Is Bitcoin the Road to Financial Freedom?

On November 18, 2013, the first Congressional hearings on virtual currency --technology-based currency--took place before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Tom Carper.  According to the Washington Post, the hearings were lovefests, with it being stated that Bitcoin was a "legal means of exchange" and that "online payment systems, both centralized and decentralized, offer legitimate financial services".

The big questions should be: Why is Bitcoin so acceptable to the Feds? Why, all of a sudden, is it being promoted by mainstream media, and powerful 0.01% financial elites--Forbes, Fox Business, Time Magazine, MasterCard, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the CFR, DHS, etc? If that doesn't make you nervous, nothing will. So, is there a strategic plan for the replacement of the US dollar, and/or the debt-based fiat money system, with a global reserve currency? And will that currency be Bitcoin?

Bitcoin, to quickly explain, is a pseudo-anonymous protocol, a decentralized digital currency based on software by "Satoshi Nakamoto" (a pseudonym for the unknown person or people who designed the original Bitcoin protocol in 2008) where the transactions (entries on some type of global ledger) require a peer-to-peer network. The original amount of Bitcoins mined--involves solving complex mathematical problems that require a lot of computer power--is said to be 21 million, therefore limited, but that's easy to change with a few clicks of a mouse I would think, not to mention, the controllers do not have to account to anyone for any additional amount of Bitcoins created. Bitcoin can be subdivided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis and is also created by a process called mining. The difficulty of mining ranges depending on the systems being used, and that--the difficulty-- in addition to the market, decide it's worth, which is about $801.80 per bitcoin today at 12:54 AM EST. Now, the total crypto currency market--Litecoin, Peercoin, Quark, Namecoin, Primecoin, etc.--including Bitcoin is worth approximately $13 billion in total.

Now, keep in mind that DARPA created the Internet--which Bitcoin is totally dependent on--initially promoting it as an open, innovative information infrastructure. Fast forward to today and Verizon beat the FCC (Verizon v. FCC) where net neutrality regulations were vacated by all three DC Circuit judges. This marks the second time in four years the FCC had its net neutrality enforcement struck down.  Then there is the software that supposedly hides user identities on the Internet, the TOR Project, which was developed by the US Naval Research laboratory and endorsed by Senator Hillary Clinton. According to the Tor Project Annual Report 2010, the U.S. Government supplied over 80% of its funding.

Gavin Andresen, the Lead Core Bitcoin Developer and founder of The Bitcoin Foundation is slated to address the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Thursday, February 16, 2014, as he did the C.I.A. a couple of years ago when Bitcoin wasn't as big as it is now. This, in and of itself, may not be a big deal, but it's apparent to anyone with eyes to see that this foundation is seeking government acceptance to insure  a seat of power in what might become the new highly globalized Bitcoin economy.



And then there is the potential Bitcoin Greenlist that will determine the people who are allowed to conduct trade online.  While the Greenlist predates Bitcoin, this patent filing incorporates Bitcoin into its features. Think about it. If the U.S. government acquires access to the owners of even ten percent of Bitcoin addresses, they'll gain a large amount of financial data about the entire world!

Links:

Obama Initiative Spawns Identity Based Bitcoin Greenlist

“In April 2011, President Obama signed (PDF) the NSTIC or the National Strategy For Trusted Identities In Cyberspace where public and private players are collaborating on the creation of an “Identity Ecosystem” to address “(1) the insecurity and inconvenience of static passwords and (2) the cost of transactional risks that arise from the inability of individuals to prove their true identity online.”

BitLegal is the easiest way to explore the evolving legal and regulatory status of Bitcoin and virtual currencies around the globe.

MasterCard tracks global 'cashless journey'

“The study focuses on the value of all consumer payments ($63 trillion in total spend), including those that happen beyond retail point-of-sale. In 2011, 34 percent ($21 trillion) of total global consumer spend was done with cash, with cashless payments accounting for 66 percent ($42 trillion)[...]Countries such as the United States (where an estimated 80% of the value of consumer spend was cashless) and Singapore (69%) are approaching the "tipping point" to becoming nearly cashless, and remaining cash use is largely a product of consumer habit.

HOW TO MAKE A MINT: THE CRYPTOGRAPHY OF ANONYMOUS ELECTRONIC CASH by Laurie Law, Susan Sabett, Jerry Solinas, National Security Agency Office of Information Security Research and Technology, Cryptology Division, 18 June 1996