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The rising trend of Chinese investment in the U.S. real estate market dates back to 2010, just as the nation's economy was pulling out of the recession. The impact of Chinese investment in U.S. residential and commercial properties—including hotels—has become increasingly pronounced every year since.[1]
Hotel and Hotel Portfolio Investment out of China
The following tables show major single-asset transactions made by Chinese investors in the last five years. The two transactions in New York, one of which was recorded at approximately $1.4 million per room and the other at over $2 million per room, especially caught the attention of the industry.
Chinese investors have recently started to invest in hotel portfolios, as well. In February 2016, Hersha Hospitality Trust sold a 70% majority interest in seven Manhattan hotels to Chinese investment firm Cindat Capital Management for a total purchase price of $571.4 million. In March 2016, The Blackstone Group agreed to sell Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc. to China's Anbang Insurance for approximately $6.5 billion. In April 2016, HNA Tourism Group announced its plan to acquire Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group; HNA had already acquired a 15% Red Lion Hotels From Seattle Firm" target="_blank">stake in Red Lion Hotels Corp in 2015.
The last decade has brought a surge of Chinese visitors to the U.S., an impetus for Chinese investment in hotels in U.S. gateway cities. According to the National Travel and Tourism Office, 2.19 million Chinese visitors traveled to the U.S. in 2014, a 21% increase over the prior year; these visitors contributed over $2.3 billion in travel spending. Moreover, U.S. inbound travel from China is expected to continue to grow, and Chinese investors have been focusing on acquiring mid-scale hotels to capture the demand from the country's middle-class.
Concerns about the market slowdown in China and the devaluation of the Yuan led Chinese investors to seek a safer investment environment or a better return. According to the Asia Society, "Chinese investors are attracted to U.S. markets given [the higher] return potential, array of investment opportunities, economic and property market stability, strong foundation of property rights, and the sheer size and maturity of the market." According to the Rosen Consulting Group (RCG), Chinese commercial real estate acquisitions in the U.S. totaled $17.1 billion from 2010 to 2015. Hotel investments totaled $3.7 billion, or 21% of the total commercial real estate acquisitions.
A growing number of Chinese individual investors are using EB-5, an immigration program, as a vehicle to invest in U.S. hotel developments. The EB-5 regional center program has become an effective tool for fostering investment and creating jobs within the U.S. In the wake of the economic downturn, the EB-5 program has emerged as a viable alternative to traditional financing. According to the State Department, over 80% of visas issued through the EB-5 program are from China. Investors who use this investment tool are heavily motivated by the opportunity for U.S. residency and its associated benefits of educational opportunities and higher quality of life.
The EB-5 program has continued to be an alternative financing tool for commercial real estate development as construction-loan qualification requirements become more restricting. On December 16, 2015, the EB-5 visa program was officially extended through September 30, 2016, as part of the omnibus spending bill reached by Congress.
Institutional investors are attracted to the potential returns on a hotel project, along with the opportunity to expand their presence in the U.S. These institutional investors include insurance companies, such as Anbang and Sunshine Insurance, as well as some of the largest Chinese real estate developers and operating companies, including Greenland Group, Wanda Group, and Oceanwide.
The following details some recent Chinese investments in U.S. hotels.
- Shanghai Greenland purchased the Metropolis site in Los Angeles, California, in early 2014. The first phase of the mixed-use development will include a 38-story residential tower and the 350-room, 18-story Hotel Indigo. This phase is slated for completion in late 2016.
- Wanda Vista Tower Chicago, approved in November 2015, is expected to offer over 400 residences and a luxury Wanda Vista Hotel; the project is planned to be complete by 2020. Wanda's One Beverly Hills is also a hotel/residential mixed-use development; the project is anticipated to include a 134-room luxury boutique hotel, 193 residences, and new public gardens and open space.
- Oceanwide Plaza in Downtown Los Angeles will include a 49-story building with a mall and a 183-room luxury hotel, as well as two 40-story residential towers. The project is under construction and is expected to be complete in September 2018. Oceanwide Center in San Francisco is another mixed-use development, consisting of two towers. One tower is planned to feature a 169-room hotel and approximately 150 residential units; the taller tower will rise 34 stories and is planned to include 1,010,000 square feet of office space and approximately 110 residential units. The site was acquired in early 2015. If completed as proposed, the 905-foot tower would become San Francisco's second-tallest building after Salesforce Tower, which is under construction and is expected to open in 2018.
- In New York, Oceanwide purchased a site near the South Street Seaport in August 2015; the company also plans to invest in a mixed-use development. Additionally, in West Oahu, Oceanwide purchased a site in late 2015 and has plans to develop a 150-room luxury hotel and 150 condominiums.
Lastly, hotel investment helps diversify Chinese investors' portfolios. Although Chinese investors have invested in all types of commercial real estate, office properties, multi-family properties, and hotel assets register the higher volumes in transactions. The buyers for hotels include private equities, tourism companies, real estate firms, construction companies, and institutional investors.
Private and institutional Chinese investors have learned to work with local professionals, hire local people for their projects, and become increasingly knowledgeable about the local market and hotel transactions in the U.S.
HVS research has uncovered the following trends, which have become predominant in Chinese investment over the past several years.
- While gateway cities are attractive to the majority of Chinese investors, major cities such as Dallas, Chicago, and Seattle have drawn recent attention because of their strong performance growth. According to STR, the Dallas market realized 10.0% RevPAR growth in 2015, reaching $69.81; the Chicago market realized 6.9% RevPAR growth in 2015, reaching $99.88; and RevPAR in the Seattle market grew 8.8% in 2015, reaching $113.14. Nevertheless, Chinese investors have less experience or presence in these markets versus the gateway cities; therefore, investments in the non-gateway markets have been cautious, with few hotel transactions and hotel developments yet to emerge.
- Chinese construction companies, already active in U.S. hotel markets, show potential for increased investment in future years. Shanghai Construction Group America (SCGA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shanghai Construction Group (SCG). The group developed the Hyatt Place Flushing in 2014 and purchased the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove, California, in late 2015. Two Fulton Square/SCG Plaza II in New York, which is under construction, will include two residential towers, an office tower, and a boutique hotel.
- China Communications Construction Group bought a development site in Miami's Brickell neighborhood in late 2014. The development plan has not been finalized; reportedly, the plancould ultimately comprise a mixed-use project with condominium, hotel, and office elements.
- China has permitted insurance companies to invest in real estate overseas since 2012, although they are only allowed to invest up to 15% of their total assets in international markets. Sunshine Insurance and Anbang both purchased trophy hotels in the U.S. in 2015; furthermore, Anbang announced plans to acquire Strategic Hotels for $6.5 billion in 2016.
- An article published by Cushman & Wakefield indicated that the current investment holding of all Chinese insurers totals $13.4 billion, or 0.8% of total assets. Overseas investments are estimated to be half of this. By this measure, there exists tremendous room for Chinese insurers to ramp up investment overseas, with the U.S. a preferred destination.
- China has reformed the approvals and registrations process for outward foreign investments in recent years, which has boosted investment activity across the board. In late 2015, China's State Council announced its approval of the Qualified Domestic Individual Investor program (referred to as "QDII2"), which allows individuals from six cities, including Shanghai, to invest directly in overseas assets like stocks, bonds and real estate. Additional structural reforms and loosened restrictions on capital outflow are expected in the near future. This should further boost Chinese investment in U.S real estate, where hospitality assets have come increasingly to the forefront in recent years.
- In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed a new law that allows foreign pensions to buy as much as 10% of a U.S. publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) without triggering Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA) liability; investment limits previously stood at 5%. The new law potentially opens the door even wider for overseas investors.
Will the recent trend of Chinese investment be a repeat of Japanese investment in U.S. real estate in the early 1990s? While there are some similarities between the two cycles of investment, there are also distinctions. For one, individual Chinese investors are more conservative in buying in at reasonable prices and express a cautious interest in learning how to maintain real estate in the U.S. Furthermore, Chinese institutional investors have demonstrated an investment approach that values capital preservation and long-term business goals.
There have also been concerns about whether the investments from China are sustainable given the slowing Chinese economy. But it should be emphasized again that Chinese companies are looking at U.S. real estate as a stable way to diversify outside their own economy. Chinese buyers continue to invest heavily in U.S. real estate, especially in gateway markets in New York and California. Hence, the wave of Chinese investment in U.S. real estate appears anything but negligible or short-lived.
- Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
- Greenland Group
- HVS Consulting & Valuation Services
- Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
- Oceanwide Plaza
- New York
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subset: commoncrawl


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Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 30 Mar 2010 06:18 and updated at 30 Mar 2010 06:21
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Section 160
CLX Janamejaya said, After the soldiers had been arrayed thus in order of battle on the field of Kurukshetra, what, O bull among Brahmanas, did the Kauravas then do, urged as they were by destiny itself' Vaisampayana said, After the soldiers, O bull of the Bharata race, had been arrayed thus in order of battle, Dhritarashtra, O, king, said these words to Sanjaya' Dhritarashtra said, Come, O Sanjaya, tell me with the fullest details all that hath happened in the encampment of the Kuru and the Pandava troops. I regard destiny to be superior, and exertion useless, for although I understand the evil consequences of war that will lead only to ruin, still I am unable to restrain my son who rejoices in gambling and considers deceit to be wisdom. Understanding everything, I am not yet able to secure my own welfare. O Suta, my understanding is capable of seeing the defects of measures, but when I approach Duryodhana, that understanding of mine turneth away from that right path.
