Ron Paul is shilling for a Bitcoin retirement fund exactly where you'd expect

[Mordan]

lots of hate... salty tears

http://mashable.com/2017/11/17/ron-p.../#4INnjRq7WOqp

Because nothing says legitimacy like a 30-second informercial, everyone's favorite racist grandpa has taken to Fox News to push the latest retirement-savings proposal to 68-year-olds across this great nation. And just what is it that Ron Paul is pushing, exactly? Why that would be Bitcoin.

That's right, the former congressman is shilling for Bitcoin on Fox News. But not just any old cryptocurrency will do for the man terrified of the Federal Reserve. Nope, Paul wants you to put your hard-earned bucks into a "Bitcoin IRA."

SEE ALSO: This $4 billion Bitcoin laundering scheme reads like a gripping detective story

Ads showing Paul extolling the virtues of Coin IRA have been on the network since at least October, but it somehow wasn't until recently that they caught our astonished eyes. And, well, you'll just have to watch it for yourself.

Interestingly, Coin IRA is a subsidiary of something called Goldco — a company that says it aims to "help clients looking to add precious metals to their IRAs." That's right, a gold company is presumably paying Ron Paul to convince old timers to bank their retirement on cryptocurrency.

Notably, Paul has said Bitcoin "can be a participant in bringing down the dollar," so who knows what's really going on in that dude's head.

There is one thing we can guess, however: Coin IRA is likely helping at least one person's retirement plans, and that would be in the form of checks made out to Ron Paul.

[kfarnan]

Free market, competing currencies are what he espoused.

[timosman]

Buy silver!

[RonPaulIsGreat]

If you are against bitcoin you hate Ron Paul.

[ClaytonB]

How shocking. What's going on in this dude's head if he wants to bring down the Federal Reserve?? I mean, Janet Yellen is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

[timosman]

Can somebody explain to Ron if bitcoin becomes popular it will suck all electricity on the planet?

[devil21]

Ron has always supported the freedom of competing currencies. The characterization, both by the article and the bitcoin crowd, that he is endorsing cryptocurrencies is inaccurate, however. He endorses competition in currency, not one currency over another. He endorses gold as money, though.

If you are against bitcoin you hate Ron Paul.

Absurd.

[Mordan]

Can somebody explain to Ron if bitcoin becomes popular it will suck all electricity on the planet?

nope Bitcoin will be protected because it will be impossible to fake electricity needed to Proof of Work the Bitcoin blockchain.

there will be a price equilibrium. You want to drive Tesla right?

[dannno]

Can somebody explain to Ron if bitcoin becomes popular it will suck all electricity on the planet?

Please don't lie to Ron Paul.

[timosman]

there will be a price equilibrium.

1BTC = $1B?

[timosman]

Please don't lie to Ron Paul.

Have you though it through? What will happen if mining is not profitable? The ponzi scheme will collapse. Hence the price of BTC must be going up or else.

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Have you though it through? What will happen if mining is not profitable? The ponzi scheme will collapse. Hence the price of BTC must be going up or else.

A fraction of the miners drop off all the time, as equip ages, or dies, or whatever and new ones are added to depending on the environment. The difficulty adjusts every like 2000 blocks, meaning it can become harder or easier to mine a block after each difficulty adjustment. So, if it becomes unprofitable some miners will quit, and the difficulty will lower, meaning it'll take less computation to find a block which means profitability goes up for the remaining miners.

Plus at least for a period some will mine at a loss even, as a speculative play, or to simply help protect the network, in the case of a massive price drop overnight.

[ClaytonB]

Have you though it through? What will happen if mining is not profitable? The ponzi scheme will collapse. Hence the price of BTC must be going up or else.

<facepalm>

[Tinnuhana]

devil21..."Absurd"...of course, RonPaulIsGreat was being facetious/sarcastic in comment #4. But you knew that?

[Mordan]

Have you though it through? What will happen if mining is not profitable? The ponzi scheme will collapse. Hence the price of BTC must be going up or else.

You don't understand how crypto mining works. Difficulty and therefore electricity consumption adjusts both up and down.
You try to shape reality around your belief Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. CME Future trading should teach you a few things.

Please do some research and try to transact in a crypto currency. liberating.

[timosman]

You don't understand how crypto mining works. Difficulty and therefore electricity consumption adjusts both up and down.
You try to shape reality around your belief Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. CME Future trading should teach you a few things.

Please do some research and try to transact in a crypto currency. liberating.

Explain to me how, whoever is controlling the difficulty lever on mining bitcoin, would be interested in moving the lever to the point where mining becomes unprofitable? The existence of the lever alone is another argument against BTC. I am also aware a single person is not a match against an army of zombies looking for profit.

