Seriously though – delete the Facebook App from your phone.

(This may not seem directly crypto-related... but it's actualy quite closely connected. If you don't see the linkage, I invite you to do some research on Monero which appreciates the need for privacy.)

I’m not telling you to not use Facebook.  If you want to keep using it, by all means keep doing so on your desktops/laptops. If it doesn’t bother you that they mine you for data, track all your activity on the internet (and physical locations), filter your news-feeds so you only see the censored content they deem appropriate – then by all means go ahead (but if you want more reasons to ditch it altogether, check this out. Never mind that you might actually find more time to do other neat things... like engaging with the real world and stop exposing yourself to ridiculous, unrealistic and unhealthy depictions of reality).

But seriously, delete the App from your phone.

Why now? Well, if after this week’s Snowden revelations don’t convince you, I’m not sure what else to say.  So let’s recap what we know about Facebook and their App.

1)   Facebook, like other big internet companies, has deep connections to the U.S. spy and surveillance community.  In what’s now old news, it’s clear to anyone who stops to think with a clear head that  (at the very least) if Facebook has the data, so too do the spy agencies.

2)   This week, the Intercept released information that the NSA had basically perfected not only voice transcription, but also voice recognition algorithms… ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO. In other words, they can not only listen to a conversation, but write it down word-for-word with the identities of all the speakers. You can only guess how much more advanced it’s gotten by now.

3)   Facebook has been surreptitiously recording user conversations on their smartphones (through the phone app) since at least around 2014. (when you agree to the Terms & Conditions, you give them the right to do it whenever they want). Even when you have the app turned off. It doesn’t matter. They are listening. Yes, that’s why you ‘suddenly’ noticed advertisements for snorkelling gear when all you did was have a chat with a friend about snorkelling. They are listening, and using that information.

But now let’s put it all together, and see what you as a Facebook (phone) user can expect to be happening:

When you have your phone anywhere within earshot (in your pocket will do), it’s reasonable to expect that full transcription of ALL your conversations are being recorded, along with the statements and identities of anyone you’re talking to. The conversations would be scanned, analyzed and stored – not just for ‘marketing purposes’ and residing on Facebook servers, but on NSA servers where true to form of any spy agency, dossiers are no doubt being collected on all people – with flags thrown for any reason they deem fit, and with a fantastic ability to keyword search any/all conversations indefinitely.

When you have Facebook on your phone, not only are you compromising your own privacy, security, and liberty – but you are potentially doing the same for anyone and everyone within earshot around you.

Unfortunately, even writing this article is something of a Catch-22. People realizing that they are more-and-more being spied upon can have a chilling effect on free-speech as people increasingly self-censor themselves... especially as they realize that they may be surrounded by 'unwitting spy-agency accomplices'. But the downside of not making people aware at all are, I think, worse. Awareness is required if we are to evolve. There's no free lunch.

Friends don’t help spy agencies spy on Friends.

Thank you.

Izzy

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A Rating Agency For Cryptocurrency - Blue Sky For Bitcoin Cash.

The announcement that Weiss will release the first crypto curriency ratings on 24 January 2018, will be the most significant development in the crypto space.

 

Basically Weiss have developed an algorithm to rate cryptos base on 4 criterias

Risk Index   -  Volatility 

Reward Index  -  Profit potential

Technology Index - Whitepaper

Fundamental Index - General Useability

By my reckoning if this rating is accurate then Bitcoin Cash stands head and shoulder above all the others.

1) It scales which puts it above Bitcoin Segwit and Ethereum

2) It is true to the original Satoshi whitepaper 

3) It is a small world network meaning that it is immune to Sybil attacks.

4) It is gaining adoption everyday with large enterprises

5) Price have increased from 300 to $2500 with low volatility in downward price movements

6) It competes on the most secure hashing algorith

7) Biggest development team with at least 4 clients

Look for the price of Bitcoin Cash to strengthen on this news. It will also push the awareness of Bitcoin Cash to people old and new to cryptos.

Update 25/1/2018  The Weiss rating report is a subscription service priced at $936 per annum with a 50% discount for early bird subscriptions. It currently rates Ethereum and EOS at B, Steemit and Cardano at B- Bitcoin at C+ Bitcoin Cash is C-. 