When such is the case, O Sanjaya, that will be which must be. Indeed, the sacrifice of one's corporeal body in battle is the laudable duty of every Kshatriya' Sanjaya said, This question, O great king, that thou hast put, is indeed, worthy of thee. It behoveth thee not, however, to impute entire fault to Duryodhana only. Listen to me, O king, as I speak of this exhaustively. That man who cometh by evil in consequence of his own misconduct, should never impute the fault to either time or the gods. O great king, he amongst men who perpetrateth every wicked act, deserveth to be slain in consequence of his perpetrating those acts. Afflicted with injuries in consequence of the match at dice, the sons of Pandu, however, with all their counsellors quietly bore all those injuries, looking up, O best of men, to thy face alone. Hear from me fully, O king, of the slaughter that is about to take place in battle, of steeds and elephants and kings endued with immeasurable energy. Hearing patiently, O thou that art endued with great wisdom, of the destruction of the world in the fierce battle that has been brought about, come to this conclusion and no other, viz, that man is never the agent of his acts right or wrong.
Indeed, like a wooden machine, man is not an agent in all he does. In this respect, three opinions are entertained; some say that everything is ordained by God; some say that our acts are the result of free-will; and others say that our acts are the result of those of our past lives. Listen then, therefore, with patience, to the evil that hath come upon us
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text: Your organization's image is important to you and it's important to us too. When you need printed products for promotion, day-to-day operations, or for speciality needs, SG Printing is the Ottawa business that can provide you with the high-quality print products you want. Our commitment is to work with you to produce print products that put out your best image. As local business people with deep roots in the community, we are deeply committed to providing their customers quality service with a personal touch.


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by Guy Spriggs
For almost 3 years, the Open Syllabus Project (OSP) has collected and analyzed syllabi to shed light on what texts are assigned in college courses. The Project boasts a catalog of 1.1 million syllabi, and its insights were chronicled in a January 2016 feature in the New York Times titled, "What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us."
As the OSP continued the enormous task of looking through syllabi for resources and assignments, it also released the Syllabus Explorer, a search function which enables visitors to see what texts are most commonly assigned by location and field of study. It was around this time that UK sociology professor Edward Morris received a phone call from his mentor from graduate school.
"She sent me a link and said I had to check it out," he explained. "I had no idea, because you don't know when your work is being taught. I was surprised when I saw it."
What Morris saw was his article, "'Tuck in That Shirt!' Race, Class, Gender, and Discipline in an Urban School," ranked number 46 out of the 13,225 sociology-related articles taught in America. This makes his article one of the most frequently assigned readings in sociology courses throughout U.S. universities.
Morris is understandably thrilled with the results. "There are really famous sociologists lower on the list, so there must be something about this particular article," he said. "I think it gives teachers a mechanism to impart something valuable. I'm very happy to see that teachers have found it useful."
Moreover, Morris appreciates having a completely different metric for understanding who is using his article – as well as how. By revealing how frequently articles are used in the classroom, the OSP gives scholars like Morris more context for understanding the effects of their work.
"You're used to seeing how often your work is cited in journals, but that doesn't tell you the full range of impact," he explained. "I've always tried to do with my work is make it accessible. That's an aspect of my work that's reflected in the Open Syllabus Project."
The result of 2 years of ethnographic research at an urban middle school, "Tuck in That Shirt!" explores how school dress codes can serve as institutionalized mechanisms of discipline. Morris says the article reflects his broader interest in how structures of inequality are reproduced and even created in our education system.
More specifically, he engages with a critical paradigm called intersectionality to show how seemingly separate elements of identity and power are instead interrelated.
"The workings of race, class and gender are integrated – you can't look at one in isolation. I try to understand that within an educational setting. I've always been interested in the idea that education is the great equalizer, but the chances offered within education seem pretty unequal," Morris said.
It can be difficult to present such a critical perspective on education: people don't normally think of school as a place where inequalities are taught. But Morris sees value in challenging preconceptions of what ideas are actually communicated through the education system. In particular, his work discusses a concept called the hidden curriculum, which suggests students learn lessons about identity and subjectivity that aren't part of a school's overt, educational curriculum.
The real benefit of Morris's work – and the reason why it is one of the commonly-assigned articles in his field – may result not only from his efforts in exposing such structures of inequality, but also from relating them to new audiences in a clear, coherent way.
"I deal with some more complex ideas like the hidden curriculum, cultural capital and bodily discipline – things teachers are going to want to introduce," he explained. "I think I apply those using a relatable setting and through accessible writing. It provides a perspective for them and presents theoretical ideas any student can understand."


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New York Sea Grant's university-based research is of high quality and chosen to take an unbiased look at priority questions. But, just as important to Sea Grant is practical use of this proven, new information. This takes the research a vital step beyond the mandate of other funding organizations. And, that's where the extension program staff comes in. With skills in technology transfer and outreach, extension specialists know who the concerned stakeholders are and can convey the results to them in ways most effective for application conducting business and making decisions. It is truly a unique, effective, and highly-appreciated model.
The Sea Grant extension specialists form advisory committees from the regions they serve. Once issues are identified, a wide variety of techniques are used to tackle them. Extension specialists may work with individuals, collaborate with others to organize workshops, or consult with experts to get needed information from other available sources. This may also involve suggesting new research topics and the research process starts anew.
New York Sea Grant Extension has one of the largest and most respected extension programs in the Sea Grant network. Fifteen extension professionals are located in nine different offices in the downstate marine and upstate Great Lakes regions of New York. These specialists have expertise chosen to meet specific responsibilities assigned to them and take on statewide, regional, and in some cases national responsibilities.For more on the activities of NYSG's various extension specialists, check out the links on our Web Sites page.
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I'd argue, therefore, that photos that are manipulated in ways that are not apparent are inherently dishonest, and that serious art is rarely dishonest. Understand that I'm talking about the photo itself, the physical object, not the scene that is being photographed. I'd also suggest that photographs in which the manipulation is not apparent, and that are later discovered to have been manipulated ("Photoshopped") often lose much of their power -- because the power of photos comes from the truth of precise reproduction. The power of an "artist" compared to that is relatively minor. And finally, I'd note, as somebody did above, that there are lots of excellent uses for photos, and most of them have nothing to do with art.
... the finest reproductions of reality ... The inherent truth in photography is precise reproduction, though with recognized limitations created by lenses, sensors, films, and so on: but the *goal* has always been precise reproduction.
In your words it is a representation of the scene but an extremely limited one on lots of levels.
A lot of the post-processing work I do is to try and reinfuse the image with what I did see and feel at the time of shooting precisely because the image itself could not capture everything that was present at the moment of capture.
Let's imagine that Alain Briot, for his next article, introduces himself as an artist.
The relevant difference is that the passive record of reflected light does include lots and lots and lots of stuff "that was present at the moment of capture", which you didn't care about at the time and don't care about now - and your active directed vision wasn't even looking at that stuff.
In fact, I prefer to believe that I've simply misunderstood parts of the essay:Artistic License -- "As a fine artist I have little interest in documenting reality as it is around me. I see reality everyday and the last thing I want to do is to create reality-like images to hang on my walls. If I want reality all I need to do is look out of the window. Therefore, when I create art my goal is to create something other than reality. My goal is to express myself without much concern for whether or not what I am depicting in my photographs is real or not real."
The inherent truth in photography is precise reproduction, though with recognized limitations created by lenses, sensors, films, and so on: but the *goal* has always been precise reproduction.
I see no evidence for this. From at least the 1860's many well known photographs were composites.
...most of these machines being cellphones ...I think it's fair to say that the overwhelming majority ... have an expectation of a scene manipulated only by the machine...
It is possible that we are talking past each other to a degree...
And then there's the selective attention gorilla.
I probably shouldn't do this, but ...
Perhaps it would suit your purpose just as well to ask where are the photographs of "The Death of Caesar."
But why do paintings of the crucifixion often draw reverence, while photographs draw ridicule? ... The intriguing question is, why do you think that?
Again, I think we have to consider what the overwhelming majority of people consider the central tenet of the photograph: that it is a representation of reality.


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This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is crossposted from The New Republic.
This year's Super Tuesday will be "super" in the most obvious way: Ten states with a total of 437 delegates will make their decisions on the same day. What will be the upshot of all these contests? Below, a guide to what is likely to happen and how to interpret the results:
Super Tuesday won't prove decisive. This is true for two reasons. First, all ten states are using some variant of a proportional system to award delegates. Some are looking to statewide vote totals, while others focus on the results within congressional districts. (Ohio uses a hybrid system: About a quarter of the delegates are allocated proportional to the statewide vote above a 20 percent threshold, unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, in which case he gets all the statewide delegates. The remaining three quarters go to the victor in each congressional district on a winner-take-all basis.) Whatever the details, these proportional allocation schemes virtually ensure that no candidate will score the kind of knockout blow that John McCain did on Super Tuesday four years ago.
