mistake, in it's prime, Napster was being used world-wide, and nearly everyone I knew was using it...FAR MORE than the number of people I know who use BitCoin. Then, it all came crashing down. It was pier-to-pier, so why did it stop? Well, it became illegal, and the authorities were tracking people down.

I'm just saying, never think that anything is "set in stone" because history teaches us that things come and go, and for every good idea there are better ones possible. Anyhow, I certainly do get your points, even though I hold a different view of how I expect things to go.

Napster was semi-centralised which was its Achilles heel, far from being BitCoinesque at all ( so was Megauploads ), whereas the torrents system is based on the principles of complete distributed decentralisation of an application suite - exactly the same in principle as bitcoin is, however torrents lack any anonymity which is their archilles heel.

This is why oppressive states like China with all their power have been semi successful in blocking the use of TOR ( another semi decentralised, peer to peer system ) in their country, but have not even made a dent in the use of Bitcoin by its citizens other than via banking regulations preventing bitcoin users in trading their coins for fiat. But that was short lived as well, tit-for-tat.

Torrent styled P2P was the result of that spat, torrents are a pretty unstoppable method of file sharing that created a headless beast that cannot be stopped without immense efforts. Bitcoin is torrents but with pseudo anonymity, making it even more difficult for a state to crush.

@terangikaiwhiriake Yes, but we don't really want to squash a beast...we want to tame it. I keep coming back to the fact that this is a political party. What you are advocating is anarchy, and that goes against the idea of government. If you don't want government, perhaps you should not be in a party, since that IS what this is about. If you take a way a government's ability to govern, you create a whole lot of other problems that you haven't mentioned at all. Plus...BitCoin is VERY unstable, and profoundly given to speculation. I just don't think people who advocate its use have thought the economic ramifications through very well. While unstable currency is great for high-risk speculators, allowing them to win big, and lose big, it is not good for an overall economy. Suddenly, the price of things is not determined by the utility value in that thing any longer...it is determined by the current value of the currency. People will be buying and selling things all for the wrong reasons. It will become like a gambling sickness, and no real progress will be possible. Plus, with a limitation on the possible number of coins, once that limit is hit, the price per coin will soar through the roof. Great for speculators...bad for everyone else. This is not a forward thinking system...it is a knee-jerk reaction to the present one.

Imagine the price of gold if one day it was found there is no more in the earth? Remember the movie Goldfinger? It was all about a guy who wanted to destroy all the existing gold so that his was all that existed. The laws of supply and demand ensure that what I'm saying WILL certainly happen.

"I keep coming back to the fact that this is a political party. What you are advocating is anarchy, and that goes against the idea of government."

I see myself more as a realist than an advocate for anything, and governments do not try to tame anything that is a threat to their assumed power. So unless something is done about that, most Governments will see themselves in the same manner as the music industry found itself 10 years ago, and try to eradicate the threat to their power with the resources they have at their disposal.

Unless minor parties begin to advocate for this, and show a Government that they can still maintain the assumption of sovereignty and perception of power, then this and many other countries are going to be in for a rather miserable next 15 years as the might of Government and big business ( Banks ) try again to step on a distributed, peer to peer protocol and movement - the outcome will be the same as with torrents, but the misery will be greater.

@terangikaiwhiriake I am with you on that, and that is why, if you look at my entire set of proposals, they are all part of a complete package, all designed to reign in government, turning the emphasis onto empowering the general citizenry to blossom, and for society to become a completely different thing from what it is now...an incubator for human potential and progress. And i'm not just talking about financial...but in every beneficial area of life...things like art, music, creativity, raising families, education, etc. I am for a fully integrated program of "setting things right" in all areas, where no giant is too big to tame.

@kennethkopelson Like I said to you some discussions back Kenneth, we differ in that what you hear as unicorns clippidy clopping ( some very cool ideological futuristic ideas ), I hear as horses clippidy clopping ( cold stark reality ), that is prevalent throughout every debate we have had so far.

Try not to see support for this idea as undermining your proposal Kenneth. I no longer see it that way, and will change my vote on your proposal to reflect this.

My discussion point here is about trying to come up with a way alleviate the impending shit storm that is coming world wide as crypto-currency begins to undermine the centralised banking system beginning with undermining SWIFT, ending in undermining the whole personal banking system - unless it is somehow stopped by brute force.

Starting a domestic crypto currency of any form ( referring to the other discussion thread ) will not prevent the horsemyn ( so to speak ) coming for Bitcoin users.

The way of dealing with this here is no different to any P2P dilemma, firstly concession by Governments that they are powerless to stop this without creating a lot of pain, and secondly in waking up to this new reality, supporting innovation around it in the same stead as all the applications that have been built on top of TCP/IP.

Your idea and the other discussion for Kim Dotcoms domestic coin, I see as one of those potential innovations.