Weiss Announces First Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Grades by U.S. Rating Agency

Risky Crypto Market to Get the Clarity Only Impartial Ratings Can Provide

Palm Beach Gardens, FL — Weiss Ratings, the nation’s leading independent rating agency of financial institutions, will issue letter grades on cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, NEM, Litecoin, Stellar, EOS, IOTA, Dash, NEO, TRON, Monero, Bitcoin Gold and many others.

The new Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings, to be released January 24, are the first by a financial rating agency. They are based on a groundbreaking model that analyzes thousands of data points on each coin’s technology, usage, and trading patterns.

“Many cryptocurrencies are murky, overhyped and vulnerable to crashes. The market desperately needs the clarity that only robust, impartial ratings can provide,” said Weiss Ratings founder, Martin D. Weiss, PhD. “We’re proud to be the first to bring that benefit to investors — to help them cut through the hype and identify the few truly solid cryptocurrencies. Our ratings are based on hard data and objective analysis. But they're bound to create controversy, including some grades that may come as a surprise to some people.”

Weiss Ratings, which began in 1971, rates 55,000 institutions and investments. Unlike Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, Fitch and A.M. Best, Weiss never accepts compensation of any kind from the entities it rates. Its independence and accuracy have been noted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others.

The Weiss Ratings Scale

Investors should interpret the Weiss Cryptocurrency grade scale with these terms:

A = excellent

B = good

C = fair

D = weak

E = very weak

A plus or minus sign indicates the upper third or lower third of a grade range, respectively. In addition, an F grade is assigned to cryptocurrencies that have failed or are subject to credible allegations of fraud.

Important Caveats

Before acting on, or reacting to, any single grade, investors should be aware of the following five caveats:

Caveat 1. Do not misunderstand the Weiss Ratings scale. Other rating agencies use a scale from triple A to single C.  In that scheme a B grade is “junk” and a C is close to failure. In contrast, Weiss Ratings’ B is “good” and C is “fair.” Based on a study of the Weiss Ratings by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an institution is not categorized “vulnerable” unless its grade is D+ or lower.

Thus, cryptocurrencies do not have to achieve an A grade to merit interest by investors. A “B” or even “B-” also qualify as the investment rating equivalent to “buy.” At the same time, investors should not be overly alarmed by a “C” rating. It is a passing grade; and for investors, implies the equivalent of “hold.”

Caveat 2. No safe cryptocurrencies. At this early stage in their evolution, there is no such thing as a “safe” cryptocurrency. All investors in the sector must be willing to accept wide price volatility, undefined regulatory risk, frequent market irregularities, and deficiencies in platforms such as currency exchanges.

Caveat 3. Frequent ratings changes. The metrics used to evaluate cryptocurrencies can change more rapidly than those of other investments. Therefore, when using Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings, investors should expect frequent upgrades and downgrades.

Caveat 4. Opinion. Although Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings are based on objective analysis free of conflicts of interest, they should not be interpreted as be-all-end-all evaluations. Every grade issued by any rating agency is ultimately an opinion, to be used by the public in the context of opinions from analysts, developers and users.

Caveat 5. Incomplete. No ratings model, no matter how well designed, can evaluate all factors; and this is especially true in new, unchartered sectors like cryptocurrencies. For example, to fully evaluate the blockchain software programs of each new cryptocurrency, teams of expert blockchain developers would need to audit and thoroughly test the code. Although that effort would be an important step forward, especially for developers and certain institutions, it is beyond the scope of this project. Instead, to help guide investors to cryptocurrencies with the most robust technology, the Weiss Ratings evaluates each blockchain technology by using a series of the proxy metrics described below.

The Model

The Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings model is built from the ground up with five basic layers:

Layer 1. Current data on each currency’s technology, performance and trading trends

Layer 2. Proprietary formulas that convert the data into comparable ratios.

Level 3. Proprietary sub-indexes that aggregate the ratios to measure key factors and features considered critical to the potential success or failure of investments in each cryptocurrency

Level 4. Aggregation of the sub-indexes into four key indexes, each meriting a separate letter grade

Level 5. Aggregation of the four key indexes into an overall letter grade

Thus, each Weiss Cryptocurrency Rating represents the pinnacle of a pyramid built from tens of thousands of calculations that feed up to a final grade.

Disclosure of Model Components

To be consistent with the transparency that has become the hallmark of the cryptocurrency space, Weiss Ratings’ intent over time is to disclose as much as possible about its model.