Second, the mix of states on March 6 makes it very unlikely that any candidate will pull off anything like a clean sweep. In 2008, Mitt Romney didn't win a single primary in the Deep South, and almost half his victories came in states that share a border with Canada. With that track record, he's not likely to prevail in Georgia, or Tennessee, or Oklahoma on Tuesday, though he should win comfortable victories in Massachusetts and Vermont. And because neither Newt Gingrich nor Rick Santorum managed to get on the Virginia ballot, Romney should prevail there as well, barring a shocking last-minute surge in support for Ron Paul. And then there are three smaller states (Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota) where libertarian support for Paul could make a difference–who knows how much, and to whose ultimate advantage?
The biggest prize is Ohio–and it's still up for grabs. Ohio is the most important state that is voting on Tuesday not because it awards the most delegates (it doesn't; Georgia is larger in that respect), but because it's the most significant politically. Since the founding of the GOP more than a century and a half ago, no Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio, which is the closest thing we have to a microcosm of the country. Granted, the state's Republican primary electorate is far from a representative sample of voters in Ohio. But it is large and diverse, and unlike Georgia and Michigan, it's no one's home base. In short, it's a fair fight for high stakes.
So what's happening in the Buckeye state? Two weeks ago, Santorum had moved out to a eighteen point lead, 42-24, over Romney. As of March 2, that edge had shrunk to only two points, 33-31. (Both findings are from Rasmussen, so it's an apples-to-apples comparison.) The most recent Quinnipiac survey as of March 2 closely tracks Rasmussen, with Santorum enjoying a 35-31 advantage over Romney. (The next survey from that organization comes out Monday morning.)
The internals of the Q-poll offer some insight into the dynamics of the race. As has been the case in other states, Romney does well among older and better-educated voters, while Santorum is strong among white evangelicals and Tea Party supporters. 69 percent of Santorum's supporters say they've made up their minds. But so have 65 percent of Romney's. Notably, 48 percent of the voters backing Gingrich say they might change, and those who do are more likely to shift toward Santorum than toward Romney. And the demographics tend to work in Santorum's favor. Compared to Michigan, Ohio has more evangelicals, more voters with no college education, and a larger share of its population in rural areas. On the other hand, as we saw in Michigan, voters still know less about Santorum than they do about Romney, who has run a national race before. So new information via negative advertising can influence their opinion of Santorum, and we can be sure that the Romney campaign will spend whatever they have in an effort to impugn Santorum's conservative credentials. These countervailing forces point to a close contest down to the wire.
For Santorum, the difference between success and failure rests on two states. The best outcome for Santorum would be to win Oklahoma and Tennessee by healthy margins, hold on to beat Romney in Ohio, and squeeze by Gingrich in Georgia (unlikely but not out of the question). If that were to happen, Santorum would be declared the evening's winner, regardless of the delegate count, and the Republican race would continue without a clear front-runner. The worst outcome for Santorum: winning only Oklahoma and Tennessee, fueling the narrative that he can't expand his base of support much beyond social conservatives and intensifying the effort of those outside that base to rally around Romney.
Gingrich is almost certainly finished. It's hard to see how he wins anything outside of Georgia and restores his credibility as the leading movement-conservative alternative to Romney. He'll probably keep on going as long as the cash flows from Las Vegas. But Sheldon Adelson didn't get to be one of the richest men in America by pouring his money down rat holes. If nothing else, March 6 may be remembered as Gingrich's Waterloo.


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Lovingly stolen from Mad Men, but a close approximation of my new place.
My fiance and I just bought our first home: a two bedroom, two bath condo in Toco Hills, the Orthodox neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. We're looking forward to hosting High Holidays in our midcentury modern pad, complete with enough Ikea furniture to rival the GDP of the entire nation of Sweden and artwork straight out of the prop department of Mad Men. Don Draper would be proud.
But first, we have to go through Hell Week: moving.
A true fact of life: it costs approximately ten times as much to move as your budget allows, and takes twice as long. Doesn't matter how you budget your time or money, it's just a reality.
And moving is stressful. We went the easy way with Two Men and a Truck as well as paying extra money for primo boxes instead of stalking the nice man at the liquor store on delivery day. This contrasts with my past moving experiences of tossing everything you own in the back of an Oldsmobile and hoping nothing breaks or falls out the window onto the interstate.
The hours are the worst. From the moment I wake up, the first thought in my mind is not "modeh ani", the Jewish morning prayer, but "jeez, yet another day of unpacking garbage I wish I didn't own."
Out of this experience, however, I have gained a spiritual insight that I wanted to share with you, my friends at PunkTorah.
Get rid of your junk.
Seriously. There's nothing worse than hauling around the past. It's over. Move on. You can have fond memories of your past without shlepping around your artifacts.
I draw inspiration from the saga of Rachel, Laban and Jacob. Laban was an idolator, owning some kind of household gods the Torah calls "teraphim" which Rachel stole (Genesis 31:34). Idolatry was clearly the past: at this point in the stage of the Jewish family, we're at the third patriarch. By now, you would think that the first family of Judaism would have fully entrenched their extended family in monotheism. Well…not so much.
The past is impossible to shake, especially if you are carrying around its artifacts with you.
This desire to remember the past through "stuff" is an intense human emotion. Laban, in his experience of carrying around household gods, was probably not convinced they had magical superpowers. Rather, Laban held some kind of precious memory of those statues in his family's home. Rachel, his daughter, probably felt the same way, even if she was marrying into the monotheistic royal family.
So please, declutter your life. Don't hang onto things: hang onto memories.
Rabbi Patrick Aleph is the founder of PunkTorah and the executive director. You can friend him on Facebook and check out his info here.


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More small steps…
Have you ever wondered why the Navigate function requires the second argument? For example:
Navigate( Screen2, None )
Why not just default the second argument? Transitions can make for a more engaging user experience but most folks don't use them.
Yeah, we wondered that too. With the release deploying this week (3.19043), the second argument is now optional and defaults to None. Behold:
Navigate( Screen2 )
We also took the opportunity to add two new transitions: CoverRight and UnCoverRight. The existing Cover and UnCover always moved to the left, now you can also move to the right. Used together they can give a sense for moving forward and backward through the screens of your app.
CoverRight | UnCoverRight |
Cover | UnCover |
Visit the Navigate function docs to see all the transitions in action.


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3 Ways Leaders Build (or Break) Trust
By consistently demonstrating these traits a leader builds and sustains trust.
It's a bad sign when a leader gets to the point where both friends and foes are asking, "What did he know and when did he know it?" That's where President Obama is this week with lots of questions being raised about what and when he knew about big problems with the Healthcare.gov website launch and more than five years of NSA eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone conversations.
While I don't take pleasure in writing this, my guess is the questions being raised over the past couple of weeks mark the end of the President's ability to get much done during the remainder of his term. The healthcare and Merkel stories both get down to whether or not Obama can be trusted. Which, by the way, is not at all the same thing as whether or not he is telling the truth. That may be part of it, but it's definitely not all of it.
The problems the President is experiencing now are representative of the interplay of three critical ways that leaders either build or break trust with their followers. These three factors, first articulated by the linguist Fernando Flores, don't just apply to top government leaders or big business leaders. They apply to any leader from moms and dads raising their kids to small business owners serving their customers to the leader of the Free World.
There are three simple, one word ideas that are easy to understand and remember. They're critical for leaders that want to build trust and not break it. Here they are:
Sincerity: The big idea here is do followers believe that the leader really means what he or she is saying.
Credibility: This factor comes down to establishing a track record of doing what you said you were going to do. It also involves being open and honest when something goes wrong and clear about what you're going to do to fix it.
Competence: This final factor is about demonstrating though your actions and results that you have the knowledge, skills, abilities and experience to deliver what you're promising.
Sincerity, credibility and competence. By consistently demonstrating all three a leader builds and sustains trust. If a leader misses the mark on one or two of the factors but demonstrates contrition and a clear path to recovery the trust that is broken may be rebuilt. If all three are missed, trust may be irreparably broken. It's almost impossible for a leader to rebuild trust when the followers have quit listening or believing.
What's your take? What are the critical factors in how leaders build or break trust with their followers?
NEXT STORY: FAA (Finally) Eases Restrictions on Gadgets


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Moreland's struggles continue at the plate
ARLINGTON -- While Mitch Moreland is still having fun playing baseball, his career-high, nine-game hitless streak has been far from enjoyable.
The first baseman went 0-for-3 with a walk and recorded three strikeouts on 10 pitches in the Rangers' 1-0 loss to the A's on Saturday. Moreland is now 0-for-21 with 14 punchouts in his last nine games.
"I'm working on it, trying to go up there and battle every at-bat to get a good pitch to hit," Moreland said. "It hasn't gone like I planned on it to, but we get to play every day. [I'll] come back tomorrow and try to do it again."