Unless this happens, once they begin to really feel the pinch of Bitcoin, Governments around the world could legislate against all crypto-currencies and little ol NZ will follow suit as it always has with the rare exception of its anti-nuclear stance.

The battle I believe begins between Bitcoin and, banks and their Governments, in my view that's where the battle for crypto-currencies will be won and lost, all other attempts at alt coins will survive or not bedrocked on the outcome of this coming crypto-war ( my realist brain speaking out loud again ).

We have an opportunity to start something here that would put a spoke in the wheels that are already in motion, or we can do nothing and become observers to this.

@terangikaiwhiriake I agree with you TRK :) It's amazing what can happen as people discuss things rationally! I suppose what I've been proposing is something that governments could support, assuming those governments were revamped as well. I know you are talking "realism", but I guess my mind of realism also includes the "possible". 80 years ago, it wasn't very realistic to think about going to the moon, and yet...

So, yes, I believe we can work together for the common good of New Zealand :)

@kennethkopelson Your ideas don't make a lot of sense. You talk about wanting to end an "us vs them" mentality, but then talk about forcing the government to do things. That sounds pretty "us vs them" to me. You can't get much more "us vs them" than one party forcing another to submit to its preferences.

@hugheldredgrigg my ideas make perfect sense to me. Obviously there is some difficulty in communicating the full depth of what I am saying. Let me try another angle:

What I mean by "us vs. them" is the way that government tends to view the public as the source of revenue generators...which makes sense given the fact that they operate by collecting taxes. I believe it would be a better situation if it was "us AND them", where the "them" is truly working for "us". Instead of government seeing the public as "revenue sources" it sees us as "why they exist"...and their entire perspective is to enable EACH person to become all they can be. So, their KPIs are in terms of how many citizens are truly happy in life. This would include helping people find the thing they would like to work at, providing free education, and most importantly, highly encouraging people to come forth with their ideas for ways to improve New Zealand and ultimately the world. When they do come forth, the government would then provide the guidance and opportunity for developing ideas into full-fledged projects, which would then get funded and executed. The process would not be artificially onerous, meaning bureaucracy would be kept to just what is needed. So, unlike now, the entrepreneurs would be individuals, but the government would be the enabler. They can do this quite safely in my system, because they DO NOT get funded by taxes, but rather they create money in order to create value within the society. They depend on the public to actually come forth with their ideas, expertise, and willingness to work. It's kind of like the way that Callahan Innovation works, but just expanded to include EVERYTHING. Another difference is that funding is not being extracted from people's private accomplishments (as it is now), but it is being CREATED to pay for new accomplishments.

A lot more on this is written in the other proposals, particularly on a Value-based Economy. The reason I'm explaining this is because elsewhere you said that $600 million to spend on a risky project like Hydrothermal is not a good way to spend public money. Under the current system, I would agree. Under a Value-based Economy, that is precisely the kind of thing that money WOULD and SHOULD be spent on. This is a perfect illustration of what I mean when I say the current system holds humanity back, and only allows us to venture into super-safe enterprises. VBE encourages all kinds of expenditures, simply because it values failures as learning, which will then allow another attempt that will likely succeed. Anyhow, I'm hoping you get the idea, and I don't have to keep explaining.

What I meant to say above is that "us vs. them" also makes the public see the government as this organisation to either be feared or doubted. Government is NOT seen as the friend of the public, and to me, that is a HUGE problem. We the public ARE the initiators of government, and if we have not set it up so it IS our friend, and IS working for all of us, helping each individual become better, then it has failed in its core purpose for existing. It is all based on the idea that together, we can do more than we can individually...two heads are better than one...the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, etc. In a very loose way, companies are kind of a micro-version of what a government should be, minus all the profit-orientation that they have. The thing about companies is, people work together to accomplish big things. Imagine if companies could just create money to pay people? What would the limiters be then? They would be the people themselves...limits on their time and limits on their abilities. Those limitations would allow us to advance much quicker than we are now, solving the problems of the world a lot quicker and with more efficacy. And, not just solving problems, but actually advancing into new and exciting areas of endeavor.

@hugheldredgrigg Also, I don't believe I said anything about "forcing" government. WE are the government, as long as we get involved and stay engaged. You can't force anything in parliament. That is all about persuasion and negotiation. That is what I've been doing here. Putting forth my vision and ideas. While not everyone agrees fully, most of the things I've presented have met with majority favor. For me, that isn't really good enough, so I try to present more input to those who disagree, since it forces me to consider their points of view, and their objections help to hone the ideas.

@hugheldredgrigg my comment about "forcing" government was forcing them to stay honest and true to their mission. Remember, it is only human beings that are real. Corporations and organisations are fictitious, and as such, have to be "forced" to be what humans want them to be. So, forcing the government to stay true to an honorable and noble function is a good thing, and it WILL prevent an "us and them" mentality. Government should NOT operate on its own, but rather as a TOOL for the collective society of individuals to work together.