[Mordan]

Explain to me how, whoever is controlling the difficulty lever on mining bitcoin, would be interested in moving the lever to the point where mining becomes unprofitable? The existence of the lever alone is another argument against BTC. I am also aware a single person is not a match against an army of zombies looking for profit.

the lever is controlled by code. Code is controlled by consensus. You vote by running the code you like.

Today the consensus is around Bitcoin Core.

[timosman]

the lever is controlled by code. Code is controlled by consensus. You vote by running the code you like.

Today the consensus is around Bitcoin Core.

LOL

[Mordan]

I am also aware a single person is not a match against an army of zombies looking for profit.

Cool bro. I don't really care. The Bitcoin train is going to 50k with or without you. That's what I try to tell people but their humanity is too stupid.

Of course we are looking to profit. Greed is good. That's the basis of capitalism.

[FSP-Rebel]

Cool bro. I don't really care. The Bitcoin train is going to 50k with or without you. That's what I try to tell people but their humanity is too stupid.

Of course we are looking to profit. Greed is good. That's the basis of capitalism.

Timos, I'm outta rep for Mordan. Hook him up for me.

[CCTelander]

Timos, I'm outta rep for Mordan. Hook him up for me.

Covered.

[devil21]

devil21..."Absurd"...of course, RonPaulIsGreat was being facetious/sarcastic in comment #4. But you knew that?

I don't know what's serious and what's sarcasm around here anymore. 2007/2008 join dates pushing vaporware currency over sound money, 40k post members supporting federal income taxes and billionaire Presidents, etc. I honestly don't know what posts to take seriously here these days so unless it's posted by TheTexan, I consider it to be a serious post.

[Mordan]

I don't know what's serious and what's sarcasm around here anymore. 2007/2008 join dates pushing vaporware currency over sound money, 40k post members supporting federal income taxes and billionaire Presidents, etc. I honestly don't know what posts to take seriously here these days so unless it's posted by TheTexan, I consider it to be a serious post.

Ron Paul and Rand Paul jumped on the crypto bandwagon.. What Ron Paul taught me is competing currencies not gold bugging.

let Gold and Bitcoin compete. Try using both and decide rationally.

[RonPaulIsGreat]

I don't know what's serious and what's sarcasm around here anymore. 2007/2008 join dates pushing vaporware currency over sound money, 40k post members supporting federal income taxes and billionaire Presidents, etc. I honestly don't know what posts to take seriously here these days so unless it's posted by TheTexan, I consider it to be a serious post.

Well, obviously disliking bitcoin doesn't mean you hate Ron Paul, anymore than disliking gold would mean you hate Ron Paul.

I flirted with the "gold" bug side of things for a while. But Gold is to flawed to work at scale in the modern world.

Why?
1. The only way gold could ever be used for day to day normal transactions EVER, is if you hand your gold to a central authority, and then they allow you to sell microportions of your Database Gold for fiat to be used at store checkout. To me that doesn't have an essential quality, which is decentralizatioin outside of direct government control. IF the gold backed debit cards ever took off it would be trivial, as in one phone call easy for the goobermint to lock your account, or seize the whole of the gold vault. So, it solves nothing. Sure you can hold physical gold in your house, but that does nothing towards becoming a day to day currency of the masses. All the roads for gold and wide spread use lead to a central authority, so it is not a compelling case. You can not order off ebay with a Silver Eagle, and you never will be able to in a decentralized manner, but Ebay could today add the option to accept bitcoin, and bitcoin would remain just as decentralized as it is today or more actually because then ebay would be running nodes as well.

That flaw doesn't exist with cryptocurrencies at least, I have in my possession right now the only private key that will allow the spending of my Bitcoins, no government, no corporation, can do anything to them, unless they want to send in a swat team and torture me for them, which at least makes it orders of magnitude more difficult to take them, as opposed to centralized database gold, which requires a phone call.

IF I were an anti-fed gold bug. I'd likely have most of my money in Gold, and a small amount in bitcoin as the "internet" enabled layer of my "anti-fed" stash. I do actually buy things with bitcoin online, mostly at newegg.com

There really doesn't have to be a "enemy" perspective between Gold and bitcoin. Gold is protected by the essential laws of physics, but as a consequence very difficult to use in the modern age, so yeah, use it if you want as a store of value. Bitcoin is protected by the immutability of math, and functions well, in nearly all the spots Gold does not work well, as in online. And since Bitcoin is decentralized, it is the obvious preferred Second choice for any anti-fed gold bug. A Gold Backed Debit card is CENTRALIZED!, no other way to look at it, which means super easy to control. So, not a valid solution, IMO.

So, I'd say an Anti-Fed Gold Bug, should have like 90% Gold 10% Bitcoin. And an anti-Fed Nerd should likely have the inverse for his stash. I do own some silver eagles, I do toy with the idea of converting a small percent of my bitcoins to a few Gold Eagles or equivalent, but then the Gold Nazis open their mouths.