Moreland drew the walk with two outs in the ninth inning against A's closer Grant Balfour on six pitches. But his previous three plate appearances against Bartolo Colon weren't pretty. He struck out on three pitches in the second and fourth innings, and on four pitches to leadoff the seventh. The left-handed hitter's strikeout in the fourth ended the inning with runners at second and third. Moreland's recent struggles have also carried over to when runners are in scoring position, with the first baseman going 3-for-27 (.111).
"Right now, he's just swinging and missing and not putting the ball in play," said manager Ron Washington. "We're doing everything we can do. Once those guys get in the box, they are on their own."
Moreland said he didn't approach the aggressive Colon differently than he would any other pitcher. His average has dropped from .246 to .233 -- the lowest it's been since he was hitting .225 on April 27 -- over the last 14 games, while going 3-for-34 during that stretch.
"It's a game. You're going to have your ups-and-downs," Moreland said. "You're not going to have your best day every day. People go through slumps all the time, teams go through slumps. It's part of it. You're not going to pitch your best all the time, hit your best all the time, play your best defense. You just keep working, have fun and make the most of it."


text:
On the fact that Bitcoin has a Kill Switch; and how to disconnect it.
"There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see."
(Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.)
It is widely understood that early adopters of Bitcoin, who showed up on the scene in the days when mining difficulty was low, are sitting pretty, and will continue sitting pretty without ever having to do much of anything ever again. And so, skeptics often describe the system as a Ponzi scheme. The Bitcoin FAQ addresses this accusation thus:
Early adopters have a large number of bitcoins now because they took a risk and invested resources in an unproven technology. By so doing, they have helped Bitcoin become what it is now and what it will be in the future (hopefully, a ubiquitous decentralized digital currency). It is only fair they will reap the benefits of their successful investment. In any case, any bitcoin generated will probably change hands dozens of time as a medium of exchange, so the profit made from the initial distribution will be insignificant compared to the total commerce enabled by Bitcoin. Since the pricing of Bitcoins has fallen greatly from its June 2011 peak, prices today are much more similar to those enjoyed by many early adopters. Those who are buying Bitcoins today likely believe that Bitcoin will grow significantly in the future. Setting aside the brief opportunity to have sold Bitcoins at the June 2011 peak enjoyed by few, the early-adopter window is arguably still open."
Bitcoin FAQ. "Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?" "Doesn't Bitcoin unfairly benefit early adopters?"
I do not deny that the creators of Bitcoin deserve some reward for taking the trouble to create an elegant and, for the most part, mathematically-sound decentralized cryptocurrency. Yes, they "bought Manhattan for a quarter." And some people find this off-putting. But such objections are rooted mainly in envy. Everyone wishes that they, rather than the founders, had pulled off the early land grab. Debates about how much the founders "deserve" to profit from their foresight are largely an exercise in pointless bickering. Count me out.
But the real problem with Ponzi schemes - and the reason why they are considered a legally-actionable type of fraud in every civilized country - is not the abstract unfairness of some clever fellow getting "something for nothing." Rather, it is the fact that such schemes come with a built-in self-destruct mechanism, whereby at a certain point, those who sit on the apex of the pyramid decide to cash out, pocketing nearly all of the meatspace wealth previously invested into the system.
A Ponzi scheme is generally agreed to be a Bad Thing, and most Bitcoin enthusiasts do not like the idea of being involved in one. They vigorously deny the possibility that Bitcoin has a removable "floor," which might one day "fall out" and permanently transfer ever penny's worth of traditional money, precious metal, alpaca socks, cocaine - and everything else which has been exchanged for bitcoins - into a handful of pockets.
Unfortunately, the facts speak for themselves. One of the world's greatest cryptographers published the following analysis:
Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir, Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph. (Mirror)
By the nature of the system, the ownership history of every bitcoin in existence is public. Ron and Shamir found that a sizeable bulk of the Bitcoin transaction history to date consisted of shell game switcheroos, designed to conceal certain inconvenient facts. And it should surprise no one that, once the fog of deliberate obfuscation clears, we see the following distribution of ownership:
Most bitcoins are, in fact, in the hands of a very few people. Are you surprised? I'm not.
We also learn that, of the approximately 9 million bitcoins which currently exist, less than 2 million actually circulate - that is, change hands with any appreciable frequency:
And it would appear that most of the non-circulating coins are in the hands of a very small number of people - who, one may reasonably suspect, were involved from with building and propagandising Bitcoin from its very beginning. So, who are the lords of Bitcoin?
Who, one might wonder, is "A" ? Satoshi Nakamoto? I doubt that we'll ever know for sure. And I'd bet serious money that "R" and "S," with their astronomical transaction frequencies, are botnets specializing in the theft of CPU/GPU cycles for mining (and unguarded Bitcoin wallets.) These are known to exist.
But the most damning fact revealed in the paper is not the extreme top-heaviness of the Bitcoin ownership pyramid, but rather the elaborate lengths to which the hoarders went in order to conceal their existence from "rank and file" users. Think of it! Hundreds of thousands of shill accounts, with vast rivers of wealth moving back and forth - for one purpose only: to deceive. None of it was done by accident.
And perhaps the most interesting thing to be learned here is not in the paper itself, but rather in the reaction of the Bitcoin user community. This, in short, is summed up by the reply of a suspect in a stereotypical "whodunit" story, who, when confronted with an accusation of murder, often says: "He ain't dead, and if he is, I didn't kill him, and if I had, the bastard had it coming."
Hundreds of people are busy pointing out largely-imaginary flaws in Ron and Shamir's paper. They conveniently ignore the fact that the data set is entirely public, and if they disagree with the stated conclusions, they are welcome to perform a similar analysis and try to produce different ones. But no one has done so, and I dare to predict that no one will. On the other hand, those who acknowledge the revealed facts are busy insisting that the hoarders could not possibly harm other users by dumping their coins on the market in the future. All right, maybe you can't do arithmetic. Brain damage happens, and we should feel sympathy for you. But some of us can. And arithmetic doesn't lie.
Some people are incensed by "hoarders" - not I. I don't give a damn. At least Bitcoin hoarders never had to kill anyone to obtain their wealth, unlike those who control land and other natural resources. The problem here is a much more concrete one: Bitcoin turns out to be something other than the fully-decentralized, unkillable network which so many imagined it to be.
People who have invested serious time and wealth in Bitcoin ought to feel angry. Not from any abstract sense of fair play, but from the simple fact that Ron and Shamir's findings reveal a serious - and quite mathematically-certain - flaw in the sytem. The total number of bitcoins in actual circulation is much smaller than previously believed. If the early adopters were to cash out and place their hoards on the market, the exchange rates (as denominated in anything) would dive through the floor, never to recover. The hoarders, in effect, possess an off switch for Bitcoin.
Whether and under what circumstances they would press the switch, I cannot say. But the Bitcoin kill switch exists.
So, what, if anything, could be done about it? Unfortunately, the one solution which I can think of (other than the idiotic head-in-the-sand solution of not giving a damn, which the Bitcoin user community seems to favour) is a rather unlikely one, and would be quite distasteful - on a gut level - to most users. I am speaking, of course, of proscription. If the Bitcoin community - or a reasonable subset thereof - agreed that the kill switch ought to be neutralized by any means possible, it would be a fairly straightforward matter to declare the hoarders persona non grata and collectively agree to use modified Bitcoin clients (let's call them Bitcoin-P) which act as if the particular coins currently held by A, C-F, H-K, and M-S were not bitcoins at all. And that such pseudo-coins will never be accepted as genuine in trade for any good or service. In effect, they would be retroactively shitcoined for all time.
This act would not require cooperation from every single Bitcoin user, or the imposition of any kind of governing authority. If even a minority of users were to move to Bitcoin-P, operating separate exchanges and the like, said users would be forever immune to the effects of a future market glut resulting from hoarders cashing out. Users of conventional Bitcoin would feel the effects in full, suffering the loss of most if not all of their purchasing power.
But I am under no illusions that Bitcoin-P will ever happen, given the libertarian bent of most Bitcoin users. They will mutter of dekulakization and the like. Fine, lose your hard-earned wealth to a pyramid scheme operator at some unspecified future date. But if you like the idea of decentralized cryptocurrencies without built-in kill switches, think hard about Bitcoin-P. Anyone who wants to can start using Bitcoin-P right now, without having to wait for others to be convinced of its merits. Just compile a list of the Satoshi gang's bitcoins, and start pretending that they aren't coins at all. It really is that simple.
Or better yet, consider the possibility of entirely novel mathematical schemes for "digital gold," which have yet to be discovered. The field has a delightfully rich history, and perhaps great things await the honest and enthusiastic amateur cryptographers willing to take on the challenge.