Do people think its possible for a country to have 2 coins, say a domestic coin and the established international digital coin?

Digital currency is what we already all use anyway, but why don't we have our own government issued digital currency? Why not do something for ourselves, when we can?

I am of the opinion that Bitcoin cannot stay on the Governments ignore list for much longer, and when it does come off the ignore list, just how far the horse has already bolted will determine how much pain will be inflicted as the Government will initially try to regulate it, then realise it cannot effectively regulate it out of existence and inevitably try to steam-roll bitcoin entrepreneurs and users in this country.

@peteryoung "why don’t we have our own government issued digital currency"

Yes that is totally possible to do. I guess a few issues then come to mind. One is how would a Domestic Digital Currency ( DDC ) compete with established crypto currencies like Bitcoin which has little to no state encumbrances when it comes to the relatively seamless and frictionless way it employs shifting value between two points?

@terangikaiwhiriake Rangi, although crypto currencies like Bitcoin may be having some success, digital currency issued by private banks isn't having any trouble competing with them. The government needs to ban the banks from issuing digital currency (as interest-bearing debt) and re-assume its sovereign responsibility for creating our monetary supply, by issuing its own digital currency.

@peteryoung I hear you Pete, but it appears we are having two different conversations here.

My point here is to propose that the Internet Party be an advocate for crypto currency users ( as in flesh and bones breathing people in this country ) already using and innovating around the crypto currency networks, which are individuals, and companies getting their teeth into creating functionality around the potential innovation such an unencumbered protocol allows.

Without an advocate in Parliament, much like any other protocol that dares to impede on the assumed role of banks, things are going to get rather sporty, and history has shown, P2P always wins against the blunt brute force of the state ( see the development of torrents as a case in point ).

But along the way there is going to be a lot of carnage against users unless advocacy begins now. So what better party is there to do this than this one?

So on the subject you raised, I believe there already is a proposal that has been voted on about that, and I do not see that as an either/or for advocating for current bitcoin users and entrepreneurs, and those that will use it in the future when the likes of Facebook, EBay and Paypal make it as normal as weetbix is to breakfast.

@terangikaiwhiriake Ah, I get it now, Rangi. Yes, I agree with that. You know there's a lady by the name of Deborah Kent who's heading the "New Economics Party" who is a big advocate for diversifying currencies.

@peteryoung

"Ah, I get it now"

Well yeah, now that I read back on the subject description, its not really all that 'descriptive' and sounds more like a prepaid ad....

Bitcoin is digital Gold
litecoin is digital silver
a kiwitype coin would be like our old 1&2c pieces
chump change

Because the internet party allowed membership to be paid with Bitcoin we have already set the precedent

https://bitcoin.org/en/faq

@marksolomon1
"Bitcoin is digital Gold"

Initially that has been its value, in my opinion though eventually the value it presents as a method of exchange of unit value from A to B will exceed in importance to that of its fiat tradeable value at which point it will become more like the protocols on which the internet runs.

"a kiwitype coin would be like our old 1&2c pieces"

Most of the other attempts at a digital currency so far have resulted in what is mostly marginal currencies, unless they were a completely new idea ( Litecoin ) or added some value to a users online experience, for example Namecoin.

What others are proposing here are types of domestic currencies that have a sort of Government instituted green belt around them. Hence for example, they are domestic only currencies.

They might work and I hope they do, but the only way the Government could level the playing field between Bitcoin and any domestic digital currencies are by intentionally impairing the operation of the P2P Bitcoin network firstly by way of regulation, then by way of prohibition.

A hurdle I think some in the Internet Party need to come to the realisation of, is that any attempts at a formal Government instituted domestic digital currency will not threaten the existence of Bitcoin, but rather it would have to exist in the same space as Bitcoin and compete with it whether we like it or not.

My concern as stated is what they will do when prohibition of yet another P2P network has failed. How will that affect the many thousands of this country's citizens already mining, trading and transacting within this country and overseas using Bitcoin.

@marksolomon1
"Because the internet party allowed membership to be paid with Bitcoin we have already set the precedent"

Well yes, that is a point. But I guess this is politics and subject to people changing their minds on an issue?

@terangikaiwhiriake My stateful money has qualities that are not found in any other medium of exchange, except perhaps the old "tally sticks" used centuries ago. Also, if stateful money was used in conjunction with Value-based Economy, it would quickly become the currency of choice, simply by virtue of major projects being funded by the government with it. I'm not talking about our system we now have, but a new one, able to safely create billions of dollars in stateful money to fund all kinds of great societal projects. If that every happened, it would be like the day when IBM announced the PC...instantly all other home-grown brands became "old" and were quickly replaced. I fully disagree with you on your constant insistence concerning BitCoin. Yes, it is cool, and yes it has a place in history. If, however you think it is unsinkable like the Titanic, well...enough said on that one...