However, decades of experience in the financial marketplace indicate that, once armed with the specific formulas or processes of a ratings model, some rated entities seek to game the system: They try to manipulate data they can influence or control with the goal of achieving an unfair advantage. To help avoid this outcome, disclosure must proceed in phases, beginning with a broad description of the four key indexes in the Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings model. These are:

1. The Cryptocurrency Risk Index. A composite of sub-indexes that measure (a) relative and absolute price fluctuations over multiple time frames, (b) declines from peak to trough in terms of frequency and magnitude, (c) market bias, whether up or down, and other factors.
2. The Cryptocurrency Reward Index. A composite of sub-indexes that evaluate (a) returns compared to moving averages, (b) absolute returns compared to a benchmark, (c) smoothed returns compared to a benchmark, and other factors.
3. The Cryptocurrency Technology Index. A composite of sub-indexes calculated by a manual analysis of publicly available white papers, public discussion forums or announcements, and open source code to evaluate the protocols underlying each cryptocurrency. Factors considered include the level of anonymity, sophistication of monetary policy, governance capabilities, the ability or flexibility to improve code, energy efficiency, scaling solutions, interoperability with other blockchains and many more.
4. The Cryptocurrency Fundamental Index. A composite of sub-indexes that evaluate transaction speed and scalability, market penetration, network security, decentralization of block production, network capacity, developer participation, public acceptance, plus other key factors.

Each of these indexes is appropriately weighted, compared and then evaluated in terms of how it interacts with the other three indexes systemically. The end result of the analytical process is the Weiss Cryptocurrency Rating.

Overall, Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings provide a well-rounded, solidly-grounded opinion based on hard facts and steeped in four decades of ratings experience. They can serve as much-needed cryptocurrency GPS for investors.

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Blockchain: what it is, what it does, and why you probably don't need one

Dilbert - by Scott Adams

Interest in blockchain is at a fever pitch lately. This is in large part due to the eye-popping price dynamics of Bitcoin--the original bad-boy cryptocurrency--which everyone knows is powered by blockchain...whatever that is. But no matter. Given that even big players like Goldman Sachs are getting into the act (check out their super slick presentation here: Blockchain--The New Technology of Trust) maybe it's time to figure out what all the fuss is about. What follows is based on my slide deck which I recently presented at the Olin School of Business at a Blockchain Panel (I will link up to video as soon as it becomes available) 

Things are a little confusing out there I think in part because not enough care is taken in defining terms before assessing pros and cons. And when terms are defined, they sometimes include desired outcomes as a part of their definition. For example, blockchain is often described as consisting of (among other things) an immutable ledger. This is like defining a titanic to be an unsinkable ship. 

So what do people mean when they bandy about the term blockchain? I recently had a chance to learn about the project from a corporate perspective as represented by Ed Corno of IBM (see IBM Blockchain), the other member of the panel I mentioned above. From Ed's slide deck we have the following definition:

Blockchain: a shared, replicated, permissioned ledger with consensus, provenance, immutability and finality. 

Well, if this is what blockchain is, then maybe I want one too! The issue I have with this definition (apart from the fact that it confounds descriptive elements with desired outcomes) is that it glosses over what I consider to be an important defining characteristic of blockchain: the consensus mechanism. Loosely speaking, there are two ways to achieve consensus. One is reputation-based (trust) and the other is game-based (trustless). 

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the corporate versions of blockchain are likely to stick to the standard model of reputation-based accounting. In this case, the efficiency gains of "blockchain" boil down to the gains associated with making databases more synchronized across trading partners, more cryptographically secure, more visible,  more complete, etc. In short, there is nothing revolutionary or radical going on here -- it's just the usual advancement of the technology and methods associated with the on-going problem of database management. Labeling the endeavor blockchain is alright, I guess. It certainly makes for good marketing!

On the other hand, game-based blockchains--like the one that power Bitcoin--are, in my view, potentially more revolutionary. But before I explain why I think this, I want to step back a bit and describe my bird's eye view of what's happening in this space. 
  
A Database of Individual Action Histories

The type of information that concerns us here is not what one might label "knowledge," say, as in the recipe for a nuclear bomb. The information in question relates more to a set of events that have happened in the past, in particular, events relating to individual actions. Consider, for example, "David washed your car two days ago." This type of information is intrinsically useless in the sense that it is not usable in any productive manner. In addition to work histories like this, the same is true of customer service histories, delivery/receipt histories, credit histories, or any performance-related history. And yet, people value such information. It forms the bedrock of reputation and perhaps even of identity. As such, it is frequently used as a form of currency. 