Edit: Apparently people still think that I have some sort of religious problem with "hoarders" per se. I couldn't care less whether you sit on your coins or spend them, or how many you presently have. The problem with the Satoshi gang's hoard in particular is not simply the size of the latter. It is rather that Satoshi and his friends never had to put U.S. dollars, gold, cocaine, alpaca socks, etc. into the system in order to obtain their coins. They are collectively sitting on top of a massive cheque that the Bitcoin economy probably could not ever cash without bleeding to death. So if this handful of people were to decide that they're done with Bitcoin, then Bitcoin will be done with itself.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I presently own a total of ~0.1 BTC. (If you're willing to take my word for it.) I mined the damn stuff with a Xilinx "Virtex 5" FPGA. It was a total waste of time, but writing the miner made for good Verilog / general logic layout skills practice.
78 Responses to "On the fact that Bitcoin has a Kill Switch; and how to disconnect it."
I have a bitcoin address showing over 1200 'BTC received' according to blockexplorer - yet has only ever had less than 40BTC in it, which through various small transactions has been whittled down to less than half that in final balance. It did not receive 1200 BTC in any real sense - it was the same BTC roving through the addresses in my wallet through the machinations of the change mechanism.
Presumably the more active your wallet - the more often large 'change' amounts go back into it and are counted as 'received'.
Now I admit it's not clear to me what 'Accumulated incoming BTCs' in table 7 above means - but as the total of that handful A to S above comes in at around 14Million at a time when there are 10Million or so BTC in existence - it seems to be potentially misleading.
Why postulate that address A is anything other than a high transaction merchant or exchange like the similar B which is MtGox? Obviously the 2.8Milion 'Accumulated incoming BTC' does not represent a holding in any sense - as the 14Mill total demonstrates.
Similarly when we look at Table 2 in the paper - just taking the 76 owners of >400K 'accumulated incoming' BTC - we get 30.4M so perhaps 'total' would be a better word than 'accumulated'?
You say " act as if the particular coins currently held by A, C-F, H-K, and M-S were not bitcoins at all "
Perhaps you are confusing these highly active accounts with the *current balance* holders in table 3?Given that my own address with a modest 100 transactions or so shows a 1 to 30 difference between actual BTC holdings and what blockexplorer and blockchain.info perceive as 'received BTC' - it hardly seems valid to accuse A to S of high current balances, especially those with large numbers of transactions.
That most if not all of them might be Bitcoin services holding amounts on behalf of many users doesn't seem to rate a mention - but is clearly true for the 3 identified.It also seems disingenuous to include the high balance 'holders on the behalf of many' as the 'rich' and the 2 million+ sub 0.01BTC as the 'poor' in any meaningful perception of a 'wealth pyramid'.
I've often donated 0.01 or less as tips to various people and just 'demos' of how it works. It seems likely to me that a significant number of these people aren't really 'using' Bitcoin in a serious sense - they've just tried it out.
Not giving a damn still prevals in Bitcoin community. What a bunch of idiots.
If bitcoin proves to be a useful medium of commerce, then the fact that early adopters get rich won't matter. If not, then the none of this matters. If Dr. Evil sells his gigantic mass of bitcoins at some critical moment, the entire bitcoin project will collapse wiping out countless small bitcoin holders? I guess it's possible, sort of like if China decides to dump all its US bonds onto the market at once. But it only would matter for those who hold bitcoins as an investment; hopefully those folks know that investment involves risk and have hefed their bets. But ultimately bitcoin will only be important if it becomes a widely used medium of commerce, and if that happens Dr. Evil won't matter.
This "easy" solution has one obvious flaw - new clients have to be distributed to majority of mining power in such way that the "Satoshi gang" is unable to do anything about it. Otherwise they can dump bitcoins preemptively or disrupt everything in some other way.
But I think there is already another existing solution - the Litecoin.
* It started with many more users and miners than bitcoin -> less centralization.
* The scrypt function it uses isn't so easy to optimize by parallelization/by using special hardware. Solo mining is still somewhat viable.
[...] by alexkravets link 4 [...]
Tell me again how you can know who is the current holder of bitcoins sent to an address that had never before received funds and which remain unspent?
Also, can the funds held in cold-storage by an exchange be differentiated from funds held by someone as their savings?
"If the early adopters were to cash out and place their hoards on the market, the exchange rates (as denominated in anything) would dive through the floor, never to recover. The hoarders, in effect, possess an off switch for Bitcoin."
Uh, sure, prices would drop off significantly, but prices would never recover? That seems pretty unreasonable, considering we've already seen a massive drop and a subsequent price recovery. If that 78% hoard decides to sell their coins, the price dips to pennies, buyers get to buy cheap Bitcoins, and the Bitcoin network continues. Simple as that.
It's likely that the reason these major Bitcoin holders are 'hoarding' their coins because they believe their coins will continue to appreciate. If they didn't dump them at $30/BTC, apparently the owners feel that their coins will eventually be worth more than that.
This whole premise is silly. As long as there are people out there wanting cheap bitcoins, there will be demand to soak up any dumping of bitcoins by hoarders. The price will go down a little, people looking for bitcoins-on-sale will buy them, and the price will go back up. In fact, dumping them would create a bubble. There would be sudden supply spike, everyone would rush to take advantage of the lower price, there would be huge volume and only so many buyers would get the lower prices, but they'd spawn a mania and the price would shoot up again. Afterwards it would crash back down to probably about exactly where it was before all the sillyness of dumping began. So all in all a big yawn. Remember there will only ever be 21M bitcoins.
This analysis is fatally flawed. The paper does not distinguish between "addresses" and "owners". In Bitcoinland, MANY users keep their money in ewallets, which are shared wallets controlled by a 3rd party. Under blockchain analysis, it will appear as though one "owner" possesses tens or hundreds of thousands of coins and a careless observer will conclude that the wealth must thus be concentrated in the hands of that owner. In reality, the huge balance shown in one blockchain account actually belongs to thousands of depositors. Ignoring this dynamic was an amazing oversight of the authors.
This topic comes up from time to time on other forums, so I'm not at all surprised that "early adopter cashing out" is a topic here.
Even assuming someone has a large balance - assuming of course the data is truly representative of actual balances - even a wallet containing 1,000,000 BTC only amounts to 4.7% of all coins that will exist in the system.
While "dumping" would certainly hurt the market in the short-term, it would allow all those envious people a second chance to put their money where their mouth is, and snatch up some bargains. A large sell transaction would also hurt the seller, as depressed prices with no bids to prop them up would result in an aggregate price much lower than a slower liquidation could.
So, while an early adopter most certainly COULD sell everything they own - I see little logical reason why anyone would, especially in large amounts over short periods of time, given the obvious market implications.
I'm afraid I'll have to file these objections into the same bin that includes "what if the entire internet is DESTROYED, then bitcoin will be in trouble" ideas. If we're in that sorry of a state, bitcoin will be the last thing you'll be worried about.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, you know what else is 'hoarded' and has the same distribution characteristics? Gold. I think we're in good company there.
The 'flaw' or 'kill switch' is nothing less than a large holder of UST being able to dump it all at once on the market.
Yes it can happen
No it is not likelyA dump only affects value, not the intrinsic properties of the Bitcon protocol. There is no guarantee at all that a dump would kill Bitcoin. Frankly, I would load up some more (better chances than the State Lottery).
If you are scared of the kill switch, invent the Bitcoin-P. If you don't care for fear mongering, keep 'hoarding' or just enjoy your live while Bitcoin may or may not become a success. What we exactly don't need is 'democratic' decisions to neutralize someone's coins. That's something the government already does on a daily basis.
I am in the minority of users with a relatively high balance. I came to the same conclusion highlighted in this article a while ago. While Bitcoin is a perfect digital currency (a metaphoric digital goal) it came into existence very quickly unlike gold. While I agree early investors in Google or Apple deserve to profit immensely from there foresight and early investment, it must also be understood it was the earlier adopters that benefited not just a hand full of adopters.
The definition comes down to who are the early adopters? If the early adopters are still classified as the mega Bitcoin rich, then people adopting Bitcoin now are laggards and the ponzi is in play.
I prefer to think of people coming to Bitcoin today as early adopters, the result of that is the problems highlighted in the article are then true.
In conclusion Bitcoin will crash, and build up again (it will only become stable when the mega rich have there wealth eroded).
In the mean I don't like the idea of Bitcoin-A but would like to see a new currency that had a creation rate that resembled a Gaussian curve.
"In conclusion bitcoin will crash, etc..."
Lots of hubris, but no comment on whether you'd liquidate - so, are you in for the long haul or is the BIG SELLOFF coming? Inquisitive minds would like to know.
Please, offload your coins - I can put them to much better use 🙂
>Most bitcoins are, in fact, in the hands of a very few people. Are you surprised? I'm not.
The 'big owners' are actually just web based wallets and exchanges where many users have their coins deposited.
[...] Loper's article lays into Bitcoin without really addressing any of the other critique, as usual: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009 [...]
[...] Loper's article lays into Bitcoin with out genuinely addressing any of the other critique, as common: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009 [...]
The U.S. financial system is similarly dominated by a few big names. According to wikipedia, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the nation's wealth in 2007. Why would you expect the Bitcoin financial system to be any different? And why would you expect there to be a big sell-off, when it obviously would be counter to the interests of the big coinholders? Even if the big holders of bitcoins are nefarious, surely they would rather have money than be bankrupt.