@kennethkopelson

"Also, if stateful money was used in conjunction with Value-based Economy, it would quickly become the currency of choice, simply by virtue of major projects being funded by the government with it."

I hope it does, and in a fair playoff, it may even put the domestic use of Bitcoin into disuse by people in this country.

"If that every happened, it would be like the day when IBM announced the PC…instantly all other home-grown brands became “old” and were quickly replaced."

Probably not the best example for you to use though, since what IBM did essentially was release an idea that was quickly replicated by anyone with a PCB printing operation, which is more akin to Satoshi's white paper on crypto-currency than your stateful money idea.

"I fully disagree with you on your constant insistence concerning BitCoin."

That, Kenneth is stating the blatantly obvious...whereas I am trying to keep an open mind with your ideas.

"If, however you think it is unsinkable like the Titanic, well…enough said on that one…"

Oh its sinkable given enough resources thrown at it it would sink.

Being an open source application protocol, there are thousands of security experts, programmers assessing its weaknesses every day, and openly discussing them and how they can be strengthened. There are also a hundred times that many again trying to attack the code in order to screw a few free bits out of the blockchain for themselves.

So to the Titanic example, well the Titanic, again its probably not comparable to crypto-currency because the Titanic, unlike Bitcoin, was designed in secret ( black box ), with its designer being the only one that had the overall plan in his mind and the design complying with a Government instituted standard, rather than a standard that was actually proven to be safe.

People put their trust in the designer, and some technical people that had a chance to evaluate the completed ship thought it to be practically unsinkable. This was no different to many major ships of the day including the Lusitania which also turned out to be quite sinkable given enough brute force.

Upon its maiden voyage, the company that hired the designer would have been rubbing its hands, knowing that their ship was ten times better than the competition ( because the designer told them so ). In their minds eye it would only be a matter of time before passengers abandon those other troublesome passenger liners for theirs ( your IBM example ).

Having never been tested under any duress, it set out to sea, and the captain and crew did what they always did, push a ship to its limits, and due to an unseen series of design flaws that only become apparent when something went wrong with the human interaction, the ships crew were unable to steer it away from an iceberg and it sank. Ironically that is a lesson I believe Bitcoin and all other open source concepts have learnt from, but you appear to not have yet.

Due to the open source quality of crypto-currencies, with every attack whether successful or not in the last 4 years of its incubation, it has become stronger. The attacks have stepped up as well, and so it goes on and on, but its better for Bitcoin for this to happen now rather than later. But noone in the crypto currency communities believes it is unsinkable.

But what it has proven to be resistant against right from its first inception, is state level brute force or attempts to filter/block crypto traffic. So again, much like torrents but to a much greater extent because this involves MONEY, this leaves Governments with little choice but to either allow its users to freely transact, or, for Governments to begin with regulations, then when that fails, to come at the users and try to scare them away from using it and green-belting their own digital domestic currency in the process.

I believe that people should be allowed to transact in crypto-currencies over digital currency protocols, and any other form of exchanging value in this manner and unless a political party begins to advocate for all digital currency users, then those that use non-Government backed digital coins will eventually suffer persecution.

If this happens, and history shows us that it will, the Government would have achieved its goal of instituting say, your stateful money idea, not purely by it being a better idea, but by using fprohibition to impede the use of, and uptake of what it see is competition to its own state sponsored digital currency.

Unless a party like this one, or the Greens or a coalition of parties step in to advocate for these users and block attempts to persecute users, then that is what Governments do when it comes to causing uptake of their own ideas and protecting their market against competition and things out of their control.

@terangikaiwhiriake That's all fine, what you've said. You have your views, and only time will prove out which view is more correct. Since my economic system has two parts to it, it seems like your views about BitCoin type systems may be most relevant in the context of the Capitalism component. On the other hand, if anyone could have a private Asset Bank, and the Stateful money was exchanged between those in a P2P fashion, this may actually work just as well or better than BitCoin, providing the same benefits, but with less problems. Anyhow, I don't want to open that can or worms with you, since it will take a LOT of further typing I'm sure, and I don't have time now to deal with that. Generally, I think we just need to stick with your more open-minded comment:

"I hope it does, and in a fair playoff, it may even put the domestic use of Bitcoin into disuse by people in this country."

Thanks for that, since it may be the most open-minded thing you've said yet, in regard to my proposals.

@kennethkopelson "Thanks for that, since it may be the most open-minded thing you’ve said yet, in regard to my proposals."

You mean, aside from me actually voting for your stateful electronic currency proposal.

Also remember this one:
"Try not to see support for this idea as undermining your proposal Kenneth."