Why is intrinsically useless history of this form valued? A monetary theorist may tell you it's because of a lack of commitment or a lack of trust (see Evil is the Root of All Money). If people could be relied upon to make good on their promises a priori, their track records would largely be irrelevant from an economic perspective. A good reputation is a form of capital. It is valued because it persuades creditors (believers) that more reputable agencies are more likely to make good on their promises. We keep our money in a bank not because we think bankers are angels, but because we believe the long-term franchise value of banking exceeds the short-run benefit a bank would derive from appropriating our funds. (Well, that's the theory, at least. Admittedly, it doesn't work perfectly.) 

Note something important here. Because histories are just information, they can be created "out of thin air." And, indeed, this is the fundamental source of the problem: people have an incentive to fabricate or counterfeit individual histories (their own and perhaps those of others) for a personal gain that comes at the expense of the community. No society can thrive, let alone survive, if its members have to worry excessively about others taking credit for their own personal contributions to the broader community. I'm writing this blog post in part (well, perhaps mainly) because I'm hoping to get credit for it. 

Since humans (like bankers) are not angels, what is wanted is an honest and immutable database of histories (defined over a set of actions that are relevant for the community in question). Its purpose is to eliminate false claims of sociable behavior (acts which are tantamount to counterfeiting currency). Imagine too eliminating the frustration of discordant records. How much time is wasted in trying to settle "he said/she said" claims inside and outside of law courts? The ultimate goal, of course, is to promote fair and efficient outcomes. We may not want something like this creepy Santa Claus technology, but something similar defined over a restricted domain for a given application would be nice. 

Organizing History

Let e(t) denote a set of events, or actions (relevant to the community in question), performed by an individual at date t = 1,2,3,... An individual history at date t is denoted 

h(t-1) = { e(t-1), e(t-2), ..., e(0) }, t = 1,2,3,... 

Aggregating over individual events, we can let E(t) denote the set of individual actions at date t, and let H(t-1) denote the communal history, that is, the set of individual histories of people belonging to the community in question:

H(t-1) = { E(t-1), E(t-2), ... , E(0) }, t = 1,2,3,...

Observe that E(t) can be thought of as a "block" of information (relating to a set of actions taken by members of the community at date t). If this is so, then H(t-1) consists of time-stamped blocks of information connected in sequence to form a chain of blocks. In this sense, any database consisting of a complete history of (community-relevant) events can be thought of as a "blockchain." 

Note that there are other ways of organizing history. For example, consider a cash-based economy where people are anonymous and let e(t) denote acquisitions of cash (if positive) or expenditures of cash (if negative). Then an individual's cash balances at the beginning of date t is given by h(t-1) = e(t-1) + e(t-2) + ... + e(0). This is the sense in which "money is memory." Measuring a person's worth by how much money they have serves as a crude summary statistic of the net contributions they've made to society in the past (assuming they did not steal or counterfeit the money, of course). Another way to organize history is to specify h(t-1) = { e(t-1) }. This is the "what have you done for me lately?" model of remembering favors. The possibilities are endless. But an essential component of blockchain is that it contains a complete history of all community-relevant events. (We could perhaps generalize to truncated histories if data storage is a problem.)

Database Management Systems (DBMS) and the Read/Write Privilege

Alright then, suppose that a given community (consisting of people, different divisions within a firm, different firms in a supply chain, etc.) wants to manage a chained-block of histories H(t-1) over time. How is this to be done? 

Along with a specification of what is to constitute the relevant information to be contained in the database, any DBMS will have to specify parameters restricting:

  1. The Read Privilege (who, what, and how);
  2. The Write Privilege (who, what, and how). 

That is, who gets to gets to read and write history? Is the database to be completely open, like a public library? Or will some information be held in locked vaults, accessible only with permission? And if by permission, how is this to be granted? By a trusted person, by algorithm, or some other manner? Even more important is the question of who gets to write history. As I explained earlier, the possibility for manipulation along this dimension is immense. How to guard against to attempts to fabricate history?