Think about what would happen if China dumped all its U.S. treasuries on the market at once. Or if a few of the important families around here dumped all their investments in U.S. companies at once. Every economy has a "kill switch." After the events of 2008, it's almost mind-boggling that people could be surprised by or unfamiliar with the concept of systemic failure. But apparently people have to keep re-learning the lessons of history, generation after generation.
Please tell me if I'm missing something here. Let's go with all your assumptions being true:
We take the Ron/Shamir paper at face value and accept the vast majority of Bitcoin is in the hands of very few;
These mega-hoarders are all in it together and are NSA operatives whose sole intention is to selflessly 'press the button' to devalue Bitcoin to virtually nothing (I say 'selflessly' because with that volume they'll get virtually nothing for most of it as has already been pointed out).
OK, granted. Let's say this is all true.Also, the latter part of your piece points out how how stubborn, idiotic and head-in-the-sand, how impervious to reason and worthy of your pity Bitcoin 'believers' are. OK, let's grant you that too.
So the time comes when the 'trigger' is deliberately and maliciously pulled. If the 'believers' stay true to character refusing to accept that the end is nigh how are they likely to react? My guess is they'll continue to be 'stupid' , refuse to see 'the writing on the wall' and go on a Bitcoin shopping spree. Doh, how stupid are they?!!
Oh, but wait a minute... Won't that mean the price will rise again from the ashes? It could rise steadily, fast, slow might go wild for a bit then eventually settle again - maybe near to where it is prior to the 'trigger', maybe somewhere else entirely. Who knows? I certainly don't. But I'm not the one claiming to.
Am I missing some essential aspect of your explanation to back up your assertion that such a scenario would result in killing Bitcoin dead?
You may be right in that seeing the price go below a certain point would be the last straw for enough to crawl away with whatever they managed to get back from their holding never to return. But the veracity of the responses in any discussion such as this one (that leads people like you to label Bitcoiners as idiots) illustrate the strength of belief. This isn't 'just' a commodity with typical professional speculators. From what I can see a lot of its users for ideological reasons really want this to succeed and believe in it.
If the perpetual onslaught of articles such as yours are failing to shake that belief I can't see a price crash, regardless of magnitude, doing so either. Any economist will tell you unbacked currencies only have value to the extent people believe they do. On that basis I'm happy to back the strength of belief I see in Bitcoin.
Sorry to tell you, you can no longer correctly write "I presently own a total of ~0.1 BTC". See: https://blockchain.info/address/14HRdapiCevEs155gGGb6iPdps4fx1XszL
Thanks for the essay! I think it is potentially a very important topic and your essay is right to focus on it.
Alpaca socks? I'm pretty sure there is no such thing. I've certainly never seen an alpaca wearing them.
I wish I had alpaca socks, they seem so useful
Very interesting discussion and thank you for the article, Stanislav.
Could the Bitcoin time bomb conceivably be defused by a proliferation of Bitcoin forks, something similar to Freicoin for example. I would tend to see the existence of several Bitcoin-type networks as diluting the dangers of a sudden dump of Bitcoin by the Saatoshi crowd to the idea of cryptocurrencies.
Of course a survivable cryptocurrency should not have the (rather stupid) fixed ceiling of coins ever to be created. That ceiling should be a moving target which rises in function of adoption of the currency and use in actual commerce. The result would be a more stable (if less exciting) currency.
Freicoin solves the question of what happens to mining after all coins have been created, by a rather elegant solution: a demurrage to be dedicated to rewarding miners for their continued activity. Unfortunately it did not solve the fixed ceiling problem, and the decision to give away a large number of coins to social causes seems a bit off target for a currency that wants to be widely adopted in commerce.
Is there anyone who's up to creating a currency that does not have the shortcomings of Bitcoin?
I generally agree that a small group shouldn't hold such a huge amount of coins simply based on being early to the system. That is a Ponzi, nothing else. I would prefer a virtual currency that has a democratic distribution system right from the beginning. Either a large group of people should get it as a gift or for something useful like donating blood.
Now if the original idea was to create a currency (and not just making the early adopters rich) why haven't been the early coins used? Wouldn't it make sense to distribute them rather freely or for good deeds and make it useful as a currency so they would be held among many people? That is what a currency is for. Not to mention it would have helped with the popularization of the whole Bitcoin idea.
But I don't agree with Stanislaw that right now it would kill Bitcoin. The article was written when price and hype was much less. At $140 the current hype is so much that a 2 million Bitcoin dump would be probably preferable. Why?
1. Lots of newcomers have to experience a crash. They think their investment can only go up. Once they survive a crash, they will know better.
2. An early crash would help with the price discovery. Because too many coins are horded, it is hard to figure out what is the correct evaluation of a Bitcoin. Similarly, when 80% of a stock is held by board members, the stock price's movement is very limited downward.And it is easy to squize shorters.So if such a dump would occur, the price could fall 80% or even more, but because of the current hype it would recover rather quickly. Maybe not up to $140 but to $80. And the added value would be that there would be more coins in circulation and more even distribution.
The sequel to the story would be that dr. Evil originally does as instructed by NSA, but later falls for a great looks... head turning .... Long legs ... Greek girl friend who is a poet. the two decide to give NSA a slip and go to remote Africa with all the bitcoins . signature keys and wallets are hidden in book between the verses. The NSA agents strip search the girl friend which makes the male moviegoing audience very happy and feminists very sad... More twist is added as There is this evil banker / crony capitalist who is bankrolling the next bit coin / hit coin. Evil banker is interested in the demise of dr. Evil and ms. Greek but not in the demise of the crypto itself. Banker helps girls friend escapte so that she will lead to the book. All ends when the girl friend runs away from the agents with the book, a chase ensures, the book is accidentally tossed at an speeding train and all paper wallets ( ok the book of poems ) is shredded to pieces to be lost for ever..... The ending scene shows a poor widow go up to a baker and buy bread for her bitcoins and the baker returns her half the bit coins...preplexed she asks why give back half when the prices have always been such and such and the baker says that the whole world has benefitted as 10 million bite coins were lost forever the earlier day and the currency has doubled overnight !!! Movie tickets on bitmovies dot bit and cryptcoins dot kit the bit and kit TLD s being new to this world ...
Hi Stanislav,
I'm not sure how you meant to use the term 'built-in' here but I suspect that we should not call it built-in, rather, we should be called inherent (or an emergent property of the transaction history) in order to not get confused with such kill switches in fiat currencies. A qualitative difference with fiat currencies is that there is a ceiling to how many Bitcoins can be dumped in the market, while with fiat currencies, there is no such ceiling (via printing).
The implication is clear: someone could analyze the transaction history of Bitcoin, determine they are not happy with the concentration of coins and consequently the power to dump them, and not use Bitcoins. With fiat currencies, you would need to know the intentions of those with power to print money.
- Alexis
Hi Stanislav:
Have they run their scripts on the blockchain data more recently? In other words, has the big rise in interest and price and "crash" and subsequent apparent stabilization of BTC/USD "spread out" the wealth much?
[...] http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1009 – Warum Bitcoin ein Ponzi-Schema sein könnte (Englisch) Share this:DruckenE-MailGoogle +1TwitterMehrFacebookGefällt mir:Gefällt mir Lade... Dieser Beitrag wurde unter Zum Nachdenken abgelegt und mit Bitcoin, Coin, Kryptowährung, Miner, Ponzi Schema, Satoshi, Schneeballsystem, Vorsicht verschlagwortet. Setze ein Lesezeichen auf den Permalink. [...]
[...] else, then the Bitcoins may already be out of the hands of the U.S. government. Failing this, it would be possible for a large number of Bitcoin users to agree to fork the blockchain and treat these 600,000 [...]
Not true. If the price is (anticipated to be) zero (as is the intrinsic value) there is no one left with incentive to trade / transfer. Your relative have no use of bitcoins (or any other sequence of 0's and 1's).
The recent Congressional hearing which seemed to view BitCoin favorably is a repeat of the strategy used when the US Treasury said NORFED (platinum/gold/silver based currency) was legal. It is simply a ploy to let Bitcoin run a bit longer to identify the players before Uncle pulls the Sucker Punch and the Secret Service siezes all Bitcoin assets and makes arrests..
Some people are incensed by "hoarders" – not I. I don't give a damn. At least Bitcoin hoarders never had to kill anyone to obtain their wealth, unlike those who control land and other natural resources.
Ugh, I'd be careful of that hypocrisy if I were you! Your entire proposal for shitcoin is predicated on theft, scamming and fraud being reprehensible. Yet what the fuck do you think Bitcoin's creators, its apologists and hoarders of any currency are if not scammers, fraudsters, and thieves respectively?
Do you seriously think you can get away with first condemning fraud and thievery then saying you don't give a damn? How do you justify that complete lack of principle to yourself? If not that you're saying nonsense and are too ignorant to understand what's coming out of your mouth.
Here's the level of ignorance and stupidity you portray. You're trying to conjure software solutions to mental (socio-political) problems, *without even acknowledging the nature of the problems*. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about and as a result STUPID is coming out of your mouth!