It will help to prevent you from trolling my discussions every time I mention the word Bitcoin.... ;)

per BTC is $701 now
fee to join IP was $1.29 is now worth $1.89 in btc
sure its volatile
this is real & relevant now
not what could be
so for that sake of now
it is what it is
worlds number1 crypto currency

@stanleywilliams First, our economy is not screwed as you put it...I don't see any bread lines or for that matter, bread costing $1 billion per loaf. Yes, things could be better, but without a doubt, things could be MUCH, MUCH worse. The idea that our economy is screwed is hyperbolic exaggeration in the highest degree.

Secondly, you say you can't see it causing any harm, and yet you just said you have no well thought out reason for agreeing...hence, your statement that you can't see it causing any harm is meaningless, since you have made little if any attempt to see.

One crucial HARM that can be caused by a highly-volatile, highly-speculative currency of any type is massive price instability. Would you like to go to the store and find that eggs cost $4.00 per dozen today, $15.00 per dozen tomorrow, and then $3.00 the day after that? This is JUST ONE of the problems that can occur, and I haven't even gotten started yet.

I highly suggest that people not agree to something as complex as economics (which is very much what this is) unless they HAVE taken the time to give study and careful thought to the matter. These kinds of decisions can have profound impact on everyone, including you Mr. Williams.

@marcwhinery "We aren't the Brown party"

Care to elaborate on what that means Marc?

@kennethkopelson "I highly suggest that people not agree to something as complex as economics (which is very much what this is) unless they HAVE taken the time to give study and careful thought to the matter"

These discussion in this incubator are full of feedback that ranges from those that have taken 10 seconds to think about something through to those that have taken a long time to process their thoughts. Also varying levels of expertise and previous experiences.

I suggest people give their opinions on every proposal even if they do not possess expert understanding of the issues. And the big thing with that is, this can often means people voting against one of yours or my ideas, who cares, let them, challenge them if they have been a little ignorant, try to inspire a bit more thought being put in, sure, but try to get out of the habit of attacking people that put up ideas that go against one of your pet projects Kenneth.

Again:
“Try not to see support for this idea as undermining your proposal Kenneth.”

It will help in getting participation up in all these discussions on economics. This is an incubator for discussions by party members, save all that expert breakdown of ideas for policy development forums.

Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a say on all discussions and proposals no matter their level of expertise.

@terangikaiwhiriake Yes Rangi, and I have given my opinion on the matter, just like you have.

@terangikaiwhiriake And, just to be clear...I made "suggestions", which are a far cry from telling people what they can and cannot do. The fact is, the voting on here DOES count in order to determine which policies get furthered along in the policy process. So, when somebody votes on something without giving much thought, they could very well be sending an otherwise good idea to the bottom of the sea...not because it should have been, but because of problems in the way things are set up. I would also SUGGEST that if this incubator is ONLY about people giving casual opinions, that it NOT be taken into account with regards to determining which ideas will eventually become policies. It was my understanding that this incubator is just any incubator, such as those that house human babies. In my view, every idea here should be treated seriously, and that flippant voting does not serve the best interests of the process. This is my opinion, to which you have stated most clearly, I am entitled to...just like everyone else.

Incubators work when there is a good spread of input from a broad variety of positions.

When incubators become dominated by a mere few voices, then they no longer are a legitimate function of incubating ideas and garnering a parties feelings about proposals as they can easily become a soap box for a few strong personalities.

You have your tally stick idea, there is no doubt in my mind that in order for you to sell the party on it, any competition to it in your mind is a threat to it. Fair enough, thats how the game is played I suppose.

However, whether you, I, big Kim or anyone else thinks that bitcoin is wrong, and/or has visions of grandeur around starting an alt currency, whether we like it or not, the current crypto-currencies flag-shipped by Bitcoin, are already use in this country, and that use is growing daily as more innovation comes online making bitcoin more and more a part of peoples every day lives.

If a Government were to make the same assumption as yours that in order for its own domestic e-currency to get uptake it must first regulate against the current crypto currencies, then it will find that regulations do not prevent P2P completely distributed, ideas, or even slightly stifle their use, as it has found in the past.

So in continuing in its one-eyed view of forcing implementation of its own crypto coin - rather than coming up with something that actually works better, its only choice it believes is available to it, as it has done in the past, is to go after the users by way of legislation that allows for a process that inevitably leads to prosecutions of users, unless minor parties begin to advocate for them now and build a wall around peoples choice of crypto-currency.

That's what I see is one of the primary functions of political parties, advocating for peoples choices and values, they are not always the best choices, and not even the most thought out choices, but that doesn't mean they do not deserve advocating.

So this proposal is to garner feelings of those in this incubator about where they sit on this issue.