[Occam's Banana]

[...] unless it's posted by TheTexan, I consider it to be a serious post.

What makes you think TheTexan's posts aren't serious?

(I think he's one of the most serious posters at RPFs ...)

[Mordan]

Well, obviously disliking bitcoin doesn't mean you hate Ron Paul, anymore than disliking gold would mean you hate Ron Paul.

I flirted with the "gold" bug side of things for a while. But Gold is to flawed to work at scale in the modern world.

Why?
1. The only way gold could ever be used for day to day normal transactions EVER, is if you hand your gold to a central authority, and then they allow you to sell microportions of your Database Gold for fiat to be used at store checkout. To me that doesn't have an essential quality, which is decentralizatioin outside of direct government control. IF the gold backed debit cards ever took off it would be trivial, as in one phone call easy for the goobermint to lock your account, or seize the whole of the gold vault. So, it solves nothing. Sure you can hold physical gold in your house, but that does nothing towards becoming a day to day currency of the masses. All the roads for gold and wide spread use lead to a central authority, so it is not a compelling case. You can not order off ebay with a Silver Eagle, and you never will be able to in a decentralized manner, but Ebay could today add the option to accept bitcoin, and bitcoin would remain just as decentralized as it is today or more actually because then ebay would be running nodes as well.

That flaw doesn't exist with cryptocurrencies at least, I have in my possession right now the only private key that will allow the spending of my Bitcoins, no government, no corporation, can do anything to them, unless they want to send in a swat team and torture me for them, which at least makes it orders of magnitude more difficult to take them, as opposed to centralized database gold, which requires a phone call.

IF I were an anti-fed gold bug. I'd likely have most of my money in Gold, and a small amount in bitcoin as the "internet" enabled layer of my "anti-fed" stash. I do actually buy things with bitcoin online, mostly at newegg.com

There really doesn't have to be a "enemy" perspective between Gold and bitcoin. Gold is protected by the essential laws of physics, but as a consequence very difficult to use in the modern age, so yeah, use it if you want as a store of value. Bitcoin is protected by the immutability of math, and functions well, in nearly all the spots Gold does not work well, as in online. And since Bitcoin is decentralized, it is the obvious preferred Second choice for any anti-fed gold bug. A Gold Backed Debit card is CENTRALIZED!, no other way to look at it, which means super easy to control. So, not a valid solution, IMO.

So, I'd say an Anti-Fed Gold Bug, should have like 90% Gold 10% Bitcoin. And an anti-Fed Nerd should likely have the inverse for his stash. I do own some silver eagles, I do toy with the idea of converting a small percent of my bitcoins to a few Gold Eagles or equivalent, but then the Gold Nazis open their mouths.

out of rep

[devil21]

Well, obviously disliking bitcoin doesn't mean you hate Ron Paul, anymore than disliking gold would mean you hate Ron Paul.

I flirted with the "gold" bug side of things for a while. But Gold is to flawed to work at scale in the modern world.

Why?
1. The only way gold could ever be used for day to day normal transactions EVER, is if you hand your gold to a central authority, and then they allow you to sell microportions of your Database Gold for fiat to be used at store checkout. To me that doesn't have an essential quality, which is decentralizatioin outside of direct government control. IF the gold backed debit cards ever took off it would be trivial, as in one phone call easy for the goobermint to lock your account, or seize the whole of the gold vault. So, it solves nothing. Sure you can hold physical gold in your house, but that does nothing towards becoming a day to day currency of the masses. All the roads for gold and wide spread use lead to a central authority, so it is not a compelling case. You can not order off ebay with a Silver Eagle, and you never will be able to in a decentralized manner, but Ebay could today add the option to accept bitcoin, and bitcoin would remain just as decentralized as it is today or more actually because then ebay would be running nodes as well.

That flaw doesn't exist with cryptocurrencies at least, I have in my possession right now the only private key that will allow the spending of my Bitcoins, no government, no corporation, can do anything to them, unless they want to send in a swat team and torture me for them, which at least makes it orders of magnitude more difficult to take them, as opposed to centralized database gold, which requires a phone call.

IF I were an anti-fed gold bug. I'd likely have most of my money in Gold, and a small amount in bitcoin as the "internet" enabled layer of my "anti-fed" stash. I do actually buy things with bitcoin online, mostly at newegg.com

There really doesn't have to be a "enemy" perspective between Gold and bitcoin. Gold is protected by the essential laws of physics, but as a consequence very difficult to use in the modern age, so yeah, use it if you want as a store of value. Bitcoin is protected by the immutability of math, and functions well, in nearly all the spots Gold does not work well, as in online. And since Bitcoin is decentralized, it is the obvious preferred Second choice for any anti-fed gold bug. A Gold Backed Debit card is CENTRALIZED!, no other way to look at it, which means super easy to control. So, not a valid solution, IMO.