Historically, in "small" communities (think traditional hunter-gatherer societies) this was accomplished more or less automatically. There are no strangers in a small, isolated village and communal monitoring is relatively easy. Brave deeds and foul acts alike, unobserved by some or even most, rapidly become common knowledge. This is true even of the small communities we belong to today (at work, in clubs, families, friends, etc.). Kocherlakota (1996) labels H(t-1) in this scenario "societal memory." I like to think of it as a virtual database of individual histories living in a distributed ledger of brains talking to each other in a P2P fashion, with additions to, and maintenance of, the shared history determined through a consensus mechanism. In this primitive DBMS, read and write privileges are largely open, the latter being subject to consensus. It all sounds so...blockchainy. 

While the primitive "blockchain" described above works well enough for small societies, it doesn't scale very well. Today, the traditional local networks of human brains have been augmented (and to some extent replaced) by a local and global networks of computers capable of communicating over the Internet. Achieving rapid consensus in a large heterogeneous community characterized by a vast flows of information is a rather daunting task. 

The "solution" to this problem has largely taken the form of proprietary databases with highly restricted read privileges managed by trusted entities who are delegated the write privilege. The double-spend problem for digital money, for example, is solved by delegating the record-keeping task to a bank, located within a banking system, performing debit/credit operations on a set of proprietary ledgers connected to a central hub (a clearing agency) typically managed by a central bank.

The Problem and the Blockchain Solution

Depending on your perspective, the system that has evolved to date is either (if you are born before 1980) a great improvement over how things operated when we were young, or (if you are born post 1980) a hopelessly tangled hodgepodge of networks that have trouble communicating with each other and are intolerably vulnerable to data breaches (see figure below, courtesy Ed Corno of IBM). 

The solution to this present state of affairs is presented as blockchain (defined earlier) which Ed depicts in the following way,

Well sure, this looks like a more organized way to keep the books and clear up communication channels, though the details concerning how consensus is achieved in this system remain a little hazy to me. As I mentioned earlier, I'm guessing that it'll be based on some reputation-based mechanism. But if this is the case, then why can't we depict the solution in the following way? 

That is, gather all the agents and agencies interacting with each other, forming them into a more organized community, but keep it based on the traditional client-server (or hub-and-spoke) model. In the center, we have the set of trusted "historians" (bankers, accountants, auditors, database managers, etc.) who are granted the write-privilege. Communications between members may be intermediated either by historians or take place in a P2P manner with the historians listening in. The database can consist of the chain-blocked sets of information (blockchain) H(t-1) described above. The parameters governing the read-privilege can be determined beforehand by the needs of the community. The database could be made completely open--which is equivalent to rendering it shared. And, of course, multiple copies of the database can be made as often as is deemed necessary. 

The point I'm making is, if we're ultimately going to depend on reputation-based consensus mechanisms, then we need no new innovation (like blockchain) to organize a database. While I'm no expert in the field of database management, it seems to me that standard protocols, for example, in the form of SQL Server 2017, can accommodate what is needed technologically and operationally (if anyone disagrees with me on this matter, please comment below).

Extending the Write Privilege: Game-Based Consensus

As explained above, extending the read-privilege is not a problem technologically. We are all free to publish our diaries online, creating a shared-distributed ledger of our innermost thoughts. Extending the write-privilege to unknown or untrusted parties, however, is an entirely different matter. Of course, this depends in part on the nature of the information to be stored. Wikipedia seems to work tolerably well. But its hard to use Wikipedia as currency. This is not the case with personal action histories. You don't want other people writing your diary! 

Well, fine, so you don't trust "the Man." What then? One alternative is to game the write privilege. The idea is to replace the trusted historian with a set of delegates drawn from the community (a set potentially consisting of the entire community). Next, have these delegates play a validation/consensus game designed in such a way that the equilibrium (say, Nash or some other solution concept) strategy profile chosen by each delegate at every date t = 1,2,3,... entails: (1) No tampering with recorded history H(t-1); and (2) Only true blocks E(t) are validated and appended to the ledger H(t-1).

What we have done here is replace one type of faith for another. Instead of having faith in mechanisms that rely on personal reputations, we must now trust that the mechanism governing non-cooperative play in the validation/consensus game will deliver a unique equilibrium outcome with the desired properties. I think this is in part what people mean when I hear them say "trust the math." 

Well, trusting the math is one thing. Trusting in the outcome of a non-cooperative game is quite another matter. The relevant field in economics is called mechanism design. I'm not going to get into details here, but suffice it to say, it's not so straightforward designing mechanisms with sure-fire good properties. Ironically, mechanisms like Bitcoin will have to build up trust the old-fashioned way--through positive user experience (much the same way most of us trust our vehicles to function, even if we have little idea how an internal combustion engine works). 