You deserve a hard slap for this.
The problem with the Satoshi gang's hoard in particular is not simply the size of the latter. It is rather that Satoshi and his friends never had to put U.S. dollars, gold, cocaine, alpaca socks, etc. into the system in order to obtain their coins.
This is an astonishingly stupid statement. Do you even know what the real bills doctrine is? It's what you're proposing, that anyone can create cash at need so long as it corresponds to real value out in the real world. And it's great! It's decentralized as hell. Way more decentralized than Bitcoin's miners.
Only you know what? There's a vast difference between referencing the real bills doctrine in the middle of other crap you've confused with it, and discussing it intelligently as if you know what the fuck you're talking about!
The way you talk about currency, and especially about the CREATION of currency, without ever actually *addressing the topic*, makes you sound like a retarded yokel who wants to put together a computer without knowing the difference between RAM, a Hard Drive, and a CPU!
Who gets to create cash in some currency? And in what amount? These are CENTRAL issues to any currency. In the case of Bitcoin, it's "early adopters" and "up to a preset amount then not at all". Obviously any ponzi operator is going to rig the scheme to benefit themselves so that's hardly surprising.
Yet now you come along to tell people that there is a catastrophic problem with one of the central ideas of the Bitcoin "currency" as a currency. With who got to create the cash and in what amount. And you mention this WHILE ENTIRELY AVOIDING THE ISSUE. How stupid are you? You're not providing insight or analysis, you're providing the confused ramblings of a madman!
What's actually happening is you're sounding like a damned Psychopath. Like the typical con man, spin doctor and cultist. Like a damned *right-libertarian*. Simple and obvious concepts like "who should create money?" now appear entirely beyond you with the brain damage you've absorbed by hanging out with Psychopaths. Because the Psychopath's answer is "I should, and nobody else!" ... you know, Satoshi's answer! The con man's answer! And because you're not so profoundly retarded as to provide THAT answer to the question, instead you try to provide *NO* answer by *AVOIDING* the question.
That's not slap-worthy stupidity, Stan. That's *punch* worthy. The only way your fevered confused madman's ramblings would be any worse is if you actually DID provide the con man's answer!
Your brain is LIQUEFYING from hanging out with RETARDS. Your PRINCIPLES are liquefying!
I know this is old but I feel I should pitch in.
1) It is trivial to assume that the satoshi-gang of early miners ARE sitting on tons of bitcoins. And of course, should they ever decide to activate the "kill-switch" as you called it, the prices would go tumbling down. Enacting mathematical proof of this inevitability is an exercise in futility.
2) If this were to ever happen, it would definitely not be the end of bitcoin. I speak for myself, and I'm sure thousands of others agree, if bitcoin's price would drop to pennies, it would be my lucky strike. I would jump in and start buying en-masse. The fact that bitcoin is NOT a company's stock makes it invulnerable to a classic run-on-the bank. Its intrinsic value as a means of easy and fast means of transaction, and even as a store of value still holds regardless of how much people price it. In fact, with the relatively small number of merchants willing to accept bitcoin, it's definitely overvalued at > 500$. You would have to be out of your mind not to realize that the artificially inflated price is caused by speculators in for the quick cash, rather than true and genuine community adoption. Nevertheless, adoption is steadily rising.
The real question is, why would someone invest so much effort into creating a currency that has such untold potential, and then activate the kill-switch.
If the only thing that could destroy bitcoin lies in their hands, it would be absolutely stupid for them to do that. At any point in time, their Exiting the market would lock them out of it. Because:
a) That would not kill bitcoin (as per the above)
b) If they hadn't done so, they would be sitting on increasingly valuating assets, in terms of number of merchants willing to accept it, and amount of goods you can purchase with it.
c) Would you dump instruments in an economy that you potentially control in return for instruments in an economy you have almost zero-control over, and that has proved to be inefficient over and over again?The only thing that could potentially drive the satoshi gang to activate the switch as per your articles is the possibility that they may be NSA trying to discredit cryptocurrencies. Aside from the james-bond conspiracy theory hints that I find to be absurd, it would be absolutely counter-intuitive. They have practically opened a can of worms with such foolish act. Contrary to what you are proposing, starting a cryptocurrency which even they can't destroy if they tried (as per the above), would only prove to the world that indeed decentralized currencies can actually work.
You're wrong. Your bitcoin-P scheme is perfectly analogous to a plan by people concerned about inflation (which is just dumping dollars anyway) deciding that they will only accept money minted before a certain date, or with serial numbers exhibiting a certain property, or whatever. For the same reasons that scheme has not been tried and would not work, bitcoin-P would not work. We can generalize from this to show that your larger criticism of bitcoin based on this paper is also wrong.
[...] people. In crypto currencies like Bitcoin, wealth is concentrated to such an extent so as to be an existential threat, and other crypto currencies have been similarly criticized. "If one person can dump and destroy [...]
[...] people. In crypto currencies like Bitcoin, wealth is concentrated to such an extent so as to be an existential threat, and other crypto currencies have been similarly [...]


text:
By JIM SALTER and CLAUDIA LAUER Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Gun violence is killing an increasing number of American children, from toddlers caught in crossfires to teenagers gunned down in turf wars, drug squabbles or for posting the wrong thing on social media.
Shootings involving children and teenagers have been on the rise in recent years, and 2021 is no exception. Experts say idleness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shares the blame with easy access to guns and disputes that too often end with gunfire.
LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old boy who loved dinosaurs and basketball, was sleeping on the floor in an apartment in Kansas City, Missouri, when he was shot on June 29, 2020. A man who had been involved in a dispute with LeGend's father is awaiting trial for second-degree murder. A probable cause statement said the suspected shooter had been trying to find LeGend's dad after that altercation.
"Why do we have to resort to violence because we're mad?" LeGend's mother, Charron Powell, asks. "What are other ways we can figure out an issue without harming somebody?"
The U.S. saw 991 gun violence deaths among people 17 or younger in 2019, according to the website Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings from more than 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources. That number spiked to 1,375 in 2020 and this year is on pace to be worse. Through Monday, shootings had claimed 1,179 young lives and left 3,292 youths injured.
FBI data backs that up. The agency released a report on Sept. 28 showing homicides in the U.S. increased nearly 30% in 2020, and homicides among people ages 19 and younger rose more than 21%.
Horror stories abound.
In St. Louis, 9-year-old Caion Greene died in March when someone opened fire on his family's car. A 17-year-old is charged in the crime. Police and prosecutors have declined to discuss a motive or say what prompted the shooting.
Two Minneapolis children were gunned down in May. Nine-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith was shot in the head while jumping on a trampoline. Police said she was the unintended victim of a bullet meant for someone else. No arrests have been made. Six-year-old Aniya Allen was shot when her mother drove her car through a gun battle.
On Oct. 2 in Milwaukee, an 11-year-old girl was killed and a 5-year-old girl was injured when someone fired into their family's car from another vehicle. Police have not said if they know of a motive and are seeking information from the public.
More often, the victims are teenagers.
Jamari Williams and Kentrell McNeal, both 15-year-old students at Simeon Career Academy High School in Chicago, were killed in separate shootings on Sept. 21. No arrests have been made and police declined to speculate on what led to the shootings.
At Philadelphia's Simon Gratz High School Mastery Charter, five students were killed and nine others were shot or shot at during the last school year. Just weeks into the new school year, two students and a recent graduate have been killed. The school offers a space for memorials to slain students, often helps with funeral expenses and offers counseling services.
"We have gotten exceptionally good at knowing what to do, and how to offer help when a young person loses their life … we have gotten really good at that," principal Le'Yondo Dunn said.
A March report from the Children's Defense Fund found that child and teen shooting deaths reached a 19-year high in 2017 and have remained elevated. Black children and teenagers were four times more likely than whites to be fatally shot.
The fund's president and CEO, the Rev. Starsky Wilson, said a spike in gun sales during the pandemic has made things worse.
"There are more guns available on the street and there are folks with less opportunity to engage in productive activity," Wilson said. "A combination of those two is really challenging."
Social media also plays a role, experts say. A posted insult can turn quickly into retaliation, said Jason Smith, a homicide division captain in Philadelphia.
"Social media makes it so easy to throw that disrespect," Smith said. "They're doing it in real time."
Dr. Lindsay Clukies, an emergency room doctor at St. Louis Children's Hospital, said she and her staff often see repeat victims.
"It's not uncommon that we see a child with a big scar and we say, 'What happened?' and they say, 'Oh, I was shot once before,'" Clukies said.
"It's so frustrating as a medical provider because we obviously pride ourselves in taking amazing care of kids and saving lives and fixing lives, but these injuries are preventable," Clukies said. "There's nothing that compares to having to tell a parent that their child passed away from a completely preventable thing."
The Justice Department sought to address the violence through "Operation Legend," named for LeGend Taliferro. His mother takes comfort in the fact that her son's death helped spur a national effort that resulted in hundreds of arrests. Still, the pain never goes away.