So, I'd say an Anti-Fed Gold Bug, should have like 90% Gold 10% Bitcoin. And an anti-Fed Nerd should likely have the inverse for his stash. I do own some silver eagles, I do toy with the idea of converting a small percent of my bitcoins to a few Gold Eagles or equivalent, but then the Gold Nazis open their mouths.

I can't haz Ebays and newegg??? OH NO! Never mind everything then. Muh ebayz and muh smartphonez! Advocating mindless consumerism isn't going to win you any argument points. What exactly do you need so badly on ebay and newegg that you're willing to throw away all advocacy for sound money?

There was a gold standard and it worked fine until the Fed was created and hijacked everyone and everything through money printing and fractional reserve theft. Currency that could be redeemed for hard metal existed and worked pretty well. A debit card solution today could also be redeemed the same way. Just because things are electronic now doesn't mean a true gold standard wouldn't still work. I guess that won't happen though because tptb regard us (and treat us) as mere livestock slaves that are not worthy to possess the precious like they do. Slaves can't own anything. Slaves holding metals levels the money-changer playing field since that's the best money they can hold too. This is a much bigger ideological battle than gold vs bitcoin. It is about who owns you and controlling everything you do. And when you labor for mere digits on a hard drive somewhere you are laboring for free. A literal slave.

Btw, newegg doesn't take bitcoin for payment. An exchange takes the bitcoin, converts it to dollars then pays the retailer dollars. You are buying with dollars, not bitcoin. Why does the bitcoin crowd insist on mis-characterizing practically every aspect of bitcoin?? No retailer that I can find straight up accepts bitcoin for payment.

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Ignoring, your blatherings about a failed Gold Standard and snarkiness, I don't have to debunk a system that has failed already. Just look why it failed and you'll see why it'll always fail. "HINT:GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED AND MONITORED System with no accountability" Sure a gold standard would be GREAT in theory, but the reality that government is more corrupt than the mafia, kinds of breaks my affinity for such systems.

Btw, newegg doesn't take bitcoin for payment. An exchange takes the bitcoin, converts it to dollars then pays the retailer dollars. You are buying with dollars, not bitcoin. Why does the bitcoin crowd insist on mis-characterizing practically every aspect of bitcoin?? No retailer that I can find straight up accepts bitcoin for payment.

YEah, everyone knows newegg doesn't hold bitcoin, bitpay takes my bitcoin at the time of purchases, and essentially sells it to someone that wants to buy bitcoin. Oh the horror, and deceit. ...... However, Overstock does last I heard hold a portion, and would hold all of it, if suppliers start accepting it. A portion of small sellers accept bitcoin directly, openbazaar all the sellers accept bitcoin directly. It's a chicken and egg problem.

Also, bitcoin online payments are not comparable to a Gold Debit card allowing online transactions either. With the Gold backed Debit card, you have to send your gold to them well in advance of your online transaction, so they can have and verify your gold. Whereas with bitcoin, I have total control of my bitcoin until the second I decide to pay for something online. IF you are referring to if we returned to a "Cough" government controlled gold vault that pretends to have all the gold required to account for all the paper gold issued, then you are insane to believe they'll actually honor that agreement for long, and we'll be right back to pure fiat in a couple decades.

[devil21]

Oh well, enjoy your imaginary slave tokens. After a hard 14 hours in the Foxconn factory, you can take your daily stipend of hand-chipped Amazon tokens to the Whole Foods beneath your 150sqft apartment to buy your daily approved rations. But hey, it'll be waaaay better than some stinky outdated gold standard, right?

(Have you no foresight and awareness of what's really going on around you? Don't bother to answer that. The answer is already clear.)

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Oh well, enjoy your imaginary slave tokens. After a hard 14 hours in the Foxconn factory, you can take your daily stipend of hand-chipped Amazon tokens to the Whole Foods beneath your 150sqft apartment to buy your daily approved rations. But hey, it'll be waaaay better than some stinky outdated gold standard, right?

(Have you no foresight and awareness of what's really going on around you? Don't bother to answer that. The answer is already clear.)

Okay Don Quixote, please continue your quest for a gold standard, when there is near zero political, economic, or citizen support for it. Even if I thought the government would adhere to a new honest gold standard, there still isn't any measurable support for it. So, continue bitching about bitcoin for no reason. As if bitcoin has anything at all to do with the lack of a gold standard, or any of the problems currently facing the world. If a digital prison comes it won't be bitcoin, it'll be some government issued digital crap anyway.

So twirl away at the bitcoin boogeyman. 1 2 satoshis after you, 3,4 better lock your door. Boo.....