Of course, the same holds true for games based on reputational mechanisms. The difference is, I think, that non-cooperative consensus games are intrinsically more costly to operate than their reputational counterparts. The proof-of-work game played by Bitcoin miners, for example, is made intentionally costly (to prevent DDoS attacks) even though validating the relevant transaction information is virtually costless if left in the hands of a trusted validator. And if a lack of transparency is the problem for trusted systems, this conceptually separate issue can be dealt with by extending the read-privilege communally.  

Having said this, I think that depending on the circumstances and the application, the cost associated with a game-based consensus mechanism may be worth incurring. I think we have to remain agnostic on this matter for now and see how future developments unfold. 

Blockchain: Powering DAOs
  
If Blockchain (with non-cooperative consensus) has a comparative advantage, where might it be? To me, the clear application is in supporting Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).  A DAO is basically a set of rules written as a computer program. Because it possesses no central authority or node, it can offer tailor-made "legal" systems unencumbered by prevailing laws and regulations, at least, insofar as transactions are limited to virtual fulfillments (e.g., debit/credit operations on a ledger). 

Bitcoin is an example of a DAO, though the intermediaries that are associated with Bitcoin obviously are not. Ethereum is a platform that permits the construction of more sophisticated DAOs via the use of smart contracts. The comparative advantages of DAOs are that they permit: (1) a higher degree of anonymity;  (2) permissionless access and use; and (3) commitment to contractual terms (smart contracts). 

It's not immediately clear to me what value these comparative advantages have for registered businesses. There may be a role for legally compliant smart contracts (a tricky business for international transactions). But perhaps the potential is much more than I can presently imagine. Time will tell.

Link to my past posts on the subject of Bitcoin and Blockchain.

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Er boligspekulanter virkelig entreprenører?

Finanstilsynet avviser i DN 12.1 å ha synspunkter på om omsetning av kjøpekontrakter i boligprosjekter, men finanstilsynet har en svært streng tolkning av loven. I rundskrivet fra 2015 står det:

«Med mindre vidareseljaren sitt opphavlege føremål med kjøpet har vore å skaffe bustad til eigen bruk, eller til bruk for familiemedlemar, bør omsetninga som utgangspunkt bli regulert av bustadoppføringslova»

«… bli regulert av bustadoppføringslova» innebærer at videreselgeren får entreprenøransvaret. Loven gjelder kun entreprenører. Dersom selgeren ikke er entreprenør er det Avhendingslova som gjelder, og da har ikke videreselger ansvar.

Det er ikke åpenbart at privatpersoner skal kunne defineres som entreprenører. I 2010 ble § 1 endret ved at «ein yrkesutøvar (entreprenøren)» ble erstattet med «entreprenøren». Å definere privatpersoner med betydelige inntekter fra videresalg av boligkjøpskontrakter som yrkesutøvere, er ikke helt urimelig. Å definere dem som entreprenører synes jeg skurrer.

snl.no definerer en entreprenør som «[…] en person eller et firma som utfører arbeid for andre, vanligvis et større bygge- eller anleggsarbeid.». For en legmann er den naturlige tolkningen at både selskaper og privatpersoner utenfor byggebransjen ikke er entreprenører. Jeg regner med at det må være en god grunn til at lovgiver bevist droppet det mer generelle utrykket «yrkesutøver».

Finanstilsynet har sikkert gode grunner for å tolke loven slik som de gjør. Problemet er at mindre investorer da ikke kan delta i finansieringen av nye boligprosjekt uten å påta seg entreprenøransvar. Så hvordan mener Finanstilsynet vi kan løse dette problemet? Må det en lovendring til, eller bare en endring i lovtolkningen?

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Monero Valuation – Update and Refocus

Monero Valuation – Update and Refocus

Follow @cryptoizzy

It only took about 2 days after I shared some thoughts on Monero valuationthat I regretted doing so. Various other responsibilities have kept me getting around to sharing my updated thoughts, but I’m glad to finally be doing so now, with this note.

My regret hasn’t been so much around making an embarrassing technical omission (which I pointed out in it). Even with that, the directional and order-of-magnitude conclusions were still largely intact, it was an interesting idea to explore for me, and I’ve had some fun follow up email exchanges concerning modifications and refinements.