Alright @terangikaiwhiriake fair enough. I'm not saying that BitCoin shouldn't be allowed to exist. I'm just saying that I do not honestly believe that it can serve as an official currency for a country. I honestly do believe that stateful currency is a better fit for that, not because I thought it up, but because it the product of a very specific attempt to design a currency that WOULD serve a nation well...better than what we now have. Also, my currency system is designed to work seamlessly with Value-based Economy, Electronic Warrants, and Participatory Democracy systems. I'm most certain that BitCoin can continue to be an investment product, very much like gold will be. The question before us is whether BitCoin should be THE crypto-currency promoted by the party. Given that we are a political party, part of the country's system of government, I am simply stating my honest technical opinion that BitCoin is not the best type of system to serve as a general official currency of a nation. It is precisely because of it's non-centralised nature that I have this opinion. After much study and consideration, I do not believe that free-enterprise capitalism is the ONLY system a country should have. That is why my economic system has capitalism PLUS societism, where both the GROUP and the INDIVIDUAL are equal in importance and standing.

Anyhow, I am over half finished with a detailed booklet on all of this, where it can be clearly and completely explained, with illustrations, diagrams, and clearly-written text. When it is finished, I will publish it online, and refer people to it for their consideration.

@terangikaiwhiriake

Brown is the opposite of green. Burning energy for the sole purpose of proving "effort" for a currency is the most anti-green thing I can think of. We might as well just light the oil on fire as it comes out of the ground. That'd be more efficient, as we wouldn't have to waste resources transporting it before burning it for no use.

Existing crypto currencies are destructive and bad.

@terangikaiwhiriake What would you propose as a term for anti-green policies? I've heard "brown" before, but given that you picked that sentence out of context and objected to it, it then sounded racial, rather than environmental.

@marcwhinery They're only bad by your logic because of where the energy comes from. Replace coal with solar and then they're fine.

@marcwhinery "Brown is the opposite of green."

Not on the colour spectrum it isn't. Pink to Mauve are the inversions of most shades of green.

@marcwhinery "Burning energy for the sole purpose of proving “effort” for a currency is the most anti-green thing I can think of."

That is a valid argument to make, but one that could be countered by numerous other methods of wastes of even more energy. Take the uptake of the internet and the person computer in this country for example.

The increase in energy consumption with the uptake has resulted in an increase in power consumption comparable to the complete output of the Waikaremoana hydro dam.

The reason this is never challenged now is because the internet has become intrinsic to the way we communicate and do business. But there were commentators back in the day making the same claims about the potential waste of energy being spent on what was then apparently the haven of pornographers, money launderers, terrorists and computer dweebs.

The point is, if the people decide that its something that is worth having around, then it will stay around and its cost in hydro watts will be seen as necessary just as the net in every home, is seen as today.

@marcwhinery "We might as well just light the oil on fire as it comes out of the ground. That’d be more efficient, as we wouldn’t have to waste resources transporting it before burning it for no use."

Totally agree with you on the complete waste of energy current mining algorithms are consuming around the world, but I do not believe NZs uptake in the use of crypto currencies has been from a mining perspective with no known huge mining farms here that I know of, as is common in the USA, the UK, Iceland and even Australia.

NZs uptake appears to be from use and innovation rather than generation, although there appears to be many small time miners here, but that is becoming less and less as the difficult of bitcoin mining increases.

Add to that some of the more advanced mining algorithms now in play ( Groestl, Keccak and Quark ) making it extremely difficult to even impossible, for ASIC manufacturers to create power hungry miners for, it will get better in the future. Will have to wait and see what happens in Bitcoin 2.0

@marcwhinery "What would you propose as a term for anti-green policies? I’ve heard “brown” before, but given that you picked that sentence out of context and objected to it, it then sounded racial, rather than environmental."

No objection to it and not taken out of context, but you gave it without reference or elaboration, so anyone could construe your statement as being ignorant, if they did not get the gist of it. So I thought it best you add a clarification for those that come to read this later and take unnecessary offence.

If it comes to the RGB opposite of green you run into problems there because pink or pinko has already been assigned as a slight on socialists, brown is already used in reference to skin colour.

Well if you are wanting options, then perhaps take a look at the way many greenies appear to view the world, i.e. those that are green, those that green-wash, those that are anti-green or non-green or un-green.

@terangikaiwhiriake

"Being "mined" from electricity is bad for the environment. We aren't the Brown party. Pick a better class of crypto-currency." was my entire comment. Writing it, I thought "brown" was obvious as the anti-green, being just after a comment on the anti-environmental nature of the crypto-currencies.

And brown is the opposite of green because a green plant is alive, and the dead ones are often (perhaps usually) brown.

Uptake of BitCoin should come with a massive power waste. If not, then it's insecure. There are (theoretically) mining clusters or networks that exist now and could generate 51% of the processing power in the network at any moment. Once a single entity has 51%, they can launch all sorts of attacks. So we'd need to build our own and keep them up at all times to help defend from having all NZ bitcoins "stolen".