"It's really a mental battle to get through every day," Powell said. "It's really difficult to know he's not here and I won't hear his voice."
On the day before Father's Day last year, someone fired shots at a group of boys on the front porch of a Chicago home. The bullet missed the boys but pierced a window into the dining room where 13-year-old Amaria Jones was showing her mom a dance routine she was perfecting for TikTok.
The bullet shattered a TV and everyone scattered for safety. When Amaria's mother returned, she found her daughter on the floor, holding her wounded neck and trying to call out, "Mom." Amaria was pronounced dead at a hospital. No arrests have been made.
"I grew up in this neighborhood and I've been around a lot of gun violence," Mercedes Jones, Amaria's 28-year-old sister, said. "I've ducked bullets flying near my head. I'm used to that. Not Amaria. She didn't hang out like me. She didn't know that lifestyle."
While small children are often caught in the crossfire, teenagers are most commonly targeted — often by other teenagers — in drive-by shootings on interstate highways or gunned down in broad daylight on urban streets.
Shaquille Barbour of Philadelphia was killed June 6, a week before his high school graduation — shot 13 times as he rode his bike home from a corner store. No arrests have been made, and police aren't offering a motive.
His father, Joseph Barbour, still struggles to hold back the anger.
"I don't think people know how hard it is, not to want to retaliate," he said. "These kids are on the street, and it feels like they're hunters. They brag and taunt people after they kill someone, too."
Smith, the Philadelphia detective, said the shootings are as brutal as they are brazen.
"They will empty an entire magazine into someone's torso or their head," he said. "They call it walking a person down. They shoot a person and incapacitate them … then walk them down, walk until they are standing over them and unload their firearm into that individual."
Efforts and ideas to slow the violence are varied.
Wilson, of the Children's Defense Fund, suggested a threefold strategy: Adopt new gun legislation to strengthen background checks and incentivize safe storage of weapons; invest in social services such as after-school programs and mental health support for young people; and create more economic opportunity, including summer jobs.
Studies have shown that victims of violence are at an elevated risk of becoming violent themselves. So St. Louis Children's Hospital developed its Victims of Violence program that seeks to reduce recidivism by pairing surviving shooting victims with mentors and offering counseling, mediation and a link to social service agencies.
In Philadelphia, Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said police also monitor social media and if they're aware of a feud, a team of officers and community leaders meet with those involved in the dispute.
A pilot program this year at Philadelphia's Simon Gratz high will provide intensive services to students in danger of becoming a victim — or a perpetrator — of gun violence.
"We are going to have capacity to get about 60 students into the program but with the number of students we've lost, the amount of violence and guns that Philadelphia is seeing, we know there will be more students who need this program than we can get in," Dunn said. "We know it."
Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle


text:
The distant, steady beeping of an electrocardiograph machine roused him from the abyss and into a fuzzy state of consciousness. He knew they ogled the spikes and dips on the screen displaying his brain activity. He knew they used their machines to eavesdrop on his every breath.
During these delicate moments between waking and sleeping, Kain sensed their scrutiny most acutely. He knew they waited for something, they wanted something, but every time he woke, he found it impossible to remember.
"Skirra." A rough male voice interrupted his thoughts; fingers snapped. "Increase the current."
"Yes, Sir," a timorous female voice responded. Fingers clacked across a keyboard. "Output is increased by twenty units." Skirra tapped her foot against the tiled floor.
A harsh, electronic tone split through his head, cutting into his brain like a knife: in a burst of pain and confusion, his bubble of thought popped and disappeared.
"He's primed." The man approached with the clomp of heavy boots. "Inject him."
"Sir... Commander Brigham? Sir... if I may speak..." Skirra's limp fist thudded against her chest; she offered the customary salute. "The biomedical research team in the Nanotech Department submitted a recent study of the compounds for review, and--"
For a moment, neither spoke. The electrocardiogram beeped steadily.
She cleared her throat. "One of the primates in the experiment went berserk." Pausing, she swallowed. "Sir, not that I am comparing your investments to a bunch of monkeys, Sir--" She vouched for her intentions with another salute. "I believe this experiment will bring Glory to the Empire, Sir!"
Rattling a rack of glass vials, Skirra poked through a clanging assortment of tubes. She selected one from the rack and popped the cap. Moments later, she tore a disinfectant pad from the wrapper.
Kain knew all of these sounds; they were routine.
"Then do it." Brigham's fingers drummed on a nearby table.
Cold fingers dug into the muscles of his arm, dabbing him with a cool swab, moist with an astringent-smelling chemical.
"That whole department is revolting. They have become so obsessed with transcending human limitations that they've grown disgusted with the body." Brigham snorted. "It will forever retard their efforts."
Skirra drove the needle into Kain's arm.
"The will to live frustrates them because it is irrational, unquantifiable; there is no way to predict it, or to accurately compensate for it within calculations." He hovered over Kain. "The body is an impressive machine: consider the possibilities in subduing that will, in bending its power to serve your goals."
Skirra's cold hand, bedecked with metal rings, gave Kain's hand a firm squeeze.
"If we want to test his capabilities, we have to push him to the limits." Brigham's voice remained cool, scientific. "If we find his breaking point, we can control him. Once we can control him, we are free to utilize those capabilities to the fullest extent."
Pressure surged through Kain's head, overwhelming him. He lurched forward, restrained by thick, leather bonds on a metal chair. His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes fluttered open.
Skirra released her hand. "Sir, his vitals are stable!"
He squinted, blinded by the garish light.
"Let's begin." Chase Brigham, a sturdy man old enough to be his father, with waist-length silver hair, loomed over Kain and spit the booming command: "Aadima."
Mind abruptly blank, Kain opened his eyes. He tilted his head to one side, feeling a metal helmet shift on his head. Posture stiffening without his control, Kain nodded, making a fist, unable to beat his chest in salute. "Commander Brigham, Sir!"
Brigham glanced at the winking display of computer monitors beside him, and then at his watch. "Thirty-seven seconds." He nodded to Skirra. "Note it."
Skirra fumbled with an electronic notepad, alternately typing notes and chewing her nails.
Kneeling down on one knee, Brigham signed an intricate series of hand gesticulations to him. "Greetings, Kain."
Kain could think of nothing to do. Feeling nothing, wanting for nothing, he remained rigid in the chair.
"Dvitiiya." Brigham paired his command with a symphony of motor signals. "Disable."
"Secondary Dvitiiya functions." Kain echoed him in an empty voice. "Disabled."
"Kain." Brigham climbed to his feet, sauntering behind the chair. "Tritiiya."
Kain froze. His mind froze.
"Damn you!" Brigham grabbed a flat remote from his pocket, and pointed it at him.
Moaning as violent tremors wracked his body, Kain convulsed and flopped in his chair.
The unforgiving bonds subdued him, held him in place, subjecting him to further torture.
Skirra lifted her hands to her head, watching in horror as graphs spikes and numbers soared on adjacent computers.
"There are no uses for faulty machinery!" Brigham leaned into Kain's face, hissing his words. "None. You remember that."
Skirra glanced at the clock and chewed her nails.
"Kain." Brigham cleared his throat. "Load Tritiiya."
Shifting his posture, Kain's breathing slowed, and he sat upright. He stared ahead with empty eyes and spoke in a monotone. "Tertiary Tritiiya functions loaded, Sir."
"Kain." Brigham waved his hand and spoke in a thunderous voice. "Load Caturtha."
"Identification confirmed: granting access to restricted Caturtha systems." Kain mechanically rotated his head toward the floor and closed his eyes. "Proceed with instructions."
Skirra plunked an unwieldy pair of goggles over the bridge of his nose, fitting the frames one at a time over his ears with a gentle touch. Compulsively grabbing the tufts of flaxen hair that poked from his helmet, Skirra thumbed his temples affectionately before jerking her hands away. "Sir, goggles are ready, Sir!" She threw her hands into the air and blushed.
A hypnotic lightshow of flashing colors entranced him.
"Kain, do you recognize the image of this man?" Brigham drummed his fingers against the chair.
Amidst the lights, Kain saw flashes of an elderly man, with thinning hair and age spots. "Recognition affirmative, Sir." Kain knew him: he was a senator.
"Spectacular." Brigham joined his hands in a deafening clap. "Execute primary Caturtha commands, and target this man."
"Target confirmed, Sir." Kain remained hypnotized by the goggles. "Requesting variables of mission duration, Sir."
Brigham pealed his final command. "Caturtha functions will terminate when his Glorious duties are fulfilled."
"Parameters understood, Sir." Kain twitched. "Caturtha, execution complete. Awaiting further instruction."
Brigham waved dismissively. "Kain, I require no further services from you today."
Kain's eyes fell shut, and he slumped forward in the chair, still restrained by the leather bonds.
He felt himself drifting again... floating, fading...
Looming over him, Skirra placed a hand on Kain's chest. She paused, and then quickly swiped the goggles, retreating behind Brigham.
"Skirra, send for Krodha. We're finished today." Brigham turned and strode toward the door.
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Genre – Sci-Fi/Steamy Romance
Rating – R (18+)
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