My regret was publicly focusing at all on an association between Monero and DarkNet/Criminal activities.

At the same time as I’m first and foremost interested in the truth, I believe that there are responsible ways to share it as well as reckless and ill-conceived ways to do so. I don't think my article did a very good job on this front.

Unfortunately, because of the unique threat that Monero poses to corrupt fiat-money regimes, it (like Bitcoin, though more Bitcoin of yesteryear.... way way back, like, in 2016...) is increasingly being targeted and attacked to try and prevent public adoption. I expect this will increase as its profile rises.

One of the main ways this occurs is to try and convince people that it is associated with ‘bad stuff’ and people should therefore stay away. Whether it’s a CNBC (does anybody even really watch that anymore?) attractive but mindless reader of other people’s words on the teleprompter anchor-person asking leading questions trying to denigrate it, or stories of association with the Boogey-men of the day (“Evil North Koreans like Monero! Boo!! Hiss!! It’s Bad!! Stay Away!!), there is undoubtedly an active campaign to create negative associations in the public mind so that prospective adopters don’t look more closely and realize its true merit.[1]

By writing an article discussing Monero’s valuation potential as a ‘Dark’ coin, I unwittingly fed that association, and it’s for that reason that I regret it.

So let me here try and set the record straight. 

Monero’s real promise is not its ability to be successfully used in support of illicit or illegal activity. That is a valid trait, but is a relatively minor point.

Monero’s real promise is not that it’s a coin for people who value privacy, and hate the fact that we are all routinely, continually (and illegally for the most part) spied upon by governments, their cronies and puppet-masters.  That is again, a valid trait, and one that is deeply connected with the bigger story – but is still not quite ‘it’.

The big story of Monero is that it is uniquely positioned (and far more so than any other cryptocurrency – and therefore as a true successor to Bitcoin) to displace corrupt fiat money and bring back sound money.

Sound Money is a tough concept to express to the average person. Most people don’t even realize that there is anything wrong with the current fiat money system, much less that many societal problems are intimately connected to Fiat money being unsound. To name just a few of the connected issues (and without explaining them in great detail, as I do so here) they are:

-         Inflation: Despite technological advances that (according the ‘futurists’ of years ago) should have us all living in a world of 3-day workweeks (or less) and material abundance for everyone… more and more people (even intelligent, hard-working people!) struggle to keep up with rising prices for homes, food, fuel, healthcare, and all manner of basic living expenses.

-         Increased wealth inequality: Those closest to the ‘spigot’ of new-money creation (starting with the banks) benefit the most from fiat monetary policies. Everyone else foots the bill – contributing to our current situation where the vast majority of wealth is concentrated in a small fraction of the population… with the rate of that transfer increasing and concentrating.

-         Social & Political Engineering and Interference: With an unlimited ability to create and control money, whatever projects and plans those who control the money supply desire can be attempted and/or implemented: even if they are horrible and morally reprehensible things like war, repression, and propaganda.

Monero, as sound money, has the potential to significantly contribute to the healing of much of the damage caused by Fiat systems – and it can do this by working to correct these problem closer to their root causal level. By bringing the system back to equilibrium at a very fundamental basis, social and economic systems will begin to organically reflect core adjustments.

But what is sound money? Much has been said (by me, and others) about the requirements for money to be sound… but that can be confusing for a lot of people. So let’s take a different tack and talk for just a moment about what sound money is NOT.[2]

Sound money cannot be created out of thin-air by an un-elected, un-accountable, and often sociopathic ruling class.

Sound money cannot be used as a means to track, trace, spy-on, or control the people who use it.

Sound money cannot be used to institute a stealth theft of wealth on its user-base through inflation.

Sound money is not the result of people and efforts aiming to ‘get rich’ by launching a new coin.[3]

Are you starting to grok me on the bigger picture? It’s not about picking what the next most-pumped ICO is so you can maybe afford that car/house/thing you currently *can’t* afford. It’s about working to correct the mechanisms of a broken system which on the one hand tells us that we live in a world where our species has conquered the elements, harnessed subtle and powerful forms of energy, and approaches creating new forms of life (organic and inorganic) … and on the other hand tells us that it’s perfectly acceptable that the vast majority of our species struggles to ’work hard enough’ to provide enough for themselves and their families without having to either go into debt or rely on handouts… both of which are so conveniently provided by the very same institutions which corrupted the system in the first place!