"that could be countered by numerous other methods of wastes of even more energy. " I strongly disagree. Two wrongs doesn't make a right. And I don't think the Internet and computers are a "waste" of energy.

Adding a new waste of energy, knowing it is a worthless waste of energy is evil. We should not go out of our way to help destroy the environment in this way.

@marcwhinery "Once a single entity has 51%, they can launch all sorts of attacks."

That is the fear, with ghash crossing the 51% twice so far. They of course did not launch any such attacks for this very reason; what would it achieve really, for one block they could fool the network, which would then immediately be forked, and they would lose the value of their 25 coins right there and then and the entire pool banned from the network and their 25 coins banned from coin exchanges.

@marcwhinery "So we’d need to build our own and keep them up at all times to help defend from having all NZ bitcoins “stolen”."

When you develop something as big and powerful as a crypto currency, it will in its early stages have a number of vulnerabilities as bitcoin did, and still has some, and has all applications that have been developed.

So although there are real reasons to develop a domestic alt coin, the one you have presented is not a real reason to move from Bitcoin to a local development.

That is in fact a false dilemma you have presented. You could easily apply that to the internet for example which has a number of faults in the DNS protocol and weaknesses in the handshake aspect of establishing a TCP connection.

These were never fixed in the internet protocol suite IPv4, but rather it was fixed by the end user, by companies constructing round robin proxy chained cloud services, and building power guzzling massive data centres 10 times the size of any bitcoin mining farm, that had been started up in response to the market and in doing so, made such attacks as a syn flood a rarity.

The obvious solution to the 51% attack is to patch it in the protocol because its fixable, and most of the new crypto currencies are not vulnerable to that attack, so they have proven that it can be fixed.

The only real reason for a domestic crypto currency, is so that a Government can write its own control mechanisms into the application itself thus maintaining the control of the movement of value between two points, or at least, being able to monitor it and apply laws and regulations to it, judicial oversight and other functions of government.

Other than the hope that one day Bitcoin will die a sad dealth, and, all the other alt currencies already in play would join it, any government controlled domestic coin will not be a competition to an encumbrance free international coin, no matter which colour we want to call its coin generation process.

@terangikaiwhiriake "So although there are real reasons to develop a domestic alt coin, the one you have presented is not a real reason to move from Bitcoin to a local development."

I hear you. I understand your opinion. I disagree.

@terangikaiwhiriake "any government controlled domestic coin will not be a competition to an encumbrance free international coin,"

I hear you. I understand your opinion. I disagree.

How does a government agency enforce taxes on crypto currency?

If a government wants to operate it needs to have money to do so.

@aaronsingline Those are certainly issues all governments are wrestling with now.

The rather simple solution the US tax dept came up with was to categorise it as property. But that is very problematic in the long run for Governments and users. Also many other countries are following suit with this as well.

@marcwhinery "so what would this do?"

Well for one thing, it would send a message to Governments to tread carefully as they initially try to regulate crypto currency users and business innovators, then eventually move to suppress them as they institute their own virtual currency.

@marcwhinery "Everyone has rights. Those that use crypto-currency shouldn't have more rights."

Who said anything about users having more rights Marc?

@terangikaiwhiriake Why would there need to be a message? There's nothing anyone can do to shut down bitcoin. Bitcoin was designed to survive any governmental interference. It doesn't need our blessing to continue. So such an act doesn't seem like it would have any effect.

@terangikaiwhiriake "Who said anything about users having more rights " "protecting the rights of crypto-currency users" isn't saying "protecting the rights of all people."

@marcwhinery "Why would there need to be a message? There’s nothing anyone can do to shut down bitcoin."

Just because something is relatively unstoppable by a Government at a tech level, doesn't mean they will not try to prohibit it by law. Cannabis could be a good example where there are laws and an international campaign called the War on Drugs that prohibit its use, while at the same time completely failing to prohibit its use.

Net result, pain and suffering by users.

There is a very powerful lobby groups working at the moment to protect the banking industry against the threat that bi-directional virtual currencies present to their industries, using money laundering as their little pet flagship, a bit like the War on Drugs mantra.

Pressure is also mounting for a globally coordinated strategy to stifle virtual currency use via targeting its users, which will most likely be called the War on Bitcoin or something of that nature, and a propaganda program to boot that makes virtual currencies something synonymous with money laundering, terrorism, child porn and tax dodgers.

When that happens, this country's only Internet Party will have no choice but to develop and hold a strong position on this, but why wait.

Further to my point above. Some of the advisroies behind Nationals latest so called anti money laundering rules are those that have been investigating the rise of Bitcoin trading.
For example:
http://www.kpmg.com/NZ/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/KPMG-Countering-Money-Laundering.pdf

Yesterday National unveiled its new anti money laundering laws.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11281689

Any takers on a bet as to whether or not the first case where this is applied will be a company or two that trading on bitcoin exchanges?