The story of Monero is the story of money – sound money. In case you didn’t know, Monero actually means money in Esperanto… a language created by a man over a century ago who dreamed of people coming together in a more evolved degree of consciousness and level of connectedness.

There are currently conversations going in within the Monero community to figure out how to best communicate this message – ideally with a short tagline that is digestible for even the average layperson. There are a lot of suggestions floating around, and I have my own opinions (everyone does, right?) If you’ll humor me on this little soapbox, I’d like to make a pitch to you of my personal favorite, along with my reasons. (note: there's no particular reason why you should listen to or like my idea better than anyone else's... but this is my blog, right? you can at least hear/read me out :)) 

Monero: Sound Money.

The first thing this does is identify Monero as ‘money’ – which is different from most other coins, and hopefully gets people’s ears to perk up – after all, most people like money, right?

As far as the word ‘sound’ – well, I recognize this may take a little more exposition, and the process of informing people on what it means will probably be slow. But it is true and powerful in its implications – encapsulating all the other features of Monero – especially the privacy aspect which is necessary for fungibility (focusing solely on the privacy aspect though, while massively powerful for the libertarian elements of society, may unwittingly paint Monero in the public’s mind as something only useful for when you want or ‘need’ privacy… never mind illicit associations that confuse the issue).

While ‘sound’ may not translate well into other languages (a better translation might at times be ‘true’) I think that’s OK. The soundness of money is such a big and important concept, that sticking to it and forcing people to do a little learning to grasp its meaning could actually be a useful way of ensuring that people ‘get’ it: as opposed to something that is immediately obvious and digested – but perhaps with a shorter shelf-life.

Finally, there is an aspect of ‘Sound Money’ that some people might consider a little tame, or boring. But ultimately, money is not meant to be super-exciting, snappy, or witty. It’s a tool meant to facilitate human value exchanges, for the real bigger purpose – allowing us all to live and enjoy our day to day lives. Keeping the tagline relatively subdued and without lots of glitz and flash is to me taking the high road - ennobling rather than sensationalizing its profound importance. Getting people to ‘buy Monero’ but without an understanding of how it’s truly different from other cryptos might pump the price for a bit, but won’t do anything to engender what’s really needed for broad adoption and success – raised awareness.

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Since this is a piece (nominally) on valuation, I’ll give a little tidbit for the dreamers (and ‘creative visualization enthusiasts’ alike).

Considering Monero as a serious and viable successor to not only Bitcoin but Fiat money, the formula for valuation is really quite simple (and I’ve shared it before):

= {[Global Money Supply Penetration] x [Global Money Supply]} / [Number of Coins]

While long-term success is still a big question-mark, this is what we’re “playing for”… and so the numbers for believers are ‘roughly’: 

$80 trillion  x [5% to 50% ] / [let's say for simplicity 20 million coins]

 This would put the price target in the wide-wide range of between $200,000/coin to $2,000,000/coin… or 500x – 5,000x current values.

All that said though, I will finish by sharing what I consider to be the single best slide ever produced on Monero’s valuation (courtesy of Fluffypony) – and which I think speaks the loudest about it’s true prospects for success.

Cheers,

Izzy

P.S. the most appreciated form of support is an earnest email or message (on twitter, or izzyotomakan@gmail.com) even criticism is great so long as it's constructive! but as a few people have asked me to include it, a monero address that may receive donations/support if you feel so inclined is :

41fksK8rNJ7VUWHr5yW58C75oAJbL8mEh3ytfLDucVq3StwTudzbGPyQ75Sj3BeqvNjKtw3Mn5Gni5nD62aWZCiDNjaPY8k

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[1]That Monero is grouped along with other ‘privacy coins’ is another unfortunate obstacle that needs to be overcome. That DASH -  a ‘privacy coin’ which I liken to the Club in its inability to deliver privacy - has a bigger capitalization than Monero will I think be looked back upon as nothing short of an absurdist testament to the power, albeit temporary, of deceptive and manipulative marketing.

[2]Note: some of these traits are direct results of adhering to the 4 positive traits of sound money: Store of Value, Unit of Account, Medium of Exchange, and Fungibility. Others are ancillary or indirect traits.

[3]Especially those that steal the codebase of another coin, and despite not having a meaningful developer community, relentlessly pump the rip-off. Yes, I’m looking at you Electroneum.

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