@terangikaiwhiriake Well, if people are using BitCoin as a way of evading taxes, then I would agree that is wrong and should be stopped. If we want to get rid of taxes, let's really push the Value-based Economy, where taxes will be a think of the past. Until then...pay up, or get shutdown...simple as that!

This government hasn't taken a position on what crypto currencies are yet. So how do you pay tax on bitcoin?

Logically that would mean converting bitcoin to cash.

If someone here sends 2 bitcoin to an exchange in the UK and trades it for something like $1500 NZ and has that money transferred into their NZ bank account just so they can pay tax on their larger pool of bitcoins, have they just committed an act of money laundering?

According to the new Crusher laws, they would at least be placed on the money laundering watch list.

Two areas I see Bitcoin and the likes of M-Pesa, becoming very useful for, if given enough resources and focus, are global remittances and direct paying of Fairtrade collectives.

Global Remittances:
In Samoa for example, 23.5% of their GDP is global remittances.

Along with Crusher Collins latest wonder which puts most migrant workers in this country on the money laundering watch list once they send over $1000 overseas at any one time, banks are also making a killing off this, clipping the tickets of all overseas money transfers of these workers to the tune of up to 12%.

Fairtrade:
NZ companies buy directly from many registered fairtrade collectives in the Pacific, South America and Africa.

Same problem exists, while it is much fairer on the farmer to buy directly from them, these payments to them are still being clipped by banks to the tune of up to 12 or so percent.

So....

By supporting the setting up of Bitcoin to cash methods in the Pacific, South America ( who are already doing this themselves ) and by authorising the M-Pesa in this country to allow for direct payment to cocoa farmers in Ghana, all of the money being paid to these farmers would actually get to them and all of the money would reach home from migrant workers to their home Island states.

In the Pacific at least, this should be a part of this governments aid programs.

As for the environmental side of bitcoin. Crypto currencies that use ASIC mining are quite destructive, environmentally, but not as destructive as the internet itself is on the environment, or portable devices.

There isn't a big mining community in this country due to the high cost of electricity. There are the odd mining operations, mostly in peoples homes, but most of the mining is being done in China, the USA and Europe.

The affects on the environment in this country are no more or no less than any other function on the internet.

@jamesabbott
From what I can tell, there are some rather very innovative ideas being developed by members in this incubator.

UBI is one of them.

My concern though is that there is a hope and a belief that these ideas will see the light of day in a Labour lead coalition when there is no indicators at all to show this. I do not share this hope myself.

Labour already embarked on a revolutionary overhaul of the monetary system in the 80s and it was almost the end of them, going through 3 different prime ministers/leaders, and the sacking of some ministers including the minister of finance.

It has never had the will power since then to repeat the process to that level. Because of that I cannot see any of these very innovative ideas being supported by Labour unless the votes go in a particular way that means Labour cannot government without Internet MANA as a coalition.

The second problem is that MANA are very left wing, and these new innovative ideas are libertarian right. So even if Internet MANA was in a coalition with Labour, MANA will never agree to these ideas because they all remember Rogernomics and Ruthenasia.

The third problem is IP is more likely to get support from ACT on electronic currencies, but has it ruled out any bargaining with ACT?

While it could be argued that these IP ideas are not as radical as the two reforms of Rogernomics and Ruthenasia, I can see MANA arguing to differ on that point.

So while the Internet Party will still struggle on to get its electronic currency ideas recognised by the orthodox primary parties ( assuming it even decides to have such a policy ), crypto-currency users are and will continue to grow and grow with no representative support.

And the reason they will grow is this. Bitcoin is already in play and has staked itself as the international replacement for the SWIFT network, and for Paypal.

Even since the inception of the Internet Party, the use of bitcoin in this country has markedly increased. An example is that Slingshot is now accepting bitcoin as a means of payment. You can now also buy cars with bitcoins, baby clothes, food, alcohol, farming equipment, there are ATMs here now, and EFTPOS styled terminals that accept bitcoins.

Crypto currencies are not going to go away.

So when I say protect the rights of, that means the Government defining what is bitcoin so that users can safely use it. Is it a currency or is it a piece of property/commodity. It needs regulations around bitcoin exchanges, and how to pay taxes etc and a lot more.

@terangikaiwhiriake
Rangi, I wonder if a rewording of the proposal might help, instead of advocating for crypto currencies.
How about changing it to , No discrimination against those who elect to use crypto currencies.
Also a singular rule needs to be determined as to whether crypto currency is an 'asset' or a 'currency'.

Unfortunately proposals once voted on are written in stone with the way Loomio works. The discussion header could be rewritten though I suppose.

Another option would be to close this proposal and start a new one.